They rounded the edge of the entry and stepped into the dark moonless night. Glow-globes set within niches in the wall lit the ground and showed the way.

Massive stone walls formed the base of the building. Each over a meter thick, and the height of the doorway. The scale of the structure made Jupiter feel small and insignificant.

As his eyes grew adapted to the night, more and more stars sparkled into view. The great wash of the Milky Way stretched overhead interrupted by the shadows of the skyships that were dark but for a few scattered glow-globes.

Maggie had walked ahead along the path towards the pylon and Jupiter hurried to catch up. His face and hands had chilled already, but he marveled at how warm he felt in the quilted clothing. He stuffed his hands into the big pouch across his now stretched and full stomach. Maggie paused under the pylons and tilted her head up to the skyships.

‘Why did you tell them we’re going to Qhayuvakham? It means we’ll have to go backwards.’

‘Better that than say we were on the way with them earlier.’

‘I guess that makes sense. And we can fly off the path anytime we like.’ She looked down from her study of the floating skyships. ‘I want to go home Peter. This place… it’s just too different, scary.’

‘And living in the middle of World War 2 is not?’

‘It’s almost like all this happening to someone else. This is both more real, and yet beyond real. Look at those huge things floating in the sky as if gravity cannot get a grip upon them.’

‘I know what you mean.’ Jupiter put his hand to the bump under his neck where his greenstone taniwha tooth and its catalyst stone companion lay cool against his skin. ‘Somehow the kheel makes more sense. Like it pushes against something, and the spinning makes it seem like it’s no more magical then a wheel on a bicycle.’

He tapped the stone gem and it bounced a little as if alive against his neck. ‘The catalyst — zharaqsa. It’s just wrong. It pulls and sucks, as if it is hungry, from the mantas. When they torture them.’

‘But the blue goop felt warm and nurturing. We ate the eggs for goodness sake.’

‘We were starving.’ Jupiter looked back towards the Varunaraqayu. The glow-globe hung around the wayhouse’s entrance made it warm and welcoming. He could still hear the rumble of conversation from the dining hall, but the wind hushed as it flowed through the pylon.

‘I’m sure the eggs gave us this connexion,’ Maggie said. ‘Qhawana said what we had done, eating so many eggs I mean… that it was unheard of.’

‘We didn’t know any different.’

‘No. Even more than that. Moby gave them to us,’ Maggie said. ‘Wanted us to eat them.’

‘Yeah,’ Jupiter said. ‘And that’s why we can feel, almost understand the mantas.’

‘Maybe. But perhaps all people here have this aether stuff within them. They’ve spent their lifetimes here. But we’re new arrivals. Unless we had eaten the eggs, filled with aether. We’d have been lost here with no connection. Nuvra.’

‘But why?’

‘I have no idea. Why did we come here?’

‘You think something brought us here… on purpose?’ Jupiter said.

‘Could be.’

‘Ha. But only imps like Breeze are called aramqhami - agents of fate.’

‘But didn’t we come at the right time? In the right place? To do the right thing?’

‘We can’t know that. Ever. No one can. It seems like the universe revolves around us all our lives. But it doesn’t. I mean… look at it.’

Jupiter stared up at the stars and the brightening sky to the east. To the east a bright patch blinked on like a light. It hovered above the horizon and got larger, or closer.

Maggie stepped close to Jupiter. ‘What is it?’

‘I don’t know.’

They continued looking at the light. It was like something fast approaching them, getting bigger and closer…

‘The moon,’ Maggie said. ‘It’s rising.’

They stood close to one another for warmth next to the barn as the skyships drifted back and forth in the steady wind of the cooling night.

‘This must be Earth.’ Jupiter said. ‘It makes no sense at all. But then it makes even less sense if it is not. That we’re someplace else.’

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Look at the moon.’

The whole disk had risen above the horizon now. It burned yellow-bright and huge above the frozen ripples of the coastal mountains.

‘What are the chances of something so unusual as the moon happening twice?’ Jupiter spoke in a rush, releasing thoughts he had bottled up.

‘What do you mean?’ Maggie said. She and Jupiter now leaned with their backs to the sun-warmed rock wall of the barn.

‘My Grandbam. He had a telescope. Not a big one. He used to show me the Moon, on clear nights. Like this. Pretty amazing sometimes. You could see the Sea of Tranquility where Apollo 11 landed.’

‘What’s a greek god doing?…’

‘Apollo’s the name of Neil Armstrong’s rocket that landed on the Moon in the Sea of Tranquility.’

‘Man on The Moon? Don’t tell me.’

‘No wait… it was the Eagle that landed. Apollo 11 was the mission name…’

‘The future sounds thrilling,’ Maggie said. ‘Just not now please.’ She tensed to stand but Jupiter placed his hand on her shoulder.

‘That’s the past. Ancient history. Fifty years ago or something…’

‘Jupiter!’

He pressed on. ‘You can see the sky so clearly here. It’s like we’re about to fall off the planet.’

‘I guess that’s because we’re so high in the mountains.’

‘The air makes everything so sharp. I can see the moon clearly. It’s so big but dim next to the horizon. As if I’m looking at it through a viewfinder. So why is there no Sea of Tranquility?’

Jupiter pointed but he felt a bit silly. ’It should be a dark patch just off the centre. In a few days, when it’s full, I’ll be sure. But I don’t think the patches of bright and dark are the same.’

Maggie took a breath to talk, and Jupiter let one out.

‘This month,’ Maggie said. ’It’s been about the right number of days. Ajiro says it will be full in 8 days. That’s when we have to be at the temple.’

‘Yeah. I know. But just like on Earth, this moon rises a little later each day. But why does it look different? I thought we were on another planet for a while. And that it might be just another moon - but not The Moon… you know… our one. Luna.’

Jupiter gazed at the growing orb as it slid slowly into the sky. He could almost see its motion, but not quite. If if he looked away a time and then back. It had moved. As if it was shy of letting him watch.

‘Yes. You’re right. The Man in The Moon is gone.’ Maggie stared at it now. Jupiter looked at her, and decided then to tell her all his fears.

‘Sometimes I think it is different, that it is not the right size.’ said Jupiter. ‘Like now. It looks larger to me now, and it’s too bright.’

‘Yeah. But maybe it’s some effect of being close to the horizon or something.’ Maggie said.

‘So if it is our Moon… why does it have a different face?’

‘I don’t know.

It scares Jupiter to think too much about it. If the Moon in the sky before them was not Luna then they weren’t just in a strange place or time on Earth - they could be anywhere. And he wanted this to be Earth. For Eoth to be somewhere close to home.

So Jupiter said - ‘But everything else… about the moon I mean… is the same.’

‘Something must have happened to it.’

‘And maybe that something happened to the planet as well. If that is The Moon, Luna… and this is Earth. What happened there changed everything here too.’

‘Dinosaurs did not die out,’ Maggie said. ‘They evolved into new species.’

‘And birds evolved differently. And mammals… rare and endangered.’

They were silent. But Maggie filled the silence just when Jupiter took breath to speak.

‘And manisaurs, and imps, and strange magical flying manta creatures…’

‘Do you think we can ever go home?’ Jupiter said. ‘Or are we just…’

‘We have to believe that we can. ’ Maggie turned and looked him square in the eyes. ‘We have to try.’ She leaned forward.

‘Yeah. I know.’ But Jupiter said it automatically. ‘There must be a way home.’ He had said this so often he was afraid to say anything else. To Maggie.

’There are so many more stars tonight,’ said Jupiter turning again to look at the sky. ‘More stars than I’m used to. It’s confusing.’

‘There’s the Southern Cross,’ said Maggie. As they stood, she moved next to him and bumped her shoulder against his.

‘Where?’

‘There’s the pointers, and the four stars of the constellation. And you can even see the small fifth one. And there’s…’

‘I can see Orion over here,’ said Jupiter had moved to the north. ’The red star is Betelgeuse.’

‘And there’s Pleiades.’ Maggie said. ‘The seven sisters. Orion’s belt points at them.’

‘Matariki,’ Peter said. ‘Matariki. What we call Pleiades now. Its first rising marks the beginning of the Maori New Year, in mid winter.’

‘Jupiter?’

’No. It’s true. And useful to us now. Matariki… Pleiades is only visible in spring and summer in the Southern Hemisphere. And we’re definitely in the South. Sun goes anti-clockwise. Southern Cross visible - though pretty low in the sky meaning we’re closer to the equator. So it must be late spring here now.’

‘No I mean. Are there seven sisters visible though?’ Maggie stepped in front of him and he could see her outstretched arm as she tried to count.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Does that mean something’s changed.’

‘Are you sure though? I can’t tell if there are six or seven.’

Maggie sighed. ‘I’d never noticed when Pleiades was in the sky - I either saw it or I didn’t. I guess they’re the same stars. This must be Earth.’ Maggie said as if finishing the closing statement in a debate.

‘Yeah. The constellations are the same.’

‘If we were not on Earth then the stars would all be in different places. No familiar constellations.’

‘And - since stars all move as they orbit around the galaxy…’ Jupiter spoke in an excited rush. ‘We know it’s around the same date as ours,’ Peter said.

‘Same time, same planet,’ said Maggie with a smile.

‘Different moon.’ Peter was not so happy. It all made no sense at all.

‘Solves one problem but creates more.’ Maggie’s tone had changed.

‘We knew this was not our Earth. Somehow. There are no strange creatures like this anywhere.’

‘I’m not so sure,’ said Maggie.

‘Believe it. Humans have been almost everywhere on Earth. It’s a small place now. Nothing like this could hide from Instagram.’

But Maggie was immune to this kind of joking now.

‘Alright. I suppose you do know more about Earth in your time.’

‘My theory…’

‘My theory,’ said Maggie interrupting. ‘We’re in a different time still… just not so different that the stars have moved…’

‘Maybe… I guess the time would have to be many tens of thousands of years for us to spot a difference.’

‘So the future. A few hundred years or so. When something has happened to the Moon, and these animals have arrived… and…’

‘Maybe…’ Jupiter did not like to think they were in the future. There would be no way home if that was true. And that fear he was not ready to share with Maggie.

“You have a better idea?’

‘Parallel Universes.’

Maggie sighed and Jupiter knew he would have to fill her in despite her objections. But now he realized that she had had enough of him explaining - boysplaining - the future to her for now.

‘Whatever,’ said Jupiter. ‘Perhaps it doesn’t matter so much. We still need to get to where we can get home - whenever, wherever, however we are.’