Chapter 10

The Baltic was as at rest as a boat anchored in a sheltered cove can be at rest. I was finally healed and healthy. The ladies were swimming. Stevie climbed the mast and dove. I scored her a ten. The water scored her a two. Ouch!

I cornered Doctor Bob and began to grill him.

"Where are we and how long have we been here?" I really wanted to know. I'd been down so long it looked like up.

"You remember," said Bob, "When the spider said he was going to put you on a parallel planet in an alternative universe?"

"Yeah."

"He lied."

Great ... just what I wanted to hear. "That doesn't answer my question."

"You're on earth ... but we ... I ... modified it. Everything you do now will change the future." Bob said. "There's some things you can't change ... trying will have dire results."

"Oh? Like, how dire?"

"You won't die ... but you'll want to."

"How will I know?"

"I'll be in your head ... like a conscience. If you get that feeling ... that's not a good idea ... it's not a good idea. Like. Hold my beer and watch this. If that kind of thing occurs to you ... it's not a good idea"

"Wait ... wait ... back up ... just a smidge." Bob got this look ... the, 'I wasn't fast enough' look. The 'aw, shit' look. "You said 'modified it.' What did you do?"

"We slowed the rotation ... to give the sun a better chance ... not a lot ... by your calculating ... one hour more daylight a day. It's a degree or two hotter in daylight and the same cooler at night. It rains before sunrise for two hours every morning without fail. That's not to say there isn't weather ... there is, but the planet is watered every day.

"We shuffled things around a little ... Kinda shuffled the continents a few times and dealt them out as the world turned."

"And?"

"You know ... there used to be a wide shallow sea that split the northern half of the western hemisphere?"

"Yeah ... and?" I was getting a look of horror on my face ... that sea ... the edge of it is where the dinosaur skeletons are found ... back when whatever cataclysm killed them off. Bob read it in my expression.

"No ... not like that ... I ... ah ... the ship ... I thought it would be cool if continent was split at the sea ... so I ... uhm ... turned the eastern half ... sideways ... rotated it ninety degrees clockwise ... sorta like Oz ... and moved it just a bit south ... you'll still have seasons but winter is a lot milder at the latitude of the lakes. And I thought the falls at Niagara were the perfect solution to saltwater species invasion ... so ... all the Lake outflow waterways leading to the ocean have these giant falls ... and I kinda narrowed the rivers so the falls had to be taller and uplifted the mountains so the far north gets a lot of snow ... and," he was running down because I was getting all squinty eyed.

"The Great Lakes are greater? That's what you're saying?"

"Yeah ... What you call Michigan, both upper and lower are thinner but higher The mountains of the UP haven't been worn down by recent glaciation. It's a gradual thing. The spine of the range starts where Lake Superior flows into Lake Huron. It's just low hills until south of Duluth. The mountain range stretches west. It's over fifteen hundred miles long, 29 thousand feet high on the western end and falls directly into the sea. That would be the sea that separates Rocky Mountain Island from your little piece of heaven. The passages between the lakes are wider, deeper and much less dangerous ... and..."

"Well? Spit it out."

"You know ... for all I'm bigger and more powerful than you ... you have an unnerving stare."

"Make you uneasy, do I?"

"Yes."

"Good!" I grinned, "Get on with it."

"All that part you call the great plains is a long gentle slope to the north. Hudson Bay isn't there ... but the south arm of Hudson is a freshwater lake, Lake James, that flows into Georgian Bay. What used to be Great Slave Lake is Lake Iroquois and flows into Lake Michigan at Green Bay. Lake Iroquois abuts the Upper Peninsula mountain range on the south side. Lake Athabasca, now called Lake Ontonagon, enters Lake Superior at Duluth; the Lake is blocked from joining Lake Iroquois by the Iron range.