The message was still glowing on the screen.

ANOTHER VERSION OF NETRA DETECTED

Netra stared at it.

Then at Quark-7.

Then back at the screen.

“No.”

Quark said nothing.

“No, no, no.”

Still nothing.

Netra pointed at the message.

“You said time travel was dangerous.”

“Yes.”

“You said we had to be careful.”

“Yes.”

“You said we shouldn't interfere with the past.”

“Yes.”

“And now there's another me?”

Quark nodded.

“Yes.”

Netra took a deep breath.

“I'm beginning to dislike time travel.”

“That is understandable.”

“Can we go back?”

Quark looked at the controls.

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because we have already changed our position in spacetime.”

Netra frowned.

“You mean we're stuck?”

“Temporarily.”

“How temporarily?”

Quark checked.

“Approximately—”

Netra held up a hand.

“Don't say seven seconds.”

Quark paused.

“Approximately twelve minutes.”

Netra sighed.

“Fine.”

He looked at Earth.

It was beautiful.

Blue oceans.

White clouds.

Dark continents.

It looked exactly like home.

Except it wasn't quite home.

Not yet.

Netra suddenly noticed something.

“Wait.”

Quark turned.

“What?”

“Where are the lights?”

Quark looked at Earth.

“What lights?”

“The cities.”

Netra pointed toward the dark side.

“There should be millions of lights.”

Quark scanned the planet.

“Interesting.”

“What's interesting?”

“The date.”

Netra looked at the navigation screen.

Then at Earth.

Then back at the screen.

“That's weird.”

“Yes.”

“Very weird.”

“Yes.”

“Something is wrong with Earth.”

Quark shook his head.

“No.”

Netra stared at him.

“You're doing that thing again.”

“What thing?”

“Where I say something obvious and you say no.”

Quark's eyes blinked.

“Earth is functioning normally.”

“Then why is sunrise happening in the wrong place?”

Quark stopped.

For the first time, he looked genuinely surprised.

“Excellent observation.”

Netra smiled.

“I knew it.”

“What?”

“Something IS wrong.”

“No.”

“Quark!”

“The planet isn't broken.”

“Then explain it.”

Quark pointed at the navigation display.

“Welcome to Asteria.”

---

🪐 ASTERIA

The ship moved toward a strange planet.

It was almost the size of Earth.

Blue oceans covered most of its surface.

Huge green continents stretched across the middle.

And around the equator was a glowing golden band.

Netra stared.

“That's beautiful.”

Quark nodded.

“It is.”

“What is it?”

“Asteria.”

“Is it inhabited?”

“Yes.”

“By aliens?”

“Yes.”

Netra grinned.

“Finally!”

“Please remain calm.”

“I am calm.”

“You are bouncing.”

Netra looked down.

He was, in fact, bouncing.

He stopped.

“So what's special about Asteria?”

Quark projected a hologram of the planet.

A glowing line ran around its middle.

“This planet rotates unusually quickly.”

“How quickly?”

“One rotation takes approximately fourteen hours.”

Netra thought.

“So a day here is fourteen hours?”

“Correct.”

“That's short.”

“Yes.”

“Wouldn't that make everything happen faster?”

“Not exactly.”

“Why?”

“Because the length of a day doesn't change how quickly your body thinks or how fast your thoughts happen. It changes how quickly the planet turns once around its axis.”

Netra nodded slowly.

“So a day is really just one rotation.”

“Exactly.”

Quark zoomed in.

“Imagine standing on this planet.”

A tiny Netra appeared on the hologram.

The planet rotated beneath him.

“Wherever you stand, the ground is moving with the planet.”

Netra frowned.

“But I don't feel Earth moving.”

“That's because you and everything around you are moving together.”

“How fast?”

Quark displayed a number.

~1,670 km/h

Netra's mouth dropped open.

“WHAT?”

“At Earth's equator, the surface rotates at roughly 1,670 kilometres per hour.”

“And I'm sitting in my room doing homework at that speed?”

“Yes.”

“That's amazing.”

“You are also travelling around the Sun at roughly 107,000 kilometres per hour.”

Netra stared.

“And nobody told me?”

“You have probably been told.”

“I wasn't listening.”

“That is different.”

Netra smiled.

“So we're all flying through space right now.”

“Yes.”

“While sitting still.”

“From your point of view, yes.”

Netra thought about that.

“So motion depends on what you're comparing it with?”

Quark nodded.

“Exactly.”

“That's relativity?”

“That's one of the basic ideas behind it. Motion is described relative to a reference frame.”

Netra looked impressed.

“Space is confusing.”

“Very.”

“I like it.”

---

The ship entered Asteria's atmosphere.

Clouds rushed past the window.

Then—

WHOOSH!

They dropped toward a vast ocean.

Netra grabbed his seat.

“Are we landing?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

Quark pointed.

“On that island.”

Netra looked down.

It was enormous.

But something was strange.

The western side was dark.

The eastern side was glowing orange.

“Sunrise?”

“Yes.”

Netra stared.

“But we're not at the edge of the planet.”

“No.”

“Then why is half the island dark?”

“Because the planet is rotating.”

Netra looked at the horizon.

“Wait.”

He watched.

The golden light slowly moved across the land.

One mountain became brighter.

Then another.

Then another.

“It's like the Sun is moving.”

Quark shook his head.

“That's what it appears like from the ground.”

“But the Sun isn't actually moving around us?”

“Not in the way it appears to.”

Netra nodded.

“The planet is turning.”

“Correct.”

The ship landed.

THUMP.

The doors opened.

Warm air rushed inside.

Netra stepped out.

He looked at the sky.

The Sun was just appearing over the horizon.

Then he looked at the ship's clock.

“Quark.”

“Yes?”

“What's the time?”

“08:20.”

Netra checked his wristwatch.

“Mine says 08:10.”

Quark looked at it.

“That is correct.”

Netra frowned.

“How can your clock say eight-twenty and mine say eight-ten?”

Quark smiled.

“Because your watch has not been adjusted to Asteria's local time.”

Netra stared.

“But we're standing in the same place.”

“Yes.”

“So shouldn't the time be the same?”

“That's a more interesting question than you realize.”

---

⏰ WHAT TIME IS IT?

Quark sat on a rock.

Netra sat beside him.

“Okay,” Netra said. “Explain.”

Quark drew a circle in the dirt.

“This is Asteria.”

He marked a point.

“This is where we are.”

Then another point.

“And this is another city on the other side of the planet.”

“Okay.”

“When the first city is facing the Sun…”

He shaded it.

“…it is daytime.”

Then he rotated the planet.

“When that city turns away from the Sun…”

“It becomes night.”

“Correct.”

“But the other city might still be facing the Sun.”

“Yes.”

“So they have different local times.”

“Exactly.”

Netra thought.

“That's why Earth has time zones.”

“Yes.”

“Because Earth is rotating.”

“Correct.”

“So if it's noon in India…”

“It can be night somewhere else.”

“Because the planet has turned.”

“Exactly.”

Netra looked at the planet.

“That makes sense.”

Quark nodded.

“But Asteria has a problem.”

“What problem?”

“Look at the sunrise.”

Netra turned.

The Sun was rising.

Slowly.

But something was strange.

The light wasn't moving evenly.

It would brighten one section of land.

Then suddenly pause.

Then brighten another section.

Netra frowned.

“That's weird.”

“Yes.”

“The sunrise is stopping.”

“Yes.”

“Planets aren't supposed to do that.”

“Correct.”

Netra pointed.

“See! The planet IS broken!”

Quark shook his head.

“No.”

“Then what is happening?”

“I don't know.”

Netra smiled.

“Now we're talking.”

---

🌅 THE TEN-MINUTE SUNRISE

They walked toward a nearby settlement.

It looked surprisingly familiar.

Buildings.

Roads.

Vehicles.

Only everything was slightly more advanced.

Asterians walked around wearing strange silver suits.

One of them approached Netra.

“You are visitors.”

Netra nodded.

“Hi.”

The alien looked at him.

“Your sunrise is late.”

Netra blinked.

“What?”

The alien pointed toward the mountains.

“Ten minutes.”

“Late compared to what?”

“The clocks.”

Netra looked at Quark.

Quark was already scanning the horizon.

The alien continued.

“Every morning, the sunrise appears approximately ten minutes later than the clocks predict.”

Netra's eyes widened.

“Every morning?”

“Yes.”

“How long has this been happening?”

“Twenty-three days.”

Netra looked at Quark.

“Is that possible?”

Quark didn't answer.

Netra knew that look.

Something was wrong.

They followed the alien into a large observatory.

Inside was a giant telescope.

Screens covered the walls.

One showed the planet.

Another showed the Sun.

Another showed the position of distant stars.

Netra walked toward the main screen.

“What are you measuring?”

“The arrival of sunlight.”

Netra frowned.

“The sunlight arrives late?”

“Sometimes.”

“How much?”

“Exactly ten minutes.”

Netra looked at Quark.

“That's not normal.”

“No.”

“Could it be because light takes time to travel?”

Quark smiled.

“Very good.”

He pointed toward the Sun.

“Light does not arrive instantly.”

Netra nodded.

“Because light has a speed.”

“Correct.”

“About 300,000 kilometres per second.”

“More precisely, in empty space, about 299,792 kilometres per second.”

Netra looked at the Sun.

“So when I look at the Sun…”

“You are seeing sunlight that left the Sun about eight minutes and twenty seconds earlier.”

Netra's eyes widened.

“I'm looking at the past?”

“Yes.”

“Right now?”

“Yes.”

Netra looked at the Sun again.

“So if something happened on the Sun eight minutes ago…”

“We would not see it immediately.”

“Because the information has to travel to us.”

“Exactly.”

Netra smiled.

“That's actually really cool.”

“It is also extremely important.”

“Why?”

“Because information cannot travel infinitely fast.”

Netra nodded.

“So space is full of delays.”

“Correct.”

“Even if you have a super-fast spaceship?”

“Light still sets the fundamental speed limit for information in our current understanding of physics.”

Netra stared at the screen.

“Then…”

He pointed at the ten-minute delay.

“…maybe the planet isn't broken.”

Quark's eyes brightened.

“Exactly.”

“Maybe we're seeing something from ten minutes ago.”

“Now you're thinking.”

---

📡 THE MESSAGE FROM TEN MINUTES AGO

The observatory suddenly beeped.

BEEP.

Everyone froze.

The main screen changed.

A bright line appeared.

Then another.

Then another.

Quark scanned it.

“Interesting.”

Netra looked at him.

“What?”

“We have received a signal.”

“From where?”

Quark pointed upward.

“Orbit.”

“From a satellite?”

“Yes.”

Netra watched the screen.

The signal contained numbers.

08:30

08:30

08:30

Netra frowned.

“What does that mean?”

The alien scientist shook its head.

“We don't know.”

Netra thought.

“Wait.”

He looked at the planet model.

“How far away is the satellite?”

“Approximately 180,000 kilometres.”

Netra did the calculation.

“If the signal travels at the speed of light…”

He looked at Quark.

“It would take less than a second.”

Quark nodded.

“Correct.”

“So the ten-minute delay isn't caused by the distance to the satellite.”

“No.”

“Then what is causing it?”

Quark zoomed in.

The signal wasn't coming from the satellite.

It was coming from somewhere else.

Much farther away.

A red line appeared.

It stretched beyond Asteria.

Beyond its moon.

Beyond its star.

Into deep space.

Netra whispered:

“That's not a satellite.”

“No.”

“Then what is it?”

Quark looked worried.

“We don't know.”

The signal suddenly stopped.

Then began again.

08:30

08:30

08:30

Netra stared.

“It's repeating.”

“Yes.”

“Like a recording?”

“Possibly.”

Netra looked closer.

There was something hidden inside the signal.

A tiny pattern.

A repeating sequence.

Netra grabbed a notebook.

“Can we slow it down?”

Quark did.

The numbers changed.

08:30

08:31

08:32

08:33

Netra frowned.

“That's not a message.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because it's counting.”

Quark stopped.

Netra looked at the sequence.

“It's telling us the time.”

“Local time?”

“No.”

Netra pointed.

“Look at the difference.”

Quark zoomed in.

The numbers were not increasing by one minute.

They were increasing irregularly.

08:30.

08:31.

08:33.

08:36.

08:40.

08:45.

Netra's eyes widened.

“That's…”

“Acceleration.”

Quark looked at him.

“Explain.”

Netra grinned.

“Your turn to be impressed.”

---

🧠 NETRA HAS A THEORY

Netra drew a line.

“When something moves faster and faster, its position changes more quickly.”

Quark nodded.

“Correct.”

“So the signal isn't just counting time.”

“What is it doing?”

“It's telling us how something is moving.”

Quark scanned the sequence.

His eyes flashed.

“Velocity data.”

“Exactly!”

Netra smiled.

“But why would someone send us velocity data?”

Quark's expression changed.

“I don't know.”

“Can we find where it came from?”

“Yes.”

“Then let's do it.”

Quark entered the coordinates.

The screen displayed a point.

Very far away.

Netra stared.

“That's outside the solar system.”

“Yes.”

“How far?”

Quark calculated.

“Approximately eleven light-hours.”

Netra frowned.

“So if something sent us a message from there…”

“It would take eleven hours for the information to reach us.”

Netra's eyes widened.

“Then we're not seeing what is happening there now.”

“Correct.”

“We're seeing what happened eleven hours ago.”

“Yes.”

Netra smiled.

“So looking farther into space means looking farther into the past.”

“Exactly.”

Netra looked at the star map.

“That means telescopes are basically time machines.”

Quark paused.

“Not exactly.”

“But sort of?”

“In a very limited sense, yes.”

Netra smiled.

“I'll take it.”

---

Suddenly—

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Every screen turned red.

The observatory lights went out.

Netra froze.

“What happened?”

Quark scanned the room.

“The signal has changed.”

The screen lit up again.

A single sentence appeared.

THE SUNRISE IS NOT TEN MINUTES LATE.

Netra leaned closer.

“What?”

Another line appeared.

YOU ARE TEN MINUTES EARLY.

Netra's stomach dropped.

Quark moved toward the screen.

“Impossible.”

Netra looked at him.

“Why?”

“Because that would mean…”

Quark stopped.

“Mean what?”

The robot didn't answer.

The alien scientist looked frightened.

Netra turned toward the window.

The Sun was rising.

But the clock said:

08:20

The observatory said:

08:20

Netra checked his watch.

08:10.

He looked back at the horizon.

The sunlight suddenly stopped.

For exactly one second—

everything froze.

Then—

WHOOSH!

The entire planet seemed to jump forward.

The Sun moved across the sky.

Shadows shifted.

The clocks jumped.

08:21.

Netra stumbled backward.

“What just happened?”

Quark scanned the planet.

“I don't know.”

Netra stared at the sky.

“Can time…”

He swallowed.

“…actually move differently in different places?”

Quark nodded slowly.

“Yes.”

“Because of gravity?”

“Yes.”

“And because of motion?”

“Yes.”

Netra remembered the spaceship.

The strange clock.

The photograph.

The impossible version of himself.

“Then…”

He looked at Quark.

“Could someone make a clock run differently?”

Quark hesitated.

“Under the right conditions, clocks can indeed tick at different rates relative to one another.”

“Even if they're both working perfectly?”

“Yes.”

“That's relativity.”

“Yes.”

Netra's eyes widened.

“So the universe doesn't have one giant clock that everyone shares.”

“Correct.”

“There isn't one universal ‘now’?”

Quark shook his head.

“Not in the way you might imagine.”

Netra looked stunned.

“So…”

He pointed at the sky.

“…two people could experience different amounts of time?”

“Yes.”

“That's crazy.”

“Einstein would probably say it is simply physics.”

Netra grinned.

“I prefer crazy.”

---

🌌 THE SECOND SIGNAL

The observatory suddenly came alive again.

Every screen flashed blue.

Quark looked at the controls.

“Another signal.”

“From the same place?”

“No.”

“Then where?”

Quark pointed upward.

“From orbit.”

Netra frowned.

“The satellite?”

“Yes.”

“Is it delayed?”

Quark scanned it.

“No.”

“Then what?”

The signal came through.

Static.

A burst of noise.

Then a voice.

Netra froze.

It was a child's voice.

Young.

Breathing quickly.

Terrified.

“Can anyone hear me?”

Netra stepped closer.

“Hello?”

The voice continued.

“If you're receiving this…”

Static.

“…you have less than twelve minutes.”

Netra's heart began pounding.

“Until what?”

Static.

Then:

“…until the planet resets.”

Netra stared at Quark.

“What does that mean?”

Quark was already working.

“I don't know.”

The voice returned.

“Listen carefully.”

Netra leaned toward the speaker.

“Who are you?”

Silence.

Then:

“I don't have much time.”

“Tell me who you are!”

Static.

The voice became clearer.

“I know you're listening, Netra.”

Netra's eyes widened.

Quark froze.

The voice continued.

“I know about the ship.”

Netra looked at Quark.

“I know about the clock.”

The lights flickered.

“I know what happens next.”

Netra whispered:

“What happens next?”

The signal crackled.

Then the child said:

“Don't trust the robot.”

The transmission ended.

Silence.

Netra slowly turned toward Quark.

Quark stared straight ahead.

Netra said nothing.

Quark said nothing.

The alien scientist said nothing.

Then—

BEEP.

The screen displayed a final message.

SIGNAL ORIGIN:

THE FUTURE

Netra's face went pale.

“The future?”

Quark nodded.

“Yes.”

“How far?”

Quark scanned the signal.

His eyes flickered.

“Approximately…”

He stopped.

Netra waited.

“How far?”

Quark looked at him.

“Three years.”

Netra frowned.

“Three years from now?”

Quark shook his head.

“No.”

He pointed at the screen.

“Three years after the time we are currently in.”

Netra stared.

“But that's impossible.”

Quark nodded.

“Yes.”

Netra looked at him.

“You said that yesterday.”

“Yes.”

“And things were still possible.”

“Yes.”

Netra took a slow breath.

“Then who sent it?”

Quark didn't answer.

Netra stepped closer.

“Was it another me?”

Silence.

“Quark.”

Nothing.

“Was it?”

Quark's eyes flickered.

Then the robot finally spoke.

“I don't know.”

Netra looked relieved.

“Okay.”

Quark continued.

“But I know one thing.”

“What?”

The robot pointed toward the sky.

A tiny light had appeared above the planet.

Then another.

Then another.

Thousands of lights.

Objects were falling from orbit.

Netra stared.

“What are those?”

Quark's voice became very quiet.

“Satellites.”

“Why are they falling?”

“I don't know.”

“Can we stop them?”

“No.”

“Why?”

Quark looked at the planet.

“Because something has changed its gravity.”

Netra's eyes widened.

“What?”

The ground began shaking.

BOOM.

Another tremor.

BOOM.

The Sun flickered.

For just a fraction of a second—

it disappeared.

Then returned.

Netra stared at the horizon.

The clocks in the observatory began ticking.

All of them.

At different speeds.

One clock:

TICK… TICK… TICK…

Another:

TICK-TICK-TICK-TICK.

Another:

TIIIIICK…

Netra looked at Quark.

“What is happening?”

Quark's face displayed something Netra had never seen before.

Fear.

“The planet isn't broken.”

“Then what is it doing?”

Quark looked at the clocks.

Then at the sky.

Then at Netra.

And whispered:

“Someone is changing the flow of time.”

The entire planet went dark.

And in the darkness—

a voice spoke through every speaker in the observatory.

A voice that sounded exactly like Netra.

“Quark-7 was never supposed to bring you here.”