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Earth may not be the same as it was, but it is, after all, your home. You’re determined to see what happened to it. Your capsule plunges into the atmosphere, retrorockets firing to brake the descent. In a few moments you enter the yellow-grey clouds that cover the planets surface. You wonder how far into the future you’ve journeyed. A thousand years? Maybe even a million years. Suddenly a screen lights up. You read the computer-generated message that appears: **//INSTRUCTIONS FOR SURVIVAL ON PLANET EARTH.//** // OXYGEN CONTENT: 2.3% OXYGEN-GENERATING HELMET MUST BE WORN AT ALL TIMES. RADIOACTIVITY: 2.2. RADIATION-RESISTENT COAT AND HELMET COVER MUST BE WORN EXCEPT IN PROTECTED ZONES. FOOD: BASIC GENE GRAIN BITS ARE THE ONLY EDABLE FOOD. INGEST 87 GRAMS OF VITAGRAM—ANTITOXICANT FORMULA MARK 8744369-5—WITH EACH KILOGRAM OF GENE GRAIN BITS. ALL WATER MUST BE DEMULSIFIED AND DEACIDIFIED IN-PUROSCAN. ALL EQUIPMENT NEEDED FOR ONE YEAR SURVIVAL ON THIS PLANET IS INCLUDED IN YOUR BACKPACK, TOGETHER WITH A MARK 3204 LASER PISTOL, WHICH WILL FIRE 300 TIMES WITHOUT LOSS OF POWER. //   Turn to page 42.