What Has Happened?

 

"Star Ship."

When Dougald Anson returns to Krakenau, the city is dark and quiet:

"It wasn't right. He'd only been gone a few days. What had happened in the meantime?" (p. 273)

Returning home to find that things have changed is a common theme in sf but usually over longer distances and timespans! When Dan Dare returned to the Solar System after ten years, his old enemy, the Mekon, had conquered Earth in his absence. On a later occasion, Earth had been evacuated for some reason. When the protagonist of Larry Niven's A World Out Of Time returns after a relativistic round trip in suspended animation to the galactic centre, the Solar System is barely recognizable and what might be Earth is in orbit around Jupiter.

But Dougald has been at sea for only a few days... But that things change and that you cannot go home again are perennial themes. Indeed, world-changing events are just beginning.