“I think the important point that we’re missing here, Captain,” Beach said, “is that there is a habitable moon here, and that there is life. This is a biosphere that is right at the edge of current theory.”
“Agree with that one,” Julia said, nodding.
“So that means that we could be finding habitable planets around virtually any star you’d care to visit,” Beach concluded, pointing to the plasma screen on the wall. It was currently getting the “take” from the forward camera and showed a billion stars.
“Our current mission is to do a cautious survey of the immediate area,” the captain pointed out carefully. “To find as many habitable planets as we can and to look for intelligent life. Commander Weaver, does this planet, in your opinion, change the plan of the current survey?”
“A bit,” Weaver admitted. “What Dean’s World shows is that while we should look primarily at main sequence stars, if we overlook such things as moons in marginal life zones we might miss the needle. I think we’re going to have to either go faster or extend the survey time to ensure we don’t miss something.”
“XO, can we stay out longer?” the CO asked.
“We’ve got the food,” the XO said. “I’d mostly worried about atmosphere and water. But we took on a bunch of water on Dean’s World. Some of it we cycled for fresh water and we broke out a bunch of O2. That extended our time by maybe a week. If we can keep doing that, we’re only food limited. We’ve got enough food onboard for ninety days. Of course, the crew’s gonna get pretty tired of three-bean salad—”
“Our mission parameters were to stay out for up to ninety days if we could keep up on air and water,” the CO said, frowning. “Given the hazards associated with entering star systems, I’m going to say we’re out a maximum of sixty days, less the time to travel to Sol. That way if we have to limp through a transition zone, we can. Very well. So much for the lovely ‘Dean’s World,’ ” he said, grinning slightly. “Where next?”
15
“Stable orbit around Tau Ceti established,” the pilot said proudly.
“Sergeant Runner has detected two planets in the life zone,” Commander Weaver said. “He picked them up on the way in by eyeball. One’s a gas giant. Much smaller than Uranus though. Probably moons; he’s surveying at the moment.”
“I’m glad you pronounced it properly,” the CO said dryly. “Vector?”
“Two-three-three degrees mark dot five to the nearest,” Weaver said. “Four AU and a bit. That is outside of the liquid water zone by at least three AUs. The liquid water zone for Tau Ceti is between point six and point nine AUs sir. Hey, that’s a rocky body.”
“Pilot, come to two-three-three, Warp One,” the captain said. “It’s a planet so we should have a look at it.”
“That… doesn’t look like much,” the captain said.
“Atectonic again,” Bill replied, nodding. The “planet” looked more like Earth’s moon. It didn’t even have the ruddiness of Mars. It was just a pitted gray surface. “Little or no atmosphere. We don’t have the spectral readings, yet, but I’d guess no vegetation. Probably the core is low in radioactives so it’s cooled off and the atmosphere stopped being recycled. Call it Lord Kelvin’s World. Back when scientists were beginning to understand how old the Earth really was, Lord Kelvin, who was the premier physicist of his day, ‘proved’ that even if Earth started off as a molten ball, it would have cooled off in no more than six thousand years. Since there were volcanoes, it had to be less than six thousand years old. One of the better pieces of complete garbage science ever written because he didn’t know about radioactives. It’s radioactive material that keeps the Earth’s core molten. Also a great example of why you should never let theory get in the way of empirical data. Anyway, if there ever was intelligent life there, it’s long gone.”
“Let’s try the next system. Commander Weaver?”
“Epsilon Indi perhaps, sir,” Weaver said. “But exit in that direction is going to be… interesting. And there are some things we should consider.”
The CO came over and looked at his screens, puzzling them out.
“What… things?” he finally asked. “The heliopause bow shock’s in the other direction.”
“Luyten 725, also known as YZ Ceti, is going to be off our port if we head for E Indi,” Weaver said, zooming out on the screen so the nearby star was evident and then highlighting it. “It’s close at a heading four-eight. We’ve got three systems fairly close to each other here and I’m not sure what that’s going to do to the disturbance zone.”
“Head around it,” the CO said definitely.
“Agreed, sir,” Bill replied, rubbing his forehead. “But… I would like to recommend an astrophysics fly-by at least. Perhaps an extensive survey. The combination of bow shock from YZ Ceti and the trail material from Tau Ceti might have picked up some interesting stuff.”
“Stuff,” the CO said, monotone. “Define… stuff.”
“Well sir, some astronomers figured out a few years back that the Tau Ceti system has about ten times too much cometary and asteroid type debris in it. Nobody understands why,” Bill said, shrugging. “Perhaps something out there is the cause.”
“Wait a minute,” Spectre said with a frown. “You mean we’ve been riding around inside a star system that has ten times more debris in it than normal and nobody bothered to mention this?”
“Uh, sorry, sir; space is big.” Weaver said.
“I realize that space is big Lieutenant Commander, but…” Spectre paused as the implications of Weaver’s comment sank in. “Oh hell, what was the increased probability of hitting something?”
“About a half of a percent worse than in a normal system, sir.” Weaver tried not to grin. “Its Kuiper belt should be about ten times more populated than ours, but that ain’t a particular problem. Populated is an overstatement of any Kuiper belt.”
“Right. Astrophysics survey sounds like a good idea.” Spectre relaxed in his chair. “Science stuff.”
“The interesting thing, sir, is that YZ Ceti is only about point seven-two light years that way.” Weaver nodded out the window in the direction of the little M class flare star.
“And that’s interesting… why?” the XO interrupted. Spectre remained quiet.
“Well sir,” Bill said, turning to the XO. “These two stars are so close together that there might be an explanation for the unusually dense Kuiper belt here. Perhaps it has something to do with how their gravitational anomalies interact with each other out past the heliopause.”
“So, you are saying that we need to go out there where space is all screwed up even worse than around a typical star so we can take a look?” The XO raised his voice a bit to emphasize his concern.
“Uh, well sir, we could go a few degrees in right ascension to the center point between the stars. The gravitational effects should be somewhat less, uh, pronounced there.” Weaver looked back at his screen and typed in a few commands. The optimization program picked a spot slightly to the right of the center of mass point between the two star systems.
“Somewhat less pronounced,” the XO muttered under his breath. “What the hell does that mean?”