Gaia 3

XII. Logic

They set up camp next to Julius Lucioni's ship and began cataloging the finds. They had found the skeletons of every member of Lucioni's crew, which would have been cause for celebration if it hadn't been for Jaleah's find. 

The discovery of a distinctly different skeleton had unsettled the crew. They tried to do work while they waited to hear from Kyndle and Karmyne, but they were all too restless to do anything. Three times already, Daviron had tried to get information from Karmyne, but each time she had shooed him away. Meanwhile, Zax, Aedard, and Carsin had tried to start a card game, but it was going poorly. All three were distracted, and Jaleah suspected that none of them knew exactly which game they were playing. 

Suddenly, Jaleah became aware that Liyan was sitting quietly next to her. 

"How long have you been there?" she asked, frowning. 

"About five minutes," Liyan replied, "You have a bad case of tunnel vision, professor." 

Jaleah sighed and continued watching the men, who had started arguing about the rules of the game. 

"You seem kind of distracted," Liyan noted, "Does it have anything to do with those bones?" 

"What else would I be distracted about? Everything I thought I knew about this planet has been undermined." 

"You mean, those bones prove that there was once life on this planet?" 

"Exactly. Those bones prove that Gaia 3 used to be able to support complex, multi-cellular organisms. Until now, we didn't think that was possible." 

"I guess these planets can surprise you, huh?" 

"But it's more than that. Since there aren't any complex life forms on this planet now, logic dictates that something on this planet changed making it inhospitable to life. My fear is that whatever made it suddenly inhospitable then can affect us now." 

"Or you could just be overthinking this," Liyan argued, "You do have a tendency to do that. Chances are, life on this planet was wiped out because of an asteroid or something. It happened to that other planet a few systems over, remember?" 

"That's true," Jaleah sighed, "But on the other hand, the chances of an asteroid sparking a mass extinction is ridiculously small. The chance of it happening on two separate planets is even smaller." 

"But not impossible, right? I mean, I'm no math genius, but even I know that something that is statistically improbable isn't impossible." 

"I suppose." 

She looked back at the card players. By this point, the game had descended into madness. All three men were at each other's necks, arguing loudly about which game they were playing. The cards themselves had been flung into the air and now lay scattered and forgotten. 

Liyan sighed. 
"I should probably go make sure they don't kill each other," she said, "Unfortunately, we need all three of them for the expedition. But while I'm doing that, you should try to get out of your head, okay? You think way too much, and you just need to take a deep breath and stop." 

Jaleah nodded, and Liyan marched over to the card players, mumbling something about idiots. 

--<<>>--

Despite Liyan's instructions, Jaleah just couldn't seem to get out of her head. Over and over again, she kept thinking about how the creature had died. While an asteroid strike was possible, she doubted that it would be enough to wipe out life on a planet of Gaia 3's size. Perhaps the asteroid, if there even was an asteroid, had brought with it an alien virus. That certainly could have been enough to cause a mass extinction. But that also meant that the entire crew was in danger; an alien virus had the potential of infecting them even years later, and it was unlikely they had been vaccinated against it.