Star Fields

Chapter No.69 Discovery

Chapter No.69 Discovery

You have to search if you expect to find the truth.

The next day I came on the Command deck and sat in the chair at my engineering station. Molly was already at her astronomy station. The other three were late.

I turned to Molly. "Find any new habitable systems?"

"Yes," she said while still staring at her screen. "There's a habitable moon system 350 light years from here. I'm surprised that we missed it. It appears to have all of the qualities we want."

I turned to Judy. "We'll take one of the Scath vessels with us. The others can stay here to aid in the human transfer to Earth."

'Yes, Jason."

We came out of warp a million kilometers from a Saturn-sized gas giant orbiting in the habitable zone of a M2 class red dwarf star.

"This moon is a bit larger than Earth," Molly said. "It's about 1.3 times larger and it has a slightly thicker atmosphere, but otherwise, it's habitable."

"How is that possible if the moon is tidally locked to the planet?"

"Fortunately, the moon orbits the planet at a ten degree angle to the plane of this solar system's ecliptic. The part of the moon that points away from the planet is bathed in sunlight half of the time in its three-day orbit. The other side gets some sunlight because of the angle."

"That's interesting. It would mean that someone on the far side wouldn't necessarily see the gas giant."

"Yeah, but all they have to do is go near the twilight edge to see it rise and fall."

I decided that it was time to get down to the task at hand. "The next question is; is anyone home?"

"I doubt it. I estimate this system to be about two, maybe two and a half billion years old, which is not much time to evolve intelligent life. The red dwarf star is active, so it's shooting out flares on a regular basis. The only reason the moon is still viable is because it's protected by the massive magnetic field of the gas giant and is shielded by the planet for half of its orbit."

"We are in a stable orbit, Jason."

"Thanks, Judy."

"The moon has some large lakes and rivers, but it only about twenty percent covered with liquid water," Molly said. "I'm not sure if that's sufficient to harbor life."

"I suppose we'll have to go down and check it out," I said. "Send a Class-A1 probe down near that lake, Judy." I pointed to a rather large lake in a valley surrounded by majestic mountains.

Just then, Margaret, Marie and Alexa came onto the command deck.

"Where are we?" Marie asked.

"We're in orbit around a habitable moon," Molly said. "We're checking it out as a possible future habitable planet for humans."

They took their usual seats around the astrophysics stations. A few minutes later, data began to stream back from the probe.

Molly read them out. "Temperature is 21 C. Pressure is 1700 millibars. Oxygen is at 15%. Wind is out of the East at 10 kilometers per hour. Background radiation is around 2 millisieverts."

"That doesn't sound too bad," I said. "Do you see any life forms?"

"No," she said. "I see the usual vegetation that we see on planets orbiting red dwarfs. It's mostly large-leafed trees, either black or very dark purple."

"That means there could be insect species."

"Yes, but I doubt there are any larger creatures running around down there."

I stood up. "Well, we may as well go down there and see for ourselves."

We all rode down with Alice and Ellen in a shuttle and landed near a large lake that had a crimson tint from the reddish light of the star. The first things that caught our attention were the large black leaves on trees with purple bark. In fact, the lake was surrounded by a lot of these black leaved trees. It made it difficult to see much further than a few feet into the surrounding forest.

Molly, Margaret and Alexa began taking readings with handheld instruments. Marie dug around in the brown sand on the beach we had landed on. She used a science probe to determine its chemical structure.

I stood around with Alice and Ellen keeping a watch for anything that could be a threat. After several minutes, both Alice and Ellen raised their BFG's.

"What's wrong?" I asked, my eyes swiveling around rapidly but seeing nothing.

"There was motion in the trees," Alice said.

I held a hand up. "Don't shoot at anything unless it appears to be a threat."

Molly and Marie came over to us. "What's happening?"

"They saw motion in the woods over there," I said, pointing.

"Whoa!" Molly said. "I saw leaves moving but there's no wind to speak of."

"Try using your life-form probe to see if you could get a reading."

Molly began a sweep of the forest near us. "I'm getting thermal readings in clumps, but I don't see anything."

By this time, Margaret and Alexa came over near us.

"What's going on?" Margaret asked.

"There's something moving in the woods, but we can't see it," Molly said.

I rubbed my chin. "Let me think. What would keep us from seeing whatever is there?"

"Maybe they're using cloaking," Molly said.

"If they evolved on this planet, I doubt they would have any advanced technology. Maybe the problem is that these red dwarf stars don't emit much UV light. Maybe what's moving in the woods has a surface that would only illuminate in UV light."

"I think our lamps can be adjusted to emit UV light," Molly said, pulling hers off of her utility belt. She made some setting adjustments and then pointed the light's beam at the forest.

The effect of her lamp light was amazing.

"Oh my God!" She exclaimed. "They're hominid creatures."

She was right. They had two arms and legs and a round head with eyes that gleamed out with red light. They also had tails, but they moved around upright. The UV light caused them to shield their eyes with webbed hands, shriek and then run back into the forest.

"They look like carnival freaks!" Alexa said. "Look at how their bodies have dark and light rings."

"Is that their skin?" Marie asked.

"I believe it is," Molly said. "I'm not picking up any multiple spectral signals."

"Are we going to capture one of them?" Alexa asked.

"No. We don't want to harm them in any way. They deserve to live just like any other living species. We just know that we can't use this planet to harbor humans."

"Couldn't humans live along side them?" Margaret asked.

I shook my head. "That's just not how humans behave. They would either exploit them or kill them for sport. We have no right to destroy a species like that. So, we'll just leave them alone."

They finally understood where I was coming from. Hopefully!