Chapter No.14. Exploration.

A day later after we dropped out of hyperspace, Janet had some very interesting news about the planet we were headed to. "This planet appears to be not much different than Earth. It's the same size and has an atmosphere that's very close to Earth's. It orbits a G2-V class main sequence star that's very similar to Sol. What's really odd is that the planet has a fairly large moon, something that Earth got from a convenient glancing collision with a Mars size planet."

"I find that hard to believe. How could it be so similar to Earth?"

"Planetary astronomers realized that in a universe with at least two trillion galaxies there had to be a duplicate to Earth," Sharon said. "It's what probability would suggest."

"How much of a burn will we have to make to orbit it?" I asked.

"I'm still working that out, but I don't think it'll be too bad."

I stood up. "Good. I'm going to go check out the engines to make sure we don't have any problems when we do the burn."

I went down to engineering and sat at the command station. After going through the status report, I found something that made me nervous. A tiny crack had developed in one of the engine fuel feed-pipes. I immediately issued a repair order to have it repaired. The crack might not have caused a problem, but I wasn't taking any chances.

When I returned to the crew wheel deck, Janet had a burn sequence worked out.

"If we do the burn at 1700 today, we should be in orbit in four days."

"Okay, we'll do it. I found a tiny crack in one of the engine feed-pipes. I'm having it repaired. It should be completed before we do the burn."

"That sounds serious," she said.

"Yeah, it could have blown us to bits if a leak occurred during a burn."

She swallowed hard.

I went to my bunk to relax before the burn, but my rest was disturbed by talking and laughter just outside my bunk. As expected, it was Bridgett and Natale standing by the shower module in their birthday suits. I decided it was better to avoid a confrontation, but I suspected they were doing this on purpose to tease me. The extraordinary experience made me consider having the robots create condoms.

We buckled into our G-chairs for the orbital insertion burn at 1700. It lasted fifteen painful minutes, but at least we were still in one piece when it was done.

After we got out of our G-chairs and gathered at the command station, Janet was able to display a blurry image of the planet. It was blue and had swirling clouds, and the large moon was clearly visible.

"You weren't kidding," I said. "That definitely resembles Earth."

"The planet's surface details will be revealed better when we get closer, but it definitely has similar land masses and oceans," Sharon said.

"Okay, keep at it. The more we know about it the better chance we'll have to explore it safely."

I stood up and intercepted Natale and Bridget before they got to the command station. "Ah, I have a job for you two."

They stopped and glared at me.

"I would like you to go through the ship's manifest of consumables like food stocks, water, clothing and personal items."

"Aren't these items fixed?" Natale asked.

"Actually, they can be replenished by the robots. What I'm interested in is our capability to create more food and clothing choices. All we need to do is have COMA work out the coding to accomplish our wishes."

"Okay," Natale replied. "We're here to serve. We'll do whatever you wish."

I did a mock salute. "Thank you."

I spent the day down in the agricultural deck checking out the robots and their equipment. Later, when I returned to the crew deck, Natale and Bridget met with me to discuss what they had done.

"There's plenty of personal items like soap, toothpaste, deodorant, and hair conditioner," Natale said. "We didn't find any new clothing, but there is a supply of materials to make more tees, shorts, socks and shoes."

"I assumed as much," I said. "The good news is that there's only five of us, and this ship was designed for six."

"Yes, but the designers assumed that there would be a more equitable gender ratio," Bridget said.

"Oh well, there's nothing we can do about that."

Bridget grinned. "Yeah, if we do settle on the planet, you're going to be a busy boy."

I simply smiled back. I wasn't going to tell them that I had no plans to settle on any planet, not after I saw what happened to the other crew.

"We're still working on the food situation," Natale said.

"Good. Keep up the good work."

They gave me teasing smiles before sauntering off, swinging their cabooses.

Their blatant teasing action kept me thinking about the condom idea.

Of course, when I sat down at the command station with Janet and Sharon, I was subjected to more teasing.

"You had better watch those two," Sharon said, grinning. "They definitely have the hots for you."

"They are a bit on the wild side, aren't they?"

"I think their hormones are running rampant," Janet said. "I wonder what butt head chose them for the other crew."

"The same butt head that decided that antimatter is harmless."

They laughed, but it wasn't funny.

Surprisingly, the next few days went by without incident or trouble. We arrived in orbit around a beautiful Earth-like planet.

"this planet definitely has life," Sharon said. "There's vegetation on most of the land masses and the oxygen is up around twenty percent."

Janet was next to report. "I don't see any signs of civilization . . . wait a second. I'm detecting structures on the larger continent near a shore." She zoomed the image on the main screen. "Those objects are not natural."

"Yeah," I said. "I agree."

Our motion in orbit made the location gradually move out of our visual range as we orbited around the night side of the planet.

"I don't see any lights down there," Sharon said. "If there is an intelligent species on this planet, they must not be afraid of the dark."

"COMA, adjust our orbit to position us over the structures."

Auxiliary engines fired to move us into a higher geosynchronous orbit so that we could more closely examine the structures on the main continent. However, we could only do so while they were in daylight.

"I'm not detecting any signs of motion or activity down there," Sharon said.

"What does that mean?" Natale asked.

"I believe it indicates that these structures are archeological remains of an extinct civilization."

"Or they could be a possible attempt at colonization," Janet said.

I gave her a subtle smile. "Yes, that's another possibility."

"So, what are we going to do?" Bridget asked.

"We'll have to go down there and investigate, but we'll wear the bio suits to be safe about it." I turned to Janet. "Continue your observations of the planet. The more we know about it the better we'll be when we go down there. . . tomorrow."

She nodded.

I wasn't happy with this situation. If this was the remains of an intelligent alien species, we have no idea about what made them go extinct. If it was an attempt at colonization, we had no way to identify them, at least not from orbit. We had no idea what dangers awaited us.