Chapter 24. Evolution.

The voyage to the distant star system made everyone more relaxed. For some strange reason travelling faster than light has a placating effect on them.

The engineering staff lounged in Charles' living area to discuss things. His cat was curled up next to him.

"Is there a possibility that the system that keeps us young is something that Space Command discovered by accident and installed in this ship so the commander and his cronies could take advantage of it?" Dave asked.

"Probably," Charles replied. "I'm sure that they were aware of the rift and how it could end life on Earth."

"So, they decided to rescue themselves rather than trying to save humanity," Robert said.

"Does that sound so strange?" Charles proposed, his expression radiating disgust. "It's human nature to protect oneself at the expense of others."

"Especially when they brought along some amusement," Carl added.

"I think we can all agree that they were assholes," Charles said. "They forgot about what Robert Burns said about best laid plans of mice and men."

"So," Dave said. "We're essentially living out their plan to escape death at the expense of humanity."

"That pretty much sums it up. I don't know how this will turn out in the long run, but so far, we have a handle on a lot of it."

"Not to change the subject," Carl said. "But I went ahead and connected the defense shielding to the main command computer. I think there's more to it than we realize. It seems to be able to deflect just about anything."

"That's a good idea. We have no idea what we're going to run into on these trips to other star systems. I'll make sure that Alice knows about it."

The next day, Charles went to the command deck and found Alice there holding court so to speak. He sat down next to her. "We found that this ship has a defense shield, and it appears to be able to deflect most weapon systems. It's under 'Shield'. You can adjust its overall power level."

She entered the command to display the system's adjustment profiles. "Interesting," she reacted before turning to look at him. "Why can't we just leave it on all of the time?"

"It consumes a boat load of power. It would endanger the fusion power units."

She offered him a subtle grin. "Yeah, that makes sense."

"How long till we get there?"

"We should drop out of faster than light around eighteen hundred."

He stood up.

"Don't go. I feel lonely up here."

He sat down again. "Yeah, no one likes the pilot's lonely job."

"It's not that bad. I use the time to do math."

His eyebrows shot up. "You love math that much?"

"I love to solve tough problems. For example, I came up with this summation equation that has a log of the probability x. The problem is I'm not sure what the base of the logarithm should be."

"Try Euler's number."

"Why that one?"

"I don't know. It always seemed to work for me."

She tried it and after a few minutes turned to him. "Thanks."

He smiled. "Glad I could help."

She watched him walk to the elevator before turning back to her math problem, realizing that he was concealing his brilliance in science and math for some reason.

When the Proxima B dropped out of faster than light, everyone was anxious to see what they were heading to.

"That looks almost like our solar system," Vicky said. "I thought that would be impossible."

Alice eyes were on her systems screen. "Hey, I have a bogey headed our way. I think it's one . . . wait, it's at least three of those robot ships."

"Activate the shield system!" Charles ordered.

Alice just barely got it up before they took several blasts from two enemy ships. The crew felt a shudder and an intense ringing sound.

Their robot buddy suddenly appeared and blasted the enemy ships, destroying all of them.

"They're pinging us," Vicky said.

"Put it on."

"We were unaware that they had staged a trap," their robot buddy said. "We are surprised that you didn't sustain damage."

"We found that this vessel has a shield system," Charles said.

"We understand."

The communication dropped.

"I guess it wouldn't have mattered to them if we were destroyed," Hilary said.

"Keep in mind that this conflict has probably been going on for a very long time. Casualties are nothing more than numbers to them."

Alice began programming their approach to the star system. "We should be able to make out planets soon."

Everyone's attention was captured by the main screen, which displayed what they were headed to.

"There's two habitable planets in this system," Judy noted. "How is that even possible?"

"I think they're both in the habitable zone," Vicky said. "And the outer planets are gas giants and oriented to maintain the inner planets' orbits."

Alice activated the AI system's physics function algorithms and after a few minutes it produced a series of probabilities.

"The Ai system has verified the stability of this system," She announced. "The two planets orbiting in the habitable zone are stable at least to a ninety percent probability."

"The question is," Charles said. "Do either of them have intelligent life?"

"I'm not detecting any signs of space craft, satellites or space stations," Judy said.

"Take us in to the one that's further from the star," Charles ordered.

Alice entered the commands to do that. As the ship approached the planet, all eyes were glued to the main screen.

"Pretty planet," Judy noted. "It's sure looks like it's habitable."

"The oceans look so blue," Hilary said.

"Maybe that's because the atmosphere is a bit thicker than Earth's," Beverly said. "If it's full of the usual nitrogen that habitable planets have."

"We're in orbit," Alice announced.

"There's no evidence of a civilization," Mary said. "It looks primitive."

"Launch a probe," Charles ordered. "We need to see if it has oxygen."

"It definitely has plant life," Beverly said. "So far, that's a good sign that it has animal life."

Charles decided to begin the critical discussion. "So, what you're claiming is that if a planet has an atmosphere with oxygen and there's lots of water, life evolved there."

"It certainly looks that way. However, whether intelligent life could automatically evolve under those conditions is still debatable."

The probe began sending back data.

"Sixteen percent oxygen," Charles noted. "That's not as high as Earth was, but at a higher pressure it's close enough."

"Temperature is a bit low at 12 C, but it's within the normal range," Beverly noted.

"The probe has detected animal life," Hilary announced. "It looks like a big rat."

Everyone's eyes were captured by the image on the main screen of a creature that resembled a muskrat.

"Interesting," Charles said. "This is a planet in the beginning of evolution. Maybe in several hundreds of thousands of years, something intelligent might be born."

"We may as well go to the other habitable planet," Judy said.

"I agree," Charles said.

Alice reclaimed the probe and began the journey to the other planet, which required twenty minutes. All eyes were on the main display as the ship slipped into a close orbit.

"What the hell?" Carl exclaimed. "It looks just like the other planet. Is that even possible?"

"When it comes to nature, just about anything is possible," Vicky said. "We don't know enough about how planets are formed and how they support life."

"That's because Space Command didn't give a shit about trying to do science," Judy said. "They were more interested in how much money they could squeeze out of crooked politicians."

"Now, we have the opportunity to rectify that sin," Charles said. "Money is of no value now. The only thing that matters is that we've been given the wherewithal and the ability to do the science they didn't care about."

"Yes," Alice added. "And, in our case we can reconcile their sins in perpetuality."

"Which only proves that we're in purgatory because it's the only thing we can do to make up for the sins of humanity," Hilary said.

"I don't think purgatory is good equivalent," Mary said. "It involves cleansing by fire."

Vicky grinned. "Oh, I don't know. Fire can exist in our loins and torment us as if it were real fire."

Mary waved a dismissive hand at her. "Yeah, and you need to quench that fire by taking cold showers."

They laughed.

"Get as much data as you can. We may as well look for another possible habitable system."

Hilary and Vicky began that process, but they hadn't found a candidate system until late. They decided to go tell Charles and let him inform the rest of the crew. They found him in his living area lounging in an easy chair watching an old TV show. And as expected, his cat was at his side.

"Can't sleep?" Hilary asked him.

"I don't feel tired," he replied, putting the show on hold. "What's up?"

"We found another star like our Sun, but it's a thousand light years away."

He stared at her with a blank expression for a moment before replying. "It doesn't matter. Let's go check it out."

She looked at the screen he was viewing. "What's that?"

"It's an old animated series with the interesting title of 'Futurama'. It's almost as crazy as our situation. I especially like the main character, Fry. When he goes out on space missions, his pilot is a one-eyed woman by the name of Leela. They also have a profane robot by the name of Bender. That series predicted a lot of the depravation of human society, especially as it dealt with the future, hence its title."

"I don't recall that series," Hilary told him.

"It goes back aways. The old stuff is much more amusing than the crap they came up with recently."

She looked at him for a moment before smiling. "Ok, we'll get the ship moving to the destination."

He nodded.

As they traveled back up to the command deck, Hilary turned to Vicky. "He seems to like ancient stuff for some reason."

"Maybe he sees himself in those old TV shows. He seems to be following a more professional course than what I would have thought."

"His respect is something that we must earn. In the end he is and will be the commander."

They knew that it was the truth, but they had underlying reservations about a guy who seems uninterested in female charms.