Chapter No.43 Survey

There are lots of stars.

We decided that it was time to explore the other side of our galaxy. Molly had a good suggestion to expedite that.

"Why don't we move up out of the galaxy so that we're right over the top of it. That way, I could deploy my virtual mirror and see all of the other side.

"Good idea," I said. "Tell Judy how far you want to go above the galaxy."

She turned to Judy. "I believe that somewhere around a thousand light years should be sufficient."

"Okay, Molly," Judy replied.

Our vessel moved out of Earth orbit and shot up off the ecliptic. Soon, we were moving about a quarter the speed of light before going to a short warp session. When we came out of warp we were above our galaxy, a typical spiral galaxy enveloped in plenty of gas and dust.

I looked up at the screen displaying the Milky Way Galaxy and smiled. "What an amazing sight. It's hard to believe that we came from a tiny little spec in one of the arms of this galaxy."

"It would be very difficult to find that tiny spec," Molly said.

The ship soon came to a stop relative to the galaxy, which was traveling approximately 2.1 million kilometers per hour through the universe. Molly activated her virtual telescopic mirror and began surveying the far side of the galaxy that is mostly invisible from Earth.

I went down to engineering where Queen and her staff were showing a few redheaded and black-haired androids some new technical procedures.

Queen immediately diverted their attention to me. "This is Jason, our only male."

Melisa, a redheaded android came over to me along with Jessi, a black-haired android and looked me over.

"We have never seen a male before," Melisa said. "Do you like us, Jason?"

"Sure," I said. "I like all of you."

They smiled.

"Do you like being the only male, Jason?" Jessi asked.

"Not really, but I've grown accustomed to it."

"We are fully functional, Jason," Melisa informed me. "Do you want to enjoy us?"

I held a hand up. "Ah . . . I would rather discuss some new upgrades to the antimatter storage pods."

They laughed.

I realized that these female androids were based on a sex-bot model, but I didn't think that that programming had been retained in Molly's reboot. I suspected that she retained that code just to tease me.

When I got back up to the command deck, I found Molly immersed in her study of the hidden part of the galaxy.

"There isn't all that many habitable systems on the far arm of the galaxy. I did find a very interesting system that consists of gas giants. One of them orbits a G5 dwarf in the habitable zone. I believe that it has a habitable moon."

"That would be like the first one we explored."

"Yes, but I think this one may have two habitable moons, but it's just a hunch."

"Do you want to go there?"

"Yes."

I turned to Judy. "Take us there."

"Yes, Jason."

We arrived there in less than an hour. Molly's hunch was right. A Jupiter-sized gas giant in the habitable zone has several moons and two of them appeared to be Earth-like.

"These two habitable moons are very similar. That has to be very rare."

"The question is; do they have life?" I asked.

"I'm not detecting any signals from either of them," Molly said. "Spectral scans of their atmospheres indicate oxygen and water. Based on the spectra of the star, this system is about four billion years old, which would be enough time to form life."

She turned to Judy. "Take us to the closest one."

Within a few minutes we were in orbit around one of the moons. The Earth-like moon had oceans and continents. Clouds swirled around it and there was ice at the polar regions.

"There are what look like cities on the main continent," Molly said. "They are emitting energy profiles consistent with electrical and thermal sources."

"Sounds good to me," I said.

"Send down the insect probes, Judy," Molly said.

After several minutes we began to receive video feeds from the probes.

"Interesting," I said looking at the main screen. "They appear to be human-like, but their faces are very different."

"Yeah, they look like dogfaces," I said. "But, I don't think they're covered with fur. It's hard to tell because they're wearing clothing that covers most of their bodies."

"The fact that their faces are not fur covered and they're wearing clothing would suggest that they don't have any fur on their bodes."

"That's logical."

"Their vocalizations sound more like barking and howling," Molly said. "However, our translator is able to get the gist of their language."

"They don't seem to be violent or aggressive," I said. "That's a good sign."

"It's obvious that they don't have any advanced technology," Molly said.

"No use going down there," I said.

"I agree," she said. "Although, the atmospheric conditions are very similar to those of Earth."

"Fascinating!"

After an hour of intense surveillance, Molly turned to Judy. "Recall the probes and take us to the other moon."

"Yes, Molly."

A few minutes later we were in orbit around the other moon, which was probably not visible from the other moon, at least most of the time.

"This moon is almost a carbon copy of the other one," Molly said. "The atmospheric conditions are identical. The only difference I see is that this moon has more land mass."

I nodded. I couldn't imagine how it was even possible, but in a universe as large as the one we're in anything is possible, even the impossible.

Molly chuckled. "This moon also has cities and they appear to be inhabited."

"I would never had imagined that," I replied.

"Send the probes down, Judy."

"Yes, Molly."

It wasn't long before we received the video feeds from the insect sized probes.

"This is absolutely crazy!" Molly said. "These aliens are almost the same as the ones on the other moon except their faces resemble those of cats."

I laughed. "We've found the dog and the cat moons, all in one system."

"Look at them. They don't have fur and they're wearing clothing that covers most of their bodies. The chance of this happening is beyond probability."

"The funny thing is that I'll bet that neither of these species is aware of the other."

"If we would have a situation like this in our solar system, we would have known."

"I agree," I replied.

"The take away from this is that we might want to explore more systems with moons, rather than planets."

"You're probably right. Habitable moons might just be where it's at."

Molly turned to Judy. "Recall the probes. Neither one of these species is a raider."

"Yes, Molly."

I turned to Molly. "I think that we were sent out here on another wild goose chase. They probably figured that it would keep us out of their hair, even though they don't have hair."

"I agree, but we may as well do some more exploring while we're here."

I nodded. She was right, but it seemed like a waste of time.