Chapter No.76 Virgo

There's a lot of stars out there.

The next day, we gathered on the command deck to begin our exploration of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies. We had no idea what we would encounter.

The journey only took two seconds. When we dropped into existence out of empty space, we were about ten thousand light years above a beautiful classic spiral galaxy that is over 49 million light years away from our solar system.

Molly wasted no time in deploying her virtual mirror so that Margaret, Alexa and she could begin looking for candidate habitable planets. Marie and I went down to engineering to see how improvements to the bio-synthesizer unit was coming along.

"We're able to synthesize a wide variety of foods, Jason," Queen informed me. "This improvement is capable of duplicating the taste and structure of almost anything."

"That's excellent. It will give us a more balanced diet."

"I thought that they grew food stocks on the agricultural deck," Marie said.

"They do. They produce wheat, corn, rice, barley, hops, fruits like grapes, oranges and apples, and vegetables like tomatoes, carrots, and lettuce as well as some spices, but the available area and the soil conditions limit what they can do."

"It's hard to imagine that we are on a spaceship," she said. "The agricultural deck also includes the recreation areas that have park-like settings. The swimming pool is actually more like a water park with all of the slides and tubes it has."

"I know what you mean. This vessel provides us with a place to comfortably live without relying on a planet."

"Too bad we're not actually living," she said.

"It doesn't suck," I retorted. "I feel as if I'm alive and I don't have to put up with any aging problems. I can run like a deer, jump like a jackrabbit and swim underwater for hours without an air source. In a way, this is better than biological life."

"Yes, I agree, but there is always that realization that we are no longer like we were."

We both sighed.

We headed back up to the command deck to see what the others had come up with.

"We've located five possible habitable star systems in M-99," Molly said. "They are grouped along a more prominent arm of the galaxy."

"Choose one," I said.

"Take us to system one, Judy," Molly ordered.

The ship immediately accelerated to near light speed and then transitioned over to warp. Twenty minutes later we dropped out of warp around a billion kilometers away from an Earth-like planet orbiting a G-5 dwarf star.

"There's definitely someone home there," Molly said. "I'm detecting orbiting satellites and what appears to be a spaceport."

I turned to our helmsperson. "Put us in stealth mode, Judy. Go to Yellow Alert status."

The command deck lights dimmed slightly, and a blinking yellow light reminded us that we were on alert. Madison activated the weapons systems just in case. The Scath and Myst vessels did the same.

We approached the planet and assumed an orbit that was out enough to avoid any satellites. Molly, Margaret and Alexa began scans of the planet's surface.

"This is wild," Molly said after several minutes. "The planet is pristine, with vast areas of untouched forests, but there are concentrations of very high skyscrapers. This configuration seems to be everywhere there is land."

"Are the skyscrapers part of cities?" I asked.

"I wouldn't classify them as cities. They're just groupings of skyscrapers."

"I'm detecting large underground facilities," Margaret said. "They are adjacent to the skyscraper concentrations."

"Do you see any movement on the surface?" I asked.

"No," Molly said. "I don't see any movement at all."

I symbolically scratched my head. "That's very strange."

"The space port contains what appears to be a large vessel," Alexa reported. "Scans indicate that it contains large quantities of liquid water, but there is no oxygen."

"That might be indicative of a fusion drive system or even warp," I said.

"Oh, oh!" Molly squeaked. "I see an opening appearing near one of the skyscraper complexes."

"Maximize the shields, Judy."

"I don't think it's a weapon's system," Margaret said. "There is a spherical object ascending into the air. It measures at a hundred meters in diameter."

"It's not approaching us," Molly said. "It's headed to the vessel in the space port. I think it's going to dock with it."

"Interesting," I said. "Perhaps this species is exploring space."

"If they are, it's inconsistent with what we're seeing on the planet," Molly said.

"I'm not detecting any radio signals or any energy beams indicative of a communication system."

"Maybe they're using mental telepathy," I suggested.

"We have no means to collaborate that," she retorted.

After several tense moments, Molly had a new report. "The sphere undocked from the space vessel and is reentering the atmosphere. It appears to be headed to the opening where it emerged from."

"The vessel is powering up," Alexa reported. "It's moving out of the space pert."

"Trace it's trajectory," I ordered.

"I did an infrared spectral scan on that sphere," Margaret said. "It contained approximately ten thousand living non-human individuals. All of them were transferred to the space vessel."

"We might be able to get a look at some of them," Molly said. "I can see congregations of them near the skyscrapers."

"Send an insect probe down, Judy."

She nodded, and after ten minutes, we began to receive video feeds from the probes.

"They look comical," I said. "Their bodies appear to be flat. It's almost as if they're two-dimensional."

"That's not completely true," Alexa said. "They have round bellies and the females have breasts."

"That would imply that they're mammals," I said.

"If so, they evolved from a very weird mammal," she replied. "Their faces appear to be like an oval plate with their eyes, nose, mouth and ears pasted to it."

"I see lots of smaller individuals," Margaret said. "I assume that they're children."

"If this species lives in those skyscrapers, there must be an unbelievable number of them on this planet," Molly said. "There must be a billion of those skyscrapers clumped together all over the planet. That would indicate a population of trillions."

"And yet, the planet's atmosphere, oceans and surface appear to be unpolluted," I said.

"Maybe those underground caverns have something to do with that," Margaret said. "I've detected what appear to be large plots of fungi down there."

"Maybe that's what they eat," I said.

"That spaceship went to warp, Jason," Judy reported.

"Did you get a trajectory on it?" I asked.

"Yes, Jason. It's headed to the second habitable system on Molly's list."

"Maybe they're transferring people to a new home planet," Margaret said.

"Again, that's not consistent with what we're seeing on the planet's surface," Molly said.

"Do we have a translation of their language yet?" I asked.

"Yes, but what we're hearing them say doesn't make sense," Molly replied.

"Let's listen to the translations," I said.

What we heard was not what we had expected.