Chapter No. 19.

The journey to Planet 10 was boring at best. However, once they passed Saturn, the telescopic views of this new planet were a bit more revealing.

"This so-called planet looks weird," Janet said. "It's translucent. I can't tell where the atmosphere ends and the surface begins."

"Maybe it has something to do with being so cold," Margaret said. "If its atmosphere is pure nitrogen, it could have some frozen layers."

"You're assuming it's just another gas giant," Janet said.

"Yes, but it would be smaller than Neptune, probably about ten times the mass of Earth."

"If this planet has a moon, it would be a frozen ice ball like Enceladus, only larger," Janet said.

"We're too far away to get a good look at the moon," Carl said. "It should be like Enceladus, but you never know, especially if it was captured after the planet entered the Kuiper belt."

Janet turned to the other women. "Let's run."

"Yeah!" Alice said, grinning profusely. "We need to entertain our commander."

They cheered and ran off to their bunks to strip.

Carl shook his head. He realized that they were bored, but there was nothing he could say that would dissuade them from being silly. The endless days of boredom were unhealthy, and it could lead to mental health issues. He concluded that it was better to let them do whatever they wanted. In fact, it was better to go along with their attempts to prank him. It was their way of releasing pent up boredom.

After passing Uranus, the tension began to grow. Janet was able to get a better view of Planet 10 and its moon. She displayed a magnified view on the main screen. "This moon is not at all like Enceladus. It has a substantial atmosphere."

Carl stared at the screen for a few minutes before commenting. "What sort of atmosphere could it have at this low of a temperature?"

"It could be warmed by tidal heating," Alice said. "It's also possible that its atmosphere is composed of hydrogen, helium and nitrogen."

Carl rubbed his jaw. "What surprises me is the fact that this moon is almost as large as Earth, making it possibly the largest natural satellite in the solar system."

"We won't know what it's atmosphere composition is until we get closer," Margaret said. "What I don't understand is why they sent us out here. They claimed that there was possible alien activity. I don't see that."

"Since we knew nothing about Planet 10, I don't understand it either," Carl said. "This planet is barely visible in the largest telescope. I don't see how they concluded there was alien activity."

"There's no use speculating," Janice said. "We'll know what's going on soon enough."

"I just wonder if they sent us out here to survey a terraforming process like we did at Titan," Alice said. "I can't imagine what else we were supposed to do that justified a mission this complicated."

Carl sighed. "Yes, it could be that. I suppose we'll have to wait until we arrive there before we can come to any conclusions,"

That possibility would come after a rocket burn to slow the spacecraft into a course to orbit Planet 10. Because they had already bled off velocity due to gravitation pulls from the likes of Jupiter and Saturn, they were able to endure the burn in the G-chairs.

The approach to Planet 10 was uneventful, but their view of the moon was very interesting.

Janet pointed to a shiny object in orbit around it. "Don't tell me that this is another terraforming operation!"

Carl slumped back in his chair and sighed. "Yeah, it sure looks that way. I get the feeling that they knew about this."

"This is a load of horse pucks!" Janet reacted. "They risked our lives to come out this far to verify that the terraforming is working."

"Can we detect cosmic rays this far away?" Margaret asked.

"No," Carl said. "I'm not happy about getting too close. We could get sent into another timeline."

"Maybe it would be one in which women are not considered slaves."

"That would be good, but we don't have any control over which timeline we get sent into," Carl reminded her.

Carl entered instructions for a slight adjustment of their course around Planet 10. Hopefully, he could avoid any appreciable cosmic ray exposure and still get a much better view of the moon.

The moon was huge, as moons go. Its atmosphere was mostly nitrogen with appreciable amounts of frozen water in the form of tiny ice particles, which is how oxygen was being generated by blasting the ice with cosmic rays.

"I'm not sure that this moon is safe enough for us to explore," Margaret said. "Maybe we could just send a probe to take photos of the surface."

"I would normally agree," Carl said. "However, I'm sure they want us to go down and investigate and photograph the surface close up."

"I'll see if I can detect any cosmic rays," Janet said.

After several minutes, she reported her findings. "I'm not getting any evidence of cosmic rays."

"Okay, let's wait a few days before we attempt going down to the surface. Maybe the device is on a timer."

He didn't get any disagreements from them.

That night, Carl was lying in his bunk trying to fall asleep when he experienced a bright flash of light that lit up the entire quarters deck. He rubbed his eyes and waited until the effects of the intense light abated before climbing out of his bunk and rushing to the command center. He activated the system and searched for any evidence of a bright light. After several queries he came up empty. He activated the course display and he nearly fell out of his chair when he saw what it indicated.