Star Fields

Chapter No.15 New Horizon

This made me think that the androids were able to read my mind. It would be possible if my mind is linked to theirs.

Suddenly, the optical transmission acquired sound.

"They sound as if they're making whistling sounds."

"That must be how they speak," Molly said. "I'll start running the transmission through the universal translator."

"I hope it works. We might have to communicate with them. Hopefully, they're not aggressive."

"I think we'll know about that once we observe them long enough."

The robotic insects began sending back video feed from the surface. The alien specie's cities appeared to be fairly advanced. Several gleaming high-rise buildings were clustered around what appeared to be parks where aliens were walking and sitting on what appeared to be benches. Their transportation system consisted of flying vehicles that whizzed around at various altitudes at breakneck speeds without colliding. It was pretty much what you would expect for a more advanced civilization of human-like aliens.

The aliens were dressed in identical outfits that covered most of their flesh. The females appeared to have breasts but were otherwise identical to males. This suggested that they evolved from mammalian creatures, which is not too surprising. It appears that evolution eventually finds the best path to intelligence, much as it did for the Homo sapiens species. Of course, that assumes that the evolutions occurred on similar planets.

"They don't appear to be violent," Molly said.

"So far, we haven't seen evidence for that, but you never know."

"Are we going down there?" she asked.

"Yes. We'll go down to take on water. Maybe they'll see us or maybe not. We'll see."

"Oh, I forgot to tell you," Molly said, sounding apologetic. "This system has another habitable planet."

Both of my eyebrows shot up. "Really?"

"Yes. It's orbiting the main star about 30.5 million kilometers further away than this planet."

"Isn't that rather unusual that there are two habitable planets around one star of a binary pair?"

"Not really! Although multiple habitable planets tend to orbit red dwarfs."

"That's interesting in that this is a binary system with the companion star being a red dwarf."

"It's unusual but not impossible."

I decided not to argue with her about her expertise, but I suddenly got an idea. "I wonder if that planet could be one of the reptilian alien's breeding farms."

"It could be," she said. "It has a radius of 5100 kilometers, a bolometric temperature of 210 K, and an atmosphere that's not unlike this planet's; although, it has less oxygen."

"That doesn't sound too promising."

She looked over at me. "Not really. If the atmospheric pressure is high enough, less oxygen would still constitute a breathable situation."

I tapped a finger to my lips. "Okay, maybe we should go check it out before we go down to this planet. If it does have humans on it, it would provide us with what we need to repopulate Earth."

"I agree," she said.

I turned to Judy. "Recall the insect probes and plot a course to the second planet. Remain in cloak."

"Yes, Jason."

After the insect probes were retrieved, we left orbit and quickly traveled to the second habitable planet. We were there in less than an hour.