Star Fields

Chapter No.91. Curiosity

Chapter No.91. Curiosity

The truth is out there somewhere.

The next morning, I came on the command deck and took my usual place at the engineering station. Molly was already at her astrophysics station.

"The Tyco data indicates that the genesis proto humans might be in the Coma Supercluster, specifically in the Coma cluster itself," she said.

"Does the data indicate a specific galaxy?"

"Yes, NGC 4874, which is giant elliptical galaxy. It's only 350 million light years away"

I leaned back in my chair and rubbed my chin. "Interesting. I wouldn't have imagined them being in an elliptical galaxy."

"Actually, it makes perfect sense. Elliptical galaxies are usually the result of spiral galaxy collisions and are composed of older main sequence stars. If the genesis proto human species is anywhere, it would be in an older main sequence star system."

"How many stars are in that galaxy?"

"I don't know, at least a hundred billion I would guess."

"How are we going to find the genesis star system in that many stars?"

"The Tyco data has the coordinates."

I smiled back at her before turning to Judy. "Take us there, Judy."

A few minutes later we came out of spin drive near a humongous elliptical galaxy. Judy took us into warp to complete the journey to the star system.

The others filed onto the command deck and took their assigned places.

"Where are we?" Alexa asked.

"We're at the supposed genesis proto human star system," I said.

"How'd you find that so quickly?"

"It was in the Tyco data file."

"How convenient!"

"We are in orbit, Jason."

"Keep us in stealth mode."

"Oh yeah!" Molly exclaimed. "This planet definitely has intelligent life. There are many large developed complexes throughout the land areas. In fact, this planet seems to be literally covered with structures."

I looked up at the main screen on which she was displaying her images of the surface. "Holy hell! You weren't kidding. How large is this planet?"

"It's approximately 1.5 times the size of Earth. The oceans cover about fifty percent of the surface. This planet is in the outer edge of the habitable zone of this K3 class dwarf star, but its larger atmosphere makes up for that by retaining more heat from the star."

"How about the gravity?"

"It's about ten to fifteen percent higher than on Earth."

"I wonder how advanced they are," Margaret said. "There's no evidence of satellites in orbit or any space capability."

"That's weird," I said. "If this is the genesis proto human species, it should have been around at least two million years. If they're overcrowded on this planet, the solution is to colonize other habitable planets, and for that they need space capability."

"Maybe they've run into the same problem we have," Marie said. "Most habitable planets already have inhabitants."

"It's hard to tell," I said. "The only way we'll know is to go down there, but I don't want to do that until I'm sure they're not violent."