Ryan Taylor awakens from hibernation to a mystery that he, along with his crew, must solve in order to continue their mission. How they solve it and what they find is astounding.
The next day, Janet and Sharon had discovered something of interest.
"We found a possible candidate planet," Janet said after I sat down next to her. "It's around a hundred light years away orbiting a K-class dwarf star."
"We're not sure how habitable it is, but it's maybe a bit larger than Earth."
"It's worth a try," I said.
"Why are we still searching for more habitable planets?" Sharon asked.
"I would like to find out where all the humans went," I said. "So far, we've only found a few."
"Maybe the lizard aliens killed them for food," Sharon said.
"I could believe that they did that to a million or so, but not nine billion."
"So, you think that the majority of Earth's human population were removed from the planet and not killed off by climate change," Janet said.
"Yes. It's obvious that removing humans from Earth stopped climate change before it killed them off."
"When do we have to go into hyperspace?" I asked.
"Anytime," she replied.
I stood up. "Let's do it."
We joined to strap into our G-chairs and then waited until the wheels stopped turning and locked into place before the engines were fired up for the burn that would put us in hyperspace.
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I looked over at Kali and saw that she wasn't all that bothered by the G-forces, probably because she was used to it as a combat astronaut.
When it was over and the wheels began turning again, we unstrapped and went back to our usual jobs. Janet and Sharon spent their time at the command station working on improving the astronomy equipment. Natale and Bridget spent time exercising. Kali seemed interested in hanging out with me down in the engineering deck.
I sat down at the engineering command station and began scanning for any possible defects. Kali sat down next to me and watched.
"Have you explored what's on this deck?"
I turned to look back at her. "I suppose I haven't explored it all that well. I'm only interested in the status of the engines and the antimatter production equipment. I have to admit that I was not aware of the auto-doctor."
"There's a small pool for doing exercises," she said. "It has a pump to cause a steady current."
"I did not know that," I said. I stood up. "Let's go check it out."
We entered a doorway to what appeared to be a processing plant with lots of pipes and pumps.
"This is where the water is processed for recycling," I said.
