Chapter 12

Sean was outside studying the night sky; it had been nearly two years since the discovery of the Doomsday Meteor, as they were calling it. If you had a powerful enough telescope, you could see it high to the east in the night sky. It appeared as a bright dot moving slightly faster than the surrounding stars. The statement Brooke made about it being a ship still had him thinking, could this be something other than a meteor and, if it were an alien ship, what would that mean for mankind?

He thought back to every science fiction book he had ever read on aliens coming to Earth; most stories ended with outcomes that were not very favorable. Either Earth was enslaved by hideous creatures or destroyed by greedy intelligent life forms, neither of which appeared to be a good thing to Sean. There were a few tales that included the benevolent and wise creatures who tried to save humanity from himself. Ultimately, however, they were never too successful and ended up taking over for the benefit of the poor, incompetent earthlings. He wished he had someone to whom he could go and get an answer about the possibility of space aliens without them thinking he needed professional help. A thought occurred to him, and he started to call Kirkwood but decided to wait until morning.

Sean arrived early at his office and again started to dive back into the routine of his work; he had a directors’ meeting scheduled for the afternoon and needed them to decide if the offer made by Kirkwood would be to their benefit. He, of course, was impressed with the idea, but the board and the shareholders were the ones who would ultimately determine the course of the company. He knew that, for the most part, they would follow his lead. But what would having the largest company in the world mean?

Kirkwood called before noon; Sean had utterly forgotten about calling him. The time seemed to slip right by him.

“Mr. Kirkwood, sorry I forgot to get back in touch with you.”

“It’s okay, son. I was calling to twist your arm a little and see if you won’t give me an update on the merger plan.”

“Well, the board meets this afternoon. They make their recommendation, and then we will send it out for a vote at an emergency shareholders meeting. I figure we should be able to have a deal by next month.”

“That’s good work, Sean; I like to hear that.”

Sean made an excuse to hang up and then went to lunch. He had an appointment with Tom and Thomas Hardy Sr., and it was while he was on his way to lunch that an idea began to sprout. How hard would it be to build a spaceship and explore and colonize another planet? What would they need to be successful, other than a suitable location, of course? Sean figured that if he could pull off the merger of Whitten and LDC, he would be able to finance and research a suitable planet, build a space colony ship, and explore the solar system. He wanted a significant challenge to keep him interested in the company.

Mr. Hardy Sr. was shocked and taken aback by the idea and intrigued that if it could be done without government money, as a private enterprise, there might be massive potential for profit. Man was already mining space why not go to the next level? The moon colony had proved to be a success, something that Thomas had privately thought would blow up in old Kirkwood’s face. Still, it hadn’t, and now it looked like his successor was going to dream even larger, and he wanted more than just a few supply contracts; he wanted to be the company that Whitten had been to LDC. He wanted to be a partner, even if it cost him his whole fortune to buy in. But he also realized that there would have to be an incredible amount of research before anyone went forward in this endeavor.

He also cautioned Sean not to talk to too many people about this plan. He said that they would need to complete the merger before they brought this plan to the table. Also, he didn’t want to scare the markets; news like this without the proper foundation would cause turmoil in the stock prices for not only LDC and The Whitten Companies but also for many smaller companies that supplied or provided services to those companies. And that could hurt the smaller ones.

The Drone was nearing the midpoint of the preprogrammed flight path. It noticed that the planet’s moon was no longer uninhabited. It was able to make this determination because radio and satellite signals were being transmitted from it as well as being directed toward it. That indicated that the people of this system had accomplished the colonization of its moon, the first step to the colonization of surrounding planets. So, it modified its flight path so that it could explore the planets closest to the habitable zone for these people; it quickly determined that the logical choice for in-system colonization would be the fourth planet from the sun. It took a special interest in that planet when it passed by it. It was noticed that the earth possibly had a very primitive colony; there was evidence of canals and structures. But they appeared abandoned, and the canals appeared empty. So, if the planet had been colonized, it had failed for some reason. It sent this message to the High Command and sent a summary of its conclusions. Then, it sent a copy to the ship.