Journey
Copyright© 2015 by Old Man with a Pen
Chapter 12
Vee had another idea, "Have you ever checked the outliers?" she asked April.
"Outliers?" April asked, "What are those?"
"The stars not in a galaxy ... they seems to have several ... between or even fairly close but a few thousand light years beyond the bulk of a galaxy. Some of them are right in the middle."
"Middle?"
"Half way between this galaxy and that one ... like that star ... the yellow dwarf. Yeah ... that one."
"Nope, never have ... they didn't seem important ... no grouping. Wanna go look?"
"I wouldn't have mentioned it if I didn't want to look," Vee said.
"Oh ... oh ... oh ... OK," April thought and they were there.
It wasn't one star it was four ... like the corners of a box... 2 light years apart ... perfect. Four yellow dwarfs with systems ... one with seven planets in the comfort zone ... all moving at the same speed. It was as if they were tied by cord ... like a gaucho's bolo. Two even had moons ... plural.
"I think that looks a little like Los Angeles in gridlock. You know, when an astronomer speaks of near misses he's talking about a hundred thousand miles," Gary said. "That's probably ... whoa! See!"
"What?" Vee asked.
That was a field of reasonably sized boulders almost like Saturn's Rings and they acted like they were playing musical chairs ... when one missed a spot ... billiards!
Those that didn't find a place to sit caromed off and headed in all directions. A closer look at that particular system showed streaks of golden sparks as the night time fireworks of burning iron meteors struck the atmosphere.
"You know, that's not all that bad," said Vee. "Earth gets thousands of meteors an hour... 15 thousand tons a year ... most of them don't hit the globe ... the odds of being struck are one in two hundred thousand ... and they're pretty."
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