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."

"Well, let's check the other three stars," suggested April.

The other systems had un-occupied copies of earth in the zone. One had hominids so closely resembling earthlings ... Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal existing in adjacent caves and interacting. The peoples had common language and skills. They were not planet wide. There was an Island Continent reminiscent of Australia ... but better weather ... that was devoid of any possible intelligent life. It had immense grassy plains teeming with herbivorous in the center watered by rivers from snowy high mountains and lovely beaches on the coast.

"Ooh ... I could live here," said Vee.

April took samples and kept her findings secret.

"Mom, if I didn't know better, I'd say that that planet is a parallel earth ... or a dimensional one. It's so close ... there's even oil, gold, silver, lots of iron and coal. There is an active volcanic center and the oceans have almost the chemistry of earth a hundred thousand years ago. It's perfect ... too perfect ... and ... it's a hundred thousand light years from the nearest galaxy. They couldn't ask for more ... well ... they could but they're not going to get it."

"Ok, April. Now tell me the bad."

"The moon was inhabited ... maybe a thousand years ago ... had an atmosphere, poles with ice caps, cities ... transportation ... an effective government ... a decent day/night rotation ... now it's a tidal lock. The side that doesn't exhibit has an enormous off side crater ... highly radioactive. Every thing that existed on that side is simply foundation holes. They pissed somebody off."