Chapter 11: Is Anybody Out There?

We paid a cautious visit to the Groombridge 34 system. After putting some serious distance between us, we reported back to Earth via linked Q-bits. We found more evidence of a space-faring culture, but again all evidence pointed towards the system being deserted.

We were tasked to visit all the other stars in our local cluster with a large proper motion--stars that were moving 'against the herd' as it were. We visited eight more stars with similarly abnormal vectors, all within fifteen light years of Sol. Every damned one of them had evidence of a space-faring culture that had dried up and blown away. We also found evidence of stellar power taps in each system. I convinced the captain that discretion was the better part of valor, and that caution was a survival skill. He agreed. We reported in over Q-bit links, then returned to Tau Ceti to mine enough rare-earths that we'd pay off a respectable percentage of our ship's construction fees.

We had asteroid mining down to an art form. We used the ship's reactionless drive in concert with our high-powered tractor beams to increase the density of areas in the drift. Then the mining ships went out to Hoover up the ores. It worked like clockwork. We were overloaded with rare earths once again, but this time it only took us seven months. The Miranda company actually had to stockpile the refined metals we brought back so as not to glut the market and cause the prices to plummet.