Chapter 9

“Ready to drop from fast time?” Mithra asked.

“I’m ready, this one has been a strain the whole time.” I replied.

We were both watching the clock countdown. Next to it another display was showing the passage of time. With the arrival of IP5 & IP6 at Wolf 359 & Sirius early, and both at a 750x normal time, or what we were now calling fast time, or xft, which was more a joke reference on FTL than anything else, my powers were available for this speed trip.

IP9 was almost at its destination, Luyten’s Star. It was a system with confirmed planets, in a habitable zone. We were very excited, because IP9 was following a new probe routine. Every four days I had dropped a modified Super Hubble along the route to scout the system ahead. The last drop in the 17 day trip at 1500xft was only 5000 light hours out from the destination, and was about to happen.

The previous drop had shown that the previously detected super Earth of Luyten’s Star B was not a super Earth at all, but two similarly sized worlds in mutual orbit of each other. B1 and B2, as we were referring to them appeared on the screen as I conjured the fourth remote Hubble. Tyr and Ishtar were working together using his idea to use pearls at the focal point of the telescope, so that they could bring multiple sources together to one receiver. But for now we watched the stars move, as I tried to point it at where the double world should be.

There was a gasp as the planets came into view. They were both clearly visible, and they were very blue. I brought IP9 up to a much more comfortable 500xft, and headed towards the double B’s. I was about 23 hours away at that speed. The Hubble turned again to look at the other worlds. The inner world was also Earth sized, but it appeared to be a large Mercury analog, all rock no atmosphere.

The outer two had already been identified as Neptune analogs, even though both were slightly smaller. A fifth planet, a super giant Jupiter analog that was almost a proper brown dwarf, had also been discovered. It was at the farthest edge of the system, so far out that it was undetectable using the radial velocity of the star. Odin and Mithra had been very excited by the near brown dwarf as it gave them a new upper limit on the size of super Jupiters.

“Turn it back on the double Bs,” I said.

The screen shifted and the two worlds came back on the screen. “What do you think, habitable?”

“If there’s enough water, it’s habitable. It’s at the inner edge of the estimated habitable zone,” Odin said.

“It’s got water. Liquid water and water vapor clouds. I’m not seeing any landmasses,” Mithra said.

“They are taking turns shading each other,” Odin added.

“Until we spot a surface feature we won’t know if they are tidally locked. I’m guessing they are, but the rotation of the two around each other is about 37 hours,” Mithra continued.

“Isn’t that twice the orbital period?” I asked.

“Yes,” they both agreed.

“So if tidally locked, then they are orbiting around a central point.”

“They are actually orbiting each other, but it appears that they both are spinning around the same central point.”

“The distance between them won’t be fixed either, it’ll shrink and grow as they spin and circle their star.”

“I have oxygen in the atmosphere!” Odin announced to cheers and applause from the rest of the staff on Proxima Station.

“Both planets?” I asked.

“Just the one nearest, at the moment it’s blocking the view of the other. I should be able to check it in about three hours.”

“What’s the atmosphere composition?”

“Nitro/Oxy mix. Don’t have a percentage yet, that will be determined next.”

“I’ve got an ozone layer, but it’s really high up.”

“What altitude?” I asked.

“Around 90km.”

I looked that up compared to Earth. That was very high. “So a very thick atmosphere?” I guessed.

“That’s right, three times too high. We won’t be able to measure mass until we are closer, but both are definitely more massive than Earth. Physically larger too, so there is a chance gravity on the surface will be about the same. The surface might be Sea level, because we haven’t spotted any land yet, it’s all ocean so far.”

“I can build a floating city. I did one in Venus’s atmosphere.”

“Ooh, I want to go there,” Mithra said.

“It’s livable, but not habitable.”

“What’s that mean?” he asked.

“It’s got atmosphere, but no food, water, or life. It also doesn’t have electricity or lights.”

“How high up?”

“55km,”

“Nice temperature then. Even some sunlight on occasion.”

“It was like living in Seattle, constant hydrochloric acid rain.”

“I’d still like to visit. A city riding in the air might be the ideal answer here. A floating city at a high enough altitude will have amazing views and bearable pressure.”

“Or I could just reduce the atmosphere. It’s thick enough that I could carve out a chunk to give to Mars.”

“I’m glad everyone has talked you out of terraforming any planets in the solar system,” Mithra admitted.

“Why is that?”

“It would only start a war. As long as Mars is hard to live on no country sees another getting a big advantage by landing first. They know after it’s been done once, they are free to copy the method and go themselves at reduced cost and risk.

They also know conditions will be harsh, and have little obvious benefit. No one’s gone to Mars because no one has figured out how to make it pay.”

I couldn’t disagree. A suddenly liveable Mars would trigger a land rush war that would spread across two worlds. My original solution was to have Switzerland claim Mars first, but even that didn’t seem like a viable option anymore. If I wanted to terraform a world in the Sol system I’d also have to turn it into a fortress, allowing only immigrants who were willing to be independent, and would divorce themselves from Earth politics and squabbles. Too many people on Earth to risk triggering a global war.

“33% oxygen, 64% nitrogen, 3% other.” Odin reported.

“Is that livable?”

“No. If pressure at the surface is three times Earth pressure then especially no.”

“Finally a world I can terraform!” I said gleefully.

“That thick atmosphere might be the only way to protect surface life from the stellar radiation.”

“You think there’s life?”

“I think it’s a greater than 90% probability. You don’t get that much free oxygen just from the disassociation of water.”

“So if there’s life, do I terraform, or do I let it evolve in its natural habitat. Intelligent life of course gets left alone no matter what.”