CHAPTER 43
November 28, 2099 (Earth timeline)
November 26, 2096 (Ship timeline)
approximately 4.14 light-years from Earth
0.1 light-years from Proxima
Captain Crosby had been awake for the last three months. It had been his plan all along to be on the last awake team as they made their final approach to the Proxima system. For those three months he and Bob Roca had been studying over the last unscrambled data from the SGLT and from the telescope and sensor systems onboard the Samaritan. All of the imagery of the system and data from astronomers from Proxima led them to the conclusion that there were at least seven planets there of appreciable size. There were no gas giants, as was expected from the red dwarf star. Proxima b was right where it was supposed to be at about 7.5 million kilometers from the star. It looked to be right at 1.17 times the mass of the Earth and it was slightly inclined in its orbit about the star by a little more than a couple of degrees. The eccentricity of the planet’s orbit was about 0.3, causing it to be in what was known as a spin-resonance orbit. The planet took about eleven days to orbit its star and had a day that lasted about twenty-two Earth days, which was confusing because the planet actually rotated about its axis once every seven and a half days.
Crosby focused on the details that were important, not the orbital mechanics per se, but more of the practical knowledge. Day and night on Proxima b were about twenty-two Earth days each. A Proxima b solar year was about eleven Earth days long. There was more. There were two small moons orbiting Proxima b that were roughly the size of Phobos and Deimos orbiting Mars back home. The nearest planet, Proxima d, was actually about half the distance closer to Proxima and was small and rocky, about a third the mass of Earth. Farther out, at about one and a half the distance of the Earth from Sol, was a very large super Earth-type planet astronomers had called Proxima c. It was about seven times the mass of Earth. It had several moons.
“Captain Crosby, medical here.” Crosby tapped at a control on his chair. He looked out the viewscreen as they approached through the system from its Oort Cloud. They had actually done it. They were literally entering another star system far away from home. 4.244 light-years away from home.
“Crosby here, Doc. Go ahead,” he said.
“The last of the cryobeds has been cycled,” Kopylova told him over the comm net.
“Understood, Doc. When Dr. Burbank is able, tell him to report to the bridge.”
“Affirmative, Captain. Medical out.”
“Bob, is there liquid water anywhere else in the system?” Crosby watched as Roca zoomed through various spectrographs, images, and particle sensors. “What about methane ices or carbon dioxide ices?”
“This is a fairly rocky system, Captain. I think we’ll be better off mining for gold than for water,” Roca replied. “But there might be some water in places on the Proxima c or its moons. If it is tidally active there might be volcanic activity under the surface heating some of the ice.”
“Maybe we should get Gilster and Shavers doing some astronomy and analysis on the system once we get settled in. Maybe they can help us with that,” Crosby thought aloud. “How about the other rocky planets farther out? Anything useful?”
“Without doing magnetometry and/or ground penetrating radar, Cap’n, I couldn’t really say. Maybe as we fly closer in, we might use the four Earth masses planet way out here as a fly-by to bleed off some of our velocity vector. We could do some radar analysis then.”
“How long will that take, Bob?”
“Probably like a day?”
“Let’s do that. In fact, let’s do a complete system survey of every planet from the seventh one in. We’ll take this next two weeks getting to know the system. Also, we’ll start an open near-real-time dialogue with the Proximans before we just show up in orbit around their planet saying, ‘Take us to your leader.’” Crosby laughed. “I’d rather take this slow.”
“As you wish, Captain. I’ll work up the best trajectory for maximum survey.”
“Get Gilster and Shavers on that too. They’re the two astrophysics experts on the team,” Crosby ordered. “What’s the use in having a science team if we don’t put them to work?”
“On it, sir.”
“Captain Crosby to Dr. Maggie Oliveira-Santos.” Crosby tapped the icons for ship-wide communication.
“Hello, Captain. Maggie here.”
“Could you please report to the bridge, Doctor?”
“Certainly, sir. Is it urgent or can I finish up with lunch?” Crosby muttered under his breath how the damned scientists didn’t understand ship protocols. When a captain asked for something done, dammit, he wanted something done. But, hell, Crosby had a crew of eggheads who weren’t space vets. He had to recall that almost every single time he dealt with them. He was beginning to recall why he had them all sleep most of the way there.
“Dr. Oliveira-Santos, finish your lunch, but report to the bridge as soon as you can following that,” he said begrudgingly.
“Aye aye, Captain,” the linguistics expert responded jovially.
“Crosby out.” He looked up and noticed Roca staring at him bewildered. “You have something to add, Mr. Roca?”
“Um, no, Cap’n, nothing at all.” Roca turned and kept his mouth shut.
“Bob, as soon as Santos gets here, have her wait ten minutes. I’ll be in my ready room twiddling my damned thumbs. Then come get me,” Crosby said. “See if she gets the damned point.”