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Nautilus had stayed within a few kilometers of the Portal. The barge that had been loaded with all the instruments used for watching the speed trials was still on board. The longest delay was to simply unbury it from the cargo hold. Within three hours a temporary airlock had been built and it was being shoved out the old engine machinery hatch back by the smelters in the ass end of the Nautilus.
“Ok Jed, the barge is two minutes from the event horizon,” Oliver informed. Jed had convinced everyone to call the phenomenon an event horizon. For now, at least. Oliver preferred Portal but it wasn’t worth fighting his brother over.
“Mag field is up, and the event horizon just opened,” Jed called out.
There was a long pause of silence as the barge approached and passed through.
“Everyone, I want to make a small change to the program. First, we will let it do a few circles to identify the star field, but then I want to shut it down to see if the Q comm can still reach us. If it can, I will want to do a series of static gravity readings. If something is over there accelerating, we should be able to see the effects.” Jed explained, “What I mean is if there are other spacecraft of a similar size to us or bigger, we should be able to see their gravity anomalies as they move.”
“Great idea. Why haven’t we done that before?” Marco wanted to know.
“I did do this once to see if it works but didn’t see the need to continue. We know where all our spaceships are at any time. Now I am not so sure even about our own system. Maybe we should set up some listening probes.” Jed replied, “You know, just in case.”
“The stars have been recorded,” Babs said, “Go ahead and do your thing, Jed.”
“This will take an hour or so. While it is running let’s see if the Q comm will reach us with the event horizon closed,” Jed said and shut down the Portal.
“Cameras are still working,” Babs reported.
“Same with my set of instruments,” Ariel confirmed.
“Great. Let’s leave it down for now. It may or may not attract something’s attention.” Oliver said, “Al, how long to get a correlation on the starfield?”
“Within eighty-five percent probability, I have already identified the red dwarf star as being in the earth’s star charts thirty-two light-years from here. The cameras picked up five planets and an asteroid belt between the third and fourth planets. The Portal on that side is also in the asteroid belt near a large asteroid analogous to Ceres. Jed’s gravity survey will also tell us about the size and density of the planets in that system.” Al completed.
“Any planets or moons that could be inhabited by humans?” Oliver continuing his discussion with Al.
“Nothing in the famous Goldilocks Zone. I don’t know about the Bear family zone.”
“Good one Al.” Babs smiled, “Work up a basic survey of the system while we get a snack and jawbone this in the mess.”
Everyone had been working hard getting the barge ready and it was dinner time.
“One question sticks in my mind. Is there more than one Portal, sorry Jed, in a system?” Dr. Lee put forward, “Jed saw anomalous particle emissions. We should set up a search grid across Sol and that system. “
“There is a large asteroid over there similar to Ceres.” Ariel pointed out, “First let’s see if there is a base in that one too.”
“I want a basic survey done before we leave to get more instrumentation and people. This thing has been there a long time. I doubt it will go away. Let’s go someplace to relax while we look over the data and plan.” Oliver said.
“Beach?” Babs proposed. “How long we going to record for a basic survey?”
“Other ideas?” Oliver polled.
“Beach” Ariel voted.
Oliver looked around and everyone was nodding at least a little.
“Ok, then fish and lobster.” Oliver said, “Al set up a one-day survey while we wait here with the objective of understanding why there is a Portal to that system. First on the list is if the nearby asteroid has a base.”
The crew trooped off to the mess to get dinner instead of a snack. About ten minutes later as everyone sat down with their food, Al had some preliminary information.
“Just passed by the asteroid and there is a very large gouge like Ceres. But there are no caves in the walls of the gouge. May have been a base but it was completely wiped out.” Al reported, “Going on a walkabout. When there is more data, I will add it to the hologram file.”
“Did you detect any non-natural movements?” Jed asked.
“No”
“Well let’s see what tomorrow brings,” Oliver said as he started shoveling mashed potatoes and gravy.
The data compiled to show new characteristics every few hours. The next day the crew gathered in the conference room. Al presented his survey.
“This appears to be a lifeless system with a few very good natural resources.” Al began, “The first planet is large, rocky with two Gs at the surface and tidally locked. Burned on one side, frozen on the other. The second planet has no atmosphere and doesn’t seem to have been tectonically active. It is about double in size of Mars with point seven Gs at the surface. This planet could be expected to have a large accumulation of Helium 3. The third planet is similar but a little smaller. Again, probably covered in Helium 3. The asteroid belt is composed of dense clusters, so mining would be easier than in our system. There is a much higher percentage of metal type asteroids. This is a very rich field. The two gas giants are both a bit smaller than Saturn. Their moons are just a small collection of captured asteroids. All in all, this is a very good system for a mining colony.”
“And no sign of another Portal?” Dr. Lee asked.
“Not in this survey,” Al replied, “What now?”
“If we don’t have any special requests, just keep circulating and compiling data,” Oliver said. “My crew is due some time off. Calculate a course for Earth orbit.”
The next day Oliver called a ship wide meeting. Everyone who was awake and not needed at a duty station gathered in the old missile bay. Others, who were unable to join, listened in via ship speakers. Oliver explained what they had found. Access to a new solar system. Then the good part.
“At the board’s discretion when a major find happens, we may award a bonus to those directly involved. This is one of those cases. We will award one hundred non-voting shares to each crewman aboard the Nautilus. That should be equal to about one-half year’s pay,” Oliver announced over the ship’s speakers. This brought a small cheer throughout the ship.
That was the easy part. Now he had to inform the outside world. The world still had not come to grips with the new access to the moon and Mars. Interstellar access was going to be a whole magnitude more dramatic.
