We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

There are two technological developments that will affect how we go about exploring the cosmos: communications and transportation. The first and most obvious technology is the drive system. Have we developed faster-than-light transport? Do we have a reactionless drive? Wormholes? Teleportation? How long it takes to get from A to B affects not only the cost of the enterprise, but whether or not it’s even possible to transport people.

Unfortunately, in the end, whether or not we do this will depend more on whether we have the political will to do so than anything else. Barring significant advances in technology or some dramatic scientific discovery, the costs will be far too high for anything less than a global effort.

… Lawrence Vienn, from the Convention panel Exploring the Galaxy

I slid into the Epsilon Eridani system at a couple of percent of light-speed. I was approaching the system from stellar north, that being the pole where the star, like Earth, was rotating counterclockwise. I took multiple consecutive images of the area around the star, looking for points of light that moved from one picture to the next. At my current velocity, any planets would show significant apparent motion against the backdrop of the galaxy.

My mission profile was to look for habitable planets, or failing that to look for almost habitable planets that could be modified or at least lived on with some technical assistance.

I deployed SUDDAR as well, although it was only able to detect dense objects within a light-hour radius. I didn’t really expect to find anything. At this distance from the star, even Kuiper objects would be rare.

It would take twelve days to cross the system from one end to the other, but I had no intention of coasting for that long. The stellar catalog indicated that there should be at least one Jovian planet, which shouldn’t be too hard to locate. As soon as I identified a second planet, I’d have the three points necessary to identify the probable ecliptic plane.

It took less than two days to locate several planets. Given the spacing of their orbits, I doubted that I would find more. The system had two inner rocky planets, an inner asteroid belt, the Jovian planet, an outer asteroid belt, and a Neptune-like planet farther out in a highly elliptical orbit. There also appeared to be a significant Kuiper belt much farther out.

I wanted desperately to take a look at the two inner planets – even at the gas giant, for that matter. I was the first person to visit another stellar system, after all. Okay, person was debatable. But I had a limited time to prepare for company, and couldn’t take time out for sight-seeing.