Local Date: 02517-09-14T04:41:37 (Tuesday, September 14, 02517, 4:41 AM)
From: Vanda Escamilla (v.escamilla@records.stineslegacy.ship.ithacus.star)
Subject: Did someone misplace a planet around JDSPS2401.4.718L?
Hello out there. I am Vanda Escamilla, historian and records officer on the
ark ship Stine's Legacy. Pardon me if I do not comment yet on what I've had
time to read in the QEC logs. Because as perplexing and confounding as the
messages I've skimmed through have been we have a mystery of our own. You
see when the our voyage was being planned we were very careful to pick a
destination which would serve our needs and yet be unlikely to be attractive
to anyone else. The place we named the Ithacus System (catalog number
JDSPS2401.4.718L) was picked for the evidence of an asteroid belt and no
habitable planets. The surveys didn't even show planets which looked
promising for terraforming.
Why then do our telescopes show a near Earth sized planet that was not on
any of the telescopic survey observations? A near Earth sized planet which
is showing the lights of settlements when the night side is viewed.
Despite only seven of us being awake yet and Captain Nath saying not to do
so we now have a betting pool just what has happened. I've put an hour each
of kitchen and housekeeping duty down on a human Luddite colony seeing as
how we have not picked up a single radio broadcast. The same wager on someone
tampering with the Jovian Deepsky Planet Survey data. Marian, he's the medical
officer among those of us who woke up, put a but on a navigation error leading
us to the wrong destination. Sorry Marian, but too much matches up with what
we expected. Just so long as you ignore the unexpected planet.
If I'm wrong about the inhabitants of Ithacus IV being Luddites and you happen
to be reading this, Good News, we are not here for your planet. We don't want
your pile of dirt. We're here to embrace the vacuum of the Ithacus System.
If you see a new wandering star in the sky in the next months that will be
us. Soon the sky will blossom with habitats. You can settle for the ground
we just want the sky.
gemini://cosmic.voyage/Stines Legacy/stine_0002.txt