Chapter No. 48. New Discovery.

Kali and I were sitting in the robot shelter on the agricultural deck talking about our situation when we were disturbed by noises.

"What the hell!" Kalie said. "That's Janet and Sharon running through the crops naked."

"I assumed it would be Natale and Bridget doing that," I said.

"Maybe they want more of your attention," she said with a grin.

"Actually, it's because they really don't have anything to do while we're in hyperspace," I said. "It's almost as if time is rebelling against us because we violate it."

She grinned. "We should run around in this deck naked."

I gestured to the crops. "You can do that if you wish. I think I'll just sit here and enjoy the scenery."

She laughed, but then she settled down.

I didn't see her the next day except when I went to the agricultural deck to relax That's when I saw her running au natural through the crops. I don't know if she was doing it to tease me or just that she was bored.

The remaining days were not as crazy. Hyperspace had a way of causing everyone to become lethargic. Maybe it was because our atoms were not interested in getting too excited when they were in a time freeze.

When we strapped into the G-chairs to do the burn that would take us out of hyperspace, we really had no idea what we would find, especially when we didn't know what timeline we were in.

It didn't take Janet and Sharon that long to figure out where we were headed to.

"We're on course to the habitable planet orbiting a K-class star, sir," Janet said. "We'll need a burn to do an orbital insertion in another hour and fifteen minutes."

"We're too far out to get much data on the planet, sir," Sharon said. "However, it does have oxygen in its atmosphere and its temperature is within normal levels."

I stood up. "Let me know if anything changes."

"We will, sir," Janet said.

Natale, Bridget and Kali had already gone to their bunks. I hesitated a moment while standing back of Janet and Sharon. "Did you ladies enjoy your run through the agricultural deck?"

They both turned to look at me with surprised expressions.

"Did you enjoy our run, sir?" Janet asked with a teasing smile.

"I enjoy all aspects of raw nature," I said in a calm tone.

"Are you going to discipline us?" Sharon asked.

"I don't do disciplines. That's Kali's job."

They giggled, mostly because they realized I was just teasing them.

I walked back to the food station and sat down with Kali for a brunch consisting of a sausage bun and a beer.

"Are you going to ask me If I enjoyed your run through the agricultural deck?" I asked Kali.

"Yeah," she said with a sigh. "I got carried away."

"There's nothing wrong with that once in a while."

She blew out a disgusted breath. "Nah, it's stupid."

"Not to change the subject, but we need to determine a way to know if we're in the right timeline."

"What is the right timeline?" she asked. "If there are an infinite number of timelines, we have no idea if we are in a timeline with only a tiny almost imperceptible change."

I sighed. "Yeah, you have a good point there."

"Maybe the planet we're heading to will have a clue to what timeline we're in."

"That's possible."

"Anything is possible," she said.

We did the orbital insertion burn and prepared for the arrival to a planet we knew very little about.

"This planet is mostly an ocean world, but it has a sizable island about the size of Australia below the equator and several other islands along the equator," Sharon reported.

"I'm getting strong chlorophyl peaks in the planet's spectra," Janet said. "This planet appears to be able to support life."

"The planet orbits at the outer edge of the habitable zone," Sharon said. "It has sizable polar ice caps but most of the oceans are still liquid."

"Are there any signs of fresh-water lakes?" I asked.

"Yes, the main island has a large lake."

"Good. We need to take on water."

"We're in orbit now, sir," Janet said.

"I'm not detecting any electromagnetic or quantum signals," Natale said.

"There is no activity down there," Janet said. "But there is evidence of ruins."

"What sort of ruins?" I asked.

"They appear to be stone statues that look a lot like sphinx."

"Say what?"

"I'll put it on the main screen, sir."

"I'll be darned! How in the hell would Egyptian statues end up on a planet this far from Earth?"

"Maybe it's part of this timeline we're in, sir," Janet said.

"Yeah, we can blame everything on that," I said sarcastically.

"I don't see anything that would suggest a threat, sir," Sharon said. "Although, there could be things much smaller than I can make out."

"I suppose it'll be Bridget and me, right?" Kali said.

"Yes, but I don't like this. It doesn't make sense."

"Nothing we've explored has made sense," Kali retorted.

I smiled at her. "Like running in the agricultural deck naked?"

She grinned. "That too!"

We laughed.

"Technically, we weren't completely naked, sir," Janet said. "We were wearing shoes."

I chuckled. "Saved by a technicality."

They laughed.

Kali, Bridget and I went up to the hanger and boarded the shuttle. I had Kali fly it down to the planet, a perk that she liked. She landed near the ruins, which consisted of standing columns and the remains of what appeared to be temples. After we disembarked, we walked to the remains of a temple that contained a statue.

"Definitely resembles an Egyptian sphinx," Bridget said. "Although, there are some Greek aspects in it."

"I can't imagine how something like this could end up here on this lonely planet hundreds of light years from Earth."

"What I don't understand is why an obvious intelligent species has gone extinct on a planet that seems quite habitable," Kali said.

"Hey, I found something!" Bridget yelled.

Kali and I went over to her. She was looking at something very strange. It was metallic and round with what looked like spheres connected to arms that radiated from the edge of the instrument. The spheres were decorated with star fields.

"That looks like an astrolabe," I said after picking it up. "Although, it's not quite like the ancient Greek and Arabic instruments I've seen."

"This might be a time calculator," Bridget said. "There's a date scale on it."

"Yes, you're right. I think we should take this up to the ship and analyze it more thoroughly."

"Good idea, sir."

We searched around the ruins but found nothing else of interest. The strange thing about the ruins is that they had no evidence of who actually lived here and built all of it.

We returned to the ship and I allowed Bridget to take the astrolabe and study it. Despite her immaturity, she was the smartest crew member on our ship. In fact, she was probably a genius. It proved that intelligence can come in many different packages.

The next day, Kali and I went to the hanger and boarded the water-tank shuttle. Again, I allowed her to do the driving down to the planet. She landed it near the shore of a large freshwater lake. We got out and wasted no time in deploying large hoses to suck up water while filtering it.

We decided to walk around the area near the lake. It was a chilly day but not that bad. The K-class star provided a more yellowish tint to everything, but it was not as bad as the light from a red dwarf star.

I saw Kali draw out her laser pistol and activate it.

"What's wrong?"

"I saw something move in the tress over there," she said, pointing to a dense cluster of blueish-green broad leaved trees.

I activated my pistol, but I didn't see anything. "What was it?"

"I'm not sure. I just saw some leaves move and what looked like a person."

We slowly walked to the location of the disturbance, but when we got there, nothing of interest remained.

"Maybe I'm seeing things," she said.

"Maybe there are sizable animals on this planet," I said.

Kali turned to walk away, but I hesitated and saw a creature spring out of the brush and lunge for Kali. I shot it just before it got to her.

"What the fuck!"

"It looks like you did see something," I said.

We looked at the creature lying on the ground. My shot had hit it directly between its amphibian-like eyes. It reminded me of the Creature from the Black Lagoon, a human-like amphibian.

"This thing looks like a monster from a Sci-Fi movie," she said.

"Yeah, pretty much." I looked around. "We had better get out of these woods. There could be more of these around here.

We walked back to the shuttle and looked out at the lake.

"Nice lake," I said.

"Yes, it is," she replied. "It's nice to be able to look out at something natural like this."

"I agree. Our view of nature is limited to the crops on the agricultural deck."

Kali pointed at something. "What the hell is that?"

I retrieved binoculars from my belt pouch and zeroed in on what she was looking at. "I don't believe this."

"What?"

"It looks like a mermaid." I handed the binocular to her.

"That doesn't make sense," she said. "Mermaids are mythical creatures."

"Maybe they aren't in this timeline."

"They can't be the aliens that built the ruins," she said. "They're an aquatic species."

"We have nothing to go on when it comes to these ruins. For all we know this aquatic species killed off the aliens that built the ruins."

"Are we going to study these . . . mermaids?"

"No. We don't belong in this timeline and it would take a lot of effort to study something that lives mostly in the water."

"Yeah, we're not equipped for that."

I hated the idea of just leaving the planet without a more thorough study, but we just wouldn't gain anything from it. Besides, I didn't like the idea of killing things.

After we had filled both tanks with filtered water, we flew back up to the ship. Kali got the shuttle into the hanger without any damage and we hooked up the hoses that the robots on the engineering deck would use to pump the water to where it was needed.

Kali and I decided not to discuss what we had seen on the planet. However, Bridget had something to tell us that would change everything.