Chapter No.139. The Answer.

Sometimes you just have to take the bull by the horns.

After studying the images and sounds from the insect probes, I had to make a decision about making contact, but I still wasn't sure if this was a Tyco trick. The problem is with interpretation of the data.

"Let's look at this logically," I said. "If this is a trick, what should we look for to determine whether this is the case?"

"Tyco's usual tricks is to use antimatter explosives buried underground or somewhere outside the planet," Alexa said. "The problem with this is that we haven't detected anything like that."

"What if the antimatter is in the people?"

"That would be much more difficult to detect. However, we could alter the insect probes to determine that."

"Could we do that with programming?"

"Yes," Molly said. "I'm working on it."

It took her several minutes to change the code to detect antimatter in small amounts. She sent the code to the robotic insects via the probe, which hovered at several thousand meters above the city. The programmed insects soon went to work scanning people.

"I'm not detecting any antimatter in the people," Molly said. "They might still have chemical explosives in them."

"That wouldn't constitute a threat to us," I said. "Besides, these aren't androids. They're actual biological humans."

"We're back to square one," Margaret said.

"Let's think about this," Alexa said. "Why are these people on this weird planet in this ternary system? It's the last safe place to put humans. I don't think this is real."

We all turned to look at her.

"What if this is an illusion? What if we go down there and find out it's actually not what we think it is?"

"Wouldn't the insect probes discover that?" I asked.

"They're only devices. They could be easily deceived."

"That would suggest that this planet isn't what it appears to be," Molly said. "Creating a deception that elaborate would require one hell of a lot of energy and a very advanced shielding device."

"Ah!" I exclaimed. "I think you're found it, Watson!"

"We'll start a scan for an energy signal in the region of shielding," Molly said. "But I think it would take a large antimatter generator to shield an entire planet."

"What if he's using fusion?" I asked.

"I don't think it would be powerful enough . . . unless this isn't a planet we're orbiting."

"Move us out further, Judy." I said.

"I've lost contact with the insect probes," Margaret said. "Their temperature reading went off the scale just before I lost contact."

"I can't believe it," I said. "He figured out a way to cloak a star and make it appear to be a habitable planet."

"Using the power generated by a brown dwarf star would do it," Molly said.

"If we had gone down there . . . "

"We need to turn this thing off," Alexa said.

"I think I've discovered the control unit," Alicia said. "It's orbiting the star at a hundred thousand kilometers."

"How'd you find it?" I asked.

"I finally detected the signal that he's using to operate the cloaking system. The cloaking device is orbiting at twelve kilometers."

"I find that hard to believe. It would have to resist the heat from the star."

"The heat is being consumed by the cloaking system."

"See if you could determine the method he's using," I asked Molly.

"I'll try, but it won't be easy."

After some time, she had something. "Okay, it appears that the information needed to create a fake planet with people is being sent from the control unit to the cloaking device orbiting the star." She turned to Judy. "I'll need some help in determining the makeup of the control unit."

"We are scanning it now, Molly," she replied.

"The cloaking system is similar to what we use. It's able to distort space so that what appears can be manipulated. This system is just much larger and more powerful than the ones we use."

"We have the details of the control device, Molly."

"Good. Now we can destroy this system."

"Okay Madison, blast it."

A plasma ball shot out of the forward guns and the orbiting control device was destroyed. Suddenly, the brown dwarf star was fully visible.

"I believe that the data he was using to form this deception is real," Molly said.

"Which means that it came from a real planet with humans," I said.

"Exactly."

"Maybe that planet is in this galaxy," I said.

"Could be," Molly said. "I'll begin a search."

It wasn't until the next day that Molly found a candidate planet. It was in a dual star system with a G5 class dwarf star.

"Take us there, Judy."

When we arrived at the planet, what we found was so disturbing it only made us more determined than ever to destroy all traces of Tyco. What remained to be discovered was a method to accomplish that.

End of Part 14

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