Outward Borne by R. J. Weinkam Read Free Book Online Page B

ObLa for twenty years. They were now
expecting something in return. The Primaforms had already
established communications with several distant civilizations and
were always keen on finding new contacts.
    The Primaforms had never left the
surface of their own planet. They lacked the resources necessary to
travel to other stars, but they shared what they knew and that
enabled ObLa to begin interplanetary communications with all six of
their contacts. Immediately, minus a few decades of lag time, a
wave of knowledge and innovation swept over ObLa. Communications
with alien species, and the continued stream of information from
those distant life forms, held the interest of the ObLaDas for
centuries. Revelations about alien beings and their planets were
reported and followed with cult-like intensity. Through all of that
time ObLa, like the other communicators, continued to search for
new contacts.
    There are three hundred billion
stars in our galaxy. The well-known assumptions about the number of
stable stars, the prevalence of planets around each star, the
fraction of planets that had a constant climate and abundant supply
of water, and the probability that life would spontaneously
originate given the right environment, all lead to the belief that
there should be a billion planets in the galaxy that could support
life and even civilizations.
    In fact, knowledge of the six
known alien planets dramatically increased the estimated
probability, for they sprung from diverse origins and not some
highly specific or unusual condition that might be supposed. The
collected knowledge strongly supported the fact that planets are
common to the majority of stars and that water is also a common
commodity within most solar systems. The presence of a continuous
life-consistent climate over billions of years was rare, but some
evidence suggested that abundant life forms could help maintain the
required stability once they reached an adequate
density.
    Still, amongst the rampant spawn
of life, there seemed to be remarkably few technologically advanced
civilizations, that is to say, ones capable of radio transmission.
There should be millions. Why then could they only find six planets
that could operate a radio? Radio transmission is not a
particularly challenging of technology, so this was a puzzle. Over
the centuries that followed, a few new contacts were made and the
network of advanced civilizations gradually increased, but that
increase was not without setbacks. Most troubling to the ObLaDas
were those planets that initiated communications, but within a few
centuries ceased to broadcast. The brief appearance then the sudden
or unexplained disappearance of advanced planets led some ObLaDa’s
to believe that technology might contribute to the self-destruction
of its own society. If the survival time of an advanced species
were a few thousand years, instead of the thirty million years
typical of most successful species, it would severely limit the
number of advanced societies that were active at any given time.
This question captivated the people of ObLa. Their interest in all
things space and natural drive to care for their fellow beings, led
the ObLaDas to build the machines that would take them from star to
star to encounter intelligent life throughout the
galaxy.

 
     
     
    Chapter 6 The Outward
Voyager
     
    Dead or undead, that was the
question? Robotic ships would be easier to construct and much, much
less expensive than any ‘manned’ craft. At the maximum theoretical
speed of their propulsion system, 0.217 LightSpeed, it would take
years to travel from star to star, and decades to find the next
life-harboring planet. An uninhabited ship could be shut down and
cruise those long times and immense distances with little cost, but
that was not an option, it would not be good enough.
    The mission would be too complex.
There would be too many unknown and unpredictable problems to be
solved, and if aliens, wholly unknown beings, were to be