The massive ship shuddered from another blast of the Bussard drive as it steadily decelerated on its approach into the Tau Ceti system. Sifting through the long-range sensor array data, Noah-9 dedicated a tiny fraction of his processing power to simulate a nearly perfect approximation of a human frown. There had to be an error – physics generally wouldn’t allow for a non-gaseous planet this size. Almost the size of Jupiter in the Sol system, but with terrestrial formations that resembled Earth? Mountains, rivers, oceans of apparent H2O? Not only impossible, but this sort of planet was not what was supposed to be waiting for them.

Before the ship's departure, 240 Earth years ago, the orbital telescope, Raleigh 2, had confirmed four super-Earth planets, with two being in the goldilocks zone. Additionally, the system was supposed to have one gas giant and six other icy planets and planetoids. Now, on approach, the long-range sensors showed just this one giant, impossible world. Noah deliberated, calculating thousands of scenarios, and finally decided to wake one of the colony technicians.

Five thousand humans were in cryo-stasis on the Pilgrim 9. Ensign Hall would not be happy to be awakened 17 months before orbit was established, but Noah-9 could not carry out the required troubleshooting of the long-range sensors on his own. He quickly initiated life support, flooding the habitation area with oxygen and raising the ambient temperature to 21 degrees Celsius. Noah-9 moved from the Data Bridge to the central elevator and “descended” to stasis bay 4. Therein slept the hundreds of engineers and technicians chosen to create a new human colony. Ensign Hall had scored the highest on the applied troubleshooting simulations, and so, he would be the lucky human to first lay eyes on their new home; he would have to stay awake after repairing the sensors because his body wouldn’t be ready to re-enter cryo-stasis before their arrival.

*****

Morgan wasn’t sure what he’d been dreaming about, but he knew he was having a good time. He had a sense that he’d been laughing. Now, as reality crashed in, he felt like he was choking to death. Morgan heaved, over and over, and with each contraction of his diaphragm, clear, cryo-gel came flooding out of his lungs. He noted the circular drain in the metal floor and realized he was on his hands and knees in front of his cryo-pod. After he heaved and coughed for another few minutes, he finally began to breathe in the rather cold air without sputtering, and he blearily looked up. He was in a circular cryo-pod bay, and all the other pods were closed, covered in a thin sheen of frost, and displaying green LEDs. Morgan nearly jumped out of his skin when he realized a figure was silently standing just to his right. He relaxed when he realized it was just one of those creepy Noah units, its human shape and almost human skin making it rather nightmare-inducing in the dark, quiet cryo-pod bay.

“Ensign Hall, you’ve just woken from cryo-stasis on board the Pilgrim 9 en route to the Tau Ceti system,” the Noah unit said with a passably human note of emotion. It continued, “I am Noah-9, the ship’s physicalized AI unit. I’ve woken you 17.34 months prior to our scheduled arrival because I need your assistance with the troubleshooting and repair of our long-range telemetric and photometric scanners.”

Morgan coughed one last hunk of cryo-gel out and then sputtered, “What? 17 months? Scanners?”

“That’s right, ensign. You’ll note the showers are through the archway to your left, and a clean ship’s uniform has been prepared for you.” Morgan squinted at the Noah unit, noting the utter lack of emotion on its face, and then struggled to his feet. He stumbled into the shower room and shoved the curtain aside on the first stall. As Morgan stepped under the showerhead, he punched the single, chrome button and a steamy deluge sprayed over his bare scalp and down his back, making him feel immensely more alive. He noted the digital countdown above the shower button and realized he only had 27 more seconds to rinse off. Groaning, he quickly scrubbed his arms and legs, urging his blood to circulate. At the same time, he watched the cryo-gel that had been clinging to him circle the drain and descend to god knows where to be recycled into some necessary component chemicals for the ship to utilize. As the timer ticked down to zero, the water stopped as suddenly as it began. Morgan sighed and punched the button again to no avail.

“Stingy bastards,” he muttered as he turned around and opened the curtain. A towel and a silvery jumpsuit hung above the bench opposite the stall. He quickly dried off and pulled on the jumpsuit. It was baggy until he pulled the zipper to the top, then it constricted to fit his form perfectly. Warm, flexible, and utterly devoid of any discretion, the silvery jumpsuit was standard for Pilgrim class ship crews. “All right, Noah unit. Tell me, what’s the problem?”

“Ensign Hall, I need you to spacewalk to the aft sensor arrays and see if you can troubleshoot the problem I’m having. I have exhaustively examined the software and internal circuitry – there are no anomalies.”

“What’s the actual problem, though,” Morgan pressed with another long-suffering sigh.

“Upon system entry, the sensors have indicated that there is only one planet orbiting Tau Ceti. A Jupiter sized Earth analog,” Noah-9 reported, completely deadpan.

“That doesn’t make sense. A planet that size would have to be a gas giant.”

“Not necessarily, there have been giant rocky planets observed, but they are, indeed, anomalies. I’m more concerned with the fact that our sensors are not properly reading the system at all – there should, obviously, be at least 14 planets and planetoids in the system.”

“Did I detect some snark, Noah-9? I thought you guys didn’t have emotions?” Morgan grinned as he started walking through the cryo-pod bay and to the elevator.

“Pardon me, Ensign, but all Noah units are capable of approximating human emotion at nearly 87% homogeneity!” Noah-9 huffed as it followed Morgan into the elevator.

“Yeah, but there’s no way a human would ever say something like that,” Morgan chuckled as he punched the button for the Data Bridge.

“Why are you going to the Data Bridge? I need you to debark the ship at Bay 12 and examine the aft sensor array.”

“Before I go spacewalking, I’m going to verify the readings you are reporting – what if you are the source of the error and not the sensors?”

“An insightful point, Ensign. If I were the source of the error, I might not notice it. It seems I chose the correct technician for this job.” Noah-9 smiled in an almost human way, and Morgan shuddered slightly. He preferred the previous generation of androids that didn’t try so hard to look human. When it’s fake, it’s fake, but when it’s almost, but not quite human, it comes off as creepy.

Ninety minutes later, Morgan was resignedly stuffing himself into an extravehicular activity, or EVA, suit. He hadn’t been able to find any flaws with the Noah unit or with the way it was reading the data coming through the sensor array. Something had to be off. Navigation systems all indicated they were in the right place, but the readings coming out of Tau Ceti were just not right. The star’s spectral signature matched Tau Ceti, but the planetary information was just wrong. One giant planet? With rivers, oceans, green, fertile areas? It sounded great if it really could exist, except that it would have to have gravity that would be instantly lethal to humans. Morgan checked the magnetic locks on his boots, then sealed his helmet. He walked into the EVA bay and spoke into his helmet’s communicator, “Alright, Noah, cycle this airlock, and I’ll go see what I can see.”

It took Morgan nearly an hour to walk from EVA bay 12 along the hull to the aft sensor array. The ship was “falling” into the Tau Ceti system – the engine pointed at their destination so that the Bussard drive could decelerate the ship. It had been decelerating for 118 years. The problem Morgan was having now was that the sensor array looked perfectly fine. No debris, no broken bits, no exposed wiring. All diagnostics processed in the green. What the hell was going on? “Noah, I’m not finding any problem out here. I’m going to take a further walk aft and up onto the starboard, h-mass container to see if I can see anything beyond the Bussard cone with my own eyes. When’s the Bussard supposed to fire next?”

“The next Bussard mass ejection will occur in three hours and 14 minutes,” Noah responded with his precise diction.

“Alright.” Morgan started hiking along the ship’s hull, and within a few minutes, he was scaling the long steep slope of one of the ship’s massive hydrogen tanks. He was hoping he’d be able to see around the big Bussard drive cone and get a sight of their eventual destination. Yeah, he knew there was no way to see the planet or planets yet, tens of thousands of miles away, but something made him want to lay his eyes on the center of the system anyway.

When he finally crested the slope of the tank, and the light from Tau’s sun caused his visor to darken automatically, he was breathing heavily from the exertion. “Ensign Hall, your oxygen is at 65%. At your current burn rate, you will run out in 117 minutes.”

“No worries, Noah. Are you seeing what I’m seeing? Is that yellow haze an artifact from my visor or…?” Tau’s light held a slightly more orange tint than Sol’s, but it otherwise felt very familiar. What wasn’t familiar was the yellow haze that seemed to fill the entirety of Morgan’s field of view. It was almost like the ship was falling into a yellowish fog.

“I see your feed, and I do not see any sort of visual artifact.” Noah’s voice was clinical, as always.

“There’s something there. It must be a video processing artifact. It’s so weird, though. If it were a camera artifact, why does it seem like we’re getting closer to it.” Morgan’s imagination started to wander toward thoughts he’d rather it didn’t – solar flares, radiation, ion storms, nothing that made sense with what he was seeing, but he couldn’t help feeling a slight twinge of panic as he stood out on the hull, exposed to the void.

Morgan grunted as he started to move, as quickly as he could in the magnetic boots, back down the side of the h-tank. The boots made movement a lot slower than a natural walk because the failsafe wouldn’t allow one to come unclamped until the other was secured. He wasn’t sure why he was hurrying back toward the EVA bay – no matter what, he’d be outside when the ship entered that yellow haze… if it was real. Still, he moved as quickly as he could and was about ten feet past the sensor array when Noah’s voice cut into the silence, “Ensign Hall, I’ve lost contact with the systems in the Bussard drive.”

“Excuse me?” Morgan hissed, his lungs heaving from the exertion of his pace.

“The diagnostic nodes and all controls to the Bussard engine have stopped responding. I appear to be losing contact with engineering now. I…” Noah’s precise diction cut out. Morgan suddenly felt very strange. For a moment, he thought his vision got brighter, and he felt like he’d just been dosed with a strong euphoric drug, and then everything was black. He couldn’t feel or see anything. He tried to take a step, and he couldn’t be sure his leg moved. He couldn’t even tell if his boot was clamped down or not. Panic surged through his mind. Had the ship exploded? Was he drifting in the void? Was he dead?

***Integrating non-system entities***

What? “Noah, was that you?” Morgan tried to say, but he wasn’t sure any sound came out of his mouth. Was he even breathing? The voice hadn’t sounded like Noah. It was emotionless, almost like a discordant mesh of several voices at once.

***Calculating: 5,000 species individuals***

***Scanning: Human civilization added to System database***

***Species average Energy affinity rating: 4.9***

***Species integration zone D-1.4 – Ardent Vale***

***1 non-living entity***

***Non-living entity Energy affinity rating: 0.0***

***Non-living entity deleted***

Ice cold calm settled on Morgan’s mind. If he could yell or run, he might be doing that, but now he just listened with rapt attention. What the hell was going on, and where was that voice coming from? Non-living entity deleted? Was the voice talking about Noah-9? Energy affinity?

***Human Individual, you are separate from the other 4,999 human individuals***

Morgan suddenly felt like he had taken a breath, and he could speak, “Yes, I was awake…” The voice cut him off:

***Champion status assigned. Your Energy affinity rating is 9.2. Individual integration zone D-1.16 – Crucible***