The Pleiades is an open star cluster in the constellation Taurus. This cluster contains between three and five hundred stars in a sphere about thirty light years across. It is four hundred light years from us. At twenty-seven thousand miles an hour, a trip to The Pleiades would take almost ten million years. Even if I started now, there is no way I'd get there before I retire. So, who might go on such a journey?

Sentient Simians living on the planet Earth are not going to make this journey. At twenty-five years per generation a trip of ten million years is four hundred thousand generations. Since the Deluge, Sentient Simians can barely go one hundred and twenty generations in an ordered society. This is about three thousand years. And that is on the surface of the Earth. One hundred and twenty generations would not even get us to our nearest stellar companion just four light years away. And we would have to do it inside a spaceship.

To make such a trip it would take a group of individuals that get along really well. These individuals would have to be so cohesive that, taken together, they would seem as though they were a single individual. The cells in a biological organism are such a group. No ameba is going to leave the surface of the planet short of being consumed by some organism. But build yourselves into a complex organism with opposable thumbs and a big brain and you, the ameba, can fly to the moon and back.

Stars live for billions of years. A planet such as Earth is a life support system for Sentient Simians for five to seven billion years. To someone that lives seven billion years, compared to someone like Sentient Simians that could live a hundred and twenty years if they chose, a trip to the Pleiades would seem little more that two months. And that is at twenty-seven thousand miles per hour, at one hundred thousand mile per hour the trip would seem to take about seventeen days, reasonable speeds and reasonable times, if you live for billions of years.

A planet wide society that is stable for the life of the planet, what a concept, as part of a solar system wide society, all parts equally stable, would be needed to do such traveling. And they would need a star ship, a very large one. This ship is to support a microcosm of the society on a multi-generation trip to a new star. At this young star they will build a new society patterned after the one they left. A star ship the size of a terrene class planet would do nicely, a wheel with a hub and four spokes. In the hub is the power plant in the form of a magnetic bottle. This bottle holds about one hundred and twenty-five billion cubic kilometers of plasma scooped out of their star. This is a sphere near a thousand kilometers in diameter. In the outer rim are living areas as spacious as the San Joaquin/Sacramento River Valley or the Tigris/Euphrates River Valley. The four spokes are hollow allowing energy from the plasma in the hub to reach the living areas. To distribute the energy evenly the hub and spokes turn with respect to the rim. This gives a day-night cycle. There is an eccentricity that will bring about an annual cycle of seasons. This crystallizes time into a calendar, the platform on which their society is built.

How long would it take to build such a ship? It takes us a few years to build a very large complex ship to sail on our oceans. If it would seem to them as five years, it would be to us about three hundred million years.

The beam on which the ship will be built is placed in an elliptical orbit around the star. On each orbit, as the ship passes close to the star, it is given a push. This causes the ship to rise higher above the star on each orbit. On the last orbit it will rise so high it will not return.

The hub is framed out first and then the most dangerous part of the project is preformed. The hub is taken very close to the star and, with a magnetic scoop, a cup full of star is picked up. Once the plasma is on board and stable in its magnetic bottle, the rest of the ship is constructed. In the final orbits, the ship is sealed and the atmosphere installed.

But what of this group of people, what of a society so stable it lasts the life of a star?

Within biological orgasms, the unifying force is the common heritage of each cell in a body. This heritage is reflected in the common genetic structure at the core of each cell. Each cell is a sibling of every other cell in the body. As the cells divide, parent produces child, both are identical, twins if you will. This multi-generation genetic bond is needed for a trip to the Pleiates. Sentient Simians, at least at the core of their society, will need the genetic identity to provide the stability for such a journey.

A genetically precise, gender opposed, mating couple would provide such a link. Genetic precision is a brother/sister, husband/wife that mate and produce twins male and female that are genetically identical to the parents. Such a couple functions much like a queen bee in a beehive. Only in this case the purpose is to reproduce itself. Individuals, of course, are born, grow up, grow old and die. It is the genetic identity from one generation to the next that is immortal. A single couple is monogenetic and cannot provide the variations needed to fill all the functions of a complex society. The support staff needed to run the starship must come from somewhere.

It is a twelve-strand double helix. Twenty-four individuals, twelve male and twelve female in twelve genetically precise, gender opposed, mating couples. Cross mating between the couples produce the starship's support staff and the plethora of societies to be produced when they arrive at their destination star system. Each couple has its own realm in the rim of the starship. In the center of this realm is built a monumental building. This building is home of the couple and their immediate support staff. Their residence is at the top and the building sides slop down to a wide base. At the perimeter of the base are the administrative offices that work with the general population on the running of the society. In-between are several levels of management charged with running all aspects of the society; from providing food through a complex agricultural system to running the rituals of the calendar, the time crystal through which they know their destiny.

On the last few orbits, earth from each couple's earthly kingdom is brought on board, the earth from which life comes and then returns. This earth is sacred to each couple. It contains the remains of ancestors and will be the source of future generations on this new world and many more to come. When they reach their new home, this earth will be placed at the center of their new earthly kingdom.

With the earth on board, gardens planted and the cities built, the twelve females go on board. They will meet their "bridegrooms" on the way to their new home. The males are building a starship at their parent star, a small fast ship to meet the females and join them with materials essential to a successful mission.

By now you should know that we are not talking about us taking a trip to the Pleiades. We Sentient Simians living at the beginning of the twenty-first century have a hard time looking ahead five years, let along millions or billions. But, the ancient record speaks of visits from the Pleiades as well as from Sirius. Sirius, the Dog Star, is little more than eight and a half light years away. By their time perception, this is a trip of just over a day and a third if they do not stop for coffee along the way.

Why did the ancients watch the sky so closely? Is it because the stars are our friends and family? Or maybe some of them are predators stalking us as their next meal. It is hard to say what our stellar environment is like. There is a community of three to five hundred stellar souls not too far away. At least one of them has looked in on us. There is a much closer neighbor that has also shown an interest. We have not been watching the stars long enough to know if their motion with respect to each other shows any signs of valuation. Can a star swim through the magnetic waters of the galaxy? Do the starships have room to move in their journey from one star to another?

And what of us, right here right now, we Sentient Simians living on Earth at the beginning of the Third Millennium? Three-millennia are just twenty-seven minutes to them. Jerico was established about ten thousand years ago, an hour and a half for them. Like parents waiting a few hours since The Deluge, giving medication from time to time, knowing the injured child is about to wake up.