We set our ship down and prepared to go and look for survivors; frankly, it didn’t look good. Then it became clear; there was a split in the hull about ten feet long; there would be no survivors. We called Capt. Pierce and informed him of exactly what appeared to have happened. The pilot, James W. Broadbent, and his entire crew— mostly scientists— would be the first victims of a crash of one of our spacecrafts since the departure from Earth many years ago. The message finally came back to us that the site of the disaster was to be left as a monument to those who perished in the crash. An artist was to make a plaque to post at the site for all future generations to honor the dead. We were to enter the ship to be absolutely positive there were no survivors; I agreed to lead the team personally for this gruesome task.
We also were instructed to explore the site that had drawn them to their fate, after verifying the wreckage status. It took only an hour to prepare to enter the ship, and only four of us were going to take part in the task, though our helmet cams would bring the horror home to all on board and back at the colony. It would be a solemn occasion at the very best.
As we approached the ship, we could see that the forward air lock door was hanging by a narrow strip of metal and the inner lock was ajar as well. We entered the ship through that lock and beheld the scene of the chaos of the final moments. The people had already gotten out of their seats when they rolled off the cliff. Most had been sucked toward the rip in the hull as the air escaped; their faces were frozen eternally in the panic of that moment, and they were on the ceiling of the craft. There would have been many seriously injured even if the hull hadn’t been breached, from the drop of a hundred fifty feet; arms and legs were bent at odd angles and I have to say that they were lucky to have died so quickly.
We didn’t stay in there more than a few minutes; just long enough to be sure that nobody had succeeded in getting into one of the sealed storage compartments and survived. Ira got sick in his helmet and had to go back to the ship to clean up. He had found his cousin, Nancy Braun, Prof. of Linguistics, partly decapitated near the rip in the hull; it was too much for him, as I could well understand. There were several whom I knew from classes or the militia, but fortunately nobody close to me. That made it only slightly less hard to handle; I was as glad to be out of there as anybody, and I hope to never have that task again as long as I live. I still have nightmares.
We returned to the Homer. Ira was badly shaken, and Doc Lee had given him a shot to settle him down. “Sorry I fell apart like that, I didn’t know Nancy was on the mission,” he said apologetically, sounding queasy.
“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” I told him. “If you hadn’t been affected, I would have been more concerned.”
“I think we should get a team together and have a look at this building in the cliff side,” I suggested to get everyone’s attention focused in a new direction. It wouldn’t have been healthy to dwell on the scene we’d just left, and the sooner we moved on, the better.
We moved our ship to a new position in order to not have the wreck in our field of vision; then prepared to go out to investigate the intact structure in the cliff face. The scientists among us were ready to run out the door without any regard for safety. I couldn’t blame them; it was the opportunity of a lifetime. At last we might get some real answers to our questions about what had taken place here more than three thousand years ago.
We organized for our short trek across the open to the front entrance of the structure. The initial team was ten people—three scientists, the rest our security force—until such time as we were certain that it was safe. Even if there were no living beings, there was the chance that there was some sort of automated system or booby traps to protect the facility. After the adventures we’d had so far I was unwilling to take any further risks. Enough of our crew had relatives that had been on the crashed ship that, I felt they were on the edge of falling apart as it was. We reached the steps leading up to the entrance; they had a three quarter inch thick coating of undisturbed dust on them. If you’ve never been in a place where there is no air, then you have never seen the dust with such a clean, sharp edge as it gets when there is no breeze to round it off. It’s such a sharp edge that at first you can’t really see that it’s there. The first step I took was lower than it appeared so I thumped down hard leaving a deep impression and made my team members laugh in spite of the situation. It was the first funny thing to happen since we arrived here, and everyone was greatly aided by it. It’s odd, how the human brain reacts to varied stimuli.
We walked up to the doors and proceeded to look for a way to open them. After a number of attempts, we found an emergency manual release and slowly we pulled the door to the side; it was a sliding door that slid into the wall. The inner door worked the same way, except that to open it you first had to close the outer door. Once the inner door was opened, you could reopen the outer door without any difficulty. We now had access to the inner chambers, and got our first glimpse of the former occupants.
There were two bodies on the floor and two more sitting at desks, or control panels as it turned out. Their appearance was so human that it was almost shocking; they were frozen and almost perfectly preserved, coated in a thin, hard frost. They could have died yesterday for all the ages had taken for toll. Their expressions made it clear that they died of asphyxia.
The room we were in was full of equipment, mostly familiar in appearance, but like something from the twenty or twenty-first centuries on Earth. I wondered if Earth had in fact found a way to send a ship there many years earlier than we knew of. I suggested that, but the scientists that had come in with us immediately pointed out that the writing on the panels was in no known language of Earth. I felt rather foolish, and kept my mouth shut, listening to their discussion instead, as I wandered around, fascinated.
So far we had entered only the front room; there were at least four other rooms to see, and a set of stairs going down to a lower level. The gravity here was about one fifth of what we were used to, so moving around in our suits was clumsy at best. Mike Dermot was discussing the possibility of working out their power grid and piping in air to make the place easier to work in and get the computers to give us more info.
“What about the bodies and possible bacteria?” I asked, having been though one plague and quarantine already.
“We could put the bodies in one of the back rooms and seal it off so they are unharmed; then we can flush the building with nitrogen to rid it of anything harmful to us,” suggested Lee, who had joined us without me realizing it. “Sorry,” she said turning toward me. “I couldn’t resist coming, once I knew you had made it in okay.” Knowing her as I did, I could almost see her blushing through the space suit. I couldn’t be angry if I’d wanted to be; but tried to act it at least a little. My attempt was too feeble to be taken seriously.
“We’d better contact Captain Pierce first,” I suggested. “He might have a different point of view.”
“Already on it,” said our comm man, Doug Jonson, over my headset. “I knew you’d want his approval; I haven’t heard back yet, though.”
“Thanks Doug,” I said. “Glad you’re with us here.” And I really was.
Olga arrived with the second team to start getting info about the rest of the facility. After just a few minutes she reported that of the four remaining rooms one was only a supply room, crew quarters in two of them, and kitchen with food storage locker in the last. No other bodies were at the facility and those in the main room seemed to have just been waiting to die as the air ran out. This little moon we had called Remus because it was the smaller of the two, now we saw it as Death’s Doorway. It had been no luckier for the former inhabitants than for our first team to land here.
Most of the food items in store were fairly identifiable as vegetables and meats of one variety or another; the cooking apparatus was all identifiable. Their technologies were way behind ours at the time 3,000 years ago, leading to the conclusion that these people had come from wi
thin the current solar system; there could be no doubt. But from where? Were there more of them still living somewhere or had they for some reason abandoned their home world? And gone where? Eventually we would definitely need to answer these questions.
Mike called me over. “Their power system was DC current and can be brought up to run with a minimum of effort, but they didn’t have a renewable air supply as far as I can see. Their technology was about equal to that of the Earth about the mid to late twentieth century. I know we had more or less gathered that by the type of ships they had but, this really confirms those suspicions; they hadn’t even reached the digital stage. Do you realize that once we see the effects of bringing the instruments online, the labels will start to help us translate their written language?”
“I hadn’t thought of that aspect; but you are definitely correct,” I responded. “The way the gauges show the increase in air and pressure will let us know which is which, and their numeric system by comparing their readings to ours; we will know who they were yet!” I said, gaining enthusiasm.
Dr. Hebron was busy examining the bodies of the aliens with a scanner brought over from the ship. “If we move them outside while we run the system to try and decipher their records, and maybe find out exactly what went wrong here and where they came from, they should be fine as long as we keep them in the shady area. I want to be able to return them to their original places after we’re finished; I’ll feel like an invader and defiler otherwise.”
We all seemed to agree with that logic, though I admit that I did in fact feel guilty for helping to disturb their rest for our own curiosity. Those who were sitting in chairs we tried to move, chairs and all; those on the floor, we laid on plastic outside in an area that would not get sunlight until the next cycle, which wouldn’t be for at least fifteen days. After that we would set them back in their habitat, never to be disturbed again.
It was amazing how perfectly things are preserved in a vacuum for thousands of years; it could have been only days by the condition of the equipment. It took no more than three hours to get the building powered up; the toughest thing being figuring out the voltage so as not to burn out the circuits. Mike the Wizard came though as he always did, and we soon had an oxygen air machine hooked into their system and everything in full operation. If they’d had our technology they might have still been around to greet us—them, or their children.
The science team was having a field day with collecting data of all kinds. Translators were working at a feverish pace, as if everything was going to dissolve before they could finish; well, maybe it would. Decay can set in rapidly once the magic ingredients, air and moisture, are added to the natural processes that had been denied so long. I would be happy once we could shut it all back down, and know that we did no harm.
Nettie came over with a message from Prof. Arnold; they had broken the code for translating the written language, and we soon hoped to have some of the answers we were looking for. We started looking over the food supplies while the pros were studying all the more technical things. There were cans with potato-like vegetables and something close to carrots, peas, green beans, and a number of veggie-like items unlike anything we recognized. There were several types of canned meats, all resembling Spam or corned beef; but oddly there didn’t seem to be anything like corn, which I would have thought would be there with so many things being so similar to what we knew.
We found a photo album in one of the bedrooms with family photos that could have belonged to any Earth family. Though their clothing was almost of a Middle Eastern style, they wore no jewelry at all. The biggest difference was that they had no hair at all on any exposed areas; that had not been so obvious on the bodies because they were covered in frost; and their ears were almost perfectly round and stuck out about a half inch from their heads. In spite of these differences, they were attractive in an odd sort of way. All of the pictures showed them to be of a pleasant nature and they appeared to have short fuzz on their heads. I was sorry not to have met them, and hoped the opportunity might yet exist to do so.
Then I found a cache of weapons, mostly familiar enough to identify, including old-fashioned projectile weapons, with handles designed for a slightly different grip than ours; that was when I noticed that in the pictures they had only a thumb and two broad fingers. How I hadn’t noticed that sooner reflected poorly on my observational skills, but when I found I was the first to point it out it made me feel slightly better.
Prof. White interrupted my reveries by coming in to inform me of the dating results, which are complicated in a place that had been in a vacuum for so long. It took longer than the standard tests and was a little less accurate; nonetheless the results would be close enough for our needs.
“We have established that this station was built approximately thirty three hundred years ago; well within the range of what the other sites have dated. Sadly, it would seem that these people had just barely made it into space. We will have to go to every planet until we find out where they were coming from.” The Professor stopped mid sentence, as if something had just occurred to him. “I must check on how they’re coming with the translations; if I can pull up their star or system charts, which should hopefully be pictorial, I might not have to wait for the full translations. We don’t know how to operate their computer system yet.” He stopped in thought again. “Have you found any picture books?”
“No,” I answered. “Except for a family photo album and that probably won’t help in that regard, but . . .” I had a sudden idea of my own. “Suppose we look at the facts; they had just the most basic rocket science; we see the extent of their technology; they had to have come from close by because they didn’t have machines to replenish their oxygen, so they had to carry all their air with them, like in the old days. They didn’t come from outside this system, and that’s that.”
“They must have a ship near here, don’t you think?” Asked Prof. White.
“We haven’t looked around for one; but perhaps it would have more clues; maybe stuff they never unloaded. Then again, wouldn’t they have gone down to one of the planets if they did?” I suggested. “Especially when Sne-az is just a short hop? No, I think they must have been waiting for someone to come back for them.” This sudden realization felt so true to me that I had a chill.
“Yes, good point and logic,” he answered. “You really should go into research.” He smiled. I smiled back, shaking off the feeling.
“We’re all in research now, aren’t we?” I asked jokingly.
“That pretty much sums it up, I suppose,” he returned with equal humor. “Still, let me know if you find anything at all that might have clues as to where these people lived.”
“I will,” I told him; then had a thought about something that might give us a clue. I opened the photo album and quickly scanned though; I knew what I was looking for. “Professor!” I called before he got too far. “What about this?” I said holding up the photo album. He walked back to see. “It’s a picture with the sun low on the horizon; it could give us enough to be able to get some idea how far away the sun was,” I suggested.
He raised his eyebrows in surprise and consideration. “Yes; that should be of some help; and seeing this I think I might have been right in what I was starting to think already. Yes, I’m sure of it,” he said, after a look at the photo.
“Is it the planet that has nothing on it at all?” I asked with my own idea coming stronger. “I was considering that the second planet being knocked out of orbit so that it comes so close every forty seven years; destroyed all life on the third planet, before they could get established on the world we’re settling now—Olympus. It didn’t have sufficient oxygen when they were forced to try to settle there. That’s the small settlement we found. Tell me I’m right,” I said, hoping I wasn’t making a fool of myself.
“That’s about it, I think. Question is, are there any places where some of them might have survived?” He queried. “I guess only time will tell, but it was a
real tragedy no matter how you look at it. Nevertheless, I’m fairly certain that we’ve solved that mystery, and I think it will be confirmed once they finish with the translating. It was the main reason the people of Earth wanted to colonize; to avoid being wiped to oblivion.”
Nettie looked sad. “Are you ok?” I asked.
“Yes; I’m just a little overwhelmed by the depth of the tragedy these people suffered,” she answered. “It makes every sad story I’ve ever heard seem like nothing, by comparison.”
I had to agree, it was an absolute nightmare; if we were correct these few people had watched their entire civilization perish with all their loved ones. We had assumed that the third planet had been uninhabitable from the start, but it had all changed only three thousand plus years ago. It was the very reason our ancestors had left Earth; to insure mankind would continue somewhere.
Olga was down on the lower level trying to gain access to several large trunks stored there. It was a carved out room in the solid rock and appeared to be strictly for storage. She finally had to get bolt cutters to cut the pad locks off. Inside were clothing in two of them, but the third was books.
Prof. White was ecstatic. “Now, maybe we can shed some light on these people”
Some of the books were clearly technical manuals, while others were harder to identify since they contained no pictures or diagrams; those we wouldn’t know until we finished deciphering their language. Then came what was clearly a basic set of encyclopedias. It was the single most important find in the whole place. We had the history of their world at our finger tips, we hoped; I wished these people could have known that they wouldn’t be forgotten forever.
It suddenly reminded me that we hadn’t heard from Earth in almost twelve years; had something happened there? Had Earth suffered a similar fate, or were people just too busy to bother with us now? Someday we would find out, but the question was a daunting one.
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