by Mark Wandrey
While the scientists set up their operation in what was once the squatter’s camp, Minu took a team of scouts and gave the town a thorough going over. Her team already scoured the town months ago, so she didn't expect to find anything new. However the Rasa came here for a reason, and she wanted to know what it was. It was only a matter of time before she ended up at the remains of the Rasa camp next to the portal. Their own camp was on the edge of the city this time. They found no evidence that other Rasa later investigated, including the charred stretch of wall where Minu supervised the piling and cremation of the alien scouts remains. A pair of scouts moved methodically around the square as she squatted next to the final resting place of the six beings she'd helped kill. Charred bones were all that remained. After the search she set the scouts loose and went back to her studies.
On the third day a cold front came through and the temperature only got up to thirty. Minu took the opportunity to escape the tent with its air conditioning and sun screens. The walk back to the town square was refreshing. She crossed the square (ignoring the piled bones) and approached the portal. The portal dais always felt slightly cool and the crumbling town’s walls gave ample shade. It was a nice place to sit with reduced flow from the blast furnace blowing through her blazing red hair. She found it hard to concentrate after a while, the weather was quite enjoyable. Her attention wandered to the portal behind her, glowing and active because she sat on the dais. She'd never just stared into the swirling milky white forcefields of a portal on standby. The image was strangely compelling.
Minu put her computer tablet down and stood up, turned around, and approached the edge. Unlike the dais, the portal itself wasn't real; the archway was a holographic image to allow users to more clearly define the perimeter and avoid striking and edge. There was nothing to touch in standby, if she reached out her hand would just go through the image. Still she leaned closer to examine the ever changing patterns. A deep feeling of calm spread through her such as she hadn't felt in many months.
Suddenly there was a hand on her shoulder and she turned with a jerk. One of the scouts was looking at her with a concerned look on his face. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“Sure,” she replied, “why?”
“You've been standing there staring at the portal for half an hour.”
It felt like moments, and that confused her. Aside from a few times while cramming for tests during her training Minu never 'lost track of time'. She was normally very conscious of exactly how long she'd been doing a task. It was disconcerting. “It's mesmerizing,” she said lamely, “don't you think?”
“I wouldn't know,” the scout said and turned to leave. Minu avoided looking back at the portal, not wanting to space out again. Instead she picked up her tablet and returned to the tent.
“I guess I'm just working too hard,” she said to herself. “Great, now I'm talking to myself!”
On the morning of the fifth day Minu was awoken by excited conversation from the scientists. She slipped on her boots and unzipped the tent. No need to dress because it was simply too cold at nigh to undress. "What’s going on?" she asked the first scientist she came to.
"We've found some archaeological evidence," he explained. She looked expectantly and he started on about a fossil record, or some such and her eyes started to glaze over.
"Where is Pip?" He looked annoyed that his explanation wasn't sufficient and gestured toward the dig site. She thanked him and left the cover of the solar shields. Under the glaring direct light of the local sun she reached into a pocket and slipped on her hood. The thermal reflective material covering her head and eyes might make her look like she was ready to go skiing, but at least she could see again and wouldn't burn like a piece of toast. Being a red head had its downsides.
The dig was a few hundred meters from camp, which was standard procedure according to the archaeologists. Minu would have rather have it within the camp and the solar screens. As she got close she was amazed at how far the dig had progressed. A couple days ago it was just a shallow trench, now there was a pit three meters on a side and more than five meters deep. She stopped by the edge where a ladder stood and looked down inside. The floor of the pit was covered in a laser grid being projected by a device on the pit rim. All the scientists were gathered in the bottom by one grid square and having an animated conversation while Pip knelt and dusted something with a tiny brush. Minu climbed down to join them. "So what do we have?" she asked.
Pip straightened up and shook his head. "I'm not sure if this is convincing or not," he said.
"I might know more if you let me in on whatever it is you found?"
"Well, Cordova is the archaeologist." The older man stood and came over with a basket holding several artifacts covered in dirt.
"The Squeen weren't squatters," he explained and showed her what they'd found. First were a number of bones. Most looked to common to prove anything except one was obviously a rodent-like skull with a very large cranial capacity. Another scientist showed Minu how the skull was scanned and reconstructed with muscle and skin. The being she stared at was unmistakably a Squeen from their earlier encounter.
"Why is that significant?" Minu asked. "Couldn't they just be long term squatters?"
"Squatting for more than a million years?" Cordova asked. "The camp has been used over and over again in the last few thousand years. The Squeen's presence dates back to their origin as an intelligent species." He showed her several other artifacts including handmade tools and fragments of pottery. "These items speak to a period in this worlds past when this was an arboreal forest. We also found fish bones and remnants of basketwork made from deciduous tree bark."
"So they were a primitive species a million years ago?"
"Probably less," he said and pointed to another hole dug down a few feet away. Minu leaned over and looked down. It went another half dozen meters down and she could see some wetness at the bottom. "That is the level we found these primitive examples of the Squeen. We found these at this level." Another basket was offered full of obviously decayed Concordia technology including a computer chip and an EPC. "The EPC still holds a partial charge and the chip likely holds data."
"What's on it?"
"We can't be sure, the interface contacts are corroded. We can fix that back on Bellatrix."
"So put this all together for me?" Minu asked, "I'm a little confused and missing a few dozen degrees to keep up."
Pip took over. "The Squeen are native to this world. A half million years ago they lived in this place hunting, fishing, and making baskets during what looks like their stone-age period." He glanced at Cordova who nodded. "Sometime between then and about twenty thousand years ago, they joined the Concordia and became a technological society." He went over to the wall of the dig and pointed at layers of deposited sediments. "About a hundred and fifty thousand years ago this planet was rendered uninhabitable."
"Rendered? You mean it was purposely destroyed? How?"
"No idea." All the other scientists who were listening shrugged or shook their heads. "All we know is it was violent and complete. Possibly some sort of space based weapons. This world was so radioactive that not even cockroaches could survive. In the time since then it has been slowly recovering. The radiation is gone on the surface."
"But the water table is still hot," Minu said and Pip nodded in agreement. "So someone killed this planet to get the Squeen, or killed the Squeen and got the planet. Or it was all some celestial accident..."
"Who knows?”
“Some of them survived,” she said, “we saw them. Maybe a primitive tribe that's nomadic and wandering the planet?
“Not a chance,” Cordova said, “there is probably a living sea or two somewhere, but not near here. And it’s unlikely that there is much more than single celled organisms and plankton living there. If the Squeen were living in the way you saw them, they'd never survive long enough to even get to that sea on foot. This planet is a death trap.”
“That's what doesn't
add up.” Minu complained, feeling exasperated. “They looked primitive, so they're not from off world. They must have been advanced or they couldn't live here.”
“Like Pip said, it's an enigma," Cordova agreed.
"So," Minu said to Pip, "again, if those Squeen we saw aren't from here, that begs the question of where are they from?"
"We don't know, but they can't be considered squatters if they evolved on this world." His answer was straight forward and logical. “The only exception to the leasehold rule is if you evolved on the planet, and that doesn't happen very often.”
“Why not?”
Pip looked around at the other scientists, none of which had anything more to offer. He scratched his chin as he answered. “The universe is a dangerous place.”
“Big help, thanks.” Again, none of them had anything else to offer. “So, the city back there?"
"It was the center of their population. Probably not destroyed because of the portal. It wouldn't matter anyway, the ecosphere was crushed. The residents likely died a slow and painful death."
"Great, so a few answers and twice as many new questions." Pip and Cordova mirrored each other’s nods of agreement.
Minu supervised as the site was cleaned up, the excavation carefully filled in, and gear packed up. While they worked she finished her report and helped them carry the equipment back to the portal. In the end all they had to show for a week’s work was a container full of crusty old artifacts, some bones, contradictory evidence, and one computer chip with maybe very old data. Possibly recipes or shipping records. As Minu used her portal control rod to move them to FAX544 she was at least grateful that she'd gotten off world for a week.
Chapter 12
Julast 31th, 516 AE
Squeen Archeological Dig, GBX49881, Galactic Frontier
Minu stepped back behind the old fashioned polymer shield and thumbed the Concordia made forcefield into life before nodding to the technician. A few meters away instruments hummed and recorded the results as the technician aimed the sensors carefully.
"Ready?" Gregg asked. He'd volunteered to test this new weapon even before he'd seen it. He shouldered the contraption which resembled nothing so much as a huge mess of pipes and wires connected by power cables. A rubber pad was screwed to one end to act as a butt stock, and handle protruded about half way down the gun just in front of where the power cable attached to act as a pistol grip. With some obvious concern he leveled the 'gun' at a distant target and tried to aim. Since it lacked any sort of a sight, or even an obvious barrel, it was no easy task. "Tell me again why I don't get to stand behind a forcefield?" he asked.
"You don't do this sort of stuff all day long," Minu explained patiently, "we're sure it won't explode but there is some small radiation splash."
"Oh, that's okay then!” Gregg said and eyed the weapon dubiously one more time. He finally settled on aiming it as best he could and pulled the trigger. There was a humming sound as power flowed and a little pop of light out the other end, and that was it. "Did it fire?"
"No energy spike," the technician said. Gregg mumbled something uncomplimentary and tried to fire again. This time the tech just shook his head, same results.
"Damn it," Minu snarled and yelled into a microphone. "Pip, what the fuck?"
"I'm running the data, trying to figure it out!" he yelled back. Even though the project was his brainchild, that didn't stop him from collating the data from the safety of their labs on the third floor. He said he needed more direct access to the main computers. Gregg made an uncomplimentary suggestion of what he should do with his computers.
"Tell me again," Gregg said from where he cradled the non-functioning weapon in both hands, "why did Pip decide to test a power interface by building a hybrid monster gun?"
Minu couldn't help laughing. "I think he was trying to kill to kloth with one stone."
"Can we avoid using the term kill?"
"Sorry. The interface project was Alijah's pet. He figured out a way to adapt Mok-Tok EPC interfaces to our systems. The first model has a high power transfer rate and lab tests just weren't giving us the level of results we wanted. When I said we needed to up the power on the tests Pip conveniently suggested this little toy he'd been working on in his spare time."
"Spare time my ass," Pip said over the radio. The reception popped and hissed from five stories above. The high energy test facility was a long ceramic concrete walled gouged from bedrock three floors below ground, the same bedrock as the commander center several kilometers farther down. When she'd first seen the facility Pip happily showed her a couple of scorch marks in the ceramic concrete floor that were to his credit. The scorches were indelible. Marring ceramic concrete was some kind of accomplishment. "Everyone else on this team is so slow I have a couple hours a day to work on this."
"Then why does it look like something from a Dr. Who episode?" Gregg yelled, obviously overhearing Pip even from the other side of the shield. “Damn thing weighs a ton, too.”
Minu could see the banded muscles bunching in his arms and chest and was not too busy to appreciate the sight. "Who the hell is Dr. Who?" she wondered as she worked on a tablet.
"Are you serious?" Pip asked. Gregg was looking at her like she'd committed some sort of an egregious error.
She just shrugged. “Did he work on some special Chosen project?”
"It's a science fiction show from Earth, made in Britain around the turn of the century," Pip explained from below.
"Nineteenth or twentieth?"
"Good lord," Pip laughed, "don't you even know basic history? Television wasn't even invented until 1938."
"I thought it was 1950's," the formerly quiet tech intervened.
"No, 1938. The Germans showed it off at their world’s fair." Minu could care less and said so, also wondering what difference it made. "There is so much you can learn from that old stuff," Pip continued.
"How can it possibly help us integrate into the Concordia? They'd never even seen an alien or left their solar system!"
"Well, aside from insights into human nature, it’s just interesting."
"Physics is interesting," she admitted, "old television is just boring."
"Your father watched hundreds of hours of old earth TV," Pip said.
"How do you know that?"
"The data access logs. I spent a week or so when first assigned to science in the data library department. Most of the old computers are copied there and the data is readily accessible to any Chosen."
"Can I get into it?"
"Any Chosen can," Pip confirmed, "although some of it it's classified. I never quite understood that. I mean, five hundred year old data from the early days? I've wondered what it all said, but figure its just stuff about wanting to kill the Rusks, or something like that.” He was quiet for a moment then came back on. “Okay, I think I have it figured out, have Gregg give it another try.”
Several frustrating hours later Minu was back in her tiny office completing her report. Every time she used equipment or personnel outside her lab it required a report. She wondered how heads of large departments ever found time to do real work. A dozen more attempts with Pip's reverse engineered energy weapon failed to produce a beam with enough lethality to burn toast. It wasn't a complete failure; at least the power interface functioned properly.
When she'd finished her report she glanced at Pip's schematics on the weapon. It was ten times the size of the weapon it was based on (a very compact gun called a Beamcaster employed by many higher order species in the Concordia). The trouble, as always, was both adapting a device to human physical constraints and available technology. None of the Concordia weapons brokers wanted to sell humans any serious firepower. Not that they could really afford to waste valuable credits on state of the art weaponry anyway. Constructing some themselves was a long term goal of the Chosen. To date, the best they had managed was the energy dissipating grids incorporated into Chosen field uniforms (an adaption of obsolete Concordia shields used by r
adiation technicians), and a magnetic accelerator rifle in use by Chosen scouts as a sniper weapon. Not much progress in a century.
With nothing more to do that day Minu decided to access the Chosen computer records for results of previous reverse engineering projects. There were detailed records showing years of research on Bellatrix into how most aspects of Concordia technology worked and ways to put it to use. She was simultaneously surprised at the volume of research and the lack of actual progress.
Minu crossed over in the Concordia database and performed a similar search. Of course there was next to nothing on other species researching to adapt modern Concordia tech to older indigenous technologies. There were extensive files for compatibility and interfacing different species modern technologies. That was less than useless in this case.
She crossed back into their own files intending to look at the oldest research, and stumbled onto the secured archives by mistake. Even though she'd been granted access since becoming a four star Chosen, she'd never actually looked into the vast treasure trove of preserved earth knowledge. She poked around for a minute, skimming several files on what was state of the art technology at the time Earth was destroyed. Many of the files were annotated with more recent cross references. How one technology was similar to what the Concordian used, or how another was utterly unique. She wasn't the only one to look at these older files for insights, just as Pip suggested. One such notation caught her attention and she read it with interest.
"While it is obvious that the photronics developed by the Concordian is far more advanced than the best electronics Earth could manufacture prior to its destruction, what is profound is that these advances are not out of the realm of old Earth speculation. The use of photons to power electronic circuits was many years from realization back then; however it was at least speculated on and was being researched to some degree. Two questions remain. How far would we as humans have gotten had fate not intervened so disastrously and destroyed our world? The other question. Why are the Concordian not far more advanced than they are? You would think with thousands of species all researching and developing their own technology for eons that tech should have advanced to the point of being all but indistinguishable from magic by now! Instead it is only arguably a century or two ahead of the best our home world had to offer and even now our scientists begin to plumb the depths of that knowledge, and speculate further."