by James Warner
“Sassy, would you try and translate the writing on these tablets? They are from Peru on Earth. I suspect the language might not be terrestrial in origin, though, so search the entire xeno database, okay?”
“Is this an official request, Captain?” she responded in her sassy mood. “I’m still up to my console with the paperwork from this afternoon’s outing.”
“Cheeky computer, of course not. Just fit it in somehow” I responded.
I had started coming out of my funk and was beginning to get bored as I expected to have to spend a few hours twiddling my thumbs over this. The communication to and from the Galactic Encyclopedia Database (GED) was not going to be very rapid at our speed of acceleration.
But to my very pleasant surprise, Sassy came right back after only a few seconds.
“Portions similar to this fragment have been found on several different worlds in dissimilar surroundings, always in caves and on gold tablets. The text, up to now, had been assumed to be of an anthropomorphic origin. While awaiting a reply from GED I suggest the language is from a common source, of a pre-human colonization of this portion of the Galaxy,” Sassy said.
“Aaack!” I exclaimed, almost choking on my tea. I didn’t know there were other copies of this text on other worlds. Apparently no one had thought to ask about it. What had I stumbled upon?
“Show the planets on the Star Chart where the fragments have been discovered.”
My cabin chart lit up and a somewhat irregular row of green lights appeared from Arcturus, through Earth, to Last Chance.
“I didn’t know fragments like those had been found near Last Chance,” I murmured to myself. I was definitely onto something here. Then Sassy spoke up again:
“Here is the information, Captain. The GED says: ‘Age dating of seven of the fragment locations shows the time of creation to be ranging from 100,000 years ago at the oldest to approximately 40,000 years ago for the youngest. The pattern suggested by Captain McDowell in her most recent research suggests a system of ancient colonization that cannot be refuted by any available information. This hypothesis would suggest a possible extra-galactic origin of the civilization, or at least an origin beyond currently explored space. The other end of the pattern of discoveries suggests new discoveries will be made on M-1 type worlds further along the projected trace. For further information please see ‘Peru’ ‘Inca’ ‘Diaspora’ ‘Earth’ ‘Arcturus-4’ ‘Flabuzak’ ‘Mentone’ ‘Crashdown’ ‘Last Chance Bar and Grill’ ‘McDowell’ ‘Scoutship’ and ‘Silver Hornet’. ‘NOTE: Captain McDowell and the Scoutship Silver Hornet are currently exploring in the area of the galaxy most likely to yield clues to this hypothesis and can be reached through Galactic Central -=-=- GED – Cleared for BPI Scholastic.’”
What? How could the GED get all this information so quickly? What was going on here? I decided to call the Boss. I was getting an idea that this job was a set-up.
“Captain, there is a Priority One message from base for us coming in now.”
“Meph!” I yelled into the comm channel. I figured he was immersed in his projects.
“Captain,” Meph said as he entered my room, knocking on the open door, “did you know that we have been sent on a wild duck chase?”
“Goose, Meph, wild goose. Oh, I just called you. What do you mean?”
“I just monitored some sort of communication from the GED to the Hornet stating that our ship was to remain on standby for urgent orders. But I saw your message cycle with them and I don’t understand what this is all about. What fragments?”
“Sorry Meph. Hey, what were you doing monitoring my transmissions anyway?”
“Well I was testing a new gismo on the scalar level and I wanted to see if I could pull in hyperspace communications with it. I did and they happened to be yours.”
“Oh. Well, let’s see what’s up.”
“Sassy, we’re ready to receive and record. Please send it to my cabin here.” Meph and I sat back to see what we could see.
A holo of my commander came up with the background of a 2-D star chart disturbingly similar to where we were just now.
“Captain McDowell,” the recording began. How formal we were being. My, my.
“We had been researching your earlier work in this archaeological arena upon notification from Last Chance Bar and Grill that one of the five, now six golden tablets had been discovered. I remembered your reference to your hobby. This occurred shortly before your departure from Central and I hadn’t had time to mention it to you. Now, in the time after your departure, another tablet has been found making the total seven. Due to the current scientific interest in alien technologies the staff at GED took up your line of research and it was decided to send you out along the path indicated by current finds. That you happened to be at Last Chance was our good fortune. At this time, barring unforeseen difficulties, you are to search along the current projected line for M-1 stars and similar gold tablets. Anything you find indicating ancient space faring cultures should be immediately reported to GED and my office. Authority: Commandant, Hamarabus. End of transmission.”
“Well Meph, that pretty well clears up what’s going on, eh?”
“But Captain, this is what I was referring to. It sounds to me like a wild goose chase. What could we hope to find that hasn’t already been found within our own Civilization’s boundaries?”
“Hmm. Meph, I think you should look over some of the ancient books I have collected on the subject. They’re on flash drives that you can plug into Sassy’s data ports. This is my other hobby, the one that’s work related. Why don’t you take some into your quarters for a few hours while I check with the GED on these discoveries?”
The days passed quickly. After all I loved mysteries and this was a big one.
“Meph, can you put together a gold detector that will interface with your equipment so we can search deep underground for tablets like these?”
“I think so Captain. I’ll check out the spare parts storage locker,” he replied.
Meph seemed to understand what I was talking about, not that I was turning prospector, but I figured that with the stuff he had developed, we might even be able to read the markings on the tablets we found inside deep caves. You see, all the tablets had been found on Earth-type or M-1 planets, buried in caves. The inscriptions had all been different but in the same or a similar language and no one had come up with a translation for them.
“Captain,” Meph came into my room after dinner where I was studying a reproduction at full size of one of the tablets on the holotable, “I have an idea. What if the aliens we contacted back on Last Chance know something about these things? They did, after all, come from this general direction.”
“Gawk!” I said as I had just taken a bite of cheese.
“Why Meph, sometimes you amaze me.”
“Well Captain, I have this theory that the tablets may contain some sort of extra-dimensional code or key, which might help us translate them. But we need to get hold of one and I found out they have all been sent to Galactic Central for ‘safekeeping’.”
“So you thought those aliens might have a tablet?”
“Right, sir.”
“Let me see if I can get all twenty questions.
They’ve melted them down for electronics?”
“Uh, well not exactly, Captain.”
“Not exactly? Really Meph, just tell me what they told you.”
“Right. Well Captain, I talked to that engineering friend of mine about a question I had on one of the manuals he lent me and in passing I asked him about the gold tablet thing. He hadn’t heard of anything like that but asked their Captain and she said something like I had described had been found, but since they couldn’t make anything out of them, they had copied them for their central library and then melted the tablets down for the gold.”
“Meph, how many tablets did they find?”
“All together, four.”
“Really? Where?”
“All on one w
orld, not far from where we are now. I took the liberty, knowing your interest, to scope out the route and program it into the navigation system from the map I got from the aliens.”
“My, Meph, you’ve been busy.”
“Yes, sir. Very.”
“But four on one world? This is different.”
“Maybe not Captain. It could be that their methods of discovery using scalar technology currently unknown to our civilization could have resulted in the larger find.”
“We can do that now, right?”
“Right, Captain.”
I noticed on my bridge monitor that we were already on a new course. “Sassy, maximum warp – let’s go!”
It was only six hours to our first scheduled planet fall, if Meph’s hi-jacked course maps were accurate. We barely had time to complete the setup of his gold detector. I had Sassy make a small bar with the food synthesizer and sent that piece out the airlock and held it with a beam at different distances while Meph checked out the detector sensitivity. I could put it out there 40 miles and we could still easily make out the grain of the gold bar. Finding the tablets under a mile or less of rock should be easy.
“Captain, we’ll enter orbit in one minute,” Sassy announced, so I went back to the bridge and Meph and I scanned the planet on the holo for likely places to look for gold.
The world was a pleasant enough place. All the towns and cities were overgrown with foliage. The structures seemed to be in a decayed state of civilization, buildings crumbling, roadways broken, remnants of agriculture gone wild, broken metal and rust everywhere. Possibly they blew themselves up. There were twisted, rusted-out remains of cities – most faintly radioactive, faint patterns of large scale agriculture and so on. I’d seen it many times before. I am never allowed to forget the temporary nature of humanity’s stay on a planet in the overall scheme of things.
There were herds of grazing beasts, a few carnivores not unlike my cat friends on Earth and all in all a nicely recaptured pastoral scene. The planet had been mined fairly heavily. There was the usual lack of iron and fossil fuels in the ground and we could still make out the reservoirs of toxic pollutants that would hamper any resettlement efforts if Central decided to come out here.
We found a few large precious metal deposits, mostly heavy metals, many of which would be good mining with current technology. But a quick scan didn’t pick up the specific characteristics we were searching for.
“Meph, I think I might want to settle here someday.”
“Oh really Captain? Are you thinking of marrying so soon?” Meph quipped.
“Oh come on, Meph. But really, isn’t this a nice world?”
“Yes, it reminds me of holos I’ve seen of your home world, Captain. Scenes besides the Academy. Perhaps you’re getting homesick?”
“No.”
“Right.”
We kept up the friendly banter, Meph trying to get under my skin on this little bit of emotionality I’d shown. But I knew better than to let this subject take hold of me in the middle of a mission. Our orbit slowly descended until I had to park it or land. “Sassy, park in a polar orbit. We’re going to go exploring.” We started transferring Meph’s gear into the lander.
“Captain, I’ve located a cave system similar to the ones on other planets previously found to contain other tablets. There is an active shield inside the cave. My instruments can’t penetrate it. You sure you want to go in there?”
“Whaaat?” I nearly dropped the box I was carrying into the lander’s loading door.
“Sassy, locate the cave entry and show it on the screen here in the docking bay.”
Meph crawled out of the lander and we looked at the picture on the screen Sassy was showing us.
“Look there, Captain. A nice flat spot just about right for the lander, only a few meters from the cave entrance.”
“Yes. Let’s break out the shield-suits and go spelunking.”
“Sassy, maintain system guard. I don’t want to be surprised by Pirates.”
“Of course, Captain.”
We flitted down to the glade and began unloading our gear on a sled.
The entrance was caved in a bit and overgrown with large ugly dried up brown plants with sharp little leaves. But it was such a pleasure to go exploring on the surface of an M-type planet that I wasn’t about to complain about local flora and fauna. I smelled the fresh air of a non-technology world, with a hint of decaying vegetation. The ground around the opening was quite dry.
We found that there was some sort of generator inside the force field where we couldn’t get to it, which was generating power for a very strong shield some ways into the cave. We didn’t have a chance to try Meph’s equipment on it in the Hornet, but after clearing out the entrance we set up shop to see what was down there.
“Okay Captain. You should get something on your screen now. I’ve got a view inside of the cave just fine.”
“I see it Meph. Take us in as far as we can go. I’m not anxious to try out this suit unless I have to.”
Meph followed the cave down with his sensors, recording all the way. It was just a regular constructed (NOT natural) cave without any oddities until we got to the shielded part.
“Captain, do you see how it goes into the walls there?”
“Yes. Looks like a spherical force field. We can measure it and calculate the center. Can you get through?”
“I think so.” Meph adjusted the controls on his field unit and then looked up at me.
“Captain we’re too far away. That generator is putting out a horrendous amount of energy in several bands. I’ll have to set up right next to the field to poke a hole in the shield.”
“Is there room down there? The cave looks a bit narrow for all this stuff.”
“We can leave everything but the control and the probe here. It should work fine at that distance. Then while I hold the hole open you can go inside and check out the place, maybe even turn off the generator.”
Or blow up the planet, I thought to myself. Well, this is what I get paid for. “Okay Mate, let’s go in.”
We put on the shield suits. He grabbed his equipment and I grabbed the monitors and in we went. After more clearing out the entrance, we proceeded to walk (mostly) down the gently sloping cave, which in actual fact seemed more like a tunnel. In a few spots there were what looked like steps. We both noted them, but for some reason didn’t feel like talking just then.
We had to slither, especially Meph did, through a narrow bit where there had been some kind of cavein. I didn’t know his body skeleton could compress so. He reminded me of a pet cat I had once befriended who could slip through the narrowest cracks in the kitchen wall.
Finally, after a half hour of frankly welcome exercise, we arrived at the shield. It wasn’t much to see, just a faint shimmering in our lights. I pressed on it with a rock and it gave just a little. I felt a strange tingling through my arm and dropped the rock in amazement. It was just like the feeling I got when a limb had gone asleep from being cramped too long in one position – strange. Maybe it kept out natives. I looked around the tunnel and didn’t see any bones. Oh well.
As Meph finished setting up the “drill”, I completed my scan of the tunnel. And a tunnel it was. There were the telltale marks of civilization. The sides and top retained their semi-glassy sheen from the heat of the tunneling device. The shape was obloid, narrower at the top and as we had descended further the steps had become more pronounced, less worn from the ravages of weather and time.
“Meph, my instruments indicate this air is fresh. I’m going to remove my head cover and take a whiff.”
“All right, Captain,” he answered, not entirely pleased.
I removed it to smell. Sometimes instruments do not pick up scents that could signal something other than an oxy-nitro atmosphere. All I could smell was the grass, plants and moisture from up top. It didn’t take me long to find the ventilator.
“Look at the ceiling, Meph. I see some tiny perforations up there
in a regular pattern. That must be the ventilation system.”
“Right, Captain. Not what you would expect on a primitive or destroyed world.”
Meph finished his set up and started the probe and took off his head gear to smell the air himself.