by Exurb1a
On most planets this would've been considered an exceptionally rude question, but Ushko liked the directness. “Katarsina is very famous among archaeologists,” he said. “I have wanted to come here for decades.”
“Because of the old extraterrs?”
“That's right, yes.”
“Why?” Matthew said.
Now, how to explain this? Ushko chose his words carefully so as to avoid a scandal later on. “Many believe archaeology tells us something about our future.” Matthew and Marla stared inquisitively. “You see, we don't know much about any of the extraterr civilisations. All we can be sure of is that they faded away eventually and most of the time it wasn't through war.”
“Maybe they got bored,” Matthew said.
“Maybe,” Ushko agreed. “We have no idea yet because the last thing a society cares about as it's dying is telling the future why it's dying.” The whisky was working its magic properly on Ushko now and while he knew he was ranting he also didn't much care. “Now, human society has its own problems. We're present on thousands of worlds, but things are not going well. Forgive me, I don't know how closely you follow galactic politics.”
Marla and Matthew smiled a little sardonically and the smile said, We don't follow it at all.
“Well,” Ushko continued, “the galaxy is beginning to fray at the edges.” He remembered their weak grasp of Galactic Standard. “Fall apart, pardon me. Just a little, but it's there. It's no secret that there's a crisis inside Governance. Planets are already breaking away from the union, eight of them last Standard Year. More will follow, I think. Trade routes are wearing thin. War is being used as a threat for the first time in five thousand years. War!”
“War,” Matthew murmured as though the word was ancient and unused.
“But we are not extraterrs,” Marla said. “What does it matter?”
Ushko constructed the argument in his mind, checked it worked. Yes it was fine. “No, we are not extraterrs from our perspective. But I believe all civilisations face the same pressures, extraterr or not. It doesn't matter how many limbs you have or how your science works, war is still war, famine is still famine. There may be a…common structure to the way civilisations develop in the galaxy and there may be a common structure to what destroys them, you see? To answer your question, that is what I'm doing here. Your planet was probably the home of the protos, of the first galactic race. We know they were also the smartest and the wisest and the first to fall into extinction. If we can solve the mystery of their demise, pardon me—of their death, then I believe we have a chance of saving our own empire.”
Matthew and Marla exchanged a bemused glance. They were good folk, Ushko decided, and they shared a suspicion of lofty ideas as most galactic citizens did these days.
“I think empires are just people,” Matthew said. “Not more.”
“You're right, Matthew.”
That was the end of the thing and Marla refilled their glasses and they watched the fire and the stars for an hour or so in silence before Ushko went to bed.
In the morning he was hungover enough for it to hurt. Marla and Matthew were already out in their rice paddy and he waved to them and they waved warmly back and continued on with their hoes. Thousands of years of separate planet living had been enough to naturally deviate the human genetic baseline. Some planets sported very tall humans, others very small, and a rare few had even managed to develop a tolerance for hangovers. Watching Matthew and Marla go about their morning with no obvious misery, Ushko was quite certain this planet had perfected the hangover tolerance and he was jealous.
He had a small hand-drawn map the Katarsinian government had given him and he followed it out beyond the rice paddies and over a stream to a plot of land several acres across. He may dig anywhere he liked on this spot provided he replaced the dirt when he was finished. With most dig requests Ushko was allowed to make suggestions about where he was allowed to work, but the rarity of the offer to come to Katarsina was so striking he hadn't tempted fate by making demands. He was on the planet now and there were no prying eyes and he had a year and he would not ruin it with pickiness.
Besides, he knew this area had been prey to earthquakes in the past, and had probably thrown up a great deal of deeply buried artifacts to a shallow level.
On the corner of the field he set up a small helper factory. By early afternoon it had produced two helpers, silver orbs that sat noiselessly in the air and regarded Ushko with blue mechanical eyes. (They were not sentient of course, that would be in direct violation of the Artie Treaty.) Politely he asked them to echoping the ground and pinpoint any metal or stone structures, then to use that as a centre from which to base the dig. While they sauntered about the field he had the factory spit out two more helpers, larger this time and groundbound, with great metal tusks and shovel-like implements for mouths. They clambered out into the sunshine and when the little spheres were done with their planning, the mechanical dogs began to dig with perfect regularity. He called one of the spheres back to him and told it, “You will oversee the operation. Let nothing be damaged in the digging process. If it is, you will answer to me. Do you understand?” The blue eye blinked affirmatively and the sphere rejoined its siblings at the pit. Ushko set up his hammock on the outskirts of the dig site beneath two trees, the species of which appeared to be native Katarsinian. He took a volume of Katarsinian history with him up into the hammock and read into the afternoon.
Katarsina was a thoroughly dull planet in terms of history, it seemed. There had been no major wars or uprisings in its ten thousand years of human occupation. They had discovered nothing and invented little. The dominant mode of life was known as Kala, the principle of non-interference. Meekness as a virtue. Well, Ushko thought, what's so wrong about that?
Excitement had kept him in a kind of half-woken state the night before and he hadn't rested. Now in the sunshine and with the helpers working away, he closed his eyes a moment and was gone.
His dreams were absurd at first, shapes and faces, no plot to any of it.
Then he saw a pyramid. It shone blue in the sun and he knew if he struck it the whole structure would ring out like a gong for hours. On closer inspection he saw that the pyramid was etched with glyphs and to his surprise he found he could read them. The glyphs were to be read right to left and the end of the sentence was expressed in the first character already so one could tell the context without yet knowing the content. One line spoke of the length of the days on Katarsina. Another seemed to be talking of the weight of the chemical elements. On the other side of the pyramid there was no scientific data, but endless paragraphs of what appeared to be philosophical platitudes:
IN THE START, SO THE FINISH
Or THE TRUE QUEST IS IN THE CONCLUSION OF ALL QUESTS
Or KNOWING THE LIMIT OF KNOWLEDGE IS TRUE WISDOM
Behind him he saw geometric objects lifting off from the ground, craft perhaps. The sky had turned a deathly dark shade of purple and the air smelled of funeral spices. The pyramid lurched suddenly and Ushko jumped back and the whole structure shook as though frightened, then plunged into the dirt and was gone.
Ushko started up. A girl was standing at the foot of the hammock wearing a small smile.
“Did I frighten you?” she said. Her Katarsinian accent wasn't so thick.
Ushko tried to subtly wipe the dribble from the corner of his mouth. “No,” he said. “I was very tired.”
“You're the man who came from the black?”
“Yes, I came from the black.”
She had that paleness all the Katarsinians seemed to display, but her eyes were very dark. She wore her hair long and wayward in a manner that didn't suggest fulltime employment.
“I like your little friends,” she said, nodding to the helpers.
“They're hard workers,” Ushko said.
“What are they doing?”
“I've come to study some ruins here you see, to—”
“Yes,” she said, “I know all that,
but what are they doing?”
Ushko looked over at the pit. One of the digger helpers was on its back, its legs still going madly like a dreaming dog. One of the spheres was doing loops in the air and its brother was missing.
“Oh Jesus,” Ushko muttered and raced off towards the pit and yelled, “Stop, cease, all of you stop.”
The digger continued to kick at the air and the sphere continued to loop. Closer now he could see the second digger was motionless in the pit and the second sphere was lying beside it. He jumped down into the pit and disconnected the two of them, then climbed back out. “Now listen,” he yelled at the looping sphere. “You've gone wrong. Just come down at once.” The thing ignored him. “Cease, terminate, stop it.”
“You want some help?” The girl had joined his side.
“No thank you.”
“Here,” she said and took a net from her backpack and threw it over the sphere. The sphere resisted but she pulled it in with not so much effort and Ushko disconnected the motor coupling. The thing fell to the ground motionless. He disconnected the digger helper too and then everything was quiet and he wiped the sweat from his brow and thought, Excuse me, what the fuck?
“I think your little friends are a little crazy,” the girl said.
“Hm.”
He peered back into the pit. The ground was horribly uneven. The whole thing would need to be done again. Remains could already have been damaged.
“I don't understand it…” he muttered.
“Didn't they tell you?” the girl said.
“Tell me what?”
“Things don’t work here. People bring machines but they don't work right.”
“Work right? This is Ek technology. It never acts up.”
“Well I guess it does,” the girl said and giggled.
Ushko wanted to do some shouting, but stopped himself. There was something about her laugh that said, Well, what's the use in anything anyway, jackass?
“Technology doesn't work properly here?” Ushko said.
“Nope. Especially out in the fields. No crop machines. Can't use them. Everything's done by hand in the paddies.”
Maybe some kind of ion effect? Ushko thought. No, impossible, Ek is smarter than that.
Ushko took the helpers apart one by one and found no anomalies. Their nodes looked fine.
He marched away from the pit. “Where are you going?” the girl called out. Ushko didn't reply. He ran to Matthew and Marla's tent and Marla was inside, washing her hands of dirt.
“Ushko, well met,” she said.
“What's all this about technology not working on Katarsina?”
Marla looked puzzled a moment: “You mean machines?”
“Machines, yes.”
“Lots of trouble with machines here.”
“Do you know why?”
Marla shrugged and wiggled her dirty fingers in the air. “Hands are fine for most things, aren't they?”
“Yes for most things, but I've brought a number of machines with me to help with my work. I can't do it otherwise.”
“Ah.”
“Is there someone I can contact, a mayor or something?”
“Matthew leads the village.”
“Someone who knows what's going on?”
“Matthew leads the village,” she said again.
Knowing he was at a dead end he thanked Marla and made back to the pit. The girl was sat down at the lip of the pit eating something that resembled a sandwich.
He sat down beside her and stared at the dead helpers. It was unsettling to see them inactive. He'd never witnessed a broken machine, not one, not ever.
“Maybe this is not your place,” the girl said.
“What?”
“Maybe you're just not supposed to be here.”
“In this field?”
“On Katarsina.”
The air was getting cool with late afternoon now. Ushko felt miserable and restless. A long time passed in silence and the sun began to dally at the tips of the trees. The pit rustled with insects. Then the girl said, “You make too much of machines.”
“Is that right.”
“Of course!” she said. “I don't use machines. I like to do things with my hands. Say, have you ever gone walking barefoot in the snow?”
“No,” Ushko muttered.
“It feels good, your feet all cold and soon they're so cold it doesn't hurt and you can walk a long way if you like.”
Ushko turned to her and snapped, “Shoes were one of man's earliest inventions and they haven't changed much since. I think I'll stick with technology thanks.”
The girl seemed to ignore the swipe. “Or have you ever climbed a tree barefoot? You can feel all the little ridges on your toes, you can feel all the veins of the tree. You can get to the very top and look out. I know a tree a few miles away where you can look down on the whole of Inica.”
“That sounds nice,” Ushko said very quietly, thinking of what to do next and coming up empty. He glanced at her sandwich. “Is that my lunch?” he said.
“I like the green things. What are they called?”
“Chillies. Why are you eating my lunch?”
“It's very delicious.”
He put his anger on the pile with all the other annoyances and soon it passed. Perhaps these people didn't have a strong sense of ownership. Many cultures were like that.
He jumped down into the pit and cleared the helpers away and began levelling the ground with his feet.
“What are you doing?” the girl said between chews.
“Making a start. Maybe you're right, maybe I rely too much on machines.”
“You've a funny way about you.”
“What?”
“You just said it was impossible. Now you're doing it.” The pit was partly level now and Ushko went back to the house and fetched his shovel and trowel and arcon lights and brought them all back to the pit.
“It'll take you a long time to do much, I think,” the girl said.
Ushko set the lights up for the evening and centred them on the pit and chose a soft piece of ground and began to dig.
“You'll be here an age, won't you?” the girl murmured.
Ushko paused a moment, then threw down his shovel. He pointed to the sky, south. “When night comes,” he shouted, “you'll see a load of stars over there, and among them will be a small ring of five. That's where I grew up. It's called the Swan Cluster. I spent almost every day of my life there, in that cluster, and do you know what I was doing?”
“Dreaming of coming here,” the girl said with her mouth full.
Ushko tried not to show his surprise. “Yes. That. I know most of the good archaeologists in the galaxy and they all want to come here and not one of them has been granted dig rights. But through sheer determination I have, all right? It's been decades of work and hoping, but with a bit of good luck here I am. So I'm not going to pack it all in just because a few stupid helpers won't work on the land for some god damned reason, and some twenty-five year old tells me to go home, okay?”
The girl smiled. “Okay.” She looked up at the evening. “Well, it's getting late. Thanks for the sandwich.” And before he could protest she was already walking from the pit, her dark hair bouncing about on her shoulders and her dress dangling in the breeze.
“What's your name?” Ushko called out, but the girl only kept walking.
Ushko worked for three days in the pit, sleeping only a few hours a night. He'd brought plenty of cush with him and after a few packets of the stuff the sleep was gone from his eyes and he could work straight through the night. But progress was slow and the task ahead of him began to appear impossible.
On the fourth day he packed a day bag and caught the train back to Amalga Town. The capital wasn't large and he found the Archaeology Society building easily. A tall man answered the door and regarded Ushko from perhaps a foot above him.
“You're the archaeologist from the black?” the man said.
“How did you know?�
�� Ushko said. Everyone seemed to recognise him as a foreigner, though he wasn't quite sure what stood him out. “You're the gentleman who granted me a visa here?”
“I recommended you one, certainly. How can I help?”
The man beckoned Ushko in and they sat in a living room of some kind, the walls decorated with archaic measuring equipment.
“I'm having some trouble on the excavation site,” Ushko said.
“Hm?”
“I constructed some helping machines but they're totally useless here.”
“Well of course,” the man said.
“I'm sorry, what?”
“Technology doesn't work much on Katarsina. Especially adding devices.”
“Computers?”
“Computers, yes.”
“Why?”
“I'm sorry?” the man said.
“Why doesn't anything work?”
“I'm really not the person who would know.”
Ushko tried to suppress a little spring of rage. Then he said, “Well, if my helpers won't work, perhaps you could provide me with some personnel.”
“I'm afraid that would be quite impossible.”
“May I ask why?” Ushko said through somewhat gritted teeth.
“All of our personnel are busy at the moment.”
“Which personnel?”
“Oh, all of them.”
“Could you perhaps put me in touch with some of the other archaeologists on the planet?”
“That would be quite impossible.”
“Why?”
“There are no other archaeologists on the planet.”
“Isn't this the…Archaeological Society?”
“It was built in preparation for your visit, sir.”
Ushko let that settle. “Is that to say you don't have your own archaeologists?”
“That's correct.”
He turned the notion over and over in his mind. “Why?” he said.
“The world is the explanation,” the man said as though that meant anything.
Ushko caught the afternoon train back to Inica. He watched the rice paddies from the train and admired the simple dress of the folk around him, most of them clothed in only single white shawls. They were not poor or unwashed, and he knew enough about the culture to assume their educational standards were high. They simply lacked ambition.