“It could only be a mummified animal,” Gorren
answered. She wrapped a two meter length of synthetic rope around what appeared
to be ankles. Leathery dark hide covered a bipedal skeleton larger than
themselves but not too dissimilar. She had a hard time standing still but kept
jigging around the treasure.
“It’s in
good condition, relatively speaking,” she said while giving it a brief
examination without touching. The two scientists measured the carcass at 191
centimeters, then placed it in a heavy canvas wrap as blood red dust billowed
up from under their prize. “Well, it’s not what we hoped to find, but someone
will be interested in buying it, I’m sure,” Gorren said. “A little more money
for the research budget.”
“It’s seriously ugly, no hair, kind of lanky,”
Teek said, adding a grunt of disgust.
“Let’s just wrap it up and get it back to the
station.” Gorren wiped the stale, sticky dust from her helmet to clear her view
and took a couple of photographs before they enclosed it and tied the straps around
it, gingerly.
“I’m with you. I’m ready for the douche room
already.” The two Kiians carried the package, tripping over their own feet as
they struggled back to their rover more than a hundred meters from their dig
site. Being only 130 centimeters themselves and wearing heavy protection gear
didn’t help in ambulating to the vehicle. Scarlet dust followed them and
lingered in the low atmospheric pressure.
“Let me help,” their driver offered, her voice in
their ears while they half dragged and half lifted the artifact into the rear
hatch. She appeared suddenly from a blind spot and added her strength to the
group heft. “This thing must weight 50 kilos!”
“At least it’s mostly desiccated,” Teek said. He
patted the dust off and climbed into the car with his two female partners. Teek
had only recently been accepted in the research program. Males were a minority,
sometimes offered positions simply because they were male. Obviously it wasn’t
his strength, being smaller than most females, and he hadn’t graduated with
stellar marks from the university, but whatever the reason, males dominated
commerce activities and females dominated education projects. He didn’t care;
he was simply giddy inside.
Inside the rover Gorren took her place at the
commander’s seat and locked the compartments, allowing for pressurization and
security. The lights on her dashboard turned from blue to orange and she waved
signaling it was safe to remove helmets.
“Ho, this is a great find,” Teek said. He shifted
side to side a little in his chair.
“I don’t think any other teams have located
something like this, hairless and bipedal.”
“Part of the mass extinction you think?” Teek
asked. He scratched at something behind his ear with a long and hairy finger.
“We’ll have to get it back to the research station
and start testing its age before we know for sure.”
The rover bumped and crawled along the desert
ground towards the Kiian research station but the time dragged slowly for Teek.
He focused on his energy on data entry on the ride back and remained in thought
the rest of the way.
Later that day Commander Gorren and crewman Teek
returned to the medical research lab inside the substantial research facility,
complete with living quarters, food stations, entertainment, recreation
facilities, and above all, labs of every kind, from geology to biology and
almost everything in between.
“You two are never going to believe this,” the
medical director said to them before they’d stepped both feet into the room.
The door behind them slid shut.
Gorren toddled up to the doctor’s medical
equipment station and Teek followed behind her. He wore just a few garments in
the research station to designate his crewman status from the doctors and
officers. Despite long body hair, he felt a chill all of a sudden and fastened
his coat a little more snugly at his short neck.
Complex swirls appeared on a face-high monitor
attached to the wall in front of them. They rotated as if floating in ether.
“Nucleotides,” Gorren said. “So?”
“So!? Take another look, Gorren, and tell me those
aren’t alien.”
Gorren and Teek both moved closer to the monitor
to examine the image. Both produced blank faces and turned to the doctor.
“My focus is paleontology, not genetics,” Gorren
said. Teek kept his mouth shut. He had learned early on to let the females
speak without interruption. They could raise holy helldom if a crewman, a male
crewman, stopped their train of thought.
“This mummy is, well, at least mostly, human. You
know, Earthlings, Terrans.”
“That explains the two meter height and corpus
alopecia,” she said. “I guess it’s not so wonderful a find after all.”
“Gorren,” the doctor said, taking the commander’s
arm and holding her, focusing all attention on each other. “This thing is
almost 800 cycles in age.”
“Again, so what?” The doctor slapped her hand
against her forehead and shook her head forcefully.
“Read,” the doctor said, and tapped a few file
icons on her monitor before she pulled up a file for Commander Gorren. She
leaned forward to read the text.
Overview of Earth History
in Space
Earthlings are the newest
member of the local arm, their planet existing third in orbit at 2 Units from
their yellow, G- Type star, approximately five billion cycles in age and
halfway through its average lifespan.
The planet, Earth, is 40,000 kilometers in diameter and
is diverse with an abundance of vegetation and bacterial life forms in and out
of the vastly saline environment. Only one quarter of the planet is dry land
with fresh water pockets. Land animals dominate the environment, but only the bipedal
Kiian-type earthlings are found on all land masses. These are not the only
sentient species, but the only species that has ventured into outer space, with
the exceptions of two other orders of mammals, one primate, the other
carnivore, in conjunction with the humanoid space programs.
“Is this relevant? I don’t have time for a class
on Earth.” Gorren huffed and inhaled deeply.
“Keep going,” the doctor said.
“Just tell me.”
“Read it,” the doctor insisted. Gorren took a deep
breath and exhaled quickly. She leaned toward the monitor again.
The Human civilization was
particularly slow to develop until approximately 300 cycles ago, when they
reached air travel, followed by exponential technological leaps. Within another
100 cycles they had ventured into their own star system, and in the last 100
cycles, have finally become intergalactic. Peaceable enough in space, their
technology is still behind average, and visits to the actual planet will shock
even the most liberal-minded Kiian into wondering--”
“A hundred cycles ago?” Gorren said quietly. A
queer sensation simmered in her stomach, like the last meal had not settled
well.
“And it’s not all human. I found other species in
the database that also match. One I can’t identify, another is, if you can face
this fact, Pegasi. Another is Auchsonian. No Kiian.”
“Thank the stars for that,” Teek said. Both
females gave him a sharp look that shrank him a few centimeters. “I meant, who
would breed with Pegasi?”
“We know what you meant,” the doctor said. “We
just don’t need to hear your opinion, crewman.”
“Maybe the human came on a ship with one of these
other species. It doesn’t mean the body is from Earth. It’s twenty light years
from here.”
“Their space program didn’t even start until 100
cycles ago, much less 800. No one probably even heard of humans back then.”
“You think the Earthlings will want this?” Gorren
almost whispered, nodding slightly at the corpse. The doctor’s eyes widened.
“You think they will pay for this?” Gorren asked. If possible, the doctor’s
eyes grew as round as saucers and her head nodded quickly. Both females let out
a squeal and took each other’s arms, turning in circles and hopping around the
room. Teek, wanted to join them but remained in the shadow and only watched as
his future quietly glowed. He could see the money in his cellar already.
“Are you certain? Do we need to test more before
we contact them?”
“I’ve already put in the order,” the doctor said.
Both began to screech and hop around the room again. After a moment, Gorren
sighed and looked at Teek.
“What’s on your mind?” she asked him. He looked
back and forth at both of them.
“What about the space capsule? Do you think it’s
worth anything?”
No comments:
Post a Comment