The return of Task Force 3, 2nd Fleet to orbit around the planet of interest was greeted with much celebration. Sandy, and any officer not on duty, was invited to a victory celebration aboard the boffin’s senior transport which had been rechristened the Galileo. The dinner was delicious. The scientists were most friendly, and the officers couldn’t buy a drink if they tried. Indeed, a Navy type’s glass wasn’t even allowed to get half-empty.
Sandy spotted the problem in that largess quickly, limited herself to a sip, and kept them few and far between. Others weren’t so cautious and ended up sleeping it off under many a table.
Of course, many of the Navy officers were joined by their boffin hosts as well.
Sandy found herself enjoying the conversation of the evening. On the voyage from the jump to the planet, she’d absorbed quite a few reports on what had been going on dirtside while she’d been saving their bacon upside.
The dig at the city that seemed to have been lazed most recently had turned up evidence of a town and technology equal to Earth in the middle ages. They had the steel plow; several had been found almost rusted away. They had the water wheel; diggers were sure they had found evidence of a mill’s grinding wheel. It had been shattered, but they’d been able to put most of it back together despite the weathering.
What technology might have been turned to glass in the central target area would never be known.
The examination of the alien trophy room had the evolutionary biologists giddy with excitement. Every one of the 413 specimens showed a completely different evolutionary tree. Many had DNA similar to our own and the alien raiders, as well as the Iteeche and cats. Other planets had developed something completely different that met the same purpose. There seemed to be three similar systems and one totally unique method of handing down genetic material from one generation to the next.
While most were sexual in their reproduction, at least three species seemed to have a different means of passing germ plasma from one sex to the other from all the myriad variations science had catalogued since leaving old Earth. One even seemed to have three sexes, with two providing the egg and sperm, while a third sex incubated the egg and fed the newborn in a pouch.
“If we could have studied that species when they were alive, we could have gotten an extraordinary understanding of what actually takes place in the womb and how it contributes to the development of the child. It’s such a tragedy. Such a tragedy,” Professor Labao said, shaking his head.
Sandy listened patiently as first one, then another researcher bubbled over to her. In some cases, she understood every other word. In others it was worse, maybe every fourth or fifth.
She was grateful when Jacques edged out her last babbler, offered her a glass of water masquerading as alcohol, and began to bring her up to date on the work of the anthropologists, especially the linguists.
“We’re got a lot of their language now,” he told Sandy. “It’s strange, but most of them speak something very close to each other even if they are on separate continents. Frankly, that’s impossible. There should have been a lot more drift as the people spread out over the planet.”
“That’s assuming they spread,” Sandy pointed out. “Couldn’t they all have been talking some proto-version of this language when the planet suffered its first bombardment? What is it, one hundred thousand years ago, or one hundred ten thousand years?”
“It’s both. This place was clobbered twice,” Jacques said. “The glass plain with the pyramid dates back to one hundred ten thousand years ago. We’re pretty sure the pyramid is only a hundred thousand years old.”
“If I was a betting woman,” Sandy said, “I’d bet you that this planet got hammered once, and after ten thousand years of being under someone’s boots, they rose up in a bloody, messy rebellion, threw off their chains, and sent a fleet of their own, either captured or built, and wrecked that planet we whizzed by. When are we going to study it?”
“There’s not a lot to study,” Jacques said. “A hundred thousand years ago someone pounded them into the dirt, then tossed the dirt and air off the planet out into space and didn’t even leave enough for us to find one scrap of DNA.”
“And the only DNA we think we have for that species is the family facing the tunnel entrance into the pyramid and a pile of skulls in front of them?” Sand said.
“Yes. A guess,” Jacques answered. “Getting back to the mystery of the language, we’re all scratching our heads. Even if you assume for the moment that the planet had a single civilization with a single language on all the continents, there is no way they could have avoided differentiation over the last hundred millennia. Just think of the short time it took the Indo-European language to diverge from Latin and German in old Earth’s north European area to distant Hindi and Bengali some eight thousand kilometers away. All those continents below us should have totally unintelligible languages. Still, people on one continent of this planet can hold a basic conversation with someone from ten thousand kilometers and an ocean away,” Jacques said, slowly shaking his head.
“And the aliens who went to space have spent a hundred thousand years and their fear and hatred of anything different is just as hot as it was when they bombarded that nearby planet,” Sandy pointed out.
“Makes you wonder if that weird DNA they have may be passing down a lot more than just genetic material to their children,” Jacques mused.
“I’m not one of your boffins,” Sandy said with a friendly grin, not wanting to start a fight. “I don’t know enough to have an informed opinion on such matters. However, I sure would like for one of your diggers to uncover something from before a hundred and ten thousand years ago.”
“You’re not the first to raise that question, Admiral. Some of us boffins would also love to sample some old DNA. Along that line, we just may have something for you.”
Sandy raised two inquisitive eyebrows and Jacques led her away from the noise of the party into the hallway outside.
“You know we sociologists have had drones, nanos and other non-invasive scouts out listening to the alien hunters and gatherers. In the process of doing that, we’ve been mapping their hunting ranges and identifying the limits of each tribes.
“We found that very few traveled the mountains much above eight or nine thousand feet altitude. That seemed reasonable. Still, we did want to map the higher elevations. When we did, we found a cave that turned out to be more than just a cave.”
“More than a cave?” Sandy asked.
“Someone had dug out a major system of corridors and rooms going deep into the mountain. The cave and tunnel system was designed higher than the mouth, so water did not get in.”
“That’s interesting,” Sandy said. “But isn’t the air that high up hard to breathe?”
“Eight thousand feet is high, but not outside the zone of human habitation. Especially desperate humans. It’s also on a tectonic plate that seems to have parked itself for a very long time. No earthquakes. No volcanoes. Nothing to disturb a cavern. It’s also just at the tree line. Depending on the climate, it might or might not be surrounded by dense woods. The only way we spotted this cave was by low flying nanos looking for something like this. From five hundred or a thousand feet up, you see hardly anything. If you throw in forest coverage, it becomes nearly impossible to spot.”
“A perfect hideaway if you were fleeing an invader or organizing a resistance,” Sandy muttered. “What can you tell me about this cave?”
“It’s located high above a valley. The rock is hard, igneous rock. How they dug into the mountain is a question we can’t answer. Still, if they could grind their way in, they wouldn’t have to do much about supporting it. We haven’t discovered anything like post holes for timber supports. The walls, floor, and overhead look like they haven’t changed in a thousand years. Or maybe a hundred thousand years. There is really no way to tell.”
“Wouldn’t digging through that kind of rock require a high level of technology?” Sandy marveled.
“Well, we haven’t found any residue from torches or cooking fires inside the tunnel system. A search of the surrounding area was negative for any molecular material that solar panels might leave, but after all this time, and on a windswept mountain . . .?” Jacques shrugged.
“What about inside the tunnel system? Is there anything?”
“The air inside the cave is fairly thin, cold, and dry. We have found some copper, some glass, the sorts of things that would go into a lighting system. We’ve got heavy metals in some rooms. What we’re talking about here are just traces of things that don’t belong there at all. You have to understand, we’re dealing with a hundred and ten thousand years of decay. We’ve got some nanos out mapping the tunnel system while others try to analyze what there is to find in the tunnel. We just need time.”
“This intrigues me, so I hope we’ve bought you plenty of time for your work,” Sandy said, shivering at the slaughter that had paid for that time. Still, the slaughter was of murderous aliens, hell bent on killing her and her people.
This is the job I signed up for all those years ago.
“Jacques,” the computer at his neck said.
“Yes, Marie.”
“I have been listening to you brief the admiral. We have just had a major discovery in the mapping of that tunnel system you were talking about. We found, deep in the back of the tunnels, that the ancient diggers broke though into a huge cavern. Our mapping effort will need to be doubled.”
“Very well, Marie. Have we exhausted our supply of Smart Metal at the cave?”
“Yes, sir. That is why I am raising this matter at this time. It seemed like we might get faster results from the admiral than our own usual avenues.”
Jacques chuckled. “There is nothing worse than the political machinations when it comes to funding science,” he said.
“How much Smart Metal do you need?” Sandy asked.
“Three kilograms,” Marie answered. “However, to build a drone that can travel fast from one of our normal drop zones we would need five kilos.”
Sandy tapped her commlink. “Penny, I have a job for you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“We need five, no make that eight kilos of Smart Metal for a tiny dig that I’m quite interested in. Could you arrange to have that on the next shuttle drop? Jacques’ Marie can work with your Mimzy to see that it is dropped off as close to the dig as possible.”
“Mimzy says she has the coordinates. We can arrange for a slightly different landing path to tomorrow morning’s dawn drop. They should have the material in six hours.”
“Should I ask what you’re taking the Smart Metal out of?” Sandy asked cautiously.
“Better you don’t, ma’am. That way you can deny it if the matter comes up, which I doubt it will.”
“Thank you, Penny.”
“You’re welcome, Admiral.”
“Jacques, I am very interested in anything that might give us some samples of what life was like on this planet before the first bombardment. If you see any place that might give me something to gnaw on, let me know and I’ll see that you get your hands on resources immediately. Understand?”
“I believe the answer is aye, aye, Admiral.”
“Now you’re sassing me, civilian.”
“Not at all. I am being very, very grateful and respectful.”
The rest of the evening was more listening to scientists talk on matters she hardly understood. She wondered what it would take to have them slow down and translate it as well as Jacques had just done. From the way they talked, Sandy doubted that was possible. They spoke in their own language. No doubt if she tried explaining battle tactics and ship maintenance, she would get back the same blank stares or vacant smiles as she was giving them.
Which left her wondering. How much information was going right over her head, and how much of that information might be something she really needed to know?