the
vicinity,’ Marko reported.
‘OK. Commence sweeps, Jan.’
They spiralled around each of the
four seamounts over the next five hours, logging the layouts, farms, buildings
and structures, this time all still showing signs of habitation. It had all
obviously been built by an intelligent species.
Harry barked out, ‘Boss, how the
hell did everyone miss this? OK, we are six hundred clicks from base, but all
the same ... Nova Hawaii has been established for, what, three years now? The
mining operation, from start-up, for the last eight years? This is nuts. An
intelligent species that we thought was long gone. Marko, Fritz, start
overlaying everything we have on the old stuff on this lot. See what you can
come up with. And I think that we can talk freely, people, as I see that we
have no outgoing transmissions. What’s the bet that the boys and girls of
Admin, with the GB in full agreement, are creating an alternative of what we
are doing for public consumption?’
‘Don’t think that anyone is going
to take you up on any wager over that, Harry.’
Looking across at his crewmate,
Marko could see Harry was pissed off. He didn’t blame him — he felt very much
the same. Humankind had been searching for intelligent alien species for such a
long time. There had been rumours of contact for as long as any of them could
remember, but no one, as far as the published news was concerned, had ever laid
eyes on a intelligent, actual alien yet. Plenty of human types who came close,
but nothing truly alien. The evidence from a few of the planets that humankind
had been on was that intelligent life had once been present, but there had also
been a series of gamma ray bursts from exploding stars which had wiped out
great chunks of life inside the area that was called the Sphere of Humankind.
At fifty light years, the sphere was pretty big, but only the tiniest fraction,
when it came to the overall size of the Milky Way.
Fritz said, ‘Um, guys, this is
new. The basic shape of everything is very similar. It’s like two different
civilisations based on the same theme, but thousands of years apart. The probes
are saying that this area has only been under development for hundreds of the
local years. Maximum. They are either fanatical about cleaning, which is
possible, or they have not been here all that long. Look at the margins around
the sea farms. The regrowth is the key. I’m sending a drone to have a closer
look. Can I go ahead and start sending drones into some of the interiors?’
‘Go ahead, Fritz.’
There was silence until the
drones began sending back images of the interior. ‘Tech everywhere, boss,’
Fritz reported. ‘There’s going to be hell to pay over this. No one gets away
with wiping out a whole species that looks like it was here a very long time
ago.’
‘Don’t count on it, Fritz. Money
is more important and that Helium 3 is worth a hell of a lot of money.
Actually, Fritz, set up a small breaker. See if you can hack the monitor’s
outgoing signal. That’ll show us soon enough how they are going to play this.’
‘Drones entering the main
portals. Martial society. Lots of sculptures and murals in the classic hero
stance, no matter what the species. Yeah, a whole city-state in there. Also
goes a long way down. Heaps of tech. Check out the water scrubbers. Shit, we
wiped everything, didn’t we? Just a helluva lot of dead critters of all ages.
Fact is, there’s a helluva lot of dead everything. Low radiation residual. The
big boys and girls hit this with a new toy, Harry?’
‘No comment, Fritz,’ said Harry. ‘These
things attacked us, remember. No attempt at discussions or anything. They would
have known that we were here. See that? A water-to-air craft. They knew about
flight and they knew about the stars as well. Wow, look at that ceiling. Where
the hell is that? Fritz, get some scanning high-res shots of that. My guess is
that it’s what the night
vicinity,’ Marko reported.
‘OK. Commence sweeps, Jan.’
They spiralled around each of the
four seamounts over the next five hours, logging the layouts, farms, buildings
and structures, this time all still showing signs of habitation. It had all
obviously been built by an intelligent species.
Harry barked out, ‘Boss, how the
hell did everyone miss this? OK, we are six hundred clicks from base, but all
the same ... Nova Hawaii has been established for, what, three years now? The
mining operation, from start-up, for the last eight years? This is nuts. An
intelligent species that we thought was long gone. Marko, Fritz, start
overlaying everything we have on the old stuff on this lot. See what you can
come up with. And I think that we can talk freely, people, as I see that we
have no outgoing transmissions. What’s the bet that the boys and girls of
Admin, with the GB in full agreement, are creating an alternative of what we
are doing for public consumption?’
‘Don’t think that anyone is going
to take you up on any wager over that, Harry.’
Looking across at his crewmate,
Marko could see Harry was pissed off. He didn’t blame him — he felt very much
the same. Humankind had been searching for intelligent alien species for such a
long time. There had been rumours of contact for as long as any of them could
remember, but no one, as far as the published news was concerned, had ever laid
eyes on a intelligent, actual alien yet. Plenty of human types who came close,
but nothing truly alien. The evidence from a few of the planets that humankind
had been on was that intelligent life had once been present, but there had also
been a series of gamma ray bursts from exploding stars which had wiped out
great chunks of life inside the area that was called the Sphere of Humankind.
At fifty light years, the sphere was pretty big, but only the tiniest fraction,
when it came to the overall size of the Milky Way.
Fritz said, ‘Um, guys, this is
new. The basic shape of everything is very similar. It’s like two different
civilisations based on the same theme, but thousands of years apart. The probes
are saying that this area has only been under development for hundreds of the
local years. Maximum. They are either fanatical about cleaning, which is
possible, or they have not been here all that long. Look at the margins around
the sea farms. The regrowth is the key. I’m sending a drone to have a closer
look. Can I go ahead and start sending drones into some of the interiors?’
‘Go ahead, Fritz.’
There was silence until the
drones began sending back images of the interior. ‘Tech everywhere, boss,’
Fritz reported. ‘There’s going to be hell to pay over this. No one gets away
with wiping out a whole species that looks like it was here a very long time
ago.’
‘Don’t count on it, Fritz. Money
is more important and that Helium 3 is worth a hell of a lot of money.
Actually, Fritz, set up a small breaker. See if you can hack the monitor’s
outgoing signal. That’ll show us soon enough how they are going to play this.’
‘Drones entering the main
portals. Martial society. Lots of sculptures and murals in the classic hero
stance, no matter what the species. Yeah, a whole city-state in there. Also
goes a long way down. Heaps of tech. Check out the water scrubbers. Shit, we
wiped everything, didn’t we? Just a helluva lot of dead critters of all ages.
Fact is, there’s a helluva lot of dead everything. Low radiation residual. The
big boys and girls hit this with a new toy, Harry?’
‘No comment, Fritz,’ said Harry. ‘These
things attacked us, remember. No attempt at discussions or anything. They would
have known that we were here. See that? A water-to-air craft. They knew about
flight and they knew about the stars as well. Wow, look at that ceiling. Where
the hell is that? Fritz, get some scanning high-res shots of that. My guess is
that it’s what the night
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