Ice Planet Read online

  “Ah, Savi, I want you to meet Cora. She has been seconded to our university from the School of Archaeology at the University of Edevall. You may have heard that that University will be closed at the end of this year, due to an inadequate enrollment of students. Very sad. It is essential that we all work to ensure that it does not happen to us. The two of you will need to cooperate to avoid duplication in your subject areas.”

  Savi smiled at the young woman and received a half-smile in response.

  “Hello, Cora. Welcome to our University. You may have heard that I started working here less than a year ago, so I may need some advice from you on the job.”

  Cora smiled, a smile that reached her eyes this time and brightened her face.

  “I hope I can help, Savi. I’ve also been in the job only a year, but I think I’ve learned a lot.”

  “I will leave you now, Cora. I have a meeting in my office. Your office is the next one down the corridor. I’ll call in later this afternoon, to answer any questions you may have. I’m sure that Savi will be able to help you to integrate.”

  Cora smiled uncertainly as Professor Gerven swept off down the corridor, leaving her to find her own way under the guidance of this young man. She did not know what to expect on her first day in this new job, but this was certainly not it!

  “Please come in, Cora, and take a seat. I’ve been working on drawing up the lectures in my field. That would make a good starting point in our discussions.” Savi smiled as he stood back to allow Cora to pass, then he resumed his seat and cleared a space on his desk.

  “It came as a shock when I was told last week that the University will close. I thought that I had a job for life when I joined the Faculty.” The shock was still evident in the young woman’s face.

  “I thought that, too, Cora. It seems that we’ll both have to readjust our thinking. The economy seems to be slipping, more every month. I suppose that even universities are not immune to economic forces. I'd guess that archaeology as a field of study is particularly vulnerable. Outside of the universities, it’s not a field in which you can earn well.”

  “If at all!” Cora laughed. “I studied archaeology because I wanted to know what really happened in the past. I have great difficulty accepting the conventional view that our world came into existence, suddenly and completely, only about seven thousand years ago. There seems to be too much complexity for that to be the case.”

  “Yes, and too many contradictions, too. Most of all, I can’t understand why the Creator should have placed so many stumbling blocks in our way, given us so many problems to solve, when it would have been possible for him to have created a perfect world.”

  “Perhaps he did. Perhaps we humans have created the problems after we were handed a perfect world. Several of the artefacts I’ve seen seem to indicate that we had a much better understanding of science a long time ago.” Cora laughed again. Savi decided that he liked that laugh. It was genuine, from the heart.

  “I’ve seen a few too, but the problem seems to be that there are many artefacts I’ve seen that must be older than Humanity, and, according to the conventional view, that’s impossible. Humans and the rest of the planet came into existence at the same time, and we haven’t been around that long.”

  “One of the jobs I was intended to do is to investigate the rock columns at Mount Kina. There’s a mining project planned there, right in the middle of some structures that seem to be not natural. The man who found the structures has requested that an archaeological study be done to determine whether they must be preserved. Of course, the mining company has objected to that, although the responsible Manager at the proposed mine seems to be fairly pragmatic about the matter. They claim that the area has been covered in ice since the beginning of time, so they couldn’t have been made by humans, and, even if they were of human origin, they have no historical significance. Mount Kina is the highest mountain on the planet, and was probably an important landmark for early humans, so the project might be useful in finding out more about our distant past.”

  “I’ve heard of that new mine, but the Press reports were very brief, and I haven’t had time to go into it more deeply. It strikes me that the subject could use an archaeologist and a geologist, an independent geologist, not one of the tame experts that the mining companies use to prove what they want proved.”

  “I agree. That’s why I was chosen for the job. I have degrees in archaeology and geology.” Cora stopped talking at the look on Savi’s face.

  “That’s a surprise! I thought I was the only one.”

  It was Cora’s turn to show her surprise.

  “I completed a degree in geology as well as one in archaeology because I wasn’t sure that I would be able to earn a living as an archaeologist after graduation. As it turned out, I was only partly right. The geology knowledge has given me an edge over my competitors, because I’ve been able to formulate some theories that are based on my understanding of geology, which have enabled me to provide some dates for archaeological sites that seem to be a lot more accurate than the dates based on other techniques. The fact that almost every archaeological site is covered with ice has made it difficult to use methods based on the degeneration of the atomic structure of the materials. Dating artefacts by the known dates of volcanic explosions, floods and so on that left behind deposits over the artefacts is easier and more accurate.”

  “I don’t want to butt into your area, but I would love to be included in your team, even without payment. I have some theories about the historical importance of Mount Kina, and I would love to check them out.”

  “I’m sure we could arrange that, Savi. Tell me more about yourself. I’ll need that when I talk with the team leaders.”

  The next two hours passed in a blur, but, by the end of the time, Cora had a document she could use, and a much better understanding of Savi, and he of her.

  “I can’t make any promises, Savi, but, if I were the Team Leader, I'd bring you on board. I think that the two of us will make a good team.”

  “Great! Now let’s have a look at the courses we’ll be presenting. We can’t overlook the fact that the University is our employer.”

  *~*

  It required another week for the proposal to be approved, and then it came with the proviso that Savi’s position was to be as an apprentice, carrying no pay.

  “I’m sorry about that, Savi. I put you up as a fully-fledged geologist, but they obviously don’t want to pay the cost.”

  “That’s not a problem, Cora. It’s only a couple of weeks, and I would happily have paid my way to be included in the work. I have a feeling that this project could be an important one for us and for our science. The tallest mountain on the planet must surely have been a beacon for the early humans.”

  “I’ve spoken to Professor Gerven about a leave of absence for the project. Fortunately, the project overlaps the new term by only four days, and he’s arranged other lectures in the times we would have been needed. He also understands the value of our involvement. The fees the University will earn from it will make up a third of our Department’s funding shortfall for the year, and he also believes that Mount Kina occupies an important place in the history of Humanity. As the tallest mountain in Kinair, it was almost certainly a draw card for the ancients, and there seems to be a good likelihood that we’ll be able to find artefacts that will clarify our history. He did caution us not to make any wild statements that may be in conflict with the official version of our history. He said that the university can’t afford that sort of controversy, even if it is based on proven facts.”

  “I know, but it would be very difficult to make discoveries that could be conclusive in the discussion about the age of Humanity, and then to have to hush them up because they conflict with the official version of our history.”

  “We’ll have to swallow that in the name of science, Savi. One day there will be enough incontrovertible evidence for us to come out with the truth, to be able to show that the official ver
sion of our history is all garbage.” Cora smiled gently at Savi. She had come to respect his mind in the time she had known him, and to understand that he was one of those rare finds in today’s world – a scientist who was willing to tell the whole truth, regardless of the likely consequences. He did not have a single political bone in his body. She knew that she would have to exercise enough caution for both of them.

  Chapter 5

  The time came for the team to leave for the Base Camp at the foot of Mount Kina. Both Savi and Cora had been on several field trips before, and they knew the demands and constraints that would be placed on them. They had made their preparations, including packing a field laboratory for the evaluation of whatever samples and artefacts they might find. Savi had been able to do this by visiting a metallurgical laboratory owned by the University in the building behind his home. He had discovered its existence while exploring the neighborhood, and, on approaching the University, its owner, had been given permission to use it in his work, provided he bore the costs of whatever he did in it. The laboratory had been set up years ago in a flight of fancy by a Professor of Geology, and then closed on his death. In the years since then, it had been all but forgotten by the University, remaining simply as a note in its asset register. The fact that it was owned by the University had exempted it from the payment of property taxes, and the decline in the economy had ensured that there was a surfeit of buildings like it. The chances were that it could not be sold, no matter what the price. Savi had spent several evenings cleaning and renovating it, and he was now able to borrow some equipment from it for the expedition.

  Savi collected Cora from her home in the morning, and they drove to the meeting point. The mining company had arranged that the expedition would do the work necessary prior to commencement of mining, and the expedition included the Mine Manager, several mining engineers, construction workers and even a Site Foreman to supervise the establishment of the mining camp that would house the hundreds of mining workers. Savi suspected that the inclusion of the Site Foreman was a subtle hint to Cora and him that the work could not tolerate any lengthy delays. The weather forecast had predicted a temperature during the following week a few degrees above freezing. That was both an advantage and a disadvantage. It would be more pleasant to drive the long distance in warmer weather, rather than in the snow and sleet that was customary at this time of the year, but the warmer daytime temperatures would melt the snow and ice on the roads, allowing the-water to freeze overnight to form the black ice that made driving at night and in the early hours of the day so hazardous.

  “I can remember summers in my childhood when the whole summer would be as warm as this,” remarked Savi as they followed the convoy onto the road to the mountain.

  “My parents have told me that early spring was like today, with the warm weather starting two months earlier than it does now, and summers free of ice and snow for several months at a time. It only started to snow halfway through autumn then. It must have been pleasant.”

  “I believe that we’re at the start of a period of glaciation. The geological signs seem to say that those periods typically last from two to four thousand years, with the same duration of warmer periods between cycles. We seem to be at about the six hundredth year after the peak of the last warm period.”

  “That seems to indicate that we’ll experience worsening cold conditions for the next several thousand years. How will the people survive?”

  “I guess the same way they did during the earlier cold cycles. They’ll have to head to the south of the continent, where the cold will be an inconvenience, rather than a deathtrap, unless it becomes much colder. The extreme cold is thought to lower the level of the sea by depositing a layer of ice on much of the land, and that frees up some usable land for agriculture on the edge of the continental shelf. Unfortunately, that is all lost when the ice melts during a warm period, making it necessary for the people to migrate back to this area. That won’t be good news, because of the poor agricultural conditions and the almost complete lack of most of the minerals we use every day. I believe that the time of our supposed creation, according to the religious dogma, was the time that the deep ice here was thawing, allowing the humans to migrate back to this area. There were probably relatively few of them left alive by then, because the conditions in the south were not really conducive to agriculture, and the conditions here probably made this area seem like paradise.” Cora laughed. “That would make the establishment of a settlement around the area of Vidia seem like a new beginning. That was probably the foundation of the religious myths.”

  “Do you have any idea of the population of the world before the onset of that ice age? The population now has been in decline for at least forty years. We’re down to about twelve million from a peak of over a hundred million.”

  “The records I’ve seen don’t record the numbers, Savi, but there were at least six cities as large as Vidia. That would seem to indicate a total population of Kinair in the range of a hundred million. I believe that there were several hot-cold cycles in the last hundred thousand years, and that our civilization evolved through at least two of those cycles.”

  “Would two cycles be long enough for the developments that we can see?”

  “No, and that’s the problem I have. Many of the elements of our civilization would seem to require at least tens of thousands of years of straight line development, if not longer. We know that each cold cycle causes our civilization to lose a significant part of our development that was achieved in the previous warm cycle. Just the development of science alone has needed at least three thousand years to recover to the position it was in before the freeze, before it started making advances again. The attitude of the government and the religious Leaders has slowed that down, probably even reversed it in the last hundred years. If that has been the pattern every cycle, it seems that we as a civilization have about two to three thousand years of advance each fifteen thousand years.” Cora broke off to grin at Savi. “It’s close to impossible to estimate accurately, but that’s my best guess, and it seems to be accurate in the light of all the historical evidence. However, a development period of four to six thousand years is far too short for all the achievements we are able to identify. That’s why the religious theory of a Creator dumping us here fully developed has a considerable appeal, on the surface at least. However, it ignores all the other evidence, such as the skeletons of prehistoric animals that have been found, evidence of human settlements under ice sheets that have been in existence for at least fifteen thousand years, and so on. The only way to deal with that is to ignore it. That’s why I’m so keen to examine the artefacts at the foot of Mount Kina. There has been an ice sheet over that area for at least eight thousand years, which implies that the humans who made those structures were at a sufficiently advanced stage to build them, if they are of human origin, between eight and fifteen thousand years ago, possibly even longer.”

  “There has been a theory doing the rounds that humans might not have supernatural origins, but are the descendants of a colony of travelers from a distant planet who settled on Kinair and formed the basis of a human population. They stem from an interpretation of some folklore that has existed for almost as long as our civilization. I’ve discounted that as a viable theory because the nearest possible planet for them to have come from is at least ten light years away. They would have had to live for tens of thousands of years on a spacecraft before reaching here. Apart from that, the theory seems to offer answers to many of the questions.”

  “I’ve looked into that theory, Savi, and I agree with you. It does seem to be impossible unless they had faster-than-light transport, and we know that is impossible. At least in terms of our current knowledge of physics. It’s a big puzzle. Perhaps the structures at Mount Kina will give us some clues. Perhaps we’ll even find remnants of their spacecraft there.” Cora grinned at the thought that such a find would upset every piece of the conventional history of the planet.

  “I ho
pe so. I mean, that we will find some clues. I hope that the structures are of human origin, although that will present a totally new set of difficulties and problems. If they are of human origin, we’ll have to find out why they’re there, how they got there, and in what respects the official story of Creation will have to be revised.” Savi smiled wryly. It seemed that the easiest solution to many of the problems would be to find that the structures were a freak of nature. That would certainly simplify the next few months for them. He added an afterthought. “We must be very careful not to let our assessment be biased by what others think, or even by our own thoughts and desires. I know it’s easy to find an explanation and then juggle the facts to fit it. We can’t do that.”

  *~*

  They arrived at the Base Camp in the early hours of the morning. The drive through the heavy snowfall had been long and exhausting, and they were keen to throw together something to eat, and then to slip into their beds. The dark of the night, enhanced by the falling snow, made it impossible to see the structures they planned to visit in the morning. The few hours before they awoke for the start of the day were too short for them, but they were keen to get their work moving. They had a tight schedule, and could not predict with any accuracy how long any particular element of the work might require.

  After their breakfast, they were taken to the site a mile away, driving between walls of ice deeper than the height of the truck. Their destination was a very large insulated tent, which covered a flat area of land. In the middle of the cleared area were ten large columns, seemingly composed of single slabs of stone. Fascinated, Cora and Savi walked the distance to the nearest column.

  “From this distance, those column do seem to be anomalous.” Cora spoke quietly, unwilling to broadcast her initial impressions to the members of the mining group who had been detailed to accompany them. “The ice in this area was more than thirty feet deep before the work began. It has been melted by large microwave generators, powered by a nuclear generator brought here to supply power for the mining operations.” Cora recounted the information that had been supplied them by the mining company. Saying it helped to keep her mind on the subject, rather than to be overwhelmed by the sheer size of the rocks. The rock columns were impressive, rising from the level floor to a height of over fifty feet, with apparently-vertical walls. Their formation was regular. The column they were approaching, the one that appeared to be at the point of the formation, had a base length of about a hundred feet, and a width of about a half of that tapering to a rounded point at the end away from the rest of the columns. As they came closer, it became apparent that the structure was made from a single rock, without any sign of a joint. That argued for a natural origin. No other structure known on the planet had been constructed in this way, hewn from a single mighty slab of rock. Cora and Savi inspected the rock closely. It appeared to be igneous, originating in the fiery depths of the planet. That puzzled them. No igneous rock they had ever seen had these proportions. There were examples of huge igneous rocks dotting the continent, but those were irregular in shape. None of them had the rectangular proportions or the straight edges of this column, and none had the regular layout on the ground that these seemed to have.