Ice Planet Read online

  “That is one of the things I hate. The grey skies make me depressed.”

  “I haven’t noticed that, Cora. I’ve always found you to be cheerful and happy. Most of the time, anyway. The rest of the time, you’re concentrating so hard you can’t be cheerful.” Savi smiled at his companion. Her cheerful disposition had done much to brighten his life in the time they had worked together. She had become his most valued companion.

  Cora smiled in return.

  “That is simply a reflection of you, Savi. You make me feel cheerful.” Cora looked around at the scene, then brought her eyes back to Savi’s face. He had become a good friend in the time they had worked together. She had been lonely before she had been introduced to him, a condition brought by the intensive work she had to do to gain her degrees and then to make her way in the university atmosphere of politicking and competition for even a small piece of the shrinking pie. Although she knew that archaeology had been the wrong choice to found a lifetime career, she still loved the work, and her cooperation with Savi had made it much more pleasant. He had offered his experience, contacts and knowledge without reservation, although he must have known that the two of them would be in competition for advancement. She had wondered then what his motivation had been for that. Now she knew that he was simply a good person. If it came to a competition for a more senior position, he would step aside if he believed that she would be better qualified for the position. Probably anyway. He had never shown any sign of egotism, although his reputation was that of a man who lived in his own mind. Cora dreaded the time when that decision must be made. She would hate to be the cause of disappointment for him, the one man she respected and liked above all others.

  Savi rose, took their empty bowls and washed them out with snow near the back of the platform, only a short distance from the vertical cliff. Cora rose and brought the small flashlight over, to help him to see better. The light washed off the shiny metal bowls onto the rock face concentrating the broad beam. Cora looked at the cliff face, enjoying the unusual effect of the visual changes made by the light on the rock, and then she stiffened. She had glimpsed a variation in the rock that did not seem to be natural.

  “Look here, Savi. There seems to be a join of some sort in the rock.”

  Savi heard the urgent tone, and he placed the bowls on a flat rock to move over to where Cora was standing. The concentrated beam of the flashlight washed out the difference in color that Cora had seen. She moved the flashlight closer to the rock face and shone it diagonally so that the light washed over the place that had caught her attention. The indirect lighting revealed a regular vertical line, a straight line that had no place in a natural formation.

  “You’re right, Cora. There’s a joint there!” Savi’s excitement matched that of Cora.

  Cora moved the beam up, following the line to a point more than twice her height, then across horizontally to where the line turned down again, at a distance of over fifteen feet from the first vertical line.

  “That’s a door, Savi! It must be manmade. Or at least, it’s not natural. Can you see how it can be opened? There must be a handle or keyhole somewhere.”

  Their investigations revealed no handle or mechanism to open the panel, although they also showed that the feature they had found was not replicated anywhere else on the cliff face.

  “I think that we’ll have to wait for morning, so that we can examine it more closely. These flashlights are not really up to the task.” Cora was disappointed. The discovery of the panel in the cliff had been a momentous one. It was clear that humans had been at work here. “Why would anyone make something like this, Savi?”

  “If you look down at the structures, Cora, it’s clear that they were built in relation to this panel. They form a pointer to this exact place. That could mean one of two things, in my opinion. Either they performed some role in connection with what is behind that panel, or they were designed to point anyone interested in them to this panel. They did that for us. The reason we came up here was the indication provided by the structures. But there are also other factors to take into account. It is clear that the structures were constructed, or carved out of the rock, by someone possessing a technology that is far superior to ours. That applies to this panel too. From what little I could see with our limited light, the panel was cut from the rock of the cliff face. There are irregularities that run right through both, which indicate that the panel was not manufactured separately, and yet the gap between the base and the panel is tiny, much less than the width of any saw blade that I know of. Even more puzzling is the fact that the work must have been done a long time ago. There is no record that I know of that even hints at the work, which must have been done on a huge scale. That could not have escaped the attention of the people at the time, although it is far from the city. There’s also the question of roads or other forms of access. We’ve found no trace of any way to get up here, other than by foot, as we came. Any road or even a pathway would certainly have left traces behind. It does not seem likely that anyone who could do this sort of work would have come up here by foot. Perhaps they came by air, but this platform seems too small for any large transport aircraft to land.”

  “What does that all mean, Savi? What you’ve said implies a civilization very much in advance of our own, yet they seem to have disappeared without leaving any real trace.”

  “They did leave some traces, Cora. There are dozens of records and artefacts, but they’ve been suppressed. The government really doesn’t want us to know how far we’ve declined, so they have effectively rewritten history, cutting out any parts that don’t accord with their version. And those structures down there are very substantial. They may have had the advantage that they were covered by ice during the currency of the present government. The only reason they were discovered was that a private mining company followed a deposit of a valuable mineral from another mine, and found that it had originated under the rock slab where the structures are. That in itself may have been the intention of the people who set those structures in place. They probably knew that the need for that mineral would inevitably lead people with some understanding of geology to this place.” Savi paused to assess the conclusions his thoughts were coming to. Cora continued the chain for him.

  “That means that those people intended this place to be found by people who had a sufficient technology to understand, or at least to grasp the significance of what they have behind this panel! I wonder what it is.”

  “We’ll have to wait for daylight to take it further, unfortunately. I can’t see any way to open that panel. Explosives might do it, but I forgot to bring a supply.” Savi grinned. As an archaeologist, the use of explosives was far from his list of preferred ways to extend his knowledge, although there were records of early explorers using explosives to enter tombs. Although those explorers had claimed to be scientists, Savi suspected that they were, in fact, hunters of treasure, the gold and jewels rumored to be hidden in the ancient tombs of wealthy people, or of priceless artefacts. Their depredations had removed valuable links in the history of their race, and made the record of Humanity so much harder to trace. He wondered how they would open the panel or, if they could not find an easier way, whether they might be driven to use some forceful method, such as demolishing the panel, excavating some of the cliff face in which it was placed, or drilling a hole through it, to see what lay beyond.

  The two cleared away the remnants of their meal and crawled into the tiny tent. Their sleep that night was restless.

  Chapter 7

  They awoke earlier than they had planned, the pressure in their minds making further sleep impossible. They ate their breakfast before the sun rose, and were ready to undertake a much closer inspection of the panel as soon as the light was strong enough. Their eagerness was soon rewarded, as the light of the rising sun cast a long shadow across the face of the cliff, highlighting two irregularities that the light of their flashlights had not revealed.

  “Look at that, Savi. Those t
wo lumps in the rock are not typical of the area. Everywhere else, the cliff face is smooth.” Cora walked quickly to the two lumps to inspect them more closely. She soon saw that the lumps were themselves smooth, with the exception of a long piece at the bottom of each one. She pressed on one of the pieces, and, to her surprise, it moved back as though it was spring-loaded. Nothing happened. Stretching out her arm, she found that she could reach the other. She pressed that, with the same result. She pressed both experimentally, and there was a gentle ‘click’, and the panel moved smoothly forward, until it protruded the width of her hand from the surrounding rock.

  Savi jumped back at the movement, then, when it ceased, he walked over to inspect the edge of the panel. There was a smooth recess from the top to the bottom on one side. He inserted his fingers and tugged gently. The panel swung open, requiring only a minimum of effort.

  Cora moved over to the opening, keen to look inside even before the door was fully open. This was an archaeologist’s Heaven! She knew of no other place on the planet that matched this. Inside the opening was a stretch of native rock several feet thick, and beyond that a large hall, receding into the darkness.

  As Savi continued to open the door to its full extent, lights came on inside the hall. They revealed that the hall, set behind about ten feet of native rock, was at least a couple of hundred feet deep and wide, and more than twenty feet high, the rock floor and walls smooth and even. The inside was clean and free of dust, with a number of tall cabinets lined up along one side wall, and some machinery along the other wall. The central space contained chairs and table, looking like the reception area of a large office building.

  Savi secured the door in an open position by placing a large rock at the open end, and walked over to Cora. He took her hand, and they walked into the space. His attention was drawn to the cabinets. They were rectangular, about five feet on each side and ten feet tall. The cabinets were fully enclosed, with no visible door. There were twelve such cabinets.

  “These look like caskets or sarcophagi. They’re similar in appearance to those found in ancient tombs, of about seven thousand years ago, except that those were carved by hand from rock. These are made of metal, perhaps something as durable as titanium. They have no sign of corrosion. I wonder whether there are bodies inside.”

  “This seems to be an extremely expensive form of burial, Savi. And this chamber is well-hidden. If they were going to bury their people at this sort of cost, why didn’t they simply create spaces inside those structures below the mountain?”

  “I'd guess that they thought that there was a possibility of a glacier erasing them. Anyway, although we’ve not been able to detect any sign of a chamber in the structures, we don’t know that there isn’t one, perhaps underneath them. It looks like these cabinets were planned to last a long time, and the location of this chamber seems to have that objective. They wanted this place to be found by people who were able to comprehend the sign of the structures below, and who were interested enough to come looking.”

  “In that case, there will be some clues to the purpose of the place, some writing or other signs. Let’s look at the machines over there. There might be a connection. It seems logical that, if they were intended to be found, there would be some sort of message to the finder.”

  The two moved over to the other side of the chamber, to the machines. It soon became apparent that the machines were grouped according to the cabinets, with one group of machines per cabinet, although there was no obvious physical connection between the machines and the cabinets. The machines gave no indication that they were operating, with no sound, vibration or heat coming from any of them.

  “It looks like these are not operating. Given the obvious age of this place, it would be surprising if they were still operating.”

  “Yet the door worked, probably as smoothly as it did when new, and the light does too. It came on as you opened the door.” Cora stopped talking, thinking about what she had said. “Did you notice that light is like daylight? It seems to be all over, without any point source.”

  “Now that you mention it, I see it. The air is fresh too, and there’s no dust, as though it was cleaned recently. Let’s have a look at the seating section at the back of the chamber. These machines don’t mean anything to me, and there’s not any form of control that I can see. They must be autonomous. There doesn’t seem to be any way that we can put them into operation.”

  “There may be some instructions back there. Let’s go.” Cora took Savi’s hand and walked with him to the back of the hall, where the seating and tables appeared to be more like desks than the casual layout closer to the door.

  Their suspicions were shown to be correct. Although the tables were clear of any books, papers or writing materials, the arrangement of the chairs indicated that they were desks for working people. Cora sat at one of them.

  “This seat is very comfortable. It seems to have been made for use by humans like us. The desk is quite large, as though the person who worked here needed space for documents or other items.” Cora swept her hand over the desk, enjoying the smooth feel of it. Her desk at the university was made of wood, and it had seen better days. It was scratched and damaged by years of having files and other objects placed on it or dragged carelessly over its surface. This desk felt smooth, although it also had an undefined sense of having been used by some important person. The movement of her hand over the surface brought about a change, as the surface of the desk came to life, with a screen becoming visible. On the edge of the screen, closer to Cora, a keyboard appeared, while areas to the left and right sides appeared, with small arrows pointing to the sides and up and down.

  “You’ve activated a computer built into the desk, Cora. It seems to be working!” Savi’s excitement ratcheted up. Just this display of technology was considerably in advance of what he had available at the university, although he was able to understand its functions. He sat at the desk facing the one at which Cora sat, and swept his hand over the surface. The computer in the desktop came to life.

  “I can read the symbols used by the computer, Savi. Most of them, anyway. They’re in the language that is the root of our modern language.”

  Cora touched one of the symbols on the keyboard. A sentence appeared on the screen.

  “It’s asking me to enter my name. This must be the log-in function.” Cora typed her name on the keyboard. A new screen appeared. “It’s displaying a brief history of the place, Savi. Come over here and look.”

  Savi moved across quickly, pulling up another chair to sit next to Cora. Together they read what appeared on the screen. When they reached the bottom of the page, it shifted up two-thirds of the way, to allow more text to appear.

  “The computer must be monitoring your eye movement, Cora. It knows when you have reached the end of the page. I know that the idea is being investigated by a computer manufacturer, but, as far as I know, they haven’t put it into use yet.”

  There was an interruption in the text, with a box being inserted. The text inside the box requested them to read aloud the text on the screen in their own language. Surprised, Cora complied, reading the rest of the page aloud, translating it into her own words.

  The story that she read out was fascinating.

  ‘The civilization of humans on the planet reached an advanced stage after a development of several thousand years, but the scientists came to realize that the reign of humanity on the planet was coming to an end, threatened by the onset of an ice age that would cover the entire planet in ice, leaving only a small possibility for a limited number of survivors to exist. The ice was predicted to remain in place for at least two thousand years. In the circumstances, those adventurous souls who wished to attempt to live through the ice age set out to different parts of the planet, those parts where the ice would reach last and from which it would retreat earliest. Their aim was to set up groups that would have the best chances of survival in the conditions to come, and to build societies that would meet those need
s. The small scientific community, which had always been strong, decided to go a different route. They believed that the conditions that would inevitably take hold throughout the planet would ensure that the societies would break down, losing the progress that had been made until then. They believed that a small number of survivors would live to see better days, as some people had done through previous ice ages, and they undertook the task of finding ways to ensure that those survivors would have the advantage of being able to access the advanced knowledge that humans had retained and developed since their arrival on the planet. This chamber is the culmination of that effort. The computer records contained here encapsulate all the knowledge, as far as that has been possible, of the entire population of the planet until the date on which the chamber was sealed. It was clear to the historians that a recorded history will leave many gaps and contain many possibilities of misinterpretation. Accordingly, it was decided that the few scientists remaining alive at the date of sealing would be placed in a state akin to suspended animation, to be reanimated when the chamber is discovered by humans. As the science behind this particular process was developed only in the last few years before this chamber was sealed, no testing has been done, and it is not known what the efficacy of the process will be.” There was a break in the text, and then a new screen scrolled up. “You are requested to confirm your willingness to attempt the reanimation process by entering your name below. If you wish to revert to this screen at any time, you may do so by entering your name followed by ‘Reanimate’. That will bring you back to this screen to choose to accept the reanimation process, or to reject it.”