the discovery

Space. The object, in orbit around the nearby planet, had been noticed as soon as the ship had emerged from warp. Traced in green lines on black screen - gently turning. It seemed without life - no heat or moisture traces. They approached cautiously.

Desert. The peasant led his camel to the rocky outcrop. He was looking for nitrate fertiliser for his fields several kilometres away. In the shade of a large boulder at the foot of the outcrop he began to dig. He grunted each time the pick hit the ground.

As they got closer the image became more and more detailed. A spacecraft became visible. None of them were familiar with the model. The ship's sensors feeling ahead but sending back no danger signals, they approached closer.

The peasant had already a good pile of fertiliser beside him. He was approaching the point when he would stop digging and load it into the panniers strapped to his camel. Then his pick struck something. It made a metallic sound. He stopped, surprised. His first thought was of money. He got down on his knees and began to clear the dirt away with his hands.

All the checks had now been run. No encounter with the unknown could be entirely danger free but they had gone as far as they could with their instruments. In the airlock two men were suiting up. A light flashed on the control panel beneath the screen - they were ready to head out. With a sigh, the airlock slid open and the two men floated out into the space seperating the two craft.

It wasn't money. It wasn't anything that he was familiar with. A piece of metal or something like it. The surface was a dull, coppery colour. He was slightly afraid for the thing seemed ancient and he had been brought up on stories of the djinn that haunted these parts. But he carried on digging around it - his eager hope that it would be worth at least something overcoming his fear.

The two men switched on their magnetic hand clamps. They clicked onto the hull of the ship and began their examination. Their first realisation was of the extreme age of the vessel. One of them scraped a tiny sample from the metallic hull into a pouch on his suit to examine later. Suddenly he heard the voice of his companion coming urgently over his helmet radio.

The peasant had removed the object from the ground. It was about 30 cm long by 19 wide. Its edges were irregular and it was surprisingly heavy for its size. He turned it over in his hands. Spitting on it, he began to wipe it with his sleeve. The centuries of dust was reluctant to move but he persisted. Then he saw something, a mark, he polished harder.

He moved quickly hand over hand to his companion who was pointing at something on the hull. He approached and, following the line of the pointing finger, put his face plate close to the coppery coloured surface. He could make out a faint octagonal shape surrounding some markings. He looked closer.

The piece of metal that the peasant had found ended up in the hands of some American archaeologists. They could not understand what it was. The material was unidentifiable to all their tests - though clearly extremely ancient. It must have been part of something once - but of what, they had no idea. The only indication to it's origin was a sort of seal imprinted on the surface.

So they had been by here too. Something was beginning to make sense. Perhaps the planet that loomed before them would finally answer the questions that they had for so long been puzzling over. Perhaps not. He took a photograph and the two men disactivated their magnets and headed back. They would send somebody else over to try & look inside. For the moment it was enough.

The archaeologists and the academics wrote learned essays, puzzled and probed the meaning of the three letters that were inside the seal. But they could not understand. They were looking in the wrong place, in the wrong way.

That night the space voyagers celebrated. Drinking, smoking and dancing in the garden dome. They did not notice the stranger amongst them because there was no way that a stranger could have been there. But he was there, quietly observing, smiling to himself as he prepared his task, the song of the stars echoing through him...

...Lamia, Carcassone 1995.