Discovery Pt. VII (standard:science fiction, 1465 words) [7/8] show all parts
Author: Goreripper	Added: Dec 11 2001	Views/Reads: 2590/1834	Part vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
The door to the inner sanctum of the Daktar relic is opened at last, and with it the secrets of Arcana's doom.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

completely absorbed in his work with the computer records and the 
mummy. 

The Professor was quite perturbed. Although the information contained on
the unearthed data banks was almost undoubtedly binary code virtually 
identical to that our own computers used, the technology was so ancient 
that he could not be sure the recording devices would be compatible 
with any computer system developed in the past thousand years or so. 
Our mission was fortunate however in that we had the services of a 
brilliant student named Ki whose cranial data chips had been imprinted 
with blueprints and plans of ancient technologies, her specialised area 
of study, and in short order she had modified several of our reserve 
computer units. Several fruitless experiments later, Ki and her team at 
last discovered a compatible system and with an enormous amount of 
enthusiasm the ancient data was fed into our computers, to be 
translated and interpreted by other teams throughout the Discovery for 
weeks to follow. 

To say we learned much would be an understatement, and virtually all
that we have learned then and since that time is available for 
referencing and uploading from any education facility and there is no 
need for me to divulge details of the information we decoded. 
Ultimately, however, we learned what had caused the untimely downfall 
of this remarkable civilization, and what it was that had persuaded 
that lonely individual to take its own life all those lifetimes ago. 
The network of buildings we had entered, we discovered, had been 
designed as the first step in colonising the desert world. A complement 
of scientists, whose remains we later found deep within the structure 
inside life-support modules that had ultimately become sarcophagi, had 
been posted there to carry out the usual experiments that any 
civilization would conduct when preparing a new planet for possible 
colonisation; eventually the place was to have been expanded to 
facilitate terraforming operations that would have made Daktar a living 
world once again, a new hope for the occupants of its increasingly 
crowded neighbour. 

Oh the horrible tragedy that had claimed these ingenious people at the
threshold of their greatest triumph! Even now, so long after I first 
embarked on this wonderful journey, the crushing sorrow of the cruel 
irony that we all felt when their fate was discovered still fills my 
heart. For the operation had not even begun when the calamity that 
wiped these people from the galaxy befell them. The people of Arcana 
had long feared the event, but even with their considerable technology, 
they had not been prepared when it came. None of their devices or 
defences had been enough to avoid it. 

Arcana’s population had been eclipsed by celestial impact. A large
meteor with an albredo so low as to have made it almost invisible to 
terrestrial observers was discovered on a collision course. By the time 
the discovery had been made, it was too late to even attempt to defend 
against it. When it hit, a quarter of the population was obliterated 
almost instantly. The rest had followed shortly as the clouds of dust 
and debris shut out the light and heat of the sun, polluting the air 
and casting the world into an impact winter that had lasted for years. 
The new Daktar colony had lost contact with Arcana virtually 
immediately, but with the hope of all sentient species, they closed 
themselves into life-support modules and programmed them to awaken one 
of their number every few months, to scan Arcana for a glimmer of life. 
None was ever found, and after almost a decade of their years, with 
power and nutrient supplies drained, the poor soul we had found slumped 
in its chair had finally shut down the complex and killed itself. Their 
entire race and history wiped from the annals of the universe until we 
had at last stumbled upon it once again. It was indeed a tragedy beyond 
any our own species had ever encountered, and the implications were 
devastating to us and were discussed time and again among every member 
of the exploration. 


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