Discovery (standard:science fiction, 992 words) [4/8] show all parts
Author: Goreripper	Added: Nov 22 2000	Views/Reads: 2936/1893	Part vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
The Discovery crew prepares to land on Arcana.

Professor Neffergi stood at the head of the room and cast his gaze about
us as he began our briefing. In a matter of hours, we would be leaving 
'Discovery' for the surface of N3, but in the interim he had much to 
tell us. 

"The atmosphere of the planet we are about to explore", he expounded in
his measured tones, "is quite dense, though it would appear that its 
make-up is similar to that of our own, with high percentages of 
nitrogen and oxygen and small amounts of rare inert gases and other 
compounds. Nitrogen is by far the higher percentage of the gas present, 
though the level of oxygen is quite high enough for us to breathe 
normally. At this stage we are unaware of the presence of any 
micro-organisms which may be harmful however, so until this is known 
you would all be well advised to remain within your envirosuits. This 
will most likely be necessary in any case, as the air is much denser 
than we are used to and the gravity is much higher. Not enough to crush 
us like twigs, I will add, but certainly enough to make moving around 
something of an exertion. The magnetic field is somewhat stronger than 
what we are used to also, and there is little need for me to 
extrapolate on what kind of problems this may cause us. 

"As you can see, much of this world's surface appears to be ocean, much
like our own, and much like our own, the oceans would seem to be water. 
Additionally, the latest surveys would indicate that this planet 
exhibits signs of vulcanism and other seismic activity which leads us 
to the conclusion that the upper mantle may be subject to tectonic 
movement!" 

The room almost erupted at this news. Not everyone had the same degree
of familiarity with geology as myself, but all were scientists. The 
presence of tectonic movement was huge news--less than 10% of 
discovered planets show active signs of the phenomenon, although there 
are quite a large number of worlds were the action has long since 
ceased. 

Yet while some of the group almost rejoiced at this revelation, the
geologists were the loudest, and in two minds, for they more than 
anyone else knew what the effects of active tectonics were on the 
surface of a planet: constant change caused by the grinding together 
and tearing apart of massive continental plates and a gradual but 
continuous recycling and renewal of the rocks of the surface. The 
tectonic action, depending upon how fast it was, could be of grave 
concern. If it were relatively short term, the entire surface of the 
planet may well have been completely folded under itself, melted down 
and reborn in the 100,000 years since that last burst of radio messages 
'Discovery' had intercepted. That was reasonably unlikely of course, 
considering the civilisation which had made those broadcasts had lived 
here for at least several thousand years, but tectonics guaranteed that 
the world below us had changed greatly in that time. There was little 
need for Professor Neffergi to tell us, as he did later in his 
briefing, that the job of reclaiming this lost people to science would 
no longer be the work of diplomats or even archaeologists. It would 
fall to the palaeontologists. 

Below us was an incredibly old planet indeed, and its fallen race was
nothing more now than fossilised remains crushed under the stone of 100 
millennia. 

The fair and vast metropoli I had envisaged at the beginning of our
journey, the incredible and strange people I had imagined, the 
unthinkable sophistication of their machines, their craft, their 
devices--all gone and reduced to dust in an epoch so long ago our own 
race was still some tree-dwelling omnivorous quadruped. It was with a 
truly heavy heart that I donned my envirosuit after the Professor's 
lengthy briefing and headed with my fellows to the stellar explorer 
which was to land us on the solid ground of a planet for the first time 
in ten years. 

For anyone who is not familiar with it, an envirosuit is a complicated
outer skin that allows the interstellar explorer complete freedom of 
movement on foreign planets whose atmosphere, gravity, magnetic field 
or any other environmental aspect may present a health risk to our 
species. Needless to say, this is virtually every planet we know of 
except for those that have been chemically engineered by world farmers 
like Descon Inc. who did such a remarkable job with Thorlemar and 


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