CHAPTER 1: A Silent World
“The polar scan is finished,” Ama said. “The equatorial images are coming in, too.”
The research ship had been in orbit for an hour. Ama brought up the first images of the planet side by side on the main screen. The mountains cast long shadows near the poles. Clouds covered parts of the equator. Between the images, Ama placed the radar map showing the surface beneath the clouds.
Şippil, the ship’s commander, came over to the screen. The old records he had reviewed several times on the long voyage were open on the other screen at Ama’s desk.
Şippil opened the entry for the planet in the old records. The file said advanced life had existed there. Ama had pulled out the information below that entry to help decide where to look during the scan. Wide gaps separated the features they could plot on the current map. Şippil studied the continents side by side on the screen for a while, then stepped behind Ama’s chair. He pointed to a pale area between the mountains in the polar image.
“Can we see this area in both scans?” Şippil asked.
“The radar image shows all of it,” Ama said. “In the other image, the mountain’s shadow reaches all the way to the valley floor.”
Ama brought up the valley on the radar map. The area in shadow was covered with stones from the surrounding slopes. As Ama scrolled down, the mouth of the valley widened. Şippil asked Ama to stop where the terrain flattened out. Ama set that section aside for comparison with the coastal images later.
“Any lines that could mark settlements?” he asked.
“I haven’t found any yet,” Ama said. “There’s no pattern that would show where large structures stood, either.”
Pilu turned his chair toward the screen. The geologist pointed to a pale line extending into the interior of one continent.
“Can you zoom in there?”
As Ama enlarged the image, smaller branches appeared on both sides of the line. Pilu ran his finger along the main branch. The line widened in the lower part of the plain, then curved out of sight.
“An old riverbed,” Pilu said. “The branches join upstream.”
Ama opened the radar image of the same area. The bend Pilu had pointed out was visible there, too. Şippil asked Ama to bring up the coastlines of the two continents in turn. Together they examined places where at least a stretch of a transportation network might have survived. Along the coasts and across the inland plains, they found no line they could trace as a road.
On the second continent, a straight strip of land extended toward the water. When Ama enlarged the coastal image, a break appeared in the middle of the strip. Pilu looked at each side of the break separately. On one side, the layer running along the coast reached down to the water. On the other, the same layer reappeared on the slope.
“Does the elevation change along the strip?” Pilu asked.
Ama overlaid the elevation measurements on the image. The strip followed the slope of the coast. Pilu wanted to use the image when choosing the first coastal survey area. On the ground, they could compare the layers that produced lines that looked alike from a distance. Ama marked the start and end of the coastal strip at the edge of the image, then zoomed out to fit the whole continent on the screen again. What had looked like a straight line a few minutes earlier was part of a layer interrupted in many places along the coast.
When the atmospheric measurements were complete, Ama added the surface data to the same map. There was water in several areas. Şippil asked Ama to bring up one of them. A small body of water stood out against the dark rocks around it.
“Does the biological scan cover this area, too?” Şippil asked.
“Yes,” Ama replied. “We didn’t detect any significant activity around the water, either.”
The measurements showed that life had ended a very long time ago. Şippil closed the image of the water. The planet’s present conditions could no longer sustain the advanced life described in the old records. The team had accounted for the time that had passed before their arrival. Now they had scanned the continents from end to end and still had no structure to mark on the surface.
Ama reopened the old records. Pilu sent the map of the continents’ present outlines to Ama’s screen. Some areas lent themselves to comparison with the old information. Pilu placed the first marker at the edge of a broad plain.
“I can start here,” Pilu said. “The rock is exposed at the edge of the plain. The soil gets thicker toward the middle. We can examine both on the same landing.”
Luam, who would examine the rock samples, brought up the marked area on his screen.
“I’d like to compare the samples from the surface with the ones from deeper down,” Luam said. “Record the depth for each sample separately.”
Luam found where the rock met the soil in the image of the plain. Several other pieces of rock were visible at the surface near the first point Pilu had chosen.
“These pieces might have rolled down the slope,” Luam said. “If you can start where the rock goes under the soil, I can match the sample to the survey line.”
Pilu marked the edge of the rock on the landing map. He started the line toward the center of the plain at the same point. Luam assigned sample numbers in that order. While Pilu worked on the surface, he would be able to say where a container had come from without opening the whole map.
Ama brought up the other landing areas one by one. The coastal team’s line ran parallel to the water. The lines for the teams landing in the valleys covered the floor and both slopes. Ama kept the survey boundaries separate and left the areas between them blank. Şippil would use that map to compare the data that came in on the first day.
Şippil looked over the rest of the map. The old coastal areas were on another continent. The valleys around the mountains and the areas that had undergone fewer geological changes required separate landings, too. He divided the researchers into small groups. The first group would descend to the plain with Pilu. The other groups would send their data to Ama as they took their measurements.
After they landed on the plain, Pilu set up the instrument where the soil was thinnest. The pale rock visible from the landing craft’s step was crumbling in places when he saw it up close. Pilu walked over to the rock, found where the solid surface began, and took the first sample there. He wrote the location on the container and sampled the part beneath the soil at the same spot.
After putting the subsurface sample in its container, Pilu set the two containers side by side. The exposed piece crumbled between his fingers. The piece from beneath the soil was harder. Pilu marked which sample came from the exposed surface so Luam could compare the two directly. Then he returned to the survey line in front of the landing craft. As he walked farther into the plain, the pale rock disappeared beneath soil covered with small stones.
Pilu lifted the instrument from the first survey point and carried it to where the soil thickened. The map Ama had sent from the ship was too large for the instrument’s small screen. Pilu opened just the area where he was standing. A branch of the riverbed they had seen from orbit lay just beside the line leading toward the center of the plain. Pilu left the survey line where it was. He would first follow the rock as it dipped beneath the plain, then head over to the riverbed.
Ama’s voice came through his headset.
“The old riverbed we saw from orbit is east of where you are. Are you going that far?”
“I’ll finish this line first,” Pilu said. “I’m increasing the depth as I move the instrument farther into the plain.”
The first reading showed a rock surface extending beneath the soil. Pilu moved the instrument a little farther and repeated the measurement. The rock dipped toward the center of the plain. When he extended the line on the second day, he found the same slope. He sent Ama the boundary he had drawn on the map and the depth the measurement had reached.
Data from the group that landed on the old coast reached the ship that evening. Ama opened the strip they had scanned during the day and compared it with the orbital image first. There was no trace of a regular structure along the coast. The measurements from the valleys gave them no sign of roads or foundations for large buildings, either.
Ama combined the coastal and valley measurements on the main screen. The straight strip Ama had set aside on the first day ran through the same place in the surface measurements. The researchers had taken rock samples at both ends of the strip and recorded the break between them. When Ama set the data beside the orbital image, it was easier to see which parts of the strip were exposed.
Şippil looked at where the measurements in the valley ended.
“Did they scan beyond this point, too?” Şippil asked.
“They scanned the surface,” Ama said. “The depth measurements end here. I’ll mark the two limits separately.”
Ama marked the extent of the surface scan separately from the point where the subsurface measurements ended. Ama plotted the line Pilu had sent from the plain in the same way. Şippil used that map to decide where each group would return.
On the third day, Luam lined up the samples from the plain on the laboratory bench. He found Pilu’s numbers on the measurement sheet and matched each container to its depth. Then he placed the containers from the coast in a separate row. Each sample would be examined alongside the scan data from the place where it had been collected.
“Are all the rocks you saw at the surface in this row?” Luam asked when Pilu returned to the ship.
“The ones I took on the first day are here,” Pilu replied. “The ones I took farther toward the middle of the plain are on the lower shelf. Those came from deeper down.”
Luam took a container from the lower shelf. Pilu pointed to the depth he had written on the lid. Together they opened the measurements from that point. The line showed how far beneath the ground the rock exposed at the edge of the plain lay here. Pilu marked the location so he could continue along the same line the next day.
Luam opened the sample Pilu had pointed out and looked at the broken face of the rock. Its color was close to that of the piece taken on the first day. The sample from deeper down had no crumbling edge like the surface piece. Luam brought up the locations of the two containers on the screen. It would have taken only a short walk across the plain to get from one to the other. Even so, the measurements showed different thicknesses of soil above them.
“If you pick up where you left off tomorrow, mark this boundary, too,” Luam said. “Let’s see where the rock comes to the surface and where it stays under the soil.”
Pilu opened the map he would use the next day. He kept the last survey point on the same screen as the two banks of the riverbed. Before putting the containers away, Luam rearranged them according to their positions along the survey line.
On the fourth day, Pilu left the last survey point on the plain and walked to the old riverbed. The bed had looked like a broad line from orbit, but it was narrow enough to walk across here. Before crossing to the other bank, he lowered the instrument to the bottom of the dry bed. Among the stones deposited by the current were a few pieces with flat surfaces. He picked one up and turned it over. The underside was as smooth as the top. Water had worn down the edges of the other stones in the same spot, too. Pilu put the stone back and measured both sides of the bed. The rock layer they had followed to the middle of the plain continued here without a break. When he sent the measurement to the ship, he attached an image of the bend in the riverbed. Ama plotted the line Pilu had walked over the feature they had first enlarged from orbit.
As the days passed, the surveyed areas on Ama’s map grew. In some places, the measurements reached from the surface to beneath the rock. In others, the teams had only been able to collect soil and rock samples. One evening, Şippil sat down beside Ama and looked over the areas each group had finished.
“Which areas from the old records are left?” he asked.
“We landed at all the sites we chose at the start,” Ama said. “I’ve added the deepest measurements to the map, too.”
Şippil opened the deepest measurement Ama had pointed out. The survey line began at the edge of the plain and continued past the bed where water had worn down the stones. Şippil followed the line to the end. The numbers of the samples Pilu had taken were listed at the side of the screen. Each had a location. Şippil found the marker they had placed for the first landing on the plain. It was at the start of the line.
Şippil opened the map of the plain where Pilu had worked. The riverbed they had enlarged when they first looked down from orbit was still on the map. Now it was surrounded by markers from days of work. When Ama cleared the markers from the screen, the plain itself was all that remained.
There were old records saying a civilization had lived here.
Yet nothing on the surface showed that it had.
