KEID: A Lost Civilization

Phoenix Starship Andromeda-In Orbit Around Vulcan, Keid-A

Phoenix Starship Andromeda—In Orbit Around Vulcan, Keid-A

Except for the faintest hints that were visible only from the air, the Andromeda archaeological teams found no evidence of a past civilization on Vulcan’s surface. The teams investigated over thirty sites identified by the drones, finding nothing on the ground that pointed to potential artifacts.

Daphne sat with Thorpe on the Bridge, reviewing the data as they arrived.

“I wouldn’t call myself an expert on planetary archaeology,” she said, “but this is really strange. We see faint patterns from the air that completely disappear when we check them out.” She paused in thought. “What do you think about this?”

“The data are what they are,” Thorpe said. “We’ve had too many ground checks for there to be an observation or sampling error. I think we are looking at shading differences, shades so close they appear the same upon close-up examination.”

“What do you make of the patterns?”

“Where towns used to be, perhaps…very long ago.”

“The straight lines could be the remnants of highways.”

“Or rail lines,” Thorpe added, “or even some other mode of transportation.”

They sat quietly for several minutes, watching Vulcan’s nearly featureless landscape pass below—barren hills and low mountains, lifeless plains with shallow river valleys flowing into oceans that might or might not harbor life.

“The ground teams are collecting soil samples,” Daphne said. “We should have the lab data in a few hours.”

Later that day, Daphne pulled up a detailed analysis of the samples collected that morning from locations across the planet. She and Thorpe examined the results on the Bridge holoscreen.

“These are what I expected,” Daphne said, pointing to the first set of numbers. “It’s what we generally find on lifeless planets—like what you found on Mars before it was terraformed.”

“Look at this,” Thorpe said, pointing to the lithium entry. “That’s twice as high as one would normally expect.”

“And plutonium two-forty-four,” Daphne said. “Its half-life is eighty million years, so why is the level so high? Vulcan is a couple billion years old. Plutonium two-forty-four level should be almost nothing.”

“I have some thoughts on that,” Thorpe said. He pulled up a holoimage of Vulcan. “Mother, select fifty sites around Vulcan that are as evenly distributed on the land masses as possible.”

Glowing red dots appeared evenly spaced on the holoimage land masses. Each dot displayed a number.

“Have your teams collect a sample at each of these sites,” Thorpe said. “Don’t lose track of the source for each sample. Run an analysis for just lithium and plutonium two-forty-four. When you’ve completed the analysis, display the results on the holoimage, red for plutonium and blue for lithium, with the amount indicated by intensity.”

Collecting and analyzing the samples took two days. Daphne met Thorpe on the Bridge the following morning. The holoimage of Vulcan, with its glowing red and blue spots, floated in the air over the control console.

“What do you know,” Daphne said, pointing to a spot on the largest continent near the equator. “They’re brightest here and fade to almost nothing at the edge of the planet all around.”

“What does that mean to you?” Thorpe asked.

“Incoming charged particles, probably moving at high speed.” She paused, obviously checking her internal Link. “Couldn’t be Keid-A. There’s no record of a nova.” She paused again. “Keid-B went nova a hundred million years ago.” She looked at Thorpe, eyes twinkling. “Mother, display Keid-A, B and C, and Vulcan as they were one hundred million years ago—at the time of the Keid-B nova.”

The holoimage image shifted, with Keid-A relatively smaller than its current size, Vulcan significantly enlarged, and both Keid-B and C off to the right.

“Add animation and annotation,” Daphne ordered.

Keid-B flashed brightly, and the radiation front passed Vulcan and Keid-A. Vulcan was off to one side of Keid-A when the front arrived. The note said 2.31 days. The charged particle front left Keid-B with the radiation front, but took 103 days to travel the 400 astronomical units. It arrived when Vulcan was directly between Keid-A and B, with the point of highest intensity of lithium and plutonium 244 pointed directly at Keid-B.

“There’s our answer,” Daphne said. “Mother, how large was Keid-B before the nova?”

“About Sol size,” Mother answered. “It’s about one and a half Earth sizes now.”

“Assuming it was a typical Main Sequence star, calculate the plutonium two-forty-four flux at Vulcan and apply the eighty-million-year half-life to the residue then, to determine the time to get the current residue.”

“That would be one hundred million years,” Mother intoned.