“I am certain that we would recognize both the follies and those who pursued such policies,” Senator Costa added in a caustic voice as she gazed meaningfully at Suva.
“I am certain that we would,” Suva said, with a scathing glance at Costa.
“We may lack for answers,” Rione said, as if commenting to no one in particular, “but we have a great deal of certainty, don’t we?”
“Do we have to carry our quarrels to this place?” Dr. Nasr asked before either Suva or Costa could lash out at Rione or each other again. “Your ancestors, my ancestors, may have lived here, may have visited this very spot. Do not their memories deserve respect rather than discord?”
Geary looked around, seeing that Senator Sakai and Charban had also joined him outside. “What do you think?” he asked them.
“Home is the worse for wear, isn’t it?” Charban remarked.
“We were fortunate,” the woman from Earth who had first spoken said. “The lessons we learned and the technology we developed in making Mars habitable played a large role in helping this world recover from the damage we inflicted upon it. And what we learned about a functioning ecology in order to build crewed ships that could carry generations of people to other stars during voyages lasting more than a century in normal space has guided us in repairing the ecologies of the Earth.”
“Ironic, isn’t it?” another of her companions added. “Only by leaving our Home could we find the means to save our Home. You should come to other places. See our forests, our cities. Not all of Home is like this, and even here the scars of the past will soon be covered by new life.”
“A living world,” the woman agreed pointedly, with another look at the man who had spoken of leaving all undisturbed. “A tired world, but still living, and not every person here is tired. The restless ones often go off world, though. The stars are an important safety valve for us.”
Nice for you, Geary thought. But that leaves us to deal with whatever those restless people want to do when they get out among the stars. He had noticed that none of the people from Earth had brought up the fight with the Covenant warships and those warships’ deliberate attack on an Alliance ship. They were deliberately avoiding any discussion of that matter.
Any further conversation was forestalled as one of the Dancer shuttles, a smooth ovoid similar in shape to their ships though much smaller, came to rest on the ancient roadway near the human shuttles. Everyone watched the gleaming Dancer craft, which balanced gently on the soil like a ballerina poised on one foot.
Geary’s skin prickled slightly. He looked around and saw Dr. Nasr nodding in approval.
“The people here set up an isolation screen around this whole area,” Nasr explained. “They have activated it as a precaution against contamination.”
“What is to happen?” one of the people from Earth asked.
“This is the Dancers’ show,” Rione replied. “We’ll have to see what they do.”
A circular opening appeared in the side of the Dancer craft, expanding from a tiny point to a large access. From the bottom of the opening, a short and broad ramp extended to touch the ground.
“Has this happened before?” another of those from Old Earth asked. “And how often? Or is this the first time an intelligence not our own has set foot to the soil of humanity’s Home?”
“They picked an odd place for it,” Senator Costa grumbled.
“Out of any place on Earth, they picked our land,” a woman from Earth declared proudly.
“But why would that matter to these aliens?” the first man asked pointedly.
“The Dancers always have their reasons,” Charban said, “even if those reasons don’t always make sense to us. I see something moving inside their shuttle.”
Two of the Dancers came out onto the ramp, wearing protective suits that helped mask their hideous-to-human-eyes appearance. Like a giant spider mated with a wolf was how most people described the Dancers. This was the first time Geary had seen one in person, and he was grateful for their wearing the protective gear even as he felt ashamed of that reaction.
The Dancers were carrying something between them, walking with a curious slowness.
It was an oblong container, made of some clear substance, about two meters long and perhaps a meter wide and deep.
Inside it…
“Ancestors preserve us,” Senator Suva gasped. “A human?”
Dr. Nasr walked up to the container as the Dancers lowered it to a level patch of ground with the same slow, careful movements. He looked down, then pulled an instrument from his belt and studied it. “A human who died a very long time ago. The body has been protected inside that container and thus preserved by natural mummification. The body is wearing some sort of protective suit. There is no sign of trauma. I cannot say how they died, but this person was not slain by violent means.”
Another Dancer came forward, holding out a much smaller container, this one opaque.
Dr. Nasr took the box with a slight, respectful bow, then looked inside. He reached in and held out some small objects. “Does anyone recognize these?”
One of the Earth representatives came forward and took them gingerly. “Ancient data-storage devices. Even if these have been protected and stored properly, it’s very unlikely the data on them still exists in readable form after so long. We might be able to recover something, though.”
“What of this?” Dr. Nasr held up a metal pin that glinted with color in the bright sun.
More of the people from Earth came forward, studying it, then one held it out toward Geary and the others from the Alliance. “In the old form of the language, it says Operation Long Jump.”
“What was that?” Geary asked, looking at the pin but not touching it. It didn’t seem right to mar this object from history with the touch of his fingers.
“I’m checking.” Another Earth representative was consulting a data pad. “There is little here. Secrecy in the old days and destruction of records since then have cost us much information. What our historians have pieced together is that Operation Long Jump was one of the earliest attempts to use jump space to reach other stars. Several of the experimental ships were lost, some automated and some with human pilots. Subsequent experience proved those jumps were aimed too far, beyond the ability of jump drives of that time to work properly.”
“They didn’t come out of jump,” Desjani said, her voice filled with horror. If there was one thing that could seriously rattle any sailor, it was the prospect of being trapped in jump space. “They died in jump. May the living stars have mercy on them. All the way to Dancer space? Decades, maybe, in jump. This person must have died long before coming out of jump space. There couldn’t have been enough food, water, and life support on their ship to survive a fraction of that time, even if being alone in jump space that long didn’t drive him or her insane.”
“There is no sign of violence,” Dr. Nasr repeated. “Self-inflicted or otherwise. Perhaps oxygen or other critical life support failed, bringing as peaceful an end as this poor pilot could hope for.”
“But the ship carrying this pilot did come out of jump eventually,” Charban said. “How?”
“Who knows?” Desjani said. “Why would anyone want to conduct experiments that involve tossing something into jump space when there isn’t any expectation it would come out again? No human would agree to that, once they understood what was going on, and why waste automated ships?”
“Perhaps the ship accidentally came close enough to a jump point much farther along than its original destination, and it popped out,” Geary speculated. “Or maybe jump space will eventually eject anything that doesn’t belong there if the object gets close enough to a gravity well. But who was this person?”