blue-blooded rich man’s son, but I’m not a coward.”
We’ll see when the time comes, the frustrated historian thought bitterly. He scratched his bald head and showed Cecil his tablet. “I’ve found more references to a vault where the prewar colonial government kept a lot of the more interesting artifacts. I just haven’t found one yet listing where it is. I figure there’s about a fifty-fifty chance it was blasted in the Maggot bombardment.”
“I don’t think they would’ve done that,” Cecil insisted. “I think the Maggots knew about the species that had been here. I think the reason they were so careful in their attack on this world is that they didn’t want to destroy any of the artifacts.”
“I actually agree with you,” Zak replied, “but they had no way of knowing about a secret government vault. It might’ve gotten destroyed by them, unknowingly.”
Cecil furled his brow. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to have the vault out in the wastes, closer to dig sites and away from the cities?”
“Yes and no. Less prying eyes in the immediate area, but construction out in the middle of nowhere would’ve been more suspicious. People would’ve gotten curious, thought something was up. An underground construction project in the city wouldn’t have drawn that much attention, and they could’ve just hauled the artifacts in nondescript trucks.”
“Bloody hell,” Cecil muttered with resignation.
“Honestly though, it’s not like we’ve had a bad run here. The stuff we have found is probably worth millions on the open market. Like this,” Zak said, holding up a strangely smooth, angular stone, and handing it to Cecil. It was twelve centimeters tall, and had seven sides. Each side was engraved with a glyph that seemed to shine or even glow if it caught the light just right. Whatever it was made out of, it wasn’t stone. It was perfectly smooth and weighed so little that it felt like it was made of aluminum.
“What is this?” Cecil said, examining the piece in awe. He’d seen them before, of course, but Zak hadn’t shown him this fine specimen before.
“I have no idea,” the historian admitted. “Neither did the Zanzibaran archaeologists. My spectrometer can’t even identify what it’s made out of. I don’t want to risk damaging it by doing a more invasive procedure. I found it cataloged in the original dig site archives. They had no idea what it was either, but judging from where they found it, they estimated it to be about four million years old.”
“Four million years,” Cecil repeated. “That’s about when they estimated that Zanzibar lost its magnetosphere, isn’t it? My God. It just boggles the mind, Zak. What happened here? Who made this thing? What purpose did it serve?”
Zak raised his eyebrows. “I’d be curious to know how it sat unused for four million years and still looks new. It said that when they found it, after they cleaned the dirt off, they thought it was much more recent at first, or that it was an anomaly.”
“Most of what we’ve found on this planet is anomalous,” Cecil said. “So…not to be crass, but how much is this thing worth?”
“Well, there isn’t much of a network on Zanzibar, and it doesn’t get updated very often, but according to the latest information, a generic alien artifact of this size and condition from just about any extinct species could fetch up to one-point-five million credits on the market, potentially more if it was auctioned off. And that’s generic. Stuff from Zanzibar is exceedingly rare out there. We’re definitely sitting on a fortune, Cecil. I just hope that Lang doesn’t end up selling all this stuff off for the money. These are priceless relics from an unknown civilization. They need to be studied.” He took the object back from Cecil, holding it delicately. “This belongs in a museum.”
Cecil patted Zak on the shoulder. “I admire your passion, mate, but I’ll be happy enough if we manage to get
We’ll see when the time comes, the frustrated historian thought bitterly. He scratched his bald head and showed Cecil his tablet. “I’ve found more references to a vault where the prewar colonial government kept a lot of the more interesting artifacts. I just haven’t found one yet listing where it is. I figure there’s about a fifty-fifty chance it was blasted in the Maggot bombardment.”
“I don’t think they would’ve done that,” Cecil insisted. “I think the Maggots knew about the species that had been here. I think the reason they were so careful in their attack on this world is that they didn’t want to destroy any of the artifacts.”
“I actually agree with you,” Zak replied, “but they had no way of knowing about a secret government vault. It might’ve gotten destroyed by them, unknowingly.”
Cecil furled his brow. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to have the vault out in the wastes, closer to dig sites and away from the cities?”
“Yes and no. Less prying eyes in the immediate area, but construction out in the middle of nowhere would’ve been more suspicious. People would’ve gotten curious, thought something was up. An underground construction project in the city wouldn’t have drawn that much attention, and they could’ve just hauled the artifacts in nondescript trucks.”
“Bloody hell,” Cecil muttered with resignation.
“Honestly though, it’s not like we’ve had a bad run here. The stuff we have found is probably worth millions on the open market. Like this,” Zak said, holding up a strangely smooth, angular stone, and handing it to Cecil. It was twelve centimeters tall, and had seven sides. Each side was engraved with a glyph that seemed to shine or even glow if it caught the light just right. Whatever it was made out of, it wasn’t stone. It was perfectly smooth and weighed so little that it felt like it was made of aluminum.
“What is this?” Cecil said, examining the piece in awe. He’d seen them before, of course, but Zak hadn’t shown him this fine specimen before.
“I have no idea,” the historian admitted. “Neither did the Zanzibaran archaeologists. My spectrometer can’t even identify what it’s made out of. I don’t want to risk damaging it by doing a more invasive procedure. I found it cataloged in the original dig site archives. They had no idea what it was either, but judging from where they found it, they estimated it to be about four million years old.”
“Four million years,” Cecil repeated. “That’s about when they estimated that Zanzibar lost its magnetosphere, isn’t it? My God. It just boggles the mind, Zak. What happened here? Who made this thing? What purpose did it serve?”
Zak raised his eyebrows. “I’d be curious to know how it sat unused for four million years and still looks new. It said that when they found it, after they cleaned the dirt off, they thought it was much more recent at first, or that it was an anomaly.”
“Most of what we’ve found on this planet is anomalous,” Cecil said. “So…not to be crass, but how much is this thing worth?”
“Well, there isn’t much of a network on Zanzibar, and it doesn’t get updated very often, but according to the latest information, a generic alien artifact of this size and condition from just about any extinct species could fetch up to one-point-five million credits on the market, potentially more if it was auctioned off. And that’s generic. Stuff from Zanzibar is exceedingly rare out there. We’re definitely sitting on a fortune, Cecil. I just hope that Lang doesn’t end up selling all this stuff off for the money. These are priceless relics from an unknown civilization. They need to be studied.” He took the object back from Cecil, holding it delicately. “This belongs in a museum.”
Cecil patted Zak on the shoulder. “I admire your passion, mate, but I’ll be happy enough if we manage to get
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