The Abyss of Time

Chapter Twelve

     "Okay," said Miller, looking around the table as people finished their conversations and swallowed the last of their refreshments. "I heard some of you talking about the Dyson swarm so we may as well start there. Mister Felgin, sorry, Alan. You told me earlier today that you thought the civilisation that created it has long perished."

     "After a full two days of observation," said Bennett under her breath.

     Felgin ignored her. "That is my professional opinion," he said. "I gave you my reasons earlier."

     Miller nodded. "I tend to agree with you," he said. "Which means they're ownerless. Derelict. Serving no purpose. Is there any reason we can't exploit them for our own ends? Not right away, obviously. First, we've got to establish our colony on the planet surface. Secure our survival, but when that's done each lander will still have enough fuel to get back up into space. We could go to the swarm elements and see if there's anything we can scrounge."

     "They're in orderly, stable orbits," said Felgin. "There are clearly still automatic systems looking after them. Those automatic systems may be programmed to defend then against being tampered with."

     "Plus," added Bennett, "The civilisation that created them may not have perished."

     "I heard what you were just saying," Miller replied. "I'm afraid I find your aestivation hypothesis rather implausible."

     Bennett glared at him and the Executive officer nodded. "Very well," he said. "If there's even the tiniest chance the creators of the Dyson swarm are still around, we'll move very carefully until we're sure. For the time being we'll try to avoid being noticed by them, but when the colony us up and running we'll send an unmanned probe to try to communicate with them. Who knows, maybe Jack's right. Maybe they'll be friendly and willing to help us."

     "If there's anything there capable of noticing us," said Bennett, "we'll be like insects to them. If they did indeed spare the planet out of sentimentality, because they evolved on it, they may take great exception to our settling on it. Like an anthill appearing in the middle of a garden."

     "That's no garden down there," said Felgin. "Once, perhaps. Millions of years ago. Now it's more like hell. I'd advise building our colony on an airless moon instead, if there were any airless moons left."

     "Does the planet have a moon?" asked Miller.

     "It has something about the same mass as Earth's moon," the scientist replied, "but when we point a telescope in that direction we don't see anything. My guess would be that it's very small. Composed of some super dense material. Maybe a waste product left over from the creation of the Dyson swarm. They replaced the moon with it, for tides and axial stabilisation, and that freed them to take the real moon and turn it into a few more swarm elements."

     "So we can't live on it," the Executive officer said with a wry smile.

     "Very definitely not," Felgin replied.

     "So, the planet then," said Miller. "What exactly are conditions like down there?"

     "Across most of the planer, uninhabitable," Felgin replied. "Like being in an oven. A steam oven, because of all the water in the atmosphere. Our only chance would be near the poles. Even there, you'd need breathing apparatus. Oxygen tanks at the very least."

     He returned to the wall screen, touched an icon and a third image appeared on it. A globe with a green circle marked where the Arctic circle would have been on modern day Earth. Inside the circle was a smaller circle coloured blue.