Landfall: Tales From the Flood/Ark Universe by Stephen Baxter Read Free Book Online Page A

‘We’ve found modified landscapes in other locations nearby. “Modified landscapes” - that was my grandfather’s term for it. We think there are traces of something like farms, marked by something like ploughing, but in a kind of cross-cross pattern. But this was the heart of the city itself ...’
    The black stone had been chipped away to leave big chunks of a brownish rock set in a rough square, and more massive pieces of rubble further away – all this trapped in the lower stratum, an ossified ruin. It was obviously the remains of a wall. And Teif swore softly. He had found what looked like the mouth of a pipe, neatly circular – or the remains of it; it was a rusted trace in the rock.
    Lange was grinning at them. ‘Can you see? This was once a substantial building. My grandfather found it by tracing foundations dug deep into the rock layers below – that’s how to build on the soft ground of a delta, you know, by setting concrete rafts on deep foundations. When it came down it scattered big blocks of rubble all around. Dig up one of these blocks and it would crumble in your hand. With enough time the concrete rots, the cement leached away by acid in the water, but leaving the sand and gravel in place. You see the pipework? We’ve also found what look like wires and cables. Road surfaces. Rusted lumps that could be the remains of crushed iron vehicles. And so on.
    ‘Here are the real treasures.’ From the shelves in the wall behind him, he produced artefacts that he passed from hand to hand. Xaia became fascinated as she handled these things. A disc of what was clearly glass might have been the bottom of a bottle; it was opaque, milky. A light sheet felt like plastic, but it was discoloured as if burned. Lange said that most plastics would have turned into blobs of oil, and seeped away. Most precious of all was an intricate artefact like a mechanical clock, but wrought in a glittering yellow metal.
    ‘That’s fool’s gold,’ Lange said. ‘Which iron turns into, given time and the right conditions. What was this, a clock, an astronomical calculator? Whatever, it’s now like a replica of itself …  
    ‘All of this, this high culture, is a billion years old. So my father dated it from his stratigraphy. Intelligence blossomed here almost as soon as animals were crawling around in the mud – not like Earth! And then, within a few thousand years – sploosh, the ocean covered it, gone forever.’ He glanced out of the cave at the bare plain. ‘We can’t know what else was here. Maybe the plain was covered in cities … Chance preserved only this one. And certainly my grandfather believed this was a planet-covering civilisation. He said you could see changes in the biological structures below and above this stratum, changes in the atmospheric content. They changed everything about their planet, mixed it all up and moved it all around.’
    ‘Just a few thousand years,’ Chan said. ‘But that was enough time for them to change the world forever – to empty out the lodes of fossil fuels and metal ores and the rest, natural treasures never renewed on this small, static world.’
    ‘But there’s no trace of the people,’ Xaia said. ‘The Dead. Whoever built this place.’
    ‘Nothing we can identify.’ Lange took back the pieces reverently and stowed them back on their shelves. ‘Worth the price of admission, Lady?’
    Xaia glanced at the others. ‘Enough for now. Let’s get out of here.’
    Once they were outside Lange’s fence she gathered her aides around her. ‘We need to decide what to do about this stuff, and where to go from here.’
    Teif snorted. ‘As to the last – home!’
    Chan said, ‘This scholarly resource, this Reef, can’t be allowed to moulder away like this. It sounds as if only the grandfather did any substantial work. We must reclaim this for Ararat – on your behalf, Lady,’ he said, stammering the addendum.
    ‘Well, I agree. We must open up this odd little nest