Lemuria

Fully refueled, the Intrepid fell toward the Lemurian sun in a broad, elliptical arc. The course intentionally resembled the orbit of a long-period comet. Their disguise would not hold up to scrutiny, however. Any entity curious enough to inspect the emission spectrum of the ship would recognize it as a machine..

The crew found the lack of other vessels in the system curious. Gathered informally in the control room, the crewmembers began to speculate.

“Maybe they don’t need spaceships” volunteered Kat, drinking coffee out of a squeeze bottle, her elbow looped loosely through an arm hold.

“Or maybe the civilization is a relic. It is certainly possible that this is just an extensive collection of artifacts.” offered Marius.

“The emission spectrum of the rings, and certain of the planets, refutes that” Tat countered. “I’m guessing space travel is obsolete for them. At a certain level of technology, it must be easier to move ideas and information than to bother with people and material.”

“It would be naive to expect a galactic crossroads here, with space merchants unloading crates of wine.” Helga added. “But the ring system alone suggests they are enormously capable of interplanetary travel.”

“Speaking of space travel, we don’t even know if civilization is native to this system. The sun is only a billion years old.” Interjected Vigo, “Baby, could you show us your best image of the outer planetoid.”

A wallscreen lit up with the image of a pale green crescent set against a black void. It reminded him of Neptune’s moon, Triton, where he had spent six years as a biosphere consultant. Vigo thought he could almost see concentric circles and crisscrossing lines on the surface. They were probably an illusion, reminiscent of the so-called “canali” on Mars. Lowell’s fantasies of an ancient race with vast technology dying on a desert globe faded as new telescopic observations made it obvious the canals were nothing but an optical illusion. The tendency of astronomers to over-interpret their telescopic observations persisted, however. As late as the mid-twentieth century, astronomers expected Mars to possess vegetation, because its seasonal dust storms gave it a greenish cast.

“That planet is about 15 AU from its sun. It is about two Earth masses, with a thick porous crust and thin atmosphere composed helium with traces of nitrogen, neon, argon, and hydrogen. That bluish surface is mostly water ice, with frozen methane and carbon dioxide. The place is frigid, with surface temperature ranging from -130 c to -180c. Nitrogen and argon gas actually crystallize and fall as snow at the poles.” Vigo changed the image to a black and red map. “As we all know, neutrinos are suggestive of fusion reactions. At least a thousand, well-defined emitters can be detected underneath the surface of the planet at depths from 50 to 2000 meters. This suggests thermonuclear power plants of enormous sizes. Infrared emissions, suggesting pockets of warm air beneath the surface, tend to cluster in a spherical pattern around them.”

“So far, I can’t make any sense of the radio emissions at all.” remarked Marius.

“When do you think they’ll notice us?” queried Helga.

“They’re underground. How do we make them notice us without our overtures being taken as an invasion?” Marius answered.

The room fell silent.