Day 19,998: 11Nov24
500 words, 2 minute read
The sun sinks lower in the sky, casting a warm glow over the lunar landscape. I stand on the surface of the moon, my lander's exhaust kicking up a cloud of dust that shimmers in the golden twilight. I heft my shovel and begin to dig, breaking ground in the rocky soil.
"Come on, Sam, we've got a lot of ground to cover," I say to my companion, a small rover with periscope binoculars like eyes on the end of a telescoping tube.
"I'm with you all the way, boss," Sam replies in his robotic voice.
I chuckle at his enthusiasm and continue digging, the autoshovel biting into the hard-packed soil. The autoshovel is about the size of a golf cart and can dislodge a square kilometer of ground every minute. The air is thin and cold on the moon, and I can feel the chill seeping through my suit. But I don't mind. I'm used to the harsh conditions of space travel.
As I dig, the sky grows darker, the stars starting to peek out from behind the veil of night as the sun sinks below the horizon. I pause for a moment, gazing up at the twinkling lights above. It's a sight that never fails to fill me with a sense of awe and wonder.
"Look at that, Sam," I say, gesturing at the starry sky. "Trillions of civilizations, all looking back at us.” I turn to look at the planet we’re orbiting around. “And a bunch of monkeys, all knowledge of space travel lost, not even able to look up and see us.”
But I can't linger for long. There's still work to be done, and I know I won't have much time before the sun rises again and the scorching heat of the lunar day begins. So I shrug off my reverie and get back to work, digging deeper and deeper into the moon's surface.
The ground is hard and unyielding, but I'm not deterred. I push the autoshovel to its maximum, the metal ringing out against the rocky soil. Sweat beads on my forehead, and I can feel the heat of the sun rising behind me.
"Keep it up, boss," Sam says encouragingly. "We're almost there."
I nod, gritting my teeth as I push myself to keep going. And then, finally, I strike something solid.
"What is it?" Sam asks as I carefully brush away the loose dirt.
"I'm not sure," I reply, my heart racing with excitement. "But whatever it is, it looks like it's been buried for a long, long time."
There are scribbles in the plaque, repetitive curved and straight lines, with even spacing between them.
I pull out my material evaluator and press the gun-shaped tool to the plaque. It beeps for a few seconds before the screen lights up.
“As I thought. Several billion years old.” I whistle.. “You know what that makes this?”
“What’s that?” Sam asks.
“The oldest known evidence of intelligent life — it was here, on this godforsaken spiral outcrop of the Milky Way, that life first began.”