Of Noble Heart: Star Trek, The Next Generation

by D.R. MCCANN

When a technician stumbles over an ancient humanoid at an archaeological dig on Rabijan IX, the Federation fears that a new and advanced enemy has emerged on the edge of known space. Sending the Enterprise is a logical course of action, for its Captain has the requisite knowledge and background to get to the bottom of the mystery. (Chapter 1 of 27)

1. Chapter 1

Of Noble Heart: Star Trek, TNG

Chapter 1

A smutty yellow fog enveloped the site. Ochre clouds swirled in mottled layers, the most translucent stratum highest in the sky. At ground level a heavy oily smog shifted imperceptibly as a change in pressure brought on by the heat of the rising sun pushed the mist over the plains and up into the obsidian and dacite canyons. A single sun rose over the fractured black walls but the planet's murky haze and the its distance meant that there was neither light nor clarity, only a bewildering pattern of shadow and gloom. The shuffling of drifting grey sand broke the silence. But no creature stirred and no plant clung to the rocks or dug roots into the impenetrable soil.

Millennia of winds and water had softened the obsidian and granite in places, and nearest the ground crevices had lost their razor-sharp edges. Over time cracks had widened into narrow canyons. The heat from the dim sun, but mostly the seasonal wind and torrential rains had chipped away at them further, creating ravines between the towering slate-coloured walls. These small valleys were also barren: no life blew in the winds or coalesced in the stagnant pools. A sour stench not unlike burnt rubber swirled up the canyons and died.

In this northern region snow sometimes fell, sooty and lifeless. For half the year it lay on stony ground that was impervious to moisture and its life-giving potential. At the equator the rocks heated, cracked and were transformed into soil, but no life survived to burrow into its warmth. In the heat steam rose, inert and unproductive, and was dissipated on the wind.

Away from these canyons Rabijan IX was largely a planet of flatlands, with a few muddy lakes dotted along the southern boundary of its well-worn and oversized continents. In its few northern mountains there were no large bodies of water, only rivers that began well, bubbling up out of the rocks clean and pure before flowing south. As they ran their waters filled with impurities, making the southern rivers and lakes unfit to drink. The air, once bursting with oxygen, now held barely enough to breath.

Lights from the rigging ricocheted off the tawny haze, and reflected back on to the camp laid out on the grey soil below. The site was snug up against the dacite cliffs. Originally a couple of tents tucked away in a small dusty ravine, over the weeks the camp had spread out onto the plains. Three large domes, two clear and softly lighted from within, were nestled together with a raised pathway between. In the larger one on the left, crates of goods were stacked in storage and a workroom and labs had been cordoned off near the door. The central dome served as a communal area, with a cafeteria and lounge, and a small office. The third was dark, for the Polaroid filter was activated and kept light from passing in or out. There the off-duty scientists slept and attended to their private affairs.

Sitting on the plain at the end of the walkway and under brightly lighted beams was a single shuttlecraft from the Oppenheimer, an Oberth-class science vessel, which, having other duties in the sub-sector, periodically returned for a few hours to a synchronous orbit above the site. It was due back soon.

Between the shuttle landing area and the domes were tall, white standards with lights, linked together to ensure no shadow was cast within a two-hundred metre diameter on the ground. Though it was only dawn on Rabijan IX, a dozen scientists had already gathered there, bent over the hard soil, watching the three people kneeling in the dusty soil.

The elder of the three was human. Intermittently he sat upright on his haunches and pointed out to the other two where they should direct their attention. His steel-grey hair fell across his wrinkled brow and from time to time he absent-mindedly pushed it behind his left ear in an attempt to see what the others were doing. Though he was a slight man and dressed in a dishevelled blue jump suit, Dr Pakat retained an air of authority and no one doubted that he was in charge of the dig. Most of his professional life had been spent crawling through alien ruins but the exo-archaeologist was impatient with the slow and deliberate pace of this excavation.

"There, can't you brush a bit more quickly?" he asked, pointing to a mound of debris in front of the younger man on his right.

This second human, Spinner Martin, didn't lift his eyes, but kept focused on the task at hand. In his mid-30s, he had worked on digs throughout the quadrant for the better part of a decade, either as a student volunteer or a trained specialist, and slightly resented the old man's interference. Exobiology was well established now that the Federation was more than two hundred years old, and he had been well trained at its two major institutes, where he specialised in humanoid species. In recent years he'd spent most of his time studying the tissue of the living rather than in the field with the dead, and had been pleased when he was invited to work on this dig. He was not going to be hurried.

Spinner brushed slowly, suspecting that an ancient and possibly extinct humanoid species, brand new to the Federation, was about to be exhumed here. He bent purposefully to the task, dusting the hard black soil from the white bone trapped within. "It looks like a tibia," he said.

"No need to think in human terms … at least not yet," the woman on her knees beside him said. "Too little to go on."

Madam Rimina was a striking 90 year old Vulcan, though her features were softened by her human grandmother, whose subversive influence extended to teaching her granddaughter how to laugh. Rimina had even been known to cry but her natural reticence meant few had ever seen her tears. Dressed in a red overall with a silky orange and yellow scarf tied around her hair, its long tails flowing down her back, she looked less like a paleo-biologist than a connoisseur considering her latest purchase of modern art.

She sat back on her heels and surveyed the site. "Make sure that other side is blocked off better," she pointed to a technician, who extended the boundary markers to take in another meter of soil. Turning to the group of young scientists behind her, she pointedly asked "don't you have any other work to do?" Most, who did have tasks on site, took the hint and left.

Altogether there were 22 scientists and technicians at the dig, most of whom had arrived in the last four weeks. That was when the pre-fabricated domes were erected and the bulk of the supplies brought in by the Oppenheimer. Before that the expedition staff consisted solely of Pakat and Rimina, and five academics, living in tents and using the shuttle as an office. The core group of seven resented the presence, bordering at times on intrusion, of the others but they understood the growth of the team had been inevitable.

Evidence of early habitation on Rabijan IX was discovered a year before, when one of Pakat's Ph.D. students, Tamotsu Matsui, looking for a topic for his dissertation, had done a survey of the greater Rabijan system. Spinner glanced up and saw the young student on the other side of the dig, brushing dirt from a half-buried slab. Matsui and his three assistants began excavating the site six months after he had discovered it. They soon uncovered a few low walls buried in the gritty black sand and Matsui reported that he thought they were the remnants of an ancient, indigenous civilization. Not long after that they discovered a number of twisted and tortured machines, the detritus of a technological society.

Since two of the inner Rabijan planets were inhabited by humanoid races, Matsui and his advisor Pakat assumed that sometime in their distant past one or the other had been spacefaring and had settled on Rabijan IX. Nowadays neither of the societies left the confines of their worlds. Planet-bound and so far out on the edge of the Alpha Quadrant, they were not a high priority for the Federation, which felt it had to do little more than formalize its relationship with them. And because neither currently displayed Warp capability, they were rarely visited by Federation ships. So when Matsui asked the Federation Science Academy for consent to research the historical connection between their societies and the ruins on Rabijan IX, it refused permission. Pakat reluctantly agreed with the Federation scientists: they should be left alone to develop – or if the two exo-archaeologists were right, to redevelop – at their own pace. Though unable to prove it, Matsui continued to believe that the ancestors of the beings on at least one of the two inner planets had once thrived on Rabijan IX.

Matsui and his team continued exploring the canyons and shallow caverns in the hills, and found that the site held not only the remains of an industrial settlement but that the technology was significantly different than any other in the Alpha Quadrant. Pakat reported Matsui's findings to the Science Academy at Federation Headquarters, and immediately it ordered the professor to take over direction of his student's site and to lead an expedition on behalf of the High Council.

Spinner knew it was normal for the younger man to feel resentful when Pakat assumed control. But Matsui's frustration turned to delight when asked by his advisor to remain on the site and to write up the team's findings for his dissertation. In due course the young scientist came to appreciate that while he didn't lead the dig, he was part of a larger and more experienced team than he could ever have recruited on his own. He also was proud to be acknowledged as the discoverer of what was turning out to be spectacular find.

So, just two months after Matsui had begun his excavations, Pakat willingly took charge; he immediately invited Madam Rimina and others to join the expedition. She had been working on digs since she was a child, when she following her archaeologist-mother from one ancient site to another. Now in her middle years she was known for her extraordinary intuition that repeatedly generated insights that would otherwise have been lost. Pakat expected she'd do the same on Rabijan IX.

Dr Pakat's first act was to reconnoitre Matsui's site. What he found confirmed what the Federation already feared: there were too many bits and pieces of what appeared to be technological marvels left in the ruins for the site to belong to an early industrial civilization. Soon Rimina and Matsui reached similar conclusions. Sitting together in the shuttle to avoid the swirling dust they had come to detest, they had shared their views with Pakat. Rimina had made them tea, using leaves she always carried with her from Vulcan.

"Sure, some advanced goods can be traded into a pre-industrial society," Pakat had asserted, "such as guns into the tribal areas of the American West or iron tools into the highlands of Papua New Guinea. But as time passes few will remain. And after a few decades, perhaps a generation or two at most, only odd scraps of the non-indigenous technologies will be extant."

"But that's not the case on Rabijan IX," Matsui argued. "Here we are uncovering bits all the time of what look like computers and other advanced hardware, all buried in crumbling fissures."

"What I don't understand," Madam Rimina asked, "is why there's black dust and stone and pumice, covering everything, just like the place was buried by a volcano?"

"But there are no volcanos," Matsui interjected. "I've checked. No volcanism at all…at least, not for a very long time, from what the geologists tell me."

"We need more data on how old the rock is," Rimina said as she sipped the hot red tea.

"We are working on it," Pakat continued. "Right now, though, it remains a mystery: what the technology is, what it does, where it came from. How it got covered up. And yes, as I was saying, there is way too much advanced machinery, or bits of it, to assume it is not indigenous. This much detritus can't have been introduced from outside." He gulped the fragrant tea and poured himself another cup.

That night he had summarized their discussion and sent their musings as part of his field report to the Council. The Federation acted quickly and within a few days several engineers and techno-archaeologists were added to Pakat's team. Their job was to determine which technological 'stream' the hardware belonged to.

Each civilization has its specific technologies, most of which serve a function that is replicated in other societies by their own machines and electronics. But the way that an individual planet's technologies develop – on the back of earlier and more primitive machinery and their contribution to what comes after – is distinct to each society. From typewriter to computer keyboard to qwerty-handheld communication devises was the example often used by techno-archaeologists to explain the process to laymen. They'd go on to point out the differences between that 'stream' and the communications systems used, say, on Vulcan, which relies on visual as much as manual acuity. Different machines performing the same function. Two different technological 'streams'.

After working for nearly a month Pakat and his enlarged team were still unable to determine which 'stream' the technological remains belonged to. Pakat wrote back to the Science Academy, "It is our opinion that the various pieces of equipment found on Rabijan IX are not related to Vulcan, Klingon or Romulan technology. Nor are they Cardassian or Bajoran, and they certainly aren't Terran." He concluded by handing the problem over to specialists:

"We leave it to Federation engineers and scientists based at HQ to compare the mechanisms found here to technology sourced from other Federation planets and further afield and perhaps even from technology captured in battle. As soon as it is feasible, we will ship you as many complete pieces of Rabijan IX equipment for study as possible. Only by doing that will the Federation determine how closely Rabijan's technologies resemble others."

In that initial period the archaeological team came to share Headquarters' concern: this equipment is advanced and so the possibility exists that yet another civilisation resident in the Alpha Quadrant had or now has the capacity to attack the Federation with sophisticated weaponry. The question remained, how had such a civilization's presence remained undetected for so long?

For several more weeks the team continued to make forays north along the black cliffs, making a special effort to look up each and every canyon. To the west of the bluffs the land was flat and withered, and largely motionless. Periodically a swirling black dust funnel would rise up and run across the plain, only to collapse when it hit the cliffs. The team had learned to dodge them by taking shelter in the crevices.

Confusion about what they'd discovered deepened when electronic parts in abundance were found literally melted into the black rock. Periodically, partial remains of what appeared to be buildings or walls were also found sticking at odd angles from the cliffs, some with a few markings that none of the archaeologists, even with the aid of the Federation's linguistic compendium, could decipher.

The mystery peaked when a female technician, ignoring the designated pathway along the mountainside, literally tripped over the remains of a body. The young Bajoran woman nearly fainted when she stumbled and looked down to see four fingers of a gloved hand sticking out of the black earth next to her foot. The body wasn't far from the scientists' domes and the area was quickly cordoned off.

Pakat immediately realised they needed more specialist assistance and that evening he requested that the Science Office invite Rimina's long-time colleague, Spinner Martin, and his exobiology crew to join them on Rabijan IX. It was Spinner's knowledge of ancient humanoid species that they so desperately needed.

Spinner was glad to leave his lab on DS 16, where for months he had been tracing the movement two centuries before of a specific lineage of Cardassians. This he did by following the genetic signature they left behind in the DNA of the current inhabitants of several star systems, a task that necessitated convincing Cardassians and their subjugated populations to submit to medical tests – not an easy assignment for someone so short of patience and diplomacy as he was.

Spinner, stuck in the lab in a station circling in space for the bulk of his work week, also missed being out-of-doors, and the thought of working in the field was attractive. That said, his red hair and fair complexion were not made for direct sunlight, though he'd heard that wouldn't be an issue on Rabijan IX. He decided to pack a hat and sunglasses just in case.

Keen to leave the investigation on DS 16 to others more suited to it and having heard rumours of what they'd found on Rabijan IX, he jumped at the chance to join Pakat's team. He ordered four experienced exobiology technicians to rendezvous with him on the Oppenheimer in three days time, and a week later they were deposited on the surface of the planet.

Spinner realised that the large size of the team – now nearly two dozen women and men – and its high calibre, plus the secrecy surrounding the findings, meant the Federation was worried. Something strange was going on here and HQ wanted results quickly. Nonetheless, he was fastidious by nature, and no one had ever been able to fault his methods or findings. He also knew this high-profile dig would have its records poured over by members of the Science Academy for years, so it was necessary to clear the organic remains carefully and document everything precisely.

After reading Pakat's reports and spending a morning exploring the site with his people, he understood why the body and the nearby ruins were considered more than a little unusual. When he finally got down to work, he moved slowly and with deliberation. Rimina, who watched her young friend work, understood and appreciated his attentiveness to detail. But the professor, under pressure from Federation officials, had lost patience with the two diggers. "Two days to unearth a body?" Pakat groaned.

On the first morning Spinner had decided he would himself chip and dust away the top layer of compacted obsidian and pumice. He carefully broke up the rock and swept away the dirt covering the figure. He instructed his assistants to sieve and carefully box any pieces of faceplate, rock, cloth or bone that was mixed with the grey soil. The hours passed as he and Rimina patiently unearthed the remains, which the team came to call the 'spaceman' even though none knew whether the figure was either a man or a space-traveller.

The body was splayed out on an solid sub-surface of crushed cinders, lying on its back, face upwards, with its feet toward the north. It was covered in a tattered suit made of a strong pressed fibre that had once been pale blue. Its helmet was cracked in the back and the clear faceplate lay in shards around the skull. It looked as though the spaceman had been smashed in the face and thrown onto his – or her – back, where the helmet hit something hard and cracked. Hopefully, Spinner thought, the suited figure was unconscious before dying, perhaps of asphyxia.

"It looks like the spaceman's nose and jaw are broken," Rimina noted. The technicians searched but could find no object laying nearby that might have hit the helmet so hard as to shatter it and destroy the person's face.

No flesh remained on the bones. "That's not good news," Spinner said to Pakat, who remained crouched beside them. "If we had tissue it might give us a clue to the being's identity – his skin colour, for instance, or whether he was covered with hair … or even scales. We might even have retrieved some DNA. But we'll look more closely once we get the body to the lab."

Now, at the end of the second day's digging, the exobiologist rocked back on his heels and stood up to survey the exposed skeleton. "Looks," he said to Rimina, "humanoid for sure, if its two legs and arms are anything to go by?"

Glancing at several of the younger members of the team circling them, Madam Rimina reached her hand upward toward Spinner, who pulled the aging Vulcan up from her kneeling position. "Right, then, what makes you say it's humanoid?" She happily provided him an opportunity to teach some of the younger staff and students, something she knew he enjoyed.

"Well, I would start with the two legs – I would say a humanoid is bi-pedal." The small assembly nodded in agreement. "We would also assume it to have one head… but that may not necessarily be right." He stopped to consider whether a two-headed entity would be called humanoid, then refocused on the students. "I guess I should have said first that the specimen should be alive. In this case, the spaceman is dead, but he once lived, so that counts."

He carefully walked around to the other side of the excavated remains. "Here's where it get's more difficult. I would say that it has to be intelligent." He lifted his eyebrows and glanced at several of the students, "but intelligent is a relative term. The actions of some humanoids over the centuries seem pretty dumb to me." A couple of the students smiled at his little joke. "But the fact that he has a spacesuit and all this technology," he swept his arm towards the mountain where bits of machinery had been gathered, "tells me that his people were smart enough to create and use advanced equipment."

"Finally, a humanoid should be sentient." He looked down at the body and stood still for a moment. "We do not know if he was sentient, I guess, though we can assume that he felt fear as his violent death approached." The group gazed at the broken faceplate. "Did he seek to understand his place in the universe? It's hard for us to know that, but we can assume so if he looked up at the stars. That's assuming the sky was clear then." A couple of the younger scientists mimicked Spinner as he stared upward toward the tawny mist swirling above them.

The silence extended to the point where several of the younger members of the team shuffled their feet and looked at one another in embarrassment. But they weren't going to interrupt him. Rimina walked up to Spinner and put her hand on his shoulder, aware that his words were as much of an eulogy the being lying before them was likely ever to get. Her touch brought him back to the present day. "Ok, let's get to work…' he said, clapping his hands together and stealing a glance at Pakat, "…or we'll have the Federation on our backs."

He knelt once more over the spaceman and with gloved hands, began lifting bits of the spacesuit from the skeleton. "Be sure to record this," Rimina said to a young woman holding the recorder. For the next three hours she and Spinner worked from opposite sides of the body, taking first the dirt and bits of suit off the skeleton and then lifting each piece of bone from the site. Audio recordings were also made in case the video missed their commentary. As they lifted each bone out of the pit they'd dug around the skeleton, it was laid out on a piece of stiff titanium, as close to its original position relative to the rest of the bones as possible.

Unusual for a modern dig, Spinner had ordered that the transporter, which could have moved the whole skeleton into the storage tent, not be used. Touching the remains, he argued, was a vital part of the work of an excavator. "It's like a book collector," he explained to the younger scientists. "A bibliophile wants to feel the pages between his fingers and to smell the old paper and leather. It's a completely different experience than reading text on a padd, isn't it? Well, it's like that for me: I want to feel the texture of the suit and the body, and to smell the desiccation as we disassemble the skeleton."

He placed the bones and suit by hand onto the platform, and the pieces would be held in place by a stabilising force-field until transported back to the Science Academy on Earth and studied by specialists there. The job of Pakat's field team was simply to ensure that the remains were unearthed, stored and shipped safely, and that records of the dig and any preliminary assessment of the site, its inhabitant and technology, were forwarded to the Federation as quickly as possible.

The end of the second day saw the skeleton safely on the large metal tray. The ruptured space suit was in tatters, as it had been when around the man, and it had been placed on another tray and also held in place by a force-field. Around it was the grainy grey soil in which the suit and spaceman had been buried. After a final scan of the internment site with a tricorder showed that no other organic material was present, the pit from which the skeleton was extracted was closed the old fashioned way, with shovels and muscle power. When the shallow hole was filled nothing showed that a man had struggled to take his last breath there.

"Why then, a space suit?" Rimina asked Spinner as they sat at the table after dinner. "There is enough air here to breath, however foul it smells. It tastes like burnt oil, doesn't it? Anyway, there's no reason to think this planet has degraded from whenever he died."

The dining area in the dome was mostly empty as technicians and scientists had left for their bunks or had gone to the more comfortable section of the commons, where they could read, communicate with their families, or chat. Only four younger technicians remained at a table across the dining room, well away from the senior scientists. The youngsters cracked jokes and ate second desserts while Pakat, Rimina and Spinner quietly reviewed the day's findings.

"Perhaps he was about to take off on a ship that required a suit?" Pakat surmised.

"Or he thought wearing a suit on the ground made him safer for some reason?" Spinner speculated.

"But safer from what? And," Rimina reasoned, "if he were going to join a ship that didn't make it, shouldn't its wreckage be nearby? Or are we to assume the ship left him behind?"

Neither man had an answer and remained silent.

"And the soil' , Rimina continued, "it's lifeless. How did it get that way, and was it that way when our man lived here?"

"Probably not. But let's see what emerges from the biological samples taken from inside his suit. But my guess," Spinner said, "is that the air was more fit to breath when our spaceman lived, especially if he was indigenous to this planet. If he had evolved on any planet whose air is this bad, his physiognomy would show it."

"But indigenous is a relative term," Rimina said and then laughed, as though she had made a joke that no one understood but her. "What I mean is that humanoids throughout this part of the galaxy are related to one another, so the spaceman's people may have been seeded here too, like Terrans, Cardassians, and Vulcans were seeded."

"Yes…but," Spinner shook his head, "…the people from which this man sprung were probably not on this planet for eons or they would have evolved differently than we see him. Say, with lungs much bigger or larger eyes to see in the dimmer light."

"But the air might not have been so filthy and with so little oxygen when he evolved here," Rimina insisted.

"That's true," Spinner nodded, "but you get the idea. Their sun won't have moved. So, we are looking at a being who may have evolved here when this planet was more pristine or he evolved elsewhere, where it was less polluted, and he came here later, when it was clean or dirty, whichever, that doesn't matter."

"But the DNA samples will tell us something?" Pakat interrupted.

"Yes, if there is any DNA we can find. We hope to get some from the bones tomorrow, if they are not too dried out. Then we should be able to find out who this fellow is and how he fits into the scheme of things – into the Alpha Quadrant's scheme of things, that is."

"Maybe we'll get lucky and find other of his kinsmen laid out on the plain, to get DNA from them too," Rimina added as they stood. She wrapped her bright cloak around her, and allowed Spinner to take her arm. They exited the commons together, leaving the noisy technicians alone in the room. At the door Pakat nodded his goodnight and headed to his office to write his nightly report. Rimina and Spinner walked toward their quarters, each with more questions than they had when they got up that day.

The following morning the diffuse sunlight barely cast a shadow as Spinner walked from the sleeping dome back toward the dining room. He eyed the swirling yellow fog, and remembered thinking how excited he was at the thought of working outdoors in the field again. Now looking around him, he realised that this wasteland was already starting to get to him. Less than a week on the planet and he felt oppressed by the barren landscape and the ubiquitous ochre mist that made it impossible to see more than a few meters. The heavy smell of rubber burning – a perverse odour considering there was hardly enough oxygen to light a flame – pervaded all his senses. He'd found that even if he kept his mouth shut he could taste the rancid odour as he inhaled through his nose. And like the other scientists, he'd discovered that after a day working out-of-doors the oily residue mixed with grit and sweat was hard to wash off his skin. Rimina complained it was impossible to get it out of her hair, which was still black and luxurious.

Any exertion, even something as simple as a leisurely walk along the cliffs to get away from the camp for a while, was nearly impossible due to the pollutants that seemed to suck the oxygen from the air. Pakat was pleased that the pollution was not so bad as to make it necessary to wear breathing gear because that would have slowed the team's work considerably. But the site's medical doctor still felt the need to order a couple of the older scientists to sit in her office and breath clean, oxygenated air for short periods in the evenings to clear their lungs. Spinner entered the dining area thinking that doing field work on remote planets rather than in a sterile laboratory was becoming less appealing by the day.

After breakfast Pakat, Rimina and Spinner met in the storage bay, where the remains of the spaceman were being kept. Like the other two, the sturdy Mylar dome had two doors connected by a short passage. They helped keep the stank odour and greasy air outside and made working conditions inside relatively comfortable.

The two metal platforms were laid out on tables side by side, one with the bones and the other with the suit and dirt taken from the site. Two young technicians in coveralls and hats were already busy doing tests on the skeleton and the suit. In the sterile light of the lab the remains looked ashen and more fragile than when stretched out on the stony surface the day before. The technicians' data would be forwarded by Pakat to the Federation as soon as they had conclusions worth reporting. The two younger scientists stepped back to make room for the senior staff, and the three silently circled the table. They stood on all sides of the skeleton, each deep in their own thoughts.

"Okay," Pakat said at last. "Let's see if we can make some sense of this today. The Council was in touch with me again this morning."

Spinner looked at Pakat and raised an eyebrow. "That's a bit intense. Didn't you report last night?"

"Yes, of course. And it's unusual, I'll admit. But then, this is an unusual dig," Pakat said without need for further explanation.

"Lucky us," Rimina added with a note of sarcasm, "to have Starfleet interested in the work of archaeologists."

They fell silent again, giving the senior technician the opportunity to report. "Measurements are completed," the young Bajoran said as she handed Pakat her notes.

The old scientist skimmed the padd and then read aloud. "He was tall, nearly 2 meters, and probably still young, perhaps the equivalent of 40 Earth-years in age. He'd broken his right clavicle at some point but it was well-knitted back together." The three looked at the shoulder and Pakat continued, "…with the help of advanced technology rather than naturally healing." He looked at the technician. "That's what the medical officer said?"

The woman nodded and Pakat continued. "His cranial case falls within the human range, and the length of his arms and size of his brow ridge and jaw bone indicate he would have passed as a modern homo sapiens sapiens on any street in the Federation. Oh, and only one head," he added with a smile in Spinner's direction.

"Did his bones show any particular wear and tear?" Spinner asked. "As though he was used to doing a job that affected his skeletal system?"

"No, no housemaid's knee or other affliction that I can see," Pakat said as he skimmed the report and the technicians shook their heads in unison. "But I understand what you're getting at," Pakat added. "If a person spends too much time in weightless conditions, his bones and circulatory system begins to sort of thing?"

Spinner nodded and continued. "Yes, and other careers have similar physiological impacts. Starfleet's been dealing with space-related physical changes for a long time now, so we hardly ever have problems anymore. I was thinking that if the spaceman came from a civilization where space travel was the norm, it would probably be hard to find any physiological traces related to that. That he has none tells us he might have come from such a society, something like ours maybe."

"Or that he never went into space…" Rimina interjected.

"But then, why the spacesuit?" Spinner asked. No one had an answer and the review of the technicians' findings continued.

"Anything from the inside of the suit, like hair or skin?" Rimina asked as she turned to the table where the suit was laid out. The second technician, a young man from Luna, walked to the table and touched a bit of cloth that might have once been a sleeve.

"We found some cells of skin inside the folds here," he said and pointed to a small piece of material. We will have to see what the tests at HQ say, but I'd bet it's human cells." He looked at his colleague, who shook her head in disagreement. "She and I have a bet going…'

Rimina turned to the Bajoran and asked, "so, you disagree?"

The woman nodded and spoke with assurance. "It's not so much that I disagree; its just that I think it's too soon to tell. Under the scope the cells look human and all of our instruments say its humanoid, but that doesn't mean its Terran, or that he'd look like what passes as human today."

"So it goes back to definition," Spinner said to his colleagues. "Not quite human would I guess make it humanoid?" he said to the technicians.

"Yes sir," the woman said first, "but how "human" or "humanoid" we can't tell, not yet." She looked pointedly at her colleague.

"So, the data will be sent to Earth and we can expect to hear results in the fullness of time," Pakat said. "But let's try to draw some conclusions here, today, conclusions that I can report, leaving open the issue of who the man was."

For the next two hours the five of them worked together, measuring and weighing each bone, taking readings and scrapings to do finer tests. Rimina concentrated on the space suit, and determined that the face plate was a made from a type of impervious plastic that could not be scratched or burnt. She also discovered it was created from a type of silicon-like material not found in the Federation.

"How it came to be in pieces is beyond me," she concluded after an hour's investigation. "It must have been a very severe force that hit the man upside the head."

"How heavy a force?" Pakat asked.

"I can't tell you that," she answered.

"That's something Starfleet will want to know. Get me the chief engineer," Pakat instructed the Bajoran technician. The woman left and five minutes later a crusty old engineer who'd joined the expedition a few weeks earlier from Tycho entered the dome behind her. For the remainder of the morning he sampled the plastic and provided them with information on its tensile, flexural and compressional strength. Before long he'd computed the material's stress-strain curve and had provided the team leader with the maximum gigapascal stress the plastic could take. "Anything more than that would have shattered the faceplate," he explained.

"Would it take the flesh off the bones too?" Rimina asked.

"Without a doubt."

Over lunch the two young scientists returned to their quarters while the engineer and three senior staff discussed their findings. Particularly important to the Federation would be the type of force needed to destroy the faceplate. "Weapons obviously, but what else could do it?" Spinner asked.

"Volcanoes, solar flares," Pakat suggested.

"The blast from a departing spaceship?" Rimina offered, still thinking that the man might have been abandoned.

"Yes, anyone of those would have been powerful enough," the engineer agreed. "But why was he left where he was? And why no other bodies around?"

Long after Rabijan's distant sun had set the three scientists were ready to draft their report to Starfleet. Over a late dinner they separated the hard data – what they knew for sure – from their suppositions. As much to himself as to the others, Pakat twice stated that "it can only be a preliminary report. They can expect no more than that from us so soon."

"For sure," Spinner said twice as well, trying to reassure the old man. "We can finish our research in the lab once we get back, but we've done all we can here. Let's make a stab at answering some of the more difficult questions now…"

"… but without opening ourselves up for ridicule later if we are proven wrong," Pakat completed the sentence.

"That's unlikely," Rimina interrupted. "No one else could have done any better in such a short time."

Five hours later Pakat hit the key on his padd and the report was sent.

Secret

Transmission 32-107.86

To: Federation Council

Attn: Space Science Academy

From: Rabijan IX, Scientific Team: Drs. S. Pakat, team leader, B. Rimina and S. Martin.

Star Date 48541.61 [July 17, 2371]

Re. Preliminary Findings: Archeo-Engineering Investigation of Rabijan IX

Executive Summary

Background

Rabijan IX is a degraded and denuded carbon-based planet of 3 terrestrial-masses, orbiting an F-5 star at a distance of 0.189 light years. It has a sidereal year of 7.6 Terran years. It is located in the Sub-sector IV of the Alpha Quadrant. The nearest Federation base is Space Station 16, some 2.35 light years distant.

The Rabijan sun is Star Type F-5, approximately 4.2 billion years old and from observations, is likely to continue burning a further 5 billion years. No significant solar flares or unusual cosmic radiation are currently observed to emanate from this or any other nearby star.

Rabijan IX has no orbiting satellite, natural or fabricated.

Two other planets (IV and VII) in the Rabijan system are inhabited by pre-(or non-) Warp cultures, one (IV) with a population of humanoids numbering approximately 800 million and the other (VII), 1.2 billion. Research carried out by Starfleet at the middle of the last century indicates these two cultures and inhabitants are related, but those findings were not confirmed by this team. No contact was made with these populations during this mission. (Annexure 1 for details of Rabijan IV and VII).

On Star date 48138.58, H. Mitsui, Ph.D. student (University of New Berlin, Exo-archaeology) undertook long-range sensor observations of this and several other planets in this and nearby systems, in the expectation of finding a site of archaeological significance. This sub-sector has been the location of several now extinct civilizations and has long been a favourite of archaeology students. (Annexure 2: bibliography: Archaic societies of sub-sector Alpha-IV)

On Star date 48168.71 Mitsui found a previously un-excavated settlement at coordinates 45º 32' 45"N and 120º 03' 49"E on Rabijan IX. As advanced technologies emerged from the dig, it became clear to him and his assistants that this was a highly evolved, perhaps post-Warp civilization. At that point Starfleet added an engineer to his team, and excavations continued.

As a result of the sophistication of the technological finds, and at the request of the Federation Science Academic (FSA Transmission 32-96.56), on Star date 48333.10 Dr Pakat took over direction of the excavation and he and Madam (Dr) Rimina (University of Atlantic II, Paleo-Biology) arrived onsite. Added to the team of researchers were mechanical engineers, archeo-technologists and geologists.

On Star date 48497.48 Sarahit Majoris, a post-graduate technician working on Mitsui's team, accidentally discovered the remains of a body that had been long-buried at the site. Immediately Dr Spinner Martin (Federation Lab 2, DS 16, Exobiology) was asked to assemble his team and come to Rabijan IX. He arrived 10 days later.

There are currently 24 members of the team, consisting of technicians and senior scientists in fields ranging from exo-geology and astrophysics to paleo-astronomy and exo-archaeology. (Annexure 3: staff biographies)

Investigation

Since Dr Pakat's arrival the remains of a body (locally referred to as "the spaceman") and of technology nearby the remains have been the primary focus of the investigation. At the same time wider geological surveys have continued in order to determine the cause of the environmental degradation evident planet-wide, but especially in the northern hemisphere.

Over the last three days the remains of the single humanoid were uncovered by hand and placed in stasis on a pallet and await shipment to Federation laboratories. Similarly, the clothes (spacesuit) and soil and other debris surrounding the remains were placed on a second pallet for transhipment.

Many technological artefacts, most apparently broken pieces, have been excavated and crated for removal and shipment to Federation laboratories: crates numbering 1-27 have been sealed and will be sent with the two pallets when the Oppenheimer returns to orbit, which is imminent. Engineers have carried out preliminary tests of some of the artefacts.

Besides the 'spaceman' no other organic matter – plant or animal life – has been found. Scans show the area within 2.6 km of the human remains is barren and devoid of life. The type of equipment here is not sufficient for making an assessment of any micro-organisms that may be found inside the suit.

Scans suggest that further technology is buried in the rocky cliffs nearby the site, and that excavations using both care and heavy equipment will be required to uncover it.

The skeleton rested at the base of a mountains range, which consist primarily of obsidian, dacite, granite, feldspar and diorite. The soil on the plain, where the remains were found, is hard-packed, which makes careful excavation difficult and time consuming.

The technological artefacts are also encased in hard-packed soil and rock that has melted around them, which means slow progress can be made if they are to be dislodged intact. (Annexure 4: preliminary analysis of rock samples).

The atmosphere is breathable but heavily polluted, making it difficult for some of the staff working at the site. Consideration should be given to the health and safety requirements of the team during any further investigation. In the interest of time, breathing gear has not be used extensively during this phase of the excavation, though the team doctor has had to treat three members of the group for shortness of breath. The doctor is confident that no lasting damage to health has been done. Radiation counts are slightly elevated, and have been carefully monitored, though no explanation for these has been determined. (Annexure 5: Analysis of atmosphere. Annexure 6: Site doctor's health and safety report).

Dr. Spinner Martin will remain at the site and manage further research until the Federation sends a permanent team of scientists. Drs. Rimina and Pakat will return to Earth via the Oppenheimer on or around Star date 48549.53 and will accompany the humanoid's remains and the artefacts uncovered here. Both scientists will be available for debriefing upon arrival.

Initial Findings

After testing the spaceman's skin cells, several of which were found on a piece of his clothing, the team determined that he was humanoid, possibly Terran. How he came to be on Rabijan IX is unknown, but because he was wearing a spacesuit we have assumed he was a member of a spacefaring culture.

The remains of no other life-forms were found but closer examination of material found inside the spacesuit is warranted.

His suit was made of material new to Federation science. The face plate is made of an impermeable and nearly indestructible silicon-plastic that is new to the Federation. Our chief engineer estimates that the maximum gigapascal stress that the composite would take without shattering is over 250 GPa (Annexure 7: Space Suit analysis), meaning the man and his immediate environment were subjected to forces comparable to advanced weapons fire.

We have no way to determine if his society was a pre- or post-Warp one, but have assumed the latter, as the distance between Rabijan and humanoid settlements in the Alpha Quadrant (some 450 ly) precludes travel by this man or others by any other means than Warp drive.

The artefacts found near the body should, when thoroughly analysed, give some indication of the origin, the stream and the level of technology which this man and his people used.

But our first assessment indicates it is not Terran technology, nor related to any stream of technology developed by humanoids known to the Federation.

The landscape near the spaceman is devoid of all life, and has not been productive for millennia. The atmosphere and landscape resemble that of a desert scorched by nuclear or proton weapons, though radiation levels are only slightly elevated.

Our preliminary estimate is that the site was devastated, the technology buried and the man killed over 50,000 years ago. This figure emerges from the carbon dating of the fibre used in the man's spacesuit (Annexure 8: Preliminary carbon dating) and the weathering of the geological formations surrounding the artefacts found encased in stone (Annexure 9: Preliminary analysis of artefacts). Further laboratory research is needed to provide better chronological data.

Astronomers on the team have found no record or evidence of stellar flares, cosmic bursts or other naturally occurring solar phenomena to explain the planet's devastation. That other societies continue to exist on planets closer to Rabijan's sun supports their findings.

Similarly, no waves of destructive energy (e.g., the Genesis Wave) are known to have passed though this sub-sector within the last two million years. (Annexure 10: Astronomers' findings).

Conclusion

The Federation has a mystery on its hands. We have uncovered here an ancient humanoid (human?) surrounded by non-Federation technology that appears to be far in advance of our own.

Some of the technology appears to have weapons potential.

How the humanoid came to be here is unknown. He also died in mysterious and violent circumstances, apparently related to the planet's devastation and its current desolation and infertility.

The cause of the planet's destruction remains unknown.

No other life-forms appear to have been on or nearby this site when the man died. Further exploration is needed to demonstrate that the man was alone.

Further research will be required on site and in the laboratory to determine how this humanoid/human came to die here amongst what surely is alien technology. Categories of specialists needed to complete the survey are outlined in the Recommendations below.

Any member of the research team is available for the provision of further evidence and testimony at your convenience.

The full report and its annexures follow.