On the Backs of Giants
BG-777 was a dead world.
Not an unusual state of affairs – most of the planets and moons mankind had encountered were dead, in the sense that they had never sustained life in the first place. But given its atmospheric composition and its fossil record, there was every evidence that the fifth planet of the Taphone Major system had once sustained a verdant biosphere. Once, it had been bathed in the light of Taphone Major when it was a main sequence star. But when Taphone Major had expanded into a red giant, BG-777 hadn't been engulfed, but it had been rendered lifeless, as the land burnt, and its seas had boiled away. Now, the only human habitation was an eco-dome designed to cope with temperatures of over 150 degrees Celsius, and radiation levels that would kill an unprotected human in minutes if not for the fact that they'd burst into flame before that could happen. With the exception of the dome, and the Engineer structure it had been built beside, from orbit it would have appeared that BG-777 had never sustained life in the first place.
And yet, life was on the world. Annette reflected on the idiosyncrasy as she stared out of one of the habitation dome's windows, watching the reddest sunset that she'd ever seen, the barren landscape bathed in an eerie red glow. In one hand was a cup of coffee. In the other a data pad with a spinning WY symbol on it. Not a symbol that many employees were too keen to share these days, but Company policy dictated otherwise. And besides, out here, beyond the reach of the Colonial Administration, there weren't any non-Company members to make the denizens of BG-777 feel uncomfortable. No-one was outside the family.
"Hey."
People like Felix were still in that family, she reflected. You couldn't choose who was in your family, and you couldn't dictate who joined you on archaeological digs nearly a hundred light years from Earth.
"Hey."
But family they were, regardless. And family had to stay together in such times. Or at least, that's what scuttlebutt was these days.
"Just come from the xeno-site?" she asked
"Xeno-site," he mimicked. "You'd think we'd have a better name for it by now."
"We designate planets by names and numbers, we designate stars by binary names, we designate alien artifacts by monikers," Annette murmured. She sipped the coffee once again. "Get used to it, or-"
"Hey, hey, I'm used to it," he protested. "I mean, we're all in this together, right? Happy family?"
Annette didn't answer. As much as Wey-Yu preached about family nowadays, it was getting harder to ignore that some elements of that family were a bit shadier than the others. LV-426, some kind of scuffle with the USCMC, the Colonial Administration trying to stop a corporate war…The archaeological division hadn't received the same limelight, but Annette had long since realized that the divisions were both after Engineer tech, but as far as she could tell, for completely separate reasons. Reasons she could only guess at, and right now, reasons that she didn't want to guess at in the first place.
"Well," Felix said. "We've entered the secondary chamber. Structure's not man-made,"
Nah, really?
"…but give or take a few million years of increased temperature and natural passage of time, and you'll find a super-laser can cut through a door or two."
Anne smirked. She couldn't help but admire the earnestness in Felix's voice. She mostly stayed in the dome, studying back the few gizmos the survey teams had managed to recover from the structure. Felix and his crew had to deal with the temperatures in both their suits, and in the super-laser.
"But I mean, it's worth it," he continued. "And we're carrying on Weyland's legacy, right? Y'know the LV-223 trip? How it never came back? How some say Weyland found God or something?"
"You're a scientist Felix, don't tell me you believe in God."
Felix frowned a little. "Would it bother you if I said yes?"
Anne shrugged. "I think you can believe what you want. Though I'd also think that we're dealing with an advanced civilization and not fallen angels."
"A civilization that data indicates played a role in humanity's ascent. Maybe even their own evolution."
"And I think you've got heatstroke."
Felix didn't respond, and Anne liked that. She wasn't in the mood to discuss the religious or philosophical issues raised by the idea of humanity having a race of progenitors. You couldn't hold those discussions without them turning into arguments of ideology or belief. And, as she admitted, she doubted there was a god, or God, or some supernatural force that permeated the universe. Why would a god have to act through another species to create humanity? Why would a god create humanity, allow it to venture into space, and forget to tell them about other sapient species that he, or she, or it, had created? Because she'd seen the footage of the xeno-tech site on KF-285, and she didn't care what Media Relations said, no human had strung up the site staff after removing the skins from their bodies. No human had inflicted blade and plasma wounds to such severity on the WY commandos there. As far as she was concerned, god was dead, and so were the Engineers. And their extinction sure as hell didn't make them divine.
But there were others like Felix who thought differently. Some who, even after the Weyland Industries and Yutani Corporation merger nearly a century ago, viewed Peter Weyland like some sort of missionary. A second Jesus or Albert Einstein, depending on how you viewed the world. Some came out to the edge of space out of some sense of duty. Some like Felix.
"…so, do you agree?"
Anne glanced at him. "Pardon?"
"Do you agree?" Felix repeated.
"I…" She sipped her coffee, draining the cup. "Um…I…"
"I was saying that in a way we owe it to them," Felix said, raising an eyebrow.
"I…I mean…"
"The Engineers Anne, the Engineers," he repeated, looking agitated. "I mean, they created us. Aren't we obliged to remember them? Learn what we can about them?"
Serve them? she wondered.
"I mean, they made us, and-"
"Felix," Anne said. "Let's say they made us. Let's say that humanity's existence, that all life on Earth, is due to a race of seven-foot humanoids with funny spaceships. Let's treat that as an absolute."
Felix nodded.
"Taking that as true, and trying to ignore the whole religion and science lovechild fighting for attention, I ask…so what? If they made us, what does that say about human accomplishment in isolation?"
"…I don't follow."
Anne sighed. "If we can see further than those gone before us, it is because we stand on the shoulders of giants."
"Um…"
"Isaac Newton, Felix, a man smarter than me, and a lot smarter than those in the Peter Weyland Fan Club." Anne sighed. "Point is, if they created us, that doesn't mean we owe them anything. You want to point to the great scientific minds of human history? I'm happy to oblige – we didn't get into space until the twentieth century, we didn't start colonization until the twenty-first, and we wouldn't even have an understanding of the physics needed for that if not for the work of people going back over a millennium. So if you feel it's your sense of duty to be out here, give thanks to them. But if you want to pass off human achievement to alien spacemen who are long dead, then…then…"
"Then what?" Felix asked.
Anne couldn't answer. She wanted to say, "then don't do it on my watch." But she couldn't. There was no rank structure on the base, and she and Felix worked in separate branches anyway. But she was starting to realize that it had started. "It," being what figures of religious authority warned about when it came to replacing God with Man. Now, Man was being replaced by bloody alien worship in a galaxy where alien life existed, and most of the time wasn't friendly.
"Nothing," Anne murmured. "Nothing."
Felix said nothing. Instead he walked off, leaving Anne in the glow of a dying sun, casting its light over a long-dead world, on which stood the structure of a long-dead species.
And, mere mortal as she was, all she could do was look back. Look at what was possibly mankind's progenitor species, and was at least confirmed to be light-years ahead in terms of technology.
She, mere mortal as she was, could not help but feel small.
And yet large, all the same.
A/N
This came from a writing challenge where I had to use the phrase "if we can see further than those gone before us, it is because we stand on the shoulders of giants." And...yeah.
Minor note, anyone find it odd that Weyland-Yutani seems more intent on raiding Engineer ships for xenomorph eggs than trying to reverse engineering alien tech? Maybe they've done this in some other EU works, but then again, WY's corporate strategy seems to be burning money on the backs of babies, so hey, what do I know?