The Future

The Future

Note:

This account has been transcribed into antique English from the original Xoas in the  hope of a greater understanding.

*

Che Ga called his boss, Professor of Geo-physics Gha La. ’Have you got a minute, there’s something I need to talk to you about?’

‘Yes, certainly, come along now.’ Gha La put the phone down. She tidied her desk as she waited for Che to arrive.

‘Come in, she said in response to a knock on the door, ‘take a seat. What do you need to talk about?’

‘It’s about our survey party at the Vredefort Crater. They have all become sick and have had to be evacuated from the Free State to our medical centre here in Accra. We have got most of the survey done and can confirm that it was caused by a bolide impact. The impacter was probably about 10km across and travelling at 10km a second just before impact. The resulting crater is some 300 km across and at least half of it can still be seen.’

‘Do we know what is wrong with them?’ asked Gha La.

‘They all have burns to the skin and have depleted T. Leucocytes. This is indicative of exposure to radioactivity.’

‘But there are no nuclear power stations within 2,000 miles.’

‘We have sent a party, protected by rad. haz. suits to monitor and measure the radioactivity to try and determine the source and calculate the team’s exposure.’

‘And…?’

‘There is a small source deep underground. The exposure was from a tunnel path at 30⁰ to the horizontal, giving a disc of exposure at the surface of 10 m diameter. The team’s exposure was relatively low and they should all fully recover in about three weeks..’

‘What is the tunnel pointing to and what type of radiation is it?’

‘The horizontal vector of the tunnel is practically due West and the radiation  is mostly alpha although there is a small amount of gamma. The ratio suggests that most of the nuclide is Uranium 235 with a very small quantity of Plutonium 239, most of which will have decayed over time to Uranium. The plutonium has a half life of 24,000 years whereas the Uranium’s is 704 million years. If the original source was pure plutonium then the present day ratio suggests that the plutonium has been there for about 200 million years.’ exposited Che Ga.

‘OK, so I’ll let you into a secret. We have also had a survey team carrying out the same work at the Sudbury crater in Canada. The complete team is at present in hospital with the same symptoms. The radiation ratios are the same and there is a radiation transparent tunnel from the source deep in the Earth. The difference is that the tunnel is pointing due South.’

‘To summarise,’ Gha La went on. ‘We have found two very long lived nuclear sources under the two oldest and biggest bolide impact craters in the history of the Earth - Vredefort is 2.02 billion years old for example Each has a radiation finger from a long half life nuclide pointing in different directions. We have a computer model of the tectonic plate movement over the Earth’s surface. Run the Wilson cycle model backwards for 200 million years, plot the radiation lines on the computer and see where they cross.’

* 

‘They cross almost exactly on the Barringer crater in Arizona in the USA.’ said Che Ga, looking up in amazement.’

‘So, we thought until now that the Barringer Crater was also formed by a bolide impact but, what if it was made by a nuclear explosion as a marker to indicate where something is buried for us to find? You will note that the two impact craters used are very old, on different tectonic plates and set in the centre of very stable cratons. Arrange for an aerial radiological survey of the area around Barringer Crater and get me the results by tonight.’

‘Yes, boss.’ He scurried off.

*

‘We have completed the survey and there is a definite pattern in the radioactivity. It shows as a series of small circles in rows. Some are a magnitude more radioactive than others but they are all in straight lines in sections of ten.’ explained a tired Che Ga. ‘ We think they are upright, vitrified, columns of low level radioactive waste.’

‘Lets have a look at the plot.’

They spread the chart out on the table and looked closely at the plot. The first section had 9 low levels followed by one high level, the second section had eight low levels followed by one high level then a low level.

‘Hey, you know what this is?’

‘What?’

‘It’s a binary dictionary!’ It is an analogue series from 0 through to 1024.’

‘But this is only a small section near to the crater, it goes on for several kilometres. All in the same format but seemingly more random.’

‘That is because it is a message to us from the past, 200 million years ago in fact. Don’t you see, this is the only way that they could leave a message that would last long enough after their civilisation had failed to ensure that the next civilisation had a chance to evolve, discover nuclear energy and understand the significance of the message. There is no other method that would have lasted so long.’

*

The next 100 years were spent recording and studying the site to try and understand the message.

*

It was checked and counterchecked until the great day came when all became clear. The World President read the message in full over the ‘net.

‘Greetings from the far past. We had the chance to live in harmony on the beautiful Earth but we destroyed ourselves by breeding until we were too many for this planet to support in spite of our many wars that killed millions. We studied and learned the science of how things worked until we thought we were very wise and could live without nature. This was bad enough but we were still ignorant enough to have many religions around the world, each of which  thought only they knew the truth. The believers fought and killed each other until there are only a few of us atheists left. This message to you will be our civilisation’s memorial. 

We wish you well and hope you live in harmony. Good luck.’

The President got up from his perch and flew off to his next appointment.

1,080 words.