The Psychogeology Dilemma (Saros Holmes)

[Grognardsw]

Saros Holmes stood in shock and bewilderment before the dead body, as his own lifeless eyes stared back up at him.

The astro-geologist shivered. It was true. How could this be? He stared for several seconds and reached down to look at the neck. The scar was there along the right side, from that accident with his brother.

"You okay?" said Col. Thompson, looking at Holmes with some concern.

Col. Thompson

Just as disturbing as the body of himself was where it was found. Saros stared in wonder at the sight before him: a small ship half-submerged into the stone floor of an underground cavern on the planet Phrusq-Vaznik. He couldn’t tell at first glance what type of ship - a space ship, environmental exploration craft, a type of air ship he’s not seen before?

The astro-geologist had no idea how such an object could be merged into rock. The upper half of the ship was exposed and apparently undamaged. Calcium carbonate mineral build up coated the vessel’s surface. It had been here for a long time. The team had to crack the layer of calcite like ice to get the hatch open. Inside was a small control room and the dead body. The back door leading into another room was sealed off by rock as the rest of the ship was merged into the cavern floor.

How had the ship got into this underground cavern, and merged into the stone floor?

Saros' mind whirled at the circumstances that had brought him here. The astro-geologist was on a well deserved vacation before shipping out on The Star Explorer for his first non-government job as part of a small crew on an exploratory mission beyond the known stars. Saros was relaxing on Starbase 16 in the Zenkar sector when he was contacted by the Dept. of Planetary Affairs. He was ordered to accompany a science expedition to Phrusq-Vaznik, a primitive M-class planet, where he was to consult on an issue that “held personal significance” to him. They did not define what that meant. Intrigued (and under what he felt was more than subtle pressure), Saros accompanied the team.


Phrusq-Vaznik

The planetary geologist became more curious during the space flight, when he realized there was as much a military presence aboard as scientific. They landed on Phrusq-Vaznik near a large village with a three-person Dept. of Planetary Affairs "office" and made their way to a recently discovered underground cavern where the ship lay merged into the rock. Before Saros stepped foot into the ship's control room, Phil Janson the chemist whispered to Saros: "I overheard them saying the body was you." Saros didn't understand then, but did now.

“You need a minute Saros?” said Col. Thompson as Saros snapped back to attention.

[DexterWard]

Saros

The was no way he could have predicted this. "held personal significance" could have meant anything: A discovery proving one of his hypothesis on planetary evolution; new geological evidence of parallel evolution; a new non-carbon based element proving planetary evolution can in fact develop in the absence of carbon (highly unlikely, but one can always hope).

His brain raced to make sense of this, thing, in front if him. Was this some kind of morbid joke being played on him by the Pangaea nuts he made look like fools last year at the interplanetary panel for physics, interstellar space travel, and evolution at the Geological Instigation Symposium? No way they have this kind of connections. "No this is real...this is..." he thought to himself. " This is..."

Col Thompson's voice jolted him back to reality..."This... No, no...Uhmmmm...What? Could this be a hyperspace tra...Cosmic para...Cosmic string displacement shift error..."

Saros took a hard look at the ship, the control pane!s, trying to find evidence of a time signature. Something to prove future or past. Some evidence to prove he hadn't gone mad. Perhaps he was still on Titan. An airlock failed as he was suiting up, and he's actually been in a coma for years, living some kind of dream reality...

"Wait!" Saros thought...the military personal didn't jive. The scientific team brought in by the Dept. of Planetary Affairs? No this is serious. Real. "Sir? I need more data. What am I missing here? What don't I know?

Saros didn't wait for the answer. He kept scanning the ship and his dead lifeless doppelganger body lying there in front of him. "No." he said to himself. "I need data. Lots of data. Then it will all make sense."

[Grognardsw]

Col. Thompson nodded. "Right. More data." He turned his head and yelled: "Engineers!"

Two technicians, one bearing an emblem patch of the Dept. of Planetary Affairs Security Division on his sleeve, entered the cabin. A floater loaded with equipment trailed behind them.

"Holmes, we don't know much more than you at this point," said Col. Thompson. "The cave was found by accident by the locals, who contacted the Dept. office in that hell-hole of a village back there. The director here broke in and found... you, or whoever that is. The site was quarantined immediately and this expedition put together. The ship here is deemed to have both military and scientific interest, for obvious reasons."

"We'll need to cut in and attach a power generator," interupted one of the technicians. "Hopefully the systems aren't fried given the odd condition of the ship and time passed."

As the technicians worked, Saros proceeded to carefully examine the body, seat, cockpit, control panels, and cabin for clues. (Make a few Int.x4 percentile rolls.)

Another Dept. rep joined Saros in the search, a grey-skinned Snorkellian, its three eyes hovering about on stalks. Saros felt one of them was always watching him. "Third greetings human, nomenclature T'zar'klar'aran. Or T-cubed as the Col. says."

"I ordered the locals not to touch anything, so we'd have an uncontaminated site," said Col. Thompson.

Outside the cabin, other scientists were taking rock and hull samples while scanners probed through the cave and ship. Outside the cave, drillers waited their turn.

The technicians opened some panels, spliced and rearranged wires, hooked up the generator, and with a spark and a puff of smoke, the panel came to life:

Saros and the technicians studied the panels for information and attempted to access the ship's computers and pilot log. (Roll Int.x3 percentile for Saros.),

[DexterWard]

Saros

INT(14)x4 = 56, D% [1d100]=67, D% [1d100]=35, D% [1d100]=88
INT(14)x3 = 42, D% [1d100]=84

Saros scrutinizes the body in detail. ”How long has it been since this was discovered? It, or rather I, appear to be in remarkable condition.” (making a preemptive/presumptive guess)

Saros will try to determine the age of the electronics based on his knowledge of Earth’s history and every other tech he’s seen since he was born. He’ll attempt to extrapolate how quickly advances might have been made, say in the future, then comparing that data with what he sees on this ship.

”Col., I’ve read papers on hyperspace jumps and the horrific things that can go wrong. I read a paper once on cosmic string displacement shifts and microlensing. Scary stuff. I don’t really understand all of it, I’m not a physicist. But if this version of me tried to jump forward or backward in time or something even crazier – and I don’t really get all of the mechanics – but if he, er, I didn’t calculate correctly, or there was a calculation error – say from some kind of electronics glitch – or there wasn’t time to calculate, could that have caused this? And more importantly, what the bloody hell was I doing jumping through time or space?! By myself no less?! This is all very peculiar."

When Saros thought hard about something his face shifted into various expressions, from confused to angry to quizzical to ecstatic. This was one suck occasion, with the angry look taking center stage. But it wasn’t anger that was trolling around in his head, it was calculations, postulations, wild guesses, and weird hypothesis. None of which he was ready to vocalize just yet. So, he just looked around, stunned and amazed.

[Grognardsw]

"The ship was found three weeks ago, and the body a week ago," answered Col. Thompson.

Saros examined the body as another man entered the cabin.

"Hello Mr. Holmes, I'm Dr. MacRoy, nice to meet you,"



He held out his hand to shake Saros'. "I'll be needing a full genetic work-up on you to compare to him, or should I say you?" He gave a half-smile. "Yes, the body is remarkably preserved. Vacuum would limit decomposure, but even so..." He felt along the body. "Hard to know until we get a time of death. Hhmm, quite a mystery. Fascinating though."

Dr. MacRoy scanned the body with a medical hand monitor and gathered skin and hair samples.

The grey-skinned T'zar'klar'aran stood nearby, one eye on Saros, one on Dr. MacRoy, and the third on Col. Thompson.

The body started to turn sallow. "Med-floater with statis field please!" yelled Dr. MacRoy to someone outside. "Quickly! We're losing it." Saros' body turned dark yellow and started taking on a greyish hue. The Dr. was thinking aloud. "Accelerated cellular decompisition. Triggered by air? Maybe. No."

Watching himself decompose wasn't pleasant. Saros turned to examine the technology of the cabin. It was advanced beyond anything Saros has pesonally seen, confirming his suspicions that the ship was not from this era. As Saros raised his time travel theory, Col. Thompson nodded his head in agreement.

"We were thinking the same thing, as impossible as it seems. This would change everything. We need to figure it out."

The ship's console leapt to life as the generator powered the computers. "We may not have a lot of time here," commented one of the engineers. They poured over the systems, wired up devices, inserted discs. "This is more advanced than we've seen."

Instinctively Saros reached over and pressed a button. A ship system status report grid appeared on a screen. One of the engineers turned to look at him with a strange expression. Why and how did Saros know that?

"Most systems down, if I'm reading the screen right," said the engineer. "Expected, given how much is in rock."

The engineers ran diagnostics for four minutes before sparks flew and the whole ship's systems gave out. "We're lucky to have gotten this far. We'll analyze the findings."

Disappointed, Saros continued his cabin search. Under the pilot seat was a partially hidden compartment large enough to hold a book, and indeed there was a tattered journal. It was in poor shape, very old, looking as if it had been saved from a fire given its pages singed by heat and cloudily blackened by smoke. It was held together with a string. It seemed out of place amidst the high technology of the cabin. Saros examined some pages. He didn't know the language.

"We can analzye that, translate," said the ever-watching T'zar'klar'aran.