The Issahar Artifacts

Lincoln said it eons ago.... It took a speck of one-celled plant life on a world parsecs away to prove it for all the galaxy.

The following manuscript was discovered during the excavation of a lateral connecting link between the North-South streamways in Narhil Province near Issahar on Kwashior. The excavator, while passing through a small valley about 20 yursts south of the city, was jammed by a mass of oxidized and partially oxidized metallic fragments. On most worlds this would not be unusual, but Kwashior has no recorded history of metallic artifacts. The terrestrial operator, with unusual presence of mind, reported the stoppage immediately. Assasul, the District Engineering monitor, realized instantly that no metallic debris should exist in that area, and in consequence ordered a most careful excavation in the event that the artifacts might have cultural significance.

The debris proved to be the remnants of an ancient spaceship similar to those described in Sector Chronicles IV through VII, but of much smaller size and cruder design--obviously a relic of pre-expansion days. Within the remnants of the ship was found a small box of metal covered with several thicknesses of tar and wax impregnated fabric which had been mostly destroyed. The metal itself was badly oxidized, but served to protect an inner wooden box that contained a number of thin sheets of a fragile substance composed mainly of cellulose which were brown and crumbling with age. The sheets were covered with runes of lingua antiqua arranged in regular rows, inscribed by hand with a carbon-based ink which has persisted remarkably well despite the degenerative processes of time. Although much of the manuscript is illegible, sufficient remains to settle for all time the Dannar-Marraket Controversy and lend important corroborating evidence to the Cassaheb Thesis of Terrestrial migrations.

The genuineness of this fragment has been established beyond doubt. Radiocarbon dating places its age at ten thousand plus or minus one hundred cycles, which would place it at the very beginning of the Intellectual Emergence. Its importance is beyond question. Its implications are shocking despite the fact that they conform to many of the early legends and form a solid foundation for Dannar's Thesis which has heretofore been regarded as implausible. In the light of this material, the whole question of racial origins may well have to be reevaluated. Without further comment, the translated text is presented herewith. You may draw your own conclusions. Go with enlightenment.

-BARRAGOND- Monitor of Cultural Origins and Relics Kwashior Central Repository

* * * * *

I have decided after some thought, to write this journal. It is, I suppose, a form of egotism--for I do not expect that it shall ever be read in the event that I am unable to leave this place. Yet it affords me a certain satisfaction to think that a part of me will remain long after I have returned to dust. In any event, I feel that one is not truly dead if a part of his personality remains. Many of the ancients such as Homer, Phidias, Confucius, Christ, da Vinci, Lincoln, Einstein, Churchill--and many others--live on through their works when otherwise they would long since have been forgotten and thus be truly dead. Earth's history is full of such examples. And while I have no expectation of an immortality such as theirs, it flatters my ego to think that there will be some part of me which also will survive ...

(Note: There are several lines following this which are obliterated, defaced or unreadable. There are more to follow. In the future such gaps in the content will be indicated thus: ...)

... I expect that it is a basic trait of character, for spacemen must be gregarious, and although I am not truly a spaceman I have been in space and, in consequence, my character is no different from my ex-crewmates--at least in that respect. I think as time passes I shall miss the comfort of companionship, the sense of belonging to a group, the card games, the bull sessions, the endless speculation on what comes next, or what we will do when the voyage is over and we are again on Earth ...

... I particularly recall Gregory. Odd, but I never knew his surname, or maybe it was his given name, for Gregory could function as well in one respect as the other. He would boast continually of what he would do to wine, women, and song once we returned to Earth. Poor Gregory. The meteor that hulled our ship struck squarely through the engine room where he was on duty. Probably he never knew that he had died. At least his fate had the mercy of being brief. Certainly it is not like mine. It was ... given ...