Hyperions Hearth

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Hyperion's Hearth


Aerion looked up from the terminal screen, he glanced over, the image of a blue and white world, was projected on the wall of his cabin. "Artifacts, from the seven remaining planets in this system, indicated great bio-diversity, billions of organisms once lived on this world." Aerion held up his hand and the ship's AI paused, "show me current situation". The image swirled, pixellated and was then replaced with a vastly different view. Hyperion's Hearth was in one of its active phases. The planet now had a shape closely resembling a dumbell, on its surface enourmous volcanoes spewed forth molten lava. The atmosphere was a cocktail of highly toxic and acid gases. The two halves of the planet, were slowly drawing together, in a process, that had been going on for hundreds of millenia.

As he watched the inferno, several minor asteroids impacted on the surface, adding to the maelstrom. One day he knew the planet would be whole again, "not in my lifetime", he thought. "Please continue" said Aerion, the AI again began speaking, outlining what was known of the system's ancient history.

Professor Gotumi Mosu, had been very excited, almost jumping up and down. It appeared, that he had at last found a way, to translate the Ancients pictographic language. "Young Aeri, I have found my Rosetta Stone, it is absolutely wonderful. I'm sending you a digest. This is a most surprising revelation!" Smiling at the image of the old professor, Aerion gave his attention back to the computer voice. "....the Ancients seem to have used this system, and in particular Hyperion's Hearth, to perform large scale genetic modification programs. It appears that they were trying to produce new intelligent races." The AI cut off at that point, and a new voice broke in, "This is the co-pilot speaking, we are about to land, Zatander's Mine. Please be ready to disembark. I hope you've had a nice journey, thank you for flying Helios Spaceways."

I was waiting for the kid, leaning against the wall, the luggage reclamation area was quite busy. A couple go by, I get a smell of weed, somebody's having a good time. Then I spot him, "Aerion Snelder?" "Er yes, what do you want?" "I'm agent Markovitz, I need to ask you some questions", I flash my badge and indicate a waiting transporter. "Why?" he asks, "what's going on?" "Look I have some questions, will you please accompany me to the security station." The kid visibly wilts and dumbly nods his head. He then heads over to the transporter and I follow. The transport whisks us through the tunnels that make up about ninety percent of this habitat. The security station is in the main cavern, five kilometers long and three wide, several hundred years in the making. The ceiling is so high its mostly completely dark. Finally get the kid processed, and into an interview room.

Well, I have the kid wired, its obvious he's nervous, but into the questions anyway.
"How well did you know Professor Mosu?"
"He was a good friend of my father, they went prospecting together. They both had an interest in Ancient artifacts."
"Do you know what the old guy had been up to recently?"
"Well he has been trying to translate the Ancients language, he contacted me and said he had succeeded, he was very excited."
"Did he tell you what the translation said?"
"Well it involved the planet Hyperion's Hearth, and some sort of genetic experiments, they wanted to play god. He sent me a memstik will some of the details."


Well, well lucky me, there may be some indication, as to why the old guy was killed.

"Look, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but the Professor was found dead. Looks to be a professional job, whoever did it was certainly after something. The whole office was a complete wreck."

Aerion, was now slumped in his chair with tears in his eyes. His mouth a tightline. "Look son, maybe you have a clue in that memstik, I sure need to get a look at it." He opens up a bag and pulls out the recording. Well I'm about to get the history lesson of a lifetime.

Seems the Ancients were almost god like. Built all of the infrastructure, made it possible to journey around the universe. Then they found this place, Hyperion's Hearth, here they tried the greatest experiment of them all, they tried to create intelligent beings.

Must get lonely when your the only sapients around. Well the professor seems to believe that they succeeded, not once, but maybe five or six times. Soon the new races where travelling around and settling on planets that best suited them. Well the Ancients must have been extremely upset when the younger races started using Ancient technology to build weapons with planet shattering capabilities.

It finally came to a head, when the Planet Hyperion's Hearth was attacked and was split in two. The Ancients gave up and just vanished. Well the professor hints, that there's a whole lot more, seems somebody doesn't like what the old man found.

To be continued....