---Statue---

---Emiko’s perspective---

“Well… that’s pretty conclusive, ain’t it(!)” observes the large security chief, gesturing up at the 30m monument carved into the sandstone cliff “That’s a statue… on a deathworld…”

“Not quite the conclusive proof we actually need, Victor…” I respond, gesturing around to the barren, desiccated landscape “…There may once have been people living here but Olga’s orbital scans suggest this region hasn’t been habitable for millennia!… A statue is a nice start but it’s hardly the cut and dry proof that meeting flesh and blood locals would be!”

“Well… this, coupled with the drone footage, proves there’s someone here! Maybe they ain’t in this part of the planet specific’ly but there here somewhere!”

I shrug “Actually… we can’t necessarily know that this wasn’t laser carved from the safety of a shuttlecraft as some gardenworlder’s idea of a joke… If that happened 10,000 years ago, weathering would make it difficult to tell the difference by now!”

He cocks a copper eyebrow “S’pose they laser carved the entire city buried under the sand down there too, did they(?)”

I smile “Victor, I think it’s genuine… It’s just my job to doubt… Plus, would you be satisfied to grab a quick scan of this and turn around to head home?”

He studies the megalith a moment before saying “Nah… I wanna meet these guys… Least we know vaguely what they look like now… Bit tricky to get specifics with the weatherin’ but… looks like a humanoid body plan… bimanous, tridactyl hands… some sorta small, facial protrusions… some sorta large, cranial protrusions.”

“Not necessarily…” interjects Strik, a little too excited to have his expertise called on so early in the mission. His enormous, nocturnal eyes are covered by heavily tinted goggles to protect against the blinding sunlight. He continues “…Even if it is a depiction of the species, it’s difficult to separate anatomy from adornment… Those protrusions on the face and cranium very well could be some kind of helmet or headdress… The apparent tridactyly could be some kind of gauntlets… There is some suggestion of articulation… it could be that the subject was originally sculpted wearing armour or similar… This statue may also represent some unreal thing imagined by its carvers rather than being a direct selfportrait of their species. It could be a hybridisation of components of animals its designers were familiar with, it could be fabricated wholesale…”

Lilith, the Venusian folklorist saunters up to beside her Hulix boyfriend and grins “Imagine the GU landing in an abandoned Egypt and trying to guess what Humans looked like by looking at the Sphynx(!)” speaking in her high, gravelly voice.

The redheaded man sighs “Yeah… fair points… well made… Just… kinda wish we had a little more to go on, right now… sorta thought this statue’d be more help but… you’re right… It don’t tell us anything we didn’t already know, does it… There’s people here somewhere!”

I give a lighthearted chuckle and answer “Victor… it’s Day 1… A little early to be dispirited, don’t you think(?) We’ll find them, I’m sure of it!”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

At this point, I catch sight of something in my peripheral vision and look to the sky.

What I see is three large creatures soaring lazily along together, not moving their membranous wings at all, at least that I can see.

“Not sentient…” states Victor, looking at the same creatures “…scavengers… Just checkin’ out what’s goin’ on down here.”

“Yes…” I agree “…they aren’t moving the way they would if they were intelligent and recognised us as the same… Interesting looking creatures though… they sort of look like vulture sized dragons… European dragons, obviously… Is it wyverns that only have two legs?”

“Think so.” he nods.

“Guys…” comes Yasmin’s voice over comms “…come this way, I’ve found something.”

She pings her location and the group of us begin walking in her direction.

We clamber down the side of the plateau, the path rough enough to make me glad of opting for slightly more practical dress than my usual!

We come to the mouth of a cavern and walk inside.

The space is illuminated by a spherical lantern, lying in the middle of it.

On a rock sits Samus who gives a casual nod as we walk by her.

The little linguist is stood looking at a wall.

As we approach, she turns to us, a manic look in her eyes.

“It’s writing!” she declares, pointing at the rock face.

“Really?” queries Victor, sceptically “Just looks like a buncha marks to me…”

“That not what all writing is, Cuddles(?)” grins Samus from her seat.

“You know what I mean… like… I can’t recognise these as words… They look too straight to get any meaning out of!”

“It does rather look like an Amida lottery to me…” I observe.

“Well… lucky neither of you are the expedition linguist then, isn’t it(!)” she answers, amused “It’s writing, I’m sure of it!”

“How can you tell?” I ask, curiously.

A little feverishly, the woman raises a finger to trace the path of one of the vertical lines that run the height of the supposed text “These look nonencoding to me. I’d guess they’re there more to contain and support the horizontal lines than to convey any meaning themselves! I would stake my polyglotism that the text reads vertically and not horizontally… I think it’s quite likely that it reads top to bottom but that’s much less of a sure thing… and I couldn’t say whether it reads right to left or left to right. These lines though…!” she gestures to the irregularly spaced and angled horizontal lines webbed between the vertical ones “…these are far too specific to be idle scratches and far too chaotic to be any kind of decoration!… That’s not the kicker though! Look here…!” she circles a section of the lines with her finger “…now here…” her hand moves around a metre and a half to her left and a metre down “…the same pattern repeats exactly… like someone needing to repeat a word!… These lines encode, I’m certain of it!”

“Right… sooo… you got any idea what they say?” asks Victor.

Yasmin bursts into giggles, seemingly completely involuntarily.

When she manages to calm down somewhat, she answers “I’m…*hehehehehehe*… flattered that you apparently think me some sort of language sorceress, Victor, but… no… Without some kind of startpoint, it’s completely indecipherable… It’s also been so long since these were carved that the chances of anyone alive both knowing this script and this language are fairly nonexistent… We would either need to discover a Rosetta Stone, preserving the same text in this language and one known to living speakers, or we spend years reconstructing it from context alone… We would need more examples for that method though…” she motions around the bare cavern “…not much context here(!)”

“Still… this is an incredibly encouraging find!” I observe “It will be a lot harder to argue against these people’s sapience if it turns out they have already developed a writing system!”

“Yeah… now we just need to actually find ’em.” says Victor.

“Well, for that I would say our best chance is to head North… Get off this desertified, peninsular subcontinent and go to the main body of the supercontinent where there’s still enough water to support an ecosystem… Does anyone have any objections to heading that way tomorrow?”

No one objects.

“Alright then. Let’s do that.” I smile.