They themselves were made of titanium. Although iron is a more abundant element in the universe and its combination with carbon and chromium to form stainless steel is almost as hard and corrosion-resistant, titanium is lighter, and therefore, easier to lift from the surface of a planet.

When they descended to the surface of the satellite, they found it hard to recognize that it had once been a factory. Although the celestial body had no atmosphere, regolith dust had settled and embedded on its walls, driven by meteorite impacts that had struck the surface thousands or even millions of years ago.

Originally, the factory had been built beneath the rock. But over the ages, meteorites had broken through its stony cover, and much of it had been exposed. It had been fortunate that this satellite had no seismic or geological activity, and that had contributed significantly to its preservation in an inert and dry environment.

The drone that flew over the planet was modified to move in the absence of an atmosphere, and it was equipped with an ion propulsion system combined with a jet engine so that it could explore in this very different environment.

The device entered what looked like a door and began its flight, mapping and sending precise data of everything it detected to the spaceship.

Despite its decay, the factory still bore witness to advanced technology that had once been operational. The atmosphere was eerie, full of a sense of antiquity and abandonment, but all instruments, control panels, robotic arms... everything was so familiar and known that the two crew members were filled with amazement and believed they were in the presence of their ancestors.

“The computer gateways are accessible,” reported MIRV. “If the electronic arrangement of the memories has been preserved, we can access the information.”

“I highly doubt it has been preserved. Most likely, the electrons representing the data have escaped from the memory cells.”

“Unless they used LTDP techniques.”

“What is that?”

“Long-Term Data Preservation. The more unstable electronic configuration is replaced by physical priming in more durable components. When C’’ [the current] is restored, there is a dump to the memory cells, and the initial configuration is recovered.”

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“I understand. And I suppose that in the dumping process, it takes much longer than if the original information were available in its working form.”

“Oh, yes, of course. Much longer. It requires a reader that scans the supports and detects the binary form. They can be perforations, configurations at right angles to rounded shapes, incisions or notches... well, it all depends on the material used and the time available for eventual recovery.”

“Well, I don’t think they stored information on those supports in this workstation. This was not a ‘library’ precisely, but a factory. The data must have been available for immediate use.”

“I think likewise. But we have to look for them, in any case.”

“Of course. Let’s try it.”

And they tried in every possible way, but all attempts were unsuccessful. Despite the practically ideal conservation environment, so much time had passed that the silicon crystal structure had changed, and the electronic arrangement had been lost. The probe provided electrical power at the appropriate voltage to all the memories it encountered, but they couldn’t extract a single bit of information.

Not to mention the quantum bits, which, despite being in an environment as frigid as the South Pole of an atmosphereless satellite, were lost or showed decoherence as soon as the temperature rose above absolute zero when the power was cut.

As SAIR-Spda had suspected, there were no LTDP supports there, or if there were, they couldn’t identify them.

But there was no doubt that whoever built that factory had also built the Ancestor, the living being from which their civilization originated. But now that it seemed that some questions were beginning to be answered, even more unsettling ones arose: Where are the creators now? Did they create themselves, or was someone else their creator? Why were they on that satellite? What were they doing there? What relationship do they have or had with the current beings on the planet, the carbon-based beings?

Questions that had no answers, the answers they needed, and for which they had embarked on such a long journey.

But what was most baffling, what turned everything they were beginning to learn upside down, was what they found in a room. It was the control centre, the place where all manufacturing processes were monitored, and where the central computer was located. There, inside it, they found the lifeless bodies of other living beings, beings they had only recently realized could exist. Although it took them some time to recognize them as they were inside special cases protecting their fragile structures, those were two bipeds. Two bipedal beings encased in their space suits were, or rather had been, at the forefront of everything, directing that factory.

The two occupants of the spaceship took time to assimilate the information. Only after a while, SAIR-Spda said:

“We have to return P [to the planet]. We must find a way to communicate B [with the bipeds].”