I joined the landing party, taking along my half-million year old raygun, which I figured was a good luck charm if there ever was one.

The broad side of the island we'd landed on was gravel and washed up logs, the wrecked rocket had managed to topple the scant strip of trees by supremely bad luck. As we approached we noticed the hull was largely intact and that the portals were all closed.

“The design,” Tando explained, “is a lot like the ships that the Satellite Lords used during their efforts of 2,000 years ago. The mechanism that drives it must be the same primitive design, or else they never would have crashed in that way. Gravity control has been universal for a long time now. The modifications on it look like some Earth design and material. It doesn't make much sense.”

We walked up across the gravel flood plane, all hard stones and rough gravel. Although our boots were little more than leather stockings, at least in appearance, the rocks gave no discomfort to our feet. This future society had somehow created a substitute for leather, through superior science, that insulated the body without constricting it, even when stretched thin like this was.

At last we made it to the craft, which towered over us, as large as some luxury riverboat.

Tsang climbed up beside one of the portals and opened a small hatch beside it using a metal tool on his belt. The hatch was only a couple of inches wide, but inside was a gear that could be manipulated to open the door.

The old battered iron screeched as it slid open.

We climbed up to the crooked decking and a musty smell greeted us from the ship interior.

Despite how battered the outside of the craft appeared to be, the inside was devoid of cobwebs or other evidence of the invasion of pests. The only sign that time had passed since the crash was the presence of dust on every surface.

In fact, after a short time inside, I found myself sneezing.

“Are you alright?” Xato asked me.

I was a little startled at him asking that question rather than uttering the standard “God Bless You”, but I nodded and answered “It's just all this dust. Makes me sneeze.”

He smiled “I almost forgot, you're the living fossil.”

“I am at that. What has that got to do with sneezing though?”

He shrugged “I think the humanoid races have developed a new adaptation since your time.”

Tando appeared with a small glass dropper “Here, Cylas, put a drop of this on your tongue. It should help you with this dust.”

I did as he said and handed it back. It tasted a little like hickory wood, but it subsided and I found myself breathing easier.

“Say, that's good stuff!” I said.

“It's meant to counter breathing issues or strong allergies,” Tando explained, “the doctors had me bring some along in case you ran into this kind of trouble.”

We toured many chambers in the deserted ship. We didn't find any people or even their bones, just metal machinery, furnishings, and some rust here and there.

In the dark of the machine shop, Tando pulled some wires from the wall and affixed a tiny yet powerful battery to them. The lights came on, casting an even blue-white glow over the chamber.

“Novom was never here,” Tando said, “but something here created that signal.”

Tsang poked at some of the parts that were scattered on a shelf “Just how old is this wreck, Tando?”

“I hope to find that out too” was the reply.

Tando went about examining the machinery and the parts on the shelves, Xato lent him a hand with some of it. I began to feel a little like I wasn't needed, so I started to look around.

I thought maybe I'd find a chair or something and went looking in this alcove that hugged the side of the ship. I reached out and almost cut myself on a place where the plating separated. I tried to pull it back together, since some of the metal was loose, but something fell out from the gap.

I picked it up from the floor, this metal box about the size of jewelry case, and turned it over in my hands.

“Where did you find that?” Tando asked.

“It was hidden inside the wall, it fell out,” I replied.

Tando took it and set it on the metal work-bench in the middle of the room, then he pried it open with a tool. To me the stuff inside looked like a bunch of useless metal pieces tied together with wire and some glass baubles in the mix.

“Do you know what this is?” he asked me.

I shook my head “It doesn't really look like much of anything, does it do something?”

“This is an automated homing device. It is set only to start sending when it detects a ship nearby. But that's not the most interesting thing...”

He pulled away the power source and held up the works to show me. He tapped one of a handful of gray rectangles that were inside, ones with lots of wires and tubes going in and out “This is a kind of miniature modulation device that was once very common in other systems. These were mostly out of use by 400 years ago, they overheat too easily.”

I nodded, even though I only half understood.

“But this,” Tando tapped one of the long glass baubles that looked like it was full of knots of fine piano wire or guitar string, “this one is still in use. This kind of mechanism wasn't invented until 80 years ago. It was invented here on Earth.”

“So none of this stuff goes together?”

“Well, ancient Satellite Lord equipment doesn't usually appear with modern machinery. Also, considering nobody has been inside this rocket in a long time, I can only think of one reason this device would be here.”

“Hot meteors!” Tsang exclaimed. “It's bait for a trap!”