Page 89 - The Myth and the Moment

Evening

Oh, for Christ’s aches! This woman is driving me crazy! It’s my
own fault for insulting her racket. I’ve got to sit down.
“Would you care for a glass of water before you begin?”
Crap.
“Yes, yes, I would. I just ate a rather salty hamburger.”
Oh, why do I have to do this? So she can feel dominant? I’d rather
crawl across Hollywood Boulevard pushing a stack of Bhagavad
Gitas with my nose. Mmm. I was thirsty.
“I’m all ears, Nate.”
“All right, you asked for it. If you can, imagine yourself landing on
a strange planet, somewhere far, far away. There are plenty of signs
of civilization, but all ruined long ago. Enough radiation remains in
the atmosphere to tell you what happened. You hunt for artifacts,
trying to piece together the events leading to the catastrophe. The
cities yield a few clues, but you search further. In the course of
mapping the land, your party comes upon a unique rock formation
out in a desert. Your instruments indicate an unusual concentration
of platinum in a cave nearby; you investigate, and find a sealed
capsule. Opening it, you find a plate immersed in mineral oil. When
cleaned, its surface reveals a text in one of the languages of that area.
Your technology enables you to decipher it rapidly, and this is what it
says (more or less):”
“‘This document is one man’s opinion of what went wrong,
written shortly before the destruction of humanity. It is addressed
directly to you, the future investigators of planet Earth. Discovering
and translating these words mark you as members of a race
sufficiently intelligent and experienced to profit from them. You may
find other artifacts of our civilization to study, vestiges of buildings
and highways as well as subterranean genealogical and financial
records, but they will not be as instructive as this.’”
“‘Your excavations of urban sites near river forks and natural
harbors will expose layer upon layer of human settlements destroyed
by conflicts with their neighbors—or with nature itself. That
succession of societies continued for several thousand years; you will
be able to reconstruct methods of agriculture and warfare into an
evolutionary scale of increasing complexity. The underlying cause of
downfall remained constant, however: adherence to an unworkable
ideology in the face of contradictory facts.’”

88