{"id":71,"date":"2013-09-11T14:53:00","date_gmt":"2013-09-11T14:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bestfantasynovel.com\/2013\/09\/11\/not-yet-forgotten\/"},"modified":"2013-09-11T14:53:00","modified_gmt":"2013-09-11T14:53:00","slug":"not-yet-forgotten","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/2013\/09\/11\/not-yet-forgotten\/","title":{"rendered":"Not Yet Forgotten"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
Jonathan Kos-Read<\/a> via Compfight<\/a> cc<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

Red sand blew over the wasteland. It gummed up my rebreather, and coated my faceplate. My one-suit, once shiny white, had faded to dingy taupe under the ceaseless coatings of dust. I stumbled along, already exhausted after three hours on the morning shift of the dig, discouraged because I\u2019d found nothing.<\/p>\n

Then I tripped over it: A rock, barely above level, with a distinct right angle. An Arnellian artifact.<\/p>\n

Most of the ruins on Arnellios V were buried under the dust. Millions of years of dust, solidified into sand, into mud, and finally into solid rock. My job was to unearth the buried secrets, to unlock the technology that had vanished with the Arnellians themselves half a million years ago.<\/p>\n

I called in the excavators. The robots used laser to patiently and delicately dislodge the artifact from the surrounding rock. I took a water break at the base camp tent. I monitored progress on my faceplate, but I knew an artifact of this size\u2014it would probably be 2.3 kilometers square, like others we\u2019d found\u2014would take half a day for the robots to excavate. The little bit I\u2019d tripped over was literally just the tip of the artifact.<\/p>\n

I should have felt elated at the find, but instead, I sank deeper into my malaise. It\u2019s depressing to tramp through the ruins of a dead civilization day after day. The hope is that their technology will one day be of use to humans, but since we have no way to crack their language, the chances of that are slim. Our computer translators are excellent, but the fact is, without a basis for comparison\u2014a known language, or a live speaker\u2014it\u2019s pretty much impossible to crack a dead script.<\/p>\n

Bruno G. found me. I was lost in my own gloomy thoughts and didn\u2019t notice him before he clapped me on the back with a huge whoop.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you know what you\u2019ve done?\u201d he cried gleefully.<\/p>\n

\u201cHuh? What? Oh, the rock. Yeah, another one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has writing!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMost do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLook at your screen!\u201d he ordered. He could barely contain his grin.<\/p>\n

I peeked again, but still didn\u2019t see anything special. The Arnellians used a distinct blocky script, and the stone was covered with it. There was also a curly script beneath it\u2026.<\/p>\n

I felt my stomach drop.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh my god,\u201d I whispered, \u201cIs that Gyrlish?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sure is!\u201d Bruno whooped again. \u201cWe\u2019ve found it! We\u2019ve found our Rosetta Stone! The translation computers are chugging away now, comparing the two alphabets. We\u2019ll have a full translation program for Arnellian by the end of the day!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t believe it.\u201d<\/p>\n

My depression evaporated. I whooped along with Bruno. The rest of the team heard the news and gathered at the base camp tent. We took out the good stuff, that we\u2019d be saving for the end of the dig, and poured it out until we were all tipsy. We sang old camp songs and told dirty jokes.<\/p>\n

The first translations started coming in from the computers by the end of the evening shift, just as Bruno had predicted. He handed me a print out on a plastisheet. We didn\u2019t normally print, but it was tradition for the first formal translation of a new alien language.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe honor belongs to you,\u201d Bruno said. \u201cIt\u2019s the translation of the stone you found. What does it say?\u201d<\/p>\n

The whole crew of thirty-one archeologists fell silent as I looked down at the plastisheet. It was already slightly pinkish from dust.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt says\u2026\u201d I began.<\/p>\n

My throat choked up. Not just because of the importance of the moment, but because of the words.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt says: In eternal memorial of those who gave their lives for us. You are not yet forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jonathan Kos-Read via Compfight cc Red sand blew over the wasteland. It gummed up my rebreather, and coated my faceplate. My one-suit, once shiny white, had faded to dingy taupe under the ceaseless coatings of dust. I stumbled along, already exhausted after three hours on the morning shift of the dig, discouraged because I\u2019d found […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[190],"tags":[644],"class_list":["post-71","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-flash-fiction","tag-flash-fiction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}