MARTIAN NEWS - DATE 12005.0111
All the News around the Solar System from a Martian Viewpoint

EARTH PROBE EXAMINING IAPETUS AT CLOSE RANGE

The probe sent from Earth to study Saturn is now making a detailed examination of the moon Iapetus - which is worrying Martian astronomers and scientists intensely.

The probe is sending back all its data to the Earth astronomers, who must now have noticed that it has a curiously artificial-looking "ridge" around its equator. Martian scientists of course know exactly what that ridge is - it really is artificial. It is the seal placed around the entire hollow moon which contains the vast treasury of Martian knowledge placed there by our ancestors millennia ago.

This treasury of knowledge and technological secrets was stored inside Iapetus during our Golden Age to be handed over to a future Earth civilisation long after the ancient race of Elders had passed away - which they now have, of course. We Martians are now reduced to a handful of scientific settlements scratching a living out of our waterless world. However the Earth inhabitants (totally unaware that they were genetically engineered by our ancestors millions of years ago) are not yet at a sufficiently advanced stage in their development to appreciate the horde of knowledge stored inside Iapetus - indeed, it could be exceedingly dangerous to all life-forms in our system if they were to start messing with its contents.

Nevertheless, the Earthers are now sniffing around the greatest prize they will ever discover in the entire Solar System. The question is - do we allow them to continue?

Translated from original Martian by Elwood Herring
(Read Earth Web version of this story here!
© P. Williams 2005

Martian News Home Page