From as far back as our first inklings of the immeasurable expanse of the universe—the great and mysterious Out There—our species has felt drawn to the shimmering void, yearning but unable to respond to the Explorer’s Call, aching to answer that most frightening and stimulating of questions: Are we alone?

 

You can imagine our astonishment, then, at the data that came back to us from our probes to the Gallir System. Our great great grandfathers and grandmothers had sent those archaic instruments out into space with feeble hopes, but now, decades later, we were reaping the benefits of their initiative.

 

Of particular promise was Sklee, third planet from Gall (an uncanny coincidence that was lost on no one). From even cursory readings, it was apparent that there were living things on that planet, and in great abundance. Life on another world! And within twenty years, our technology would be sufficient to travel to Sklee in the smallest fraction of the time it’d taken our probes to reach it.

 

Spurred on by new motivation, we achieved the advances in eighteen years. We assembled a team of the most renowned scientists from across the globe: geologists, physicists, zoologists, botanists, geneticists, and (with optimistically held breaths) anthropologists and linguists.

 

We reached Sklee in just over three years. However, when we came close enough to take new readings, we discovered the biological activity on the surface had diminished significantly, and we became concerned. We hadn’t anticipated catastrophe on Sklee, but anything might have happened. After all, the forty-one years that had ellapsed during our preparations were, by our calculations, almost 135 years for the inhabitants of Sklee.

 

Before entering Sklee’s atmosphere, we sent messages of many kinds to signal our peaceful intentions, but there was no reply that we could decipher. After some discussion, we decided to land. We knew prior to descending that the climate was hospitable to our biological needs, but we noted that some regions were less desirable than others—intensely hot or shrouded in a smog or dry and absent of vegetation. We avoided altogether three or four large, desolate areas permeated by radiation, which we could not account for.

 

Finally we found a mild place near what we guessed to be a city. The towering, gleaming structures were certainly not natural and resembled (with some imagination) the buildings and other structures we were familiar with back home.

 

We landed, not knowing what kind of reception we would receive. But the only impact our arrival seemed to have was on several smaller creatures that ran along the ground or flew through the air away from us.

 

We chose a handful from among us to test the climate for a few days to verify its safety. The small group set up a temporary camp around our ship, living for several days outside and beginning the process of surveying and taking measurements. We were amazed at even the preliminary findings the group sent to the ship: the strange aromas produced at different times of day by plant life, the changes in temperature and humidity, the composition of the crumbly ground beneath us. And the dozens of creatures we classified as animal life, just within the first few hours!

 

After four days of determining the climate posed no danger, the scientists remaining on the ship joined the outside group, bursting with envy and excitement.

 

We decided to split into teams and explore the area. One group moved toward a wide cluster of tall, unyielding plants comparable to our own forests; another toward an open expanse of tawny vegetation; the third toward a winding body of flowing water; and the last toward the alien city, where we all hoped for an encounter with intelligent life.

 

We agreed to reassemble and share our findings after two Skleean days, but toward the end of that period, the city team sent a message requesting more time.

 

Two more days passed before we were reunited. The news was indeed distressing. The city did possess a number of intelligent species—bipeds like ourselves, some twenty thousand, by our estimation—but all deceased. Their remains, hard and skeletal, littered the city. From our limited testing, the primary cause of death was either disease or violence.

 

We were discouraged, but rather than stay to study the dead, we chose to search for surviving life. Surely, we thought, some of the species had endured.

 

But it was the same wherever we found signs of civilization: the flora and fauna seemed largely unharmed—flourishing, in fact—but the bipeds were always dead.

 

We searched for thirty-nine Skleean days and learned much, but the more we uncovered, the deeper was our grief. Our expedition was was meant to be brief, but we unanimously decided to remain indefinitely, and we sent the following message back to our superiors:

 

We have thoroughly investigated Sklee and determined that the dominate species, a biped of various races, has gone extinct in the span of one or two generations. There is evidence of both global war and widespread disease.

 

We regret that we were unable to arrive sooner. Though the people of this world came to a violent, agonizing end, we have found remnants of what we believe to be both creative and scholarly pursuits. These were higher-order beings, not only intellectual but emotional, social, political, religious, artistic. From all we have discovered, they thrived here for thousands of years. A creature of almost unlimited potential. Yet, by all we can see, their own undoing.

 

We have collectively decided to stay and continue our studies. If even one of the bipeds remains, we will find it and see that it is cared for. But our hopes are dwindling.

 

We would like to amend the designation of Sklee in our records. Their central star and third planet are called by many names, differing from group to group. However, we have found some similarities between certain languages and propose the following for our records:

 

The Gallir System: The Solir System

 

Planet Sklee: Planet Terra