The rubble of the destroyed city is criscrossed by grids laid by radiation-suited archeologists. House Barantha expended more than a dozen of their hoarded nukes during this star system's conquest, and one had been detonated directly above this city. While the radiation levels were still strong enough to keep the rock warm to the touch, they were not strong enough to keep the studious, the curious, or the larcenous from entering the ruins. Several looters had been executed already by the emperor's centurians.
Bernard Sean Rennup was one of the thirty or so Master Archeologists shipped here with their teams from all over the galaxy to recover whatever artifacts had not been destroyed in the coup.
One particular residence was proving an amazing discovery indeed.
Rennup stood in the lab they had set up in the street near the remains of the house, looking over the artifacts.
Seven clear glass (plastic? diamond?) blocks containing re-creations of ancient musical instruments had been removed from the relatively intact basement area, and even now another similar find was reported over his radio gear. Block eight. Rennup was both excited and disgusted by the news. Standing in the dimly lit lab among the blocks, he reflected on their interest in the two blocks they found on the initial digout.
At first they had seemed like the self-indulgent craftwork one might expect from an old man, models of things from other ages. It wasn't until the label on the xylophone had been researched that Rennup had realized the enormity of the find. The label had read, "Stratum: Jurassic", and only an exhaustive search of the great libraries had finally revealed the meaning of the second term.
The following day they had performed a variety of tests. Through the inert casing, whatever it was, the bars on the instrument were identified as bone. Ancient bone. Further microscopy revealed that it was from some sort of enormous lizardine animal. His team went silent with awe and revulsion when presented with the news.
Apparently the owner, whoever he was, had spent his last decades here, aquiring historical and pre-historical objects from Old Earth, and then using them as raw materials for the musical craft which obsessed him. Financial records kept off-world indicated he had funded several digs himself, and records of the various archeological layers uncovered at each one were carefully maintained.
The one other item of note was that each object seemed to be fashioned entirely out of materials available during an exceedingly narrow period of time. In this narrowness, the xylophone was king. Subsequent nanoscopic analysis hinted that the entire thing might be constructed from the bones of just one animal. Further tests were difficult without removing it from the block, and that would not be done in some makeshift lab on a ruined planet.
Not all the blocks were labelled. At least one of the brass plaques had been melted off in the explosion, and the one they were currently unearthing didn't appear to have had one attached. But now they had the general idea, and the analysis of each new find was accomplished quickly.
Rennup turned and peered into the block containing the rhythm sticks, apparently made from petrified wood. "Stratum: Triassic" read the label. According to the great library, this was an earlier era still, before even the great lizards roamed Earth.
He winced, wondering if the "artisan" had turned the wood himself. The thought of an irreplaceable sample of old-earth flora being shaved down, and the shavings trod on, turned his stomach. The man must have been totally mad.
"Master, we have brought up number eight. You should see this." Timor, a journeyman, and his second-in-command, was leading a number of apprentices who were carrying the latest find into the lab.
Rennup peered through the block, then looked for the label.
"There isn't one, Master. Not even the remains of one." Timor indicated the lower right hand section of the block, where the previous tiny plaques had been placed. There was no sign that one had ever been attached.
"It's different in other ways as well" Rennup said in his best professorial tone. He turned to the apprentices and waited expectantly.
"The object doesn't appear to be a percussion instrument." ventured Abraham. "It has strings, and the smaller thinner arm doesn't appear to be strong enough to strike the body of the instrument with any considerable force."
"Very good, Abraham! My thoughts precisely. But what is it?"
Abraham stood mute.
"Anyone?"
Silence from the class, save a shuffling of feet.
"Well, some research is in order. One full mark to the student who first reports to me the type of instrument we have here.", he said, tapping the block, "Dismissed."
Timor watched the class shuffle out and head towards the showers and barracks. He turned to his teacher with a conspiratorial look. "So what is it?".
"I have no idea." Rennup admitted with a chuckle, "Perhaps we'll learn more when we date it."
Rennup stroked the block, peering into it. "The strings look like gut, but i'd swear the knobs are duranium, which wasn't refined until after...", he paused, "Oh bother. I have no idea."
He turned to his journeyman. "Timor, your job is to find out what era of Earth's history this instrument is from. I don't want you doing anything else until we have a firm time for number eight here."
Timor nodded assent, and the master took his leave, and headed for his private quarters in the rear of the lab, leaving Timor to clean up.
In the morning, on his way to the mess, the Rennup was brought up short by Timor, racing to meet him.
"Master, object eight is more different than we had originally expected. The strings on the main part appear to be gut from some sort of giant lizard such as may have gone into the creation of the xylophone. The fine strands that run the length of the long, thin arm are actually carbon nanotubes, which were not produced in this size and quantity until the middle of the twenty-first century. The body of the main part seems to be the shell of some sea creature, and carbon dating places it in yet a third era. Lastly, the black pad at the bottom of the body is made from some hardened semiorganic tar that dates all the way back to something the Old Earth scholars used to describe as the Cambrian era!"
Rennup's eyebrows rose. "Well well, that IS cause for thought." He gestured for the journeyman to walk with him to the mess.
"One more thing." Continued Timor, "The third shift last night reports that block eight may have been the last one that was produced. The rubble we found it in was the remains of a kiln of some sort. The others were all in wall niches, you will recall."
Rennup pondered that. "That might explain the multiple eras. The owner certainly knew that trouble was brewing between Barantha and the local government. If he suspected it would result in all-out war, he might have tried to save whatever materials he had left over by sealing them in the crystal, or whatever it is. It certainly withstood the blast, when little else did."
Subsequent analysis over the following weeks proved Timor right. Though they had no way to open the blocks directly, spectroscopy and microscopy both confirmed what his journeyman had reported that first night: the components of the instrument in block eight were from no less than nine distinct millenia.
By the last days of the dig, a few more things had been settled. They found no more blocks after number eight, and block eight did indeed seem to be the last one fabricated. No apprentice (and for that matter neither Rennup nor Timor) could name the instrument entombed therein, though, and that remained a mystery.
The label for it, however, was recovered in the last hour of the last
day. It seems the maker had been working on it as war had erupted,
and not had a chance to attach it. It read: "Strata: various"