The planet’s thick layers of ice and glaciers had been peeled away by the Tempest’s scanners, revealing not rocky terrain as he had expected, but a vast and ancient empire, the ruins of which lay buried deep beneath the ice. Beside him, Destra Heston gasped and shook her head. “The Gors are a primitive civilization. Where did those cities come from?” “I’m just guessing,” Bretton replied, “but I’d say those glaciers are millions of years old, and Noctune used to be a much warmer planet than it is today.” “So where did the water come from? I can imagine oceans freezing, but kilometers of ice suddenly burying the surface?” The ship’s chief engineer replied, “The water must have been in the atmosphere, Ma’am. Based on the position of the ruins, the amount of ice, and the current lack of moisture in the air, we have to assume that the Admiral is right. Noctune used to be much warmer, perhaps even a little too warm, and the humidity had to have been near a hundred percent.
