um conto de David Brin , Detritus afetado .
Futuros mineiros (arqueólogos com apoio industrial) cavando lixo velho (e fraldas):
Tried angling stories about disease germs, festering in the dump along with five billion ancient disposable diapers
Keoki pays the freight, testing rich veins of complex organics and heavy metals for our industrial sponsor. It's a long shot, but if the assay proves out, Fabrique Chang may bid to come mine Hyperion. One generation's junk can be the next's mother lode.
Eles encontram um esqueleto
Zola found the bones down at South-22, a neat row of ribs sticking through a pile of dingy rags. At first we thought it was a pet, some large dog. On realizing they were human, we had no choice but to report it. We're digging in strata from A.D. 1958, after all. It might be somebody's long-missing great-uncle.
... então mais.
Today's big discovery—this time at South-31—four more sets of bones.
e mais.
A million skeletons so far, with no end in sight. Reports come in from other cities. Of landfill boneyards in New York, Atlanta, Seattle . . . though none as extensive or dating so far back as Los Angeles. Perhaps that means it happened first and most profoundly here, in L.A.
But what? What happened here? Whence came the dead?
Terminando explicado no bloco de spoiler.
The archaeologists also receive threats telling them to stop digging. These are tracked down to people in care homes. The implication is that these are alien invaders who successfully killed and replaced the original humans back in 1958. There are other possibilities considered, but that seems the most plausible. However the narrator would prefer almost anything else.