Artifacts by Jerry Oltion

Artifacts was published in the October 1998 issue of Analog. I've read other stories by Mr. Oltion in the past and enjoyed them and this one was well-written and entertaining as well...but I didn't really enjoy it.

The premise is that a few hundred years from now mankind has discovered many, many, hundreds of "artifacts" floating in and around the Solar System. Artifacts left by many different alien species that expanded and contracted and basically killed each other and themselves off over the billions of years before "now." Again with the Fermi Paradox...they were out there, but killed themselves off, and that's why we don't hear from them now.

The story's plot involves a spacer flying a "bomb" ship out to a recently discovered Artifact that is being explored and exploited. Yes, humanity is scavenging technology from these Artifacts, some of them very dangerous and some of the technology equally dangerous. Brian's, the protagonist, ship is ferrying supplies and more scientists out to the "site." Upon arriving the scientists already there act a bit strangely. Their leader shows Brian a "device" that gives him a very vivid virtual reality experience...a disturbing one, but one more strange than sinister.

Later Brian goes off to explore on his own and finds an anpitheater the aliens once used. He experiences another "vision", a flash of a sacrifice. A human sacrifice...and the the scientists arrive holding two of Brian's crew prisioner and he knows they have been "infected" by the technology here and are going to sacrifice his crewmates.

A short fight ends with him running back to the ship where he eventually orders its computer to "launch" even though he know it will kill everyone aboard the ship and the "Artifact"...innocent as well as the guilty, infected as well as the uninfected.

Although Oltion doesn't come right out and write it, it is clearly implied that all religion is an alien infection that leads only to death and destruction. So, fearing he, himself, has been been infected he must kill himself rather than risk a religious idea from making it back to earth. Sacrificing himself...how appropriate.

Science Fiction has been called the fiction of ideas. This story had several interesting ideas, but frankly Oltion lost me by painting religion, any and all religions, as a wholely bad idea.

I am many years behind reading Analog, I remember it as the home for high technology, filled strong men and women and an proponent of "progress." The stories were often very pulpy, but almost always fun. Here's hoping I find some of those stories as I try to read these magazines.