Mo had waited two whole months for the opportunity to get out to the pyramids and now, finally, he was greeted by a stunning panorama of lush green jungle dotted with several stone outcrops shining brightly in the sun.

“Shuttle, descend and make a circle over the objects below. Video them from all angles, then release the scanning drones.”

“Affirmative, pilot,” the shuttle’s artificial intelligence unit confirmed soullessly.

At a lower altitude, the pyramids loomed up like majestic stone islands floating in a boundless sea of green forest canopy. The shuttle glided slowly over the jungle itself, and Mo, holding his breath, watched as these huge ancient edifices turned their faces towards him, each new aspect full of amazing mysteries and potential.

“Pilot, a suitable landing place has been detected. Request permission to land.” On the in-flight screen, the shuttle indicated a small clearing in the trees, not far from the largest pyramid.

“Confirmed,” Mo replied and returned his attention to the long-awaited sight that now presented itself before him.

They had been here for more than ten weeks, but he had only now been able to earn two consecutive days off. To do this, he had taken on double shifts and exchanged other ones with his shift partner. But boy had it been worth it!

Mo had arrived on this planet with the first wave of colonists, and their task had been to prepare the necessary temporary camps and infrastructure in this new world for the second, larger wave of settlers.

As a shuttle pilot, he had had access to the map database and seen these amazing remnants of an alien civilization that had been spotted in a remote uninhabitable region of the planet by one of the reconnaissance satellites.

With the exception of the research team who currently had more practical priorities on their plate, they were not of primary interest to the colony. However, Mo found himself inexorably drawn to these giant monuments because they so reminded him of the world-famous ancient pyramids of his homeland.

He had always been interested in history and one day his father took him on the best journey a twelve-year-old boy could dream of. Leaving clouds of dust and deep furrows of sand behind them, they had driven through the pitiless heat of the desert to see at first hand the ancient enigmatic structures that had been raised and abandoned by their ancient distant ancestors.

How huge they had seemed to him then! Eroded by the wind and scorched by the sun, the stone breathed antiquity. These ancient anonymous builders had strived to perpetuate their own greatness and now the weight of thousands of years seemed to loom directly over Mo and his father. Mo remembered screwing up his eyes at the bright scorching sun, the prickly sand and the tears of joy that he had been able to get to this place and touch these incredible monuments to man’s desire to rise above himself.