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> A Human, and their Havenworlder spouse, find an early-shattering, almost pre-shattering, ship in nearly perfect condition with all of its materials, well almost all of it's materials, intact. And they're able to claim it. -- Anon Guest

One being's trash is another's treasure. Truer words had never come out of the entire insane mess that was the Human race. Things thrown away in eons past became valuable in later years. Things valuable in eons past also became worthless.

Thus, the cycle of Sargasso dumps was near eternal. One never knew _what_ ancient treasures might turn up.

T'kiith found letters on the latest vessel. Old Human English. It could mean anything. Ze read them out for Uli, hir spouse. "N... A... S... A. Is that a word or an acronym?"

"Both," said Uli, the history nerd. "Nasa. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. They were with the North American continent from the late twentieth to the early twenty-second centuries. Terran Common Era. This little darling's probably smack-dab in the middle of the Shattering. If there's _anything_ of that left, it's all history. Document, dictate, and darling? This is big stuff."

T'kiith rolled hir eyes. "You did that just to have three beneficial D's for the records."

"Yeah, I did. Little bit of vengeance against Dereg's standard corporate policy[1]," they couldn't help but smile. "My revenge is petty, but by the Powers, it feels _great_."

"Setting up the livestream, plotting the slow spiral in, full passive scans. That's too old to have anything living in it. Right?"

"If there _is_ something living in there, it's probably its own ecology." Uli's eyes were gleaming. "All the better for research royalties, my love."

History. Astroarchaeology. Potential for xenobiology, too. Anything from the Shattering was worth a fortune to the right people, no matter what that thing might be.

They wouldn't _have_ to be scavengers after this.

Whether or not they _wanted_ to remain scavengers was a matter of choice. After all, Sargassos were huge and almost anything in them had an interest.

[1] Which is pretty close to extant corporate behaviour when the company is caught out doing something unsavory: Deny, Delay, Distract, and, if everything else fails, Decamp. These days, they're lucky that the purchasing public doesn't choose Defenestrate with the corporate CEO's.

[Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@freenaturestock?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Free Nature Stock</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/photos/sa_MmNe-ehY?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a>]

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