Juanita Coulson - Children of the Stars 04 Page 4

  He was stung by her condescending manner. Big brain! That didn’t give her the right to talk down to him.

  It took him several minutes to get over his sulks. The path topped the dome hill, meandered down a gully, then leveled and widened on the far side. By the time they’d reached that spot, he was willing to try restarting the conversation on a friendlier note. “I know what you mean about visitors messing up things. I have to warn passengers to keep their hands off the boards, or they’ll scramble my nav settings and life support feeds.”

  Kat asked interestedly, “You carry passengers? I thought indie haulers were strictly cargo transporters.”

  “Mostly, but sometimes I have a rider. A merchant in a hurry to get somewhere the major lines don’t serve. I’m his taxi.”

  She looked as if she were putting the info into a file crammed with similar trivia. “I didn’t know that. It may be useful someday; though I can’t imagine how. To change the subject—our dig currently covers the area from the complex to that vacuum dredge there and from the mesa to that riverbed to the west.”

  “River?” Dan said, eyeing the arid, rough terrain to the right of the camp.

  “It is a river, during the short rainy season,” Kat said curtly. She sure was touchy! He said, “Yeah, I’ll bet it is. I’ve lived on a few desert worlds.” He swung around, surveying the area she’d indicated. “So your Settlement’s a couple-three kilometers square?”

  “At present. We’ve shifted location, over the years. Praedar’s initial investigations were twenty kilometers upstream, where the N’lacs’ village was originally. As our dig moved down slope, the N’lacs have followed us.” Kat smiled, as if that fact pleased her. “A lot of sections were like those dud pits. Empty. But this site is absolutely full of potential. We’ve concentrated here these past three seasons.”

  She headed along the trail again, lecturing as she went. “The ruins were once part of an ancient city. When Praedar arrived, everything was buried in centuries of windblown drift. For example, until very recently that dome was completely hidden. Ar-milly’s deep scanners showed us there was something there, but we couldn’t be sure precisely what without excavation. And because that dredge broke down last season, we haven’t been able to probe it as soon as we’d hoped.

  “During its heyday, two millennia ago, the city was probably its world’s capital. A wonderful find. Lower strata date to twelve thousand years before present. Indications are that this is one of the oldest inhabited sites on the planet. If only we had the funds to do justice to this dig! We’ll have to be content to open a bare tenth of it. But we’re on our way at last. Praedar’s earned a payoff, after eleven years’ work.”

  “Eleven?” Dan whistled, awed.

  “Barely scratching the surface. When you strike xenoarch gold, as Praedar has done on T-W 593, it’s the project of a lifetime. Of course, not all of us are in for the duration. Most of the students will finish their postgrads here and move on to their own careers elsewhere. And we have some short-term researchers like Dr. Getz, who’s here solely to catalog the effigies we’re finding. Even full-timers like me have to go offworld now and then—to touch base with families and our training institutes and beat the bushes for sponsorship grants. We’re holding our breaths right now, praying the licensing Council renews Praedar’s permit and our funding. If they don’t...” Kat’s face pinched with worry.

  Dan sympathized. He’d done his share of scrambling for credits. It couldn’t be easy for these scientists to do their work while sweating out money problems. Conditions on T-W 593 didn’t demand huge injections of terraforming capital. But undoubtedly they demanded money as well as energy. Most alien environments did.

  Overhead, the sky was a pale, blue-green bowl. A large moon hung like a ghostly face over the eastern cliff. The tendrilled “trees” and purple bushes growing everywhere digging hadn’t uprooted them were wilting beneath the local star’s blazing glare. People and objects shimmered in heat waves.

  Dan fought thirst and fatigue. This was an educational opportunity, expanding his horizons. He soaked up Kat’s words and drew aerial maps in his mind’s eye, getting an overall view of the project. Plainly, direct routes weren’t important here. Buried ruins were. Those dirt paths meandered between dozens of trenches and pits and bracketed the boulders left by the desert river’s rare floodings. Without any straight lines connecting excavations and complexes, a tour of the Settlement meant a long, hot walk.

  “...most likely this continent’s governmental center,” Kat was saying. “We’ve found huge collections of data records. Our xenocrypto specialist, Ruieb-An, is deciphering them. And Dr. Chen is studying what was once the subbasement of a museum. Simply marvelous material! The N’lacs can be proud of their ancestors.”

  “Slow throttle!” Dan cut in. “Are you claiming those redfaced little e.t.s built all this?”

  “Yes. At least their species did,” Kat amended. “I’ll admit not everyone agrees. Your kinsman Feo is stubbornly convinced the N’lacs are a lower order, distantly related, if that, to the race that created this splendor.”

  “He might have a point.” Dan, gasping a bit, boosted his meds and said, “The locals haven’t impressed me as superthinkers. Chuss is the only one who—”

  “Behaves with what we’re arrogant enough to call true intelligence?” Kat snapped. “Don’t underestimate the N’lacs. They’re not stupid. They’re simply operating under tremendous handicaps. And there’s an excellent reason why Chuss seems so bright.” She took a deep breath that did attractive things to her breasts. Dan stifled his hormones with effort.

  “Intelligent life is so rare in our galaxy. Too many technologically gifted species eliminate would-be competitors, as mankind nearly wiped out the apes and cetaceans before we came to our senses. That’s why preserving the N’lacs and their ancestors’ history is so imperative. At least the Terran-Whimed Xenoethnic Council has classified them as relatives of the once-dominant local species. That’ll protect them, for now.”

  “Level Two, huh?” Dan said. “Like the Fiahni, those amphibians on the Vahnajes’ home world, or the Rigotian bird folks?”

  “Exactly!” Kat quoted standard Level 2 criteria. “Simple cognitive abilities, opposable thumbs or manipulative appendages, rudimentary speech. As if that’s all the N’lacs had!” She grimaced angrily. “Chuss will prove otherwise. He’s a forerunner, a successful test case. Once we get sufficient funds, we’ll make the Saunder’s and Praedar’s other critics see they were wrong. In the meantime, we watchdog the N’lacs’ development and discourage squatters. Too much contact with untrained outsiders at this point would be a catastrophe for Chuss’ people. We can’t let that happen.”

  Dan muttered noncommittally. Primitive species often did suffer cruelly from too much exposure too soon to outside influences. But was that the sole reason this expedition was keeping other offworlders away? Another aspect of the setup had occurred to him. He’d seen N’lacs toting baskets of dirt and doing general scut work for the scientists everywhere. “Yeah. It’s a fair exchange, I suppose. You protect the N’lacs and they provide slave labor.”

  “Slaves? That ridiculous!” Kat exploded. “This is a symbiotic relationship. We supply the N’lacs with medicine, food supplements from our stores and greenhouses, a reliable water supply, and we nourish their history, their pride. That’s critical to their survival. Can’t you see that? And they want to help us. They volunteer to do those simple chores. Do they look exploited? I assure you, their health and their general welfare are enormously improved over what they were when Praedar first came here. Is that slavery?”

  She talked a good defense. But Dan couldn’t help thinking she overdid it. Was she feeling guilty, deep down?

  Kat marched away, her head high, outrage stiffening her spine.

  He decided it was smarter not to pursue the matter. As far as he could tell, the N’lacs weren’t being abused. And he was a guest. He shouldn’t kick his hostess’s shins on such weak ev
idence.

  Anyway, there was plenty else to command his attention on this tour—wildlife, for one thing. He’d seen lizardy animals with ruffled fringes at their throats; countless insects, some spectacularly large and colorful; and fuzzy critters, many of them camouflaged. That didn’t protect them from flying predators. A diamond-shaped, leather-winged meat eater pounced on a victim and carried it to its lair on the cliff face, zooming past almost under Dan’s nose. The flyer’s wings made an eerie ripping sound that lingered in the hot air, echoing faintly.

  “The N’lacs call that a duto,” Kat said. Her anger had apparently simmered by now. “They’re more or less harmless to humanoids, though they will bite and drink blood, if they find you asleep outdoors at night.”

  “Charming. Any other nasties?”

  “Major predators? None except us. There are numerous marsupials, a few avians and reptiles, but no snakes. And billions of these pests the N’lacs call oony.” She slapped at a cloud of midges, but her glare was aimed at Dan.

  He maintained a prudent silence for a time after that, plodding in her wake, nodding as she pointed out items along the trail.

  Gradually Dan grew uneasy. Something about the landscape seemed skewed. It was a familiar, nagging sensation. Other humans had felt the same thing, ever since humanity first left Earth and landed on alien planets. Evolution installed key recognition factors in the brain—factors tied to the world where a species originated. When that species dealt with a different environment, even a nominally terrene one, instincts revelled. Normally Dan overruled the reaction with his forebrain. On T-W 593, an unidentifiable undercurrent squirmed beneath his skin disconcertingly, refusing to let go.

  Aside from that, it wasn’t a bad place. He’d known far worse —the plains of Asita Hosi, the salt flats on E Indi Settlement, and a wind-torn wasteland on a Whimed world named Chayn. Pioneers could put up with incredible hardships if there was prospect of reward, such as precious metals, exportable flora and fauna, new trade routes, or new products. Others sought the freedom to follow an unusual life-style, to set up experimental political systems, or to create havens for offbeat religions.

  None of those motives applied to Praedar’s expedition. The scientists weren’t mining or tilling the soil. They weren’t manufacturing anything. They didn’t behave like religious mavericks or political rebels. Their only reason for being here was to dig up this buried city.

  The search for a long-lost civilization seemed as impractical and noncontributory as Varenka’s projects to clone her ancestor and restore Saunderhome. Praedar’s team would probably approve of her plans; she and these xenoarchaeologists were equally obsessed with ancient relics. It all seemed a waste of time—hobbies for rich folks.

  And yet...

  Kat said Praedar’s funding was tight. And these people certainly weren’t New Earth Renaissance dilettantes. They mingled freely with other races, coped with an alien world, and weren’t afraid of hard work. Dan had seen the offworlders hauling rocks, digging with hand tools, and crawling in filthy rubble, unearthing their treasures. He tried to imagine Varenka grubbing in the dirt like that. Hah! Not even to save Saunderhome!

  Kat delivered a running commentary. “We think this was an administrative structure ... group residence . . . housing unit. .. educational center... a temple... government building... market...”

  Dan saw none of those things. Kat pointed to rocks, sand, and crumbling lumps that might have been walls worn down to their foundations. Even fairly intact structures were little more than shells. It seemed impossible anyone could figure out what they used to be. But Praedar’s team claimed to have done so. Marker strings stretched between pegs, outlining the ruins. There were signs everywhere, in Terran and alien languages, warning pas-sersby to keep off the “constructs.” Dan tried to envision a thriving e.t. population center on this site. Kat made it almost real. Almost, but not quite.

  Occasionally she stopped to chat with colleagues. Their shop-talk went well over Dan’s head. “Strata... the gnathic materials ... hyperbarics... paleomagnetism... crystal dating...”

  The path took a long loop past that disabled dredge and curved back to the main camp. By the time Dan was climbing the slope near the dome, he was getting winded. Kat said, “I hope I didn’t go too fast for you.”

  “Nah, I’m fine,” he lied. Kat smiled archly.

  There was a mob scene in camp. The truck had returned from the landing strip. Team members were unloading cargo, hampered by the N’lacs, who got underfoot. Praedar and the debaters had joined the crowd. Kat, too, elbowed her way into the thick of things. Dan was content, to be a spectator. He’d already done his job, delivering this stuff.

  Praedar fingered a crate’s shipping tag. “Durin kwilya! How long we have waited!”

  “Indeed!” chimed in a scientist with a heavy Martian colony accent. “A most costly delay. Our preparations for the Xenoarch Assembly have been thrown completely off schedule...”

  Kat turned to a sad-faced Vahnaj. “Now you can repair the dredge, and we can finally make some progress excavating the dome.”

  “Urr... I do not mer-it rep-ri-mand, Ka-at-yuh,” the Vahnaj argued. “Dredge is op-er-a-tion-al...”

  Sheila guffawed. “Ruieb, when a machine doesn’t run, most species say it’s not operational.” She broke off and shouted at the N’lacs. “Chuss! You fellow get them diggers ’way from truck!” “Hoosh! Motherless thieves!” Armilly, the loudmouthed Lan-non, waved his hairy arms and growled, “Stolen expedition’s property. Thieves! Evil Deo and Hoop.”

  “Feo and Hope,” Praedar corrected him. “An unprovable charge. The machinery was not stolen. Observe. It is here.” “Then how about ‘deliberately mislaid’?” Kat asked. “Or ‘kicked into the back comer of a warehouse for a year’?”

  “That must be what happened,” Joe Hughes said. The black man lifted a box and started toward the insta-cell storage shed. “Somebody paid shipping clerks plenty to look the other way. I just wonder why this stuff surfaced now.”

  Dan was wondering that himself. Worry crawled through his gut.

  Sheila suggested, “Maybe Feo was too cheap to bribe-bury it permanently.”

  “Miser!” Kat said with withering scorn. “He’s a billionaire. He and Hope don’t apply for grants. They could buy the whole planet they’re digging on by peeling a few hundred thousand out of their petty cash..

  “Urr... brib-ery is illegal,” Ruieb-An chirred.

  The Terrans and Whirneds grinned. Sheila said, “Yes, but authorities get corrupt or greedy. That never happens in the Vahnaj sector, huh?” Ruieb-An looked uncomfortable.

  “You can bet Feodor Ivanovich Saunder-Nicholaiev didn’t get his own hands dirty bribe-burying this,” Kat said. “He probably sent his fair-haired boy, Greg Tavares, to make the payment under the table...”

  Dan sidled away from the group. What if the accusations were true? He’d better find out.

  He’d gone a few meters when Sheila Whitcomb caught up with him. She swatted his rump and said, “This is a fine comment on our hospitality, McKelvey. Are we boring you already?” Kat, Praedar, and a number of others were staring at him. Embarrassed, Dan stammered, “N-no, it’s not that at all. I have to get back to my ship.”

  “Chow’s on soon. Better hang around,” Sheila invited. “If you don’t eat with us and bitch about Frank’s cooking, you’ll hurt his feelings.”

  “Uh... I’ll pass tonight. Have to make a subspace call.”

  “Use our com,” Sheila said.

  Smiling, Dan replied, “No offense, but I want a clear signal, and your unit isn’t up to that.”

  The blonde was taken aback for a second. “Kroo-ger, you’re fussy! Okay. If you say so. But the sun’s too high for you to walk it. Take the rover.”

  It was his turn to be taken aback. “You’d let me borrow it?” “Sure! Kat might not, but I will, and I’m the one talking to you, handsome. Besides, I’m a paramed, and I’m not eager to nurse a heat-stroke victim. You wo
uldn’t be any fun, flat on your back and unable to rise.”

  Laughing at her lewd crack, he broke into a run and yelled, “Thanks! I’ll bring it back in the morning!”

  He drove out of camp at top speed, bouncing up onto the mesa, putting readouts in the red, punishing power systems. When he reached Fiona, he skidded to a stop beneath her wing and raced into the cabin.

  Once seated at the com, though, he took his time composing the outbound message. This priority call would cost him plenty. He needed to be precise and concise, in spacer’s lingo, to get his money’s worth. Finally Dan drew a deep breath and fed the signal starward.

  Then he waited. Terran Traffic Central’s nearest base was a light-hour away via an indie’s skimpy subspace equipment. He’d have to keep busy in the interim, or tension would eat him alive.

  He did a walk-around inspection of his ship and found that the scientists had shut the cargo bay doors, as promised, but had left an adjacent hatch open. That thing never had closed properly. He spent a quarter hour, local time, getting it buttoned up again to his satisfaction.

  Another couple of walk-arounds passed. He watched the sun set and a second moon rise to keep its bigger sister company. Minutes ticked by.

  He was back in the cabin long before the com glowed to life. A disinterested voice said:

  “Terran Traffic Central Base 444, responding to query from IHS Fiona. Status of McKelvey, Daniel Morgan Saunder. Reading. Terran Reg #IH-447820. Starship operator’s license #899312-47. Free Port Eighteen has filed a question concerning possible unauthorized transportation of cargo. Pilot will be notified when a decision is arrived at in this matter. Base 444, out.”

  For a long while, Dan was too stunned to move.

  The scientists were right. That cargo was supposed to be bribe-buried. But somebody had unburied it. And they’d used it to nail him to the bulkhead.

  Free Port Eighteen. The complaint had been filed there. That dispatcher! The one with the grudge against Adam—and against Adam’s baby brother.