All the Colors of Time (28 page)

Behind him, Yoshi stammered over her words. “Uncle Kenji …
Uncle Kenji was a man with strong feelings about his place in the world. I’m
surprised he ever left Japan.”

Rhys turned to look at her. “And Dr. Burton is also a
xenophobe, is that what you’re saying?”

Yoshi set her chin. “I deplore the way he treated Tzia this
morning. As if she were a rank novice. As if she didn’t have Nyami’s respect
and a Cambridge degree in archaeology. As if she were . . .”

“As if she were alien?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tsk-tsk. Remember the spell, Yoshi.” Rhys tapped his spirit
bag. “I have to admit, I didn’t want to read the incident that way, but . . .”
He shook his head. “I suppose I could say he’s an old man. One who’s only
recently been exposed to other races of people.”

“That would be excusing him. He doesn’t deserve your
defense.”

Rhys turned to look at her, eyes narrowed. “This goes quite
deep, doesn’t it?”

“It’s not just Tzia. It’s his whole attitude toward this planet,
its people. The living cultures of Etsatat are repugnant to him. He’s only
comfortable with the dead ones.”

“Mercy! I’d’ve thought that impossible for an archaeologist.”
He came back to the table and laid his hand, palm down, on the calendar. “It’s
the love of my life, Yoshi. Looking at these little bits and pieces of the past
and trying to see how they relate to the present—to the future. Looking at a
dead culture in the hope of snatching a glimpse of its living shade. We’re
ghost hunters, Yoshi. Mediums.” He smiled. “Shaman. Holding vast, expensive
séances in the hope that maybe, just maybe, the dear departed will put in an
appearance and solve their own mysteries. I thought we were all like that.”

“You mean you thought
he
was like that.”

“Ah, yes. Because when I sat in his lectures, read his
works, studied his field journals, I thought, ‘Here’s a kindred spirit. A
mentor. An icon.’”

Yoshi gazed up at him with honest pain in her eyes. “I’m
sorry, Rhys.”

He directed a wry grimace at his own naïveté. “I’m too old
for heroes and role models, I suppose. But a kindred spirit would have been
nice.”

He glanced at Yoshi’s suddenly still face and experienced a
twisted epiphany. “Aye well, maybe one kindred soul is enough, after all.” He
lifted her hand from where it lay beside her field journal and raised it to his
lips. “I’ll clean up here. You go settle in and get some sleep.”

Face rose-gold in the camp light, Yoshi stared at him, her
hand suspended between them. He retrieved it and tugged her to her feet, jerking
his head toward the tube to their cabin. “Go on. You’ve got smudges under your
eyes. In the morning, you’ll be dead on your feet and blaming me.”

She got up and moved to the access tube, her every move
tentative, as if she’d only just learned to walk. At the door, she turned back
to look at him, then—fingers curled into a fist against her chest—she ducked
into the tube.

oOo

In the morning, there was still no access to the tower.
Scott Buchanan suggested they break out the laser cutter and go in through the
side, but Burton and Nyami argued him down. It was as good a day as any, Burton
said, to visit the village.

The word “village” seemed too primitive to describe the ruin
that lay at the verge of the forest, its toppled buildings blending with
toppled trees. It was at least a town, Rhys decided. The site was in nowhere
near as good condition as Sper-ets; its walls looked as if they’d been chewed
on by some massive grazer, its once-cobbled streets could almost have been
mistaken for the random strew of an incontinent glacier. But among the trees
were moldering buildings, which, if built to a less grand scale than Ets-eket’s
temples, were yet impressive and willing to yield fruit.

Of particular interest were the stelae that appeared to have
dotted the single main avenue and its various cross streets. Many of the ruins
had one or two nearby, seeming to establish a relationship between building and
statuary. Even here, the image of Ets-eket appeared, apparently in connection
with a building on one of the side streets.

Burton’s smile increased with every utterance of amazement
and delight his ex-student made. “A year from now, these stelae will be touring
the museums and universities of Earth and the colonies,” he enthused, lovingly
caressing the shoulder of a female Etsatat frozen eternally in the act of
pouring water from a ewer into a pool. “No doubt the Leguini will thank me for
removing them. Come, look at this one.”

He led them to a stele half fallen against a low wall. It
showed another Etsatat woman sitting or squatting (it was hard to know what to
call it with the odd jointing of the Etsatat legs) before some sort of rack.

“A merchant’s pack, wouldn’t you say?” asked Burton.

A loom, thought Rhys, but was reluctant to commit himself to
an interpretation in front of the older archaeologist. Still, in the cause of
acknowledging Burton as a man rather than an icon . . .

“It could be a loom. See, the shuttle in her hand, this line
of scoring from her hand to the structure, a bit of thread or yarn. Notice,
too, the pattern between these uprights could represent the pattern being woven
into the fabric.” Rhys only just kept his voice from rising questioningly.

Burton shot him a sideways glance, then bent to peer at the
stele’s chipped and worn surface. “Well, hard to tell with this much erosion,
of course, but I suppose you might be correct. She might be representative of
the domestic arts—a goddess of hearth and home. Personally, I think she’s a
merchant deity. You know it’s a very odd thing, Llewellyn, but nowhere in any
of this wealth have we found anything resembling a fertility goddess. I can
only suppose the Etsatat were more clever than most primitives and understood
the role of the male in reproduction. In fact, I believe that the Ets-eket cult
may be, at its root, a fecundity cult.”

Rhys frowned. “What makes you say that, in particular? The
connection with the moon?”

“That, and the rather obvious phallic appearance of the
tower. I’ve studied the modern Leguini enough to know that’s relevant. There
are other details too, of course. If you’d like, I’ll make my field notes
available to you. I think you’ll find them of interest.”

“I’d like that.”

“Hey, look at this one!”

Rick Halfax beckoned from where he crouched next to a low
vine-draped wall, holding a bundle of trailing greenery out away from the
stones. What he had found was a carved panel, chipped and timeworn, that seemed
to be part and parcel of the wall. It depicted four figures, seated in an
uneven row, their legs bent double in that amazing and uniquely Etsatat way.
They appeared to be eating and talking; hands gestured and ferried food to open
mouths.

“Four guys selling pizza,” announced Rick irreverently.

“Looks like a tea party,” suggested Yoshi.

“Very good, Ms. Umeki,” Burton praised her. “Though I think ‘party’
isn’t quite the right word. Perhaps a tea ceremony? The ritual partaking of
food is quite common in cultures dominated by theological concerns. Take the
Christian communion, for example.”

“Do the modern Etsatat have any sort of rituals you could
use for comparison?” Yoshi asked.

“Not that I know of. But I doubt that would tell us much
about the culture we’re looking at here. The modern Leguini—which name suits
them better, they bear so little resemblance to their ancestors—have no giant
temple complexes, nor do they have a priesthood or icons.”

Shame, none of the fun
stuff,
Rhys thought ironically, then cringed at his own cynicism. Aloud, he
commented, “But then the religion of the Etsatat has become so ingrained in
their daily existence, it hardly seems to matter. They may not feel the need to
build and maintain centers of worship over many centuries. Perhaps they’ve
evolved beyond the symbols and can face the reality head on.”

“Well, whatever the reasons,” Burton said, “we’ll get no
help from that quarter. As regards this particular piece, my reasoning is laid
out in full in my field notes.”

He rose then, and led them off to look at what he referred
to as the village amphitheater where, he postulated, ritual sacrifices took
place.

oOo

Rhys slipped the disc containing Professor Burton’s field
notes into his own journal and settled back to digest them. Yoshi joined him,
her own notes close at hand, while Rick wandered off to see how far the tower
dig had progressed. There were extensive entries on the town, as Burton had
promised, and that was where Rhys started.

“Shta-ets—the City of the Moon—is in reality a large village
whose artistry fills a narrow forested valley 130 kilometers northeast of the
present day metropolis of Shta-vater. Stepping from my shuttle into the moist
air of the forest fringe, I was amazed at the state of preservation of these
very ancient ruins . . .”

Rhys skipped the preliminary comments about measurements and
soil acidity and paged to the first descriptions of local landmarks.

“The village amphitheater sits at its extreme eastern
end—the direction in which both Leguin and the planet’s largest moon rise. It
was here that the ancient Etsatat may have sacrificed victims on the huge
central altar before the eyes of rows of onlookers.”

Rhys ran an hand through his thick, red mane and sighed,
unconscious of the gesture.

“Me neither,” murmured Yoshi. When Rhys glanced at her she
shrugged. “I think it’s more likely they mimed sacrifices there than actually
performed them. I’d guess it was a theater and his big altar was a stage. Look
at the dimensions.”

Rhys nodded. “Normally I’d agree with that, but surely Dr.
Burton has seen something—”

“Something you missed? You noticed that there are patterns
of very shallow ruts in that slab. You noticed that they were too regular to be
weathering. He didn’t notice that regularity.”

Rhys’s eyes went unfocused momentarily as he called the
feature to mind. “Very odd that. Almost as if the same rites were performed
over and over again.”

“Or the same dances. Or perhaps a highly ritualized form of
theater.”

“Like Noh?”

Yoshi nodded. “I don’t believe it’s an altar. I could be
wrong, but I don’t think it is.”

Without further comment, Rhys paged to the next image with
its attendant description. What he saw was a selection of village stelae and a
paragraph about the main street.

“Leading west from the place of sacrifice, the main avenue
of Shta-ets is lined with buildings whose purposes may always be mysteries.
Except for a granary, a metal-smith’s and a kiln, we know little about what
went on within these walls. What we do know is that many of them were dedicated
to the gods of the Etsatat. The images below, clockwise from left: (1) Four
warrior gods or chieftains share a ritual meal; (2) The Goddess of the Waters
fills the world ocean; (3) A merchant goddess with her splendid pack; (4)
Statue of Ets-eket sits outside a small temple within the village.”

“What does he say about Sper-ets?” Yoshi asked, eager to
move on.

“Ah, yes, here . . .” Rhys read aloud. “‘From its composition, to the
dimensions of its structures, the Sper-ets complex is reminiscent of Caracol,
still one of the most beautifully preserved sites in all of Mesoamerica. From
the broad, once-cobbled Avenue of Tribute, to the towering central ziggurat, to
the massive temples flanking it, it reminds one insistently of the majestic
cities of the ancient Maya.” He skipped a couple of passages, then picked up
the narrative again. “That Ets-eket is aptly named is apparent from the
crescent shape repeated over and over on helmets, staffs and scepters. That he
is an important deity is obvious from the sheer ubiquity of his image. Even
beyond the confines of the many places of worship dedicated to him—sites which
are spread over Leguin Four’s several continents—Ets-eket’s image appears on
buildings and stelae in every locale where we have conducted even the most
cursory research.’”

“In which.”

“What?”

“‘In which’ we have conducted even the most cursory
research.”

Rhys wagged his finger at her. “Now, Yoshi. Don’t be overly
critical. I begin to think you’re just immensely prejudiced against the old
professor. And I can’t imagine why. Even as many years of exposure to Uncle
Kenji as you had—”

“I’m sorry. I’m trying to be objective, but he makes it so
hard. He’s so sure of himself, so smug in his interpretations.”

“He’s one of the foremost experts on just about any phase of
archaeology you’d care to name. I suppose one might get a little … sure of
oneself under the circumstances.”

“It goes deeper than that. Whatever he looks at, Dr. Burton
sees exactly what he wants to see. He can’t stand it when you advance a
reasonable theory before he does. He has to point out what you missed or—or
debate it point by point. He treats you as if you were still his student.”

“In some ways, I suppose I am.”

“You shouldn’t be, Rhys. Not in this field.”

He chuckled. “Well, I may have lost points with Drew Burton,
but at least I’ve got you calling me by my given name.”

“You’re evading the issue. The issue is Dr. Burton’s
cultural bias.”

“Yosh, questioning every theory that’s put forth—that’s what
scientists are supposed to do. But I will grant you this—he certainly doesn’t
seem to question his own conclusions as thoroughly as he does everyone else’s.”

“Well, that’s something,” Yoshi muttered under her breath.

Rhys gave her a reproachful look and turned back to the
field notes.

oOo

The week progressed predictably. To Rhys’s growing
chagrin, Burton lauded all efforts except the hapless Tzia’s, debated—no,
argued—every opinion Rhys advanced that either preceded or differed from his
own, and continued to treat the alien dig as if it sat smack in the middle of
the Yucatan peninsula. Questioning the great man brought anything from sweet
condescension to gentle scorn—as when Rhys suggested the deposits of animal
bones might be from something other than sacrifices.