Authors: Alan Dean Foster
The consequent reaction among the human populace of this portion of the galaxy upon learning that the destruction had been cosponsored by thranx opposed to any deeper alliance among their respective species ought to put a clamp on any enthusiastic treaty making for some time to come, Skettle knew. Which thranx? Skettle’s associates back on Earth had spent much time devising a complete bug terrorist hierarchy, the veracity of which
might
eventually be disproved. But by that time, the delay in negotiations that would result would give him and the rest of the Preservers ample time to spread their message to a more alerted population. Relations between human and thranx would progress no farther than humankind’s relations with any other intelligent species.
That was as things should be, he mused. But education required time. This they would gain from the chaos that would be bought by the destruction of the fair. It would have the added beneficial effect of destroying the viability of any further such profane convocations. The Humanx Intercultural Fair on Dawn would be the first and last of its kind.
The fire in his eyes and those of his companions was a precursor to the greater conflagration that within a few days would engulf thousands of unsuspecting visitors.
It was not a blaze that was amenable to reason.
3
Cullen Karasi stood on the edge of the spectacular escarpment that overlooked the Mountain of the Mourners and reflected that he was a very long way from home. Comagrave lay on the rim of the bubble of human exploration, more parsecs from Earth than was comfortable to think about. If not for the well-established colony in the nearby system of Repler and the discovery of valuable mineral deposits on Burley, it was doubtful humankind would have pushed so far so quickly into this section of the Arm. By KK drive, the capital of the AAnn Empire, Blassussar, was closer than Terra.
This latter fact was not lost upon the AAnn, who freely coveted Comagrave. A semidesert planet whose ecological parameters all fell near the center of their habitable paradigms, it was ideally suited to their kind. To survive on its surface, humans had to exercise caution. In this regard, however, it was no worse than many desertified parts of Earth itself and was more accommodating than others. Survey after survey revealed a wealth of mineral and biological potentiality—not to mention additional archeological treasures yet to be unearthed. With proper preparation and development, humans would do well enough here.
Humankind’s claim was clear, indisputable, and grudgingly recognized by the AAnn. In return for permission to establish a limited number of observational outposts, strictly for purposes of study and education, the reluctant reptiloids had offered to put their knowledge and expertise at the service of the colonists. Despite certain reservations within the Terran government, it was an offer that could not be denied. The AAnn had forgotten more about surviving on desert-type worlds than humans had ever known, and the government on Earth was far, far away.
Certainly, Cullen reflected, the assistance his team had so far received from the AAnn had been a great help. It was they who had provided material aid when funds from his supporting foundation had been temporarily reduced. It was they who had saved thousands of credits by knowing the best places to establish safe camps. AAnn geologists invariably knew where to locate the deep wells that were necessary to tap Comagrave’s elusive aquifers, which made settlement expansion as well as long-term scientific work in the field possible. And it was his AAnn peer, the scientist Riimadu CRRYNN, who had been the first to descry the secret of the Mourners.
That was why a base camp had been set up near the edge of the great escarpment. Below him, the sheer sandstone wall fell away more than a thousand meters to the flat valley floor below. Only the narrow and intermittent River Failings meandered through this desiccated vale, an echo of the immense watercourse that had once dominated this part of the continent. Already, field teams had gathered ample evidence that Comagrave had once enjoyed a much wetter and greener past. Whether this was the reason, or one of the reasons, for the demise of the Comagravian civilization and the highly advanced people who had called themselves the Sauun had yet to be determined.
Already, human exoarcheologists had accomplished much. Ruins of sizable cities were to be found on every continent. There was evidence of extensive agriculture, mining, and manufacturing—all the detritus of an advanced culture. And yet, tens of thousands of years ago, it had all perished. Nor was there any proof that the Sauun had achieved more than rudimentary space travel. Preliminary surveys of the planet’s three moons revealed the ruins of only automatic stations, with no provision for habitation or development.
This did not jibe with the level of scientific achievement visible in their abandoned cities. There were gaps in technological evolvement where none ought to exist. It was the presence of such gaps in the Comagravian historical record and the desire to fill them in that drew researchers like Cullen to a world so distant.
Behind him, portative digging equipment hummed softly as fellow team members and advanced students strove to bring to the light the answers that hopefully lay buried beneath the hard, rocky surface of the escarpment. A vanager cried as it dipped and soared above the valley floor. With a leathery wingspan equal to that of a small aircraft, the indigenous scavenger could stay aloft indefinitely, carrying its two offspring in a pouch beneath its neck. Vanagers lived in the clouds, mated while aloft, and raised their progeny without ever touching the ground. To feed, they dove and plucked what they could from the surface or snatched it out of the air. Long ago they had lost all but rudimentary evidence of legs and feet. A vanager caught on the ground could only flop about clumsily, its great wings useless until a gust of wind sent it aloft once more. Or so the biologists insisted.
Far across the valley, the Mountain of the Mourners stared back at him. Literally. Hewn from the solid green-black diorite of the mountain from which they seemed to be emerging, the Twelve Mourners were at eye level with the top of the escarpment. Counting elaborate headdresses whose significance had yet to be interpreted, they averaged some fifteen hundred meters in height. How they had been carved, when and with what tools, was another of the many mysteries that Comagrave proffered in abundance.
With such gigantic representations of their kind available for study, there was no wondering what the Sauun had looked like. Tall and slim, with long, humanoid faces and horizontally slitted eyes, the colossal carvings were clad in flowing robes embellished with elaborate decorations and intricate designs. Despite their immense size, the Twelve had been depicted with extraordinary care and detail. Who they had been, no one yet knew. Knowing that the Sauun had progressed beyond kingdoms to a modern, planetwide government, all manner of possibilities had been proposed. The Twelve could be famous artists, or scientists, or the carvers themselves. Or politicians, or criminals, or individuals chosen at random, or composites of a theoretical species ideal. Cullen and his colleagues did not know, and they burned to find out. On one verity they were pretty much agreed: It seemed unlikely any civilization would go to the trouble of chiseling fifteen-hundred-meter-high images out of solid rock, finishing and polishing them with extraordinary care, to perpetuate the memory of a dozen nonentities. Whoever the Twelve were, they represented personages of some importance in the history of Comagrave.
It was the AAnn Riimadu who had first noticed that the enormous, solemn eyes of the graven icons were aligned on a level with the top of the escarpment. It was he who had theorized that the pupilless orbs were each and every pair subtly positioned so that they all focused on approximately the same spot—the one where Cullen’s crew was presently engaged in exploration. Cullen owed the AAnn a debt that would be hard to repay. At the very least, they would share in the subsequent fame and profit of any discovery.
Riimadu was the only AAnn attached to the project. When he was not on site, Cullen missed the alien’s expertise. Like all his kind, the AAnn exoarcheologist displayed an instinctive feel for the makeup of the ground. Adopting his suggestions had already saved the team days of hard work. With most of the busy crew untroubled by the AAnn scientist’s presence from the start, one concern of Cullen’s had been removed early in the process of excavation.
He did have to be careful to keep Riimadu and Pilwondepat apart. Though diplomacy was not a province of his expertise, Cullen knew enough of the traditional enmity that existed between AAnn and thranx to see to it that the two resident alien researchers encountered one another as infrequently as possible. Unlike the AAnn, who took an active part in the excavation, Pilwondepat was present as an observer only, on behalf of several thranx institutes. They had as much interest in ancient races as did humankind, but Comagrave was not to their liking. Though humans could survive and even prosper on a desert world, to the thranx it was an exceedingly uncomfortable place to be.
While humans had to worry only about sunburn because of Comagrave’s comparatively thin atmosphere and take an occasional slug from a bottle of supplemental oxygen, and while Riimadu strolled around in perfect comfort, poor Pilwondepat lumbered about burdened by all manner of gear designed to supply him with the extra oxygen thranx required, as well as special equipment to keep his body properly moist. To a creature who thrived in high heat and even higher humidity, the climate of Comagrave was withering. Unprotected and unequipped, a thranx like Pilwondepat would perish within a few days, shriveled like an old apple. That was assuming it could keep warm at night, when surface temperatures dropped to a level tolerable to both humans and AAnn but positively deadly to a thranx.
So Pilwondepat was not comfortable with his assignment. He kept to his specially equipped portable dome as much as possible and only emerged to take recordings and make notes. When he spoke, it was with difficulty, through a special unit that covered his mandibles and moistened the air that flowed down his throat. Cullen felt sorry for him. The eight-limbed exoarcheologist must have done something unpopular to have come to a world so disagreeable to his kind.
As he turned to head back to camp, Cullen could feel the immense green-black bulges of the eyes of the Twelve drilling into the back of his neck. If only they could speak, he thought. If only they were not made of stone. And if only the Sauun had left some surviving record of what had happened to their civilization. It was such riddles that drove curious men and women to willingly endure harsh conditions on isolated outpost worlds. It was what had driven Cullen Karasi from a successful family business to the study of ancient alien civilizations.
The resolution to all the great unanswered questions lay somewhere on Comagrave, he was certain: buried in an abandoned city, secreted within a protected metal vesicle, locked in the overlying lines of incredibly complex Sauun code that Cullen’s colleagues working elsewhere on the planet had not been able to fully decipher. The first requirement of a good archeologist was curiosity, but the second was patience. Just as one could not hurry history, so too could the unveiling of its mysteries not be rushed.
But waiting for the key was hell.
Meanwhile, each individual science team hoped theirs would be the one to bring to light the Rosetta that would unlock the enigma of the Sauun. While Cullen’s hopes were as high as those of any of his colleagues, realistically he knew he was not likely to be the one to make the meaningful breakthrough. As others labored to interpret the riddles of the abandoned Sauun cities, he was stuck on a distant plateau whose isolation was notable even for an empty world like Comagrave. More than he cared to admit, he was relying for direction on the unofficial counsel and expertise of a visiting alien.
“I would not sstep there.” As he spoke, Riimadu underscored his words with a second-degree gesture of admonition.
The AAnn’s Terranglo was remarkably proficient. Seeing nothing but a few bumps in the ground ahead of him, Cullen nonetheless eased to his left before resuming his advance. He had come to trust the alien’s instincts.
“I don’t see anything,” he commented as soon as he had drawn alongside the other biped. Unlike the insectoid thranx, the anatomy of the scaled, sharp-eyed AAnn was fairly similar to that of humans. The AAnn had evolved from a reptilelike ancestor, and they shared with humans the same upright bisymmetrical build and the same large single-lensed eyes, though their hands and feet each boasted one less digit than their human equivalents. They had no external ears, vertical pupils like cats, and highly flexible, prominent tails that they used to supplement their serpentine, courtly language of gestures. But for these details of design, and the bright, iridescent scales that covered their bodies, they might pass at a distance for wandering bald primates. In build they were slim, slightly shorter on average than humans, and muscular. Sexual dimorphism was more subtle than in primates, so that Cullen had to be certain who he was talking to before addressing individuals of the species as male or female.
Riimadu had established himself as male from the day he had first been allowed to visit and conduct observations of the human archeological team. Now he unslung a small, painstakingly embossed leather pouch from around his neck and right shoulder. Despite the dry heat that radiated from the rocks atop the plateau, he was not panting, and AAnn did not sweat. While Cullen and his coworkers perspired profusely, Riimadu was very much at home in the hot, arid climate.
“Look and learn,” the alien hissed softly as he tossed the pouch.
It landed atop one of the slight bumps in the ground. Soundlessly, it was jolted half a dozen centimeters into the air, fell to the ground nearby, and lay motionless. Striding forward, his limber tail flicking from side to side, Riimadu recovered the pouch. Cullen noted that this time the AAnn handled it with extra care.
Bringing it back, he held it out for the human to inspect. Three small brown spines had pierced the bottom of the pouch. One went all the way through the fine leather to emerge from the other side.
“Defenssive mechanissm for an endemic ssoil-browsser. Not a predator.” Using his clawed fingers, Riimadu slowly extracted one of the spines from the pouch. Its tip was so sharp it seemed to narrow down to nothingness.
“Poisonous?” Cullen examined the needlelike implement respectfully.
“Analyssiss will be required. With your permission.” Removing the other pair of spines one by one, the AAnn carefully placed them within the pouch’s padded interior.
“I wonder if they would have gone through the sole of my boot.” Turning away from the no-longer-innocuous, quiescent mounds, Cullen continued back toward the site.
“While I am a firm believer in dynamic experimentation in the field,” Riimadu responded, “I did not feel it would be entirely ethical to utilize you for ssuch a purposse without firsst sseeking your conssent.” He hissed softly, an exhalation that Cullen had come to recognize as AAnn laughter. While the reptiloids were by nature more solemn than the thranx, and positively wooden alongside the Quillp, that they possessed and displayed a sense of humor could not be denied. It was the subject matter that was occasionally off-putting.