Serpent's Gift (15 page)

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"Much is known about the Mizari expedition now called the 'Lost Colony,'"

the Professor said ruefully, "except, of course, for their ultimate fate. They obtained all of their supplies from a specific manufacturing area located in their southern hemisphere. The magnetic 'signature' will be very clear."

"There are other tests that will also be conducted," Serge added, "but the magnetic tests are among the most important. If you'll recall our session last week on identifying falsified and stolen black-market artifacts, this technique has been frequently used to uncover fakes as opposed to stolen treasures."

After a brief demonstration of the sifter and the other excavation tools, Professor Greyshine instructed them to put on their helmets, indicating another airlock within the chamber. "We must go down an unpressurized tunnel. Taller students, please be cautious. The ceiling is quite low."

The group passed through the airlock and into a narrow, low passage, illuminated by battery-powered lights every ten or fifteen meters. Hing was short enough to walk upright, but many of the students--including the tall Heeyoon--were forced to bend down and keep their heads tucked like turtles.

The tunnel narrowed even farther, until they were walking single file. Hing was not usually claustrophobic, but even she felt uneasy as the walls and the ceiling seemed about to close in on them, trapping them. "Only a few steps more," Serge called out reassuringly, "then you will be able to walk upright."

As he'd promised, the passageway widened out, and suddenly they were facing a branch-off and another airlock. "In here," Serge said, standing in the mouth of the side tunnel and gesturing them past him, thus forestalling anyone deciding to embark on any side trips.

This airlock held only a few individuals, so it took the group several minutes for everyone to get into the small cavern. Hing, still bringing up the rear as requested, was in the last party to go through. Gravity made her feel stumble-footed again as she stepped over the threshold, took off her helmet, then looked around.

Before her, frozen calcite waterfalls glimmered like ghosts beside vast columns and other formations of fused rock. A sheet of dark flowstone overhead looked like a horse's head thrown back, bugling silently into the eons. Hing smiled wryly to herself as she imagined a tour guide pointing it out and calling it "The Black Stallion."

This chamber did not have the slagged floors and walls of the other.
It must
have been protected when the comet hit,
Hing

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thought,
because it's so much deeper inside the mountain than the big
cavern.

She inhaled the air, tasting the dry, chalky odor of ancient rock, and wrinkled her nose.

This chamber was approximately twenty meters by thirty, and roughly ellipsoid in shape. At the other side of the chamber another airlock, a tiny, one-person job, was inset into the wall. Serge explained that the tunnels beyond continued an unknown distance into the mountains. Along the right wall, three-meter-wide crevasses in floor and wall marked an ancient split in the rock. As Hing followed the students past the rift in the floor, she looked down, seeing a Mizari protective field generator resting on a small ledge approximately five meters down. The artificial gravity and pressure only extended down as far as that ledge; below that generator was the asteroid's normal hard vacuum and one-tenth gee.

The Professor gestured to the floor, which had only a few grids marked off.

"We only began excavations here last month," he said. "The ration pellet container and the waste-disposal bag fragment were found in this chamber, approximately where those two grids"--he pointed--"have been excavated."

Hing stared around her, trying to imagine what it might have been like here four thousand or so years ago, picturing Mizari gliding along these dusty limestone floors, their scales crunching the dust, tracing it into swirling patterns.

Suddenly she stiffened, then grabbed Serge's arm. "Serge, look!" she whispered excitedly. "Something up on that ledge is reflecting the light!"

The young instructor followed her gaze, but couldn't see anything until he did a half-knee bend, hunkering down to her eye level.
"Mon Dieu, vous
avez raison!"
Serge whispered. "And see the ridge leading up? It has been artificially flattened and smoothed, like a Mizari ascension ramp!"

About three meters above them there was a dark depression in the cave wall; it resembled the mouth of a minuscule cave. A flattened ridge of rock lay beneath it, angling upward from the cavern floor. Deep in the blackness, something glimmered softly.

"I see it!" Hing said, still clinging to his arm. "Could they have carried something up there?"

"Professor!" Serge cried, waving an arm, then gesturing for emphasis.

"Voila! Look up there! Hing saw it first!"

"What?" The Professor squinted and weaved, trying to see what had attracted their attention.

Khuharkk' sat up on his hindquarters, his violet eyes widening,

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"I see it, too! Crouch down, Professor! There is something shiny up there, along the wall just inside that tiny cave."

"By the Teeth of my Ancestors," Greyshine muttered, his eyes narrowing to slits. Absently, he skirted the edge of the crevasse in the floor, then trotted over to the base of the rock ramp and peered upward. "Here we have been looking so hard at the ground--what is on it and beneath it--that we failed to examine what might lie above. Serge"--his voice grew suddenly shril --"I believe Hing has discovered our missing star-shrine! More evidence that we have indeed found a link to the Lost Colony!"

The class began applauding excitedly. Hing, grinning, stepped forward and curtsied, just as she would have taken a bow on opening night.

The Professor's sharp canines gleamed as he yipped wordlessly with excitement. When the clamor died down, he eyed the little opening measuringly. "Serge, hand me the camera and the neutron emitter," he ordered. "I am going to climb up there."

"Are you sure you should?" the young man said doubtfully, handing the alien the requested pieces of equipment. "It's quite steep. Perhaps we should go back to the other chamber for an anti-grav climbing unit."

The Professor laughed, a great roaring bark that echoed around the chamber. "My people are the most surefooted of the Fifteen Known Races, Serge, and as a youth, my hobby was ridge- strolling." Placing the neutron emitter in his mouth (he looked for all the world like a German shepherd Hing had had as a child), he clipped the minicam to the belt of his suit, then began scrambling up the narrow rock ramp on all fours.

Hing watched, fascinated, as he reached the tiny ledge, then bent forward into the mouth of the cave, the stumpy shape of his tail hanging over the brink. "It is!" he shouted, busily filming. "The star-shrine! And a beautiful one at that. . . definitely the work of a master artist!"

Hing had heard of the star-shrines . .. the Star Seekers had worshiped the cosmos in all its expanding glory, but in order to show the proper humility, they had created small representations of starscapes for use in their devotions, not presuming to gaze upon the actual stars during their religious ceremonies. Star-shrines were like tiny planetariums, and often the "stars"

were made from inlaid precious and semiprecious stones.

"Is it jeweled?" she called.

"Yes, I see sunstones, firestones, icestones ... oh, it is a won- §

Professor Greyshine put down the camera and picked up

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the neutron emitter. "I will use this to discover whether anything is stored behind it. Sometimes the Star Seekers secreted records behind their starshrines, and the neutron emitter will reveal any such storage places. An early version of this instrument was used to look for hidden chambers in one of the pyramids on Earth's old Egypt, centuries ago," he added, then turned with the camera in hand. "Here, Serge, take this," he instructed, placing it on the ledge beside him.

Serge started forward, but Khuharkk' was already there. "Allow me," the alien said, and before the young instructor could protest, the Simiu was scampering up the narrow ramp as agilely as if he moved on a level floor.

Greyshine had already turned back to his discovery, neutron emitter in hand.

He switched it on. "First I must--"

The alien broke off as an alarm abruptly began shrieking. "Radiation warning!" a computerized voice announced. "Radonium-2 levels dangerous to most life-forms detected in this area! Vacate immediately!"

"Helmets on!" Serge yelled. Hing fumbled with hers, her heart slamming. As soon as she could see again, she looked back to see Serge, his helmet still in his hands, his voice now muffled and distant. "Professor, you must put on your helmet!" he shouted. "Come down at once!"

Hing's radio frequency echoed with a loud babble of mingled curses, frightened questions, and panicky exclamations. "Everyone stay calm," she commanded, her voice cutting through the cacophony. "These suits are shielded against radiation, remember? We're going to leave right away, but we're going to do it in an orderly fashion, as soon as the Professor is safe.

Remember your emergency drills! Now quiet down and keep this frequency clear!"

Blessed silence ensued.

Serge, put on your helmet!
she urged him mentally, realizing that he was probably inhaling contaminated air with every breath. But if he did that, he'd no longer be able to communicate with the Simiu or the Heeyoon, still high above him. "Khuharkk', if you back down, I will guide you," he urged, his voice calm and steady. Putting up his hands, he began coaxing the alien backward. "Professor Greyshine," he repeated urgently, "come
down!"

"But the star-shrine--" Hing could barely hear the archaeologist's protest.

Then, evidently deciding that he had no alternative, the alien instructor began crabbing sideways, trying to turn so he could begin his descent--

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--until his hand slipped!

Hing gasped in horror as the Heeyoon's heavy body lurched, then skidded.

An instant later the Professor was falling, slamming into Khuharkk', tumbling toward the humans. Hing screamed involuntarily as she threw herself to the side, grabbing at a flailing arm or leg. Her gloved hand skidded over the slick material of his spacesuit, finding no purchase, no hold . ..

The Heeyoon's frightened yelp rose above the still-wailing alarm and the computer's repetitious warning as he landed on the brink of the crevasse; then, with a final howl of agony, the Professor disappeared over the edge.

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Heather leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, trying to relax. She was sitting in a study cubicle in the spacious StarBridge library, waiting for her tutor in alien telepathic techniques to arrive. The child was supposed to be meditating, clearing her mind, but her thoughts churned restlessly, images forming behind her closed eyes.

Images . . .

Khuharkk's yelping, gibbering form, trailing filth from his matted hair, bolting headlong down the hall, nearly knocking her over. Heather had barely begun to savor her victory before she'd been startled by the blare of the emergency alert. She'd wandered aimlessly until one of the seniors, a Chhhh-kk-tu, grabbed her and strapped her into one of the Mizari beltpaks, showing her how to activate her location transmitter.

Heather had never envisioned her prank causing such a furor. Students had milled anxiously in the corridors, whispering that the environmental systems were all tied in together, and that a problem with one might affect all the others. Her mouth dry and heart pounding, Heather wondered whether her meddling had caused additional systems to overload or short out. By the time the "all- clear" had been issued, she'd been so scared she was on the verge of confessing everything.

Images...

Rob Gable's well-drawn features replaced Khuharkk's draggled

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form in her memory. Heather had discovered the psychologist leaning against the wall near the entrance to her Advanced Mizari class the next day. When he'd spotted the girl, he'd beckoned her over. "Hi, Heather," he'd said, his usually warm smile noticeably absent. "How are you doing?"

The girl smiled uncertainly and shrugged. "Oh, fine, Dr. Ga-- uh, Dr. Rob.

How are you?"

Rob's dark eyes never left her face as he folded his arms across his chest.

"Not so good, Heather. I didn't sleep very well last night. I was worried about the environmental systems. One failure can lead to another, you know .. ."

He leaned forward, and for a second Heather tensed, thinking he was going to grab her shoulders and shake her. "You
did
know that, didn't you?"

Oh, shit, he knows I did it!
Heather thought frantically, I
don't know how, but
he knows!
She almost blurted out the whole story then and there, but fears of going back to Earth, of being returned to Uncle Fred, had stopped her. Biting the inside of her lip, she forced herself to say quietly, "Yeah, I know. I was really scared."

"I'll bet you were. So were a lot of other people," Rob said grimly.

"Do you have any idea how it happened?" Heather asked, wishing she dared to search his mind to find out what he knew. But she'd abandoned the idea of a telepathic probe the moment she'd noticed the jeweled earcuff he was wearing. The tiny thing was almost concealed by his hair, and so pretty that it might have been mere ornamentation, like the small ring of Rigellian opal Rob wore in his left earlobe--but Heather was willing to bet it was another of those damned distorts.

The psychologist hesitated for a long second before replying. "I hate to tell you this, Heather," he said finally, "but we're pretty sure the whole thing was due to sabotage. Computer sabotage."

The child's stomach lurched sickeningly.
Calm down!
her survivor-self ordered sharply.
If he had any proof, he wouldn't be playing cat and mouse.

And you know you didn't leave any traces of tampering behind.
"That's awful!" She managed to register an appropriate amount of shock. "Who could have done such a thing?"