Wine of the Gods 4: Explorers (9 page)

"Genes that don't appear to have evolved in the species that has them. Genes they acquired from interbreeding with other, closely related species."

"Close enough. You were about to get my report on Siberian wolves with introgressions from domesticated dogs, and rabbits with some genes we usually only find in domestic rabbits. The introgressions could be from their own species, if there was a sudden addition of a different sub-population. I was thinking Bering land bridge, bringing them in contact with a North American subspecies, which had naturally developed these genes, identical to our domesticated ones. An identical effect could be had by your Early Colonists bringing both domestic dogs and wild wolves and rabbits with them, and deer, but not antelope. The three local species of deer are quite solidly less than two thousand year split species. North American and European species that migrated in, after that meteor, no doubt, but is their tiny genetic pools due to near extinction or a small number of imported animals? But the antelope are thirteen thousand years from a common ancestor with Earth. They're all African, related to the Dik Diks. Likewise the wild cattle they found down south."

"Hmm. Hard to believe people would bring wild animals. Maybe game animals, to ensure they'd have something to hunt."

"Perhaps. All you have to do is explain how they developed dimensional travel fifteen hundred years before they had the computational power to do so. Not to mention the energy requirements."

"Well, they did have computers in world war five, and a wide variety of electrical generating power plants. It's not like we're talking about the Romans. In fact, it's rather egotistical of us to assume they
came from our world. Maybe another world that split off in the twentieth century and didn't get knocked flat by the Great Depression, or didn't loose a significant portion of the population in world war six."

Her eyes narrowed. "I want samples from those natives. I'll bet I can pin them down."

"Nelson's collecting rocks. We'll have to see what else he brings home."

"Most likely, proof that the
re was a worldwide disaster two thousand years ago."

"Yes, but he's met two natives, and their language is close enough to Merican to
almost be understood. The thirteen thousand year split won't work with that. Two thousand, at the longest."

Rae pursed her lips and nodded. "Now that's going to change things."

***

"See how the strata is tilted?" Nelson forgot that the natives couldn't understand him and babbled on.
Maybe it was the kids that had shown up with Dudit and Levty that made him babble. Kind of made him nervous. "Classic astrobleme. Absolutely classic. Unfortunately whatever made it was probably pretty much vaporized. I doubt we'll find any pieces of the asteroid that. . . "

"
It was a comet." Rustle interrupted.

Nelson blinked
at the girl. "A comet? Good God! Do you mean a comet hit
after
civilization? After written records?"

Du
dit stepped in with more information. "Un thousand tventy tree urs. Comet foul. Heah, everyone killed. Uthah sid, mos killed."

"
One thousand twenty-three years ago?" Nelson eyed the rocks. "I need samples. Lots of samples."

The n
atives watched in fascination as Nelson donned his harness and zipped up and down the nearly vertical inner wall of the crater. Havi, the boy, was six years old, with black hair and striking honey gold eyes. When Nelson brought samples up, the boy was literally jumping up and down. "Can I do that?"

"No." Dydit was very firm, and he switched his severe gaze from the boy to the girl. Blue eyes
, blonde hair, outdoor tan. Cuter than hell. "And not you eithah."

Nelson didn't know anything about children, but these two seemed to be well behaved.
They'd picked up the language differences at light speed. He took a small rock drill down to the very bottom. The lake surface was lower than the almost vertical walls, and he waded out far enough, he hoped, to get some samples from the sediments and rock filling the crater bottom.

Levty
and the kids were delighted to accept a ride in the gyp, sitting stiff and awkwardly in the back where the scouts usually rode when they weren't on foot. Dydit harnessed two of their horses to the red and yellow wagon and followed more slowly

Their easy communications broke down over the bridge. They just looked puzzled. "Burge. Yes. Is Burge."

"Who made it?"

They exchanged looks. "May
jek."

"Is M
ay Jek a person or a group?" Nelson asked.

They looked baffled. "May
jek?"

Roxy frowned over her shoulder, and rubbed her eyes. "Damn weird light reflections, you don't suppose they mean magic do you? They are primitive enough to still believe in magic."

"Ah, that must be it. So they haven't any idea who made the bridge."

Dudit had a bit of a coughing fit then, and Nelson suddenly wondered about illnesses. He'd never been on a planet that was completely void of vaccinations. There was no telling how sick these people could be, or if they were 'carriers' of something nasty.

"Let's get going. If we push it, we might get home in a day."

Dudit
drove over the bridge, but refused to go any further. Apparently the horses couldn't travel any further in a day. Finally he unharnessed them and turned all four animals loose, and released a cage full of chickens. Then he stepped up on the back of the gyp, behind the kids.  "Hokay. Now we can goo."

One day proved to be a bit optimistic, even with the trail already made pass
able. But they got back to the gate camp by noon the second day.

Lon Hackathorn met them, with the doctor and the head of the biology unit. Nelson's lab assistant sidled up to take his rock samples. Feeling responsible for
the poor natives, Nelson sent him off and followed Levty, Dudit, and the kids into the examination room.

Dudit and Levty were quite compliant, looking wide eyed at everything as they got a thorough physical exam.

Rustle and Havi were more wiggly, asked questions about everything, and Rustle kept quoting various Native authorities. Her mother said this, Lady Giselle said that, and Lady Giselle and the Old Wolf had made magical potions to cure everything. Apparently a herbologist, so to speak, and some sort of Shaman.

"No, they're gods
," the girl looked at him impatiently.

Nelson touched his lips uncertainly. Had he said that out
loud? He snorted in amusement as he realized the absurdity. It wasn't like she could read his mind.

The kids
got squirmy and Dudit, who was apparently their father, got a bit over protective. Lon ordered the doctors to keep the kids' exams brief.

But all four
got vaccinations for
everything
.

Lon winced at that. "I forgot about naive immune systems. Good thing they came back with you Nelson."

"Our immune systems are excellent." Rustle informed him. "Lady Gisele knows all about them."

"We don't get sick." Havi told the doctor. "That's what animals do."

"That's a strange way to apply a potion." Rustle peered in interest as the injector hissed against her arm.

The compact med center got a thorough work out, and Nelson heard the biologist muttering about wanting some esoteric equipment under her breath.

"They're so healthy it's scary." Doctor Dee Odessa pronounced. "Not a cavity in their mouths, vision is noticeably better than normal, no parasites or arterial plaque, a few old scars, but excellent healing under them, and even the scars are pretty faint, no keloidal buildup. A quick Genechip found all the markers for modern human."

Havi scrunched up his nose and whispered (loudly) to Rustle. "They think we're dogs."

"No, goats."

"M
ahhhh!" They both chimed in then giggled about it. They put their heads together in the corner and Nelson couldn't hear anything but the occasional giggle. They made him nervous, and they'd picked up modern Merican in just a few hours of talking to him and the scouts.

"I'll do an in-depth analysis and see if there are variations that might show when they split from the rest of the human race.
That should confirm the thirteen thousand year split, unless Lon's silly theory is right." Rae Galina, the biologist was busy with a computer.

"How can you tell that?" Nelson asked.

Galina smirked. "Statistical analysis of the alleles—the versions of each gene—should tell us their origin, and how many single nucleotide replacements they've accumulated since then gives us a good estimate of how long ago. We've been sampling plants and animals, comparing them with their equivalents on other worlds. They are falling into two groups. One group, most of the plants, the antelopes, the rodents and about three quarters of the birds, seem to have split about thirteen thousand years ago. The other group, one or two thousand. We figure the dimensional split was at the thirteen thousand year point. Something that happened at the end of the last ice age, possibly an asteroid strike. Then your asteroid hit about two thousand years ago. So once we get an in-depth analysis, we'll either have the descendants of the last ice age early human cultures, or we'll have to cede ground to Lon's pet theory."

"They speak a variety of
English. The split from Earth—or colonization—must have been post AD 1500. And more likely close to a millennia later. And the bolide was a comet. It hit one thousand twenty-three years ago." Nelson looked sure.

Lon wasn't the only one who glanced upward. "A comet. That's a bit unsettli
ng, with four visible comets in the sky. I think I need an astronomer and telescope."

Nelson nodded. "Didn't think about that. Yeah."

The doctor frowned. "Well, the crater is a fact. Physical and oral memory are close enough in date—I expect they lost a bit of time—your rock dating will probably pin the times down closer. But other than the language . . . well, we'll see what the detailed analysis of their gene maps tell us. I wish we had more samples." Dee shrugged. "Like it or not, they came from somewhere that spoke an English derived language. Lon's certainly hot on the Early Diaspora theory."

The
adult natives had been quiet through all of this, and Nelson suddenly wondered how much of it they understood. Poor lost primitives. Their whole culture, their society, their world was about to get royally screwed by a superior culture.

Well, he'd brought them here, so they were sort his responsibility. "How about some dinner?"
He spoke clearly and distinctly, gesturing them out of the medical trailer.     

***

After a rather disgusting meal, Lefty led the others up on a hill to look around, and have a private discussion.

"Insufferable assholes. Thank the old gods they're so completely blind." Lefty said, apparently studying the sunset. Never and Question were exploring the camp, invisibly.
Rustle and Havi started rolling down the far side of the hill.

"I really thought you were going to paste our old buddy Nelson when he tried to tell us that it didn't bother him a bit that we fucked each other." Dydit snorted. "Where the Hell did they get that idea?"

"From their machines," Question spoke from thin air. "They had a meeting and showed all their pictures. The first one was of Dydit and Never, from the back, sitting with their arms around each other. I think it must have been right after you finished the bridge."

"Pity they missed the bridge building," Dydit growled, looking around carefully.

"They mistook me for Never, even from the back?" Lefty fiddled with his braid. "I'm going to have to start cutting my hair like an officer." Like most Veronans, he was an over all tawny, hair, skin and eyes. Never was several shades lighter in the hair and darker in the skin. But sitting, from the back, the braid would probably be the main distinguishing feature.

"You are an officer."

"That wasn't my idea."

"But it means they don't suspect there are more than two of us, so that's actually good news."

"Never is still in the meeting. She figured we'd better keep track of them," Question appeared, lounging on the hillside away from the camp. "Apparently they're making a report and sending it to their superiors in a few weeks."

Dydit curled a lip. "And how long will that take? I'll bet it involves more of those, 'e lec tron ics, better than magic' machines of theirs. I don't suppose you'd like to play with them, Question?"

"I'd like to get a look at that building at the end of the long empty street," Lefty said. "It's one they didn't show us, and it's quite prominently placed."

"We'll keep an eye on it," Question said. "Now don't you two forget that
they
are picking up our language rather quickly too, so don't get into the habit of chattering away like they aren't there, same as they do."

"Right."