“Fair point.” Gregor then changed the subject. “Are you really going to publish a paper on these findings?”
Carson’s jaw clenched. He growled the words out. “Sure. In a year or two. Let Stephens stew about that.” He picked up a small branch from the ground and worried it, twisting the bark off. “The first thing I’ll do is hand a copy of the data over to law enforcement. If any of those artifacts ever show up, maybe they can be traced back to him. Bastard.” He whipped the branch against a nearby tree trunk.
Gregor shook his head. “Remind me never to get on your bad side.” He paused a moment, then: “You realize if you ever cross paths again he’ll have it in for you.”
“I hope we do cross paths again. As long as I see him first.” With a jerk of his arms, Carson tore the branch in half and tossed the pieces aside.
∞ ∞ ∞
Gupta returned about thirty minutes later. “The ship is okay. Here’s the gear.” He handed the recorder and omni to Carson. “So, why are we still here?”
“I wanted to check it completely before we left. Stephens may have missed something.”
He got down and crawled in through the opening. Once again as he got inside the omni sounded its warning. Didn’t I turn that off? Oh, right, this is the one Gupta brought back from the ship. Stephens had destroyed the other.
“Are you getting radiation again, Dr. Carson?” Gregor called from outside. He must have heard the warning.
“Yes, which is odd. Radon should have dissipated by now.” Carson checked the sensor setting. “Definitely some slight radiation inside, though.” He held the omni near the roof of the chamber, then near the floor. “It’s stronger on the floor, so it’s not the rock that the pyramid is made of.” He moved over to the sarcophagus. Near the edge of the lid the radiation reading jumped again. “More here. Very interesting.”
He called back to the others. “It’s safe enough, low level. Come on in, I’d like some help with this slab.”
They moved the sarcophagus lid to one side and Carson examined the interior. He leaned in and swept the omni back and forth. Near one corner the radiation reading spiked. Looking closer he found a small, flat object, broken along one side, the edge looking crushed. Dirt covered it and it had looked just like a rock in the beam from Stephens’ flashlight.
Carson double-checked that the radiation wasn’t harmful and picked the object up. It was half of a rounded square, with markings and what might be inlaid gemstones on one side. Carson examined the broken edge. Was there something metallic in there? He was about to brush the dirt off then remembered the radiation and stopped.
“What is it, Doc?” asked Gupta.
“I’m not sure. Some kind of talisman perhaps. Looks like it got caught on the edge of the sarcophagus, then damaged when the lid was put down. There must be dust from it where it got crushed, and scattered around the floor.”
“But radioactive?”
“Not that unusual in the rocks on this planet. It might be these gems. I’ll know more when I have it analyzed.” He bagged it and put it in a different pocket from the DNA sample. He checked the other pocket to be sure the toe was still there.
They inspected the sarcophagus and the rest of the chamber, but found nothing else. “Come on,” Carson said as he took a last look around. “We’re done here. That bastard Stephens cleaned it out. Let’s take some final recordings and get back to Verdigris City. Stephens, or whoever he is, is probably off-planet by now, but we need to report it.”
∞ ∞ ∞
The officer finished taking Carson’s report and saved the file, then opened another. “From your description of him, he sounds like an artifact smuggler named Hopkins,” he said. He turned the screen toward Carson. “This him?”
Carson nodded grimly. “That's him. Hopkins, you said?”
“Yes. Stephens is an alias he uses. He has others.”
“For what good that does me. All right, thank you.” Carson got up to leave.
“Where can we get hold of you if we need to? Not that that’s likely, I’m afraid.”
“I’ll be heading back to Alpha Centauri. I’m at Drake University in Sawyer City.” Carson didn’t mention the specimens he was taking back with him. The lab at the university could do a better analysis than anything here, and for what he had the paperwork wasn’t worth the trouble. He would file retroactively if they were significant. He still had his hopes on the DNA sample.
Chapter 5: Spitzer Spaceport
Spitzer Spaceport, Epsilon Eridani II
Jackie landed her ship and took care of getting her passengers disembarked, then went back to analyze the diagnostics log. The radiation burst hadn’t damaged anything. It shouldn’t even have tripped the warp shut-off.
The aging sensors were getting too sensitive. That was better than the alternative, but she’d have to get them replaced or the Sophie would be continually dropping out of warp too soon. She didn’t need that. She considered her options. Spitzer was very much an outpost world, popular with Eridani’s belt miners and geologists but only marginally habitable. She couldn’t get the work done here. She called the spaceport cargo office.
“This is Captain Roberts of the Sophie,” she began, and touched a control on her omni to transmit her ship’s information and her own captain’s and courier’s license data. “Do you have any small cargo going to either Tau Ceti or Alpha Centauri?”
“Hello Jackie, this is Pete. I heard the Sophie was in again. It’s been a few weeks.”
“Hey, Pete, I was hoping you’d be there.” Which was why she hadn’t queried the port database directly.
“Centauri? Aren’t you still based out of Tau Ceti?”
“I am, but Sophie needs some work. Nothing critical but if you’ve got cargo to make it worth my while . . .”
“Sure, then you might as well get the work done at Kakuloa. Let me check.” There was a pause as Pete checked the inventory of outbound cargo and mail. “Nothing for Kakuloa but I have a couple of packages for Sawyers World.”
“Close enough.” The Alpha Centauri system had two stars with terraformed planets around each, Kakuloa orbiting Alpha Centauri B, and Sawyers World around Alpha Centauri A. They were twenty seconds apart in warp, and Jackie knew the crew at the shipyard orbiting Kakuloa; they were familiar with the Sophie.
“Are you in a rush, Jackie, or can I persuade you to join me for dinner when I get off shift?”
Jackie considered. She knew Pete would be interested in more than just dinner, and after four days with a honeymooning couple aboard—maybe she should improve the soundproofing—she knew she would be tempted. However . . . “Just dinner, Pete, you know I don’t date passengers or port crew.”
“And just when do you ever see anybody else?” Pete asked, in a lighthearted tone. Jackie didn’t take offense.
She thought about it as she clicked off. That was a good question. Had there been anyone since that damn archeologist?
Chapter 6: Unexpected Results
Sawyer City, Alpha Centauri A II
“I have the preliminary results, Dr. Carson.”
Carson had taken his specimens to the lab as soon as he got back to the university. Fortunately, Dean Matthews had been away so Carson had had a few days reprieve.
“Great. What can you tell me about the sample?” This was it.
“The bone is mammalian. The structure looks the same as the indigenous Verdigrans, which isn’t surprising considering where you found it. Preliminary DNA tests confirm that.”
Carson slumped. “You’re sure?”
The technician nodded. “Yep.”
Damn. He’d been so certain that there was something special about that pyramid. He’d been hoping against hope that the body had been a spacefarer. Even if Stephens had made off with most of it, this sample should have been enough for Dean Matthews to give him another chance, to keep on looking. But now . . .
“Oh, okay, thanks,” Carson said. As an afterthought he added, “What about the st
one fragment, the talisman?”
“Sorry, we must have messed up the analysis on that.”
“What do you mean? It was radioactive, was that a problem?”
“Oh, no. Well, no and yes.” The technician looked a bit sheepish. “We get radioactive specimens in all the time, so that wasn’t a problem. It’s the source that’s messed up.”
“I thought it might be the gems. What do you mean, ‘messed up’?”
“Not the gems. The thing contains several grams of isotope technetium-99.”
“What?” Carson said, straightening.
“A beta-emitter. If the talisman weren’t broken you’d never have noticed the radiation; it wouldn’t get through the case. Technetium-99 betas are low energy.”
“What’s the half-life?” Carson wasn’t sure what the significance of the technetium was, but it was something that could be dated.
“About 211 thousand years. It’s artificial, of course, technetium isn’t part of any natural decay sequence, and geologically speaking all its isotopes are short-lived.”
Carson felt his heart pound. This meant a technological origin. With the provenance corrupted it wasn’t scientific proof, but he was sure the origin was alien, not human. Had there been another body in the sarcophagus after all? Retrieved by comrades, perhaps? They might well have left the other artifacts alone.
“So, not a product of a primitive civilization, then?” Carson wanted to be sure.
“What? You’re joking. You need a reactor to make technetium. In this it’s part of a betavoltaic battery. I’ve never seen this specific design, and the whole thing looks like carved rock except where it’s smashed, but there’s some kind of circuitry inside. That battery will put out a couple of milliamps for a hundred thousand years.”
“How old is it?”
“That’s the weird thing, sir. I wasn’t going to bother running isotope ratios to determine the age—”
“What? Why not?” To be this close . . .
“Well, I mean, how old could it be? Twenty, thirty years tops? I ran them anyway. I’m sorry, but the original sample must have been contaminated, I don’t trust the results.”
“Just tell me.” Carson felt a knot growing in the pit of his stomach.
“About fifteen thousand years. Like I said, it makes no sense.”
“Oh.” There was a ringing in Carson’s ears, and the room seemed to sway a bit. It wasn’t proof enough to publish, not yet, but it should be enough to persuade Dean Matthews. He’d get his second chance.
He realized the tech was waiting for something more from him. “Right. Well, thank you. Just email me the reports.”
As he walked back to his office, Carson thought about what the technician had said. If the case hadn’t been broken he wouldn’t have noticed the radiation—and it would look just like a primitive talisman. If there was one, there might be another, possibly intact. He’d have to search the artifact databases, run an image comparison. Carson chuckled to himself. Dean Matthews was going to be amazed at Carson’s sudden interest in cataloging, well not arrowheads, but talismans.
∞ ∞ ∞
Two days later, Carson stood in Matthews’ office, looking around while waiting for Matthews to finish a call. The case against the wall held several actual books—Croft & Jones’s classic on Archeological Field Techniques, Jackson’s Combat Archeology—and artifacts from different cultures and planets. The walls held, along with Matthews’ various diplomas, framed prints depicting ancient stone ruins, overgrown by jungle. The ruins were being uncovered by a few men, some with antique machetes. Carson thought wryly about how familiar those scenes felt. He looked closer and recognized them as Frederick Catherwood’s 300-year-old drawings of the first discoveries of Mayan ruins in the Yucatan, by the original John Stephens.
Carson’s own omni signaled an incoming call. He silenced it and glanced at the caller information. Office of Techno-Archeology?. What the hell was that? It would have to wait.
Mathews said goodbye and clicked off his own omni. “Hannibal, welcome back, have a seat,” said Matthews, gesturing to the chair in front of his desk.
“Thanks,” said Carson, sitting. “You wanted to see me?”
“Yes. A couple of things. First, since I wasn’t here when you got back, I wanted to ask how your little expedition to Delta Pavonis went. I heard you ran into some trouble?”
Carson scowled at the memory. “Yes. We got bushwhacked by tomb raiders.”
“Nobody hurt, I hope?”
“Just my pride. They must have been on to me from the start. They bribed someone on my recon team to squawk when we found something.”
“So you did find something.”
“Yes, a pyramidal tomb. You should have seen the artifacts, a wonderful collection. Then Hopkins and his men jumped us.” Carson leaned across Matthews’ desk, his fists clenched. “Damn it, I should have checked my crew, or had them turn over their omnis to me, or something.” He thumped his fist down on the desk in frustration and slumped back into his chair.
“The looters are getting more aggressive,” said Matthews. “Did they get everything?”
Carson looked up, a smile coming to his face. “Oh, they did leave us our recorders, so we have the data. But even better . . .” Carson paused, waiting.
“Yes? Go on, what?”
“We found an advanced technology artifact.”
“What? How? What did you find?”
“Hopkins missed it, it looked like a rock. But it was radioactive. It looks like a talisman, but there’s a technetium betavoltaic battery and some circuitry inside. Damaged, unfortunately.”
“And you can authenticate this?”
Carson knew that was a problem. “I’ve got recordings, but with Hopkins and his men in and out of the tomb before we found it, I can’t prove it was there originally.”
“So he could have left it.”
“With the technetium showing fifteen thousand years of decay? Not likely.” Carson saw the stony expression on Matthews face. “But no, I can’t prove that he didn’t.”
“That’s unfortunate. I—”
“But I might be able to find another.”
“What?”
Carson outlined what the technician had told him and his own online searches for images of similar artifacts.
“Yes, I’d heard you were being rather industrious. What did you find?”
“That’s the odd thing. I’m not getting any hits at all. I was expecting to have to weed out a lot of false positives.”
“No hits at all?” Matthews looked skeptical.
“I’m sure it’s just some glitch. I know I’ve seen something like it before, I just don’t remember where.”
“Well, speaking of memory, that brings us to the other topic I wanted to see you about. Apparently you also forgot to turn in your official grades for the semester before you left. That was over four weeks ago.”
“Yes. Sorry about that. They were in my computer, but all the interim grades were on the system.” Carson hated this sort of administrivia. The data was there, just not his officially blessed version of the same damn numbers.
“That’s not the point. The official grades have to be available by certain deadlines. Make sure you get that taken care of if you haven’t already. Remember, this is just as much a part of the job as the field work.” Matthews looked thoughtful for a moment. “I think that was all. Was there anything else?”
“Ah, no. Thank you.” Carson started to rise, then stopped and sat down again. “Actually yes. Do you know anything about an Office of Techno-Archeology? They called me just as I came in here.”
“Office of what?”
Carson checked the call information again. “Techno-Archeology. Division of Astrocartography, Astronomical Survey Group,” he read off. “That’s quite a mouthful.” He looked at the screen again. “Somebody named Ducayne.”
Matthews shook his head. “Never heard of him, or them. It does sound like there’s a government con
nection. One of your grant proposals?”
“I’d remember. With a name like that, it’s probably two guys in an office the size of a closet, in a temporary government building that should have been condemned twenty years ago.” Carson knew how these things went. They made up in length of title what they lacked in real size. “Techno-Archeology, that’s interesting. I’ve certainly never heard of them. I can’t imagine they have any real budget.” The latter, of course, was the critical issue.
Matthews chuckled at the “office in a closet” remark. No doubt his years of academic bureaucracy convinced him of the probable truth in those words. “Well, that’s as may be, but if it is about project funding, you’ll want to get back to them quickly.”
Carson knew when he’d been dismissed. “Right,” he said, getting up from the seat. “If you’ll excuse me then?”
Matthews had already shifted his focus to something else, and he gave a back-handed wave. “Oh, and do try to remember to keep your records updated, won’t you?”
Carson thought about the call as he walked back to his office. What was this really? Some collector trying to scam him with a phony government agency? Unlikely, the penalties for impersonating a government agent were high. In any case, the artifacts recovered usually went to either or both of the investigator’s academic institution or to the museum or museum-connected organization—Department of Antiquities, for example—that financed the expedition. And what was “Techno-Archeology”? He’d just have to ask this Ducayne character.
∞ ∞ ∞
Back at his desk, Carson returned the call.
“Office of Techno-Archeology, Ducayne speaking.”
“Ah, Mr. Ducayne, this is Dr. Hannibal Carson, at the—”
“Yes, Dr. Carson. Thank you for calling. I understand you’re looking at mounting an expedition to Gliese 68. Is that right?”
“Yes. But I was wonderi—”
Ducayne cut him off again. “Excellent, we’re looking for somebody to do a little side investigation for us in that direction. Why don’t you come in to our office and we can talk about it.”
The Chara Talisman Page 3
