Juanita Coulson - Children of the Stars 04

by Past of Forever

  “I aim to please. I told you I was more than a rocket jockey.” “Far more.” Kat grinned.

  When they approached the first selected site, Dan took manual control and landed flashily. Once on the ground, though, he became a spectator. Kat and Praedar drew cores and calibrated and set up their monitoring gear. Dan wandered around the grassy knolls for a while, then sat in the shade of the skimmer, daydreaming.

  He saw time rushing backward two millennia. A bustling city rose where meadows now lay. Chuss’ ancestors hurried about their daily business. Transports and aircraft hurtled toward distant N’lac population centers. Suborbital vessels arced through the dark sky. An interplanetary ship stabbed up and out to the N’lacs’ colony world, T-S 311.

  It had been a thriving, progressive people, on their way, with all that implied. There must have been the usual humanoid intraspecies competition, some angling for power. That was an inevitable side effect of aggressive growth, and any culture that achieved FTL had to have that kind of drive.

  As humanoids expanded into the universe, they also, inevitably, encountered other humanoid races. That demanded a delicate balancing act and mutual compromise—or disaster could result. It took a lot of adjustment for species that had evolved light-years apart to learn to tolerate the very different behaviors and customs of their stellar neighbors. Sometimes that contact was so difficult that diplomacy and trade could be carried on only in a cultural “neutral zone.” One aspect of Praedar’s expedition that awed Dan was the way five species had managed to work together with so few clashes.

  The same self-interest and energy that drove humanoids to the stars made them pugnacious, and that could lead to belligerence. Whimeds and Vahnajes had teetered on the brink of war far too many times in recent centuries. Terra had also had its tense collisions with non-Terrans. Fortunately, intelligent beings generally understood the terrible risk involved and backed off before the point of no return. The Whimeds and Vahnajes had contrived complex game rules, administered by both species’ saner factions—playing at espionage and limited, surgical strikes without dealing mortal wounds to their enemies. Terra, Lannon, Rigotia, and Ulisor had cooperated, mediating, helping the felinoids and lutrinoids maintain that dangerous equilibrium, for the benefit of galactic survival.

  The N’lacs, though, had never had to cope with those problems. Their starbound civilization had collapsed before they’d even made a good start on interstellar development.

  When Kat had told Dan how important the expedition’s work was, he thought she exaggerated. Now he realized she hadn’t. Knowledge was a weapon in a hostile universe. It was important that Praedar’s team learn what had happened to the N’lacs and make sure it didn’t happen to other humanoid races.

  At the second site, things went pretty much as they had at the first. Dan waited and the scientists measured and collected.

  Surveys complete, they stowed the equipment aboard and flew homeward toward N’lac Valley.

  For a time, they rode in silence. Then Praedar said with aching regret, “So much yet to study.”

  Kat stroked his crest. The intimate action disturbed Dan more than he wanted to admit. A Terran woman shouldn’t caress a Whimed male that way. It wasn’t quite... human. Kat said, “Wait till we make our presentations at the Assembly. You’ll see. We’ll get new grants and new volunteers. With any kind of luck, we’ll be able to field a crew at every likely dig in this hemisphere.”

  Praedar murmured, “Perhaps.” Responding to Kat’s touch, he made a deep rumbling noise in his throat, a basso purr. However, his voice was sad. “I will not live to see the conclusion. This is the work of several lifetimes.”

  “No, none of us will,” Kat agreed. She gazed at the desert horizon. “But we’ll have the satisfaction of being the initiators. We’re making history here, Praedar.”

  The Whimed shook his big head. “No fame endures. In ages, our civilizations will end. During future millennia, other races will explore our ruins as we explore the N’lacs’. The cycles will continue.” He spoke calmly, very relaxed now.

  Dan shivered. Xenoarchaeologists were used to dealing in terms of thousands and thousands of years, historical infinity, with species being bom, living, dying, then rediscovered long after they were dust. To Dan, it was an uncomfortable reminder of his mortality and mankind’s. Were all the seemingly permanent peoples and objects in his universe mere blinks of a cosmic eye?

  Kat was saying “It’s possible to be remembered. Look at Schliemann’s work at Troy on Earth. And your grandsire’s on Dobend in the Whimed Federation. No one will forget them, and they won’t forget your achievements, either. We’ll prove your theories to everyone. They’ll have to admit you’re right.” She pressed Dan’s shoulder and added, “You recognized the link between the wall paintings and the N’lacs instantly. If an untrained layman can do that, your relatives ought to be able to, too.” “Umm. Maybe Feo has a card up his sleeve,” Dan said, playing devil’s advocate. “Something that contradicts your findings, new stuff he’s found on T-S 311...”

  “Feo is foolishly stubborn,” Praedar cut in. Dan was surprised by the Whimed’s angry tone. “Saunder will not concede he has located a colony of this world. He continues to insist that the ruins on T-S 31I predate the cities here. He selects only evidence to support his own ideas and completely ignores the results of Joe’s gestation experiments; the Saunders will not accept that the N’lacs are the true descendants of the race that built this culture.” Dan said, “Sounds like Feo and Hope are as bullheaded as a few other members of my clan. Huh! Chuss is no monkey, no stupid offshoot of the main local humanoid tree...”

  “Exactly!” Kat exclaimed. “Feo’s claims are an insult to the N’lacs. Worse, he and Hope have tremendous clout in the xeno-arch community. It’s not fair! They don’t need the extra backers or the credits. Being a Saunder doesn’t automatically make them right. But because they are Saunders, they command respect and money. Meanwhile, we scrimp and limp and beg for a hearing; and we’re selecting better data!”

  “I guess people always want more money,” Dan said. “Even when they’re as rich as my kin. Like Varenka, trying to tap my Dad for a donation to clone Jael Saunder and restore Saunderhome ...”

  The scientists pounced on his statement. “Saunderhome? Varenka Saunder-Nicholaiev?” Praedar’s eyes shone brightly. He and Kat prodded Dan for more info. Sorry he’d said anything, he told them about the holo letter.

  “Views of Saunderhome? Current views?” Kat was delighted. “Wonderful! May we see them? The last report in The Journal of Archaeo-Architectural Restoration was several years ago. Rumor has it that Varenka’s sending a rep with an update to the Assembly. But it would be great to get an advance peek.”

  “I’ll make you a copy of the letter,” Dan said, shrugging. “Nothing much to look at, though. Saunderhome’s a rotting wreck. That old woman’s throwing good credits after bad.”

  “How can you talk that way? You’re a McKelvey.”

  “A poor McKelvey,” he reminded her. “Varenka never scratched my back or Dad’s. I won’t scratch hers.”

  “But this is history!” Kat seemed horrified by his disdain. “The Saunders. The McKelvey s. It’s important. It’s as if you were throwing away priceless relics of the Egyptian dynasties, or of Alexander’s empire, or the Romans’. Don’t you have any pride in your family’s significance in the human time stream? The Saunder-McKelveys are Earth, a distillation of mankind’s brightest and best..

  “Like Feo Saunder? Nope. I don’t see how the family’s reputation in and out of the Terran sector affects me. I’m not included in the show, or the wealth.”

  Dan was tom between bemusement and annoyance. Kat was cute when she was fuming. On the other hand, she was getting steamed up over nothing. Saunderhome! A pile of junk!

  She abandoned the argument, sitting back and pouting. Her angry reflection shimmered on the control panel throughout the rest of the flight. As Kat sulked, Praedar eyed the pilot sidelong.
The scrutiny was unnerving. Was Praedar probing him, as he’d probed the ground at those remote sites? And what did the Whimed think he was looking for in Dan? A hidden, sincere interest in Varenka’s plans, despite Dan’s apparent contempt? If so, Praedar had things pegged wrong!

  They entered the valley from the west, banking steeply above the complex and landing lightly near the dud pits once more.

  Scientists ran to meet them. Dan gawked in dismay. It was almost midday. The heat was awful. But Terrans, Whimeds, and Armilly all courted sunstroke—running! They banged on the skimmer’s hull and gestured urgently, nagging the riders to get out of the cockpit.

  The instant Dan cracked the canopy, Sheila leaned inside and shouted, “We found a second dome! A much more recent construct! Come on!”

  Praedar and Kat jostled Dan in their haste to scramble out. They and the other offworlders raced up the slope to the dome. Dan’s curiosity warred with good sense. The smart thing to do was stash the skimmer in the hangar and then hole up in the complex’s air conditioning. But... what was going on at the dig?

  He yielded to temptation. As he approached the hill, he saw that the entire N’lac village had come to view the discovery— Chuss, his mother, his siblings, scoop-pawed workers, elders, women, kids—.everybody. The N’lacs knelt reverently, patting something that was concealed by the mass of wrinkled bodies. Scientists crowded close behind the e.t.s, using scanners and talking loudly.

  Dan scaled the packed earth on the opposite side of the ramp and stood atop the painted wall. It gave him a broad overview of the crazy scene below.

  He wasn’t the only one who’d taken that high road. Sleeg knelt beside him, keening.

  On the ramp, Sheila was screaming to make herself heard above the din. “We’ll use the dredge to finish clearing it. I got this far and figured we’d better shut down till you had a chance to assess the setup. Look how intact it is! Fabulous preservation!”

  Dan shielded his eyes with his locked hands, peering down into milling confusion. N’lacs were petting a dirt-encrusted wooden door. The portal peeped from a surrounding mound of soil. Dan mentally erased tons of earth, imagining how things would look when the vacuum dredge completed its job. As Sheila had said, it was a dome, smaller than the one farther south. This dirty door didn’t appear to belong with the high-tech material of that larger ancient building. Yet it was far more sophisticated than the villagers’ mud-brick huts.

  “Date?” Praedar demanded. Someone yelled that the door tested at five hundred Terran years before present.

  “Definitely made by villagers...”

  Dan was bewildered. Chuss’ people had built this? How? Ordinary, dull-witted N’lacs were incapable of that. Chuss might have the necessary intelligence and drive, but he lacked the knowledge, and was only a single N’lac pup.

  And the date was wrong. Praedar said the civilization collapsed thousands of years ago, not five hundred. Which date was right? They both couldn’t be. This was crazy!

  Sleeg chanted. A few words of pidgin Terran crept into his crooning litany. “Evil Old Ones! Big Dark! The place of the many fathers-ago. Bad bad! We be punished!”

  Cottonmouthed, blasted by a merciless sun, Dan listened to the old N’lac and felt icy cold.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Tale-tellers

  The celebration/lamentation came to an abrupt end when Armilly keeled over. Subdued, murmuring nervously, the N’lacs retreated to their village. Dan and four other muscular male offworlders carried Armilly to the cook shack and laid the procyonid near a cooling vent. Once he had rested a bit and swilled a couple of liters of foul-smelling, fruit-laced water, he perked up.

  By then the entire expedition was jammed into the room. The medical emergency over, bull sessions began. Dan had hoped to take a siesta after lunch, but the debates were so noisy they carried even into the bunk area. So he sat on the sidelines as the marathon arguments and theories raged around him.

  “... fits perfectly into previously collected legendary materia! ...”

  “... not necessarily. Data. We must have more data...”

  “... why did this have to happen now! Why not last season? It’s such a short time till we have to leave for the Assembly. How can we get this new stuff in presentable order by then?”

  “... run a prelim, whet their interest...”

  .. no, it’d never work. The Saunders won’t be sitting on their hands. They’ll crucify us, claim it’s only speculation ...”

  “... have to include enough N’lac holos and artifacts to prove our case...”

  “... can’t overlook Sleeg’s religious fears or offend the people’s taboos. Interference with cultural integrity...”

  “... such a thing as overdoing this noninterference routine ...”

  “.. . give Sleeg time to adjust. His myths are coming true before his eyes...”

  “... and ours!”

  “... dating is so exact. Did you see the figures? Superb!”

  After a while, the conversations became repetitious. Dan dozed off and on. Each time he awoke, the team seemed to be rehashing something they’d discussed earlier. Praedar looked patiently pained by all the verbal circling.

  It was late afternoon, and temperatures outside surely had begun to moderate. Dan made his getaway, moving quietly. He was a few meters from the cook shack when Praedar overtook him and asked, “Where are you going?”

  “Flying the skimmer out to my starhopper. Okay?”

  “That is where you have the recording concerning Saunder-home?” Praedar was a big, hungry cat, lusting to get his claws on Varenka’s views of that rotting mansion.

  Smiling, Dan said, “I’ll make you a dupe.”

  “Very good.” The Whimed nodded, staring fixedly at the domes. He muttered, “So much to do. Truth. We are the preservers.”

  It was an oath. Dan edged away carefully. Praedar was still gazing at the domes when he reached the skimmer. To Dan, the alien appeared to be in a trance.

  Dust devils and thermals were everywhere on the valley floor. Dan rode the latter up to the mesa. Long shadows, thrown by the tendrilled trees, snaked across the sand. He took a roundabout route to the landing strip, enjoying the scenery. Every day he felt less like a stranger here.

  At Fiona, he ran his maintenance checks and played back the auto com monitor. There wasn’t much news to tell the camp, this trip: a plague scare on Mars; a Vahnaj ambassador threatening to boycott Terran products if Loezzi Settlement traders didn’t stop alleged favoritism toward Whimed merchants—more of that ongoing age-old cold war between Vahnajes and felinoids; and an arrest of a smuggling ring in Terran sector seven. Adam McKelvey, the fleet officer commanding that operation, would probably get a medal. Dan grinned proudly. He didn’t begrudge Adam the reward. Big brother earned it, putting his life on the line for Earth and the spacers. Their sisters were doing pretty good in their careers, too. The sole foulup among Reid McKelvey’s brood was the baby of the family.

  Like father, like son? Both were unlucky. Reid’s lousy judgment had bankrupted him. Dan had struggled up from an apprenticeship toward a decent future and had wrecked it by being stupid and hauling one bribe-buried cargo.

  Now he’d just have to start climbing all over again.

  He shoved aside depressing thoughts and got busy duping Varenka’s segment of that letter. On a whim, he let it run in real time, watching.

  Saunderhome! What must it have been like to live there when it was in its prime? He didn’t think any of his direct ancestors had resided in the tropical palace, but Dan wasn’t sure. After five generations, the Saunder-McKelvey family tree was crowded and complicated. His wealthy relatives hired genealogists to keep track of the various connections. That took an expert; the clan was scattered from Earth clear out to the sector’s fringes.

  According to Varenka’s tearful account, the last occupant of Saunderhome had been Colin Saunder, Jael’s great-grandson. He’d left the rotting hulk in favor of more modem quarters back in 2120,
thirty-five years ago! By now the place wasn’t just a wreck. It was ancient history. No doubt that was why Praedar wanted to see it.

  Another reason was its association with Dan’s family. If an alien knew of any Terrans, he knew of the Saunder-McKelveys. Kat called the clan a distillation of mankind’s brightest and best, and to a degree that was true. Amid those dilettantes Dan scorned were giants. Ward Saunder’s inventions had paved humanity’s path to the present era. Ward’s wife Jael had consolidated his patents and created an enormous fortune, built Saunderhome, and made sure that Ward—and Saunderhome—became immortal. Their son Todd had established the first contact with extraterrestrials. His daughter Brenna and her cousin Morgan perfected the FTL drive. Anthony Saunder, clone of Todd’s brother, led the Settlement planets in their breakaway from crippling economic and political ties to Earth. Ethan pioneered in new world development. Geoff, martyred in the Ad Astra spacecraft sabotage tragedy, became a posthumous trigger for peace negotiations that averted interstellar war. Brenna’s daughter Regan, managing far-flung S-ME Corporation... Regan’s son Cameron, executive of Pan Terran Media Network. .. Wileen McKelvey, tamer of ocean worlds.. . Lara McKelvey, governor of Vaughn Settlement... Nathan Saunder, the sector’s favorite entertainer...

  The list went on and on. Little wonder Praedar, like Varenka, regarded Saunderhome as a historic shrine and the Saunder-McKelveys as Earth’s uncrowned royalty.

  Dan chuckled bitterly. He didn’t feel at all like royalty!

  He completed the dupe, then cued a final scan of the monitors. On this go-around, he spotted an item he’d missed earlier. With a frown, he toid the comps, “Repeat traffic blip.” The screen blinked. A dot froze on the grids. Analyzers ran checks and double-checks to confirm.

  Dan leaned back in his web couch, studying the display. The local nav-sat had noted a vehicle’s entry into planetary orbit. But what sort of vehicle? Configuration didn’t match anything in the United Species recognition keys. The object was too small to be manned and didn’t follow normal ident formats. It had dropped over the horizon and off the sat’s scanners. A meteor? No, the vector spiraled in, a controlled descent.