But this Star Shrine could not possibly have been planted. This tomb had lain undiscovered since it had been sealed millennia ago. Mitchell felt his head swim from more than the ancient air.
"They're Mizari, correct? Could they possibly be authentic?" growled Khuharkk' in awed tones.
"Hang on a second," Gordon muttered, scanning the remainder of the round-walled chamber. Pottery bowls, bronze vessels, sheaf-scrolls and daily life objects also lay on the floor. Finally, he forced himself to pull back and relinquish the sight.
When he faced Khuharkk', the Simiu's violet eyes shone as brightly as the artifacts. Gordon nodded. "Yes, Khuharkk'. From what I can tell without testing them, they're genuine Mizari relics. Must be from the Lost Colony. No other Mizari of that time traveled so far away from the Known Worlds. You know what this means, don't you?"
Khuharkk' fingered the pockets of his vest-jacket, hung about with small implements of their trade. "This means that the Mizari will support us in getting increased funding, right?"
Gordon nodded. "This is the find of the century, lad.
8
The Mizari Archaeological Society is going to shit bricks over this."
Khuharkk's brow furrowed. "Shit... bricks?" he repeated slowly. "An idiom, sir?"
"Sorry, son." Mitchell found himself grinning wildly. "I meant that they're going to be very, very, VERY excited and really eager to help us out!"
He leaned back against the tunnel's cool stone wall, feeling like Heinrich Schliemann had when he unearthed the golden treasures of Mycenae. "Now we can get some large- scale help."
"We certainly need it," Khuharkk' said somberly, staring at the hole in the wall.
"Damn right," Gordon said bitterly, recalling again their impossible task. This Royal Tomb, other side canyon tombs, the nearby City of White Stone, and thousands of other Na-Dina ruins would be flooded when the Nordlund Combine engineers finished building their dam. Bigger than Earth's Aswan High Dam, the giant rampart would block the River of Life, create a lake three hundred forty miles long by fifty miles wide, and inundate the upriver canyons.
The Modernist faction of the Na-Dina considered the loss of their ancient heritage a fair trade for the hydroelectric energy that would power new factories, mills, and cities. The Traditionalist faction had deplored this, but they weren't in power. All they'd been able to do was send out a request for an archaeologist to help. Gordon Mitchell had responded with a small field crew of two assistants and a pile of thirdhand survey and excavation equipment.
When he'd first reached Ancestor's World seven weeks ago, he'd hired twenty local laborers and set to work in Ancestor's Valley, where a score of dynasties had buried their Kings and Queens in tunnel-tombs cut into the canyon walls. It was a job to challenge even the resources of a great university---and all Gordon had was Khuharkk' and Sumiko Nobunaga, their Japanese Lab Chief. Plus the meddling claws of Beloran, the Na-Dina Liaison whose job it was to keep an eye on Gordon, his dig, and his discoveries.
Khuharkk' looked down the tunnel toward the distant
9
entrance, then back to Gordon, his expression worried. "Will we have enough time to dig everything before it's all flooded?"
"Time?" Gordon sighed and sifted ancient brown dust through his fingers.
"No. Not to dig everything. But this discovery is bound to buy us extra time.
We'll be able to properly excavate this chamber, and most likely the other tombs in the side canyons. With luck, we'll get through most of the City of White Stone."
"We'll need a specialist to analyze these Mizari relics."
"You're right. We're going to need a lot of specialists, in almost every field.
But this"---he waved a callused, scarred hand at the opening in the tomb wall--"will bring them. Archaeologists can't resist the lure of an unplundered tomb."
As he finished speaking, he saw Khuharkk's ears prick up; then the sound of a distant footfall reached him, too.
Gordon gestured at the autocam, and the Simiu obediently turned it off with a wave of his hand.
"We'll also need time to negotiate the political minefields on this world,"
Mitchell said under his breath. "Nordlund won't take kindly to delays. This discovery is going to make Project Engineer Mohapatra very unhappy." He grinned unpleasantly. "I just wish I could see his face when he hears."
His display of teeth made Khuharkk's mane ruffle up; then the Simiu relaxed.
"Doctor Mitchell, I just had an idea. Why don't I call Professor Greyshine at StarBridge? That way, even if Beloran ties us up in bureaucratic tangles, we'd still have the word out in the proper circles. Help would be standing by."
"Good idea." Gordon listened closely as the scrabbling footfall neared the dogleg angle in the tunnel, after which they'd be in sight of their visitor. They had only a few moments of privacy left. "Go ahead. Record a message and have Bill fly into Spirit and use the FTL transmitter at his embassy."
"I'm sure he'd be delighted to do it," Khuharkk' said. "He's been almost as interested in this dig as we are."
10
Bill Waterston was the CLS Interrelator assigned to Ancestor's World. Bill and Gordon had come in on the same ship together, and both of them had struggled ever since to deal with the Nordlund Combine, whose Project Engineer had arrived ahead of any CLS official. Gordon liked the earnest young man. Bill had been a big help in cutting through Na-Dina bureaucracy in the capital city of Spirit, and, when his schedule had permitted, he'd been quick to grab a spade and help out with the excavation.
Now the young Interrelator would have to deal with the cultural, historical, and political complications this discovery of alien artifacts was bound to generate for the intensely private, almost reclusive Na-Dina.
Khuharkk' nodded, a gesture he'd picked up from humans, as the footsteps rapidly approached. As Gordon had suspected, the newcomer was Beloran.
The Na-Dina stopped a few meters from them. Another tremor quivered the ground beneath him, and he steadied himself on his tail. The beam of the light-globe he was carrying swung a little, then steadied as the tremor eased away. Water sloshed in the canteen slung over his shoulder.
Blinking deep black eyes, Beloran looked beyond them at the holed-through tomb wall, then glared at Gordon. "You broke through," he said in sibilant High Na-Dina. Gordon heard the translation via his voder earcuff. "Why did you not call me? I should have been present."
Gordon stood up, brushed dust off his coveralls, and shrugged. "I tried to," he lied. "The com signal must have been blocked by the rock." Running his tongue over cracked lips, he stretched out a hand. "Hey, thanks for bringing water."
"Blocked?" Absently, the Na-Dina handed him the canteen, then squatted down to peer into the hole. The symbols painted on his left shoulder gleamed in the light from the globe.
The colorful glyphs denoted personal name, trade, parental status, job title and family clan, including whether the alien was related to the Royal House.
Beloran wasn't. Maybe that's why he'd ended up in commerce, as a Merchant.
11
Until recently, earning one's living by buying and selling was considered demeaning as a profession. But the First Contact had changed all that.
The shock of learning that aliens existed, and the necessity of finding a place for the Na-Dina people in a strange new universe, coupled with the practical necessity of finding goods to trade, had elevated the Merchant profession almost to the status of nobility.
Beloran let out a long hiss of mingled wonder and dismay. "It's intact!" he exclaimed a moment later. "The tomb of A-Um Rakt is intact!" On the alien's back, overlapping folds of scaly flesh quivered like jowls. His long tail thumped the dusty tunnel floor.
"Yes, it is," Khuharkk' said. "We are very fortunate!"
"Treasure ..." Beloran added, as if he hadn't heard the Simiu. The Liaison sighed, sounding almost regretful. "This will delay the rising of the dam, will it not?"
"Possibly," Gordon sa
id. Then he added, in a burst of honesty, "Probably.
But, Beloran--look! That's your heritage, and it's wonderful? And also ... there are Mizari artifacts there, at the foot of the sarcophagus. Your people may well have been the last species to have contact with the Lost Colony! That's a momentous discovery!"
"Mizari?" Beloran jerked his head out of the hole so fast that he banged it on the stone. The Liaison glared at them, obviously furious, his tail stiff with anger. "Are you saying that infidel outworlders were responsible for A-Um Rakt's glorious reign?"
"No!" Gordon protested. "Of course not! I'm saying that your God-King was so great that even aliens from another world wanted to pay homage to him, and left grave- gifts!"
"Ahhhh ... Yesss ... I can see that," Beloran said quietly, after a moment.
"When you explain it that way, it makes sense."
The Na-Dina's tail relaxed visibly. "But, Doctor Mitchell, my job is to look out for the welfare of my people, and it is difficult to see how this discovery, marvelous as it is, will make up for the delay in the building of the dam that 12
will bring us so many benefits." The Liaison straightened back up. He did not look Gordon straight in the eye, but that was not the Na-Dina way, so the archaeologist was not surprised. "However, I suppose congratulations are in order, Doctor Mitchell."
"Thank you, Beloran," Gordon said, matching the other's grave mien.
"Since you have already gone ahead and opened the wall, without my presence, I suppose the saying of the sacred words can be delayed a bit longer," Beloran said, his hissing voice punctuated with glottal clicks.
"Do your legends or records contain anything about the visit from the Mizari six thousand years ago?" Gordon asked eagerly. The Na-Dina were very protective of their records, and no outworlder had ever seen them.
The alien folded his blue-scaled forearms, mantislike, and bobbed his head to indicate a negative answer. "No. We have been unable to read the records from the time of A-Um Rakt. No one has been able to translate them.
They are very different from both our modem tongue, and from Old High Na-Dina."
"Our new crew will almost certainly include an iconographer," Khuharkk'
said eagerly. "Perhaps he or she will able to translate them, and that will be an even more momentous discovery than this tomb! Professor Greyshine always taught us that the value of golden treasure is finite, but the value of knowledge is incalculable."
"Indeed," Beloran said. His sharp white teeth gleamed in the light. "This"--he waved at the tomb wall--"must be reported to my superiors. I will depart at once for Spirit on my ground skimmer. The Ministry of Dynastic Affairs will be... most interested in what you have found. We will need time to consider what must be done."
Gordon glanced sideways at Khuharkk', and caught the Simiu youth's tiny assenting nod. They'd been right in their assessment of the Liaison's reaction to their discovery. Beloran was planning to tie them up in red tape. If the Liaison had his way, their progress in investigating the tomb would be slowed to a crawl.
13
Ostentatiously, Gordon unstoppered the canteen and gulped the cool water.
"Much better," he said, wiping his mouth. "Here, Khuharkk', you'd better have some, too." He bent down to hand it to Khuharkk', keeping his body between the Simiu and the Na-Dina. "Find Bill," he whispered. "Tell him to get moving and contact Greyshine and the CLS."
The Simiu took the canteen, and took a long drink himself. As he handed it back to his boss, the youth nodded fractionally.
"Doctor Mitchell," Khuharkk' spoke up a moment later, "you were just about to tell me what equipment you wanted me to fetch. Should I bring the magnetometer and the portable sifter?"
Gordon nodded. "Yes, bring the banjo magnetometer, but we won't need the sifter for this work. Also bring the laser theodolite, and another autocam.
While you're gone, I'll start photographing and recording the burial associations."
"Yes, Doctor Mitchell," Khuharkk' ,said, dropping from his squatting position to all fours--the preferred Si m iu mode of fast locomotion. "I'll be back as soon as I can."
Gordon waved at his assistant, and the youth sprinted away. Golden dust hovered in the still air.
"I, too, must go," Beloran said. "If I leave now, perhaps I can reach Spirit before evening devotionals."
Gordon nodded. "Don't worry, Liaison, I have a lot of recording and mapping to do via remote-control autocams. If you return tomorrow, you can conduct your ceremonial rites then. I promise you that until you do, we will touch nothing in the tomb."
"Very well..." Beloran said grudgingly. "Though the word of an infidel will carry little weight, I am afraid, with my superiors. However, I will vouch for your honesty, Doctor Mitchell."
"Uh ... thanks," Gordon said, feeling a pang when he remembered how he'd lied. But he truly didn't intend to touch anything--the work of recording everything in the chamber would take at least a couple of days. Certainly that
14
would be plenty of time for Beloran to say his sacred words and conduct his religious rites.
Moments later, Mitchell was alone with his find. He dropped back to his knees and once again played the light over the inside of the chamber. For the first time, he looked closely at the wall glyphs and illustrations that covered the walls of the chamber.
This was a find greater than Carter's discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb.
Greater than Alva's excavation of the Moche Royal Tombs of Sipan, in Peru.
Greater even than Greyshine's discovery of the Ancient Dais. This discovery concerned the Mizari, powerful aliens who still lived, not peoples dead for half a mil ion years.
I'm looking at my redemption, Gordon thought, feeling another fierce surge of triumph. It was an even headier draught than the Kentucky bourbon he had waiting for him in his tent. Now, by God, they'll respect me....
"Bil !" Khuharkk' cal ed, his voice a hoarse growl in the dry, baking air outside the archaeologist's camp. "Bill! I need to talk to you!"
Bill Waterston rose from a squatting position beside one of the Na-Dina diggers who'd been meticulously washing and sorting potsherds, and waved. He was a tall, lanky human, and from Khuharkk's point of view as homely as the rest of his species. He had a hairless white face, a squashed-in nose, ears that did not move, and a lean frame that lacked the muscles for tearing apart one's enemies in the Arena of Honor.
The Interrelator smiled as Khuharkk' loped up to him, careful to politely half cover his exposed teeth with one hand. "Hey, Khuharkk'! Where've you been? What's all the rush?"
The Simiu beckoned urgently, and the human moved over to join him, out of earshot of the workers. "Bill," Khuharkk' said, glancing around nervously,
"we opened the tomb just now. It was intact!" Khuharkk' clasped both long arms across his chest, hugging himself with excitement.
15
It was all he could do not to caper around like a child.
"Damn! Gordon didn't wait for me?" Bill scowled, his freckled features creasing, and shook his head. "He was supposed to wait for me and Beloran!"
"I know," Khuharkk' said, feeling tom between loyalty to a fellow StarBridge student and to his boss. "But, Bill, it's better that he didn't wait. You'll never guess what we found!"
Waterston's momentary irritation vanished in a wave of excitement. His green eyes gleamed. "Gold? Jewels? A mummy?"
Khuharkk' nodded. "All of that! But... Bill... that's only a small part. There were Mizari artifacts there, at the foot of the sarcophagus! They've been there, undisturbed, for six thousand years. Think of what this means!"
Waterston's eyes widened incredulously. "Oh, my God ... you mean the Lost Colony? That's the only thing it could be!"
Khuharkk' yipped a wordless assent.
Bill put a hand to his head. "Wow," he muttered. "I feel like I've had too much sun. What a discovery! Gordon must be beside himself!"
"Professor Mitchell says that now we'll be able to get in a decent team to e
xcavate," Khuharkk' said, eying the arid landscape around them, bleak and formidable. "But only if we can get the word out to Professor Greyshine at StarBridge so he can help us find good people. I've recorded a message, Bill. Will you take it to Spirit and send it out for us, please?"
Khuharkk' held up the tiny data cassette. Waterston stared at him for a long moment, then frowned. "Khuharkk', my friend, I smell a rat: Why the secrecy?" Deception never came easily to Simiu. The heavy crest of hair that ran up Khuharkk's neck and ended in a topknot between his ears drooped sadly. The youth sighed gustily. "Bill, you know as well as I do that if we don't get the word out quickly, before Beloran can get back to Spirit, the Traditionalists and the Modernists will spend weeks or
16
months arguing about this discovery in their councils. They may forbid us to send a message at all!"
"Ohhhhhh..." Bill shook his head ruefully. "You're right, of course. But sending the message out without permission isn't exactly ... ethical, my friend."
Khuharkk' sat down on his haunches, lion-fashion, and ran a hand over his muzzle with its formidable fighting canines. "The word will get out eventually; you know that. Nordlund will send the message if we pay them to do it. I could pilot a ship to Spirit and do it myself. But... so far ... nobody has forbidden sending it, correct?"
"Yet," Bill added honestly. He hesitated, obviously thinking it over. "Well, okay," he said finally. "If I hustle, it'll be a done deed before Beloran is halfway to Spirit. Give it here."
He held out his hand, and, solemnly, Khuharkk' dropped the tiny cassette into his callused palm. "Thank you, Bill. I would prefer that the com operators at Nordlund not know about this yet."
Waterston made a face at the mention of the giant mining combine. He beckoned to his friend, and Khuharkk' fell into step beside him as they headed for the landing field. "No shit," he said sourly, carefully stowing the tiny message cassette in the front pocket of his coverall. "Those Nordlund types are a real pain. I had a helluva go-round with the PE just yesterday."
"You argued with Project Engineer Mohapatra?"
"I sure did," Bill said. "Talk about smelling a rat, my friend ... it stinks to high heaven up there."
Ancestor's World Page 2
