Serpent's Gift

by A. C. Crispin

  "I like her," Serge surprised himself by saying. "She is ... tough. What is the English expression .. . spunky, nonT'

  "Spunky, oui," Hing agreed, and he could hear the impish smile in her voice.

  "She likes you, too. Beaucoup. How do you feel about younger women?"

  Repressing a groan, Serge turned to glance at her. "You are joking, non?"

  He could see her grin behind her faceplate. "Non. She has a terrible crush on you, so be kind, Serge."

  Chuckling weakly, Serge shook his head and turned his attention back to his controls. "Being kind is not something I do very well," he said, recalling some of their arguments. And neither is commitment. . . or intimacy.

  "Au contraire. You're very kind, Serge," Hing said quietly, a note of fierceness in her voice that surprised him. "I've always known that."

  It was the most personal remark she'd made to him since the breakup, and Serge wanted desperately to pursue it, but by that time they were through the pass and approaching the landing lights outside the caverns. Zut! he thought disgustedly. Speaking of bad timing--

  What am I going to do about Serge? He wants to try again, I can tell. But what do I want? Hing wondered as she stood with Professor Greyshine aboard the Morning Cry, waiting to debark. Ahead of her the line of students shuffled slowly forward as Serge helped them down the steep ramp, doubly difficult to negotiate in the irregular gravity.

  Frowning, she remembered what it had been like that last week they'd been together. Frustrated by his casual assurances of devotion, Hing had confronted Serge, pushed him, demanding that he talk, as she desperately tried to discover what lay beneath the surface. For days she'd struggled to penetrate that good-humored mask he turned outward. The results had been disastrous . . . first he'd tried to laugh off her demands, then he'd lapsed into sullen silence, and finally he'd lost his temper and shouted bitter recriminations, then withdrawn completely. Hing had packed and left the next day.

  I was wrong to push him so hard, she thought, shifting uneasily 80

  in the uneven gravity that made her right side feel slightly heavier. I should have realized how much he cared, not tried to make him say things he wasn't ready to say.

  But revealing how he really felt had been nearly impossible for Serge. It was as though all his deepest emotions were inextricably tied in with the anger that lay smoldering far below the surface ... like a deep river of magma, it bubbled and seethed, and occasionally frightening glimpses of it broke through.

  His lost hands ... his lost music. Serge's anger over his accident and its results was slowly poisoning him, had already poisoned a relationship that Hing admitted to herself might have become very serious indeed.

  She'd been a heartbeat away from loving him, but something had held her back . . . somehow she'd instinctively sensed that Serge wouldn't truly be capable of a deep and caring relationship until he made peace with his past.

  And now . . . what?

  Maybe this time we could make it work, she thought, feeling a spark of longing. She knew that Serge had been seeing Rob Gable intensively ever since their breakup, and she knew Rob well enough to know that Serge wouldn't be able to stonewall the psychologist the way he'd stonewalled and rebuffed her. Maybe now it would be different .. .

  But she didn't want to risk being hurt again. When she and Serge had broken up, she'd been depressed for weeks. She'd--

  Someone nudged her gently, breaking into her musings, and Hing realized with a start that all the students were down the ramp, and Serge was holding out a hand to steady her. "Oh, I'm sorry!" she gabbled, flushing and placing her gloved hand into his. "Sorry, I was ... uh ..."

  As she trailed off, concentrating on picking her way down the ramp, Serge's voice came over the frequency they'd selected for "private" communication.

  "Rehearsing your lines, yes? I know you too well, you see."

  She smiled, relieved that he hadn't guessed the direction of her thoughts.

  "You want me to bring up the rear?"

  "Please. Cal me immediately if anyone has a problem."

  Turning, he led the way toward the cliff wall about a hundred meters away. A spotlight, its beam sharp as a blade without atmosphere to soften and diffuse it, illuminated an airlock set into the rocky face of the cliff at the foot of Greendeer Peak.

  It was the first time Hing had been to the mountains, though she'd taken several walks on the surface of the asteroid during her

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  time as a student. Watching her step with one part of her mind, she glanced around her. Aside from the lighted airlock opening ahead, the starlight provided too little illumination to permit a real view. Only glimpses of the peaks tantalized her, looming sharply over the little party in their pressure suits.

  "Professor, how were these caverns formed?" Hing asked, using the universal channel so all the students could hear his reply.

  The Heeyoon hopped over a slagged hummock, then floated ever so gently down to the ground again before replying: "This cavern was formed by the action of water against rock and limestone, roughly a billion years ago. It is fortunate that it survived the cataclysm that tore its world apart. We will be visiting the large cavern where the original artifacts were found, plus a smaller one a short distance from it. Everyone please stay together, because there are many caverns, and most of them are not pressurized. If anyone became lost, it could be very serious indeed."

  Hing thought of Tom Sawyer and Injun Joe's fate, and resolved to stick close to the others. Serge led the first group into the airlock, and Hing and the Professor waited with the remaining students until the light flashed, indicating the lock was ready to use again.

  The air cycled through, the indicators flashed go. "There is a Mizari-normal gravity field within," the Heeyoon told them. "Everyone please tread carefully."

  Hing felt the gravity shift as she stepped over the threshold, grabbing her like glue, but she was so enthralled by what she was seeing that she barely noticed. It's beautiful! she thought delightedly.

  She'd always loved caves and caverns. As a child growing up in Montreal, she'd visited most of the major caverns in North Am. She had vivid memories of the stalactite organ at Luray Caverns, the tiny freetail bats nesting in the ceilings of Carlsbad Caverns, and the magnificent cathedrallike vastness of Mammoth Cave.

  But she'd never seen anything quite like this place!

  Red-gold stalactites, broken but still huge, reached down toward the stubs of blue-gray stalagmites in a cluster to her right. Flowstone snaked its sparkling way across a ceiling that vaulted upward into darkness.

  Serge and the Professor's grids marked out even squares on the slagged, black-splotched floor, but their excavation covered only a fraction of the total area in this one cavern alone. No wonder they need a whole team! Hing thought, realizing what a huge task Serge and the Professor had tackled.

  Thoroughly excavating even

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  this one chamber would take them months . .. years, perhaps.

  Against the far wall, protected by glowing protective fields, were the artifacts.

  Serge waved them in that direction. "Everyone please remove your helmets," he told them. "This area is pressurized. Do not forget to turn off your breathing paks, so we can conserve them while we are here in the cavern."

  Hing removed her helmet and turned off her pak, then followed Serge and the Professor over to admire the artifacts. When they came to the songharp, Hing glanced over at Serge and asked quietly, "Has anyone tried to play it?"

  For a second she glimpsed temptation in his expression, then he shrugged and looked away. "No. It would be too much risk to handle it. The years have probably made it brittle."

  "Esteemed Ssoriszs believes that these artifacts were left by our Lost Colony," one of the Mizari students said. "Do you believe that is true?"

  The Professor hesitated. "I am reserving judgment," he said finally.

  "Although the indications so far are favorable. Strontium- rubidium dating c
onfirms the artifacts are from the same era as the Lost Colony. But I want to know where these artifacts came from, as well as when they were made."

  "How can you determine that?" Susan asked.

  "Several of these artifacts are made of a ceramic alloy that was central to Mizari manufacturing four to five thousand years ago," Professor Greyshine replied. "Experts will be able to determine their exact place of origin by tracing their magnetic resonances."

  A Simiu student standing in front of Hing raised his hand, and she recognized Khuharkk'. "How does that work?" the Simiu asked.

  "You will recall our class discussions concerning dating techniques and location pinpointing," Serge said. "Any planet that has a defined magnetic field, such as Hurrreeah, Shassiszss, or Terra can use this type of magnetic

  'signature' of origin."

  Professor Greyshine pointed to the songharp with its iridescent surface, its scrolled insets, its jeweled frets. "When this--and each of the other artifacts that contain this ceramic alloy--was fired, they all became slightly magnetized. The electrons lined up in patterns that paralleled those of its surroundings. Mizari archaeologists have programs that will compare the magnetic fields known to exist four thousand years ago with those of these artifacts and attempt a match. If they match up to the time and the location of the Mizari Lost Colony, then we will know with certainty that they passed this way."

  "How wil they know which is the correct pattern?" Hing asked.

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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!"