Fossil Hunter

*23*

Babnol had known this moment had to come, and she had been dreading it for days. She was up on the foredeck of the Dasheter, clad in the jacket of her snowsuit, performing one of the jobs that had been assigned to her: tightening the many knots that anchored the web of climbing ropes to the boom.

Toroca was approaching now from the rear deck, having just come up the ramp that led from his quarters. As he headed across the little connecting piece that joined the Dasheter s two diamond-shaped hulls, Babnol wondered how long ago Toroca had noticed the blue artifact was missing. Had he mulled over for days what to do about it? Or had he only now noticed its absence? Had he questioned anyone else? Or did he immediately suspect Babnol?

She bent to the task of relying knots, pretending to take no notice of his approach. Overhead, towering gray clouds marred the purple bowl of the sky.

“Greetings,” said Toroca, stopping about ten paces short of her, the word appearing as a puff of condensation.

Babnol pulled tightly on the ropes, but didn’t look up. “Hahat dan.”

“There’s something I want to talk to you about,” Toroca said.

She gestured at the climbing web. “I’ve got a lot of work left to do still. Perhaps we can speak later?”

“No, I think now would be best. This task can wait.”

“Keenir needs it done.”

“Keenir works for me on this voyage,” said Toroca with uncharacteristic firmness. “My needs outweigh his.”

She stopped working on the knots and straightened. “Of course.”

“The object is missing from my cabin,” said Toroca.

“Object?” repeated Babnol innocently.

“The artifact from Fra’toolar. The blue hemisphere with the strange handgrip.”

“Ah,” said Babnol. “And you say it is missing?”

Toroca’s fingers flexed, a reaction of shock, an instinctive prelude to the unsheathing of claws. He recognized what was happening here, saw that Babnol had moved from him questioning her to her questioning him. It was the first step in the dance, the social custom of avoiding direct questions in uncomfortable areas. At that moment, he knew that Babnol was involved, his worst fears confirmed.

“Yes,” said Toroca, willing to play on a step or two further. “I say that object is missing.”

“You must have been surprised,” said Babnol.

“Yes.”

“Have you asked Keenir if he knows—?”

“Babnol.” Toroca spoke the name sharply. “I will ask the questions, please.” To force direct responses was the height of bad manners.

“Why would you want to question me?” she said.

Toroca ignored that. “I,” he said again, with heavy emphasis, “will ask the questions.”

“I really must get back to my work,” said Babnol, grabbing the climbing ropes, yanking them, looking for another loose knot.

“Did you take the object?” asked Toroca firmly. There was a moment, a pause, a break in the dance. A Quintaglio could not get away with a lie in the light of day. And yet, although direct confrontations such as this rarely occurred, for one did not want to force another to feel he or she had no territory left to retreat into, there was often a final step to the dance, one last, brief movement in which the party wishing to avoid answering would spout a lie in the forlorn hope that his or her muzzle miraculously would not change color.

Toroca waited patiently, and, at last, Babnol dipped her head. “Yes,” she said. “I took the object.”

Toroca turned and looked out over the gray waves. “Thank you,” he said at last, “for not lying to me.” His heart was aching. He cared so much for Babnol, and yet this breach, this violation, cut him to the bone. Toroca had no interest in territoriality but he valued his privacy, which was quite a different thing. “You could have asked me if you wanted to borrow the object,” he said, trying to put his words in a light tone. “I was given quite a start when I realized it was gone.”

“I’m sorry,” said Babnol, and Toroca was relieved to see that her muzzle did not flush blue as she said it.

“I’m certain you are,” he said. “Where is the object now?”

“Toroca—”

“Babnol, where is it? In your quarters?”

“Not in my quarters.”

“Then where?”

“Toroca, I did it for you.”

Toroca’s claws did slip out. “Where?”

“It’s gone, Toroca. For good. Overboard.”

Toroca closed his eyes and exhaled noisily. “Oh, Babnol.” He shook his head. “How could you be so careless?”

“I was not careless,” she said. “I threw it overboard on purpose, out the porthole in your cabin.”

Toroca staggered back on his tail. Had she struck him, he’d have felt no less shocked. “Threw it overboard? But, Babnol, why? Why?”

“It was not a proper thing. It—lacked goodness.” She turned her muzzle directly toward him. There could be no doubt that her obsidian eyes were meeting his. “God must have intended it to remain buried.” Her voice was defiant. “That’s why She had sealed it in rock.”

“Oh, Babnol.” Toroca’s voice was heavy. “Babnol, you…” He hesitated, as if unsure whether to complete the sentence, but at last, with a simple shrug, he did, “you fool.” For the first time in his memory, he found himself stepping back from her, instead of toward her. “You promised me when you came to me, looking to join the Geological Survey, that I wouldn’t be sorry if I let you do so. Well, I’m sorry now.” He shook his head. “Do you know what that object was, Babnol? It was our salvation. It was a gift from God. She put it exactly where I would find it; you credit me far too much if you think my random opening of rocks could find something She wanted hidden. Babnol, that object was a clue, a hint, a suggestion—a whole new way of building machines. Solid blocks that somehow performed work! Flexible clear strands, unlike anything we’ve ever imagined! That object could have been the key to getting us off this doomed moon in time. You didn’t just throw it overboard, you threw our best chance of survival overboard, too.”

Babnol was defensive now. “But you yourself said we didn’t understand the object…”

“I didn’t understand it. You didn’t. But others might. After we finish this voyage, we are returning to Capital City. There I was going to turn the object over to Novato. She and the other finest minds would examine it, and they, or the finest minds of the next generation, or of the generation after that, would have fathomed the object, would have understood the principles it employed.”

Toroca was now furious with himself. He could have sent the object back to Capital City with someone else instead of bringing it on this voyage, but he’d wanted to spend more time with it, and, most of all, he’d wanted to be there personally to see his mother’s face when he presented it to her. Such vanity! Such arrogance. He slapped his tail against the deck, and with words that were talon-sharp, took all that fury out on Babnol. “By the very claws of Lubal, herbivore, how could you do this?”

She looked at the wooden deck, splintering here and there where claws had dug into it. “I did it for you. I—I saw the way it obsessed you, the way it was drawing you in. It was like a whirlpool, Toroca, sucking the goodness out of you, sucking it into an empty, spiritless abyss.” She looked up. “I did it for you,” she said again.

“I see that you’re telling the truth, Babnol, but—” He sighed, a long, whispery exhalation, a whitish cloud of expelled air appearing around his muzzle. He tried again. “The whole point of the Geological Survey is to learn things. We cannot be afraid to look.”

“But some things are best left unknown,” she said.

“Nothing is best left unknown,” said Toroca. “Nothing. We’re trying to save our entire race! It’s only knowledge that will let us do that. We have to shed our superstitions and fears the way a snake sheds its skin. We can’t cower in the face of what we might discover. Look at Afsan! Others cowered and trembled at the sight of the Face of God, but he reasoned. Aboard this very boat, he reasoned it out! We cannot—we must not—do any less than what he did. We cannot be afraid, for if we are afraid, then we—all our people—will die.”

Babnol was trembling slightly. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m very sorry.”

Toroca saw how upset she was, and how very afraid. He wanted to move closer, to comfort her, but knew that that would frighten her even more. Finally, softly, he said, “I know.”

She lifted her muzzle, tried to meet his eyes. “And what happens now?”

“When this Antarctic expedition is over, we will return briefly to Capital City for provisions and so that I can report to Novato. After that, we will go back to the shore of Fra’toolar.”

“But I thought we were finished there?”

“We were finished,” spat Toroca, but he immediately reigned in his tone. “We were. But now we have to go back and search and search and search until we find another artifact. And you, Babnol, here, with the sun burning above your head, you must now pledge your loyalty to the cause, your loyalty to the Geological Survey, your loyalty to me, or I will have no choice but to have you left behind in Capital City. I need you, Babnol, and I—I want you, to be part of my team. But there must be no repetition of this. We’re growing up fast, Babnol—as a race, I mean. We have to leave behind the fears of our childhood. Pledge your loyalty.”

She lifted her left hand, claws extended on her second and third finger, fingers four and five spread out, her thumb pressed against her palm: the ancient Lubalite salute of loyalty.

“I see,” said Toroca, his voice not bitter, “that you noticed more than just the object when you searched my quarters.” He nodded after a moment. “I accept your pledge of loyalty.” A pause. “Back to your knot-tying, Babnol, but while you do it, pray.”

“Pray?” she said.

He nodded. “Pray that the object was not one of a kind.”

Being cooped up on a ship was enough to make almost any Quintaglio edgy. Except on pilgrimage voyages, ships rarely sailed far from the coastline of Land, and they would put in to shore every few days so that those aboard could hunt.

The journey to the south polar cap had been a long one, with no stopovers. It was time to release the energy and emotions that had built up during the voyage. It was time for a hunt.

The divers were by far the most common lifeform on the cap, but they were by no means the only one. Several other creatures had been glimpsed through the far-seer. That was fortunate, for a diver was much too small to make a proper meal for one Quintaglio, let alone a hungry pack.

Delplas’s tail was swishing over the Dasheter’s deck in anticipation. “Ah, to hunt again,” said the surveyor. “At last! My claws have been itching for dekadays.” Each word appeared as a puff of white vapor. She turned to Toroca, who was leaning against the railing around the edge of the ship. “Surely you’ll join us on this hunt, Toroca. Even you must be ready for one now.”

Toroca looked down over the edge, watched tiny pieces of ice bumping together in the gray water. “No, thank you.”

“But it’s been ages! It’s high time for a hunt.”

“I wish you every success,” said Toroca, turning to face Delplas.

“We’ve known each other for kilodays,” said Delplas, “and still I don’t understand you.”

Toroca was thinking of Babnol. “Does one ever really understand another?”

Delplas shook her head. “You know what I mean.” She turned her muzzle to directly face Toroca. “You’ll kill an animal whose anatomy you’re curious about, but you hate to kill your own food.”

“I kill the specimens as painlessly as possible,” Toroca replied. “In the hunt, animals die in agony.”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Delplas. “After all, your father is Afsan.”

“Yes.”

“The greatest hunter of all time.”

Toroca turned back to looking over the ship’s railing. “Afsan hasn’t hunted for—what?—sixteen kilodays,” he said softly.

“Well, of course,” replied Delplas, exasperated. “He’s blind.”

Toroca shrugged. “Even before that, he only hunted once or twice.”

“But what hunts! The biggest thunderbeast ever known. Aboard this very ship, that serpent, Kal-ta-goot! And even a fangjaw. They talk about his kills still.”

“Yes,” said Toroca. “Still.”

“He was The One: the hunter foretold by Lubal.”

“Perhaps.”

“By not hunting, you dishonor your father.”

Toroca swung around, leveling a steady gaze at Delplas. “Don’t talk to me about duty to my father. Duty to one’s parents is a subject about which you and everyone else know nothing.”

Toroca strode away, his feet, clad in insulated shoes, slapping the deck like thunderclaps. Delplas simply stood there, inner eyelids batting up and down.