The Stones of Nomuru

V – THE MUSEUM

Salazar said: "Kara, if I remember the local maps, this stream is the Yukke. It flows into the Tsugaa, which joins the Sappari. If we go downstream to the Sappari, we can follow it up to its junction with the Mozii, and then we shall be home."

"Won't that mean a big detour?"

"Maybe; but I don't know any more direct route to Nomuru from here. We should hike even farther if we get lost and wander in circles."

"I hope our food holds out," said Kara with a sigh of exhaustion.

Painfully, they picked up their packs and continued downstream. They no longer tried to scramble through the stream bed, alternately sandy and rocky. Instead, they walked along the edge of the gallery forest, now and then pushing through the vegetation to make sure they were still paralleling the brook.

As the sun clung to the western horizon, they stopped. At this point, the stream had carved out a mirror-still pool, reflecting the overarching greenery. As they came out on the bank, a red-spotted brown thing half a meter long scuttled on four webbed fins or stumpy limbs—it moved too fast to tell which— into the water and vanished with a plop. "What's that?" asked Kara.

"The locals call it a nazikuna, and it has a scientific name as long as your arm. You could call it a fish in the process of evolving into a salamander—or rather, the Kukulcanian equivalents of those organisms—like some of the Terran Gobiidae."

"Huh?"

Salazar chuckled. "Professorial lecturing is a hard habit to break. I mean those little critters called mud skippers. Now, how about a bath? We can wash ourselves and rinse out our clothes here, and our ancestral spirits know we could use it. Come on, take 'em off!" He began to unzip.

She looked at him with her level, greenish-gray-eyed gaze. "No, Keith."

"It's only a friendly suggestion, nothing more. After all, we—"

"That's just it. Your intentions may be as pure as the snows of Mount Nezumi; but once we were splashing around together, your mind would be fighting the pubic wars."

"Well, could you blame me? You're such a ravish-able—"

Kara frowned. "No! And I really mean it."

"Afraid you might yield to my lecherous advances?" Clowning, Salazar twisted one end of his mustache.

"If you really want to know, I'm afraid I might snatch up a rock and cave in your skull. That would leave me alone in this wilderness, to be eaten by some exotic creature."

"At least the beast would show good taste."

She interrupted. "We can wash separately. Would that thing we saw bite us?"

"No; it lives on bugs and worms, not gorgeous Terran women."

"All right, then; you go back to the edge of the forest and start our supper. Take the matches, and don't waste any. And don't come to see how I'm doing!"

"Oh, all right," said Salazar.

He was stirring the porridge when Kara reappeared in her underwear and boots, carrying her khakis. She hung the wet garments on branches near the fire, saying: "I'll take over the cooking now, Keith."

"Okay. I'm afraid this is all we have to eat until we get home. I don't dare spend our few remaining cartridges on hunting game." He quoted:

Salazar went back to the stream, stripped, plunged, shivered, and set about scrubbing what mud he could from his ragged clothing. From force of habit, he kept an eye out for ancient artifacts. A fragment of pale stone caught his eye; he picked it up and found it a piece of worked flint. He was tucking his find into the pocket of his bush jacket when he heard a scream.

"Keith! Help!"

He threw the garment on the bank and bolted through the brush, to view an appalling spectacle. Kara stood with her back to a tree on the edge of the gallery forest, holding Salazar's rifle by the barrel like a club. Before her, hopping and dodging about, stood a huge porondu, like the one that Salazar had ridden. The predator was lunging at Kara with its raptorial yellow beak, which gaped periodically to show big shearing teeth in the back of a rapacious mouth. Each time, as the beak approached, Kara whacked it with the gun butt.

"Why don't you shoot?" yelled Salazar.

"Won't—fire!" she gasped.

"Give it here!" He sprang forward and snatched the rifle. As the porondu stepped back a pace to consider the new arrival, a glance at the rifle showed Salazar that the safety was on. A flick of his thumb armed the gun, and he smoothly lifted the weapon to his shoulder and fired at the beaked head. The crack of the rifle was followed by the thudding fell of the beast.

Rescuer and rescued stood for a few seconds, breathing hard and staring at the recumbent animal. In a small voice, Kara asked: "How did you do it, Keith?"

"Took the safety off. Always keep it on until I'm ready to shoot. We should have four rounds left."

"When I shot the sentry," she said, "There wasn't any such complication."

"Kampai must have taken the safety off when he was fooling with the gun."

"Guess I've got to learn more about guns. Anyway, thanks—thanks a million."

"You saved my life when you got me out of that cage," said Salazar. "So now we're even. What's so funny?" he added, looking puzzled.

Kara tried to stifle a laugh, without complete success. "It's just that a stark-naked man with a high-powered rifle—well, it's a bit incongruous. Please don't be hurt."

"I'm not," said Salazar with a rueful smile. "Guess I do look kind of ridiculous. Me Tarzan, you—"

"At least, you've kept your shape."

Salazar's smile became vulpine. "Wish I could say the same for you."

"Why, what's the matter with my shape?"

"Nothing that I know of; but I shall have to see it to judge."

"Keith! You're just a dirty middle-aged man!" Salazar gave her a satyresque smirk, reciting:

"Stop it, Keith! You and your poems!"

"They're not poems with a capital P," he said. "Mere jingles."

"You're just turning on the charm to soften me up. Go put your clothes on!"

"Woman, I practically flayed my poor bare feet getting here when you yelled, and I won't go—"

"Oh, all right; I'll fetch your things. Take over the stirring."

When she returned with Salazar's wet garments, she put on her own, now nearly dry, and hung her companion's across the bushes. When the porridge bowl was empty, Salazar said:

"Let's have the knife. I'll see if I can cut us a couple of porondu steaks."

"Could we smoke them or something? They'd last longer."

"Have to cut thin strips, but it's a good idea." He struggled into damp garments.

With strips of porondu sizzling over the fire and little zutas flitting overhead, they improvised beds of leafy branches. Salazar said: "Better put your boots on. Otherwise, bugs might crawl into them and sting you when you put them on in the morning."

As they stretched out, Kara asked: "Where's the knife, Keith?"

"Here." He sneezed.

"May I have it, please?"

"Here it is; but why?"

"Thanks. Just in case you might crawl in your sleep."

"Look!" he protested. "I'm no Conrad Bergen, to fling a woman down and—"

"Of course not; but I also know the tricks the biological urge can play on even an upright, civilized fellow like one I used to know, by the name of Keith."

"Thanks for the flattery; but after a day on the run, even my natural urges are laxating. Of course, give me a few days' rest ..."

"And then I'll be back in Henderson, out of reach of your tentacles."

"So now I'm an octopus! You know, they have a fascinating system of reproduction. Like Kooks they seem emotionally cold; but the male develops a process on one arm—"

"Good night, Keith."

"But seriously, Kara, when you urged me to take this guiding job, I thought you might still have a teeny bit of feeling for me."

"I let you think so, I confess, because I had to. I needed Conrad's story, but I didn't dare put myself in Conrad's power without you along as a counterweight."

"To balance that bastard, you needed someone like Blackbeard the pirate. Sorry I didn't measure up."

"Oh, Keith, you did just fine. But what's got into you, after all your heroic—"

"It's not what's gotten into me; it's what hasn't—"

"That's enough! Good-night again, and I mean it!"

"Good-night, Miss Sheffield."

Next morning, Salazar slept later than usual. The sun was already high when a snuffling, rending sound aroused him. He sat up, looked around, and gave a piercing yell. At the same time he reached out to shake Kara's shoulder.

"What—what—" she mumbled.

"It's a fyunga! Run like hell!"

They scrambled up, still only half awake. A dozen meters away, where lay the body of the porondu that Salazar had shot, crouched a maroon fyunga, big enough to swallow a man at a gulp. The predator was tearing with its vast hooked beak at the carcass of the porondu. Aroused by the outcries and motion, it lurched to its two massive legs, like tree trunks with claws, and started towards the fugitive pair.

"This way!" said Salazar, clasping Kara's hand and pulling her along. After them came the snorting fyunga with earthshaking strides.

Salazar ran out of the gallery forest and into the plain, which afforded better footing. Kara allowed herself a brief glance back.

"It's gaining on us!" she gasped, speeding up.

"Don't sprint!" called Salazar. "Save your wind."

They ran and ran. The thud of the great, taloned feet shook the very earth behind the fugitives as the pursuer's pace increased for a time, then leveled off. In his turn, Salazar took a quick look backward.

"It's slowing," he panted. "Run—a little farther."

They settled down to a steady jog. At last Salazar said: "It's stopped. We can take it easy."

They trotted another fifty paces and halted, fighting for breath. For a few minutes the fyunga stood staring; its sides heaved, and it shook its head as if in angry frustration. Then it turned and plodded back towards its interrupted meal.

"I knew it would run out of breath before we did," said Salazar. "Provided we were in shape. Good thing we had our boots on! Oh, oh, look what's happening!"

Standing knee-deep in the grasslike herbage, they had an uninterrupted view across the plain to the edge of the gallery forest, half a kilometer away. There, a smaller fyunga was now feasting on the porondu carcass. The beast that had chased them gave a loud cry, between a scream and a roar, and lumbered toward the interloper like an angry ostrich. The other fyunga looked up, opened its beaked, tooth-fined maw, and replied with an even louder trumpet.

A battle of titans seemed inevitable. Before actual contact, however, the larger fyunga paused to issue an earth-shaking bellow. It lunged at the other, which drew back just far enough so that the attacking beak clashed on air. The second fyunga snapped in turn, also felling to draw blood.

The combatants circled each other, roaring and snapping but doing no damage. Then the smaller creature broke away and jogged off, pursued by the larger with bellows of triumph.

"Mostly bluff," said Salazar. "Quick, let's get our stuff while they're still at each other!"

They returned to the campsite as fast as exhaustion allowed. Salazar snatched up his rifle and the bag of meal; Kara collected the spoon, the tripod, and the pot, into which she flung the strips of half-smoked porondu.

When they halted at midday for a snack, Salazar said: "Kara, if I bend over, will you give me a swift kick?"

"Whatever for?"

"Stupidity. Should have remembered that the smell of carrion would draw other predators. And I shouldn't have yelled when I woke up, but roused you quietly. We might have slithered away without that jabberwock's noticing us."

"Could you have shot the beast?"

"With this popgun? I'd only have annoyed the critter." He struck his forehead with the heel of his hand. "Seems as how I can't do anything right."

She put an arm around him and squeezed. "Nonsense, Keith! You're a fine, brave man, so pull yourself together! If it had been anyone else, we'd be the carrion by now. No, don't try to kiss me! You're only a friend, but the best friend a woman could have."

Salazar sighed and turned his eyes skyward like a martyred saint Instead of an angel, he saw a hurato swinging down from a branch by its prehensile tail, with the evident intention of stealing the bundle of meat.

Salazar rose and shouted: "Get away!" and the arboreal carnivore retreated. Picking up his burdens, the archaeologist helped Kara to her feet, saying: "Let's go!"

When Keith Salazar and Kara Sheffield entered the big tent at Nomuru, Galina Bartch and Marcel Frappot were at work in the laboratory, washing fragments of stone, brick, and metal in large metal trays. Hearing the gentle splash of their labors, Salazar led Kara to the laboratory. Galina, a fragment of brick in one hand and a toothbrush in the other, screamed.

"Prividyeniye!" she shrieked.

Smiling, Salazar shook his head. "No, not ghosts."

"Grand Dieu!" echoed Frappot. "We were told that you were dead!"

"The report is somewhat exaggerated," said Salazar. "We're alive and hungry enough to eat a kyuumei, horns and all. Who told you we were dead?"

Frappot said, "First, Kono and Uwangi came in, saying that you had all been captured by the Choshas while they fled. Then that man Bergen, the developer, came through four or five days ago, with Pokrovskii and a Kook guide, all of them half-starved. He told us that his whole hunting party had been seized by the Choshas and condemned to death. All of you had managed to escape, but the natives recaptured you and Miss Sheffield."

"One of his lies," said Salazar. "He bought his way out, with his pals. Kara came back and helped me escape. Why wasn't Travers with them?"

"Bergen said that Travers was killed during the flight. When they pitched camp, he took a bucket to fetch water, and a fyunga got him. Bergen heard him scream and ran out with his heavy rifle; but the fyunga was disappearing with Travers in its jaws. Bergen fired but could not stop it. He seemed much upset, since Travers had a wife and child back in Suvarov."

"Travers mentioned a family," said Salazar. "He seemed like a kindhearted young man, if full of impractical ideas for turning the Kooks into twenty-third-century Terrans with scales. Tell me, what's been going on here? Where's Ito?"

"Ito went to Henderson to get supplies and to report to Doctor Patel that Bergen's survey crew had chased us off the dig."

"Chased you off? How come?"

"A couple of days after Bergen's visit," said Frappot, "this gang arrived with transits and tapes and ordered us off. They said Mr. Bergen had obtained a lease from High Chief Miyage, and they wanted to get started on the development. They had the—how do you say it—the muscle of us."

"Are they out there now?"

"I suppose so. That is why Ito, he went to the museum. Galina and me, we have been working on the specimens until Ito comes back with instructions. But what of your adventures?"

"I want to go see these alleged surveyors first," said Salazar.

Galina frowned. "Please, Keith! You and Miss Sheffield look as if you would drop dead if you took another step. Had you not better rest?"

"After I've spoken to these people," said Salazar. "You go lie down, Kara."

"May I have a bath and a bite to eat first?" said Kara in a weak voice.

"Sure; I'll have Kono fix you a bath and Uwangi rustle you some grub. You'll have hot water, no twigs under your bare feet, and no hungry porondu waiting to pounce." Both gave the ghost of a laugh.

"Refer you to some incident of your escape?" asked Frappot.

"Yep. Come on, Kara; let's find Kono and Uwangi."

On the site, Salazar discovered a crew of five men and one woman. The men were squinting through a transit, driving stakes, and stretching strings along the ground. The woman held a clipboard from which she read off numbers and made notations. Aching at every step, Salazar strolled as casually as he could to the group, saying:

"Excuse me, but who's in charge here?"

"I am," said the woman, a massive, leathery brunette. "Who are you?"

"Doctor Salazar, from the University," Salazar did not ordinarily introduce himself by title, but in this case he would need all the prestige he could command. "And you, madam?"

"I'm Selina Kovacs, working for Mr. Bergen. What do you want?"

"Do I understand correctly that you drove my archaeologists off the site?"

"We couldn't have 'em futzing around and getting in our way. After we finish the survey, you can dig all the silly holes you want, until the bulldozer arrives."

"Did you tell my people that Bergen had closed a lease on this site?"

"Yeah, or at least it's so near to closing it might as well be. And Mr. Bergen wants to get going here."

"I think you've been misinformed. Bergen got back from his hunting trip only a few days ago, and it takes the Kooks longer than that to agree to any deal with Terrans."

"Says you. All I know is, we got our orders, and we're going to carry them out. And nobody better try to stop us!"

The five men had lined up, scowling grimly, behind Kovacs. Three were about Salazar's size, but the remaining two were egregiously large and powerful. Moreover, a couple of the men wore pistols in holsters. Salazar was glad that he still had his rifle slung across his back. Something about having a gun in evidence tends to restrain unfriendly folk who might otherwise make trouble.

"We shall see," Salazar answered, turning away.

Salazar borrowed Galina's poignette, his own having been lost to the Choshas. He called his boss, Dr. Skanda Patel, the director of the Museum, to report his survival. He and Kara decided that a day of rest was in order before she returned to Henderson to file her story and he accompanied her to report to Patel at the Museum. So they spent most of the next day sleeping while their clothes were being washed and repaired. When Salazar left his room for a bite of lunch, Frappot remarked:

"Separate beds? Juste ciel! After being alone with her so long in the wilds, I should think that you and she, you would have made some other arrangement." The graduate student seemed genuinely upset.

Salazar grinned. "Mêlez-vous de vos affaires donc, mon petit!"

The next day still found both Kara and Salazar too worn and footsore to leave the camp; but early the following day they set out for Henderson on their bicycles. The third time that the rough trail forced them to dismount and push their vehicles, Salazar muttered: "Damn it, I think I'll learn to ride a juten after all; an animal is more practical in this country. I've been meaning to learn, but there always seemed to be something more urgent to do. I think I'll ask Sambyaku to find me a mount and a teacher."

When they remounted on a smoother stretch, they observed another cyclist coming towards them. Salazar cried: "Ito!"

The stocky Kurita hurried forward, saying: "Taihen da! Keith! And Miss Sheffield! Why are you not dead?"

"Because we beat the odds and escaped from the Choshas. I've had more close calls in the last sixtnight than in the preceding decade on Kukulcan. Galina and Marcel will tell you. What's Patel doing about Bergen's resort plan?"

"I could not get a definite answer from Doctor Patel. He is full of ideals and good intentions, but as for carrying them out ..." Kurita spread his hands.

Salazar sighed. "I know Skanda. Let me think ... Ito, how's your Shongo?"

"I can make myself understood."

"All right. Pick up supplies at the camp and go find High Chief Miyage; he's probably at Biitso. Try to learn whether Bergen's lease on the site is now in effect. If it isn't, tell him that Bergen has already sent surveyors there, and hint that it's likely to start a lot of litigation. Kooks are afraid of getting caught in the Terran legal system, which they think of as a conspiracy to steal their lands. Then come back to the camp and report to me; or, if I'm not there, wait for me."

Kurita rode off. Salazar and Kara continued towards Henderson. As other trails joined theirs from right and left, like streams uniting to form a river, they no longer needed to dismount and wheel their bicycles past stretches of mud or rocks. The trail by stages became a genuine road, flanked by the farmlands whence Henderson's citizens drew their comestibles.

Salazar and Kara pedaled past other Terrans, afoot, on bicycles, or riding jutens. An occasional Kookish steam car, with a Kook or a Terran at the wheel, lofted a plume of gray-and-white smoke from its tall, slender stack. These vehicles, of native manufacture, had been modified for the Terran trade by the addition of upholstered seats and other amenities of indifferent interest to Kookish riders.

"Why haven't you bought a car, Keith?" asked Kara. "We used to own one."

"What happened to it?"

"It finally gave up its mechanical ghost, soon after you left."

"Well, that's why. The roads around here soon shake these steamers to pieces. The Kooks haven't yet faced up to the need for paved, all-weather roads; and in my present work I haven't really needed a car."

"When are we going to start building our own cars?" asked Kara. "With us so far ahead technologically, one would think we could design a car far ahead of these native contraptions."

Salazar shrugged. "The market's too small to make it pay. The Kooks wouldn't want our cars unless built to their own body specifications. When our Terran population grows big enough, I daresay someone will try it. Without liquid hydrocarbons, though, I doubt this planet will ever see an automobile age like the one we once had on Earth."

"If Terrans ever become so numerous," said Kara thoughtfully, "they'll encroach on the Kooks' lands. Then we can expect real trouble."

"I know," said Salazar. "There's a faction here— perhaps you know about them—that would like to treat the Kooks as Europeans once treated the peoples of other Terran continents. Their attitude was: since we have guns against their bows and spears, what do we care for the rights of the backward barbarians, without even title deeds to back their claims? And can you imagine the legislature of the United Settlements ratifying a treaty limiting Terran births?"

They rolled through a suburb of Henderson and into the city itself. Eventually they passed under an arch in the old city wall. This rampart of stone had replaced the wooden stockade that the first settlers, arriving on the Maravilla, had erected for protection. Now the city had expanded well beyond the wall; nobody guarded the gates, the valves of which had long since vanished.

Salazar said: "There was a movement years ago, before I met you, to tear down the wall, since it restricts travel in and out of the city. I was new to Kukulcan then; but with the rashness of youth, I started a counter-movement to preserve it."

"I never knew that!" said Kara.

"Yep. My party carried the day, but it was a mighty close thing."

"Really!" said Kara. "You always have a surprise up your sleeve. I wonder that you won, since most of the early settlers didn't give a damn for historic preservation."

"Like Bergen." Salazar chuckled. "I turned my knowledge of history to account; I dangled the prospect of money. I pointed out that in nineteenth-century Europe, many cities tore down their medieval walls, thinking themselves modern or progressive. A century later the few towns that had kept theirs, like Chester and Carcassonne, found their walls a mighty tourist attraction and a hefty source of revenue. Of course, they had to cut passages here for some avenues and the railroad."

Salazar waved towards the terminal of the Imperial Feënzun Railroad. On one of the tracks alongside the modest terminal building, a train was made up. The little locomotive, with a vertical boiler, was getting up steam as a Kookish fireman shoveled in coal. Attached to the engine were three small, four-wheeled flat cars, each with a railing around its edge. Here the Kooks were satisfied to ride standing, clutching the rail. A fourth flat car, in deference to Terran tastes, had benches and an overhead frame on which canvas could be spread in wet weather.

"You know they could have much bigger, more efficient trains," said Kara. "I've seen pictures of the huge locomotives they have on Earth, which would make that little thing look like a toy."

Salazar smiled. "They know about our monster engines but don't want them. Those engines are much too heavy for their tracks, so they'd have to roll new rails and lay new tracks; and they think electrical machinery harms their ancestral spirits."

"What a mulish lot of stick-in-the-muds!"

"Absolutely; it makes them exasperating to deal with. No sense of humor to speak of, and an insanely complex family, clan, and caste organization. But it also has advantages."

"Such as?" she countered.

"Compared to us, they have a pretty stable history, without many of the social pathologies we've developed on Terra. They have little crime, and they're pretty honest and trustworthy. When they say they'll do something, expect them to do it or perish trying. They think we are a frivolous, treacherous lot and have a saying: Trust a dry river bed before a fyunga, and a fyunga before a Terran."

"Serves us right, I suppose," said Kara. "I contributed to our troubles by urging you to take that guiding job with Conrad."

"And I was just as dumb, showing off the dig to those guys and not guessing they were the ones planning to develop it. I should have known they didn't give a damn for science."

"Don't blame yourself. You were marvelous after we got out of the cage."

"So were you. Are you quite sure—?"

Kara stopped. "I turn off here, Keith."

She held out a hand, which Salazar clasped. He would have kissed her, but she forestalled that by holding her arm rigidly extended. Salazar said: "Tell me, would you have really stabbed me if I had, as you put it, 'crawled in my sleep'?"

"N-no; but I'd have still fought you off. You'd have looked the way you did after your bout with Conrad."

The University of Henderson Museum was housed in a large red-brick building of vaguely Romanesque design. Salazar said to the small, brown, anxious-looking Patel, the director:

"But don't you see, Skanda, this dig is the Museum's opportunity of a lifetime! Horenso, where I worked last, is all dug and consolidated, and it was mostly standing anyway. No mystery. Nomuru's much older and a virgin site. There's no limit to what it may tell us about the decline and fell of the Nomoruvian Empire. It's as if we had an unplundered Pompeii, or as if Rome had been buried by a natural catastrophe in the principate of Nero and never dug up!"

"Yes, yes, my dear colleague," said Patel, making a steeple of his fingers. "But we must consider all angles. This Bergen is truly dangerous. Rumors say that he is not above hiring criminals to take extreme measures against those who stand in his way. And he has enough influence in the legislature ... He might be able to have our appropriation cut to nothing at the next session."

Privately, Salazar groused that Patel should be called Skanda the Unready for his ingenuity in finding reasons for inaction. "I should think the story of his treatment of me would cause some reaction."

Patel wagged his head right and left. "Perhaps it would; but even if you got your story into print, he would have a different tale, and his companions on the hunt would confirm his words."

"I might," growled Salazar, "go to some extreme measures myself to save this dig."

Patel smiled. "You are one of those stubborn New England Yankees. Formally, I forbid you to do anything of the sort. But," he said, winking, "if you should undertake such a wicked course of action, be sure that I know nothing about it. Then I can deny all knowledge with a clear conscience."

"I read you," said Salazar. "And here's my bill for expenses. I hope you can put it through right away, because I lost a lot of personal things and I need cash to replace them."

"Wait a minute!" said Patel, staring at the paper. "Are these the things you lost when the Kampairin captured you?"

"Yep."

"But I cannot authorize this payment! You incurred the loss, not on the site, but while off on this shikar. I have no objection to your taking a few days off; but during that time your effects are not the Museum's responsibility."

"Hey!" cried Salazar. "You mean you won't repay me?"

"I mean exactly that, Keith. If anyone other than Chief Kampai is liable, it would be your then employer, Mr. Conrad Bergen."

"Hell! I doubt if that bastard'll pay me the three thousand he owes me for guiding them before the Choshas grabbed us."

"You could sue."

"Without a written contract? More likely he'll sue me, claiming I deliberately led the party into ambush. Besides, he can afford more lawyers and appeals than I ever could. Now look here, Skanda, I've given the goddam Museum my heart and soul for more years ..."

A bitter argument raged until Patel said: "Keith, here is a possible way out. In the course of this hunting trip, did you do anything that could be classed as an archaeological reconnaissance?"

"Hm, let me think. Yep, I did."

"With what results?"

Salazar pulled from his pocket the piece of chipped flint he had picked up on the banks of the Yukke. "Wouldn't you call that a tanged projectile point?"

Patel held a magnifying glass to his eye. "It certainly looks like one. Where did you find it?"

Salazar told him, adding: "It's just a surface find, without stratigraphical context; but we know practically nothing about the Kookish Stone Age. This isn't much, but we've got to start somewhere."

Patel smiled. "Good! It may be years before we can do serious work in the Chosha territory. Meanwhile, I suppose I'll countersign your expense account."

Salazar went to his office in the museum. From a drawer in his desk he took out a set of plans to the building. After studying these, he reached into another drawer full of tools and withdrew a flashlight, a hammer, and a screwdriver.

He went down to the sub-basement and picked his way along dusty, little-used corridors until he came to a room with a locked door. He let himself in with his passkey and examined the interior.

The room was crowded with large wooden crates, stacked two deep. Salazar pried up a corner of one crate and, peering in with his flashlight, confirmed that it held a dozen rifles. There were twelve crates of this kind and twelve of another shape, which proved to contain boxes of ammunition. Salazar hammered the corners of the crates closed and returned to his office.

On his way out, he looked in on Patel, hard at work amid a hodgepodge of papers. He said: "Quitting time for honest men, Skanda! Or are you going to work half the night?"

The small brown man smiled. "I am what you call the night owl. You go on to whatever dissolute revelries you like."

Salazar's friend Cabot Firestone had invited Salazar to dinner, so sundown found them drinking in Firestone's small apartment. The psychologist was about Salazar's age, but tall and broad with a big, square-cut red beard flecked with gray. A widower, Firestone lived alone in Henderson, as did Salazar. The latter told Firestone of the recent events.

"Zeus almighty!" said Firestone. "You always seemed a quiet, self-contained chap. I wouldn't have expected swashbuckling adventures on your part."

"Didn't have much choice," said Salazar.

Firestone said thoughtfully: "It looks as if Ragnarsen and other missionaries, with the best intentions, have brought religious fanaticism to a world that had been free of it. Ragnarsen's a mild, benevolent guy, but you see what destructive uses his teachings can be put to."

Salazar grunted assent. "The Kooks' only religion is veneration of their ancestors, and nobody tries to convert an outsider to that. If Kampai isn't scragged soon, we may have wars of religion like the Terran ones: crusades, jihads, extermination of minor sects, and so forth."

"And if you point that out to missionaries, they say: 'Better they should die and be saved than live and be damned!' " Firestone changed the subject. "By the way, how's Kara now?"

"Far as I know, okay. She came back to Henderson for her newspaper job."

"A splendid woman. Are you and she contemplating anything?"

Salazar almost told Firestone, as he had young Frappot, to mind his own business; but Firestone was his best friend. They had gone to college together. In addition, Firestone was the only other downeaster Salazar knew on Kukulcan. So he merely said: "No. At least, not right now. I hadn't seen her since our poor little Rodney's funeral, and that time she refused to speak to me."

Firestone said, "I took her out to dinner, just before she went on your dig. Hope you don't mind."

"Jeepers cripus, why should I? She's her own boss."

"Sure, but people do retain feelings toward former spouses. I thought—there wasn't any—I mean, it was just a restaurant dinner."

Salazar waved aside Firestone's excuses. "Whose bed she ends up in is no business of mine."

"How about you, Keith? I mean, have you got your sights on another woman? I wouldn't ask, except that such things are a matter of professional interest."

Salazar grinned sardonically. "I know; you like to gossip and then pretend it's psychological research. The answer is no. I've struck out in that game and figure I'd better stay on the bench. Besides, all the women I could stand seem to be already hitched, or else they're community-chest types I don't care for."

"That's due to the surplus of men here," said Firestone. "It gives the women an unfair advantage in picking and choosing; just the opposite of Terra, where the surplus is of women."

"I know." Salazar gazed at the wall as if looking afar. "That's why most Terran nations allow a limited legal bigamy, to take care of the surplus. We're not so enlightened here."

Firestone smiled quietly. "You'd be surprised how much informal polyandry we have here—ménages à trois with husband, wife, and her lover cohabiting more or less peacefully."

Salazar shrugged. "I've heard of such broad-minded husbands, but I don't know any."

"Had you and Kara been quarreling before you broke up?"

"No; so I don't even have the excuse that people in my position give, that the marriage had 'broken down' or 'fallen apart' like a piece of defective machinery. I first learned what the Bible means by 'a contentious woman' when I married Diane.

"Let's face it: I was a copper-riveted fool to run out on Kara. It was like demonic possession, if I believed in that sort of thing. Down underneath I knew it was impossible and that some day I should be sorry; but so strong was the urge that I went ahead anyway. Diane's not even better-looking than Kara, aside from being younger."

"I come upon such cases all the time," said Firestone. "Men call themselves reasoning animals; but that's true only part of the time."

"Diane appealed to my sympathies. Sort of got me on my blind side, by a song-and-dance about the dreadful things her family and her ex-husband had done."

"Did you ever ask the family or the ex for their side of the story?"

"No, but I learned enough so I should have been warned. Diane's family is the most quarrelsome this side of Donnybrook Fair. Their get-togethers are one long wrangle, with everybody trying to put down, or take advantage of, or pry something out of everyone else. Such attitudes carry over into the married lives of the younger members; all of Diane's siblings have had turbulent domestic histories. They're takers, not givers. I suppose Diane's more to be pitied than blamed; but that doesn't excuse me. What happened to me, Cabot? Had my brain turned to mush?"

Firestone said: "Your brain wasn't the organ in charge at the time. People have been falling in love with unsuitable mates ever since Helen ran off with Paris of Troy and I daresay long before that. These urges come upon most people, more often on men— nature's way of spreading their genes through the species."

"How could I do that when all the time I never had a hostile thought about Kara? She still attracts me."

"One can love two women at once, being attracted to one while still attached to the other. Could you have subconsciously resented the feet that she was the dominant one of the pair of you?"

Salazar shrugged. "Maybe. I should be glad to have that dominance back; but she's dead set against it. Why?"

"To most," said Firestone, fingering his beard, "abandonment by a loved one is a major trauma; and most have a deep, visceral fear of it. When the abandonee sees a former spouse, he or she is torn. A lingering attachment pulls the ex-mate one way, while a lasting resentment pulls the other. As to which wins, I couldn't predict."

"I see," said Salazar, staring moodily. "Guess I did give her cause for hard feelings. I used to think I was a pretty good guy, but I find I had feet of clay clear up to my knees."

"Couldn't you have had just a quiet affair, without upsetting your marriage?"

Salazar shook his head. "For one thing, Diane's a blabbermouth; a clandestine affair with her would stay clandestine for no more than ten minutes. For another, I felt I had to be honest with Kara; my damned scientific training."

"No matter how it hurt?" Firestone sighed. "A little hypocrisy isn't always bad. Hypocrisy, like liquor and religion, is one of the lubricants that make civilized life possible."

"Wish I'd asked you before things had gone too far."

"You'd have paid as much attention as the tide did to King Canute in the legend. But don't give up. If you two can still stand each other after weeks of camping out in the bush, it just might be love. You've got plenty of rime, with modern longevity."

"I know. The myths promised eternal youth, and medicine has given us eternal middle age instead."

Firestone: "What do you do for temporary relief?"

"Nothing. You know what happens to professors who fool with students."

"Having a hard time?"

Salazar shrugged. "Chastity may not be the most fun in the world; but nobody ever died of it. One gorgeous redhead politely propositioned me last term. Shell be back as a graduate next fell, after the same thing."

"Grades of A?"

"No; she's an all-A student who doesn't need to offer her alabaster body. She just likes it—and me. She hasn't said so in plain Anglo-Saxon, but stick around."

"Some would envy you."

"Let 'em. My real concern is not assuaging unrequited lust but saving the Nomuru site. Bergen's going ahead with his resort, despite threats of a Kookish war."

Firestone said: "I hear he's made a deal with the Choshas, to protect his resort area."

"He might have, at that." Salazar frowned in concentration. "I shall pay a call on High Chief Miyage, to alert him to Bergen's double-dealing. But Miyage's had it in for me ever since my work last year on the boundary-stone dispute ...

"You see, Cabot, the independence of Shongosi is guaranteed by a treaty between the High Chief of the Choshas and the then Emperor of Feënzun. Evidently Prophet Kampai won't pay the treaty any mind. So if Miyage scorns my warnings against Bergen and the Choshas, my next step, to save the site, will be to go see Empress Gariko. She's friendly to me for the same reason Miyage isn't: my boundary findings were in her favor. Maybe I can convince her to prepare for war with the Choshas."

Salazar stood up. "Thanks for the chow, Cabot; and also for stirring up a brain cell or two."

Firestone said: "I'd better walk you back to your place."

"Why?"

"If you're in Conrad Bergen's black book, it's not a good idea to wander around town alone at night."

"Not quite alone. I'm packing my in-town pistol, the little one."

"And what good would that do if someone shot you in the back? Let's go."