“Well, whatever the reasons,” Burton said, “we’ll get no help from that quarter. As regards this particular piece, my reasoning is laid out in full in my field notes.”
He rose then, and led them off to look at what he referred to as the village amphitheater where, he postulated, ritual sacrifices took place.
oOo
Rhys slipped the disc containing Professor Burton’s field notes into his own journal and settled back to digest them. Yoshi joined him, her own notes close at hand, while Rick wandered off to see how far the tower dig had progressed. There were extensive entries on the town, as Burton had promised, and that was where Rhys started.
“Shta-ets—the City of the Moon—is in reality a large village whose artistry fills a narrow forested valley 130 kilometers northeast of the present day metropolis of Shta-vater. Stepping from my shuttle into the moist air of the forest fringe, I was amazed at the state of preservation of these very ancient ruins . . .”
Rhys skipped the preliminary comments about measurements and soil acidity and paged to the first descriptions of local landmarks.
“The village amphitheater sits at its extreme eastern end—the direction in which both Leguin and the planet’s largest moon rise. It was here that the ancient Etsatat may have sacrificed victims on the huge central altar before the eyes of rows of onlookers.”
Rhys ran an hand through his thick, red mane and sighed, unconscious of the gesture.
“Me neither,” murmured Yoshi. When Rhys glanced at her she shrugged. “I think it’s more likely they mimed sacrifices there than actually performed them. I’d guess it was a theater and his big altar was a stage. Look at the dimensions.”
Rhys nodded. “Normally I’d agree with that, but surely Dr. Burton has seen something—”
“Something you missed? You noticed that there are patterns of very shallow ruts in that slab. You noticed that they were too regular to be weathering. He didn’t notice that regularity.”
Rhys’s eyes went unfocused momentarily as he called the feature to mind. “Very odd that. Almost as if the same rites were performed over and over again.”
“Or the same dances. Or perhaps a highly ritualized form of theater.”
“Like Noh?”
Yoshi nodded. “I don’t believe it’s an altar. I could be wrong, but I don’t think it is.”
Without further comment, Rhys paged to the next image with its attendant description. What he saw was a selection of village stelae and a paragraph about the main street.
“Leading west from the place of sacrifice, the main avenue of Shta-ets is lined with buildings whose purposes may always be mysteries. Except for a granary, a metal-smith’s and a kiln, we know little about what went on within these walls. What we do know is that many of them were dedicated to the gods of the Etsatat. The images below, clockwise from left: (1) Four warrior gods or chieftains share a ritual meal; (2) The Goddess of the Waters fills the world ocean; (3) A merchant goddess with her splendid pack; (4) Statue of Ets-eket sits outside a small temple within the village.”
“What does he say about Sper-ets?” Yoshi asked, eager to move on.
“Ah, yes, here . . .” Rhys read aloud. “‘From its composition, to the dimensions of its structures, the Sper-ets complex is reminiscent of Caracol, still one of the most beautifully preserved sites in all of Mesoamerica. From the broad, once-cobbled Avenue of Tribute, to the towering central ziggurat, to the massive temples flanking it, it reminds one insistently of the majestic cities of the ancient Maya.” He skipped a couple of passages, then picked up the narrative again. “That Ets-eket is aptly named is apparent from the crescent shape repeated over and over on helmets, staffs and scepters. That he is an important deity is obvious from the sheer ubiquity of his image. Even beyond the confines of the many places of worship dedicated to him—sites which are spread over Leguin Four’s several continents—Ets-eket’s image appears on buildings and stelae in every locale where we have conducted even the most cursory research.’”
“In which.”
“What?”
“‘In which’ we have conducted even the most cursory research.”
Rhys wagged his finger at her. “Now, Yoshi. Don’t be overly critical. I begin to think you’re just immensely prejudiced against the old professor. And I can’t imagine why. Even as many years of exposure to Uncle Kenji as you had—”
“I’m sorry. I’m trying to be objective, but he makes it so hard. He’s so sure of himself, so smug in his interpretations.”
“He’s one of the foremost experts on just about any phase of archaeology you’d care to name. I suppose one might get a little … sure of oneself under the circumstances.”
“It goes deeper than that. Whatever he looks at, Dr. Burton sees exactly what he wants to see. He can’t stand it when you advance a reasonable theory before he does. He has to point out what you missed or—or debate it point by point. He treats you as if you were still his student.”
“In some ways, I suppose I am.”
“You shouldn’t be, Rhys. Not in this field.”
He chuckled. “Well, I may have lost points with Drew Burton, but at least I’ve got you calling me by my given name.”
“You’re evading the issue. The issue is Dr. Burton’s cultural bias.”
“Yosh, questioning every theory that’s put forth—that’s what scientists are supposed to do. But I will grant you this—he certainly doesn’t seem to question his own conclusions as thoroughly as he does everyone else’s.”
“Well, that’s something,” Yoshi muttered under her breath.
Rhys gave her a reproachful look and turned back to the field notes.
oOo
The week progressed predictably. To Rhys’s growing chagrin, Burton lauded all efforts except the hapless Tzia’s, debated—no, argued—every opinion Rhys advanced that either preceded or differed from his own, and continued to treat the alien dig as if it sat smack in the middle of the Yucatan peninsula. Questioning the great man brought anything from sweet condescension to gentle scorn—as when Rhys suggested the deposits of animal bones might be from something other than sacrifices.
“Really?” Burton responded, gold and silver brows ascending like the wings of angels. “I’d be interested in hearing your views, Dr. Llewellyn.”
“I have no strong alternate opinions about the deposits, although I suppose the site might have served as a barn or a corral.”
“No excrement.”
“Or a larder. The bones might still be there because the larder was well-stocked when the complex met whatever fate it met. The deposits are concentrated in the southern pits, and they’re largely the bones of animals present-day Etsatat consider meat animals.”
Burton raised a calloused finger. “Exception proves the rule, Llewellyn. Exception proves the rule. There are also the bones of small creatures which are definitely not part of the modern food chain. Wild nocturnals—”
“Which could be vermin or scavengers that raided the building after it was abandoned.”
“Which could also be small animals especially dedicated to Ets-eket. They are almost exclusively night-stalkers of one sort or another.”
Rhys nodded. “All right. Nocturnal scavengers dedicated and sacrificed to a moon god—possibly. But why would they leave them around to clutter up the place?”
Burton’s finger pointed skyward again. “Charnel houses have existed in many other cultures.”
“For animals?”
“Why not? If the animals are considered sacred—”
“Sacred enough to eat?”
“Ritually, yes.”
“Pet cemeteries?” interjected Rick.
Both men ignored him.
“Taxidermist?” Rick persisted. This time Burton glowered and Rhys cracked a smile.
“You’re wrong, Llewellyn,” Burton said with finality. “These are temples. Places of worship, sacrifice, and tribute. Everything we’ve found suggests it. No, confirms it. The animal bones,
the potsherds, the metal tools and coins. I realize, of course, that it’s only your relative inexperience speaking,” he added and shook his head, thereby missing Yoshi’s furious but silent retort. “If there were only some way I could prove it to you.”
“What are your opinions about all this?” Rhys asked Nyami and Tzia later, when the Professor had retreated to his cabin to work on his field notes.
The two women shared an enigmatic glance, then Nyami answered for both of them. “We’re not paid to have opinions. At least, not outside of our respective areas of expertise. That means I boss the crew and Tzia restores artwork. All of us,” she added, glancing at Tzia again, “are keeping our own journals. Some of us will be writing our own books.”
“You’ve seen his field notes, then?”
“Of course.” Nyami chuckled, brushing graying hair back from her forehead. “Drew sees gods and goddesses everywhere. ‘Water goddess filling the world ocean.’ Heck, I think she’s probably running the local bath house.”
oOo
Burton’s team located the entrance to the tower at the beginning of the next week. That the building was hollow but for its organic centerpiece was no surprise—that feature had showed up clearly in the sonic profile. What came as a surprise was that the conical tower was lined with a tough amalgam of plant fiber and ceramic Rhys suspected would make a great material for orbital spacecraft and re-entry shuttles. This, in turn, was covered with a thick deposit of ash and soot. The floor was so deep in the stuff, a misstep could leave one covered to the neck with a fetching coat of powdery gray.
“Ashes to ashes and dust to dust,” murmured Rick when they had spent the better part of a day sifting and digging through thick layers of invasive soot and char that hung in the humid air and clung to clothing, hair and skin.
Burton, occupied with running a sample through the Field Remote Analysis Unit (known affectionately among diggers as Frau Burton), looked up sharply. “Are you suggesting this was a crematorium?”
Rick blew a lock of lank brown hair out of his eyes and gave the Professor a bland stare. “I’m in a deep hole, up to my elbows in fine gray soot. I just thought it was an appropriate comment.”
Burton looked thoughtful. “An interesting one, Roddy. You may have unwittingly stumbled onto something. Although, I think the crematorium was likely sacrificial in nature. You recall the biblical story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, of course.”
Rick opened his mouth to tell Dr. Burton that he had never heard of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and that further, only Rhys Llewellyn called him “Roddy.” Then he thought better of it and asked, “Have you found evidence of any Etsatat bone fragments or DNA during your analysis?”
The question, neutrally posed, caused Dr. Burton to redden perceptibly and cast a sideways glance around the tree trunk at Rhys, who was digging with Tzia along one curved, fire-blasted wall.
“No, actually. What I have found are large amounts of coal and some cellulose, trace elements of other organic compounds, and carbonized bits of rock. Altogether, a disappointment, I admit. I had hoped we’d discovered a burial vault. The modern Etsatat inter their dead . . .” His voice trailed off as he read the data spilling onto the Frau’s small display.
“Don’t give up yet, Professor.” Rhys straightened from his work, holding something out on the palm of his hand.
Burton pounced on it as an aging tabby might pounce on an unwary mouse. “Air! Air!” he cried, accepted an air bulb from Nyami, and feverishly cleaned the object. The entire work crew ceased digging and gathered around in the glare of palm lights and overheads.
“It’s some sort of jewelry. A brooch, by the look of it, or a medallion. And there’s a jewel in it, too. I’ve never seen the stone before.” He looked up at Rhys, fire in his pale eyes. “You’re in charge here, Llewellyn. Nyami, you and I are going to subject this to full analysis. Right now.”
Within seconds, the two archaeologists had disappeared into the entrance shaft and Rhys and the crew had returned to work. Three hours later, Rhys and Tzia had unearthed (or unashed) three more pieces of jewelry and a crude stone figurine. Scott Buchanan turned up a glob of interesting slag, and one of the other diggers found a second partial figure made up of heavily carbonized hardwood.
Eager for a report from Burton and Nyami, Rhys ordered the crew to “clear up their loose,” then, with their artifacts in a finds canister, he led the weary team of grimy, sweat-soaked archaeologists back to camp.
oOo
Burton was still hard at it and Nyami nursing a bottle of cold tea when the diggers filed up to the Finds tent. She moved to intercept them, cutting Rhys off before he or anyone else could enter.
“I wouldn’t interrupt him yet,” she told them.
Buchanan’s ashy blond brows furrowed. “How does it take three hours to analyze a piece of jewelry?”
Nyami studied her squeeze bottle. “He’s run the same battery of tests five times. I did the first set. He didn’t like the way I did them, so he did them again…” She looked up at Rhys. “…and again and again.”
“Whatever’s the matter?”
“It’s not precious metal for one thing, just an odd rather impure alloy. And the stone? It . . .” She licked her lips and Rhys couldn’t tell if the gesture concealed a smile or a grimace. “It’s not stone. It’s man-made.”
Scott Buchanan’s brows rode halfway up to his receding hairline. “A fake stone? What’s he thinking—that this is a hoax? That the Leguini have been hoaxing us?”
“He’s thinking . . .” She shrugged. “I don’t know what he’s thinking. But the stone is a hunk of very hardy glass which dates to about five thousand Before Present.”
Rhys expelled a rush of air. “Can the Etsatat have found a way to foil our dating techniques?”
“Who knows? Maybe the ancients had junk jewelry.”
“Look, I’m going to take this assemblage in to Professor Burton. Maybe I can help him make sense of this.”
Rhys tucked the canister under his arm and entered the Finds tent warily, his eyes on Burton’s back. As he moved to lay the canister down on the sorting table, Burton glanced up at him, sweating even in the well-ventilated cabin.
“What’ve you got there, Rhys?”
“More jewelry. A couple of figurines—wood and stone.” He unpacked the canister as he spoke.
Burton was at his side in a second, poring over the finds. “This is more like it! Yes, this clarifies the situation considerably. What we’re looking at here, my boy, is a single cremation. There may be no significant Etsatat DNA because the cremation involves only that one individual. These—” He held up a corroding brooch and the stone figure. “—are tribute, as I theorized previously. I predict that if we continue to dig, we will find the remains of one man—Ets-eket, himself—or his mortal proxy.”
“What’s your evaluation of the brooch?”
“Ah, well, originally I thought it a rather poor specimen. The metal is sturdy but hardly precious, the stone is, em, rather an enigma. But the style!” He put the thoroughly cleaned piece into the photonic bath and switched the perfect 3-D image to the holopad. “See the intricate detail, the precision of the scroll work? The Leguini haven’t produced anything this fine since.”
“What?”
“Well, you’ve seen their primitive-looking ornamentation. Ye gods, the shops are full of it, even on Earth!”
“Professor, that’s a current fashion trend, like art deco on early twentieth century Earth, or the turn-of-the-century aboriginal art fad. There are no grounds upon which to compare it to this.”
Burton’s face turned to stone. “Llewellyn, you have argued every single find with me since you arrived. Where do you get the gall?”
“From you, I’d like to think, Professor.”
“You were my favorite student, you know. When I brought you here, I thought you’d be appreciative.”
“I am, sir, I—”
“Then why are you playing dog-in-the-man
ger?”
“Sir, I’m not. I just happen to have formed some opinions about these sites that don’t cozy with your own.”
Burton went white and red in swift turns. “What makes you think your opinions are worth anything, Llewellyn? I’ve been in this field for decades. You’ve been out of the field since you left that classroom in Sophia to go commercial. Corporate anthropologist!” he snorted. “Corporate toady is more like it! How can you presume to think your opinion carries more weight than mine?”
Reeling from the verbal lashing, Rhys struggled to right himself. “I’m not presuming anything of the sort, Professor. But I have had a good many years of training and experience, and regardless of what you think about my association with Tanaka Corp, it’s given me experience you haven’t had. Your decades have been spent in Terran archaeology. My few years has been spent out here, on other worlds. When it comes to xenoanthropology, I think the playing field is much more even.”
“Do you?”
“Yes sir, I do. And I think . . .” He paused, losing the will to continue.
“Well, whatever it is, Llewellyn, say it. Don’t add cowardice to your arrogance.”
Rhys sighed, feeling wretched. “I think you may be culturally biased.”
“Culturally biased?” Burton’s white hair looked shockingly bright against the near purple of his face.
Rhys lowered his voice, trying to keep his tone gentle. “This isn’t Caracol, Professor. It’s Sper-ets. Hell, it may not even be that, really. The fact is, you can’t know. You can’t know whether a thing is a coin or a … a punch card unless and until you have some sort of cultural context to put it in. We don’t have that context yet for these sites because we haven’t built one.”
“The context is a wide-spread cult dedicated to the worship of the moon. That is the context.”
“On the surface, a reasonable conclusion. But we’re supposed to get below the surface to the details. The details here don’t support many of your conclusions.”
“Name a few.”
“All right. What you call coins are identical because they were smelted and molded. That’s not stone they’re made of, but a clever native composite of malleable ores. They’re molded, yet they all have obviously handmade scoring along the edges.”
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