Ancestor's World

by T. Jackson King

  After several minutes of fiddling with the controls, she looked back up.

  "Okay, this is interesting. This ship was almost certainly landed by Bill's killer, not Bill himself."

  "How can you tell?"

  "I compared the chronolog in the ship's computer to the piloting log in the nav-computer. The chronolog says that thirty-two minutes into the flight, Bill put the ship on automatic. At that time, he was heading directly for Spirit. But then, within five minutes, the ship's controls were changed to manual, and course changes were entered to bring the ship over this mesa, where it was landed manually."

  Krillen was thinking fast. "You are reasoning that Bill's murderer hid aboard the ship, lured Bill back to his death, then came up here and assumed manual control of the ship to bring it here to land on the mesa top?"

  "Yes," Mahree said. "I'd guess that's exactly what happened. There's no reason that Bill would have corrected course to head for this mesa. And if he was forced to land the ship here, why take him back there"--she gestured to the front of the craft--"to kill him, when the murderer could have killed him here in the pilot's seat?"

  "I agree with your reasoning," Krillen said. "Besides, from the way the body was lying, and the angle the blows were struck from, I would say that the murderer struck from behind, in a surprise attack."

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  He pointed at the controls. "What else do those instruments tell you?"

  "Not much," she said. "But hang on a second." She bent over the pilot's seat, examining it with her magnifying lenses. "Well, you're right. Those impressions are definitely caused by a Na-Dina's scales. I wonder just how long before Bill was killed that Axum was perched in this seat. Maybe we should talk to her and to the Nordlund pilots."

  "We will," Krillen promised.

  "I wonder," she said, staring around her at the cabin, "if the artifact smugglers might be responsible."

  "But what would they have to gain?"

  She shrugged. "I don't know."

  Krillen gazed again at the seat, at the soft material that Philosopher Mitchell had told him would mold itself to the body contours of the pilot. "Please record the seat in close- up detail," he said, and, when she was done, he spent several more minutes measuring it minutely from every angle.

  "Perhaps," he said thoughtfully, "Axum learned to pilot from observation. Na-Dina are not stupid. Beloran drives the skimmer we are riding in today."

  "But I thought that for a Na-Dina to pilot a ship through Mother Sky would be sacrilege!"

  "Yes indeed. But someone who could commit murder might not balk at being cast out from Mother Sky and rejected by Father Earth, knowing his or her soul must walk forever apart from the Revered Ancestors and their glory."

  She watched him measure, then said quietly, "This isn't an easy case, is it?"

  Krillen glanced over his shoulder at her. "No case is ever easy. Some are just less hard than others." He reached into his supply bag and brought out his silver-nitrite camera. Checking that the film pack was inserted, he motioned at her. "Do you mind? I would like to take my own final photographs of the murder weapon, that comer, and the pilot cabin before we leave."

  "Of course," she said, wiping sweat from her brow. "But if you don't mind, I'm going to wait outside. I'm getting dizzy from the heat."

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  "Surely." Krillen said, busy with his camera. When he'd finished taking his shots, he stowed the metal bar in a specimen bag, then stood surveying the scene, comparing it to the pictures he'd taken last time of the angle of the body. Yes, he'd been right. The killer had hidden in the sanitary unit, crept forward, then attacked Waterston from behind.

  "Krillen!" Mahree called, her voice urgent. "Would you come out here, please? I have something to show you." He turned, made his way out of the craft, and stepped out onto the top of the ramp. Mahree was bent over, her face held close to the outer hull. Over her right shoulder, the autocam buzzed. And her left eye monocular lenses shifted in and out of the field of focus like sandrats feasting on a corpse. "What is it?"

  Mahree stood back and pointed at the shiny hull that looked like silver, but was real y a metal cal ed aluminum. "See that?"

  "I do." The metal was known to the Temple of the River, and to the expert miners who used hydro-sluices to excavate the bauxite from which it was made. "The metal is called aluminum. So?"

  "Not what I meant." She looked his way. "Krillen, there are minute scratches on the metal. They look like claw marks to me. Would you take a look?"

  When she stepped back, hanging onto the railing that enclosed the top of the ramp, he stepped forward. Pulling out his hand magnifier, Krillen chose the twenty-power lens, flicked it into place, and peered through it at the metal.

  "Yes! There are four scrapes there. Three in a row, then one set off to the side." He stood back, staring at her. "You realize what that pattern matches?"

  Mahree nodded. "The three fingers and thumb of a Na- Dina hand. Human fingernails are too soft to scar aluminum. But your fingers are tipped by talons."

  How could this have happened? Krillen considered. He supposed that one of the laborers could have unintentionally scratched the ship's hull...

  stumbled and caught her balance, for example. "This could be accidental, perhaps," he said.

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  "Or it could mean that a Na-Dina killed Bill, while someone else piloted the ship," Mahree said.

  "Or that our killer is indeed a Na-Dina who has chosen to damn him or herself by learning to pilot your sky traveling vessels." Krillen considered.

  "We must definitely talk with Axum when we return." The Investigator sighed.

  Truly, the Fourth Postulate of Justice was ever-present-- "Even the unthinkable must be considered when solving a case."

  Mahree looked back at the nearly invisible scrape marks on the hull. "Krillen, isn't it proper to ask why those marks are there? Scrapes on the door latch would be expected, as the dig crew entered and exited the jet. But these scrapes here, they're five handspans away from the door latch. Right near--"

  She paused, touched briefly the metal railing she leaned against, then backed away from it hurriedly. "The railing! Someone could stand on it, perhaps as they climbed onto the jet's roof. What do you think?"

  Krillen felt warm excitement. Combining the knowledge base of his alien colleague with his own knowledge of crime and his world was indeed an improvement. While a novice in Revelation, she knew how to think. "I think you should turn your monocular on the hull above those scrapes and see what you see."

  She did so. A second set of scrape marks was found a short arm's reach above. Then a third, up near the crest of the hull. Mahree teetered on the stair railing, with her boots perched on the rail, one hand braced against the hull, and the other hand fluttering in the air. Incredible. Human balance without the aid of a tail was truly magical, Krillen mused.

  "Steady me," she called out. "I'm going to climb up to the top of the jet's hull."

  Krillen thumped his tail in appreciation of her daring. "Go ahead," he said, climbing onto the railing himself so he could steady her as she crawled up.

  With his help, she scrambled up the slick surface, slipping a bit, but her boot soles were made of material that clung, and she found purchase.

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  "Wow," he heard her say nervously. "It's pretty high up here. Ten meters or so off the ground. Hope I don't fall."

  Krillen hoped so, too. He had no idea how to pilot the skimmer.

  "Now let's see..." She crawled about on the top. "Yes! There's a pattern here, but the scrapes are farther apart than the first set."

  "Our foot talons tend to spread over time," he said, stepping back a little so he could see the roofline. "The older we get, the wider they spread."

  "Like footprints?" Mahree called down.

  Krillen recalled the sight of her naked feet yesterday, when she'd removed her boots after the thunderstorm and drained the footgear. "Yes."

  Mahree nodded, then moved forward slow
ly, her monocular clicking as multiple lenses moved into place. "Left. Right. Left. Right. About a one-meter stride."

  Hmmm. "That would be equal to the stride of a middle- aged Na-Dina, of either sex."

  Mahree crawled farther along the silvery hull, ending up at the part that covered the pilot cabin. She looked to the right and the left, then down again, then--moving slowly-- she stood up. The afternoon breeze fluffed out her long hair and whipped at her loose blouse. Her voice was borne to him on the hot wind. "Krillen, the scrape marks end here. As if... as if whoever climbed up here just stepped off into the air."

  "Come down," he called. "Let us inspect the perimeter of the mesa for tracks."

  They walked it together, slowly, "reading" each bit of ground. Nothing. Then they spent a long time examining the far side of the jumpjet for some signs of tracks, tail rubbings, any indication that the Na-Dina had climbed onto the roof, jumped, and landed.

  Again, nothing.

  Who could survive such a fall, and walk away? Without leaving tracks?

  Kril en shook his head. How did this al fit together? He

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  couldn't imagine. This case would require more thinking, much more consideration on his part. He would have to go over everything again. And again. Until he figured it out.

  He was Krillen of the Law, and he had never failed to solve a case. And he wasn't going to fail this time, either.

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  CHAPTER 8 The Unexpected

  A week after the smuggler raid, Etsane sat at her desk inside the Lab, staring glumly at photo-strips of the Royal Tomb ideoglyphs. How would she ever decipher the First Dynasty inscriptions?

  She had already applied Kerry-Howard's Method for classifying the attributes of the persons, ideas and institutions in the tunnel panels. That was simple iconography.

  She'd also compared the two versions of Na-Dina hieroglyphs with the ideoglyphs found in the Tomb, using stepwise and empty-set analysis.

  There had been a partial overlap in pictogram and phoneme matching, but the order of phrasing, the way the ideoglyphs began and ended a phrase, and the homophone variation rules still escaped her. She was left with a few translated words and a cryptic phrase--tantalizing bits, but...

  "You look like you need a break."

  Mahree Burroughs stood beside Etsane's desk, a recording slate in one hand, her expression sympathetic. The younger woman sat back, rubbing her stiff neck. "I guess I could." She shoved the seemingly untranslatable glyphs toward the middle of her desk.

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  "Here," Mahree said, putting a glass down on the table, "have some iced tea."

  "Thanks, I need it," Etsane said. "You got back the day before yesterday, didn't you? I haven't had a chance to ask you how it went."

  "Interesting," Mahree said, pulling up a chair. "Gave me a chance to see what life is like for the Na-Dina who live in the rural areas. We also nearly got fried by a lava flow."

  "What?" Etsane stared at her new friend in horror. Briefly, Mahree explained about the sabotaged batteries that had so nearly proved disastrous for herself and Krillen. "All in all, it was a narrow squeak," she finished.

  "I'll say! Who do you think might have done it?"

  "I don't know. Krillen wanted to question Axum, and I was present when he did. I felt sorry for her. She was so distressed to realize she might be under suspicion, and insisted she'd never done anything with the intention of harming another person. I believed her."

  "But she admitted to sitting in the pilot's seat aboard the jumpjet."

  "Yes, though she acted really ashamed of herself, because it verged on being blasphemous for her to have that kind of interest in flying through Mother Sky." The older woman glanced over at the pile of Etsane's work.

  "So, how are you coming? Gordon is pinning all of his hopes on your being able to translate the ancient Na-Dina glyphs."

  "I know," Etsane moaned. "Every time I think about that, I get the shakes.

  Mahree ... I'm not getting anywhere. Do you have any linguistics training?"

  "Yes, of course," Mahree said. "I've studied languages practically all my life.

  Is there something I could do to help you out?"

  "I don't know. Do you know any ancient forms of Mizari? I keep thinking that some of these glyphs have a resemblance to Mizari--but maybe I'm just imagining that, because of the artifacts that were found in the tomb. Can 132

  you take a look at all of this and tell me if you see any similarity?"

  "Yes, I know several forms of ancient Mizari. And sure, I'll take a look."

  Mahree picked through the pile of jumbled strip-sheets, her expression thoughtful. "Are these the glyphs that are causing you so much trouble?"

  She shuffled them around on the broad desk. Her eyes narrowed. "Etsane ...

  there really is some similarity between Mizari Four and these ideoglyphs from the Royal Tomb!"

  "Really?" Etsane moved her strips so that they flowed in a left-to-right manner, the way Na-Dina script was written.

  Mahree peered closely at the work. "Let's see--you're dealing with a round wall adorned with seven strips of ideoglyphs measuring twenty meters from the right side of the tunnel entry around to the left, with one strip stacked atop the other." She moved the strips into the proper configuration.

  "Yes," Etsane agreed, helping her. "The strips start at the floor and go up to where the ceiling arches into the domed skyscape. So the writing--and reading--convention had several options. Right to left. Bottom to top. Top to bottom. And the left to right I've assumed, provisionally, of course, starting with the bottom row of ideogylphs." Now Mahree pointed to Glyph Twenty-One, a series of curlicues, dots, and a triangular face that had perplexed Etsane to distraction. She looked up as Mahree fiddled with the strip, smoothing it out. "You really think these are related to the ancient Mizari language?"

  "I'm sure of it." The diplomat pointed at other strip- rows of ideoglyphs, tapping her finger at five different phrases. "Look at this, and there, there, then this one and this. Those are Mizari Four phoneme-glyphs. Corrupted, of course. But definitely Mizari--or at least what the Mizari used around six thousand years ago."

  Etsane looked across the lab to where the Esteemed Lorezzzs lay coiled before a row of ceramic vessels brought in from the Royal Tomb. "We need another expert in this

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  language. Lorezzzs is the representative of the Mizari Archaeological Society. Perhaps she--?"

  Mahree shook her head. "Very few Mizari have made a study of Mizari Four.

  I have--with the help of the Esteemed Ssoriszss." She scooted her chair around so she was sitting beside Etsane as the Ethiopian woman peered at the strip-sheets. "But it's mainly a hobby. Something to do in between extended diplomatic meetings."

  Mahree finished speaking with a smile, and gave Etsane a look of frank curiosity. "You know, you're pretty young to be so experienced at all of this.

  How did you get into it?"

  The younger woman blinked, then marked the ideoglyphs that Mahree had identified as Mizari Four. "Iconography was my first love. That's what got me my Heeyoon scholarship to study the paintings at Kal-Syr. Then

  postgraduate study of cross-cultural sapientology and multispecies linguistics at the university on Arooouhl. I've been working now for al mo st two years."

  Mahree sat back from the photo-cluttered desk, seeming surprised. "You made it into postgraduate studies early." Trying to shake her long-standing feelings of being out of place with the habits and expectations of other people, she wet her lips and said quietly, "Well, I earned my Lycée Supérieu r at seventeen with a thesis on the temple art of New Kingdom Egypt." She remembered it all too well. "At twenty, I left for Kal-Syr."

  Mahree spoke softly, as if she had noticed the pain in Etsane's last statement. "You must be very special to have accomplished so much at such a young age."

  Etsane sat back in her chair, both pleased and embarrassed at the praise.

  Pulling at one
of her braids, she shrugged. "My father began teaching me when I was four. He was a Professor Emeritus at the University of Addis Ababa, and taught me several languages--Gi'iz, Tigrayan, Oromo, Sidamo, and English. When mother died early, he and I--were alone together." She blinked her stinging eyes rapidly. "He set high standards. I always met them ... until he decided that I should stay on Earth and become a pro 134

  fessor like he was. I had decided I wanted to be a xeno- archaeologist. Soon after, I left Earth on scholarship to study on Arooouhl. It was the only time I ever disappointed him, he said."

  The Ethiopian took a deep, ragged breath from remembered pain. "He died soon after."

  Mahree placed a palm on Etsane's arm to still the nervous fingering of the braid. Her eyes held only understanding. "My dear, sometimes the hardest burdens are not what others demand of us, but what we give ourselves.

  Trying to please a memory ..." Mahree's expression turned distant, as if recalling something from her own life. "Memories should console, not enslave." Then the diplomat focused back on Etsane, smiling gently. "About this series of Mizari Four glyphs, have you considered ..."

  Etsane listened as Mahree made a suggestion for the linguistic comparison of Mizari Four with Temple and High Na-Dina, cross-linked to the Tomb ideoglyphs. It was a good idea, a pathway of multivariate factoring that she suspected even Professor Greyshine, her old mentor, would be hard-pressed to pull off.

  She realized that her work here on Ancestor's World was truly one way she could honor and fulfill her obligation to her dead father. The thought warmed her. But as exciting as a possible breakthrough was, Etsane was surprised to realize she was just as excited by finding, in Mahree Burroughs, a friend.

  Khuharkk' followed Professor Greyshine as the elderly Heeyoon walked up to the South Gate of the City of White Stone. He watched as Greyshine lifted his handheld record- slate, pointed the device's top edge at the curving arch that framed the gate, and activated the slate's graphics recording capability.

  The device, featuring drawings, photograph tracking, artifact location recording, and coding of artifact collection bags, never left the professor's hands when awake and stayed close by him even when he slept. Khuharkk'