by Allen Wold
"That suits me just fine," Rikard said. "And I guess that just about wraps things up."
"Except for the matter of payment," Gawin said.
"Certainly. I'm not going to haggle with you, Uncle Gawin. I'll open an account here in Three Rivers, and you make the deposit."
"I haven't made you an offer yet."
"It doesn't matter. I'm not poor, Uncle Gawin. Besides, I like to have various accounts in various places—in case of emergencies."
"Of course. I'm flattered that you trust me."
"Msr. Nevile Beneking," Rikard said, "has a very good reputation among the Gestae of my acquaintance. That's why I came to you instead of anybody else."
Gawin nodded, pleased at the compliment. "Then I suggest a drink to close the deal."
There was general agreement to that. And shortly afterward Mitchelle and Browen had some trusted members of the museum staff come in and pack most of the things away. Gawin asked permission to stay a while longer, to look at a few of the electronic books some more, and Rikard, Grayshard, and Droagn decided to stay with him.
They made themselves comfortable, but rather than look at old books, Rikard and Gawin got involved in family reminiscences. Rikard knew little about his mother's family, nothing about his father's, and Gawin was not too communicative, so mostly what they talked about was Rikard's childhood on Pelgrane, how his father had gone off looking for one last fortune and not come back, how his mother had grieved and died, how Rikard had found his father at last and lost him again, almost immediately, this time forever, to a murderer's gun. Rikard found that he, too, had things to be reticent about, the fortune that his father had found after all and which Rikard now had, his relationship with Darcy Glemtide and how that had ended, some few of his exploits that had less to do with historical "research" and more with just plain raising hell.
Endark Droagn joined in the conversation as he could. He sympathized with Rikard's position, and could understand it. Grayshard said little, but did not seem bored. He never did.
It got late, and conversation wound down. "I wish I could see you more often," Rikard said to his uncle.
Gawin fiddled with his drink, and for a moment would not meet Rikard's eyes. "There's a lot about your mother's family you don't know," he said at last.
"I know that Grandfather and Grandmother hated my father, and never much cared for me."
"That situation has not improved," Gawin said. "And it's completely unjustified, as far as I'm concerned. Maybe it's about time we did something about it."
"Such as?"
"Father strongly disapproves of what I do for a living," Gawin said wryly, "and does not know I do it. You will have to be discreet. If he finds out, he can cause me considerable trouble that, being the supposedly grown-up person I am, I would find more than just unpleasant, but intolerable."
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"I know. But family secrets have been kept too long. Why don't you come visit me, on Malvrone."
"I'd like to do that. What came first, the planet or the family?"
"No one remembers. Or cares. Will you come?"
"I will. When?"
"Give me about fifty, sixty days to clear this business up."
"All right. That will give me a chance to turn in a monograph or two. Maybe this whole business will impress Grandfather a bit, don't you think?"
"It might, but I wouldn't count on it."
"How about money? Mother always said her family had more titles than wealth. Does he need any help? Would he accept it from me?"
"It would not be a good idea to offer," Gawin said. He seemed oddly disturbed by the suggestion. "I think your first idea is the better one, emphasize your career as a scholar and a historian. Father doesn't keep track of these things much. He's fastidious about propriety, that's at the root of the problem."
"I can be very circumspect when I have to," Rikard reassured him. "I do have all the credentials I need. I publish quite regularly, you know."
"Yes," Gawin said, "I do."
"It's getting late," Grayshard said quietly. It was the first time he'd spoken in several hours.
"It is that," Droagn said. "Let's bring this business to a close and get some sleep. We don't want to be here when the staff comes in the morning."
"You're right," Rikard said, and he pulled himself to his feet. "I'd just like to take one more look at that archaeology book." He walked over to the desk where it lay. Droagn sighed. Rikard opened it and stared at what he assumed was the title page.
The book was an artwork in itself. Though they had been able to recharge this and the other books, there were no other objects exactly like them anywhere in the Federation. Rikard touched the corner of the screen and flipped through a few pages. Gawin came over to look, and Droagn did too, standing behind them and looking down over their heads.
The book was heavily illustrated, with photos, renderings, graphs and charts, and diagrams. There was extensive text as well, in body, sidebar, caption, and special in-text notes. It dealt with sites that were archaeological treasures at least a million years ago, if not more, and so were incredibly ancient now. If any of the sites illustrated could be found they would be of immense value, dating as they did from the time long before the ascent of Humans.
Rikard turned the pages, just skimming, but now and then he paused to look at one of the illustrations more closely. Many of them dealt with Ahmear sites, but as many more dealt with other races, such as the octopoid Rel-Geneth, the humanoid Drovish, the centaurian Charvon, the arachnoid Ratash—and the Kelarins, of course—all of which, except the Kelarins, Rikard recognized and knew to be extinct. Most of the pictures were originals, but a few, by their slightly reduced quality, seemed to be reproductions of much older pictures, and were obviously so, as when the older picture was an actual photograph or holograph instead of the current technology of the book.
"We've got to go," Grayshard said softly from behind them.
"In a moment," Rikard said. He turned more pages, and then Gawin stopped him.
"Look there," he said.
Rikard looked at the picture more closely. The site illustrated was that of a certain kind of ruin, and the peculiar structure that Gawin was pointing to was simply in the background behind it. "There's something about that..." Gawin said, then picked up his portable comcon and searched quickly through several screens of text. "That's it," he said at last. "I knew I'd seen something like that before." He showed his comcon to Rikard.
On the screen, in the background of a picture, was the image of a conical mountain of white stone. "That's on Dannon's Keep," Gawin said. The slightly twisted cone on his comcon was greatly eroded, while the one in the Ahmear book was whole and its spiral form more obvious, but they were apparently the same kind of formation, altered by a million years or more of weathering.
"I was there on, ah, business," Gawin said. "I saw these things, took a picture. Nobody could tell me what they were, except that they were metamorphic limestone. It's a rather peculiar geological structure, and there were no explanations as to how it was formed, but there are a number of them in various places around the world, and nobody was much interested in them. But if what I saw was the same as these things here"—he jabbed his finger at the Ahmear illustration again—"then they're not natural after all." The cones in the Ahmear book, despite their unfamiliarity, were obviously artificial structures.
"I've never seen anything like it before," Rikard said. "I can identify the major architectural forms of every major culture of any starfaring species in the Federation, but not this." He felt a thrill of excitement run through him. He looked up at Droagn. "Could that possibly be of Ahmear origin?" he asked.
"No way. I'm not an historian, but for what it's worth, I've never seen anything like it either."
They turned a couple of pages, and there was another illustration, with the unweathered cone in the background. This one was clearer, and comparing it to the picture Gawin had brought up on his
comcon, it was obvious that the two were the same thing.
"Not marble mountains after all," Gawin said, "but the eroded remains of some kind of building."
"And if that's true," Rikard said, "they must belong to a species so far undocumented." He felt himself grinning. Precoursor history was his favorite. "But who were they?"
Gawin typed codes into his comcon, but the only message that came on the screen was, "No records of any such architecture."
"It was something your people knew about," Rikard said to Droagn.
"My species," Droagn said, "but not my people. This is all ancient history to me too."
"I've got to check this out," Rikard said. "Maybe it's nothing, but if it's what I think it is, my reputation is made." He looked at Gawin. '"Historian discovers hitherto unknown sentient species.' Would that impress Grandfather?"
"It would impress anybody," Gawin said, "but your grandfather isn't just anybody."
"I've got to give it a try. You need fifty, sixty days. I can get to Dannon's Keep and back by then. If it's a false lead, I'll at least have done something interesting with my time."
"I guess it wouldn't hurt to try," Gawin concurred.
Dannon's Keep
1
The Federation and many of the surrounding star nations, such as the Abogarn Hegemony and the Anarchy of Raas, are dominated by Humans—by virtue of their numbers rather than their great age or superior technology. Many of the other intelligent species are also starfaring, but many are not.
The Zapets of Dannon's Keep are an example of the latter. They are humanoid and highly technological, and in some ways they are superior to the average Federation culture. But they never developed a star drive, and have no desire to explore the stars. Their world is well within the Federation, and they are fully aware of the Federation surrounding them, but pay it no attention and have no interest in it. They permit visitors, and being humanoid have little difficulty with most of them.
And so it was when Rikard and his companions arrived.
The facilities at the system jumpslot were minimal, as was the station orbiting Dannon's Keep itself. A Federal agent cautioned them about being on a non-Federal world, and then they took the shuttle down to the surface. During the brief descent they could see the gemlike cities among the fields and forests. The farms were checkerboarded with wilderness and parklands. There were few small communities in those parts of the world where the dominant cultures existed, and few large cities elsewhere. They landed at Vergemal, one of the three cities with a spaceport. The ground staff was half Human, and a quarter other alien.
The rest were Zapets. They were as tall as Rikard, on the average, adapted to their slightly cooler, darker world, with huge eyes, soft fur the color of sunset covering their entire bodies and faces, long narrow noses, large ears, and hands with fingers twice as long as a Human's. Despite their fur they wore clothing, and boots or shoes on feet that more resembled a long-toed dog's than a Human's.
The city of Vergemal was typical, mostly vertical and densely built, dimly lit by Human standards but well ventilated and with plenty of interior open spaces for all that, and highly ornamented, even in the most functional areas.
Accommodations for off-worlders were not easy to come by. Within the spaceport, nobody needed rooms for more than four or five days, and out in the city they were not accustomed to dealing with anyone but themselves. But at last Rikard located a garage, for Droagn, with facilities appended for himself and Gray shard, which suited them just fine.
Rikard and his companions caused considerable attention as they found their way around, looking for someone who could help them locate the mysterious architecture in Gawin's pictures and the Ahmear book. The university was of no help, nor was the Federal bureau of parks and land management. But then Rikard tried the largest tourist bureau in the city, and though they were not really prepared to help alien visitors, the director did recognize the eroded cones, calling them volcanically modified sedimentary extrusions, and was even able to tell them that the ones in the picture were located in the forested region of an underdeveloped country called Laka Chuka.
Having solved that problem, they next had to obtain a vehicle, special equipment, and supplies. Rikard had taken it for granted that he could get whatever he wanted here, as he had everywhere else, but such was not the case. The Zapets just didn't know how to deal with them. It took them more than ten local days to equip themselves, and not only at greater cost, but at the complete loss of any anonymity they might have hoped for.
But at last they were able to head for Laka Chuka. It was a three-day trip by air truck, even with no stops. They passed out of the region of high culture and big cities, and headed south into the dense forests. There were occasional small towns, then only villages, then nothing but trees. The truck's navigation panel had no entry for their destination, so they had to go on direction and coordinates alone.
Two hours after passing the last village they flew over small areas within the forest that had been clear-cut. Each was only a few hectares in extent, and there were other, similar areas where new trees were growing up. In another place they saw where a section of the forest had been thinned, but not cleared, and in another area it appeared as though only selected mature trees had been removed.
This part of Laka Chuka was home to a people called the Una Tlim. They were considered primitive by the sophisticated city dwellers to the north. They made their living by tree culture, and provided much of the more civilized world with lumber. They were a proud and independent people, divided into innumerable communities who fought among themselves for land rights, and were, as far as Rikard knew, totally unfamiliar with off-worlders.
It was midaftemoon of the third day when they saw something on the horizon ahead of them. As they neared it proved to be the white, eroded cones, apparently the ones in Gawin's photo, though they were approaching from a slightly different angle. Rikard couldn't help but wonder what his uncle had been doing in this part of the country when he'd taken the pictures.
The cones were hundreds of meters tall, steeply angled, with nearly pointed tops, their sides grooved and notched and ridged. Together they formed an equilateral triangle, sticking up out of the dense forest. There was no place to land.
They went back a few kilometers to a clear-cut section they'd passed by and set down. The trees had been removed very recently, and the stumps were still damp. The brush had been collected into several piles around the perimeter of the clearing and the ground smoothed over. These people took good care of their forests.
They loaded their equipment on four industrial-grade floaters. There was lots of room left over, just in case they wanted to bring anything back. Now they faced the prospect of a hike through the forest, pulling and pushing the floaters along with them. They would have to clear a trail as they went, but dared not damage any trees, lest they arouse the antagonism of the Una Tlim.
Before they could get under way, the Una Tlim themselves showed up. They were somewhat more solidly built than the Zapets of the city, their fur was rather paler, and though the city folk considered them primitive, they carried high-powered rifles and laser woodcutting tools. They did not seem happy to see Rikard and his companions, especially Droagn.
In anticipation of such an encounter Rikard had come equipped with vocal translators, the use of which rather startled the locals, but which enabled them to negotiate their assistance, though not without considerable haggling over what work was to be done, what price was to be paid, and what precautions Rikard's party had to take to avoid damaging the trees. What he wound up with was four Una Tlim and a leader, whose name was something like Oakly, and whose primary duty, it seemed, was to keep Rikard out of trouble.
The trip was uneventful, and they camped that evening near the base of one of the white marble cones. The trees grew right up to the base, and the undergrowth a little way up it. The Una Tlim made their camp in tents, which each one carried, while Rikard set up a larger shelter, un
der Oakly's guidance, where he and Grayshard and Droagn could sleep. The Una Tlim built a fire, and they were all as sociable as they could be. They did not share food.
Rikard slept well that night, until Droagn roused him, halfway between midnight and morning. "We've got company," Droagn said. "More Zapets, and they're sneaking through the trees."
Rikard dressed quickly, buckled on his holster, and left Droagn and Grayshard in the shelter while he went to talk to the Una Tlim leader.
"I was hoping," Oakly said, "but it was not to be. We have left our own territory, so near were we to the border, and these others think we have come to steal their trees."
"So what do we do?" Rikard asked.
"Get up onto the mountain, so that they can see that we mean no harm."
When Rikard got back to Droagn and Grayshard, they had already taken down the shelter and stowed it on its floater. Their five Una Tlim porters joined them almost at once, and they quickly moved to the base of the cone, only a dozen meters away. But even as they started up the steep, detritus-covered slope, there were shots from behind them, and one of the porters fell.
Their position was indefensible, but they did what they could. Oakly and the three remaining porters fought bravely, Grayshard's micropulse laser was effective—the darkness didn't bother him much—but Rikard and Droagn could not see any targets, and just fired into the trees at random.
And then it was all over. Their porters lay dead, their attackers, whom they never saw, fled into the forest.
"Let's wait for daylight," Rikard suggested. "It's going to be tricky enough to climb this thing when we can see."
Dawn was not too far off, and they were not disturbed the rest of the night. Droagn kept watch. When the sky above them began to brighten, and the top of the cone turned bright red in the rays of the rising sun, they put the essential equipment on one floater and left the rest and started up.
The surface of the cone, past the layer of forest detritus, was as white up close as it had seemed at a distance. The weathered marble was corrugated, rough, and though the slope was steep it was relatively easy to climb, at least for Rikard, as there were plenty of handholds and footholds. Grayshard managed fairly well, unburdened as he was. Droagn found it a bit tricky, especially since he had the greater burden of pulling the float while Rikard managed the lifting controls.