Artifact

by Gregory Benford

“Well…perhaps.”

  He leaned back and pondered the worn stones, trying to put himself into that time, to see them freshly painted and decorated, witness to pomp and ritual. “Lord God A’mighty—think of that. Trapped in here.”

  “They filled in the dromos with sand after the last burial. Covered the whole hillside, too, from the signs we can find. Unusual. They knew they weren’t going to bury anyone else in here again. This king, or whoever, must have been pretty special. A hero, a great law giver, a conqueror. Agamemnon we know about because of Homer, but this king could have been just as important.”

  “Uh huh. And his servants. Caught in here, no light—and if you did set fire to something, so you could see, it’d eat up your oxygen. Bet they didn’t know that, though. Light up some of the clothing if you could, that would be easy. Did they have candles back then?”

  “Doubtful. None would have survived this long, anyway. They probably used oil lamps.”

  He stood and gazed around the cluttered mud floor, peered up into the gloomy heights of sloped stone. “I wonder…wonder what it was like. Caught in here, you know there’s only so much time…”

  “Drugged, too.”

  “What?”

  “They might well have drugged the servants, or got them drunk.”

  “Sure, good and drunk. Makes sense, once you accept the general idea. But how blotto can anybody get, knowing what’s coming?”

  Claire turned back to her work. “Speculation is fun, but this is urgent, and—”

  “But you’ve got something to explain, too,” he said forcefully. “Those markings.”

  “Looters.”

  “Maybe looters. It sure seems to me any looter worth his salt would finish chipping away at that mortar, see what was behind the block. The only marked stone in the whole tomb.”

  “Sure, sure, anything might have happened—”

  “That’s the puzzle.” He whirled to the block and traced its circular design once more, all his fatigue burned away.

  “Suppose a servant wakes up. Drunk. Knows where he is, knows he hasn’t got much time. He’d try to tunnel out, don’t you think?”

  “Perhaps. That dromos was filled with sand. He would have to burrow upward ten, fifteen feet—”

  “Through fresh sand? Most of it would slide right on in, once the door was open.”

  “This was a sealed tomb. They would have to move several blocks out of the doorway, then dig upward.”

  He spread his hands expansively. “Wouldn’t you at least try?”

  “Well, yes. But I don’t have the holy idea of ritual sacrifice drilled into me. They did.”

  He held up his hand, palm up, a mock-serious look on his face. “Pardon me, you’re absolutely right, distant culture and all that sophisticated, broad-minded stuff. Bumpkins like me fail to take that into account, right?”

  She smiled guardedly. “You said it, not me.”

  “Still, if we drop the looters theory for a minute, we conclude that somebody tried to get out.”

  “Okay. Go ahead.”

  He gave an exaggerated bow, but when he stood up he again ran his hands over the random lines cut along the outer edges of the block. With the flashlight he traced out where a point had gouged deeper, skidded away, and come back to the job again, a little off to the side. “Sloppy work. Were there any marks like this around the entrance?”

  “I’d have to consult my notebooks. Rowland did that early part of the dig. But—no, I don’t think so.”

  “Good. Then the problem is, if somebody wants to get out, why’s he chip away at this block?”

  “To get to the cistern passageway we found.”

  “But you and George said that seepage hole wasn’t there when they built the tomb. Otherwise they’d never have built so close to it.”

  “Well…maybe.”

  “Come on, follow the premise. The servants, poor people trapped in total blackness, they know they haven’t got long. So why did they try to remove this block?”

  “The cistern…”

  He slapped the rock decisively. “They wanted something. And what’s behind the block? Nothing”—he jabbed a finger—“except that cube.”

  CHAPTER

  Five

  That night Claire made another important discovery. John had come back to the tomb after a quick supper, planning to put in a perfunctory hour of work before collapsing into luxuriant sleep. Claire helped him where she could, but he persuaded her to leave him to his electronics. She took a roll of photographs of the space behind the artifact and then moved restlessly around the tomb.

  “C’mon, Claire, find someplace to perch,” John said irritably.

  “You know, we haven’t moved the cube yet.”

  “It’s too heavy.”

  “Not with you and George helping. I’d like to look on the left side of it, see if there’s a marking.”

  “Good idea,” John said with relief.

  She took an hour to arrange padded levers around the cube. The men pushed slowly on them, grunting, and managed to slide the cube sideways by the width of a hand.

  “No markings,” Claire said with disappointment, shining her flashlight into the gap. “Simply dust—no, wait.”

  She extracted the thing after another half hour of photographing and measuring. It was a square ivory sheet, thin and barely five centimeters on a side. The surface showed faint markings, dulled by time.

  “Looks like someone carved the lines, then—see these reddish flakes?—painted over them to enhance the effect,” Claire said.

  George agreed. The ivory square had been standing edge-on in the dust. “It must’ve been glued onto the cube’s side, and fallen off,” George said.

  “A decoration? What’s it show?” John asked.

  Claire carefully cradled it on a clean plastic sample field. “Not much. It’s so faint. Nothing like a design—too irregular.”

  “Maybe it’s too far gone,” John said. Despite himself he yawned.

  “I’ll clean it tomorrow, try to enhance the contrast,” Claire said. “Even if we can’t extract the markings better, this is still an important find.”

  “How come?”

  “Ivory was rare in Mycenae. The fact that it was used as a decoration of this artifact means whoever was buried here was very important.”

  “A king?”

  “Probably.”

  “And the cube was important, too,” George added.

  John asked sleepily, “Then why’d they hide it?”

  George was helping John move some blocks the next morning when a jeep’s growing rrrrrrr caught their attention.

  George’s head turned abruptly. He grimaced. “Oh damn! We should’ve stuck to the plan and had you work through last night.”

  “Look, I was worn down to a nub. There’s too—” John watched George trot out the entrance of the tomb. “Oh—that’s him, huh?”

  “Yeah. You stay put.” George waved him back into the shadows. “I’ll go down and explain that you’re a tourist friend of Claire’s.”

  “You’ll bring him up here?”

  “No, no, you don’t—never mind.” George trotted away.

  John kept working on the metal analysis. He had finished boring into the side of the cube. It had been a tricky process, the tiny drill whirring like a trapped bee inside the stone. He noted with pride that the hole was clean and professional-looking.

  Now he had to triple-check the black boxes. They took up a lot of space in the cramped zone around the cube. He had gotten George to move the heavy stone blocks out of the way, which gave him time to cover his own unfamiliarity with the circuit layout. The connections looked okay now, though. He turned on the instruments and was rewarded with a satisfying, unalarming hum. It would need a while to warm up properly.

  He read the manual again and waited. After a while curiosity overcame caution. What the hell, he had been tiptoeing his way through this procedure for hours; he needed a break. He swung the big wooden door shut over t
he entrance and left the site.

  As he walked down the switchback path to the camp he saw a powerfully built man talking to George. The man made quick, impatient gestures at the laborers who were loading the trucks. They weren’t agreeing very much. The man’s words rolled out loudly and John could tell the laborers were listening to him while trying to seem at work, heads turned at angles to eavesdrop.

  He threaded his way among the last erect tents, wondering if he should walk into an argument. He was on shaky ground here in the first place, out of his field—

  Claire suddenly appeared from inside the pottery-sorting area. Perspiration beaded her lip. Had she been waiting for him?

  “Wait—before you talk to Kontos,” she said tensely.

  “Well, if you’d just as soon I didn’t—”

  “No, listen. He hasn’t seen me yet and I want to stay out of his way. I don’t think he saw you come down from the site. Pretend you’ve just returned from a walk by the ocean.”

  “What? You’re getting—”

  “Then say we’re going away this afternoon, going to see Mycenae.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “You can’t work in the tomb with him around. And I don’t want to be forced to tell that—that—to tell Kontos anything before I have to.”

  “My, you truly are agitated.” He patted her shoulder. “Didn’t know he still bothered you so much.”

  “It’s—it’s not just him. I haven’t told him about the cube.”

  “So?”

  “And I’m not going to.”

  “Ah.” His eyebrows arched like caterpillars.

  “Look, you don’t know how it was, I’ve got good reason.”

  “How long do you think before he—”

  “Enough time to satisfy our curiosity, at least. Kontos would grab it all for himself, believe me.”

  “Well, still now—”

  She said impatiently, “Skip the advice, okay? Just skip it. Now go talk to him. But you know nothing, remember?”

  “How could I forget? It’s true.” He smiled and ambled on.

  Doctor Alexandros Kontos reminded John of a good football player—sizable, muscular, yet not heavy, with a bunched energy restrained by calculating intelligence.

  John was comfortably large enough that sheer size did not impress him in another man. He had played quarterback in high school, and gotten by on his speed rather than mass. He passed accurately, ran moderately well, had made All City in his senior year, but by then dozens of heavy linesmen had hit him with everything they had and a part of his mind could not forget the experience. Shifting sideways, looking down field for a receiver, you can’t be already bracing for the 250-pound animal about to slam you into the mud. If you do flinch, the pass will go wrong. Until you let go of the ball you must carry the absolute conviction that you are immortal, untouchable. When John felt that slipping from him he knew he’d never be worth a damn anymore, and quit playing.

  Kontos bristled with flinty, assured aggression. He would have made a good quarterback.

  John was on guard as he approached. Deceiving Kontos would take craft; he hoped Claire didn’t intend to keep it up for long.

  George introduced them. Kontos instantly made his face impassive, giving nothing away, as he shook John’s hand. “I fear you come just as everything is ending.”

  “Aw, it doesn’t matter. I wanted to see the countryside, mostly, not just old bones.”

  Kontos, to his credit, smiled at the mild jab. “We Greeks have more ‘bones’ than anyone. After you have had your fill of our beautiful landscapes, perhaps you will look in at the Museum in Athens. It is worthwhile even for the purely pleasure seeker. There is more to our country than sun and wine and beaches, you know.” The well-oiled voice carried just the right balance of cordiality and insinuation. All the while the eyes were glancing at his clothes, hands, face, filling in a mental picture.

  “Well, I’ll surely do that. Just wanted to see Claire a little, while I was here.”

  “You have been here long enough to visit elsewhere in the Peloponnese?”

  “No…just dropped in,” John said, taking advantage of the Southerner’s slow drawl to think. “I figured I’d let Claire show me around.”

  “Oh?” Polite interest.

  “We were just leaving for Mycenae.”

  “Very good. A marvelous place, one of our most ancient.” He pronounced it “auncient,” gazing around. “She is…”

  “Getting dressed.”

  “I see. And after you leave here?”

  “I thought maybe I’d go south, do some diving.”

  “Very good. The Cycladic islands, then?”

  “I reckon so.”

  Kontos visibly lost interest in probing and turned to George. “Perhaps you should plan on a vacation as well, eh?”

  “What do you mean?” George said evenly.

  “On your return journey to the United States, you could stop somewhere. There is perhaps some money left in the account for the group.”

  “Is that your idea of a bribe?”

  To John’s surprise, Kontos took no offense at this. The man simply pulled his lips leftward, sardonically. “An unfortunate word. You say, before Mr. Bishop appeared, that you wished to remain a while longer. I just am pointing out that you could spend such days in a better, a more relaxing place.”

  “Come off it,” George said sourly. “I don’t want any vacation. I want to get this job done.”

  “It will be finished in due time.” Kontos’s voice turned suddenly cold. “Meanwhile, you. Will. Leave.”

  “Now just—”

  “No! I want you—all of you—gone. In two days.”

  “That’s crazy,” George said.

  “I am fearing the situation warrants it.”

  “What situation?”

  Kontos shrugged. “I try, but who can guarantee the good will of these laborers? They might do anything, in reaction to the current actions of your government.”

  “These guys? Come off it.”

  “What you think, it does not matter. You will follow the orders of the host co-chairman.”

  “I don’t like your explanation. I think it’s phony.”

  “I do not at all have to explain you why. But I am polite now. You can do equally?”

  George bit his lip.

  Kontos put his hands on his hips. “You do understand?”

  “Yeah. But that’s two days clear, right? I don’t want to have anything slow up the work.”

  Kontos smiled, his moustache gleaming in a shaft of sunlight. “You may work, of course—as long as the packing is complete in time. And I will return to check the materials, the cataloging for the Museum, everything. I personally.”

  George said grimly, “Great.”

  CHAPTER

  Six

  As they drove toward Nauplia, John said to Claire, “I thought we were going to that ruined city, Mycenae.”

  She smiled. “That was the first plausible thing I could think of. There’ll be plenty of time for ruins later.”

  “No Mycenae?”

  “I thought you wanted diving. Notice that your gear is still in the trunk?”

  “You told me to leave it there. You said it might get stolen otherwise.”

  She glanced sidewise at him, her cheeks dimpling with a grin. “I had plans.”

  “Which are?”

  “You’ll see.”

  He chuckled; she wasn’t as subtle as she thought. They joined the main road that wound up the coast of the Gulf of Argolis. Claire provided commentary with the effortless welling-up that bespoke a lifelong fascination. Her hair streamed behind in the breeze and her eyes danced.

  Here the Mediterranean was rimmed by sandy inlets that had provided ideal anchorage for the ships of antiquity. To the north, rugged mountains descended into lesser eminences, framing the plain of Argos with rocky hills. This was the stony stage for the great myths of Perseus, founder of Mycenae, for the labors of Hera
cles, for the Trojan war launched from here. From these innumerable sandy coves had come the “thousand ships” drawn by Helen’s beauty and the lure of Troy’s wealth. Agamemnon led them forth in myriad small boats, to return years later, full of victory—and be slaughtered by his wife, assisted by her lover. The land lay drenched in blood from a million battles, betrayals, sacrifices. Its soil was thin and iron-poor, two facts that led the first dwellers here to exploit the sea, and to make remarkably beautiful pottery of pure yellow or light red clay. These were their trademarks: daring seamanship aboard slim, shallow-bottomed craft that bore the beautiful jugs, carrying rich oils or dark, astringent wines—a people known from Asia Minor to Crete to Egypt.

  They swept into Nauplia at Claire’s customary speed, scattering some dozing, dirty goats.

  “Why do they have their hind legs tied to the foreleg on one side?” he asked as their dust wake obscured the scrambling herd.

  “That stops them from climbing into the hills. They can’t step high enough. It’s simpler than building fences.”

  He nodded. His mathematician’s eye appreciated a solution both sensible and elegant.

  The lamb at lunch was rich and well marbled with fat. Cafes lined the street alongside the classic quay, sporting gaudy displays of touristy books and trinkets. John had white fish, cooked and eaten whole in lightly spiced oil. The pungent dip of yogurt and garlic made him gasp.

  “Local culture,” she said, laughing.

  “Like those postcards?” He pointed.

  Atop the rack of standard cards was a set of cartoon figures, resembling the stark scenes of classical Greek vase painting. Heracles was performing the fourth of the labors imposed on him by Eurystheus the King—bringing a huge captured boar before the King and his women. A fair copy in reds and blacks on a rose background, so typical that one might miss the modern additions of swollen genitalia and lascivious stares.

  “Oh, those,” Claire said disdainfully.

  “Local pornography?”

  “Simple bad taste. Some tourists will buy anything. Particularly Americans.”

  “Your Bostonian reserve is showing.”

  “Not at all. Something done badly has no excuse.”