Bell’s brows raised. “You’ve certainly done your homework.”
Yoshi toyed with her braid. “I find the Etsatat culture interesting. It has striking parallels to nineteenth century Earth. Of course, on Etsat, there are no significant subcultures to compare with Earth’s aboriginal groups. In some ways, that makes it all the more fascinating. A singularly unfragmented global society.”
“Yes, well, I fail to find them the least bit engaging,” interjected Burton. “They’ve lost touch with their past. So much so that they’re absolutely useless as guides. They’ve no knowledge of the way their ancestors lived, how they thought, what they loved.” He shook his head, obviously finding that a difficult thing to grasp.
Nyami Deer-Walks-Here nodded in agreement. “Drew’s right. The Etsatat are a singularly future-oriented people. What’s past is past, what’s buried might as well stay that way. I have to admit, I found that very disconcerting when we first arrived.” She chuckled. “When we told the regional governor what we wanted to do out here in the wildy woods, he thought we were insane. Just a bunch of rusticating lovers of antiquity, eh, Drew? I sometimes think we’d be content to live life backwards.”
Burton harrumphed. “Well, there’s to be a balance, I’m sure, but dammit, Nyami, these people have been so bloody unhelpful. Can’t tell us anything, because they’ve never bothered to explore.” He leaned toward Rhys across the table. “Do you know, we’ve never found the slightest evidence of latter-day looting? No one has been in these buildings since they were abandoned.”
“Except for the vermin,” amended Bell.
“Except for that. And this is by no means the only site we’ve been working. There’s a village about five klicks from here, and temple complexes like this one —” He thumbed toward the dig. “— are all over the map. But the Leguini have absolutely no record of any of them.” His eyes wandered to the dark outside the cabin windows—a dark lit by plasma torches on tall poles. “The treasures that have lain buried here for countless centuries...”
“Are still here for you to find,” Rhys finished, grinning.
Burton returned the grin. “You count my blessings for me. And tomorrow, you’ll get to join in the finding. Now, before we all turn in, I want to give you a preview of what’s in store for you.”
He rose from the table and disappeared into the connecting tube that led to the Finds tent. When he reappeared two minutes later, he carried a wrapped object in his hands. Setting it on the table, he carefully peeled away the soft swaddling. Inside was a statuette approximately thirty centimeters in height. That the person portrayed was Etsatat was obvious, though the statue was somewhat stylized. Vaguely humanoid, it had the characteristic wide face with the tiny, pointed chin, low set, over-sized eyes and wide thin-lipped mouth. One long-fingered hand clutched a staff of some dull metal, the other was raised to a necklace of large rectangular bangles that hung around the effigy’s neck. Atop the staff was a vaguely crescent- or fan-shaped cap. Whether it was a scepter or weapon wasn’t readily apparent.
The Etsatat’s oddly jointed legs seemed to be encased in boots of a different material than the body and, on second glance, Rhys realized the hands and forearms were also sheathed in the same stuff. A long, flat apron hung from beneath the necklace and seemed, on closer inspection, to be part of a stole that covered the figure’s shoulders completely. Taken all together it looked to be protective gear—armor perhaps, or protection from Etsat’s “nocturnal nasties,” or yet again, ceremonial garb or uniform.
By far the most outstanding bit of apparel was the figure’s elaborate headdress. Fitted to the wide, shallow skull was a helmet of the same metal as the staff. Atop it was a flat, gleaming silver crest that was a larger twin of the one mounted atop the staff. It reminded Rhys much of a figure found on Earth at Teotihuacan in the late twentieth century.
“Meet the Moon God, whose temple this appears to be. We call him Ets-eket, which is Etsatat for Moon God, naturally. As you can see, he’s a warrior deity of some sort. Or the priest-surrogate for same. We haven’t found out quite as much about him as we’d like, but this entire complex, as I said, appears to be dedicated to him. We’re not quite certain of the purpose of the buildings on site—although they seem to be depositories for treasure, tribute, perhaps burial goods. The tower... well, there’s a mystery. The hole in the roof is the only obvious access point—though that giant conifer’s clogged that up pretty effectively. We’re fairly certain there’s an entrance hidden in that mound of spoil around the base. Scott and I are all for cutting the tree out chunk by chunk, but Nyami here will have none of it.” He afforded her an indulgent glance to which she replied with a shrug. “So, it’s dig we do.”
“There’s an accretion of ash on one side of some of the bricks we’ve collected at the top of the tower,” Scott Buchanan offered. “It’s possible the apex of the tower served as a sacrificial altar.”
“We suspect it might be the tomb of this fellow.” Burton patted Ets-eket on the headdress.
“Of course, we’ve not found any humanoid remains yet,” said Tzia, entering the conversation for the first time. “Just small animal bones.”
Burton cleared his throat. “The sheer volume of animal sacrifices we’ve found in the pits at the southern end of the complex is astounding. I’ve never seen anything to compare with it.”
“Of course,” said Tzia, “you have to sort the newer leavings—dead vermin and the like—out, or the data become skewed.”
“The data,” said Burton, voice sharp with irritation, “are as accurate as they can be.”
Rhys barely heard the exchange, so intent was he on the figurine. Drinking in every detail, he lifted tentative hands to it, then glanced at Burton. “May I, sir?”
“What? Oh, of course.” The older man made a sweeping gesture of welcome.
Rhys explored the figure with hands and eyes, memorizing every texture and nuance. “Marvelous! How old?”
“At least five thousand years, yet even the softer metal is intact.”
“Where did you find him?”
“In the Chapel. That’s what we call that small annex to Temple One. He was still in his little carved niche beside the door. Wish we knew the Etsatat name for him, but well, they haven’t got one.”
Rhys opened his mouth to ask more, but Burton forestalled him. “Keep your questions for tomorrow. Time to turn in. The day starts very early around here, Professor Llewellyn.” He rose and extended his hand to the younger man. “Wayne will show you to your cabin.”
o0o
“I am completely and utterly happy.”
Alone with Rick and Yoshi in the cabin they’d been assigned, Rhys stretched full length on his sleep mat, luxuriating in the fine, rare sensations that rolled over and around him. The bleat of a night avian, the muted whistles and twitters of insects, the humid, warm air against his skin, the velvet quality of the darkness beyond the large windows. It was magic; it was medicine.
He could feel the site out there waiting for him like a new friend, well met. The buzz of excitement he’d felt since setting foot on Etsat—no, since receiving Drew Burton’s invitation to do so—faded pleasantly to a balmy whisper of contentment.
Rick shot Yoshi a wry grin and saw an answering flash in her eyes, even in the unreliable light of the single large moon filtered through copious foliage. “It is nice and peaceful here,” he acknowledged.
Rhys snorted. “Peaceful? Is that all you can manage, Roddy? Peaceful? You’re in the presence of a legend, I’ll have you know. Professor Drew Burton has done more to advance xenoarchaeology than any other single researcher, just by moving into the arena. Since he’s been involved in extra-terrestrial research, he’s brought more attention to it, more sponsors, than ever it’s had. I expect his published works in the field will soon define it.”
“I thought his paper on the aboriginal cultures of Mandrorin was good,” Yoshi said, paused and added, “but I found some of his views a little biased.”
After a moment of silence, Yoshi murmured, “I didn’t like the way they called the Etsatat the ‘Linguine.’”
Rick sighed. “You take things too seriously, Yosh. It was a play on words. Human words. Burton’s just pinched because the Etsatat aren’t as agog at his discoveries as we are. I kind of think he imported us because he wanted to impress Rhys.”
Rhys frowned into the dark. “Why in heaven’s name should he care to impress me?”
“Because he respects you?” countered Rick.
Rhys felt the heat of embarrassment warm his cheeks. “Good Lord, Roddy! Why should he respect —?”
“Maybe because you’re the man who brought the White Temple of Tson to light after it’d been buried for two millennia. Oh, not to mention that you were the first human to establish meaningful communication with the Tsong Zee.”
“I didn’t do anything that important. The Tsong Zee found their Shrine, and they established contact with us.”
“He said ‘communication,’ not contact,’” argued Yoshi. “You were their Key Master. You were their eyes. They couldn’t have found the Temple without you.”
“Arguable. And irrelevant. Drew hadn’t even heard of Tson.”
“Then I guess he doesn’t use his own camp library. It contains a number of major articles covering your discoveries there, and someone’s been accessing them.”
The silence hooted and whistled. Rhys yawned, rolled over and feigned sleep, but the burning of his ears kept him awake for hours.
o0o
Breakfast was a necessity Rhys would gladly have done without. But he ate, his ears barely catching the conversations at table, his eyes going again and again to the tower rising out of the mist-draped forest. The steamy veil had begun to break up a bit by the time they approached the temple complex. This time, Rhys vowed, he’d keep his wits about him enough to take professional, objective note of things.
“The village,” Burton explained as they drew up to the great stone gate, “isn’t nearly as well preserved as this site. We actually started our work there. There’s still a team at that site, but I moved the base camp here because this —” He made a sweeping gesture at the lichen covered walls. “— will likely yield much more fruit. Has already, in fact. Nyami’s more interested in the village than I am. It’s the cultural anthropologist in her.”
Rhys nodded, studying the scaffolded archway above them. Made of large blocks of ruddy-mellow stone, its sculpted haunch served as the centerpiece of the cool-toned front wall. Behind the scaffolding that partially covered it, Rhys could just make out a large, central figure.
“Ets-eket again?”
Burton smiled. “Indeed. Flanked by a fine bas relief. And it’s in as remarkable shape as everything else here. You’ll find Ets-eket is well-represented hereabouts.” He led the way beneath the arch into the central plaza, and Rhys was struck again by the sheer magnitude of the place.
Workers were already crawling over and around the buildings, carrying tools, instruments, finds trays. Rhys brought his eyes back to the tower where Scott Buchanan directed traffic for the group digging away the fall of soil and humus at its base.
“That’s brick isn’t it?”
Burton nodded. “Kiln-fired, too, not sun-dried. We’re hoping to find the entrance within the next week or so.”
They toured each of the buildings in turn. What Burton called the Chapel had apparently been divided into several small rooms; the niche in which he’d discovered the Ets-eket icon was halfway up a broken wall next to a ruined doorway. The larger buildings—Temples One and Two, for the sake of identification—had been partitioned sparingly. Several small rooms ringed the perimeter of the huge main chambers, which were buried in centuries of compost and littered with debris from the fallen roofs and overshadowing forest. Among the detritus of ages, diggers worked in their gridded areas, taking a decidedly horizontal approach to the site.
Rhys peered over shoulders, chatted with workers, and took notes on everything. In Temple One, he commented on the series of large rectangular depressions along the back wall. Burton immediately led him to one that was being excavated. The trough was lined with finely planed slabs of the native granite and looked as though it might have at one time had a highly polished facing. They’d already dug down about four feet and had discovered literally hundreds of potsherds.
“We suspect this was a storage area,” Burton told him. “Possibly for foodstuffs the priests ate or used ritually. Or perhaps a burial cache of goods for the next life.” He shot Rhys a sharp glance. “We will find a burial.”
“The burial of Ets-eket?”
“Or of his mortal stand-in.”
“You think he’s a local or regional deity, then, rather than a ruler of some sort.”
“He could be both. Think of Osiris and his relationship to the Pharaohs of Egypt. But Ets-eket’s influence is hardly regional, Doctor. There are ruins half a continent away with these same structures and images. Generally they’re in much worse shape—too bad, because it seems some of them were built on a grander scale even than this. But the cult of Ets-eket evidently extended to most of the inhabited regions of this planet.”
Rhys raised a flamboyantly red brow. “That’s amazing. In fact, it’s unprecedented.”
Burton grinned from ear to ear. “Now you understand my excitement over this find.”
“Well, if it’s that wide-spread, that rather removes it from cult status. It’s more likely you’re looking at the relics of a major world religion.”
“Dear boy, we’re talking about the icon-ridden worship of a nature deity. I’ve read your treatises on xenoreligion. I don’t mean to sound disapproving, but they reek of cultural relativism.”
Rhys blushed to the roots of his hair. “I’m sorry you disagree so strongly with my theories —”
“Theories?” Burton laughed heartily and clapped Rhys’s shoulder. “My dear boy, theories can be supported by evidence. Your abstractions on the common roots of alien and human religion are dabbles in philosophy. Ah, but it’s engaging reading, Rhys! You’re a damn fine writer. Now, come, I want to show you the relief over the front gate.”
His arm around the younger man’s shoulders, Sir Burton drew him away into the full sunlight of the outer plaza.
o0o
Lagging behind, Yoshi cringed at the patronizing note of rebuke in the professor’s voice and bit the inside of her lip to keep from saying something she might later regret. Rhys’s work in xenoreligion, she knew, was the heart and soul of his anthropological world. It was clear Burton had no idea how close to his colleague’s heart of hearts he’d stuck his egoistic dagger.
Watching her, Rick leaned in close to her presently red ear. “I heard that stream of mental abuse. Come on, Yosh, don’t blow a sealant ring. I think our boss can probably defend himself if verbal fisticuffs break out. I thought he took all that wallah pretty well, don’t you?”
“He shouldn’t have to defend himself. Not to Dr. Burton. He has nothing but respect for that man. He doesn’t deserve to be patronized.”
“Respect?” Rick steered her out of the Temple One and into the plaza. “I’d say he idolizes him.”
“Yes, I can tell. I’m not blind.”
“Ouch! Yoshi Umeki, you, of all people, should understand that a little hero worship can be good for the soul. And for the career. You wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t made a hero of a certain Scotsman.”
“It’s not at all the same thing. First of all, I was fifteen when I met Rhys, and a sophomore in college. We have a student-mentor relationship because that’s what I am until I earn my doctorate—his student. Rhys is a grown man and has a double degree of his own. He’s at least Burton’s equal, but he doesn’t see that, and Burton’s not about to encourage him to.”
“So let me get this straight.
You hate Burton because you think Rhys likes him too much.”
“I don’t hate him. I don’t even know him. I just don’t believe he’s bigger than life.”
“Uh-huh. Which is why you snarl secretly every time he opens his mouth. You know what I think? I think you’ve become overly protective of our dear professor of antiquities. And I’m beginning to think it goes a little deeper than that pseudo-sibling defense mechanism you’ve been packing for the last three years.”
“Where’d you get the degree in psychology, Doctor Halfax? More Fool U?” Her golden skin suffused with rose, Yoshi pulled out of his light grasp and strode ahead of him.
At the great stone gate, they joined the two archaeologists in conversation below the scaffolded facade.
“As you can see,” Burton was saying, gesturing to where several people worked next to the carving of Ets-eket, “flanking the icon are twin reliefs. We’ve got a four foot panel pretty well restored.” Waving, he caught Tzia’s eye. “Why don’t you all make room up there? I’d like to show off for our guests.”
Tzia gave a peculiarly reptilian version of a human nod—her head and neck rising and falling on her shoulders—and shooed her crew of three off the scaffold.
Burton had just set foot on the bottom of the access ladder when his comlink chirped. It was Wayne Bell, calling him to the Chapel. He bid the others continue and left, promising to return quickly.
Rhys climbed the ladder eagerly, with Yoshi close behind. When she glanced back at Rick, he shook his head and stuffed his hands in the pockets of his khakis.
“That scaffold looks like my worst nightmare. I’m going to go prowl around those big square pits in the back of the complex, see what’s being dug up there.”
Yoshi shrugged and scrambled up to the fiber board platform where Rhys and Tzia were already engaged in a close inspection of the wall to the right of Ets-eket. She hunkered down behind to peer between their heads. Rhys was running his fingers over the slightly elevated surface of the relief, which depicted rank upon rank of men dressed in garb similar to that worn by the Ets-eket effigy. The main departure from his styling was their head gear, which was drastically understated in comparison. They did look, Yoshi had to admit, like helms of war.
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