by Alex Archer
Dave frowned. “Yeah, well, it’ll keep you from dehydrating and dying, so there’s got to be something said for that.”
Garin took another swig. “Indeed.”
Annja finished her water and stowed the bottle in the loose pile of dirt nearby. She’d refill it later.
Dave was still hunched over by where Garin was digging. “Where were you assigned before you came down to these parts, anyway?” he asked.
Garin smiled. “I believe I told Annja earlier a little something about things being classified. Need-to-know, and all that good stuff. It’s not really necessary information, anyway, is it?”
Dave shrugged. “Probably not. You just seem a little odd to me, that’s all. You know, like when my gut keeps nudging me, it’s almost like I’ve got to listen to it.”
Garin frowned. “Does that happen often?”
Annja swallowed. “You should have seen him at dinner last night.”
Dave glanced over and smiled. Then he got to his feet. “Well, whatever, Major. You just keep on digging and we’ll see what we see.”
Garin watched him walk away. For her part, Annja was amazed that Dave would have the courage to speak to Garin like that. Garin wasn’t exactly the least intimidating guy on the planet. He was huge by comparison to Dave, but Dave showed absolutely no signs that it made any difference in the world to him.
It presented a problem. If Garin thought that Dave was too much of a bother, there was every chance he would simply kill him and be done with it. Of course, it would have to look like an accident to allay suspicion.
Annja didn’t want anyone killing anyone. All she wanted to do was find more artifacts and try to piece together what had made them. The chances of that happening, however, seemed to be getting smaller and smaller with each passing minute.
Sooner or later, things were going to come to a head and Annja just hoped the damage wasn’t too profound.
They dug for three more hours before taking a break for lunch. Dave had once again gone back up to get them the cardboard-boxed Meals Ready to Eat that soldiers ate in the field. He handed them out to everyone and then plopped himself down in the nearest pile of dirt and tore into it.
Annja glimpsed the ham stew and frowned. “This is going to be nothing like dinner last night, is it?”
Dave chuckled. “Not even close.”
Garin held his up. “I abhor spaghetti and meatballs. Anyone willing to trade theirs?”
“Here,” Annja said. She pitched her box to Garin, who threw his to her. Annja grabbed it and ate the spaghetti and meatballs in silence.
For a while, no one said anything. The ambiance of the cavern was relegated to the sounds of eating, drinking and the occasional belch.
Annja finished her pouch and then took out the peanut-butter package and a cracker. The protein tasted great and she knew it would help her get through the day. She took another swig of water and settled back against the dirt.
Zach looked at her. “How are you feeling, Annja?”
“Fine,” she said with a shrug.
“Ribs?”
“A-okay.”
Garin looked interested. “Ribs? What happened? Was there an accident of some sort?”
Annja leaned forward. “Yeah. There was. Back in McMurdo, I was attacked walking back to my dorm room. Someone drove their pointy little elbow into my side and cracked a rib or two. Hurt like hell. Then they tried to run me over with a Sno-Cat.”
Garin smirked. “They tried to run you over with a horribly slow vehicle? That makes no sense at all.”
“I was trapped on my back and couldn’t move.”
“Ah. The proverbial beetle with its legs up.”
“Exactly.”
Garin shrugged. “Still, it was an awful lot of effort. Why not just put a bullet in your head if you’d pissed someone off that much?”
“I don’t know. That’s what has me wondering who it might have been. Obviously they wanted to make it look like an accident.”
Garin shrugged. “An autopsy would have revealed the fractured rib. There would have been questions.”
“I could have gotten the fractured rib slipping and falling on the ground.”
“True. But they might determine the angle of impact as being inconsistent with a fall.”
Dave held up his hand. “The important thing is she’s okay. And she seems better every day. Hell, yesterday, I didn’t think she was going to last twenty minutes in the Sno-Cat driving out here, but she weathered it like a trooper. I wouldn’t have even guessed you had a busted bone in your body, Annja.”
Garin’s eyes gleamed. “Really? What did you do? Heal yourself overnight so that by morning you were perfectly fine?”
Annja smiled. “The power of positive thinking, I guess.”
“Fascinating,” Garin said. He tipped a small bottle of hot sauce from his meal into his mouth and swallowed it with a grin. “Lovely.”
Dave eyed him again. “Want some water with that?”
“Not at all,” Garin said.
Zach bundled up his trash and placed it in a small pile by the entrance to the cavern. “Well, I’m all done. You guys ready to get back to work?”
Annja nodded. “Yeah.” She handed out her trash, belched and then heaved her shovel back into the hole. Jumping down, her boots hit the loose dirt and she stood there for a moment, lost in thought.
Garin wandered by and looked into her hole. “You have healing powers now, Annja?”
She shrugged. “I don’t think the injury was as bad as we first thought.”
“Liar.”
Annja laughed. “Pot, meet the kettle.”
Garin wandered off and Annja hefted her shovel. She slid the blade into the soft earth and started digging again. It had been a while since she’d been on a dig like this. She’d forgotten how the close confines of working inside could have a claustrophobic effect on her. She shook her head and got back into a rhythm. With luck, they’d find something soon and then be able to get some fresh frigid air.
Around her, the steady clangs of more digging broke out. No one spoke; all were concentrating on their own hole and making sure they covered the ground allotted to them.
Annja felt an uneasy sensation deep in her stomach about twenty minutes later. At first, she thought the spaghetti and meatballs were making their presence known. But she quickly ruled that out.
This was something else.
Every time her shovel slid into the earth, she noticed it moved a little bit more to the right, as if on its own accord.
She slid her shovel into the earth.
Something stopped it. “Guys? I think I’ve found something here.”
18
Annja sensed a rush behind her as Zach, Dave and Garin all fell over themselves trying to be the first to see what she’d discovered. Annja smiled. “Relax, I haven’t pulled it out of the dirt just yet.”
Zach reached her first. “Where is it?”
“My shovel hit something.”
“And you think—”
Annja nodded. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure.”
Garin slid down toward the hole. “So let’s see this grand discovery. I’m dying to see what you’ve managed to unearth.”
Annja glanced at him. “Knock it off there, Major. I’m sure you wouldn’t want me getting angry.”
Garin frowned, but realized the meaning behind what Annja said. If he pushed too much, she could easily expose him as a fraud. “Fine. I apologize for my brash manner,” he said.
Dave looked her over. “Okay, what have we got?”
Annja slid the shovel back into the dirt. A dull clang sounded.
Zach tensed. “Is that it?”
Annja nodded. “I think so.” She handed Zach the shovel and reached her hands into the soil. She was surprised at how warm it felt on her hands. It was almost like a mud bath she might have gotten at a spa.
Her fingers searched the soil, spreading out, until at last their tips brushed something. “I’ve got
it.”
Everyone leaned closer as she pulled the item free from the dirt. Clumps of soil fell away as she lifted it up.
“Wow,” she said.
Holding it in front of herself, Annja studied the piece she’d found. It was comprised of three snakes again, each snake biting the other so they formed a triangle around a central circle that had a sparkling blue stone set right into the middle of it.
“Is that a sapphire?” Zach asked.
Annja shrugged. “Could be. I don’t know.”
Zach whistled. “You’ve certainly managed to find the most exciting piece so far. Is it heavy?”
Annja shook her head. “Seems to be made from the same metal as the necklace. And I’m assuming the kettle and the pot were made of the same.”
“According to the colonel, they were,” Dave said. “It’s an incredible piece you’ve got there, Annja. May I see it?”
Annja handed it to him. Dave peered closer. “The cuts on this stone aren’t something I would think could be accomplished with ordinary hand tools. Certainly not something that those living at that time would have been able to fashion.”
Garin frowned. “So what are you saying? The stones were cut by a laser or something like that?”
“Some type of machinery I would expect,” Dave said. “They’re far too precise to be done by human hands and the tools they had. Of course, we’re supposing that they didn’t have elaborate machinery back then. It’d be hard to prove they did. There’s just no evidence of it, in fact.”
Dave handed it to Zach, who blew some more of the dirt off the piece. “This is fantastic.” He smiled at Annja. “I knew you’d be a source of good luck on this adventure. Look what you’ve found.”
Annja smiled. She didn’t feel particularly lucky, just fortunate that her senses seemed to be in tune with what was going on around her. She had somehow detected the piece, possibly because it wasn’t a natural part of the landscape—the soil and rocks that made up the mountain.
Was the sword responsible for that awareness, as well?
She turned then, aware that Garin was staring at her. “Well done, Miss Creed,” he said.
Annja frowned. “Thanks.”
What was he doing there? His actions didn’t make a whole lot of sense. But as much as she was suspicious of his presence, Annja did want to get him alone so she could ask his opinion on the sword and a variety of other questions that had recently come up.
But how could she do that without making everyone else suspicious?
Zach handed the piece to Garin, who took quite a few minutes to examine it. He turned it over and ran his fingertips over the surface as if expecting it to reveal something. When it didn’t, he handed it back to Annja. “The stone is a phenomenal piece of workmanship. I should think it would fetch an astronomical sum if auctioned off.”
Zach frowned. “It belongs in a museum. All of these pieces do. Just think of what this will do to the concept of human evolution on this planet. To think there were people living here who could work metal and precious stones this way. It’s going to upset every theory of evolution to date.”
“I imagine the warring parties between Biblical creationism and evolution will have lots to debate,” Dave said. “I can see ammunition for both perspectives. Should make for some fun watching from the sidelines.”
Annja sighed. “I thought we were trying to figure out if these were made by people indigenous to this planet or not. I don’t know if I see any way of presupposing who made these pieces. Where are the remnants of the rest of a civilization? We haven’t found anything but a few scattered artifacts.”
Zach nodded. “That’s a good point. All we’ve done is find something new to gaze upon.”
Garin cleared his throat. “I’d like to see if we can find any bits of wreckage to support the idea of extraterrestrial visitors.”
Annja shrugged. “You really think this might be evidence of such a thing? You think they plopped down here and then just vanished?”
“You said yourself there aren’t any other indications that a civilization even existed here. Suppose it was a craft from somewhere else that happened upon the planet during a period in its development. Suppose they experienced an accident that destroyed their means of leaving Earth. They would then be trapped here.”
“But the same problems arise,” Zach said. “Wouldn’t they leave other traces of themselves than just these bits?”
“Perhaps,” Garin said. “But depending on their biological makeup, they might have simply faded away—decomposed and become part of the very soil we’re digging in.”
“And their spaceship?” Dave asked. “Where would that be?”
Garin shook his head. “I’ve no idea. Perhaps it is buried even deeper in the earth just waiting for us to excavate it.”
Dave sighed. “No offense, Major, but this is starting to get a little absurd for me to believe. I think what we’ve got here is proof of an earlier race of humans who were far more advanced than scientists would believe possible until this point. We’ve got artifacts that reflect an incredible history via the dating process.”
Annja nodded. “I think people will be much more inclined to believe that explanation than the notion that they might have been created by aliens.”
Garin stepped out of the hole. “Well, I’m going to get back to work and see if I can’t find something of my own.”
Zach chuckled. “None of this is ours, Major. It’s all for the greater good.”
Garin’s smile looked forced again. “Oh, of course. Most definitely. I was only joking once again.”
Dave frowned. “Yeah.”
Garin eyed him. “Is there a problem between us, Dave?”
“Why?”
“Because I’m sensing hostility from you and I’m not sure exactly what to make of it. I can’t recall doing anything offensive to you, but if I have, I wish you’d let me have the opportunity to apologize for my transgression.”
Dave shook his head. “You haven’t done anything…yet.”
“Ah, so your animosity is simply a prediction of how you’ll be feeling in the near future,” Garin said.
“Something like that.”
“How very enlightened of you.”
The two men stood staring at each other for a full minute, and Annja could feel the tension building to an extremely uncomfortable point. She cleared her throat. “Yeah, well, okay, then. You guys can beat the crap out of each other later. For right now, I’m going to take this back up to the surface and get it logged in. I don’t want to take responsibility for possibly losing this. I get the feeling it’s pretty damned valuable.”
Zach smiled. “Good idea. The colonel will be overjoyed to see it. I imagine he’ll have some questions for you, as well.”
Garin smiled at Annja. “Why don’t I accompany you back? I think some fresh air might be a good thing.”
Annja frowned. “Okay, let’s go.” She scrambled out of her hole and she and Garin headed back up the path away from Zach and Dave. In seconds, Annja heard the rhythmic clang as their shovels resumed digging.
When she could no longer hear them, Annja turned to Garin. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Garin smiled. “Is that how you greet an old friend? I was hoping for something a bit more romantic.”
“Keep dreaming,” Annja said. “What gives?”
Garin shrugged. “I’m interested in artifacts. What can I say?”
“Right. Why the hell are you impersonating an army officer? Do you know how much trouble you could get into?”
Garin sniffed. “Please. There’s nothing they can do to me that can’t be thwarted. I’m perfectly safe.”
“You think so? Dave back there has you in his sights. And he doesn’t seem convinced that you are who you say you are.”
Garin nodded. “Fair point. I might have to deal with him, although I’d rather remain low profile.”
“No killing,” Annja said. “I don’t need that around me right
now.”
“Are you getting soft?” Garin smiled. “Old age starting to mellow you some? Slow you down a bit?”
Annja elbowed him in the side and he gasped at the blast. She nodded at him. “That feel like I’m getting soft?”
“Not even remotely.”
“You’d do well to remember that,” Annja said. “I’m not about to take any crap from you. Zach’s a good friend of mine and I don’t want anything bad happening to him.”
“What about Dave?” Garin asked. “Is he a good friend, as well?”
“I just met him two days back.”
“Ah, and you trust him?”
Annja shrugged. “How much trust can you build in two days?”
“Depends on whether you slept with him or not. Sex can be a fantastic bond between two people. Or three people. Sometimes, it’s four.”
“Enough,” Annja said. “Spare me your lurid hedonistic philosophy. It grates on me.”
“Only because you’re such a prude.”
“I am not a prude,” Annja said. “I just don’t see the need to have an orgy every night.”
Garin took a deep breath. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”
“A tangle of anonymous limbs? No, thanks. I’ll pass.” She kept walking. “Now, really, what the hell are you doing here? And don’t feed me any lines. If I don’t like what I hear, I’m liable to turn you in once we get up there.”
“My background is without flaw,” Garin said. “You could tell them anything and they wouldn’t believe you. I’ve already been thoroughly vetted.”
“How’d you manage that?”
Garin stopped her. “After all this time, do you really think I’d just show up without having the necessary backstopping to make certain I passed intense scrutiny? I’m a little insulted by that. You know I’m much more careful than to play amateur hour, especially with something like this.”
“All right, so you’ve got the paperwork. How much did that cost you?” Annja asked.
Garin shrugged. “What is money but an excuse to have some more fun?”
“Too many questions,” Annja said. “What I want are answers. And real answers, not more questions for questions.”