THE STONES OF NOMURU

L. Sprague de Camp and Catherine Crook de Camp

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THE DIG

“Get those goddam animals out of my way!” yelled the huge, black-browed man who stood at the end of the rickety footbridge across the Sappari.

Keith Adams Salazar, in dirty khakis and a tropical sun helmet, looked up from his task of calming the terrified kudzai, while his three native helpers unloaded supplies intended for his camp. He studied the burly man and the group of Terrans and Kukulcanians that thronged the trail behind him, then said mildly:

I’m getting out as fast as I can. But we shall have to pull my animal’s foot out of this rotten planking before we can move.”

Crimsoning, the black-browed man waved a large, hairy fist. “Goddamn it, why don’t you just pull? You must be as stupid as that creature!” Topping two meters, he towered over Salazar.

The latter’s lips set in a thin, acerbic line, but he answered reasonably: “Because if we don’t unload it first, the animal will buck itself into the river.”

“I don’t give a damn what happens to the fucking beast!” screamed the big man. “Goddamn it, you’re holding me up on purpose!”

Salazar ignored the choleric stranger and, with the help of his Kooks, at last released the kudzai’s imprisoned hoof and calmed the squealing, tapirlike beast. As they reloaded the scaly pack animal, the turtle-beaked faces of Salazar’s helpers showed no emotion. Still, a Terran skilled in the ways of the folk of the planet Kukulcan could have interpreted their anger from the rippling patterns of the bristles on their necks.

The Kooks—natives of Kukulcan, so called by human settlers on that planet—were taller than most human beings but more slender. Although built on the general lines of a bipedal Terran primate, they did not much resemble any Earthly being. If anything, their aspect was reptilian. They had four-digit, clawed hands and feet; skins covered with iridescent scales and further decorated with painted symbols in a kaleidoscope of colors; no visible organs of sex; and a fishy smell. Muskets of peculiar shape were slung across their backs, while leather cases and pouches dangled from various straps, like the equipment of Terran tourists on a wildlife-watching expedition.

Finally Salazar’s party got under way. The bridge shuddered beneath the weight of the Terran, his three Kooks, and the three kudzais. As he neared the far end of the structure, Salazar glanced back to see the other party already starting across instead of waiting for the bridge to clear. Fearing that the combined weight of the parties would overload the rope cables that supported the structure, he picked up his pace. Reaching solid ground again, Salazar pulled off to one side, saying amicably:

“Since you’re in such a tearing hurry, perhaps you—”

“I ought to slap the shit out of you!” roared the burly man.

“Have you had your blood pressure checked lately?” asked Salazar. “Such an unruly temper implies a medical problem.”

For an instant it looked as if the black-browed man would hurl himself at Salazar. Then the latter’s three Kooks, with pink, forked tongues flicking out, unslung and leveled their muskets. The burly man paused with a hand on his holster.

Two other Terrans elbowed their way forward. One was tall, young, and fair-haired; the other, dark and obese. The heavy one spoke with an accent as thick as borsch. “Come on! If you two kill each other, is no fun for us.” Laughing equably, he put a convivial arm around the burly man. “Come on, Conrad, before you turn to stone like bogatïri.”

The speaker and the blond man led their grumbling companion away. Another Terran, stocky, tea-colored, and flat-faced, stepped up and nodded politely. “I am sorry, sir,” he said. “Mr. Bergen’s temper is—well, he has problems. Permit me; my name is Chung.”

“Glad to know you, Mr. Chung,” said Salazar. He waved a hand at the rest of the group, now filing down the trail ahead. “And who are those people?”

“It is a hunting party from Suvarov, which Mr. Bergen has organized. And you, if I may ask?”

“I’m Keith Salazar, from the university.”

“The archaeologist?”

“Yep.”

“Digging up Nomuru?”

Salazar nodded. “Don’t advertise it, please. I don’t want spectators. Where are you people headed?”

“Kinyobi Valley. Mr. Bergen wants to shoot a tseturen and take its head back.”

“He’d better have a big room to mount it in,” observed Salazar. “How’ll he get it back? It’ll weigh a ton.”

“He plans to build a sled and hire Kooks to haul it. Do you know the trail to Kinyobi?”

Yep.

“Do you know how many days’ hike it is from here?”

Yep.

Chung paused, then smiled. “A precise man, I see, Professor Salazar. How many days’ hike is it?”

“ ’Bout two and a half, on foot. I think one could make it in a day and a half on juten back, but I’ve never ridden a juten.”

“Neither have Mr. Travers and Mr. Pokrovskii; that is why they are walking the distance. Thank you; it is my pleasure to meet you.” Chung ducked a bow and trotted off after the hunting party.

Salazar waited as the fat hunter’s booming laughter wafted back along the trail, fainter and fainter. When Salazar could no longer hear it, he resumed his trek.

A crashing in the underbrush revealed the flight of some beast, probably a wild kudzai, whose tusks could be dangerous. Overhead a hurato—an arboreal carnivore with long, spidery limbs, blue-and-white spotted scales, and a prehensile tail—swung agilely away through the leafy branches.

Smaller fliers called zutas flitted among the lush foliage. When they flew through shafts of sunlight, their batlike wings glowed with patterns of ruby, gold, and sapphire against the backdrop of somber green. One, bearing a striped pattern of emerald and black, flew near the foremost Kook in Salazar’s train. With a lightning snatch, the native caught it, stuffed it into his beaked maw, and munched it with a crackle of small bones.

Salazar picked up a dead branch a meter long and, as he walked, slashed at the jungle vegetation, whose new spring growth glowed a pale jade-green. Only then did he give vent to his rage.

“Son of a bitch! Son of a bitch!”

When he had worked off his passion, he relaxed, enjoying some slight satisfaction at having kept his temper under extreme provocation. On Kukulcan, he reflected, loss of self-control could get one a brief mention in the obituary column of the Henderson Times.

Moreover, if Salazar had let Bergen goad him into fisticuffs, the hunter would have made a hash of him. Although both were of an age and Salazar was in good trim, Bergen far outweighed him. For the hundredth time, Salazar felt a stab of regret that the splendid Kara, his former wife, was no longer there to support him; and it was all his own stupid fault.

When the big bungalow tent of Salazar’s camp hulked up through the trees, he blew a whistle to notify his native camp workers of his approach. Through the scattering of foliage he saw a flicker of motion as two figures emerged from the tent. He called out in Shongo, rendering the sounds of that alien tongue as well as human vocal organs could:

“Kono! Uwangi! It is I, your master. All is well with me. Is all well with you?”

Then he saw another figure issue from the tent. The curtain of twigs and fronds, swaying in the breeze between him and the tent, did not disguise the fact that the newcomer was a female Terran.

“Galina?” he called. When the woman did not at once reply, he added: “Who are you? Kto v-ï? Ni shéi ma?” Then, as he strode forward with a hand on his pistol holster, he exclaimed: “Good God, it’s Kara!”

“Yes,” she said, approaching. She was a slim woman of medium height and build, with strong, classical features and gray-green eyes beneath dark curls. A connoisseur would have called her handsome rather than beautiful. “Hello, Keith. Please don’t look at me as if I had two heads!”

“I’ll try not to goggle. But what—”

“I hope you don’t mind my making myself at home. I came in while you were away.”

“Of course not! But what’s this all about? Have you decided that—that—” Salazar felt himself flushing.

“This is purely a business visit,” she said in a voice as crisp as melba toast. “I have an assignment from the Henderson Times for a story on your dig. I hope you won’t mind putting me up for a few days.”

“Not a bit!” said Salazar heartily. “You’re looking splendid.”

“Covered with dirt and sweat? But thanks; you’re looking well, too.”

“No amount of dirt could hide your beauty, Kara. Excuse me; I’ve got to go through the rigmarole.” He turned to the native couple and, in rasping Shongo, repeated the elaborate greetings and responses of Kookish etiquette:

“Is your health good?”

“Thanks to my ancestral spirits, my health is good,” replied Kono. As the male Kook opened his mouth, a set of shearing and grinding teeth were momentarily visible behind his turtle beak. “Is the honorable master’s health likewise good?”

“Thank the Universal Law, it is. Is all well with your clan?”

“Thank the spirits of our ancestors, it is. Is all well with your clan?”

“Indeed it is. Have you led tranquil lives?”

“We have lived tranquil lives. Has the master lived a tranquil life?”

When the ritual dialogue ended, Salazar went through a similar procedure with Uwangi, Kono’s mate, and then with the three helpers as he paid off and dismissed them. He turned back.

“After that hike from Henderson, I could do with a drink. You?”

Kara studied her fingers before she spoke. “Sure.”

“Then let’s go in.” Salazar turned to the two remaining Kooks to give orders for stowing the baggage. Inside the tent he said:

“Will you please wait in the study, Kara?”

In the bath compartment, Salazar looked in the mirror. He saw a youthfully mature man, of medium height and slight but wiry build, with dark hair and beard lightly touched with gray. He had not bothered with razor, dye, or a prescription to restore his hair pigmentation. He had never cared much about appearance, and since the woman for whom he had left Kara had in turn deserted him, he had become even more indifferent to the way he looked.

Feeling, however, that with a female guest, and a special one at that, he ought to present a more sightly façade, he washed up and trimmed his hair and beard. When he emerged, he was in clean khakis and in shoes instead of mud-caked boots.

Drinks consisted of the “whiskey” distilled at Henderson from native Kukulcanian plants, with water and cakes of ice from his small ice-making machine. The fluid had a plausible amber hue, but a Terran connoisseur of Scotch would not have been impressed. When Salazar rejoined his former wife, Kara said:

“You make those Kookish sounds better than I ever could. The words look simple when written, but they don’t sound like what you’d expect.”

Ill at ease with his unexpected visitor, Salazar unconsciously took on his classroom manner. “Since the Kookish vocal organs differ so from ours, interspecies speech is like trying to converse with intelligent parrots. You used to know a little Shongo.”

“I know, but from lack of practice I’ve forgotten it. I was never much of a linguist anyway.”

“You could pick it up again. The grammar’s not very complex; the hard parts are the non-human sounds and the inflections for status. Everything is modified according to whether you’re speaking to someone of your own social level, or above it, or below it. Kooks display their status by insulting their inferiors and fawning upon their superiors, like that female from the Maravilla Society, who came upon me in my work clothes and called me ‘My good man!’ “

Kara chuckled. “You, the planet’s leading archaeologist! So much for the snobby descendants of the first settlers, as if the Maravilla had been brought across interstellar space by angels!”

“Kooks,” Salazar continued, “are even more class-conscious. An upper-class Kook would consider it rude to shoot out his tongue at an equal or a superior. Since, like Terran snakes, they use their tongues to smell odors, it’s like saying: ‘You stink!’ By the way, how did you get here?”

“My bicycle. I’d have hired a steam car, but I was told the Sappari bridge wouldn’t take the weight. Kono put the bike in the shed. Why did you walk instead of biking?”

“I’ve found one must get off and push a bike so often it’s hardly worth the trouble. Besides, kudzais can’t travel much faster than a walk for long, and I’ve never learned to ride a juten. Did you come all this way by yourself?”

“Sure.” Kara sipped and smiled. “Why the frown?”

“Might be dangerous. Choshas have been seen scouting around. Some are headhunters. You came armed, of course?”

She shrugged. “With everything so peaceful, a gun seemed silly.”

“Peaceful now, maybe; but it wasn’t always so. There are rifles and ammunition from the old days somewhere in the bowels of the museum. Really, Kara, you should know better. Your head’s too pretty to end up in a nomad’s private collection.”

“I didn’t have you to advise me.” Kara glanced sidelong at her former husband and then at her ringless left hand. “By the way, your friend Cabot Firestone sends his regards.”

“You’ve seen Cabot?”

“Yes. I interviewed him for a story, and later he took me out to dinner.”

“How long will you be here?” Salazar asked.

“Depends. Didn’t I see another party, with both Kooks and Terrans, go past on the main trail?”

“Guess you did.”

“Do you know who they were?”

“Yep.”

“Oh, stop playing the Maine storekeeper! Who were they?”

“A hunting party, headed for Kinyobi Valley.”

“Was their leader a huge, heavyset man with bushy black eyebrows?”

Salazar tensed. “Their guide said the man’s name was Bergen. Do you know him?”

“That’s Conrad Bergen, the developer. He’s looking for me—wants to kill me.”

“What?” cried Salazar.

“I said, he’s looking for me to kill me.”

“But—why?”

“We were engaged; but when I looked up his previous wife and learned a thing or two, I changed my mind.”

“How did you ever get involved with such a character? He obviously needs his screws tightened. He’d look fine in a glass case at the Museum.”

Kara shrugged. “It was when he was launching his chicken farm, having somehow gotten around the rule against importing Terran plants and animals. Conrad can put up a good front, as men do when they’re courting.”

“Putting his best paunch forward, you mean,” said Salazar. “I’m surprised at you, Kara.”

“I think I missed having a husband—missed being married. I suppose I felt sorry for myself. But when I told him we were through, he had one of his temper tantrums and knocked me down. I left the chicken farm with a fine shiner and Conrad roaring that he’d kill me.”

Salazar clenched his fists, then slammed one fist into the other palm. “Oh, God! If I hadn’t gone nuts…”

“Forget that!” Kara snapped. “What’s past is past. Anyway, I moved back to Henderson. I don’t suppose he’d actually shoot me on sight, but I’d better not take chances.”

Salazar took his larger pistol off the hook and checked the magazine. Kara said: “Nothing rash, please, Keith.”

“Don’t worry. If his head were mounted over my fireplace, people might think it in poor taste.”

She smiled. “Who’s Galina, the person you called out to?”

“A graduate student, helping with the dig. My students are running a survey on the site. Do you know the other two in Bergen’s hunting party? One’s tall and blond, the other short and stout with a Slavic accent.”

“They’re two of Conrad’s cronies; he does have friends in spite of his temper. The blond is Derek Travers, a bureaucrat from the Native Relations Office, who never lets us forget that his grandparents were all English. The other’s Oleg Pokrovskii, Conrad’s construction supervisor.”

“And was Bergen—” He bit back the words “your lover?”

Kara’s eyes sparkled wickedly as she viewed Salazar’s discomfort. “You mean, was he ‘enjoying my favors,’ as they used to say long ago? It’s none of your business, Keith, any more than your Galina is any of mine.”

Miserable, Salazar busied himself with his drink. “Not my Galina, please. She’s a good kid but doesn’t attract me. Anyway, students are off-limits to a professor. What name are you using?”

“After Rodney—uh—died, I went back to Sheffield. I didn’t have to change the initials on my baggage.”

At the name of their son, Salazar shut his eyes. “Please, Kara!”

“Sorry, Keith; but you asked. What became of Diane—what was her name?—Diane Morrow, who awoke the springtime in you?”

Salazar grunted as if in pain. “We were properly married; but after a few months she flew the coop.”

“What didn’t she like about you?”

The archaeologist spread his hands. “Said I was a stuffy old pedant who ought to be mounted in the museum with the other specimens, because I was always reading or poking around for potsherds. She wanted to spend all our time at one of Bergen’s resorts, the one I took her to for our honeymoon, dancing until midnight and making love all the rest of the night every night. I wasn’t up to it; as Lothario I’m a flop.”

“I told you what would happen with a girl of her age.”

“So you did, but not forcefully enough. Why didn’t you put up more of a fight? Maybe you could have brought me to my senses.”

Kara shrugged. “I said all I thought I could without making a royal battle of it. Anyway, if a man rejects me, that’s the end of it as far as I’m concerned.”

“I must have been as crazy as Tom O’Bedlam,” muttered Salazar.

She gave him a steely, level stare. “You said it, not I. Did her leaving hurt you badly?”

“Not so much as I must have hurt you. For one thing—well, remember how we always had plenty to talk about? With Diane, I found we had nothing much to say.”

“I’m sorry, Keith. How’s your social life these days?”

“What social life? Oh, an occasional student makes a pass, but I know better than to respond to her overtures.”

“Are you happy nowadays, Keith?”

Salazar shrugged. “About as happy as a man can be without any sort of home life. I’m. doing what I most want to do; and I flatter myself that it’s important, even though some people may not agree.”

“You mean your archaeological work?”

“Yep. To me, the advancement of knowledge is a sight more important than money or power or glory. Years ago, when I was an undergraduate at the University of Maine,. I read a book by an early Terran explorer on Kukulcan. Along with a lot of stuff we now know to be nonsense, this writer told of legends of the great, long-vanished Nomoruvian Empire. While nobody knew the exact site of its capital, the explorer was told that the last ruler, King Bembogu, had built a famous library. This library was said to contain more of the history of Kukulcan than all the other native documents then known. So I resolved, as soon as I got my degree, to go to Kukulcan, try to find the buried city and, if it still existed, dig up Bembogu’s library.”

Kara said: “I know archaeology on Terra doesn’t afford much scope nowadays. You once told me that all the sites have been so dug up, measured, photographed, dated, and fixed up as tourist attractions that there’s little for an archaeologist to do but rearrange the exhibits in his museum and write learned papers.”

“Did I say that?” Salazar chuckled. “Yep, anybody who thinks he can emulate Schliemann or Stevens on Terra is kidding himself. But here we have a virgin planet, archaeologically speaking! Of course, if money or glory came my way, I shouldn’t mind; but they’re only incidentals. The chance to take a big bite out of mankind’s ignorance—that’s what I really want out of life.”

Salazar paused and studied his work-roughened hands. Then he smiled. “Guess I haven’t broken my old habit of telling you everything—whether you want to hear it or not. Now what about you? I see you are not currently attached.”

“How did you know?”

Salazar pointed to the bare, sunburned ring finger on Kara’s left hand. “When a man meets a woman, that’s the third thing he looks at, the first being her face.”

“What’s the second?”

“Guess!” He grinned as he saw her flush a little, then tore his gaze away. “Tell me about this writing job.”

“Just journalism, churning out copy.” She shrugged, but a note of pride crept into her low-pitched voice. “I’ve been with the News a year. Now they call me their top feature writer.”

“Good for you! But I hope you won’t sensationalize the story of my dig. The last thing I want is a horde of sightseers breaking down the walls of the test pits; or treasure hunters stealing artifacts and ruining the stratigraphy. Our backers give me trouble enough.”

“Who are they, besides the University?”

“The University put up matching funds with the Maravilla Society, and the dear old ladies come out to make sure I spend their money wisely. But please be careful; I know what journalists can do.”

“What can they do?” she asked with a look of innocence.

“Grab anything that makes a heady headline. There once was an archaeologist in my native America, who tried to explain to a journalist relations between Europeans and aborigines in Pennsylvania during the seventeenth century. He said that, to the Amerinds, William Penn and his followers appeared so strange as to seem hardly human. The headline in the newspaper read: PROFESSOR SAYS QUAKERS HARDLY HUMAN.”

Kara Sheffield laughed. Salazar smiled wryly, saying: “That wouldn’t be funny to the poor guy on the spot.” He looked around at the sound of cheerful voices. “Hello there! Kara, these are my assistants: Galina Bartch, Marcel Frappot, and Ito Kurita. Folks, this is Kara Sheffield, come to write a story about the dig. Now get washed up; we have company for dinner.”

At the end of a generous meal, Salazar checked the worksheets of the graduate students and sent them off to bed. The red sun sank slowly, to the discordant chirp and buzz and click of the insectlike arthropods and the rustle and squeal of the other animals of the surrounding forest. Kara asked:

“How are the kids working out, Keith?”

“Okay. Galina’s the best; she’s Suvarov-born, while the other two are immigrants from Terra like me. Ito’s a workaholic without redeeming vices, except he’s touchy about his dignity. Marcel’s a romantic flutterwit and a chatterbox, but he may steady in time. Excuse me a minute.”

Salazar went to a drawing table, to which was tacked a complex chart embellished with patterns of wiggly, intersecting lines in red, blue, and green. He picked up a sheet bearing columns of numbers and began adding pencil marks to the chart. Kara asked:

“What are you doing?”

I’m going to start some test pits tomorrow, using the Kooks that Sambyaku, the Shongaro chief, has promised me, while the kids finish the survey.”

“What are all those figures?”

“Random numbers for locating the pits. If we dug them in neat rows, we might miss a linear feature, like a wall.”

He made a few more marks on the chart. Kara said: “I think I’ll turn in. It’s been a strenuous trip.”

“So shall I,” said Salazar. “Just one more…Okay.” he escorted Kara to the canvas door of her compartment, cudgeling his brains all the while. How was one supposed to act toward a former spouse, whom one had not seen for nearly two years? He took refuge in one of the jingles for which he had a knack:

“I’m walking on air,

For the fairest of fair

Has come to my lair,

My labors to share!”

Kara gave a little laugh. “Still at it, I see! It’s nice to know that somebody likes my looks enough to flatter me, even if I take his words with a whole kilo of salt.”

“Merely objective judgment,” said Salazar. As she opened the flap to her compartment, he cleared his throat and mumbled: “Kara, would you—ah—like me to drop in later?”

The gray-green eyes uncompromisingly met his. “No, Keith. This is purely a business visit; so wipe that gleam out of your eye!”

In the dim light, she seemed lovelier than he remembered her. His blood pounded. Emboldened, he said: “I’ve missed you so!”

Her mouth was set in a resolute line. “You should have thought of that a couple of years ago. We can be friends, but that’s all. If my being here upsets you, I’ll go back to Henderson.”

Salazar gave a sigh and found that it was genuine. “Same old Kara, with a whim of iron!”

“Good-night!” she said, closing the flap.

Salazar slept badly. While tossing on his bunk, he heard voices through the canvas. Marcel Frappot was whispering: “Yes, I thought I recognized the name; they were in the paper two years ago. Their son killed himself after Keith ran off with another woman. I should not have thought our distinguished professor such a Casanova.”

“It is normal that a vigorous man like him should like the ladies,” said Galina Bartch. “How old was this boy?”

“Seven or eight, I think. Martinov the sociologist said it was cause and effect. Firestone, that professor of psychology, claimed that this was unjust; the boy had troubles before his father fled. The Reverend Ragnarsen—the one who disappeared—pronounced it a divine judgment on our Keith. I wonder if they will take time for a little poum-poum. A divorced couple sometimes come together for une petite amourette—”

“Oh, Marcel, you gossip more than an old woman!”

“Very well; let us talk of things more agreeable. Ma petite, you are so beautiful in that light—”

“No, Marcel! Go back to bed! It is against my religion; and besides, if I got pregnant…”

The voices died. From Galina’s delicate snore, Salazar inferred that Frappot had departed unsatisfied. He is not the only one, thought the archaeologist.

As Kono and Uwangi served breakfast, Salazar observed in himself a disinclination to meet Kara’s eye. With wry amusement, he detected a similar coolness between Frappot and Galina. He said:

“Ito, can you finish the five-meter lines today?”

“I am sure of it,” said Kurita.

“What’s that for?” asked Kara.

“A resistivity survey,” said Salazar.

Kara raised a questioning eyebrow, and the archaeologist’s voice took on a classroom tone. “We measure the resistance of the ground to current, in ohm-meters. Any variation can show up a buried feature, like a building foundation. Since we can’t afford to dig up the whole square kilometer, we learn what we can with instruments. I’ve already made a magnetometer survey; so between the two we should get a good idea of the underground layout.”

“You didn’t use all that apparatus at Horenso,” said Kara, referring to the dig on which she as a bride had accompanied her bridegroom.

Momentarily, memories checked Salazar’s breath; but he spoke with cool professionalism: “I didn’t, because that job was all photography, measuring, cleaning up, and consolidating. Those ruins were recent and in plain sight. Here they’re buried, with nothing on the surface but fragments.”

The site of Nomuru stretched across a broad, shallow vale or depression, sparsely covered with the Kukulcanian analogues of grass and herbs. Along the edges of this flat, buff-and-green expanse lay piles of thorny bushes and stunted trees, which had been uprooted and stacked to leave the ruin free of major vegetation. Beyond the western border, the little Mozii, an affluent of the Sappari, gurgled softly. Salazar told Kara:

“You can bet your brassiere old Sambyaku and his friends took a bite out of my appropriation. His excuse was that the tribal elders were outraged by our digging up the graves of their ancestors. Of course, the people who lived here when Nomuru was the capital of the Nomoruvian Empire were quite different from the present locals. But the fact that Neruu, which is in Sambyaku’s chieftainship, gets its name from the ancient capital gives him a pretext to shake down the hairy aliens.” He glanced at his poignette. “Damn! Those Kooks he promised me should have arrived long since.”

Salazar pulled a trowel out of his boot and a file from a small sheath. While watching for the promised workers, he began sharpening the edge of the tool.

“Why sharpen a trowel?” asked Kara.

“We use them to shave down the surface of a test pit.

“May I see what your students are doing with those instruments over there?”

“Sure.” Salazar led Kara to the northern end of the site, where the three assistants were finishing their survey.

Galina Bartch, a buxom, blue-eyed blond with a spotty complexion beneath a floppy straw hat, had charge of a black box with four terminals, to which electric cables were attached. These four wires led to four iron pins, like oversized nails, thrust into the ground half a meter apart, along a cord stretched between two posts.

As Kara watched, the slim, elegant Marcel Frappot pulled up the rearmost pin, moved it past the other three, and thrust it into the earth a measured distance from its neighbor. At the same time, Galina deftly unscrewed the cable from its binding post, repositioned it, and shifted the remaining wires.

Ito Kurita bent over the black box, pushed a button, and made a notation on his clipboard. Kara, busily photographing the scene, began: “Keith, now could you—”

Salazar laid a hand on her arm. “Hold everything. Here comes Sambyaku himself.”

Five Kooks marched out of the woods in a rigid formation. Two were armed with native muskets, while two others bore spears. An elderly Kook, his body decorated with symbols in blue and yellow, strode amid the four. Salazar muttered: “They don’t use spears any more for serious fighting, but you know what sticklers for tradition they are.” He raised his voice in the harsh, nonhuman Shongo tongue: “Hail, honorable Chief Sambyaku! All is well with me. Is all well with you?”

After the usual questions and responses, Salazar said: “What brings you hither, Your Honor? I observe that my promised workers have not appeared, nor has the Sappari bridge been repaired.”

“I regret to inconvenience my honorable Terran friend,” rasped Sambyaku. “Know that it has been decided that Intromission Day shall be observed two days hence. No workers will be available, because all will be practicing rituals and donning their formal paint.”

“When will my workers be available?” asked Salazar.

“In ten or eleven days. You will understand that after Intromission Day, our younger persons are less willingly tied down to a plan of work than usual. The bridge shall be repaired when labor is available.”

“I understand,” said Salazar unctuously. “What cannot be cured must be endured, even if it be a bath in the Sappari. I look forward to the resumption of our work. May I invite the honorable chief to refreshment?”

“I thank the wise Terran, but my duties compel my return to Neruu. Take utmost care of your health!”

“And may Your Honor take utmost care of his health!”

“May your life be tranquil….”

After a long exchange of good wishes, the chief stalked away. Salazar growled: “Always some damned delay!”

“What did he say?” asked Kara.

“They’re taking the next sixtnight off for Intromission Day.”

“You mean their springtime orgy?”

“Yep. It’s their annual mating rite; actually, not an orgy but the equivalent of a mass wedding.”

“I want to see that! Are you saying it’s the only time of year they—uh—”

“Oh, no; they screw the year round, like Terrans. Don’t you as a journalist know about these matters?”

“Only a little. The Times has a man for native relations, Phil Reiner. All my work has been with human beings. Hey, Keith, look!”

Salazar turned. A being had appeared on the far side of the field: a Kook mounted on a juten, a creature that resembled something between a small bipedal dinosaur and a featherless ostrich. Its coppery scales reflected the sun; its large head, on a thick neck, ended in a huge hooked beak. The Kook bore a slender lance, while the holster of a bulky pistol hung from his saddle.

Salazar took out his pistol and checked the magazine, muttering: “Damn, I should have kept those three I hired for the Henderson trip! That’s a Chosha, a nomad, and we need more fire power….”

As he spoke, the newcomer wheeled his mount and leisurely jounced away to the dusty-green forest. Salazar growled: “I’m stupid. I should have brought my rifle.”

“Wouldn’t your pistol outrange those flintlock things?”

“Yep; but their big bullets can still kill at a hundred meters.”

“If we had a zapper, we could mow them down.”

“Sure, but the army won’t let ray weapons out of its armories. This may foreshadow something serious; rumors are afloat that the nomads are preparing an attack on the Shongosi Chieftainship, which includes our site.”

“What would happen?”

Salazar shrugged. “Couldn’t predict. If the Choshas overran Shongosi, they’d be up against the Empire of Feënzun, and I don’t think Empress Gariko would tolerate that. So we’d better move along, if we don’t want to get caught in a Kookish war.” Salazar paused. “Since there’s no help for it, we shall have to open the first test pit ourselves. Will you lend a hand?”

“Sure,” said Kara. “But why can’t Kono and Uwangi man the shovels?”

“They were hired as camp workers, and it would be easier to pick up Mount Nezumi than to get a Kook to do a job he’s not contracted for.”

“Okay, then; but I want to see this Intromission Day ceremony.”

“You won’t get an erotic kick out of it, unless you’re like a man I knew who got horny from watching an amoeba divide itself under the microscope.”

“You’re evil-minded, Keith! It’s my job as a writer.”

“Not evil, but not an amoeba, either. Besides, I’ve got to make the most of every minute on the dig, before the money runs out or the Choshas invade.”

“Now look here, Keith! If I put in two days’ work on your dig—you know I’m no weakling—that would make up the time you’d lose by taking one day off. If you won’t—well, I’ll go alone.”

“You can’t do that! You don’t speak Shongo, and all sorts of things could happen.”

Eyes alight with animation, Marcel Frappot spoke up: “Keith, why do you not take her? We will start your test pits and set up the screens. We know how to sort and bag the finds.”

“Go ahead!” echoed Galina Bartch.

“I shall keep meticulous records,” added Ito Kurita primly.

“If we strike a significant feature,” said Frappot, “we shall leave it untouched until you return.”

Salazar thought glumly: Macel, the romantic, would like to engineer a reunion. Well, I suppose one day without me won’t be fetal to the project.

“Okay,” he said at last. “I’ll let you kids run the dig, provided you don’t go below ten centimeters on any new pits. Kara, please hold the tape. While the young people finish here, I’ll mark out a few test pits.