Analog SFF, June 2011 (22 page)

"Gupta, would you set up the recorder? The rest of you, when he's set up, we will
carefully
peel back the moss.” He gestured to outline an area about two meters square. “Let's say this area here."

With the recorder running, they set to it with such enthusiasm that several times Carson had to remind them to slow down. He was as eager as they were, but training and experience forced him to be methodical. When they'd cleared the section, they all paused and stepped back to look at what they'd unveiled.

"Wow!” someone said in a hushed tone.

"Excellent!” said Carson, as he gazed at the relief carving of a face. The face was humanoid in that it had two eyes, a nose, and a mouth, but then so did any vertebrate. The eyes were too far apart, and wide open, showing slit pupils like a cat's. The nose was a pair of thin vertical ovals. The effect would have been reptilian if it weren't for the mouth, which opened in a big “O” nearly a meter across.

Carson pulled out his omni and panned its camera across the face, speaking his observations into it as he did so. As he closed the omni and stuck it back on his wrist again, he looked around at his team and saw that Brian had his own omni out.

"Hey, Dr. C.” Brian called. “Stand beside it and I'll take your picture."

"You don't need to . . .” Carson began, then yielded. “All right. Make it quick, though.” He was impatient to get to work.

When Brian was done, Carson called to get the others’ attention. “All right!” He pointed to the tangled vines and moss that still adorned the wall and said, “Let's get some more of this stuff cleared away and see what we've got."

A half hour later, they had removed enough of the vegetation to completely clear the face and the adjacent gray stone wall, recording it all as they went. Carson waved the workers back and bent to examine the face more closely. Its expression was, if human ideas of facial expression applied, one of somebody shouting or screaming. A thick stone rim outlined the wide circle of its mouth. Perhaps it was just laughing.

He got down on his knees and examined the mouth more closely, probing the dirt still left in the recesses. He'd studied the construction of Verdigris tombs. If this was like others, there should be . . . there. As his fingers pressed in, he heard a muffled “clunk” and the round slab that formed the inner circle of the mouth settled backwards, just enough to clear the inner rim. Cool air wafted out of the gap.

"Got it!” said Carson, triumph in his voice. “Here, help me roll it out of the way."

Brian and Gregor knelt down beside him and they all worked their fingers into the gap. It was awkward with the three of them together in the close space, but they managed to persuade the heavy stone to roll back behind the wall, leaving a clear opening. Carson used his omni to check for toxic gases; it was clear. He shone a light into the hole, then stuck his head in and looked around. In the middle of the small chamber was an oblong, roughly coffin-shaped bundle atop a raised platform. Small piles of artifacts—trinkets, primitive though artistic weapons, jewelry and the like—surrounded it. It was a body, possibly the tomb's sole occupant, except for a few bugs and spiders, but if Carson was lucky the raised platform itself might hold another. This was fantastic.

"Wonderful! It hasn't been touched!” Carson called back. He crawled in a little further, then paused at an insistent warble from his omni.

"What is it?” he heard Gregor ask from behind him.

"Radiation warning. Hang on.” Carson pulled out his omni and checked the reading. The radiation was at very low level. “It's probably just radon build-up, or the rocks this thing is made from,” he said. Radon gas often accumulated in poorly ventilated structures, and rocks on this planet had a slightly higher concentration of natural radioactive elements than Earth. “A bit odd for this kind of rock, but it's a low reading, nothing to worry about,” he called back to his men. He turned off the omni's rad sensor to silence the warning.

He backed out of the entrance and turned to the others. “All right, get the recorders in, I want it recorded from here first, then we'll go in and image everything in detail."

An hour later, they had begun to stack carefully documented artifacts outside the tomb entrance. Carson was alone inside the pyramid. The other two workers—there was barely room in the tomb for three people, four if you counted the original occupant—had stepped out for fresh air, taking some more artifacts with them. Carson was examining the slab that the body lay on when he heard a shout.

"Dr. Carson! Dr. Carson, come out here please!” one of the men called from outside.

"All right, all right, just a moment.” Carson crawled back through the entrance hole. “What is it?” he said as he poked his head out, but the answer was obvious.

In the cleared area around the tomb there were a half-dozen men: his three, and three others he'd never seen before. What fixed his attention, though, was the very lethal-looking assault rifle pointed at him. Glancing about, he noticed the other automatic weapons the strangers were holding, aimed at him and his men. Worse, one of his own, Brian, was standing with the newcomers. “Bloody hell,” he muttered, “tomb raiders."

"Dr. Carson, I presume.” The tallest of the newcomers took a step forward. He was better dressed than the others, something Carson wouldn't have thought possible in bush wear. “Tomb raiders? You're the one who opened it. Myself, I prefer the term ‘art collectors.’”

"Collectors? Dealers, more likely,” said Carson. “You know my name. Who are you?"

The man paused, then grinned. “Just call me John Stephens."

Carson snorted at the name. “The real Stephens is better than you in two ways. Even though he was an amateur, he was a fine archaeologist.” John Lloyd Stephens had been pivotal in uncovering Mayan ruins in Mesoamerica three centuries earlier.

The tall man, Stephens, raised an eyebrow. “And the other?"

"He's dead."

Stephens frowned, angry. “That's enough. Come on, first slowly hand over your weapon, and then get up."

Carson reluctantly surrendered his pistol. The odds were not in his favor, but perhaps they'd leave his group unharmed if he cooperated. His group. He looked over at Brian, the turncoat. That's why he'd had his omni out. He must have sent a signal when they'd found it, and probably sent the picture too.

Brian caught his glare. “Sorry, Dr. C.” he said with forced cheeriness. “They outbid you."

"I didn't realize you were up for bid,” growled Carson.

"All right, cut out the chit-chat.” Stephens turned to his men. “Rico, Smith, keep them covered. Brian, search them. No weapons, no omnis. Come on, make it snappy."

Carson and his two loyal men grudgingly stood to, hands on their heads, while Brian patted them down. Carson had already turned over his gun; Brian relieved him of his omniphone. He patted down the others, taking their omnis, and from Gregor a rather wicked-looking sheath knife. He brought the goods over to Stephens.

Carson sneaked a glance at a machete leaning against a nearby tree. If he could reach it and power it up while the others were occupied . . .

One of Stephens’ men must have seen him look. The man strode over to the machete and yanked its cable from the power pack, then looked around and did the same with the other one.

"Good catch, Rico,” said Stephens. “Okay, dispose of the weapons, smash the omnis and recorders.” He was taking no chances on communications.

Carson started at this. “Hey, wait a minute, you can't—"

"Carson.” Stephens waved his gun. “Of course we can.” He smiled, looking amused. “What's the matter, don't you make backups?"

Of course Carson did. Every hour his omni backed itself up to the net. That wasn't the point. “I don't care about the omnis, they're low bandwidth. The recorders are high-resolution multispectral, and they're
not
backed up. The data is irreplaceable."

"Why should I care?"

Good question. Carson thought fast. “You're joking, right? Those artifacts are worth far more to a collector if their provenance is established."

"True enough. So?"

"Leave me the data and I can publish a report on the findings. Not the same quality or level of detail as if I had the artifacts to examine more closely. Can you at least leave me some?” It was worth a try. “If I publish on them, any collector will know they're the real thing and not something fabbed in a workshop."

"I can fake my own provenances. It wouldn't be the first time."

Fake
? The thought disgusted Carson. “Professional journal articles? I don't think so. Think how much more you could get.” And you'll need me alive to write them, and if you need me alive, you'll leave my men alive.

"You have a point.” Stephens didn't say anything else for a few moments, evidently weighing the options.

"It's not like we have anything on the recordings to identify you,” Carson added.

"Why would you publish? Why do me that favor?"

"You know academia, ‘publish or perish.’ I'll get
some
credit for it."

"Okay.” Stephens turned to his men. “Go ahead and smash the omnis, but don't damage the recorders. We'll take them with us."

"What?"

"Don't worry, Carson. If you behave yourselves we'll leave them at your ship. I just don't want anyone to get funny ideas about recording us before we're gone, or making calls until we're well away."

"What about leaving me some of the artifacts?” Carson was emboldened by this accession.

"Don't push your luck. We'll leave you the tomb. We can't carry that."

Stephens organized the gathering and packaging of the artifacts, then took a quick look around the interior of the tomb, noting a few more items to take.

"Okay, last item. Rico, go cut a couple of branches and make a stretcher. We're taking the body."

"Got it, boss."

Carson's gut wrenched. “Leave that at least! What good will it do you?” That body was his main hope. If this tomb was unique, perhaps so was the occupant.

"Are you kidding? Some collectors love this kind of stuff. Bit weird, if you ask me, but you didn't."

"Collectors!” Carson's anger overcame his caution. “That's all you care about? A few dollars for what could be priceless scientific information? Dammit, we don't know much about this species, or why this tomb is different. Let me—"

"I'm not going to ‘let you’ anything, Carson. Your scientific information isn't priceless, it's worthless. Maybe you haven't noticed, stuck in your ivory tower—"

"I don't—” Carson tried to interrupt.

"Shut up!” Stephens gestured with his pistol. “You have no concept of the real world, you with your university benefactors paying your way. You think living out here on the frontier is easy? There's damn little to trade that Earth wants and is worth the effort to ship, and—"

"But what about biologicals?” Carson said, thinking of the main local industry.

"They have a trading lifetime of a couple of years before some bright boy in a lab figures out how to synthesize them or genetically modify them to grow on Earth. Look at what happened to Kakuloa: two years of a thriving trade in squidberry extract and then the bottom falls out when General Pharmaceuticals learns to synthesize it.

"No, don't be stupid, doctor. You know that the trade in alien antiquities is about the only thing that brings hard currency out to the colonies. I'm doing my bit to support human expansion into T-space. You'd be more useful if you figured out where the Terraformers went, and if they're coming back. Where do a few scholarly reports on long-dead stone-age aliens get us?"

Carson was taken aback. He knew the economic situation wasn't as bleak as Stephens, or whatever his real name was, painted it, but Carson recognized Stephens’ point. His anger ebbed. It was then he noticed that Stephens’ pistol was still pointed at him. Was there an edge of xenophobia in Stephens’ voice? What would he do if he thought there'd been spacefarers back when humans were barely into their own neolithic civilizations? “All right, damn it. Let me at least take a sample, do a DNA check."

Stephens looked at him, an eyebrow raised. “A bit out of your line, isn't that? But okay.” He lowered the pistol and turned to the body, looked it over, then broke off its equivalent of a little toe. He tossed it to Carson. “Here."

Carson's hands shook with another surge of anger, and he fumbled the catch. He swore. “I hope the bloody tomb is cursed, you bastard."

Stephens grinned. “None of them have been yet,” he said.

Carson carefully bagged and pocketed the toe.

Just then Rico came back with a makeshift stretcher, and they carefully transferred the body to it and maneuvered it out of the tomb.

Carson looked around the chamber, now empty save for the raised stone platform in the center. “There's nothing left,” he said, although he knew that perhaps there might be.

"We'll see,” said Stephens. “Brian, help me move the lid off of this.” He started to push on the slab that formed the top of the sarcophagus.

Damn, this Stephens knew the tricks. Knew that sometimes the body on top is a guardian or decoy for the important one inside.

Stephens and Brian had shoved the lid a couple of feet to the side, and Stephens shone his light in. “Damn, it's empty. What's the point of an empty crypt?"

"What?” Carson looked in and saw by the light of Stephens’ torch that it was indeed empty, nothing but dirt and a few loose stones. Now that's interesting. Perhaps the body
is
special.His pulse quickened but he kept silent.

"We're done here. Everybody out,” Stephens said.

Outside Stephens turned to his gang, who had finished packaging the artifacts for travel. “Gather up the recorders."

"You promised to leave those!” Carson protested, wanting to keep Stephens distracted.

"Oh, don't worry, doctor. I told you, if you're good and give us a head start, I'll leave them at your ship. Now, you three,” he pointed to Carson, Gupta, and Gregor, “you're going into the tomb."

"What? We're not going back in there.” None of them wanted to just disappear in this jungle.