Analog SFF, June 2011 (23 page)

"Don't worry, I'm not sealing you in. But you won't be getting out quickly either.” He turned and shouted, “Rico!"

"Yes, boss?"

"You stay here and give us the usual head start. If anyone pokes his nose out of that hole before that, shoot it off."

"Got it, boss,” Rico said and grinned. He picked up his rifle and found a tree to lean on. It was about twenty meters from the tomb; too far to rush, but close enough to make shooting easy.

Carson was convinced he'd do it, too. He knows his stuff, Carson thought. That's a pity.

It took a few more minutes as the bad guys gathered up packs, double-checked for anything left behind, and herded the prisoners into the tomb; then they were ready to go.

"Hey!” Carson called from within the crypt. “You will leave the recorders, right?"

"Don't worry,” Stephens called back, amused. “You will write a report, won't you, Dr. Carson?"

Carson just cursed.

"Back inside, doctor!” Rico raised his weapon to the ready position for emphasis.

Carson waited ten minutes, then tried hailing. “Rico? You out there?"

There was no answer, so Carson took off his hat and extended it out of the entrance. He heard the
crack
of a gunshot and felt a tug on his hat. He snatched it back inside. There was a bullet hole through it.

Five minutes after that, Carson heard footsteps fading back along the trail. He edged toward the tomb entrance, and there came another shot. This one sounded more distant, probably a last warning shot, but Carson waited five more minutes before he stuck his hat out again. It drew no response this time.

Sure that they'd gone now, Carson led the others out of the crypt. “Gregor, get back to the ship. Bring back a spare omni and a recorder. We should see if there's anything left in there."

"I'll go,” said Gupta. “I want to check my ship.” At Carson's nod, he took off at a quick jog.

"Something left? With us crowded in there?” asked Gregor.

"It was dark. Maybe in the sarcophagus."

"That was empty. If somebody took a body, why leave everything else looking untouched?"

"There may never have been another body.” Carson hoped there had not. It would increase the odds that the body Stephens had stolen was special, and Carson had a sample of that. “But who knows what alien motives might be?"

"Fair point.” Gregor changed the subject. “Are you really going to publish a paper on these findings?"

Carson's jaw clenched. He growled the words out. “Sure. In a year or two. Let Stephens stew about that.” He picked up a small branch from the ground and worried it, twisting the bark off. “The first thing I'll do is hand a copy of the data over to law enforcement. If any of those artifacts ever show up, maybe they can be traced back to him. Bastard.” He whipped the branch against a nearby tree trunk.

Gregor shook his head. “Remind me never to get on your bad side.” He paused a moment. “You realize if you ever cross paths again he'll have it in for you."

"I hope we do cross paths again. As long as I see him first.” With a jerk of his arms, Carson tore the branch in half and tossed the pieces aside.

Gupta returned about thirty minutes later. “The ship is okay. Here's the gear.” He handed the recorder and omni to Carson. “So, why are we still here?"

"I wanted to check it completely before we left. Stephens may have missed something."

He got down and crawled in through the opening. Once again, as he got inside the omni sounded its warning, surprising him. I thought I turned that off. Oh, right, this is the one Gupta brought back from the ship. Stephens had destroyed the other.

"Are you getting radiation again, Dr. Carson?” Gregor called from outside. He must have heard the warning.

"Yes, which is odd. Radon should have dissipated by now.” Carson checked the sensor setting. “Definitely some slight radiation inside, though.” He held the omni near the roof of the chamber, then near the floor. “It's stronger on the floor, so it's not the rock that the pyramid is made of.” He moved over to the sarcophagus. Near the edge of the lid the radiation reading jumped again. “More here. Very interesting."

He called back to the others. “It's safe enough. Low level. Come on in, I'd like some help with this slab."

They moved the sarcophagus lid to one side, and Carson examined the interior. He leaned in and swept the omni back and forth. Near one corner the radiation reading spiked. Looking closer he found a small, flat object, broken along one side, the edge looking crushed. Dirt covered it and it had looked just like a rock in the beam from Stephens’ flashlight.

Carson double-checked that the radiation wasn't harmful and picked the object up. It was half of a rounded square, with markings and what might be inlaid gemstones on one side. Carson examined the broken edge. Was there something metallic in there? He was about to brush the dirt off, then remembered the radiation and stopped.

"What is it, doc?” asked Gupta.

"I'm not sure. Some kind of talisman perhaps. Looks like it got caught on the edge of the sarcophagus, then damaged when the lid was put down. There must be dust from it scattered around the floor."

"But radioactive?"

"Not that unusual in the rocks on this planet. It might be these gems. I'll know more when I have it analyzed.” He bagged it and put it in a different pocket from the DNA sample. He checked the other pocket to be sure the toe was still there.

They inspected the sarcophagus and the rest of the chamber but found nothing else. “Come on,” Carson said as he took a last look around. “We're done here. That bastard Stephens cleaned it out. Let's take some final recordings and get back to Verdigris City. Stephens, or whoever he is, is probably off-planet by now, but we need to report it."

"I have the preliminary results, Dr. Carson."

Carson had taken his specimens to be analyzed as soon as he'd returned to civilization.

"Great. What can you tell me about the sample?” This was it.

"The bone is mammalian. The structure looks the same as the indigenous Verdigrans, which isn't surprising considering where you found it. Preliminary DNA tests confirm that."

Carson slumped. “You're sure?"

The technician nodded. “Yep."

Damn
. He'd been so certain that there was something special about that pyramid. He'd been hoping that the body had been a spacefarer. Even if Stephens had made off with most of it, this sample should have been enough for Dean Matthews to give him another chance, to keep on looking. But now . . .

"Oh, okay, thanks,” Carson said. It was almost an afterthought when he added, “What about the stone fragment, the talisman?"

"Sorry, we must have messed up the analysis on that."

"What do you mean? It was radioactive. Was that a problem?"

"Oh, no. Well, no and yes.” The technician looked a bit sheepish. “We get radioactive specimens in all the time, so that wasn't a problem. It's the source that's messed up."

"I thought it might be the gems. What do you mean, ‘messed up'?"

"Not the gems. The thing contains several grams of technetium-99."

"What?” Carson said, straightening.

"A beta-emitter. If the talisman weren't broken you'd never have noticed the radiation; it wouldn't get through the case. Technetium-99 betas are low energy."

"What's the half-life?” Carson wasn't sure what the significance of the technetium was, but it was something that could be dated.

"About 211,000 years. It's artificial, of course. Technetium isn't part of any natural decay sequence, and geologically speaking, all its isotopes are short-lived."

Carson felt his heart pound. This meant a technological origin. With the provenance corrupted it wasn't scientific proof, but he was sure the origin was alien, not human. Had there been another body in the sarcophagus after all? Retrieved by comrades, perhaps? They might well have left the other artifacts alone.

"So, not a product of a primitive civilization, then?” Carson wanted to be sure.

"What? You're joking. You need a reactor to make technetium. In this it's part of a betavoltaic battery. I've never seen this specific design, and the whole thing looks like carved rock except where it's smashed, but there's some kind of circuitry inside. That battery will put out a couple of milliamps for a hundred thousand years."

"How old is it?"

"That's the weird thing, sir. I wasn't going to bother running isotope ratios to determine the age—"

"What? Why not?” To be this close . . .

"Well, I mean, how old could it be? Twenty, thirty years tops? I ran them anyway. I'm sorry, but the original sample must have been contaminated. I don't trust the results."

"Just tell me.” Carson felt a knot growing in the pit of his stomach.

"About fifteen thousand years. As I said, it makes no sense."

"Oh.” There was a ringing in Carson's ears, and the room seemed to sway a bit. It wasn't proof enough to publish, not yet, but it should be enough to sway Dean Matthews. He'd get his second chance.

He realized the tech was waiting for something more from him. “Right. Well, thank you. Just e-mail me the reports."

Carson thought about what the technician had said. If the case hadn't been broken he wouldn't have noticed the radiation—and it would look just like a primitive talisman. If there was one, there might be another, possibly intact. He'd have to review the artifact databases, perhaps run an image comparison search, then request and examine anything it turned up. A lot of grunt work. Carson chuckled to himself. Dean Matthews was going to be amazed at Carson's sudden interest in cataloging, not arrowheads, but talismans.

Copyright © 2011 Alastair Mayer

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Most things do make sense—if you know how to look at them.

I.

The kawataro stood at the side of the road. Hakaru saw it for the first time as he was trudging along the highway, suitcase rolling behind him in the rain. It had been half a mile by foot from the train station, and although he had been looking for the turnoff to the village, it was so narrow, less than six paces wide, that he was on the point of walking past it entirely when the statue caught his eye.

He halted. The statue was about the height of his chest, sunk into the ground near the remains of a gate. It had been carved by hand from some hard, dark material, either stone or very dense wood, and depicted a vaguely humanoid figure, its face flat and stupid, the dome of the head bald except for a fringe of hair. A few flecks of old paint, nearly obliterated by time, gave an impression of yellow, scaly skin. Beneath the chin, the throat was puffed out and distended, like the vocal sac of a frog.

Hakaru, uneasy, was about to continue along the road when he saw three other figures lined up nearby. At first, through the curtain of rain, he thought they were statues as well. It was only when one moved slightly that he realized he was looking at a group of three children standing about ten yards away. The oldest, a boy who seemed no more than twelve, was wearing a raincoat, once red, that had been spattered with dark mud nearly up to the sleeves.

"Hi there,” Hakaru said, giving them a friendly wave. “Is this the way to Hana?"

The children said nothing. Hakaru had a good idea as to why they didn't respond, but still found it faintly unnerving. As he resumed his walk, moving past the silent group, he sensed that their eyes remained fixed on his back.

A moment later, climbing over a rise, he came into view of the village itself. Off in the distance, he could make out a handful of fishing boats casting their nets on the gray swell of the ocean. Pausing to catch his breath, he took in the lighthouse on the jetty, the silver thread of the river, and the main street that ran through the center of the village. As the street climbed higher, the drab rows of black tiled roofs gave way to a cluster of modern houses. Beyond that point, the land rose steeply in a line of rocky bluffs, their crests carpeted with forest.

He was about to descend to the village when he noticed that the children had followed him. Now they were standing a few yards off, lined up in a neat row, regarding him with the same lack of expression as before. He waved again. In response, one of the children, a girl, turned to the boy in the red raincoat, making a series of gestures with her hands. The boy signed back impatiently, as if telling her to wait, his eyes never leaving Hakaru's face.

Turning away, Hakaru headed down the road. Each time he glanced over his shoulder, the children were still there. When he reached the inn at the edge of the village, he looked back, meaning to give them an ironic farewell, then halted. Behind him, the street was empty.

Unsettled, he went into the inn, which was small and dark. Through a sliding screen at the far end of the entrance hall, he could see into a rock garden. A second later, hearing the quick sound of footsteps, he found himself looking into the gaunt face of the innkeeper, who bowed and led him over to a desk. When Hakaru gave his name, the man smiled. “You aren't from around here, are you?"

"I'm a graduate student at Osaka University,” Hakaru said. “I was born in Canada."

The innkeeper's smile widened, but something else closed off in his narrow eyes, as if he had already marked Hakaru off as an outsider. “And how long will you be staying with us?"

"I'm not sure,” Hakaru said, signing the register. “At least two weeks. Perhaps longer. Do you know Dr. Nakaya?"

"Of course,” the innkeeper said, glancing over Hakaru's shoulder. “In fact, here she is now—"

Hakaru turned to see a woman entering the hall, umbrella in hand. She was close to his own age, with a pair of sensible glasses and an air that could charitably be called severe. “Hakaru Hashimoto?"

He set down his bag. “Yes. I've been looking forward to working with you—"

Dr. Nakaya broke in. “Don't thank me yet. We may not have anything to work on at all.” She studied him with a critical eye. “If you have a jacket and tie, put them on, then get back here. You and I have an appointment."