Sword of Dreams (The Reforged Trilogy) (18 page)

Maeve flexed one wing, then the other, trying to keep them warm. She thought Ava sounded more annoyed than aggrieved. "Will your lost companion be replaced?" Maeve asked.

"I doubt it," Darius said. He scrubbed at his dirty cheeks with a sleeve. "The doc probably won't bring anyone else up here. We could have used a larger team from day one, but Kemmer doesn't trust many people."

"What could he have found up in these rocks that's worth all this?" Tiberius asked.

He stood not far away, shouldering a recently assembled table through the tent door. Gripper squatted on the other side, pounding some pitons into the stony mountainside. Ava and Darius looked at each other.

"We better let Kemmer tell you about it," Ava said. "We should check in with him, anyway. As soon as that's done, we'll be back out to give you a hand."

"Thanks," Duaal said with a wink at the two Prians.

Maeve laboriously flew a radio antenna up out of the glacial valley. The thin, freezing air would barely support her weight, but it was still easier than sending one of the others – even the large, strong Gripper – to climb the steep stone.

From above, Maeve could better see the damage done by the earthquakes. The entire glacial bed lay tilted down at a different angle than the rest of mountainside. Where it had separated from the peak, there was a long, narrow ravine torn deep into the stone. The crevice ran jaggedly along the north edge of the moraine and then turned abruptly east. A chain ladder was bolted to the edge and dangling down into the ravine. Deeper than that, Maeve could make out only shadows.

Was the base camp safe? The Tynerion geologist, Phillip Arno, had wondered the same and now walked a careful spiral out from the camp. Phillip held a pointed metal walking stick and prodded occasionally at the ground. He scribbled some hasty notes on a datadex, blew some warm breath into his hands, and moved on. His red hair was bright as a candle flame in the monochrome white and gray of the Prian highlands.

The last thin beams of sunlight played across pale rocks and the dark threads of roads that wove in and around the Kayton Mountains. A thick bank of evening fog and smoke sifted up from distant Pylos, rising like a tide through the forest below and turning tall firs into lonely towers. Long-winged birds wheeled and wove between them like lonely ghosts as they searched out their nests for the night.

Maeve perched on the edge of a crumbling granite crag to catch her breath. The view was beautiful, in a cold and harsh sort of way.

Is that not the truth of Prianus and of its people?

She swept a small pebble down the slope with the tip of her wing. It was not Tiberius she thought of, or any of the Prian archeologists working below. There were stones softer than Logan Coldhand, and blizzards with a warmer touch. Maeve felt a sudden, heavy pang of loss.

Why do I miss my hunter? I no longer seek death at his hands.
Maeve smirked at herself.
I can no longer afford his rates. Logan commands a high price. And deserves it all.

She stood and stretched her wings. The muscles were tight and stiff, but no longer burned painfully from the lack of oxygen in her blood. Or else too much carbon dioxide. Xia had given them all a brief lecture on altitude sickness, but Maeve could not remember which gas was the source of the problem. The cramping, acidic feeling in her stomach certainly suggested that something was still affecting her body. She would adjust, but it would take more time.

Maeve glided carefully down and back into the archeologists' camp. She shook a few flakes of snow from her wings and short black hair, then ducked into Kemmer's tent to report success at her task. The Prian team leader held up a finger to silence Maeve when she tried to get his attention. He stood opposite Xen and Tiberius at a table covered in bagged and labeled stone fragments. Xia was watching curiously over their shoulders. Kemmer placed a pair of datadexes of the table.

"What the hell are these?" Tiberius asked.

Professor Xen picked one up and began reading over the contents. The Ixthian's eyes whirled a distinctly unhappy reddish color. "This is a non-disclosure agreement!"

Xia looked at the other datadex. "The terms of this are pretty demanding. No discussion with other sources, on- or off-world. No independently authored files or publications."

"No publishing?" Xen seemed to have recovered some of his spirits – previously dampened by the harsh realities of Prianus – but now he frowned. "Doctor Kemmer, I'm taking considerable losses on this expedition, including the cost of hiring Captain Myles to provide us some measure of safety. Need I remind you that I am shouldering the greater share of his fee?"

"That's not including the color you're saving by my volunteering to replace Dannos on your dig team," Xia said. She scanned a few more screens on the datadex. "Free of additional charge, I remind you. The consequences outlined here are steep. And you want any breaches prosecuted on Prianus?"

"I know that you think I'm being paranoid," Kemmer said. He did not look at all apologetic as he rubbed the angle of his square jaw. "I promise you, what I've found is well worth any and all precautions. Even signing your name to the find will be enough to get you all the funding you'll need for life."

"You're asking for a lot of faith and a lot of trust," Xen complained. "I still don't know what you have up here."

Tiberius looked at Kemmer. "None of my hawks and doves will be publishing files, except maybe Xia, but I'm going to be conferring with Captain Cerro on his investigation. We'll need to talk about what's going on up here."

"I don't want to interfere with the police efforts, of course," said Kemmer. "However, I'll expect you to be as discrete as humanly possible."

Tiberius shrugged and signed his name to the datadex. "I'll pass it around to the rest of my crew."

Xen twisted a stylus unhappily in his silver fingers. "I don't like it."

"I can't take you down to the site until you and your team all sign, Professor Xen. Believe me, it will be worth the trouble."

The Ixthian archeogeneticist sighed heavily. "Fine, I'll sign. But I want an extra copy of the agreement."

"You can copy one off whenever you like." Kemmer could afford to be generous now. Some of the taut set to his carriage eased.

Xen seemed to have absorbed it. He signed his short name with an angry flourish and then pulled a slim white plastic com from his pocket. It was much shinier and newer than the one Maeve carried. "Panna? Are you back yet?"

His assistant had spent most of the afternoon and evening in one of the Prian team's two trucks, making the long drive down into Pylos to purchase adapters for the Tynerion-manufactured computers. There was a hiss of static over the com.

"I'm back, professor. I'm in our work tent, setting up with Gruth. Do you need me?" Panna answered.

"Yes. Come over here."

A moment later, Panna joined them in Kemmer's tent. She kept her eyes downcast as she passed close to Maeve and smiled brightly at everyone else in the tent, cheerful as ever. Kemmer – who had heard her voice over the coms all day but was only now finally meeting Panna – smiled right back. Xen handed her the datadex.

"Panna, this is a non-disclosure agreement for everything on our team. I need you to sign it and take it around to Gruth, Phillip and Enu-Io. When you're done, pull down a copy and start comparing it against the local laws. I want to know what we're up against if I decide to challenge it."

Panna's expression sobered. She looked uncomfortably between Xen and Kemmer.

The Prian nodded encouragingly. "It's fine, my dear," he said. "If it helps the professor feel better, go ahead. I've got copies of pretty much all the Prian judicial codes, if you need them."

"I'll get started on that. Do you want to check over the setup in our tents, Professor Xen?" Panna asked.

"I'll go take a look in a few minutes. First, I want to have a few words with Captain Myles."

"Sure, professor." Panna nodded and retreated.

Xen turned to Tiberius. "Captain Myles, I may very well have just signed away everything I've invested in this venture. I need to know that you'll do everything you can to protect it. This is very, very important."

"I said that I'd keep you and your site safe," Tiberius answered. "Leave it with us, professor."

That seemed to be enough to reassure the Ixthian scholar. He nodded and left to follow Panna, Xia close behind.

Tiberius stood and cracked his knuckles loudly. "Well, we better get started on all that. Kemmer, it's getting dark and I'd like to post Maeve on watch over your site. Once she signs that agreement, can she do that?" he asked.

"Yes. Not that there will be anything to see. All the lights have been shut down for the night. I'd like to place her on the surface, on the north face. That's just downhill from the site entrance. I can show your Arcadian the place."

It was hardly the first time someone had talked about her instead of
to
her, but never a Prian before. "I know the place you speak of," Maeve said stiffly. "I have successfully placed and secured your new radio antenna. While carrying out that task, I had a clear view of the ravine to our north."

"That's the spot. There's–"

"A ladder. Yes, I saw it." Maeve snatched the datadex from Tiberius' hands and signed her name. "I will watch over it until dawn."

"I'll cover the base camp. I don't suppose you have any sort of surveillance equipment? Cameras, perimeter lasers?" Tiberius asked Kemmer.

The other Prian snorted. "I did. They stole it all this morning."

Tiberius rose and gestured for Maeve to follow. "Come on, dove. Let's get to work."

Maeve threw the nondisclosure agreement down onto the table and left to begin her watch.

________

The night was cold, but uneventful. The sky glittered with stars, but nothing like the close, brilliant pack of stars in the core. No, this sky was deep and dark, like the skies of the White Kingdom. Only one of the moons, Duos, was in the sky and even that was a dusky, irregular crescent.

Maeve stood vigil on a jutting spar of stone, wrapped in a reflective silver blanket. The crinkling foil was plainly visible, even in the dark, but Maeve supposed that was part of the idea. Maybe if thieves realized that the site was protected, they would look elsewhere for their profit. Still, Maeve wished she had her spear. She felt again for the strange weight clipped to the waist of her pants. One of Xia's laser pistols was still there, loaned to her earlier that evening. The weapon felt so… alien.

By the time the sun was rising, turning the sky a seashell pink and the clouds into scarves of pale gold cloth, Maeve was feeling the effects of a night without sleep. Her eyes were sticky and her fingers stiff with cold. But her job was almost done. Maeve yawned and stretched. Her wings ached, but at least the weariness dulled her desire for some Vanora White.

Whatever else could be said for the archeologists, they were not late sleepers. The Prian team – only the three in total, including Kemmer – woke first, followed shortly by the Tynerion group. The last to rise were the Blue Phoenix crew. Xia, Duaal and Gripper emerged from the furthest tent, squinting and looking disheveled.

Maeve's com beeped. It was Tiberius, calling her back into the camp. "We'll check in with Kemmer and the professor, then get some sleep."

"I will be there very soon," Maeve said.

She made the short flight back down into the base camp, where Tiberius and the rest were waiting for her.

"You stayed up all night?" Gripper asked when Maeve landed. "You must be hungry. And frozen!"

"One of the Prians loaned me this," the fairy said, holding up the thermal blanket. She had folded it up around the small heating control wired into one corner. "It is quite effective."

"Prians know how to keep warm. If they didn't, there wouldn't be anyone left on this hunk of rock," Duaal said. The Hyzaari, too, seemed to know how to keep warm. He had clothed himself in a more flamboyant version of the standard Prian dress: a long sapphire coat and a multicolored scarf tucked into the collar, with high, polished black boots.

"We should probably have some breakfast and get moving if we want to get down into the dig with everyone else," Xia told them. She grinned like a schoolgirl. Maeve supposed that on this expedition, that's just what she was.

"I will leave the archeology to those educated in such things," Maeve said. She stifled another yawn. "If I am to continue my promised work, I will need sleep."

"I'm with Maeve." Tiberius' eyes were bloodshot and had purple circles under them. He stroked Orphia's tawny feathers. The hawk nuzzled his hand and nipped at his fingers. "I'll stay up here. You three can climb down into Kemmer's secret crack, if you want."

Duaal snickered and Xia sighed. "You two have the curiosity of turnips. Don't you want to know what's down there? Maeve, Ava seemed to think that you might be particularly interested. Can't I tempt you?"

Maeve looked at Tiberius. Even dull and heavy with fatigue, she
was
curious now… though that might just have been a response to Xia's taunts.

"I will go," Maeve agreed. Gripper cheered.