Ancestor's World (21 page)

Mahree, Khuharkk', Greyshine, and Axum crowded in after the dust-covered figure of Doctor Mitchell. He looked at Sumiko, his face lighting up with a big grin. "Once we close the door of the vault, I'm going to be able to get my first decent night's sleep since we found this thing. Is everything ready in the Security Chamber?"

"Yes, Gordon," Sumiko said, rushing to the front of the line. She reached out to touch the hand-tooled gold of the barge, her fingers trailing reverently over red and yellow cloisonne glass inlays, silver plaques, bronze bosses, and the slim snake-head of A-Um Rakt. "Ohhh! I couldn't resist."

Beloran entered the Lab, his fan-ears laid back with displeasure and anxiety, his tail twitching. "Female Philosopher, please show us the way to the Chamber."

The Lab Chief recaptured her usual cool poise. "Of course, Liaison. It's right back here, behind the artifact shelving."

Etsane watched the bustling entourage trail along after the floating a-grav unit and its unique cargo. Going around the Secondary Receiving Tables, the group walked down the far sidewall of the Lab, passing out of sight behind long rows of artifact shelving.

At the rear of the building lay the climate-controlled room for perishables, where organics were kept, taking up one-half of the rear portion. The other half was the vaultlike room dubbed the Secure Storage Chamber, or SSC.

Doctor Mitchell had ordered the door to the SSC when he'd first found the tomb of A-Um Rakt two months ago. The heavy steel door had been forged by the Na-Dina to Mitchell's specifications, and had been completed and 150

flown in via jumpjet the day before yesterday.

The time lock that would ensure the security of the SSC was one of Professor Greyshine's contributions. The door had been made to fit around it, and yesterday, Doctor Mitchell and Khuharkk' had spent hours welding it into place and hanging the door.

Now, Doctor Strongheart could more easily do her tissue sampling and genetic analysis of the King's remains inside the Lab, while the Na-Dina Council of Elders--and fussy Beloran--would feel much more reassured knowing the Tomb treasures were protected by a steel door and a time lock.

The SSC was also fitted with an emergency radio transmitter that could be used to call as far as Spirit in case of another smuggler attack.

Natual came over to her after the raucous, order-giving retinue had passed out of view. The alien's dark brown skin looked warm and smooth where not covered by his loose tunic and short, knickerlike pants. His red eyes gazed down at her appreciatively. Etsane knew by now that Natual was interested in her, and that he was interested in being more than just a friend. She wasn't sure how she felt about that.

Natual was nice, and they got along well, and enjoyed their time together.

But... he wasn't human. Etsane had heard of aliens and humans having relationships, though it was comparatively rare. Sometimes love happened between people of different species. And, from what little she knew of Drnian physiology, it might be possible for a human and a Drnian to mate.

Once or twice she'd found herself thinking along those lines and her mind had just shut down. She just wasn't ready to consider anything so major as the idea of having a romantic relationship with an alien.

But Natual obviously didn't share her misgivings. Etsane knew he liked her; he made that flatteringly obvious. As she gazed up at him, wondering what to say, he held out a large glass of water still cold from the Lab Chief's refrigerator. "Are you thirsty?"

Etsane realized she was, and the thoughtfulness of the

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gesture touched her. "I sure am. Thank you so much." She took a long drink as Natual moved to perch on the edge of her desk.

"You are very welcome," he said. His black wiry hair shone in the bright light of the Lab, and his small, round mouth tried to curve upward. He'd evidently been practicing trying to smile in the human manner. "I wonder whether you would like to come over to my tent tonight. For dinner, which I will be pleased to make for us. It's much better than Refectory food."

His red eyes held hers compellingly. "We could discuss the reactions of our respective species to death and neardeath experiences. You had what Doctor Mitchell referred to as 'a close call' last night."

"Yes, I did," Etsane admitted. "When I saw how big that long-neck was, it was pretty scary." She hesitated, but then thought, Hey, even if Natual isn't human, he's still a gentleman. It's not like he wouldn't accept no for an answer. Just eating dinner with him doesn't commit me to anything. So, aloud, she said, "Sure, Natual. I'd love to try some of your cooking. What time?"

Natual bobbed his head, obviously pleased. "About an hour after sunset?"

"That's fine," Etsane said. "I'll be there."

Mahree stood at the back of the room, craning her neck and standing on tiptoe, trying to see the treasures of A-Um Rakt. But she was not a tall woman, and there were too many people in the way. The crowd was too thick for her to edge closer to the sarcophagus. The gold gleamed with a lustrous sheen under the lights of the room, and she found herself longing to touch it and the other beautiful things she could see. What would it be like, she wondered, to touch something that was six thousand years old?

She turned her head, found Doctor Strongheart standing beside her. "I'd really like a private tour," she said to the Heeyoon. "Maybe I should ask Gordon to give me one tonight, after dinner."

"Why don't you?" Strongheart said. "I'm sure he'd be 152

pleased to show off his finds." The physician showed her teeth in a wolfish grin. "Not to mention that he'd then have you all to himself, Mahree. I sense that he would not be averse to that idea."

Mahree found herself blushing hotly, and for a moment she remembered her dream at Blue Pond. "Strongheart, you're as hopeless as your mate, trying to play matchmaker with every human that comes along."

"What is wrong with a bit of romance?" the doctor asked, feigning innocence, widening her golden eyes. "Here we are in a remote location, far from civilization. Rob Gable is far away, and Gordon Mitchell is here. Among my people, such liaisons are not unknown, and the same is true of your people. I know, for I have watched Robert Gable's films many times at the Academy. I saw Casablanca several times."

Feeling a pang at the mention of her lover and the father of her child, Mahree just shook her head. It wasn't that she'd never known any man but Rob over the years ... sure she had, from time to time. Short-term flings while spending six months or more away from Rob were something that she'd indulged in a few times. She suspected that Rob had done the same, over the years. He and Janet Rodriguez, for example...

But they'd made it an unspoken policy never to ask and never to confess their extra-relationship involvements. It made things easier that way.

And it was true that Rob Gable was the only man she'd ever loved.

"I don't think I should bother Gordon with a request for a private viewing,"

she told Strongheart. "He's so busy these days, he barely has a moment to himself."

The Heeyoon cocked her ears sympathetically, but said no more.

"I'm getting claustrophobic from the crowd," Mahree muttered, edging back from the press of scaled, furred, and human bodies. "I'm going to take a shower before dinner."

"I will see you later," Strongheart said.

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Later that same night, Beloran stood in the dark shadows cast by the Lab and watched as the Burroughs female left the Refectory, heading for her dome-tent. Dinner had run late, due to the excitement caused by the removal of the treasures, and it was only a few hours until midnight.

Beloran blinked, watching the human's quick, purposeful strides as she reached her dome-tent and went inside. Good ... very good. Now she would find the message he had left, laboriously copying it from words that Infidel Mitchell had used in his written reports. Nobody suspected that he, Beloran, could both read and understand (though not speak) the main human language, but he had had months to learn it, and, once he had realized that the humans were his primary enemies, he had applied himself to studying it assiduously. After all, he was a scholar in addition to being a Merchant.

The message had been simple--block letters printed on a sheet of datafax flimsy, saying, "Meet me in the lab before midnight and I will give you that private tour." Beloran had not attempted to reproduce Infidel Mitchell's signature, but had just scrawled a capital "G" at the bottom of the message.

He'd been standing right behind the human and the Infidel Heeyoon when they'd had their talk, and his fan-ears had swiveled to catch every word--just as they had caught Infidel Mitchell's "private" command to Khuharkk' on the day he'd finally had the pleasure of killing Waterston.

When Beloran had heard the Infidel woman talking about wanting a private tour of the King's treasures, he'd known it was time to arrange another

"accident." The first one had failed--though, from what he'd heard from the gossip around camp, not by much. Infidel Burroughs and Krillen of the Law had nearly been caught by a lava flow when the batteries he'd sabotaged had failed, stranding them in his skimmer.

Beloran hadn't even figured he'd be lucky enough to have them fail during a lava flow. He'd just hoped they'd die far enough from civilization that the weak Infidel female would have succumbed to the heat from Mother's 154

Eye. But Krillen, it seemed, had managed to save them.

The Liaison silently cursed the Investigator. He was a traitor to all of
Halish
meg a-tum!

The human female walked into her dome-tent, switched on the light, moved about for a few minutes, then came back out. Standing in the yellow rectangle east by her tent light, she looked toward the Lab. Beloran held still, nearly certain the Infidel did not possess the Na-Dina ability to adjust her sight to draw in more light. In the dark shadows cast by the low-hanging Mother's Daughter, his blue scales should be invisible.

Infidel Burroughs stepped away from her dome-tent. She followed the trail around the Refectory, along the far side of the Lab building, then entered by the side door next to Mitchell's office. Pressing his ear against the still-warm metal of the building, Beloran heard her footsteps turn toward the far end of the building, and then proceed on, in the direction of the SSC.

Good ... good!

No one else was inside the Lab. No one would be likely to visit until morning. And the vault door operated on a time lock. Once closed, it would not open until morning. Beloran knew the code to open the door, and had made sure that it was already open, standing slightly ajar. The Infidel female would think that Infidel Mitchell awaited her.

He would not have dared to be so bold in his trap if Infidel Mitchell had not been so arrogant as to open the time lock within full view of the assembled research crew, plus the diggers. Mitchell was not expecting trouble from within the camp--his only precautions were directed toward preserving the treasure from the smugglers.

Beloran heard her steps slow and halt as she neared the partly open door to the SSC. Slowly, making not a sound, he crept around the building and waited, poised, by the side door. She was there, before the vault.

Yes, he told her silently. Go in. Go in and die, despoiler of my world....

As Beloran watched, the Burroughs female poked her head around the vault door. "Gordon?" he heard her call.

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Then ... it was going to work! She was stepping inside!

Beloran threw himself forward with the speed of a hunting long-neck.

Through the Lab he raced, tail up, light- footed, quick. In a second he was at the door, both taloned hands outstretched. They met steel, and with his entire weight behind his hands, the heavy door swung closed with a crash.

Yes!

Quickly, Beloran altered the setting on the time lock, spinning the timing dial randomly and then setting it with a final click. From within he could hear muffled shouts and thumps as Infidel Burroughs beat on the steel door.

The Liaison headed back out of the lab almost as fast as he'd come in. Now he would go to her dome-tent, and, if she had left it there, he would find and destroy the message flimsy.

Then... then he would wait. He would not be able to rest until he was sure she was dead. He would watch the lab, and count the minutes. When he was sure she would never trouble him again, then he would seek his own sleeping place.

In a way, Beloran thought, it was ironically fitting. The off-worlder female would suffocate in the vault, accompanied to her death by the body of the First Dynasty King. Perhaps A-Um Rakt would bless Beloran for his piety in bringing him a grave offering after so long in his tomb. Perhaps the favor of this Revered Ancestor would help to offset the sacrilege that he, Beloran, had committed when he'd flown the alien ship through Mother Sky.

Beloran scurried through the camp, moving through the shadows with practiced ease....

"Gordon?" Mahree stepped inside the steel vault of the Secure Storage Chamber, and was momentarily distracted by the glory of the golden sarcophagus of King A-Um Rakt. Was he hiding behind it, planning to jump out and scare her, or do something equally idiotic?

No, Gordon wouldn't do that.

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Mahree hesitated for a second, then decided she didn't like this, not at all.

She turned around, heading back for the half-open door.

Wham!

Before her eyes, the vault door crashed shut.

Her mouth dropped open; then her heart slammed in fear. Oh, shit!

Silence.

Not even the sound of footsteps outside penetrated the thick metal of the vault door. Maybe it was some kind of mistake?

She rushed over to the door, pushed on it, then cried out and pounded with her fists. "Hey! I'm in here! Let me out!"

Her only answer was the snick as the sealing bolts slid into place.

Oh, God.

She gasped for breath, her chest tight, and thought of how Gordon had told her that the chamber was sealed--no ventilation shafts, no vents, nothing.