"Hello, Tommo, howzaboy?" He winked. He breathed in my face. "Good old Tommo. Letz danz, Tommo!"
"Mirrik, you're tanked!" I told him.
"Nonzenz." He prodded me playfully in the ribs with his tusks. "Danz! Danz!"
I jumped back. "Where did you find flowers?"
"No flowerz here. Juzzt happpppy!"
His muzzle was golden with frostflower pollen. I frowned and brushed it off. Mirrik giggled again. I said, "Hold still, you oversized sposher! If Dr. Horkkk sees you like this, he'll flay you!"
Mirrik wanted to stop off in the laboratory to argue philosophy with Pilazinool. I discouraged him from that. Then it began to rain, which sobered him a little, enough to see that he might get in trouble if one of the bosses found him. "Walk with me until I zober up," he said, and I did, and we discussed the evolution of religious mysticism until his head was clear. As we returned to the camp he said sadly, "I grieve for my weakness, Tom. But I feel I have learned restraint with your help. I won't visit the frostflower patch again."
He came in drunk the next day too.
I was in the lab, cleaning and sorting the latest haul of broken inscription nodes and battered plaques, when a voice from outside roared as though over a cosmic loudspeaker:
Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Zpring Your Winter-garment of Repentanz fling;
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter—and the Bird is on the Wing.
"It's the Rubaiyat!" cried Jan, entranced.
"It's Mirrik!" I gasped.
Dr. Horkkk looked up grimly from his computer input. Dr. Schein frowned. 408b muttered something in disgust; it has no use for such foibles as this.
Mirrik went on:
Zome for the Gloriez of Thiz Worrrld; and zome
Zigh for the Prophet's Paradizzzze to come;
Ah, take the Cash, and let the Crrredit go,
Nor heed the rumble of a diztant Drrrum!
Jan and I hustled out of the lab and found Mirrik tusking up the turf in front of the building. Crushed frostflower blossoms were sticking out behind his ears, and his whole face was dusted with pollen. He looked mournfully at me for an instant, as though a sober Mirrik were trying to peer out behind the drunken mask; then he giggled again and continued:
Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears Today of pazzt Regrets and future Fears:
Tomorrrrow!—Why, Tomorrow I may be Myzelf with Yezterday's Zev'n thousand Years.
"Tomorrow you may be on your way home," I said sharply. "For Omar's sake, Mirrik, get out of here! If Dr. Horkkk sees you—"
Too late.
That night Mirrik had a long conference with our bosses, who are afraid that he'll show up really glapped some day and wreck the camp. A drunken Dinamonian is about as safe to have around as a runaway rocket, and unless Mirrik can lay off the frostflowers he'll be shipped out. 408b had a sweeter suggestion: simply chain Mirrik up, like an unruly bull, when he isn't working. Kindly old 408b always goes straight to the humane solution.
Most of us try to cover for Mirrik when he comes into camp loaded. We walk him sober, or steer him away from the bubbleshacks if he tries to enter, or otherwise protect him against himself. But we aren't fooling anyone. Dr. Schein and Dr. Horkkk are both worried about this business. And when those two agree on anything, it means trouble.
* * *
Leroy Chang thinks I'm having a love affair with Jan, by the way. That's pretty funny.
I did take a long walk with her one night, I admit. And several shorter walks. Can I help it if I like her company? She's the only female human being here —whoops, I mean, not counting Kelly Watchman! Anyway, she's the only person here of my own age except Steen Steen, for whom I don't care very much, and she's the only girl here, Kelly being past ninety and android besides, and I have more in common with her than I do with, say, 408b or Dr. Horkkk. So I naturally tend to spend time with Jan.
But a love affair?
Leroy is jealous of phantoms. He's one of these twitchy bachelor types who chases girls compulsively, usually without much luck, and his score with Jan is zero. She regards him—pretty accurately—as a creep. Since he can't accept that as his explanation for his lack of success with her, he has made up a better one, which is that since I am younger and taller and dumber than he is, Jan in her postadolescent shallowness has fallen for me.
His way of expressing his resentment is to poke me in the ribs and leer and say, "You two had a hot time last night, huh? I bet you did! You're a real biology artist, eh, kid?"
"Get sposhed, Leroy," I tell him amiably. "Jan and I aren't in the same orbit."
"You say it with a straight face, too. But you don't fool me. When you bring her back, she's got that steamy, excited look on her face—a man of the worlds like me, I know right away what you've been up to."
"Usually we've been discussing the day's finds."
"But of course! Of course]" He lowers his voice. "Listen, Tommo, I can't blame you for doing all the passionating you can, but have a heart! There are other men on this expedition, and females are in short supply." A coarse wink. "Mind if I take her behind the rockpile one of these nights?"
That's me, Tom Rice, villainous monopolizer of women! Would you believe it? There isn't any tactful way that I can explain to Leroy that he's his own worst enemy, so far as his relationship with Jan goes: that if he weren't so pushy and possessive and grabby and raw, she might be able to tolerate him a little. Certainly it isn't that I've locked up her affections, because, no matter what Leroy thinks, my dealings with Jan have been those of brother to sister.
Well . . . more or less. . . .
She is still totally tickled toward Saul Shahmoon, and I blush to confess that most of the time when I'm alone with Jan she talks about how wonderful Saul is and how terrible it is that he won't fall for her. She praises his clarity of mind, his neatness, his suave Mediterranean good looks, his cool self-possessed manner, and his other virtues. She laments that his strange obsession with philately leaves him too busy for love, and asks my advice on how best to win him over. Honest!
And Leroy Chang keeps insisting that Jan and I hold orgies back of the rockpile….
Maybe I'll make a cough in her direction the next time we go strolling, you know? I mean, if Leroy has already tarnished our reputations with his insinuations and sniggerings, what's there to lose? She is an attractive girl. I have not taken any vows of chastity on this expedition. Besides, I'm getting awfully cranked about hearing her sing the splendors of Saul Shahmoon.
FIVE
September 5, 2375
Higby V
I personally discovered something of major importance this morning. And almost got myself fired for doing it. We still don't exactly understand what it is I found, but we know it's big. Possibly the biggest thing in High Ones archaeology up till now. Here's what happened—
After breakfast, five of us went out to the site to dig: me, Jan, Leroy Chang, Mirrik, and Kelly. At the present stage of things a five-man team is about as big as is efficient. The rest were in the lab, processing artifacts, dating things, running computer analyses, and doing other sorts of backstage work.
We are now pretty deep into the hillside, and the zone of High Ones occupation has widened considerably. Artifacts are thickly strewn about; we have more than a hundred inscription nodes already and a huge carton of plaques and puzzle boxes. All standard items, though; just more of them than usual.
It was a cool, rainy morning. They all are. We huddled under our weather shield and got to work. First Mirrik scooped out the backfill of soil that we had used to cover the actual excavation level. Then Kelly moved in with her vacuum-corer. The way we organized things, I got down in the hole to direct the work; Kelly crouched above me, drilling cores from the rock where I told her to; Mirrik stayed to my side, scooping up the debris with his tusks and carting it away; Jan ran the camera, filming everything in three dimensions; and Leroy, as the senior archaeologist of this particular team, kept a
chart of all that went on.
For an hour the work was uneventful. Then we started coming around a zone of soft pinkish sandstone in which a batch of puzzle boxes were embedded. When you work hard enough and intensely enough, you start to become a kind of machine, sometimes, moving mechanically in an automatic rhythm, and that's how Kelly, Mirrik, and I were functioning. I'd point, Kelly would core, Mirrik would clear away; that exposed an artifact, which Jan photographed, Leroy charted, and I lifted carefully from its place to go into the collection box. Point, core, clear; photograph, chart, lift. Point, core, clear; photograph, chart, lift. Point, core, clear-Something strange gleamed at me out of the sandstone.
It was a curved metal mass, gleaming brightly. From the gentleness of its curve I estimated that it was a globe of some kind at least one meter in diameter. It was fashioned of one of the customary gold alloys used by the High Ones for larger mechanisms; its surface was smooth in some places and covered with centimeter-high ridges in others.
"Bring that corer in here, Kelly!" I called. "Let's see what we've got!"
I guided her to the edges of the embedded artifact. Beautifully, delicately, she cored it free, exposing another few centimeters, and then a little more, and then still more. I scrabbled at the sand with my fingers, pushing it out of the way. Leroy didn't pay any attention to what we were doing; he was busy charting, or perhaps he was trying to get a little biology going with Jan. In any case both of them were well up above me on the rim of the pit and I was too involved in my digging to stop and see it Leroy had any special instructions for me.
"Here we go," I said to Kelly. "Follow the curve. See? Get the corer under here, and then—"
Kelly nodded. She looked tense and keyed-up with excitement, and when an android gets excited, it has to be something special. She gripped both handles of her corer and started drilling in from the side. The corer tip found a huge mass of sandstone and split it neatly. I started to heave debris, but Mirrik said, "That's too much for you, Tom. Get back." And jammed his tusks into the opening and pitched a half-ton of rubble out of sight.
Point, core, clear. Point, core, clear. I was drenched in sweat. Kelly, who doesn't sweat, somehow seemed flushed and sticky too. For ten minutes we went at it in a frenzied way, until half the globe was uncovered. I began to see a control panel and a variosity of knobs and buttons.
This is not the way to dig up something important. We were working in a mad rush, the three of us caught up in the thrill of a major find and unwilling or unable to slow up. I won't speak for Mirrik and Kelly, but I confess that I wanted to complete the excavation of this mysterious globe before any of the senior archaeologists could cut in on me. Unworthy motive! Also stupid chimposity and a display of colossal slice, since a mere apprentice like myself could easily have bungled the job and earned the curses of the whole profession.
I thought of all these things. But yet we went zooming ahead. Point, core, clear. Point, core, clear. Point-coreclear. Pointcoreclear. Pointcoreclear.
I stopped for breath and looked up. Leroy and Jan weren't watching. They were biologizing. At least, Leroy in his subtle way had one hand on Jan's . . . well, hip . . . and the other groping for the magnet stud of her blouse, and he was trying to get his mouth on hers and she was fighting him off with clenched fists, and the whole thing had the look of a rape scene in the making. The chivalrous thing would have been for me to leap to the rim of the pit in one bound, cry, "Unhand her, knave!" and knock his teeth down his grinning glapper. But I told myself a) Jan can take care of herself, and b) while Leroy is wrestling with her he won't be able to meddle with what we're doing. So I was unchivalrous. Shame! Shame!
She fisted him in the gut. Leroy turned purple, doubled up, and dropped his chartbook into the pit. Jan took off, streaking away into the rain. Leroy followed, yelling things like, "Jan! Jan! Just let me explain!"
"We're on our own," I said to Kelly and Mirrik. "Dig we onward!"
Dug we onward, unhindered. Kelly now was coring under the globe, and I tested it carefully, trying to rock it free of its embedment, but nothing going. Mirrik gave it a cautious nudge, too, and it tilted a little but remained in place. We could see that it was a beauty—so big I could barely span it with my arms, and covered along one side with all kinds of controls. Another five minutes, I figured, and we'd have it loose.
"Wait," Mirrik said. "At this moment I feel I should pray for the success of our labor."
Mirrik often does that. He's deeply religious, you know. He's a Paradoxian, worshiping the contrary forces of the universe, and bursts into prayer whenever those forces need to be placated, which is much of the time. Kelly drew back the corer and Mirrik delicately knelt in the pit, folding his huge legs under his massive body and letting the tips of his tusks rest on the globe. He began to groan and bellow in Dinamonian. Later I asked him to translate the prayer and he gave me this version:
O Father of confusions and sorrows, give us aid.
O Thou whose existence we doubt, doubt us not at such a time.
O ruler of the unrulable, O creator of the uncreated, O speaker of truths that lie, let our minds be clear and our aim accurate.
O mystery in clarity, O foulness in purity, O darkness in light, comfort us and guide us and lead us.
Bring us not into error.
Cause us not to feel regret.
Remain with us now as on the first and last of all days.
Thou concealer of destinies and shatterer of patterns, be merciful, for in hatred lies love, in blindness lies sight, in falsehood lies righteousness. Amen. Amen. Amen."
You must agree with me that this is an odd kind of prayer. An odd kind of religion, too. The thing about aliens is that they tend to be so alien. But I have asked Mirrik to explain Paradoxianism to me one of these days, and perhaps he will.
When he finished his prayer he reared back, dug his tusks in under the big globe, uttered a moan of ecstasy, and pushed. The globe gave a little. He pushed again. The globe gave some more.
"Down here with the corer!" I yelled. "Just nip this little flange of stone away, and we've got it!"
In a kind of joyous insanity the three of us tugged, tusked, and cored at the bottom of the pit, jostling each other, jockeying for position, grabbing at the globe, altogether generating a chimpo scene of the first order. We thought the globe would come free, but it was more tightly embedded than we thought, and we came shudderingly close to damaging it in our lunatic urge to get it loose.
A cold, thin, furious voice said suddenly, "What are you doing? Idiots! Vandals! Criminals!"
I looked up. Dr. Horkkk peered down at me. His eyes were red with anger and seemed five times their normal size; he was waving all his arms at once and hopping around on three legs while wildly kicking himself with the fourth, which the people of Thhh do when they're upset; and both his talking mouth and his eating mouth were gaping in rage.
"We found this globe," I explained, "and now we're trying to clear the sandstone matrix, and—"
"You'll ruin it! Fools! Assassins!"
"Just another second now, Dr. Horkkk, and we'll have it."
You have to understand that while I held this discussion with Dr. Horkkk, Mirrik and Kelly and I were continuing to batter at the stone. If anything we grew more slapdash and hasty, as though the fate of the universe depended on lifting that globe from the stone within the next two minutes. Dr. Horkkk shrieked and screamed and capered. Dimly I heard him say, ". . . or I'll discharge the three of you!"
Other faces were peering into the pit now. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Pilazinool, 408b, Saul Shahmoon, and Jan. Incoherent with rage, Dr. Horkkk seized Pilazinool's leg and pointed at us while expostulating in what I suppose was the Thhhian language. Pilazinool tried to calm him.
Dr. Schein appeared, sized up the situation, and jumped down into the pit beside us.
The strange berserk frenzy that had overwhelmed us faded as soon as he arrived. Kelly put down her corer, Mirrik backed away from the globe, and I
stood up, mopping off the sweat.
"What have we here?" Dr. Schein asked gently.
"An . . . artifact, sir ..." I mumbled.
"Most unusual. Most unusual. Why the hurry though?"
"I don't know, sir. We got… carried away…"
"Well, we don't want to be carried away, do we? We need to follow orderly procedure, as Dr. Horkkk has been saying. I understand your enthusiasm, but nevertheless…" He frowned. "Who's charting the site?"
"Leroy Chang," I said.
"Where is he?"
I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing. I peered up at Jan and she smiled grimly. Her clothes were a little mussed, and she was soaked from her run in the rain, but she winked at me. As I say, Jan can take care of herself.
"Where is Professor Chang?" Dr. Schein repeated.
"He left the site about ten minutes ago," I said.
Dr. Schein looked puzzled, but shrugged the matter aside and picked up the chartbook. "Let's go, now," he said. "I'll supervise. Finish removing the globe . . . patiently."
With everyone watching us and Dr. Schein setting the pace, we completed the job in a more professional way. I felt guilty and embarrassed about that mad rush, and when Dr. Horkkk hopped into the pit for a closer look at the globe, I couldn't bear to face him. It took another half an hour to free the globe. Pilazinool, Dr. Schein, and Dr. Horkkk conferred about it in the pit; they all agreed it was some kind of High Ones machine and that it was by far the largest High Ones artifact ever found, but they had no more idea than I did of what it was. No one offered congratulations to me for having made the best discovery in this field since the finding of the first site. I didn't feel awfully proud of myself, considering the chimpo way I had carried on during the excavating work.