the others, his design was more understated, as befitted his authoritative position.
He simply shrugged. "She's got to at least put on a good show."
"I still don't see why we need her here at all," complained Jamie Cronkite. She was the colony planetologist, and the one who first discovered the symbols. She stood slightly in front of the two men, so Dimitri could look at her without having to shift position. She wasn't native to Avernus, but had been born and raise on Toliman in the Alpha Centauri system. Though a garden world nearly identical to Earth, the planet tended to be warmer and the sunlight stronger, because Alpha Centauri was larger and brighter than Sol. As such, Jamie stood another quarter of a meter taller than the Avernians, and had a bigger build, mahogany-brown skin, and a billowing mane of fiery red hair. She also didn't decorate herself like her fellow colonists, except for a few modest pieces of jewelry, but she didn't need to in order to be recognized.
"The Feds won't give us the reward until the company signs off on its authenticity," Cecil explained (and, Dimitri knew, not for the first time), "and the board of directors won't do that until they have their own expert examine it. Besides, our shares of the reward would only come to a hundred thousand Federal credits each. Croesus Conglomerate will pay millions, and they will pay in Centauri ducats. So I think it's worth our time letting her have a look at it."
"Damn red tape-worms," she said. "As if my word wasn't good enough."
"It was at least good enough for them to pay the cost to send her all the way out here from Earth."
Jamie turned to give Cecil a look of shocked surprise. "Six whole light years!? That must have taken months!"
Dimitri could sympathize. Space travel was not popular among ordinary citizens. Even with faster-than-light capability, it took a spaceship a long time to travel to even the closer stars. Besides, the ships were cramped, cold, smelly, and often weightless, with only the barest of amenities, virtually no entertainment, and absolutely no privacy. Only the hardiest of adventurers could stand it, and those who made their living as spacers were generally thought to be half mad.
"Thirty-four weeks, to be precise," replied a sing-song, contralto voice.
Dimitri returned his attention to the woman examining the artifact as she approached him and his friends. Her name was Medb hErenn, and she was the most singular-looking person in the room, but even in a group of other Terrans she would have stood out. For one thing, she stood two meters tall, a full head taller than even Jamie; for another, she was more massive than any other human they had seen. In fact, statuesque was probably the right word, what with her broad shoulders, wide hips, large, firm, well-rounded breasts and backside, and thick arms and thighs, combined with a narrow waist and flat stomach. Yet she was no soft pleasure-princess, as the hard, corded muscles in her limbs, abdomen, and back attested. As well, her undecorated skin was the color of adobe mud and her hair had the natural, rich color of bronze tinged with gold. She wore it straight and loose down to her waist, except for two long braids that hung from either side of her head down her front. Her only ornamentation was a headband of white-gold above her brow; a heavy ring of twisted yellow-gold around her neck, which opened at her throat and was tipped at each end with a large uncut red gem; a brooch of red-gold pinned just below her right shoulder; and a handful of yellow-gold balls woven into the tip of each braid.
"How could you stand it?" Jamie asked.
Medb favored the woman with a mischievous smile. "The crew and I found ways of keeping ourselves entertained." Her long, oval face was too strongly featured to be considered beautiful, though it was still quite handsome, especially her emerald-green eyes framed by jet-black eyebrows, and her blood-red lips. In fact, the only thing that really marred her appearance was that, despite her friendly demeanor, those eyes looked cold and hard.
"Yes, well, Cecil informed us that your psych-profile indicated you were promiscuous."
Dimitri smirked at the catty response. Tolimanians were infamous for their puritanical morals.
If Medb felt offended she showed no sign, except for an arrogant grin. "Promiscuous is not the word for it, my dear. But I am also an accomplished singer, story-teller, and magician; though even I can get tired. The only thing I found hard to bear was the lack of alcohol. I also have a prodigious appetite for drink."
But Dimitri didn't follow the conversation too closely. He had been fascinated with her from the moment she arrived, especially her cool forest green outfit. It looked like it had been spray-painted onto her body and acted as little more than an extra layer of skin. It covered every millimeter of her body from her chin on down, including her hands and feet, and followed every line and curve exactly except for her feet, where it assumed the form of a pair of square-toed boots. Just above her hips it had a built-in black belt, and aside from the usual items that an archaeological investigator might carry, it also bore a knife over half a meter long with a heavy, curved, serrated blade and a metallic handle with a spherical knob at the end. Dimitri wasn't concerned about the weapon. Being a frontier town, Dis was pretty wide-open; about the only things forbidden were firearms and explosives. But like everything else about her, it was quite different from the usual weapons the Avernians tended to carry.
"I read your phys-report, too," Jamie pressed. "It has something to do with your liver; you can metabolize ten times the amount of alcohol any one of us can."
"I can attest to that," Dimitri confirmed.
"Yes, you and I had quite a time last night." Medb gave him a lascivious smile and she tousled his hair with affection. Dimitri could feel himself blush, which wasn't his usual reaction towards women, but Medb had been no ordinary companion. He had taken her on his usual date: first to his favorite bar and grill, then a bathhouse, and finally back to his apartment, and sex was ordinarily the climax of the evening. For once, however, he and Medb had started off with sex and continued it on and off all night: once at the grill in the men's room, twice more at the bathhouse, and four times straight at his place--twice in bed, once on the floor, and finally in the shower that morning. It wasn't until then that she finally said she had had enough. But while he had thoroughly enjoyed himself, he found the whole experience disconcerting. Each time left him exhausted and limp as a wet rag, but all she had to do was touch him a few times and he felt ready to start all over again. He figured he might drop dead later, but for the moment he felt better than he had in years.
"It's just that you don't strike me as the kind of person who would be an archaeologist, unless your specialty is ancient sex toys."
"Jamie," Cecil said, "that's enough!"
That time Medb's reaction, while carefully neutral, was not as friendly. "I have special knowledge and certain abilities that make me ideal for this kind of investigation, but your opinion of my competence is irrelevant. It will be my decision that will determine whether you receive your bonus and reward, so you may help me or you may stay out of my way, but I would advise you not to hinder me. Now, have you made any attempt to date it?"
Dimitri knew that Jamie by no means felt intimidated, but neither was she a fool. For the time being she had to put up with the intrusion into her professional space, and she was a successful enough scientist to know when to play politics.
"Of course, I'll just need a moment to collect the results."
Satisfied, Medb nodded and turned back to study the artifact.
Cecil followed Jamie to her desk where she kept the printout of her tests, and Dimitri tagged along. "Take it easy, Mee, we'll get through this okay."
"Yes, well, I just resent having our future decided by a dilettante who doesn't know the first thing about proper scientific investigation."
"Just don't get her mad. She's a deadly fighter, either armed or unarmed, and she's stronger than any ten of us."
"I'll keep that in mind," Jamie said with naked irony, then headed back to the table as the two men followed. Without waiting for acknowledgement she began her report.
"The patina cover
ing the artifact contained no radioisotopes, but its composition is identical to a deposit common to the rock strata where it was found. The deposit is created by a chemical reaction and the rate of formation is relatively constant. Based on the amount of material that accumulated, I estimate the artifact had been put into place a little less than ten billion years ago, shortly after Avernus formed. Elemental analysis of the artifact itself revealed traces of thorium-232. This is the longest-lived isotope we know of, with a half-life of fourteen billion years. The amount that remained, along with the amount of decay products present, establishes that the thorium had undergone approximately ten half-lives of decay before analysis, which puts the age of the material the artifact was made from at around one hundred and forty billion years. This gives us an upper and lower limit to the age of the artifact itself."
Finished with her report, Jamie offered the printout to Medb. The massive woman took it without comment and walked off to one side to read it.
Cecil took the opportunity to move off to one side and check in with his office, leaving Jamie and Dimitri alone. She sidled up next to him.
"I understand you gave her the 'tour' last night; how was it?"
"Probably like you and Cees, only better." It was no secret that Cecil and Jamie