Fossil Hunter (26 page)

“Afsan, I am a priest in the order of Detoon the Righteous. Maliden is a bloodpriest in the order of Mekt. These are entirely different categories of the ministry.”

“Maliden is imperial bloodpriest,” said Afsan, “and you are Master of the Faith, and, therefore, primary priest to the Emperor. Surely you and Maliden must have interacted often and known each other well.”

“Afsan, you were training to be an astrologer; that was a science. Do you therefore automatically know Pas-Harnal, a metallurgist who lives in this city? He is a scientist, too. All holy people no more make up a single community than do all savants.”

“In point of fact, I do know Harnal, although not well.” Afsan’s tail swished. “Surely you must know something of the bloodpriest?”

“Yes, of course, I know Maliden, but we rarely had contact, and no, I do not know where he’s gone, although I must say that if I had done what he is accused of — tampering with imperial succession — I’d have left town, too.”

“We have reason to suspect that Maliden has not left town.”

“What? Why?”

In the flickering light, Afsan couldn’t avoid a direct question. “We think he may have had something to do with the murders.”

Bogkash’s teeth clicked derisively. “Maliden? A murderer? Afsan, first, he’s very, very old. Second, he’s gentle to a fault.”

“Well,” said Afsan, “I’m open to other suggestions. Do you know anything that might help identify the killer or killers? Anything you might have learned in your professional capacity?”

There was a moment’s silence. Perhaps Bogkash was thinking. “Why, no, Afsan, not a thing.”

Pal-Cadool moved out of the shadows.

“He’s lying.”

Suddenly the priest wheeled, his white robe flowing around him, claws glinting in the wan torchlight. “What is this impudence?” said Bogkash.

“Forgive me,” said Afsan, “but my associate says you are not telling the truth.”

“I am. He’s the one who is lying.”

“Cadool would not lie to me.”

“Cadool, is it? A butcher? You take the word of a butcher over a priest?”

“Cadool is no longer a butcher. He is my assistant. And I take his word over anyone’s.”

“But I’m telling the truth,” said Bogkash.

“You thought to lie to me,” said Afsan simply. “A blind person can’t see if you are lying. But Cadool is my eyes in these matters. Now, I ask you again, do you have any knowledge of the death of my daughter and my son?”

Bogkash looked at Afsan, then Cadool. “Surely what happens here, in the Hall of Worship, is private.”

“Is it? Whenever I had to do penance here as an apprentice, your predecessor, Det-Yenalb, would later discuss it with my master, Tak-Saleed.”

“Saleed and Yenalb died ages ago. You must have been just child then.”

“Shy of my first hunt. That makes a difference?”

“Well, of course.”

“Haldan is — was — little older now than I was then. She’d only taken her pilgrimage three kilodays ago. And Yabool, of course, was the same age as Haldan.” A pause. “Regardless, I have imperial authority for this investigation.” Afsan had no need of a document bearing Dybo’s cartouche to assert this; his muzzle declared that the stated authority was genuine. “Answer my questions.”

Bogkash appeared to consider. At last he said, “About Haldan and Yabool, I know little. But another of your children — the one who works on the docks…”

“Drawtood.”

“Yes, Drawtood. He has been here often of late, walking the sinner’s march, circling the Hall over and over again.”

“Have you asked him about it?”

“An unburdening of guilt must be freely offered. I note which individuals enter and leave the Hall at times other than normal services, but I don’t normally engage them in conversation. Even here, the rules of territoriality apply most of the time.”

“But you know nothing about Haldan or Yabool, only Drawtood?”

“That’s right.”

“Why bring it up, then?” asked Afsan. “What’s he got to do with them?”

Bogkash shrugged. “You tell me.”

The surveying of the polar cap required sailing right around it. Fortunately it was quite small, so its circumnavigation only took a few dekadays.

Still, sailing east meant that the
Dasheter
was soon on the side of the world that looked upon the Face of God.

Everybody aboard had seen the Face at least once, when they took their pilgrimage voyage at the passage into adulthood. But the spectacle from here at the bottom of the world was shockingly different from the one they had beheld in equatorial waters.

At the equator, the Face went through phases from top to bottom. Here it waxed from side to side. On pilgrimage voyages, the yellow and brown and white bands of cloud striped the Face vertically. Here they roiled across it horizontally. When seen from warm waters, the Face was squished so that it appeared taller than it was wide. Here, in the Antarctic, it was oblate, apparently compressed vertically.

It all made sense when one looked at that newest of fads — a globe of the world — for a Quintaglio standing at the south pole was indeed perpendicular to one at the equator, therefore rotating the frame of reference through a quarter of a circle. Indeed, after seeing the Face both ways — waxing like a winking eye at the latitudes of Land; waning like a rounded door down here at the southern ice cap — one could no longer doubt that the world was indeed a sphere.

From this far south, though, much of the Face was always below the horizon, because, as Toroca understood, the plane of the world’s orbit around the Face was through the world’s equator, so that here, near the pole, they were looking down upon the Face from a height equal to the radius of their world. It meant that when the Face was crescent, it appeared as a great curving horn rising up from the horizon, stretching toward the zenith, as though some great beast lurked just beyond the edge of the world.

But when the curtains of aurora danced around it, nothing was more beautiful than the Face of God. Toroca, who’d been anxious to leave, to get back to warmer climes, and to speak to other scholars about his theory, could have tarried here forever, drinking in the sight of that wonderful, spellbinding planet.

The
Dasheter
had begun its long voyage home. The ice had disappeared over the southern horizon, and each night more of the old familiar stars became visible. Toroca took note of the position of the constellation of the Hunter — known for a time, but no more, as the constellation of the Prophet. It was hugging the northern horizon, but as the
Dasheter
pressed on toward Land, it would move higher and higher with each passing night.

Toroca and Babnol were supposed to still be on opposite sleeping schedules, but he had stayed up tonight to speak with her. She had come up on deck after sunset to enjoy the stars. Temperatures still plummeted too much at night to be on deck for more than about a daytenth after the sun had slipped below the waves. Toroca saw her, leaning against the railing that ran around the edge of the ship’s aft diamond-shaped hull. He moved over to her, the splashing of waves against the ship masking his footsteps.

“I’m sorry,” he said at once, before any ritual exchange of greetings, before she had a chance to get away.

She looked up, startled. She was wearing her snowsuit but had the hood unstrapped, so he could clearly see her black, intelligent eyes; her graceful, almost tapered muzzle; and her horn, the yellowish-white cone that had hurt them both.

“I’m sorry, too,” she said at last. He moved over to the railing and leaned on it as well. Together, they watched the beauty of the night, the air somehow not seeming cold at all.

There was a shout from the lookout bucket. Surely not land so soon? Toroca looked up. Biltog, who seemed to be making a career of sitting in the bucket atop the foremast, was scrambling frantically out of that bucket and down the web of ropes. He was yelling something, but Toroca couldn’t make it…

” — deck!” shouted Biltog. “Clear the deck!” Toroca spun around and looked over the little railing around the edge of the
Dasheter
’s foredeck. He couldn’t see — oh, God…

A giant wave was barreling toward the
Dasheter
, its crest a wild, roiling white, its body a wall of blue-gray fury. “Clear the deck!” shouted Biltog again. “Get below!” Toroca needed no further prodding. He ran for the nearest accessway leading down. Others were doing the same. Crew members were furiously locking down the hatches over the entrances…

And then it hit.

The ship rolled far to starboard. Toroca, on the little step-ladder just below deck, held on for his life, his claws digging into the wood. Little lizards went skittering across the floor — he’d heard that the
Dasheter
, like most ships, had a degree of lizard infestation, but this was the first he’d seen of them. The ship’s timbers groaned in agony. Toroca felt his stomach turning inside out. Down below, he could see Babnol, prone on the floor.

The
Dasheter
continued to list, farther and farther. One of the boards making up the stepladder splintered in two. The ladder was almost horizontal now, the whole ship practically knocked on its side. And then…

Swinging back the other way, rolling to port, back, back, farther, Toroca spraining his arm as he tried to hold on, the ship’s lumber moaning under the stress. And then, at last, the ship stabilized.

Captain Keenir was moving up and down the corridors. “That should be it for a few moments,” he called in his gravelly voice. “But get to your quarters and lie down on the floor. There’ll likely be two or three more.”

Toroca made his way down the rest of the stepladder. Babnol was also gaining her feet. “What is it?” she called to Keenir as he passed. “What’s happening?”

“Quake,” said the old mariner. “You’ll believe the world’s coming to an end after you weather a few of those out here in open water. Quickly now, to your cabin. Aftershocks coming!”

During the many days of the return voyage, Toroca paced the decks of the
Dasheter
, back and forth and back again, stem to stern, thinking.

An animal changing from one thing to something else. A flying wingfinger becoming a swimming one.

Change.

The idea needed a name, and that was the best one he could think of. In general use, the word meant “unrolling,” or “gradual change.” It certainly seemed appropriate when applied here, to the changing of one form of life into another.

For the change must be
gradual
, surely. A wingfinger couldn’t go in one generation from having a flying membrane attached to its elongated digit to having a swimming paddle. No, rather, it must happen a little at a time, with wingfingers perhaps swimming on the surface of the water, and those with a thicker membrane being the best paddlers, and therefore getting the most fish. A thick membrane would be an advantage, then, over a thin one, in an environment where swimming was more profitable than flying.

And those that had the advantage would live longer and have more children.

And the children would tend to take after the parents, just as, just as, just as …

Just as Governor Rodlox and Emperor Dybo took after Empress Lends, or, or, or…

And in each subsequent generation, the favorable trait would become concentrated more and more, until it became the norm.

An entire population of wingfingers with paddles instead of flying membranes.

Or with walking stilts instead of wings.

A selection process, imposed by the environment: a natural selection. Toroca continued to pace.

Babnol was eighteen kilodays old.

Toroca understood this; knew the significance of the figure.

A year was about eighteen thousand days long.

And, therefore, Babnol was now about one year old.

Toroca felt a little tingling as he contemplated what that meant.

The ripening. The receptivity.

Soon, Babnol would call for a mate.

Very soon.

Toroca had longed after Babnol since shortly after they had first met, and at last he could bear it no more. She was coming close now, down the cramped corridor beneath the decks of the
Dasheter
. She’d have to squeeze by him in this narrow space to get where she wanted to go. Of course, as was the custom, she would avert her eyes for the brief time during which she would be invading his territory. He was supposed to do the same.

Closer now. Closer. Just a few paces away.

He could smell her pheromones — the normal scent of all Quintaglios; the undercurrent of her femaleness, growing more pronounced day by day as she moved toward receptivity; the subtle tinge that indicated that she hadn’t eaten recently; the slight whiff of abasement at having to encroach on another’s territory.

She looked to one side and stepped abreast of him.

Toroca lifted his arm, ever so slightly, so that the back of his hand slid smoothly, gently, across her flank as she passed.

Her claws slipped out into the light of day, but she said not a word.

Not a word.

Toroca was pacing the decks of the
Dasheter
again, his theory bothering him.

Yes, evolution explained the bizarre wingfinger-derived life-forms of the south pole. Yes, the mechanism of natural selection could account for their strange adaptations to the aquatic, fish-laden environment there.

But so what?

What relevance did evolution have to life back on Land?

He’d seen in the fossils of the Bookmark layer that all forms of life had emerged simultaneously: reptiles and fish and amphibians and wingfingers. All of them appeared at once.

Evolution had nothing to do with, oh, say, with a fish spontaneously developing a novelty that allowed it to survive for a short time out of water, and that trait being concentrated over the generations, to, for the sake of a wild example, give rise to amphibians.