Fossil Hunter (35 page)

“You killed your sister Haldan and your brother Yabool.”

“You don’t know what it’s like to have siblings,” said Drawtood.

“No, I don’t,” said Afsan. “Tell me.”

“It’s like having to face yourself every day. Except it’s not you. It’s someone who looks like you and thinks like you, but not exactly like you.”

Afsan nodded in the darkness. “Broken mirrors. Of course. I understand the choice of implement now.”

“Implement?”

“The device used for the murders.”

“I did not commit the murders, Afsan.”

“I can’t see your muzzle, Drawtood, but others will ask you that same question, and they will be able to see it. Do you wish to lie to me?”

“I did not…”

“Do you wish to lie to your father?”

Drawtood was silent for a time, and when he spoke again his voice was very small. “Only one of us children should have lived, anyway.”

“Is that what you believe?”

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” said Drawtood.

“Didn’t you?” said Afsan.

“I — I was just putting things back the way they should have been.”

“It’s not for any of us to say who should live and who should die. The bloodpriests alone may choose that.”

“But they made a mistake. They let your eight offspring live because they thought you were The One, the hunter foretold by Lubal. But you aren’t.”

“No, I’m not.”

“So don’t you see?” There was a note of pleading in the voice now. “They made a mistake. I was just putting things right.”

“Would you have killed all of them, then?”

“It had to be done. Brothers and sisters — they’re demons. Shades of yourself, but twisted, mocking.”

“And you would have been the only one left alive?”

“If they hadn’t gotten me first.”

“Pardon?”

“They were thinking the same thing. I know they were. Dynax and Galpook, Kelboon and Toroca, Haldan and Yabool. They were all thinking the same thing. If it wasn’t me doing the killing it would have been one of them.”

“No, it wouldn’t.”

“You don’t know, Afsan. You don’t have brothers or sisters. But look at Dybo! Look at how his sibling turned on him. It preys on your mind, knowing there’s someone out there who is you, but not quite, who thinks like you, whom people mistake for you.”

“Did any of them make an attempt on your life? Threaten you in any way?”

“Of course not. But I could tell what they were thinking. I could see it in their faces. They wanted me dead. Self-defense! It was just self-defense.”

“So you would have left yourself the only one alive.”

“No. Maybe. I don’t know. Toroca, maybe. Maybe I would have let him be the one. He was always kind to me. Maybe I’d have killed the other five, then taken my own life.” He was quiet for several beats. “Maybe.”

“You’ve committed a crime,” said Afsan. “What do we do now?”

“It was not a crime.”

“You must receive justice.”

“You, of all people, shouldn’t believe in justice. You were blinded by imperial order! Was that justice?”

Afsan’s turn to be silent for a time. “No.”

“I won’t submit to them.”

“You must. You must come with me.”

“You can’t stop me.”

A hard edge came into Afsan’s tone. “Yes, I can, Drawtood. If need be. You are alive because sixteen kilodays ago, they mistook me for The One. I was the greatest hunter of modern times. You can’t get past me.”

“You are blind.”

“I hear your breathing, Drawtood. I can smell you. I know exactly where you are standing, exactly what you are doing. You don’t have a chance against me here in the dark.”

“You’re blind…”

“Not a chance.”

Silence, save for the wind.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Afsan.”

“You have hurt me already. You’ve killed two of my children.”

“They had to die.”

“And now you must face the consequences of your actions.”

Another lengthy quiet. “What will they do to me?”

“There are no laws governing murder, and so no modern penalties are prescribed. But there were penalties in ancient times for taking another’s life outside of
dagamant
.” A pause. “I will urge compassion,” Afsan said at last.

“Compassion,” repeated Drawtood. “Have I no alternatives?”

“You tell me.”

“I could take my own life.”

“I would be honor-bound to try to stop you.”

“If you knew what I was doing.”

“Yes. If I knew.”

“But if I were to kill myself quietly, while we were talking…”

“I might not realize it until too late.”

“How does one kill oneself quietly?”

“Poison might be effective.”

“I have none.”

“No, of course not. On another matter, there are some documents in my carrying case that you might find interesting. I’ve left it by the doorway. Can you see it?”

“It’s very dark.”

“Tell me about it,” said Afsan, but there was no clicking of teeth.

“Yes,” said Drawtood, “I see it.”

“Please go get them.”

Ticking claws. “Which compartment are they in?”

“The main one. Oh, but be careful. There’s a vial of haltardark liquid in there, too. It’s a cleaning compound for far-seer lenses. Your mother asked me to get some for her; it’s quite deadly. You’d do well not to touch it.”

A long silence. “Yes,” said Drawtood. Silence again. Then: “The vial has a symbol on it. It’s hard to see in this light … a drop shape, and the outline of some animal lying on its side.”

“That’s the chemist’s symbol for poison.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“You do now.”

“Afsan … ?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yes.”

And that was followed by the longest silence of all.

Everything had gone flawlessly so far. The final Jijaki ark, the
Ditikali-ot
, had traversed the light-years to the target without incident. It had been timed to arrive a few Crucible centuries after the previous arks, bringing fauna specimens that would do better after the rest of the animals had been established.

Sliding down the star’s gravity well had gone as planned, and a double-loop maneuver braked the craft first by swinging around the gas-giant fifth planet, then around the target moon. The
Ditikali-ot
settled into a stationary orbit around the moon, holding position directly above the great watery rift that separated the two landmasses, landmasses that would eventually jam together into one as convective heat drove their respective plates closer and closer.

The
Ditikali-ot
consisted of a habitat module made of super-strong blue kiit held by a metal superstructure between the funnel-shaped ramscoop at one end and the fusion exhaust cone at the other. Restraining clips retracted, allowing the habitat to separate from the stardrive portion of the ship. The precious cargo from the Crucible, and the entire Jijaki crew — the last survivors of that race, now that war and old age had taken all their kin — began to enter the atmosphere.

I had hoped to leave no trace of my handiwork, but the
Ditikali-ot
was indeed the final ark. I had no way to remove its wreckage, and every last Jijaki was now dead, so none of them could be summoned to clean up the mess.

Toroca looked up at the night sky.

He reflected that he was a child of the new universe, conceived by Afsan and Novato in the very moment at which the two of them, pooling what they had learned through her far-seers, came realize the shape of space, the structure of the cosmos.

Before then, the Face of God was an object of veneration, not merely a planet, and the other planets were just points in the night, not distinct spheres. Before then, the moons were something unto themselves, instead of more examples of what the world was — globes spinning around the Face of God. Before then, the rings around the planets Kevpel and Bripel were unknown. Before then, the sky river was thought to be the reflection of the great body of water that Land was said to float upon, instead of, as Toroca himself had seen through lenses, countless stars.

Before then, too, the world was simpler, for it was Afsan’s work, and the work of his master, the great Tak-Saleed, that had demonstrated that the world was doomed, its orbit about the Face too close to be stable.

But now the universe was even more complex, for other beings apparently lived on one of the objects in the night sky, strangers who had visited this world once, long ago, leaving behind one of their ships and, apparently, their cargo of plants and animals.

Did the strangers live on one of the other moons of the Face of God? On Swift Runner? Slowpoke? The Guardian? The thirteen other moons had been observed now for kilodays through the finest far-seers from the tops of the tallest mountains. None seemed to have liquid seas or fertile land.

Could the strangers have come from another planet? It seemed clear that the closer one moved toward the sun, that brilliant white point that lit the world, the hotter it would be. Likewise, moving farther away would plunge a world into cold, more bitter than even that of the ice caps. No, the inner planets, Carpel. Patpel, and Davpel, were surely barren and scorched, and distant Gefpel, seeming almost unmoving in the night sky, must be chilled beyond all imagining. Perhaps Kevpel, next closest to the sun from here. Or perhaps Bripel, one planet farther out. Or perhaps one of their moons, those tiny points that could be seen to accompany them through a far-seer.

Or perhaps from somewhere else, somewhere much farther away.

The sun was tiny but hot, showing a barely perceptible disk.

There were those who said the other stars were also suns, just farther away.

And if those suns had planets…

And if those planets had moons…

The strangers could have come from any one of them.

From one with a longer day
…

A longer day! Quintaglios slept every other day because they’d originated on a world with a day perhaps twice as long, and, despite all the time that they’d been on this world, they’d somehow been unable to acclimatize to sleeping more frequently…

And yet … the once-a-year mating cycle had adapted to the rhythms of this world, apparently.

They’d been here long enough to become attuned to this world in most ways, but still, deep within their beings, there were ties to whatever crucible they’d originally formed in.

Toroca stared up at the firmament, at the wide awe and wonder of the night.

One of those points of light, perhaps, was that crucible. He wondered if they would ever discover which one.

The compartments in Capital City’s stadium had been designed to each hold a single spectator. But one compartment had had its dayslab removed so that it could accommodate both Afsan and his assistant, Pal-Cadool, sitting on small stools. Cadool’s territoriality was not aroused by Afsan; the blind Quintaglio had always been a special case to him.

“Describe everything for me, please,” said Afsan.

Cadool craned his neck to look up and out of the compartment’s opening. “There are a few clouds in the sky — the tubular, twisty kind that look like spilled entrails.” Cadool paused, clicked his teeth. “Say, that’s appropriate, isn’t it?” His words were drawn out, protracted along the same stretched lines as his whole wiry frame. “The sky itself is bright mauve today. The sun is still rising, of course. It’s passing behind a cloud just now. There are three, no, four moons visible in the sky, two showing crescent faces, the other two gibbous.”

Afsan nodded. “That would be Big One, Gray Orb, Dancer, and Slowpoke.”

“Yes.”

“What about the crowd?”

“Because of the way the compartments are laid out, no one else is directly visible from here. But I’m told every compartment is filled today.”

“Good. What’s about to happen must be widely seen if it is to have any meaning.”

“Don’t worry. I understand every newsrider from Capital province is in attendance, as well as many from the outlying areas.”

“How does the field look?” asked Afsan.

“The grass covering it is a mixture of brown and green, but it’s quite even — they’ve done a good job of fixing it up for this event. There aren’t any exposed patches of dirt anymore. You know the field is diamond shaped? Orange powder has been laid down, marking the east-west and north-south axes, so the diamond is split into four triangular quadrants.” Cadool was quiet for a moment, then: “Afsan, will Dybo win?”

“I’m not an astrologer anymore, Cadool. Never really was one. My master died before he taught me the interpretation of omens.”

“But you have a plan?”

“Even a plan requires much luck.”

A steady drumbeat began from down below. “Ah,” said Cadool, “here come the contestants.”