“What sort of people think that iron is valuable and five-thousand-year-old artifacts are garbage?” Kath Two asked. She was interrupted by a faint high-pitched beeping sound that was emanating from all of them at once.
They had all been issued earpieces so that they could communicate if they became separated. Most had removed these and pocketed them, or simply draped them around their necks, but Beled still had his in. He pressed one hand to his ear and held the other in front of him, as if checking a timepiece. But he was actually looking at a small flat screen that was strapped to his wrist. He then pivoted to gaze up the valley in the direction from which they had come, but the view was blocked by foliage and terrain.
“Large animals moving in their vicinity have been detected by the buckies,” he said, “and one of them has gone silent.”
“Yesterday,” Doc said, “when young Einstein here proposed we make a junket into the mountains to have a look at an artifact, I was resistant to the idea at first. I saw it as a mere diversion, of a touristical nature. I gave my assent to the idea because I saw it as an opportunity to carry out a dry run for the procedures we would be using later, when we got started for real. I see now, however, that it is the main event.”
THE DIGGERS HAD ERECTED ANOTHER TOTEM NEXT TO THE GLIDER’S side door: a circular hoop of bent branches, thrust into the air on a pole made from a debarked sapling about five meters tall. The Seven recognized it as a more naturalistic version of the steering wheel totem that had been placed at the driver’s grave. Did it have some meaning to these people? It was difficult, now, not to read it as a glyph symbolizing the Agent’s penetration of the moon. But it also looked like the Greek letter phi, which had made its way into the Anglisky alphabet as a substitute for both F and PH. As such it could have been an initial for just about anything—Fire? Fear? Philosophy?
Before they had moved from the site of the dig, Bard, Beled, and Ty had scouted the vicinity, spiraling out from it in larger and larger circles until satisfied that no one was nearby. They had found footprints and other signs that someone had been through very recently—perhaps watching them as they had tried to make sense of the disappearance of the truck.
As they had retraced their steps up the valley, then, they had spied sentinels, perched in places that were meant to be conspicuous, atop boulders and rubble mounds flanking the streambed, leaning on lances whose steel heads gleamed softly in the blue-gray light sifting down out of the overcast sky. Others carried strange-looking contraptions of cables, pulleys, and bent steel, which Beled identified as powerful bows. From this distance it was difficult to say much about their appearance. More than a few were redheads; the men tended to be bearded; they wore clothing that in some cases was out-and-out camouflage, in others was just meant to blend in with natural backgrounds.
When they had passed between the first pair of sentries, Beled, on point, had held up his hand, signaling that they should stop. The obvious concern had been that by going any farther they would begin placing these people to their rear, effectively allowing themselves to be surrounded. But the sentries, apparently understanding this, now began to move up the slope abreast of them, leaving them a clear exit.
Or at least a clear pedestrian exit. By the time the Seven and their young guide came in view of the totem raised above the glider, it had been surrounded by perhaps two dozen Diggers. They had pulled all the equipment cases out of the cargo hatch, laid them out on the ground in neat rows, and begun going through their contents. Some of them were making lists of what they found, taking inventory of what they seemingly thought of as their new property.
“I take it you have never seen or heard of such people, Einstein,” Doc said.
“Rumors. But not this many. We just thought they were strays from other RIZes.”
“Well, as you can see, they are something else,” Doc said. He raised his voice slightly, addressing the whole group. “Now that we’ve had some time for the shock to wear off, I think you all understand what we are looking at. These people are not descendants of the Seven Eves. They are rootstock. Their ancestors survived the Hard Rain and somehow found a way to live belowground until quite recently. Most likely they are cousins of yours, Tyuratam Lake.”
It took Ty a few moments to understand that Doc was alluding to events five thousand years in the past. “By way of Rufus MacQuarie?” he said.
Doc blinked in assent. “Dinah’s father, as is well documented in the Epic, went belowground with some like-minded persons. Efforts have been made, during the last century, to find their underground home and learn what became of them. All unavailing.”
“Perhaps they didn’t wish to be found,” Ty said.
“How long have you known of this?” Ariane asked.
“How long have you known of it, Ariane?” Doc returned. “Did the unusual orders you were given not fill you with a certain amount of curiosity?”