Robert Sawyer: Fossil Hunter

“Eggling!” the voice called again, closer now.

Afsan got up off his rock and began to walk toward the approaching visitor. “That’s a voice I haven’t heard in kilodays,” he said, surprise and warmth in his tone. “Var-Keenir is that you?”

“Aye.”

They approached each other as closely as territoriality would allow. “I cast a shadow in your presence,” said Keenir.

Afsan clicked his teeth. “I’ll have to take your word for that. Keenir, it’s grand to hear your voice!”

“And it’s wonderful to see you, good thighbone,” said Keenir, his rough tones like pebbles chafing together. “You’re still a scrawny thing, though.”

“I don’t anticipate that changing,” said Afsan, with another clicking of teeth.

“Aye, it must be in your nature, since I’m sure that at Emperor Dybo’s table there’s always plenty of food.”

“That there is. Tell me how you’ve been.”

The old mariner’s words were so low they were difficult to make out over the wind, even for Afsan, whose hearing had grown very acute since the loss of his sight. “I’m fine,” said Keenir. “Oh, I begin to feel my age, and, except for my regenerated tail, my skin is showing a lot of mottling, but that’s to be expected.”

Indeed, thought Afsan, for Keenir had now outlived his creche-mate, Tak-Saleed, by some sixteen kilodays. “What brings you to the Capital?”

“The Dasheter. ”

Afsan clicked his teeth politely. “Everyone’s a comedian. I mean, what business are you up to?”

“Word went out that a ship was needed for a major voyage. I’ve come to get the job.”

“You want to sail to the south pole?”

“Aye, why not? I’ve been close enough to see the ice before, but we never had the equipment for a landing. The Dasheter is still the finest ship in the world, eggling. It’s had a complete overhaul. And, if you’ll forgive an oldster a spot of immodesty, you won’t find a more experienced captain.”

“That much is certain. You know that it is my son Toroca who will be leading the Antarctic expedition?”

“No, I did not know that. But it’s even more fitting. His very first water voyage was aboard the Dasheter , when we brought Novato and your children to Capital City all those kilodays ago. And Toroca took his pilgrimage with me three or four kilodays ago.”

“We don’t call it a pilgrimage anymore.”

“Aye, but I’m set in my ways. Still, not having to bring along that bombastic priest, Bleen, does make the voyage more pleasant.”

Afsan actually thought that Bleen wasn’t a bad sort, as priests went. He said nothing, though.

“Where is Toroca now?” asked Keenir.

“According to his last report, he’s finishing up some studies on the eastern shore of Fra’toolar. He’s expecting a ship to rendezvous with his team there, near the tip of the Cape of Mekt.”

“Very good,” said Keenir. “Whom do I see about getting this job?”

“The sailing voyage is part of the Geological Survey of Land. That comes under the authority of Wab-Novato, director of the exodus.”

“Novato? I’m certain to get the job, then, I daresay.”

Afsan clicked his teeth. “No doubt,” and then, in a moment of sudden exuberance, he stepped closer to the old mariner. “By the very fangs of God, Keenir, it’s good to be with you again!”

At last, other intellects! At last, intelligent life native to this iteration of the universe.

It had arisen not on the Crucible, but rather on one of the worlds to which I had transplanted earlier lifeforms. I’d been right: body plans other than those that would have survived the initial weeding of natural selection on the Crucible had the potential for sentience.

They called themselves Jijaki collectively, and each individual was a Jijak.

A Jijak had five phosphorescent eyes, each on a short stalk, arranged in one row of three and a lower row of two. A long flexible trunk depended from the face just below the lower row of eyes. The trunk was made up of hundreds of hard rings held together by tough connective tissue. It ended in a pair of complex cup-shaped manipulators that faced each other. The manipulators could be brought together so that they made one large grasping claw, or they could be spread widely apart, exposing six small appendages within each cup.

The creature’s torso, made of fifteen disk-like segments, was held at a forty-five-degree angle. In a dissected creature, the disks could be seen to have complex spokes and buttresses running into their centers, these crosspieces making up the skeletal support for the internal organs. Each of the disks, except the first, had a triangular breathing hole on each side.

The surface of the disks had an opalescent sheen. When a Jijak was moving in the dark, little white sparks, caused by a muscular-chemical reaction, could be seen flashing in the connective tissue exposed as the disks separated.

About halfway down the underside of the torso there was an indentation containing a mouth-sphincter. The trunk was sufficiently long and flexible to easily move food there.

Wrapping around the rear of the torso was a horizontally held U-shaped brace from which six legs—three on each side—angled forward. Only the front pair of legs normally touched the ground. Each of the other two pairs was successively shorter and much less robust. They were used only in mating, in digging holes for depositing eggs, and in certain sporting activities.

I’m surprised at how body plans endure through vast spans of time. Although infinitely more complex and dozens of times bigger than their distant ancestors from the Crucible’s early seas, the basic architecture of a Jijak was much the same as that of the creature I had taken from there. Oh, that tiny being had been aquatic, instead of land-living; had compound instead of single-lens eyes, and its eyes were on the opposite side of the head from the trunk; it had had only a simple pincer at the trunk’s end; wing-like gills had projected from its body segments, and six paddle-like rudders, instead of articulated legs, made up its tail. But the fundamental architecture of these Jijaki was indeed obviously based on this ancient plan.

It was high time I introduced myself to them.

Toroca had learned to fake the appropriate responses. It was expected behavior, and he had quickly discovered that life was so much easier if one responded as expected. He couldn’t remember the last time his claws had distended of their own accord, but, when the situation warranted, he could force them from their sheaths, force the tapered yellow-white points out into the light of day, force himself to look like a hunter, a killer.

But he was neither of those things. Oh, he had gone on his first ritual hunt—and had been amazed at the bloodiness of the affair, the viciousness of the others in his pack—for to be an adult who did not bear the hunter’s tattoo over his left earhole would mean he would be shunned by society, reduced to a life of begging.

He didn’t want that.

But he didn’t want to ever again taste blood that was still warm, either. One hunt had been enough.

Toroca had seen the abandoned stone buildings near the edge of the towering brown cliffs when they’d first arrived here, and his team hiked all the way up to them for shelter when storms made it impossible to camp out on the beach. Today, though, the weather was fine. Toroca and Babnol had simply come up to the old buildings to fetch the equipment they had stored there, as they prepared for the rendezvous with the sailing ship that would take them to the south pole.