Robert Sawyer - Fossil Hunter

“Did you take the object?” asked Toroca firmly. There was a moment, a pause, a break in the dance. A Quintaglio could not get away with a lie in the light of day. And yet, although direct confrontations such as this rarely occurred, for one did not want to force another to feel he or she had no territory left to retreat into, there was often a final step to the dance, one last, brief movement in which the party wishing to avoid answering would spout a lie in the forlorn hope that his or her muzzle miraculously would not change color.

Toroca waited patiently, and, at last, Babnol dipped her head. “Yes,” she said. “I took the object.”

Toroca turned and looked out over the gray waves. “Thank you,” he said at last, “for not lying to me.” His heart was aching. He cared so much for Babnol, and yet this breach, this violation, cut him to the bone. Toroca had no interest in territoriality but he valued his privacy, which was quite a different thing. “You could have asked me if you wanted to borrow the object,” he said, trying to put his words in a light tone. “I was given quite a start when I realized it was gone.”

“I’m sorry,” said Babnol, and Toroca was relieved to see that her muzzle did not flush blue as she said it.

“I’m certain you are,” he said. “Where is the object now?”

“Toroca—”

“Babnol, where is it? In your quarters?”

“Not in my quarters.”

“Then where?”

“Toroca, I did it for you.”

Toroca’s claws did slip out. “ Where?”

“It’s gone, Toroca. For good. Overboard.”

Toroca closed his eyes and exhaled noisily. “Oh, Babnol.” He shook his head. “How could you be so careless?”

“I was not careless,” she said. “I threw it overboard on purpose, out the porthole in your cabin.”

Toroca staggered back on his tail. Had she struck him, he’d have felt no less shocked. “ Threw it overboard? But, Babnol, why? Why?”

“It was not a proper thing. It—lacked goodness.” She turned her muzzle directly toward him. There could be no doubt that her obsidian eyes were meeting his. “God must have intended it to remain buried.” Her voice was defiant. “That’s why She had sealed it in rock.”

“Oh, Babnol.” Toroca’s voice was heavy. “Babnol, you…” He hesitated, as if unsure whether to complete the sentence, but at last, with a simple shrug, he did, “you fool.” For the first time in his memory, he found himself stepping back from her, instead of toward her. “You promised me when you came to me, looking to join the Geological Survey, that I wouldn’t be sorry if I let you do so. Well, I’m sorry now.” He shook his head. “Do you know what that object was, Babnol? It was our salvation. It was a gift from God. She put it exactly where I would find it; you credit me far too much if you think my random opening of rocks could find something She wanted hidden. Babnol, that object was a clue, a hint, a suggestion—a whole new way of building machines. Solid blocks that somehow performed work! Flexible clear strands, unlike anything we’ve ever imagined! That object could have been the key to getting us off this doomed moon in time. You didn’t just throw it overboard, you threw our best chance of survival overboard, too.”

Babnol was defensive now. “But you yourself said we didn’t understand the object…”

“ I didn’t understand it. You didn’t. But others might. After we finish this voyage, we are returning to Capital City. There I was going to turn the object over to Novato. She and the other finest minds would examine it, and they, or the finest minds of the next generation, or of the generation after that, would have fathomed the object, would have understood the principles it employed.”

Toroca was now furious with himself. He could have sent the object back to Capital City with someone else instead of bringing it on this voyage, but he’d wanted to spend more time with it, and, most of all, he’d wanted to be there personally to see his mother’s face when he presented it to her. Such vanity! Such arrogance. He slapped his tail against the deck, and with words that were talon-sharp, took all that fury out on Babnol. “By the very claws of Lubal, herbivore, how could you do this?”

She looked at the wooden deck, splintering here and there where claws had dug into it. “I did it for you. I—I saw the way it obsessed you, the way it was drawing you in. It was like a whirlpool, Toroca, sucking the goodness out of you, sucking it into an empty, spiritless abyss.” She looked up. “I did it for you,” she said again.

“I see that you’re telling the truth, Babnol, but—” He sighed, a long, whispery exhalation, a whitish cloud of expelled air appearing around his muzzle. He tried again. “The whole point of the Geological Survey is to learn things. We cannot be afraid to look.”

“But some things are best left unknown,” she said.

“ Nothing is best left unknown,” said Toroca. “ Nothing. We’re trying to save our entire race! It’s only knowledge that will let us do that. We have to shed our superstitions and fears the way a snake sheds its skin. We can’t cower in the face of what we might discover. Look at Afsan! Others cowered and trembled at the sight of the Face of God, but he reasoned. Aboard this very boat, he reasoned it out! We cannot—we must not—do any less than what he did. We cannot be afraid, for if we are afraid, then we—all our people—will die.”

Babnol was trembling slightly. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m very sorry.”

Toroca saw how upset she was, and how very afraid. He wanted to move closer, to comfort her, but knew that that would frighten her even more. Finally, softly, he said, “I know.”

She lifted her muzzle, tried to meet his eyes. “And what happens now?”

“When this Antarctic expedition is over, we will return briefly to Capital City for provisions and so that I can report to Novato. After that, we will go back to the shore of Fra’toolar.”

“But I thought we were finished there?”

“We were finished,” spat Toroca, but he immediately reigned in his tone. “We were. But now we have to go back and search and search and search until we find another artifact. And you, Babnol, here, with the sun burning above your head, you must now pledge your loyalty to the cause, your loyalty to the Geological Survey, your loyalty to me , or I will have no choice but to have you left behind in Capital City. I need you, Babnol, and I—I want you, to be part of my team. But there must be no repetition of this. We’re growing up fast, Babnol—as a race, I mean. We have to leave behind the fears of our childhood. Pledge your loyalty.”

She lifted her left hand, claws extended on her second and third finger, fingers four and five spread out, her thumb pressed against her palm: the ancient Lubalite salute of loyalty.

“I see,” said Toroca, his voice not bitter, “that you noticed more than just the object when you searched my quarters.” He nodded after a moment. “I accept your pledge of loyalty.” A pause. “Back to your knot-tying, Babnol, but while you do it, pray.”

“Pray?” she said.

He nodded. “Pray that the object was not one of a kind.”

Being cooped up on a ship was enough to make almost any Quintaglio edgy. Except on pilgrimage voyages, ships rarely sailed far from the coastline of Land, and they would put in to shore every few days so that those aboard could hunt.

The journey to the south polar cap had been a long one, with no stopovers. It was time to release the energy and emotions that had built up during the voyage. It was time for a hunt.