Robert Sawyer: Fossil Hunter

“A puzzle?” said Babnol with glee. “I love puzzles.”

Toroca clicked his teeth. “I have a feeling this is going to work out very well,” he said. “Shall we go?”

Time was a funny thing, thought Emperor Dy-Dybo, resting his enormous belly on the ruling slab in his rebuilt palace in Capital City. His childhood had seemed as though it would never end. As a member of The Family—the direct descendants of the Prophet Larsk, who had been first to gaze upon the Face of God—Dybo had lived a life of leisure, while his mother, Len-Lends, had ruled with an iron hand.

But then, when Dybo was just twelve kilodays old, all of that had come to an end. A landquake, a collapsing roof, his mother dead, and suddenly he was lying on the ruling slab himself, he, no longer Dybo, but now Dy-Dybo, the Emperor of all the Fifty Packs and every one of the eight provinces.

Dybo was twenty-eight kilodays old—even to a pessimist, which Dybo most assuredly was not, still hardly even early middle age. And yet he was feeling old. He looked across the ruling room at the white marble statue of his mother, Lends, with her stern visage. Government had always moved in generations. His mother, in addition to being Empress, was also governor of Capital province, and she had been about the same age as the governors of the other provinces. Throughout his adolescence, while Dybo was being groomed for the Emperorship, seven other children about his age were likewise serving as apprentice governors in Jam’toolar, Fra’toolar, Arj’toolar, Chu’toolar, Mar’toolar, Edz’toolar, and Kev’toolar.

But because of Lends’s early death, Dybo had ascended ahead of his time. He’d always thought of himself as a young Emperor, because no one else of his generation had yet become a governor.

That had changed now.

A newsrider brought word this morning.

Len-Ganloor, a contemporary of his mother and the governor of Edz’toolar, harshest and most isolated of the provinces, had been killed. An accident on a ceremonial hunt, apparently. Ganloor and her senior advisors had gone after a shovelmouth—such an easy kill—but a hornface herd was panicked into a stampede by their arrival. Ganloor and the rest of her party were trampled to death.

Ganloor’s apprentice, Rodlox, Dybo’s contemporary, was now governor of Edz’toolar.

Rodlox. He’d met him not too long ago, the last time Ganloor had come through the Capital, but Dybo couldn’t really recall him at all. Just another of the endless parade of faces that went through his court. Of course, his name no longer would be just Rodlox, but rather now must be Dy-Rodlox, the long-established custom being that governors affirmed their loyalty to the Emperor by taking a praenomen derived from his name. Dybo would have to remember to send appropriate condolences about Len-Ganloor and congratulations about Dy-Rodlox to Edz’toolar.

Rodlox was also twenty-eight kilodays old, the same as Dybo, so the newsrider had said. Dybo was no longer the only one of his generation to hold high office.

And that made him feel older than he was. Old and weary. There was so much yet to do, and, it seemed, so little time.

There was a saying attributed to the ancient philosopher Keladax: time crawls for a child, walks for an adolescent, and runs for an adult. Dybo thought, yes, there was much truth in that.

Time was indeed running.

But more important, time was running out.

Dybo’s advisor, Afsan, had only a rough idea of how long it would be before the world disintegrated. His best guess had been perhaps three hundred kilodays. But since he’d made that prediction, some sixteen of those kilodays had already gone by.

Still, thought Dybo, a good start had been made. Early on, he had appointed Wab-Novato, inventor of the far-seer, as director of the effort to find a way to get the Quintaglios off their doomed world before it broke apart. And Novato had immediately set to work.

Dybo thought back to the day, long ago, when she had come to see him in his temporary ruling room, a vestibule in one of Capital City’s many temples. He had used it until the replacement for his old palace, leveled in one of the great landquakes, had been built.

Novato was a few kilodays older than Dybo, with a mind as sharp as a hunter’s polished claw. Dybo had been surprised by the new sash she had worn that day, although now it had become famous throughout Land. The sash crossed from her left shoulder to her right hip, and consisted of two parallel strips of dyed leather, the lower one green, the upper black. Dybo had later learned that these colors symbolized the exodus project, representing the move from verdant Land into the darkness of the night sky.

On that day, back in the temporary ruling room, Novato had begun by saying, “We need to take stock of our resources.”

Dybo liked Novato a lot but often couldn’t see what she was getting at. “What?” he had replied.

She leaned back on her tail. “We need a complete catalog of raw materials, a list of everything that we’ve got to work with.”

Dybo spread his arms. “But I’ve already said that you may use anything anywhere on Land, if it will help the exodus project. You’ve got access to everything already.”

Novato bowed deeply. “And I thank you for that, Your Luminance, but, forgive me, you are missing my point. I need to know exactly what’s out there: exactly what rocks and ore and crystals and types of wood and so on are available, where they are found, and how easy they will be to collect and use.”

“You mean a—what is the word?—an inventory? Of all of Land?”

“An inventory, yes, and a survey. There are so many parts that have never been really explored. Much of the southern region of Edz’toolar province remains unmapped. Most of the great plains of Mar’toolar are barren of life, but may be rich in metals. Some of the small islands in the Downriver Archipelago have never even been visited.”

“But such a survey would take kilodays.”

“Aye, it would. But we need that information.”

“So you’ll know what rocks are available?”

“Exactly.”

“And who would be in charge of this survey?” asked Dybo.

“I imagine there would be several teams,” said Novato, “but Irb-Falpom, the palace land surveyor, seems the right choice for leading the principal expedition.”

“A kindly soul, and a keen mind. All right, Falpom it shall be.” And indeed, it was Falpom for fifteen kilodays, until she died of old age, and her young apprentice Toroca, one of Afsan and Novato’s children, took over. But, back on that long-ago day when he had first approved the Geological Survey, Dybo had commented, “But surely, Novato, you must realize that this survey will take ages to complete.”

“I do,” she had said.

“So, what, may I ask, will you be doing in the interim?”

“Me?” Novato had replied, a look of utter seriousness on her face. “I’m going to learn how to fly.”

As Babnol and Toroca hiked along, heading south to join up with the Geological Survey team, Toroca quietly contemplated Babnol’s nose horn.

All Quintaglio children were born with horns on their muzzles—birthing horns, they were called—to help them break out of their shells. But these were always lost within a few days of hatching. Babnol’s, for some reason, had not been. Instead, she’d retained the horn into adulthood. It wasn’t unattractive, just startling, a fluted cone of yellow-white bone projecting up. It must interfere with Babnol’s field of vision, Toroca thought, but then so did his own muzzle—one gets used to the parts of one’s face that block vision.