Robert Sawyer - Fossil Hunter

Afsan said nothing.

“If I’m not the strongest, and I’m not the brightest, then perhaps Rodlox is right. Perhaps I should not be the leader.”

“There is something else to consider.”

“What else can there be, besides intellectual and physical prowess?”

“There’s goodness, Dybo. There’s moral rectitude. There’s doing the right thing when the wrong thing would be easier. Those are your strengths, Dybo. And those, more than anything else, are what a good ruler needs.”

Dybo was silent for a time. “Thank you,” he said, and then: “But those traits sound flimsy against muscle and brains. Do I really have a hope of winning against the blackdeath?”

“If there’s a god in heaven, you’ll win.”

Dybo answered wistfully. “Coming from the person who took God out of the heavens, that does little to comfort me.”

Afsan’s expression was carefully blank.

The blackdeath had been held captive for many dekadays now. Its pen was a giant area just north of the arena, hastily walled off by fences of stone. Indeed, the pen itself was bigger than the actual arena. The blackdeath had tried to scale the stone walls, but could not, and, although it occasionally still tried—perhaps having forgotten its previous attempts—it had mostly settled into its life of captivity.

At the south end, the pen’s walls connected with the pointed apex of the walls to the diamond-shaped arena. Through a gate in the arena wall, a shovelmouth was driven into the pen every ten days or so, to provide food for the blackdeath.

Dybo often watched the blackdeath. Ladders had been built up to the top of the stone wall, and Dybo sat for great lengths of time on the edge, his feet dangling down the inside of the wall, his tail dangling off the outside. He observed that the blackdeath only seemed happy when it was stalking and killing the shovelmouths.

It was a horrendous beast even here, even caged, but it had a beauty and a nobility about it. Dybo’s observation perch was upwind of the creature, and so long as he sat still, it paid him no attention. Next to him on the wall’s upper surface lay a small satchel containing books, papers, and writing leathers.

Dybo was surprised to hear the sound of flexing wood made by someone coming up the ladder he’d leaned against the outer wall. He swiveled his head around and saw that Rodlox was ascending. Dybo got up and walked along the wall’s top edge—it was barely wide enough for that—until he was about five paces from the top of the ladder.

Rodlox reached the top and instead of walking five paces in the opposite direction, thereby putting the traditional territorial buffer between himself and Dybo, he simply sat directly down. Everything about the governor of Edz’toolar bespoke challenge.

The movement on the top of the wall caught the blackdeath’s eye. It let out a thunderous roar. Dybo took some pleasure in noting that, just for an instant, Rodlox’s fingerclaws danced out into the light of day in response. He was not as fearless as he liked to appear. Dybo was a gifted mimic—in his younger days, he’d been known for his humorous impressions of the voices of the palace staff. He thought about copying the blackdeath’s roar to see again the sight of Rodlox frightened, but prudence got the better of him. Instead, he simply said nothing.

“You spend much time up here, looking at that beast,” said Rodlox. “It must be frightening for you, to see the creature that will cause your death.”

Dybo’s tone was lackadaisical. “Whatever you say, Rodlox.” He went back to looking at the dumb brute. The other dumb brute, that is.

Suddenly Rodlox was pointing at Dybo’s right hand. “What happened to you?”

Dybo lifted his arm. Two of his fingers were missing. “This, you mean?”

Rodlox’s teeth clicked together nastily. “Does the Emperor stuff his face so quickly that even his own fingers get chomped off?”

There was an ancient gesture that Dybo thought briefly about making, but this hand lacked the key digit needed for it. “No, Rodlox, nothing like that. I lost these fingers while practicing.”

Rodlox apparently didn’t really care about Dybo’s injury; the digits, after all, would grow back soon enough anyway. He looked down at the blackdeath, slowly pacing the length of its pen. “I can beat that creature with one arm tied behind my back,” Rodlox said defiantly.

Dybo’s expression was inscrutable as he also looked down at the caged beast. “I can do better than that,” he said at last.

At last, the Dasheter set sail again, traveling along the southern coast of Capital province, past the shore of Kev’toolar, and finally across the Bay of Vatasor, to the windy, rocky coast of Fra’toolar, where it deposited Toroca and his team back at the same beach it had picked them up from all those days ago.

Toroca was pleased to be back at work. Pack Derrilo was now well established in the buildings overlooking part of the cliff face, and the Pack members seemed pleased to have once again visitors from Capital City—especially since Toroca had brought along many fine wares from the Capital as gifts for Jodor and her people.

As soon as they were settled in, Toroca ordered a major excavation, hoping to find another one of the strange blue artifacts. His team worked every daylight moment just below the chalk seam of the Bookmark layer, the bottommost rock stratum containing fossils, but nothing turned up. Toroca began to fear the strange thing he’d found was a one-of-a-kind fluke. Finally, frustrated, he ordered the use of explosives, the kind of blackpowder used to clear out rocks when building roads. It seemed a safe move: Toroca was pretty sure that even such blasts wouldn’t damage artifacts built of the blue material, although, of course, he had to move far enough along the cliff face that the explosion wouldn’t put at risk the buildings that Pack Derrilo was occupying.

Blasting was always dangerous; road builders lost many people in accidents with explosives—either blown up by mounds of powder that went off prematurely or buried under rock slides caused by the explosions. Indeed, it was not uncommon to see a road worker with one or both hands in the process of regeneration, stubby yellow fingers sprouting from a tiny palm.

Delplas was the team’s explosives expert. She poured black-powder into six funnels made of paper, each of which had a fuse of twine sticking out of its apex, and stuck them in cracks just below the Bookmark layer. Delplas’s hands were her originals; they showed none of the mottling or discoloration associated with parts regenerated in adulthood. This inspired some degree of confidence, but the pheromones wafting on the wind made clear how nervous everyone was.

Six of the seven team members would have to act as fuse lighters. Toroca, of course, was going to be one of those. It wouldn’t do to order others to perform a task he was reluctant to undertake himself.

From his vantage point, some hundred and thirty paces up the cliff face, he could see two of the other fuse lighters. But three more were hidden amongst the rocks. The only way to do it was to shout off a countdown.

“Five,” yelled Delplas.

Toroca fumbled with the wooden match.

“Four.”

He stuck the match against a rock. It didn’t take.

“Three.”

He tried again and this time it spluttered to life.

“Two.”

The wind was stronger than he’d thought. It blew out the match. He scrambled for another—

“One.”

—struck it, shielded the flame, and—

“Zero.”

—touched it to the fuse, which began to burn with an acrid smell. He watched long enough to be sure the fuse wouldn’t blow out, then, as fast as he could, scrambled down the steep rock face, climbing ropes providing handholds where the rock itself would not. Once on level ground, he ran, tipping forward, his thick tail flying out behind, his back parallel to the dirt. To his left, two odiers were likewise running with all their strength; to his right, three more. Toroca was counting in his head; the fuse should burn for twenty more beats.