Harry Turtledove: 3 x T

Most of a day went by before the door opened again; Crouzet beat Ware out of a week's pay at dice. They were still crouched over the plastic cubes when Tupsharru burst into the chamber, half a dozen spearmen at his back.

Ware grabbed for the stunner by his belt pouch, but there was no need. The priest of Illil went to one knee before him, as if in salute to a great lord. "She wakes without torment, for the first time in the gods know how many ninedays!" he said exultantly. "And she is hungry, as she has not been for even longer!"

"Well, David, you seem to have pulled it off," Julian Crouzet said, his voice sober. "I hope you're pleased."

Ware hardly heard him; he was too busy trying to be polite declining the gifts Tupsharru wanted to shower on him. At last he did take a couple of fine small bronzes, one a statuette of Illil with a moon in either hand, the other a portrait bust of Sabium that managed to capture something of her character in spite of being almost as rigidly formulaic as the image of the god.

"It would have been out of character for traders to turn down everything," he told Crouzet a little defensively as the two Terrans made their way back to the city gate. They had had to argue Tupsharru out of an honor guard.

"No doubt you're right," Crouzet said, and lapsed back into silence.

"You still think I was wrong, don't you?"

"Yes," Crouzet answered promptly. Ware thought he was going to leave it at that, but he went on with a sigh, "For better or worse, it's over, and there's nothing I can do about it anymore. Maybe it will all turn out for the best in the long run; who knows?"

"Julian, listen to me: in the long run, it won't matter at all. No matter what we say, noninterference just isn't that important on a preindustrial world, except as a policy to prevent exploitation. The same discoveries always get made, if not now, then in a few centuries."

"That's not what you were claiming back at the ship," Crouzet remarked.

"You're right, but I wouldn't have got anywhere taking that tack. Think about it, though. By the time the next survey ship comes to Bilbeis IV, in fifteen hundred years or so, who'll remember anything about Queen Sabium? The crew will, sure, because they'll have copies of the tapes we made here, but what about the locals? Maybe a priest or two will know of her name, if the Margush valley civilization survives?maybe not, too. So what, either way?"

Crouzet looked him in the eye. "You, my friend, are talking through your hat. What's more, you know it. You don't have the slightest idea what the effect of this interference is going to be, any more than anyone else does."

"Don't I?" Ware snapped. He sounded very tired. "Whatever it is, it won't be much. This society is as tradition-bound as any other early civilization. If Sabium gets too far out in front of her people, they won't follow her any more, and that'll be that. Or the priests will say her changes offend the gods, and overthrow her. That'll solve your problem, too. You tell me, damn it?am I right or not?"

Crouzet considered. "Maybe," was all he would let himself say.

To Ware, it was like a concession. "There, you see? What I set out to do was to save a good woman from a lot of anguish and a nasty death, and that's what I did?that's all I did. Where's the evil in it? That's what I want to know."

They walked on a while in silence, but it was not an angry silence anymore. Then Crouzet sadly said, "Oh, David, David, David," and put his arm around the other anthropologist's shoulder. "Justify it any way you like. When we get home, the review board will crucify you all the same, not least for playing on everyone's emotions so shamelessly."

"Let them," Ware said. "For my money, it's worth it." The walls of Helmand loomed ahead, close now. He began to whistle.

Bilbeis IV hung in the stereo tank: a blue globe, streaked with the white and gray of clouds. Like any terrestrial world seen from space, it was heart-stoppingly beautiful. The crew of the Survey Service ship J?ng Ho eyed it with the same affection they would have given a nest of scorpions at a picnic grounds.

"Why did it have to be us?" Atanasio Pedroza said to no one in particular. In spite of his name, the biologist was big and blond; long ago, his home planet had been settled by Guatemalans and by Afrikaner refugees fleeing the fall of South Africa.

"There's a technical term for the reason," Magda Kodaly said. Despite the anthropologist's cynical turn of mind, Pedroza looked at her expectantly. "It's called the short straw," she amplified.

"Oh, come now," Irfan Kawar said. His specialty was geology, so he was able to take a more dispassionate view of Bilbeis IV. "Odds are, David Ware's interference made no difference at all in the planet's cultural development, just as he said it wouldn't."

"Interference?" Magda snorted. Her green eyes glinted dangerously. "There's a technical term for that, too: fuckup, I think it is. Ware got less than he deserved, if you ask me." The Survey Service had cashiered David Ware, of course, as soon as Central learned what he had done. Now every new class of recruits had his folly drilled into it as the worst of bad examples.

Magda rose from her chair and stretched, deliberately turning her back on the image of Bilbeis IV. She was conscious of Pedroza's eyes following her, and suppressed a sigh. The J?ng Ho was cramped enough to make politeness essential, but he wanted her and she did not want him.

Maybe, she thought hopefully, he would be too busy to pester her anymore once they landed.

Hideko Narahara punched a button. The engineering officer said, "Observation satellites away,"

"Good," Kawar said. "I for one won't be sorry to have new data to work with."

"How much can a planet change in fifteen hundred years?" Pedroza asked rhetorically.

Kawar answered him. "A good deal. For one thing, there was a fair amount of glaciation when the last survey ship was here. They didn't stay long enough to find whether the ice was advancing or retreating. The answer will mean something to your biology, Atanasio, and also to Magda's area: changes in climate and sea level have to affect the locals' culture."

"I suppose so." Pedroza did not sound as though he meant it. He really wanted to believe every discipline had its own cubbyhole and operated in isolation from all the others. That struck Magda as intellectual apartheid; it was one reason she did not find the biologist appealing in spite of his blond good looks.

She started out of the control room. "Where are you going?" Pedroza asked. "Would you care for company?"

"No, thank you, Atanasio," she said, swallowing that sigh again. "I'm heading north back to my cabin to review Margushi irregular verbs."

Pedroza's clear, fair skin showed his flush. All he said, though, was, "It seems a waste of time, when odds are no one speaks the language anymore."

"They may still write it," she said, "or use tongues descended from it. Anyway, until we have some fresh information, it's the best I can do." She left quickly, before he came up with a different suggestion.

Magda was glad she liked working with Irfan Kawar. Over the next several days, she and the geologist from New Palestine spent a lot of time together, using the satellite photos to remap Bilbeis IV.

He made another comparison between the old coastline and the new. "Not much change, I'm afraid," he said, running his hand over the balding crown of his head. He smiled. "One always hopes for drama."

"Of course, if you want anyone to read your data card."

He cocked an eyebrow at her. "This once, I think you would be just as happy with obscurity."