The Stones of Nomuru
- Автор: Де Камп Лайон Спрэг
- Серия: Viagens Interplanetarias #7
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The Stones of Nomuru». Краткое содержание книги:
Mild-mannered Terra archeologist Keith Salazar was just minding his business, digging up the alien past on an out-of-the-way site on the planet Kukulcan, when suddenly he was beseiged by intruders on his scholarly peace: hostile natives, an indifferent ex-wife, and a demon developer with rapacious eyes glued on both his site and his true love.
In the course of protecting his dig, regaining his loved one and vanquishing his rival, Salazar will fight a giant reptilian predator bare-handed, leap into snake-filled pits, engineer the planet's first imperial conquest, lead and train a battalion of alien riflemen, and hold a séance. Pretty exciting work--but then maybe Keith Salazar wasn't such a milquetoast after all...
Next morning, Kara was aroused by feint grunts. She opened her eyes to see Salazar in his underwear doing push-ups on the canvas floor of the tent. He finally gave up and lay panting. When he recovered his breath, he said:
"Damn! Can't get past ten; must be getting soft. Will you hold down my ankles while I do sit-ups?"
She gripped his ankles. "You're certainly fit enough, with the hard work you do on the dig. Why do you need these calisthenics?"
He grinned impishly. "Best way I know to make sure I shan't crawl in my sleep."
Biitso was larger than Neruu but less industrialized. The houses were simple blocks of wood and stone, without external ornament save for painted symbols in a kaleidoscope of colors, like those with which the dwellers embellished their own scaly hides.
Salazar found his way to the house of High Chief Miyage, a "palace" only by virtue of being slightly larger than those of its neighbors. Salazar gave his name to the spear-armed guards at the door, requesting speech with the High Chief.
The guard returned, saying: "The High Chief refuses to admit you."
"Now what the hell?" exclaimed Salazar. He explained to Kara.
"Has he," she wondered, "a grudge against Terrans in general? Or you in particular?"
"I suspect it's me, on account of a boundary dispute I was called into last year." He spoke again to the guard: "Tell the High Chief that I have weighty news concerning his chieftainship: that he feces a Chosha invasion!"
Again the guard departed and returned. "The High Chief will not hear you. Furthermore, he commands you to go away and cease disturbing him."
"Well, he can't say I didn't try to warn him—" began Salazar, when High Chief Miyage himself appeared in the portal with an escort of spearmen and musketeers.
Sighting Salazar and his companion, he rasped: "I sent orders for you to depart, Terran!" His tongue flicked out.
"But, Your Highness, you are betrayed! Conrad Bergen has a secret deal with Prophet Kampai—"
"Away with you! You are a liar and a troublemaker, as you showed by assaulting my friend Bergen. He has told me about your plots and perfidies. Will you go, or must I have you whipped out of town?"
Salazar had quietly unsnapped the flap of his pistol holster and placed his hand on the butt. The guards and some of the escort brought their spears up to port, while a couple of musketeers cocked their weapons.
"Careful, Keith!" breathed Kara, also fingering her pistol.
"I know," he muttered. "I could take a couple with me, but then we'd be dead. Let's go!"
The two walked away to where Oikisha held their jutens. As they mounted and rode off, Salazar said: "I was tempted to tell him off; but somehow 'Copulate Your Highness!' doesn't have the same clout that it has in the English equivalent."
"Besides," added Kara, "he might have simply said: 'Shoot them!' I believe that once happened to a journalist on Terra, who got sassy with a Latin American dictator."
Leaving Biitso behind, the travelers set up then-next camp under threatening gray skies streaked with lightning. Kara Sheffield, sitting on the floor of the tent while rain drummed on the canvas, said: "Keith, you've got to teach me the elements of Shongo. If we got separated in this country ..."
"I'll try," said Salazar. "First, forget the Indo-European categories: nouns, verbs, and so forth, with their usual inflections. The Shongorin have substantives, predicatives, and operatives ..."
An hour later, she said: "If I try to make those horrible sounds any more, I'll have a sore throat."
"Enough for one night." After a roll of thunder died, he went on: "I started to ask you something when the Choshas interrupted. Are you thinking of getting married again?"
"I've considered it. I've had plenty of propositions and a couple of real proposals. But I guess I'm too fussy. I'd want a man with all your good qualities, but one I could absolutely depend upon. There aren't many such paragons around."
Salazar sighed. "If you insist on a faultless man, you'll have to wait for the Second Coming; and Jesus never promised to reappear here as well as on Terra."
"I try to be realistic," said Kara, adding: "Why hasn't Cabot Firestone remarried?"
The warmth of her tone aroused a pang of jealousy in Salazar. "I suppose he's too wrapped up in memories of his wife. They were an exceptional couple, almost obscenely happy with each other."
"Oh? That's sad. When you do find one of those rare perfect couples ... Anyway, that puts him out of the running, at least for now." She sounded disappointed.
"Why?" asked Salazar.
"I could never compete with the ghost of a perfect wife." She slid into her bag. "Good-night, Keith."
"Good-night, Kara." A little spring of hope began to bubble. If I just keep after her, he thought, she might yet come around ...
In Machura, the streets were noisy and polluted by the smoke of steam cars and trucks. The palace of Empress Gariko was simply a larger version of the modest home of High Chief Miyage in Biitso. When Salazar requested one of the door guards for an audience with Her Imperial Majesty, the guard went in and returned half an hour later, saying that Her Majesty's secretary had made an appointment for a meeting eleven days hence. He spoke in Feënzuo, of which Shongo was a dialect; the Shongorin, however, insisted the opposite: that Feënzuo was a dialect of Shongo. In any case, Salazar could, with difficulty, follow his speech.
When Salazar had translated the message, Kara said: "Good heavens! It seems that Kookish bureaucracies are even harder to deal with than ours."
"You have to know the tricks," said Salazar. To the guards he said: "Kindly inform Her Imperial Majesty that the matter concerns the boundary stones of the Emperor Hamashti."
This time, the guard returned to say: "Pray, honorable sir and madam, follow me!"
The guard led them into a small chamber adjacent to the portal, empty save for a number of cushions scattered about the floor. The guard said: "Honorable sir, Her Majesty commands that you wait here until called for, and that you request aught needed for your comfort."
"Thank you; we shall be comfortable," said Salazar.
When the guard had gone, Kara asked: "What was it you said? 'Open sesame!'?"
Salazar explained: "Last year, Gariko called me in to see if I could settle a nasty dispute between her and High Chief Miyage over the Shongosi-Feënzun boundary. Emperor Hamashti set up boundary stones over a century ago; but where these ran across a flood plain, they'd been buried in silt. Miyage, who's an aggressive bastard, claimed land half a kilometer northwest of the line where the Empress thought the boundary was established."
"What did you do?"
"We couldn't dig up the whole valley; but I blackmailed Skanda Patel into letting me take out our precious GPR—"
"What's that?"
"Ground-penetrating radar. Skanda hangs onto it like a drowning man to an oar, since it's the only one on Kukulcan and at our stage of development irreplaceable. With the help of a professor from the engineering department, I made a hot-air balloon. We took it to the border and inflated it, and I went up with the GPR. One of Gariko's troopers, mounted on his juten, held the anchor rope and towed the contraption back and forth across the valley.
"That was one hairy trip! I had to fiddle with the GPR controls with one hand and pump the bellows with the other, to keep the fire up. If I let it die a little, I started down. The job called for two people, but we didn't have enough lift. Then, just as I finished noting my data, the trooper's juten happened to look up. I guess it took the balloon for some sort of fire-breathing dragon, because it let out a screech and bolted.