The old groundcar squeaked and rattled as it negotiated the gravelly, potholed road that wound up the dark cone of the extinct volcano. Mike Eppingwell glanced over his shoulder at the three passengers.
"This volcanic stuff erodes easily. If it isn't maintained, the surface gets rough quickly. We have some locals at work on it, but it's pretty bad after the winter rains."
"Why didn't the King pave the road?" asked Albert "Bert" Ward, a handsome athlete, the only one on campus who minored in Galactic Archaeology.
"In his Analecta, King Yoy recorded that he liked to see the dust raised by groundcars coming his way," replied Eppingwell. "That's just one example of his eccentricities. You'll find him a fascinating character." He returned his gaze to the road ahead, then suddenly glanced behind him again.
"Dr. Everance expects you guys to familiarize yourselves with the Analecta. Everyone who studies Yoy has to begin with his writings. Dr. E. will check you out on that---you can be sure." He returned his gaze to the road. "The King didn't allow aircars near his palace. Everybody had to use the road. Dr. Everance has decided to respect that custom. He's strong on tradition ...and doesn't like traveling in aircars," he added, dryly.
"Dr. Eppingwell, is it true that Dr. Everance is somewhat difficult to work with?" asked Demetria Chaconas. She was a plain-but-bright young woman who was enthusiastic about Galactic Archaeology and had fantasies about making important discoveries which would bring her the respect of the male-dominated archaeological community.
Eppingwell answered her question circumspectly. He understood the importance of deferring to the elder, often touchy members of his profession. He had been chosen to shepherd these three undergrads during the summer project work, a task he didn't want but accepted without complaint.
"Dr. E. expects a measure of respect you may not be accustomed to giving your professors back at school. He's in charge here, and I advise you to act accordingly."
"Does that mean we can't express our opinions?" asked Brooks "Brookie" Freiburger, short, thin, bespectacled. Brookie was a perpetual smartass who majored in electronic engineering and minored in archaeology instead of math, which he disliked.
Eppingwell replied while looking at the road ahead. He was now quite familiar with Brookie's irritating manner. "It means, Mr. Free-burger, that you should temper your opinions with tact. Just keep in mind that you're student guests working with respected, experienced scholars. If you have useful opinions here, I suggest you save them for your practicum paper." He smirked at Brookie, "Where they'll no doubt be appreciated by Dr. E."
"It's `Fry-burger,' Doctor---as in fast food. And I've found that senior academics rarely give even scholarly undergrads the respect they deserve."
"Journeyman carpenters don't think much of apprentices, either, Freiburger. It's in the nature of things. Someday, you'll have the fun of oppressing undergrads, if you stay in an academic setting." He spoke in a genial manner, but he enjoyed seeing know-it-alls like Brookie get their comeuppance from the graybeards, as he had when he was a greenhorn.
After this tart exchange, all the scholars lapsed into silence.
"We be there soon, Doktori," sang out Lakshmei, their good-natured indigenie driver, throwing a glance at the passengers. The students snickered at his reference to all his passengers as "Doktori."
Lakshmei's people had stagnated, technologically, after the Golden Age of King Yoy and the invasion and despoliation of their world by the Rutalaar barbarians. Lakshmei displayed a "backward" indigenie's respect for the offworld scholars who came to study the ancient glories of his world---while he spied on them for the planetary government's secret police.
As the groundcar crested the rim of the crater and tipped downward, there was a collective gasp from the students.
"What a beautiful place." Demetria spoke for all of them.
Below, in the wide, flat crater were the remains of the Sun Palace of King Yoy of Alawaan. The dark native stone buildings were in good condition, considering their age. They were low and spread-out around the wide Plaza of the Distinguished. One building, of several-stories- cum-belltower, dominated the circular, labyrinthine arrangement of connected structures. This had been the King's residence. It was the best-preserved building.
Even from the height of the crater's rim, the students could see that time and official vandalism had taken their toll of the place. All the doors and windowplasts were missing, but the thick walls and roofs had withstood the usual damage that historical sites often sustained. The Sun Palace had been built to last, and local intruders had respected its magnificence.
"The caldera's been modified---hasn't it, Dr. Eppingwell?" asked Bert.
"Yes. The King filled, widened, and leveled the crater, bringing the bottom closer to the rim. And he constructed a spiral access tunnel from the bottom of the mountain. We're cleaning that out, now. We hope that groundcars will be able to use it again, soon." The crater wasn't technically a caldera, but Eppingwell chose not to correct Bert on that trivial point. He left such nitpicking to the other Dr. E.
"I can see The Distinguished, even from here," said Demetria.
"All ninety-nine of them," added Brookie, pedantically.
"You are not to touch anything indigenous, without permission. You may not interfere with the work in progress. You are here to observe, learn, and be useful. All archaeologists begin that way. Each of you will be given a list of duties. Time remaining after you have fulfilled those duties will be yours. I expect you to put such time to good use. This is not a recreation site.
"Dr. Eppingwell will be in charge of you. If you have any questions, he'll answer them or obtain the answers from the senior scholars. You'll be released from duties for a week before your departure, so that you may work on your practicum papers, onsite.
"Any questions?... Good. Proceed."
Dr. Everance returned to his database computer as if the students were no longer there. Eppingwell gestured toward the door, and they all left the stuffy office.
"Here's the skinny on `duties,' gang." He handed each student a sheet of paper. "Before I show you your quarters, I'll take you for a general tour of the area so you'll have something to dream about tonight."
As they left the wooden worksite building built within an old storage building, Eppingwell glanced at each of the students. They were all reading the duties sheets and were not smiling. He remembered when he had been a student at his first dig. He had managed to enjoy himself, even though he had been given the same onerous duties as these three.
"Dr. E. believes that an archaeologist-to-be must get his hands dirty to appreciate the essential nature of the work," he explained, grinning. "As he said, we all started out that way."
"I wonder if he had to pull KP when he was a student?" asked Demetria. "Did either of you two get the kitchen and refectory?" she inquired of her fellows.
"Not me. But I get to do a lot of exciting digging and sweeping in the spiral tunnel," replied Bert.
"And I get to utilize my drafting skills a lot," said Brookie. "I never should have admitted I can draw."
"You only have to work in the kitchen in the morning, Ms. Chaconas," said Eppingwell. "In the afternoon, you assist in the investigations."
"It's because I'm a woman," Demetria grumbled.
"Probably. But don't trouble yourself about it. Just think how enthusiastic you'll be in the afternoon after you leave the kitchen."
"I'll trade you morning-kitchen for morning-drafting, Dem," said Brookie, smirking.
"Forget it, Brookie. Your eyesight is already shot. I'd like to keep mine."
"I don't suppose either of you'd prefer to shovel lava dust?" asked Bert.
"Well, here we are at the Plaza of the Distinguished," announced Eppingwell. "Wander around and be inspired, while I take care of something. I'll be back shortly to continue the tour."
The three students stood before the bust of King Yoy in the center of the Plaza.
"It looks like a windowdresser's mannequin," said Bert, examining closely the smooth, minimal clay sculpture. He started to feel its texture---but recalling Everance's no-touch warning, he pulled back his hand, jerkily.
"Go ahead, Bert. Stroke it like the rube visitors do," advised Brookie. Bert looked sheepish.
"It's downright weird," said Demetria. "Why do you suppose he had himself sculptured this way?"
"Maybe he's hiding his face because he wasn't proud of what he'd done in his lifetime," said Brookie.
"From what we know, he had a lot to be proud of," replied Demetria. "He was kind, generous, loved by his people. Didn't they call him, `Yoy The Good'?"
"Publicly. History doesn't record what he was called behind his back," countered Brookie, ever the cynic. Then he added, "Maybe he did this so his future subjects could criticize him to his face after he was gone, without feeling uncomfortable. He was a kind and generous eccentric, after all."
"Some think he buried most of his gold and jewels, just so his successor couldn't have them." said Bert. "In the tunnel, I hope."
"In Everance's paper, he says there is no hidden treasure," offered Brookie. "Maybe the great Dr. E. is wrong about that. I'd give a lot to be able to prove him wrong."
"Well, why don't you investigate treasure leads for your practicum paper, Brookie?" suggested Bert, maliciously.
"Nothing doing, Bert-o. In my paper, I'll give the Good Doctor just what he wants: something orthodox, detailed, and dull. I don't like him, but he has me by the..."
"No," said Demetria, interrupting.
Brookie looked at her, quizzically. "`No'---he doesn't have me?"
"It's not just eccentricity. There's some other reason for this windowdresser's dummy. I think old Yoy wants someone to solve a mystery."
"You're probably right, Dem. Think about it while you're scrubbing pots and pans," replied Brookie, sarcastically.
"I will. Count on it."
"That'd make a great term paper: How I Found King Yoy's Face, by Doktora Demetria Chaconas," wisecracked Bert.
The three students separated and wandered around the Plaza, examining the busts of the Distinguished of King Yoy's time. The head of each D-citizen was covered with mosaic tiles. The tiles were of different sizes and shapes, and had been fitted together with great skill by the King's court artiste, Arla Ventrioso. He had spent many years sculpting the heads. Even now, few of the tiles were missing. The Site Conservator had filled in the gaps with gray clay to stabilize the remainder.
It was Visitor's Day, and the students shared the Plaza with the indigenies of the planet, to whom the place was a sacred reminder of their vanished past.
As Demetria passed one of the busts, she heard a woman---presumably a direct descendant---comment on the face's features.
"It's just not his nose," the visitor said. "And it's red."
"It does seem different from his pictures. But you know those artistes. They don't see things the same as ordinary folks," commented her companion.
Later, Demetria remembered this comment when she overheard another visitor make a similar comment about another face.
"Look. One ear has an earlobe, but the other doesn't."
"You're right. I don't think she even had one earlobe. But I could be wrong."
"I've never seen anyone with just one earlobe."
After that, Demetria looked at the faces more carefully, looking for anomalous features. She could easily see some anomalies in several of the faces. Features which didn't seem quite true. In each case, a single tile was the source of the anomaly. In some faces, the anomalies were subtle. Or so it seemed.
Before she could view all the faces, Eppingwell returned and took her and the others in tow to complete their tour. As they wound their way through the unfurnished, deserted buildings in the yellowing light of the sun, Demetria's mind kept returning to the faces and their anomalous features. She began to wonder if she was being too imaginative.
As they stood before a restored mural which showed the King as a giver of light to his people, something clicked in her mind.
"Yoy!... Could it be?"
At supper in the refectory, the three students sat together. Eppingwell was at the senior archaeologists' table. Demetria brought up the subject of the faces.
"What if...?" She hesitated. It was such a wild hypothesis.
"`What if'---what?" asked Bert.
"You've made a big discovery, already, Dem?" asked Brookie.
"Maybe. I heard some local people commenting on the faces of their Distinguished ancestors. They noticed facial anomalies."
"What kind of anomalies?" asked Bert.
"Nose shape, earlobes, other stuff. I looked at other faces, and I'd swear I saw subtle facial anomalies. And here's the point: all the anomalies were in single tiles---tiles that looked like they didn't belong with the others there."
"So?..." asked Brookie.
"How many tiles are on each face?" she tantalized.
Brookie hesitated, his face brightening as if he had just learned something new. He smiled, wickedly. "Ninety-nine. Each one of the ninety-nine faces has ninety-nine mosaic tiles. It's in Everance's paper."
"You see what I mean?" She smirked at her fellows.
"No," said Bert. "Ninety-nine have ninety-nine. A lot of ancient people had odd numerical beliefs."
"What if you removed one anomalous tile from each of the ninety-nine faces? What might you have?" she asked him.
"A lot of clay-fill work for somebody."
"A hundredth face, Bert!" She spoke in a strained-but-restrained voice, glancing around her to make sure none of the seniors had heard her.
"A hundredth face? Come on, Dem. Isn't that a little far-fetched," said Bert. "The Distinguished aren't Mister Potato Heads, you know."
"Not so far-fetched if the now-distributed hundredth face is King Yoy's," said Brookie, smirking. Demetria grinned and shook her head, affirmatively.
Bert looked skeptical. "Well, even if that's so, how could you know for sure which tiles are his? That'd be a heck of a jigsaw puzzle."
"They might have a unique characteristic," said Demetria.
She added, "Look, If there's anything to this, maybe we could have a group project. Imagine this paper, How Three Lowly Undergrads Found King Yoy's Face."
"I don't know, Dem," said Bert, gravely. "We ought to have something more than a suspicion before we stick our necks out."
"Brookie?" Demetria looked at him questioningly.... As he pondered the problem, he pushed his old-fashioned, stainless-steel spectacles farther up his nose.
"I could test the tiles, but I'd have to borrow a SpectroScan from the site lab."
"Let's ask Dr. Eppingwell about it," said Demetria, hopefully.
"A hundredth face?!... You guys just got here, and already you want to pry tiles off the faces of The Distinguished?... Boy... Today's undergrads." Mike Eppingwell shook his head. "Do you realize you're talking about one of the galaxy's finest collective works of art--- not to mention, the sacred property of the people of this world."
"We don't want to damage the faces, Dr. Eppingwell. We just want to scan them for anomalous tiles."
"Anomalous tiles... Well, I'll have to check with Dr. Everance about this. I doubt he'll like the idea, though."
"Would that be because he didn't think of it himself, Doctor?" inquired Brookie, sarcastically.
Eppingwell refused to be provoked by these youngsters. They reminded him too much of his own undergrad days. He smiled. "That might have something to do with, it Free-burger. You'll know for sure when you become a distinguished scholar."
None of the students had anything more to say, so Eppingwell concluded. "I'll talk to him about it. All of us have wondered about Yoy's minimal representation of himself among his tiled contemporaries. This could be the answer. What a joke that would be. Just like the old boy to do it."
"Thanks, Doc," said Bert.
At supper the next day, Eppingwell came over to the students' table and sat down. He had a toothpick in his mouth.
"He says, `Forget it.'"
"Just like that: `Forget it'?" asked Demetria.
"No. He also said he thought the idea was ridiculous. He feels that Yoy's bust is his way of `abasing himself to posterity.' His face is no mystery, you know. There are many images of him in the records. You saw the mural. The published version of his Analecta has a frontispiece portrait."
The students looked over at the seniors' table. Everance was holding court, as usual, and seemed to have already forgotten his brief conversation about the matter.
"Okay?" asked Eppingwell.
"Okay," replied Demetria. "Thanks for trying."
Eppingwell left the refectory.
"`Abasing himself to posterity,'" scoffed Brookie, mocking the Archaeologist-in-Charge. "What rot."
"Official rot," added Bert. "Back to the salt mines."
Demetria lay on her cot, trying to fall asleep. She normally didn't harbor obsessions, but now she had hold of an idea she found difficult to forget. The more she thought about it, the more she was convinced that King Yoy's face was dispersed throughout the Distinguished. There had to be something about those anomalous tiles which could be used to scientifically identify them---something that made them measurably different from the surrounding ones. But even if they could identify ninety-nine of them as different, how could they get permission to reassemble them on Yoy's clay bust? The whole idea seemed hopeless.
Damn! She felt that, if she were a senior investigator, she could at least get permission to test her hypothesis. Being a mere undergrad put her at a fatal disadvantage. She fantasized herself writing not just a practicum paper on the subject of her successful reconstruction of King Yoy's mosaic face, but having it as the subject of her undergraduate thesis. A paper like that might even make Archaeologica Galactica.
She had to do something.
The next day, at breakfast, the students were visited at their table by the second-in-seniority, genial old Dr. Willard "Willie" Harpfield. He was as distinguished a scholar as Everance, but not nearly so ambitious. He had never been put in charge of a big project like the Sun Palace dig. He was too easygoing to give orders.
"I hear you kids have an interesting hypothesis about old King Yoy?" He had a twinkle in his eye.
Demetria explained her idea.
"Sounds reasonable. Have you read the plaque on the bust?"
Demetria looked at Brookie, a compulsive memorizer.
"Something about his being a man of the people." said Brookie, wishing he had paid closer attention to the inscription.
"`I AROSE FROM THE PEOPLE, AND UNTO THEM I SHALL RETURN,' it says. And also, `I AM THE LEAST DISTINGUISHED OF MY PEOPLE.' I thought about it when Mike Eppingwell told me about your idea. You may just have something here. It's a shame Everance won't let you follow it up. Life's full of disappointments like that.... Just thought I'd let you know I appreciate and sympathize."
He left the students feeling pleased with themselves.
Demetria knew what she had to do, now.
Brookie hurried through the kitchen, bumping into a cook, and stood before Demetria, who was preparing salads.
"Have you heard?!"
"Oh, yeah. I know."
Brookie's face became a mask of suspicion. "You don't seem very surprised about it. Do you realize what this means? Harpfield is now in charge. We might get permission from him for Operation Jigsaw Puzzle."
"Good." She smiled, knowingly.
Brookie moved closer to his fellow student. "Maybe it wasn't an accident, Dem. Maybe you know something about that, huh?"
"Yeah."
"`Yeah'?!"
Demetria looked around. The indigenie cooks were busy with their work. "I gave him a latrine cocktail," she said, casually, tossing lettuce with wooden forks.
Brookie looked stricken with dangerous knowledge. "He has amoebic dysentery!"
"He'll recover in the missionary hospital. He's lucky he doesn't have typhoid. Don't worry about it, Brookie; you're not involved. I'll ask Dr. Harpfield to consider our project, now."
"Oh, boy... oh, boy." He danced about, agitated.
"You should be thinking about how you're going to test the tiles," advised Demetria.
Brookie's face slowly relaxed into a grin.
"Yes, Ma'am!" He saluted her and clicked his heels. As he turned to leave, Bert entered the kitchen.
"Head him off and clue him in, Brookie," ordered Demetria. "I've got some salads to make."
The students stood at the bust with the anomalous red nose. Brookie wielded the SpectroScan probe. He looked at the readouts, made an adjustment, and returned the probe to the face of the Distinguished.
"Well?..." Demetria was unable to conceal her impatience. "What?..."
"I've got to be sure," replied Brookie without looking up.
"Don't fool around, Brookie-o. Unless you want a latrine cocktail in your salad." Bert smirked at Demetria, who frowned.
"Shhhhhh---if you please, Albert," she said.
After a period of unbearable silence, Brookie announced, "Gold and silicon."
"Gold?" repeated Bert.
"Far too much of both in the nose tile, but not in the others."
"What does it mean? Was something put into the tile composition to make it distinctive?" asked Demetria.
"Maybe. The tile may not even be homogeneous. I'd like to shoot an X-ray. This may be something really anomalous."
"Do it," said Bert.
"Holy cow!" Brookie's eyes widened. He held the photoimage with both hands. "I knew it!"
Demetria grabbed the print from Brookie's hand. She and Bert stared at it with disbelief.
"A circuit chip?... I don't believe it!" she shrieked. There were no visitors in the Plaza to hear her.
"Believe it!" said Brookie. "Believe it."
"Eppingwell should be here to witness this. This is an historical moment," joked Bert.
"Damn straight, Jack. Now, She-Who-Knows, what do we have if we put all ninety-nine of these back on Good King Yoy's dummy," inquired Brookie, smiling.
"The answer to the question about King Yoy's minimal sculpture."
"And to the one about his nonexistent treasure, maybe," added Bert.
Willard Harpfield stroked his goatee. "I don't know... This is a serious thing you're proposing."
"Dr. Harpfield, if we could remove the nose tile and examine it, I'm sure we could verify our finding," pleaded Demetria.
He looked at Brookie. "You think this is an integrated circuit?"
"Yes, sir. I've seen some like it in the technological histories. They used silicon a lot in King Yoy's time."
"And you're claiming that all these `anomalous' facial tiles amount to a disassembled artificial intelligence mimicking King Yoy?"
"Probably not an AI, sir---unless Yoy's wealth bought him something ahead of his time."
"But you think it can speak to us?"
"There're enough chips to hold a conversational database and a speech processor. Some of the tiles may be audio transducers."
Harpfield pulled his goatee some more.
"Very well. I'll ask Conservator Tancredi to remove the tile. Be careful not to damage it. When you've tested it, let me know what you've found, right away."
"Thank you, sir," said Demetria."
"No doubt about it, sir."
Brookie was the center of attention in the lab. Being the only electronics specialist at the site, he found himself in charge of the chip investigation and he played this position for all it was worth. Harpfield and Eppingwell stood around him at the workbench.
"It's a substantial processor, probably the CPU. Unlike the other tiles on the bust, it was carefully cemented in place with a compound that was solid, but easily dissolved in diethyl ether. Tancredi said he'd never seen a mosaic tile come off so easily."
He held up the flowerpot-colored nose tile. It now seemed another of King Yoy's jests to have given himself a red nose. "These recessed gold-plated connectors connect to those on adjacent tiles with pins. The matrix material around the components is a very high-quality tile composition. This thing is a combination of art and tech--- something only King Yoy's wealth could buy."
"So, now we have a jigsaw puzzle," replied Harpfield, genially.
"Yes, sir."
"Good work, people. I'll have to get permission from the local-area government before we disfigure The Distinguished to reassemble King Yoy's missing face."
"They should be glad to hear that we can `vivify' their King, sir," offered Demetria.
"I'm sure they know about it," commented Mike Eppingwell. "They're probably debating the matter right now."
It was a beautiful late-summer morning in the crater of the Sun Palace, especially beautiful for the three students standing in the improvised shelter in the center of the Plaza of the Distinguished. Also there, were the senior project staffers and a representative of the planetary government.
At the center of attention was the reassembled, varicolored mosaic face of Good King Yoy, red nose and all. The word had spread among the indigenie workers that the alien Doktori were going to bring their legendary King to life, and most of them were crowded around the shelter, hoping to see something of the historic feat.
Dr. Eppingwell lead off the presentation, "Under the guidance of Conservator Tancredi, our students have assembled the missing mosaic face of King Yoy---long dispersed among the Distinguished of the Plaza---thereby solving the first part of one of the most intriguing archaeological mysteries..."
"Let's get on with it, Eppingwell," said Dr. Everance, testily. Although recovered from his recent illness, he was not in the best of moods, filled as he was with suspicion and professional envy. When he had learned what the students had been allowed to do, he had become incensed. But by then, the government virtually demanded the restoration of the king's bust. It was out of his hands, now.
"Yes, sir. Uh, the circuit-chip tiles have been interconnected, and preliminary tests have been conducted by Mr. Freiburger. In short, we are ready to bring King Yoy to life." He glanced at Everance, expecting another outburst of spleen. Instead, he was rewarded with a scowling silence.
Harpfield, Tancredi, and the students beamed. Yoy stared at them from his multicolored countenance with two new eyes, an assemblage that had left two of the Distinguished missing one-each of those organs. Eppingwell speculated that these two Distinguished had probably not been favorites of the King.
"Ms. Chaconas, who first perceived the secret of the King's face, will demonstrate," concluded Eppingwell.
"Distinguished colleagues," Demetria began, with deliberately prideful eloquence. "The face of King Yoy is a triumph of both the fine and technological arts. These mosaic tiles, when assembled, comprise a then-state-of-the-art computer. This computer has a ROM database, a speech processor, and transducers behind tiny holes in the ear and mouth tiles which will allow us to speak with a man who died during the Age of the Information Revolution on his world. Mr. Freiburger has only to connect two power leads to one of the neck tiles, and the computer will boot.
"The device is not an artificial intelligence. This world entered its Dark Age before they could accomplish that difficult technological achievement. But King Yoy had his `personal' computer programmed so that it reacts to speech input in such a way that it seems to interact with its confrontors.
"When the King is spoken to, a lexical processor examines the key words of the input and searches its database for response word-groups which presumably address the subject of the input speech. It then formulates a reply. It's an ancient programming trick, one reputed to have been first employed for a psychiatric novelty program.
"Mr. Freiburger will now empower King Yoy." She nodded to Brookie. He inserted the power leads into a rear neck tile. A beep issued from the King's mouth, which startled those who were witnessing the "miracle" for the first time.
Demetria turned to the tiled face. "Your Majesty, may I introduce the Director of the Sun Palace archaeological project, Dr. Homer Everance."
"Greetings, Doctor Everance." The soft sound of the high-pitched vox brought about an intellectual pandemonium among the assembled guests. Everance's jaw dropped. The other seniors muttered oaths of hasty admiration. The planetary government's representative made a warding sign and dropped to his knees in supplication. To him the King was almost a deity, and his words came straight from the past.
"Well, I..." Everance looked at Demetria, his usual dignity temporarily demolished.
"To communicate with him, sir, you must precede all input with the phrase, `Your Majesty.'"
Everance gathered his resolve and proceeded to the heart of the matter. "Your Majesty, why have you constructed this device?"
"I constructed this device to speak to the ages and to answer some questions. But I will not make it easy for you. You must ask specific questions if you desire specific answers." The Voice from the Past was clearly understandable, though it spoke an archaic dialect of the galaxy's long-universal language.
As it spoke, those in the shelter could hear a worker outside shout to others, "King Yoy lives! He speaks to the Doktori!" Then, suddenly, the canvas flaps at the front of the shelter were flung aside, and those inside found themselves facing the indigenie foreman who was leading his coworkers.
"Doktori, we will hear our King!"
"Alright, Queifa. Just don't tear the place apart." replied Everance.
Brookie came to the rescue. He and Demetria had anticipated this reaction from the workers. "Sir, I'll connect a loudspeaker so that everyone can hear. I just happen to have one handy." He smirked as he rigged the speaker.
"Thanks Free-burger," said Eppingwell. "I don't know what we'd do without you."
Everance, who looked somewhat shaken by his encounter with the King and the subsequent turmoil it produced, sought to reestablish his authority. "Has anyone prepared a prioritized list of questions?" he inquired, peevishly.
Dr. Harpfield piped up. "Oh, hell, Homer. Ask him about his treasure. That's what we all want to know."
"Willie---please. We're scientists, not treasure hunters." Everance paused, thinking. The atmosphere in the shelter was electric. Then he spoke, abandoning all academic pretense.
"Your Majesty, where is your treasure?" Everance felt and looked guilty, as he spoke.
"Before I died, I converted my holdings into a single work of art. It is a treasure so small that I was able to conceal it easily. I assume you haven't found it, yet. I will tell you where it is when you guess what it is and ask me specifically about it."
There was a silence, as the seniors considered this impertinence. The government representative rose to his feet, his reverent devotion to his world's sacred past replaced by abject greed.
"We must identify this sacred object, Dr. Everance. It belongs to the descendants of the King." He meant those in the government.
"We believe we have identified it, sir," said Demetria. "Mr. Ward checked contemporary records of high-value art transactions during Yoy's time, and he believes he's discovered the object which the King bought." Everybody looked at Bert.
Actually, the students had not only done their homework, but had already tested their findings on the computer. They wanted to be prepared for a knockout presentation. As Howard Carter at King Tut's tomb, they wanted to experience no surprises on the day of their public triumph.
"With your permission, sir, Mr. Ward will question King Yoy on this matter," continued Demetria, unctuously.
"By all means Ms. Chaconas," replied Everance, with an edge to his voice. He guessed that he was being set up by these cheeky undergrads, but he was gracious enough to give them their due. Even he recalled his days as an unappreciated junior scholar.
"Your Majesty, where have you hidden the Gemisphere."
There was a collective gasp from the onlookers.
"It is right under my nose," the unexpressive face replied to the unknown interrogator. "Just lift out the upper section of my base."
In the excitement which followed, Everance yelled at Tancredi and Queifa. "Get some tools and a crane---quick!" As the Conservator and Foreman pushed through the crowd of bystanders, Everance turned to Bert. "What, may I ask, is the Gemisphere."
As the seniors looked on with admiration, Bert explained that the Gemisphere was a flawless quartz crystal hemisphere, inset with large precious gemstones, each of the most valuable kind.
As he spoke, he noticed that Dr. Harpfield was smiling indulgently. The old boy knew of the Gemisphere, he guessed. He glanced at Eppingwell, but couldn't tell from his controlled expression if he shared their knowledge of this exquisite objet d'art.
"In the top of the Gemisphere is mounted a most valuable gem, the Citrustone. It's a superfluorescing, tangerine-colored, dome-cut supergem. It was the largest crystal of ultra-rare thirasite ever found on Hesperos, and was the only one sold offworld before their sun went nova. That makes it a very rare gemstone.
"The Gemisphere was commissioned by Autarch ar'Chenaago of Chenaag, who was a fabulously wealthy patron of the arts. He kept it on his office desk and enjoyed watching visitors distracted by it. An ultraviolet pencilbeam photoactivated the Citrustone. Before he died, he sold the Gemisphere to an unknown collector. The media tried to find out who had bought it, but the transactors kept the deal secret.
"We discovered that Autarch ar'Chenaago and King Yoy were childhood friends who attended the same exclusive boarding school together. They corresponded regularly and traded news about the world of art collecting. In a surviving communication, Yoy frankly expressed his envy at ar'Chenaago's `new bauble.' So, we put two and two together."
There was a pause, during which Eppingwell and Harpfield grinned.
"Well done, Mr. Ward," said Everance, grudgingly.
With a hydraulically-operated loader scoop serving as a crane, Foreman Queifa began lifting the upper base-stone, with King Yoy's bust still attached, away from the lower one. The shelter had been removed, and everyone in the crater was at the Plaza, waiting for the treasure of King Yoy to be uncovered---and assuring everyone else that they knew all along there really was a treasure. The upper stone was cylindrical and made of polished gray granite. When it was lifted up, it was seen to extend half a meter into a matching chamber in the lower stone but held back from the treasure chamber by a circular flange. As it was swung aside, those closest peered into the hole, bumping heads.
"Stand back!" yelled Everance. Those kids may have found it, but I'm in charge here. I'll take possession of the treasure.
He reached in, grasped the Gemisphere, and lifted it high into the bright sunlight---tilting it so that all present could see and marvel at its sparkling gemstones. A cheer arose from the crowd.
But Everance didn't cheer. Even before he lowered the hemisphere onto a cloth-draped stand next to the base-stone, he knew that something was wrong. His eyes had seen, as the Gemisphere passed before them on its way up, that something was quite-obviously missing from it.
"Where's the Citrustone?!" yelled Bert, who had also noticed.
"It's missing," said Demetria. "It's been removed."
The crowd erupted in speculation. Some politely mumbled, some yelled and gesticulated. The integrity of King Yoy's treasure had suddenly become the concern of all present.
Everance checked the chamber in the base-stone, but it was empty. He was sufficiently annoyed to demand an immediate explanation from Good King Yoy.
"Where's the thirasite Citrustone?! ...Your Majesty," he roared at the new face of the King. By now, everyone viewed the mosaic head almost as a colorful, disembodied person.
The bust mounted on the upper stone swung back and forth slightly, suspended from the crane and silent. Demetria gestured to Everance with both hands. "Syntax, sir."
"Quiet! Hold it down, everybody!" Everance demonstrated his leadership skill with a stentorian voice which his colleagues had never heard before. The crowd hushed to a background of murmuring.
"Your Majesty, where is the Citrustone that's supposed to be in the top of the Gemisphere?"
There was a pause that, for King Yoy's ancient amusement, must have been deliberate. It did quiet the crowd, however, as everyone present strained to hear the answer, some cupping their ears with their hands. To a stranger arriving over the top of the crater, it might have appeared that the people in the Plaza of The Distinguished were worshiping an idol in a sling.... Then Good King Yoy spoke in his newfound voice.
"You say the Citrustone is missing?"
"Yes!" shouted Everance.
A pause followed, during which it seemed as if the long-departed, eccentric ruler might be considering this new development.
"That is a mystery---isn't it?"
Bio: Frederick Rustam is a retired civil servant. He formerly indexed technical reports for the Department of Defense. He prefers devising fanciful fictional futures to indexing today's tedious technology.
E-mail: frustam@capaccess.org
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