Read Online Across a Billion Years by Robert Silverberg - Free Book Online
Authors: Robert Silverberg
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special. She gripped both handles of her corer and started drilling in from the side. The corer tip found a huge mass of sandstone and split it neatly. I started to heave debris, but Mirrik said, “That’s too much for you, Tom. Get back.” And jammed his tusks into the opening and pitched a half-ton of rubble out of sight.
Point, core, clear. Point, core, clear. I was drenched in sweat. Kelly, who doesn’t sweat, somehow seemed flushed and sticky too. For ten minutes we went at it in a frenzied way, until half the globe was uncovered. I began to see a control panel and a variosity of knobs and buttons.
This is not the way to dig up something important. We were working in a mad rush, the three of us caught up in the thrill of a major find and unwilling or unable to slow up. I won’t speak for Mirrik and Kelly, but I confess that I wanted to complete the excavation of this mysterious globe before any of the senior archaeologists could cut in on me. Unworthy motive! Also stupid chimposity and a display of colossal slice, since a mere apprentice like myself could easily have bungled the job and earned the curses of the whole profession.
I thought of all these things. But yet we went zooming ahead. Point, core, clear. Point, core, clear. Pointcoreclear. Pointcoreclear. Pointcoreclear.
I stopped for breath and looked up. Leroy and Jan weren’t watching. They were biologizing. At least, Leroy in his subtle way had one hand on Jan’s … well, hip … and the other groping for the magnet stud of her blouse, and he was trying to get his mouth on hers and she was fighting him off with clenched fists, and the whole thing had the look of a rape scene in the making. The chivalrous thing would have been for me to leap to the rim of the pit in one bound, cry, “Unhand her, knave!” and knock his teeth down his grinning glapper. But I told myself a) Jan can take care of herself, and b) while Leroy is wrestling with her he won’t be able to meddle with what we’re doing. So I was unchivalrous. Shame! Shame!
She fisted him in the gut. Leroy turned purple, doubled up, and dropped his chartbook into the pit.
Jan took off, streaking away into the rain. Leroy followed, yelling things like, “Jan! Jan! Just let me explain!”
“We’re on our own,” I said to Kelly and Mirrik. “Dig we onward!”
Dug we onward, unhindered. Kelly now was coring under the globe, and I tested it carefully, trying to rock it free of its embedment, but nothing going. Mirrik gave it a cautious nudge, too, and it tilted a little but remained in place. We could see that it was a beauty—so big I could barely span it with my arms, and covered along one side with all kinds of controls. Another five minutes, I figured, and we’d have it loose.
“Wait,” Mirrik said. “At this moment I feel I should pray for the success of our labor.”
Mirrik often does that. He’s deeply religious, you know. He’s a Paradoxian, worshiping the contrary forces of the universe, and bursts into prayer whenever those forces need to be placated, which is much of the time. Kelly drew back the corer and Mirrik delicately knelt in the pit, folding his huge legs under his massive body and letting the tips of his tusks rest on the globe. He began to groan and bellow in Dinamonian. Later I asked him to translate the prayer and he gave me this version:
O Father of confusions and sorrows, give us aid.
O Thou whose existence we doubt, doubt us not at such a time.
O ruler of the unrulable, O creator of the uncreated, O speaker of truths that lie, let our minds be clear and our aim accurate.
O mystery in clarity, O foulness in purity, O darkness in light, comfort us and guide us and lead us.
Bring us not into error.
Cause us not to feel regret.
Remain with us now as on the first and last of all days.
Thou concealer of destinies and shatterer of patterns, be merciful, for in hatred lies love, in blindness lies sight, in falsehood lies righteousness. Amen. Amen.
Point, core, clear. Point, core, clear. I was drenched in sweat. Kelly, who doesn’t sweat, somehow seemed flushed and sticky too. For ten minutes we went at it in a frenzied way, until half the globe was uncovered. I began to see a control panel and a variosity of knobs and buttons.
This is not the way to dig up something important. We were working in a mad rush, the three of us caught up in the thrill of a major find and unwilling or unable to slow up. I won’t speak for Mirrik and Kelly, but I confess that I wanted to complete the excavation of this mysterious globe before any of the senior archaeologists could cut in on me. Unworthy motive! Also stupid chimposity and a display of colossal slice, since a mere apprentice like myself could easily have bungled the job and earned the curses of the whole profession.
I thought of all these things. But yet we went zooming ahead. Point, core, clear. Point, core, clear. Pointcoreclear. Pointcoreclear. Pointcoreclear.
I stopped for breath and looked up. Leroy and Jan weren’t watching. They were biologizing. At least, Leroy in his subtle way had one hand on Jan’s … well, hip … and the other groping for the magnet stud of her blouse, and he was trying to get his mouth on hers and she was fighting him off with clenched fists, and the whole thing had the look of a rape scene in the making. The chivalrous thing would have been for me to leap to the rim of the pit in one bound, cry, “Unhand her, knave!” and knock his teeth down his grinning glapper. But I told myself a) Jan can take care of herself, and b) while Leroy is wrestling with her he won’t be able to meddle with what we’re doing. So I was unchivalrous. Shame! Shame!
She fisted him in the gut. Leroy turned purple, doubled up, and dropped his chartbook into the pit.
Jan took off, streaking away into the rain. Leroy followed, yelling things like, “Jan! Jan! Just let me explain!”
“We’re on our own,” I said to Kelly and Mirrik. “Dig we onward!”
Dug we onward, unhindered. Kelly now was coring under the globe, and I tested it carefully, trying to rock it free of its embedment, but nothing going. Mirrik gave it a cautious nudge, too, and it tilted a little but remained in place. We could see that it was a beauty—so big I could barely span it with my arms, and covered along one side with all kinds of controls. Another five minutes, I figured, and we’d have it loose.
“Wait,” Mirrik said. “At this moment I feel I should pray for the success of our labor.”
Mirrik often does that. He’s deeply religious, you know. He’s a Paradoxian, worshiping the contrary forces of the universe, and bursts into prayer whenever those forces need to be placated, which is much of the time. Kelly drew back the corer and Mirrik delicately knelt in the pit, folding his huge legs under his massive body and letting the tips of his tusks rest on the globe. He began to groan and bellow in Dinamonian. Later I asked him to translate the prayer and he gave me this version:
O Father of confusions and sorrows, give us aid.
O Thou whose existence we doubt, doubt us not at such a time.
O ruler of the unrulable, O creator of the uncreated, O speaker of truths that lie, let our minds be clear and our aim accurate.
O mystery in clarity, O foulness in purity, O darkness in light, comfort us and guide us and lead us.
Bring us not into error.
Cause us not to feel regret.
Remain with us now as on the first and last of all days.
Thou concealer of destinies and shatterer of patterns, be merciful, for in hatred lies love, in blindness lies sight, in falsehood lies righteousness. Amen. Amen.
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