“It’s fascinating,” Vijay replied. Carleton beamed, thinking that she referred to his work.
Carleton called up the three-dimensional display of the dig, then spent the rest of the lunch hour showing what they were uncovering.
“These along here are the foundations of what might most likely be living quarters.”
“Houses?” asked one of the women students.
“Houses,” Carleton said.
“Or not,” said one of the older men. “Mustn’t jump to conclusions.”
Carleton nodded perfunctorily. “Yes, but look at the way they’re grouped around what can only be a central plaza.”
“Kind of small for a plaza.”
“A miniplaza, then.” Carleton’s tone went harder. “I’m willing to bet that’s where they had a communal fireplace. We’ve found traces of ash in a central stone-lined pit. That’s where they cooked their food.”
Another of the students, male, said, “They must have had fairly extensive fields of crops nearby.”
Brightening, Carleton agreed. “We’ll look for those once we’ve excavated the entire village. Croplands don’t leave all that much for us to find, though. Seeds, maybe petrified parts of plants. Not like the foundations of these structures.”
A tone chimed, echoing through the dome.
“Lunch hour’s over,” said Carleton. “Time to suit up and get back to work.”
The group began to head for the main airlock, where their nanofabric suits hung waiting for them.
“Would you like to join us, Mrs. Waterman?”
Vijay was only half surprised by his question. “Me? I don’t know anything about digging up old ruins.”
“That’s all right. I can show you what to do.”
“Really?”
“If it interests you.”
Thinking it over swiftly, Vijay said, “I have to check in at the infirmary. Would it be okay if I came out a little later?”
“Certainly. I’ll look forward to it.”
He gave her a brilliant smile, then turned and headed toward the airlock.
Vijay stood at the stereo table, thinking, A narcissist. He’s definitely a narcissist. But is he also a rapist?
She thought not.
Tithonium Chasma: The Dig
It was midafternoon by the time Vijay finished her notes, suited up, and walked out to the dig. She recognized Carleton, standing in a bulky, grimy old hard suit by the big sifter on the edge of the pit with a pair of others in nanosuits flanking him on either side.
He recognized her, too.
“Mrs. Waterman!” she heard in her earphone. “Welcome!”
Vijay walked up to the anthropologist and they shook gloved hands. “Please call me Vijay,” she said.
“Sure. Great. And you can call me Carter.”
She peered over the edge of the excavation. “Those actually do look like the foundations of buildings.”
“That’s exactly what they are, Vijay.”
For the next ten minutes Carleton pointed out to her the houses, the plaza, the street that ran straight toward the old riverbank, just as he had outlined them »on the stereo display. Seeing the ancient remains in actuality, though, was different. Vijay felt an excitement that stirred her. Jamie was right. Real, actual people lived here, worked here, raised families here.
And died here, she realized. More than sixty million years ago.
“They were a lot shorter than we,” Carleton was saying. “Built close to the ground.”
“How can you tell?” she asked.
“We’ve made some measurements of the door frames. Reconstructions, actually, since the frames are all collapsed. But we have intact doorways up in the cliff structures.”
“I see.”
The setting sun was casting long shadows across the valley floor before Vijay realized that she had spent almost the entire afternoon with Carleton at the dig. The excavation was completely shaded now. The workers were climbing up out of the pit on the ramp that had been cut into one side of it.
“Another day older and deeper in debt,” one of the postdocs wisecracked as he shut down the sifter’s motor.
Carleton waggled a finger at him. “Wrong attitude, Lonzo. Another day finished and we’re closer to having the whole village excavated.”
“And what then?” Vijay asked.
He put a hand on her shoulder and turned her toward the dome. “By then we should know a lot more about the Martians than we do now. What they ate, how they lived—”
“What they looked like?”
He nodded inside the inflated bubble of his helmet. “Yes, I think we should even get a fairly good idea of what they looked like.” Then, grinning, he added, “It would help if they left a few pictures around. Decorated their homes. Put up a sign or two.”
“Do you think you’ll find something like that?”
He shrugged inside the nanosuit. “Maybe they were iconoclasts. Maybe making images of themselves was forbidden.”
“Like Muslims,” Vijay murmured.
“Burial sites,” Carleton said. “That’s where we’ll find out the most about them. We haven’t found their cemetery, not yet.”
Vijay wondered if the Martians buried their dead. Some cultures on Earth preferred cremation, she knew. Primitive peoples often left dead bodies out in the open to be consumed by scavengers.
“Can you have dinner with me?” Carleton asked.
Surprised, Vijay blurted, “I have meals with my husband.”
“Bring him along. I’m broad-minded.”
Once she had finished vacuuming her nanosuit and hanging it on the rack by the main airlock, Vijay hurried across the dome to her quarters. Jamie wasn’t there, so she walked to his office. He wasn’t there, either.
Puzzled, almost worried, she stood outside the entrance of his cubicle and wondered if she should ask the excursion controller where her husband was. Then she saw him and Monsignor DiNardo walking slowly from the airlock, deep in conversation.
Feeling relieved, Vijay headed back toward their quarters. He’ll come there before dinner, she told herself.
But Jamie spotted her from halfway across the dome and beckoned to her. She hurried to him.
“I didn’t realize how late it was getting,” Jamie said. “We spent lire whole day up in the cliff structures.”
“It is my fault,” the priest said, with an apologetic smile. “I’m afraid I have taken your husband away from his duties.”
Before Jamie could reply, Vijay said, “I went out to the dig. With Carter.”
“Oh? I thought you were working with the medical staff.”
“I played hooky this afternoon. Just like you.”
DiNardo’s brows knit. “Hooky?”
“Carter’s asked us to have dinner with him,” Vijay said to Jamie.
He turned to the priest. “I thought we’d eat with Monsignor DiNardo tonight. We have a lot to talk over, about the documentary that Dex made. We’re going to add a segment from up in the cliff dwellings.”
Vijay started to bite her lip, caught herself, then said, “Well, whyn’t you two do what you need to, and I’ll eat with Carter. Okay?”
Jamie glanced at DiNardo, then nodded. “Okay.”
Vijay felt strangely disappointed.
Tithonium Base: Dinner
“You’re husband’s a busy man,” said Carleton, smiling across the small table at Vijay.
She made herself smile back as she glanced past Carleton’s shoulder at Jamie and DiNardo sitting at the next table, huddled over their untouched dinners, talking intently. Jamie’s back was to her.