“This might be expressive distortion,” Arkady said. “Or it might be an alien. It is only ten centimeters long. It was found in the outback in the early days of settlement, and it ended in the Petrograd Museum. The curators thought it was fake. It remained in the collection but was never investigated.”
“We learned about it and put it together with the circles,” Boris said. “Do you have any idea how much money Petrograd could make from tourism if we had authentic alien ruins?”
“Who are you?” Ash asked.
“People who want to embarrass the executive committee,” Arkady said. “Can you imagine what Lenin would have said about that collection of petty bureaucrats? Now National Geographic will publish its exclusive. With luck, there will be a huge stink. The Petrograd Soviet will decide to remove the executive committee, and the CIA will be so embarrassed that it will leave Aphrodite Terra.”
“That’s too much to hope,” Boris growled.
“Maybe,” Arkady replied. “In any case, we couldn’t pass up the chance. The entire solar system pays attention to the National Geographic.”
“What about the bug in the lodge?” Ash asked. “Mike said it wasn’t one of theirs.”
“It was CIA, but they didn’t put it in the lodge. Some of our farm workers found it crawling in the fields, heading toward Petrograd, and sent for the police. They captured it. I brought it with us,” Boris said. “We wanted Nat Geo to see what we had to put up with. Poisonous robot spies! They are a crime against nature and peaceful coexistence!”
The truck was bumping over the rough road, among dripping trees, while rain beat on the windows. Looking back, she saw the other truck, dim in the rain.
“I feel as if everything has been fake,” she told the two men. “You set up the robot scorpion and you set up discovering the circle.”
Arkady said, “The circles are real, and they are not impact craters, though we don’t know what they are. Ball courts? Fishponds? Temples?
“And the tunnels are real. We didn’t know about them, but now they will be famous.”
Boris added, “Those idiots on the executive committee were so afraid that they let the CIA camp on a site of systemwide historical importance. We have been slowly dying when we could have made a fortune from tourism. Why would anyone go to Venusport when they can come here and see alien ruins?” He was silent for a moment, then added, “We’ll have to get rid of their damn pink scorpions. That won’t be easy. And then take a serious look. Who knows what may be in the caves and circles? More statues like the one in the museum? Maybe even a skeleton?”
“Who are you guys?” Ash asked.
Arkady laughed. “I am myself. Arkady Volkov of Volkov Tours. Boris is a part-time employee.”
“What else does he do?”
“I’m an analyst for the political police,” Boris replied. “But my hours have been cut because of the Soviet’s cash flow problems—which we would not have if we had more tourists.”
“Or if the executive committee stopped listening to American economists,” Arkady added.
“I don’t want a lecture on economics,” Boris said. “I needed a second job. Arkady gave me one.”
“And Irina and Alexandra?” Ash asked.
“Ordinary working people,” Arkady said.
“Could the CIA really have been stupid enough to create a new kind of scorpion?” Ash asked.
“Remember that no one has ever gone broke by underestimating the intelligence of Americans,” Arkady said.
“This seems way too Byzantine,” Ash added.
Boris gave a rasping laugh. “Arkady’s ancestors came from some damn place in Central Asia. But I am Russian, and Russians are the heirs of Byzantium.”
They made it back to the pillbox lodge at nightfall. Arkady and Boris checked the parking space with flashlights and called all clear. They went in through the rain.
Arkady turned on the fire, as the rest of them pulled off their wet jackets and hung them up to dry.
“I’ll start dinner,” Alexandra told them. “Irina, will you help?”
The ex-cop and the ex-stevedore went into the kitchen. Ash sat down in front of the fire, Baby’s cage on the floor next to her. Baby climbed on top of the cage. “Hungry.”
She found a piece of chow and gave it to him.
“Hunt,” he said.
“Not now.”
Jason and Maggie joined her, the journalist settling into a chair, the Leica standing on her four silver legs, her long neck stretched out, head turning as she made another recording.
“I think we can call the trip successful,” Jason said. “We have discovered the first evidence of intelligent aliens, and I have a dramatic story about fighting the CIA.”
“I suspect the CIA part of the story will vanish,” Arkady said. “But you will have the alien ruins.”
“I’ll fight for the entire story,” Jason said. “It’s outrageous that we were threatened by our own government.”
“We’ll go back to Petrograd,” Arkady said. “I will show you a piece of sculpture at the museum, and you might be interested in talking to the Soviet’s executive committee. Ask them what they were thinking to let the CIA perch in the most important piece of archeology in the solar system. God knows what kind of damage they might have done! War—overt or covert—is not good for art or history.”
Boris set a bottle of fruit brandy on the table, along with four glasses. “I’ll go back. I have worked as an exterminator. I want to know what’s in the tunnels and the caves, aside from vermin; and I will enjoy getting rid of those damn pink scorpions.”
After dinner, in her bedroom, Ash considered the journey. She was a little buzzed from alcohol and shaky from adrenaline. But nothing was happening now. She could finally think.
The circles and tunnels could not have been faked. She was less certain about the figurine. It didn’t have the glassy surface of the stone in the circle and the tunnels; and even if the government in Moscow hadn’t been interested in science, it would have been interested in an alien figurine. That had to have some kind of propaganda value. Unless they were afraid of it. Would fear have made them put it in a museum and forget it?
It would be easy to fake something as small as the figurine. Arkady said it was in the Petrograd Museum, but he could have brought it with him, planning to plant it near the circle for Jason to find. That and the toxic scorpion in the lodge would have given National Geographic its big story. With luck, the story would have forced the CIA out and brought down the executive committee.
She could imagine Arkady learning who the client was and hurriedly putting together an elaborate con. Never trust a Leninist entirely. And she could imagine him as completely honest. As far as she knew, he always had been.
Well, if the figurine was fake, that would be discovered, probably quickly.
But the ruins had to be real. She lay there, her light still on, considering the possibility that humanity was not alone. Where were the aliens now? In the solar system? Or had they moved on? And what difference would knowledge of them make to Earth, shambling toward destruction? Or to Venus, tied to Earth and maybe unable to survive on its own? Ash had no idea. But the world—the two worlds—had suddenly become more interesting and full of possibility.
“Turn light off,” said Baby, hunched in his cage. “Sleep.”
THE END
Note: Our Venus rotates backward compared to most planets in the solar system, and its day is longer than its year. The current theory is it was dinged by something big early in the development of the system. The ding turned it backward and slowed its rotation. In my alternative history, this ding did not happen. My Venus rotates forward and has a day about as long as that of Earth or Mars. This rotation gives it a magnetic field, which our Venus does not have. The field prevents—at least in part—the development of the planet’s current toxic greenhouse atmosphere. In addition, there was a ding that didn’t happen in our history, at least as far as we know. A body—possibly two—hit Earth after life had developed there, then went on to hit Venus, depositing Earth microbes. As a result, my Venus has blue-green algae, and this over time gave it an atmosphere comparable to Earth. The similarity of Venusian life to life on Earth is due to the shared genetic history.