"And was Bergen—" He bit back the words "your lover?"
Kara's eyes sparkled wickedly as she viewed Salazar's discomfort. "You mean, was he 'enjoying my favors,' as they used to say long ago? It's none of your business, Keith, any more than your Galina is any of mine."
Miserable, Salazar busied himself with his drink. "Not my Galina, please. She's a good kid but doesn't attract me. Anyway, students are off-limits to a professor. What name are you using?"
"After Rodney—uh—died, I went back to Sheffield. I didn't have to change the initials on my baggage."
At the name of their son, Salazar shut his eyes. "Please, Kara!"
"Sorry, Keith; but you asked. What became of Diane—what was her name?—Diane Morrow, who awoke the springtime in you?"
Salazar grunted as if in pain. "We were properly married; but after a few months she flew the coop."
"What didn't she like about you?"
The archaeologist spread his hands. "Said I was a stuffy old pedant who ought to be mounted in the museum with the other specimens, because I was always reading or poking around for potsherds. She wanted to spend all our time at one of Bergen's resorts, the one I took her to for our honeymoon, dancing until midnight and making love all the rest of the night every night. I wasn't up to it; as Lothario I'm a flop."
"I told you what would happen with a girl of her age."
"So you did, but not forcefully enough. Why didn't you put up more of a fight? Maybe you could have brought me to my senses."
Kara shrugged. "I said all I thought I could without making a royal battle of it. Anyway, if a man rejects me, that's the end of it as far as I'm concerned."
"I must have been as crazy as Tom O'Bedlam," muttered Salazar.
She gave him a steely, level stare. "You said it, not I. Did her leaving hurt you badly?"
"Not so much as I must have hurt you. For one thing—well, remember how we always had plenty to talk about? With Diane, I found we had nothing much to say."
"I'm sorry, Keith. How's your social life these days?"
"What social life? Oh, an occasional student makes a pass, but I know better than to respond to her overtures."
"Are you happy nowadays, Keith?"
Salazar shrugged. "About as happy as a man can be without any sort of home life. I'm. doing what I most want to do; and I flatter myself that it's important, even though some people may not agree."
"You mean your archaeological work?"
"Yep. To me, the advancement of knowledge is a sight more important than money or power or glory. Years ago, when I was an undergraduate at the University of Maine, I read a book by an early Terran explorer on Kukulcan. Along with a lot of stuff we now know to be nonsense, this writer told of legends of the great, long-vanished Nomoruvian Empire. While nobody knew the exact site of its capital, the explorer was told that the last ruler, King Bembogu, had built a famous library. This library was said to contain more of the history of Kukulcan than all the other native documents then known. So I resolved, as soon as I got my degree, to go to Kukulcan, try to find the buried city and, if it still existed, dig up Bembogu's library."
Kara said: "I know archaeology on Terra doesn't afford much scope nowadays. You once told me that all the sites have been so dug up, measured, photographed, dated, and fixed up as tourist attractions that there's little for an archaeologist to do but rearrange the exhibits in his museum and write learned papers."
"Did I say that?" Salazar chuckled. "Yep, anybody who thinks he can emulate Schliemann or Stevens on Terra is kidding himself. But here we have a virgin planet, archaeologically speaking! Of course, if money or glory came my way, I shouldn't mind; but they're only incidentals. The chance to take a big bite out of mankind's ignorance—that's what I really want out of life."
Salazar paused and studied his work-roughened hands. Then he smiled. "Guess I haven't broken my old habit of telling you everything—whether you want to hear it or not. Now what about you? I see you are not currently attached."
"How did you know?"
Salazar pointed to the bare, sunburned ring finger on Kara's left hand. "When a man meets a woman, that's the third thing he looks at, the first being her face."
"What's the second?"
"Guess!" He grinned as he saw her flush a little, then tore his gaze away. "Tell me about this writing job"
"Just journalism, churning out copy." She shrugged, but a note of pride crept into her low-pitched voice. "I've been with the News a year. Now they call me their top feature writer."
"Good for you! But I hope you won't sensationalize the story of my dig. The last thing I want is a horde of sightseers breaking down the walls of the test pits; or treasure hunters stealing artifacts and ruining the stratigraphy. Our backers give me trouble enough."
"Who are they, besides the University?"
"The University put up matching funds with the Maravilla Society, and the dear old ladies come out to make sure I spend their money wisely. But please be careful; I know what journalists can do."
"What can they do?" she asked with a look of innocence.
"Grab anything that makes a heady headline. There once was an archaeologist in my native America, who tried to explain to a journalist relations between Europeans and aborigines in Pennsylvania during the seventeenth century. He said that, to the Amerinds, William Penn and his followers appeared so strange as to seem hardly human. The headline in the newspaper read: Professor Says Quakers Hardly Human."
Kara Sheffield laughed. Salazar smiled wryly, saying: "That wouldn't be funny to the poor guy on the spot." He looked around at the sound of cheerful voices. "Hello there! Kara, these are my assistants: Galina Bartch, Marcel Frappot, and Ito Kurita. Folks, this is Kara Sheffield, come to write a story about the dig. Now get washed up; we have company for dinner."
At the end of a generous meal, Salazar checked the worksheets of the graduate students and sent them off to bed. The red sun sank slowly, to the discordant chirp and buzz and click of the insectlike arthropods and the rustle and squeal of the other animals of the surrounding forest. Kara asked:
"How are the kids working out, Keith?"
"Okay. Galina's the best; she's Suvarov-born, while the other two are immigrants from Terra like me. Ito's a workaholic without redeeming vices, except he's touchy about his dignity. Marcel's a romantic flutterwit and a chatterbox, but he may steady in time. Excuse me a minute."
Salazar went to a drawing table, to which was tacked a complex chart embellished with patterns of wiggly, intersecting lines in red, blue, and green. He picked up a sheet bearing columns of numbers and began adding pencil marks to the chart. Kara asked:
"What are you doing?"
"I'm going to start some test pits tomorrow, using the Kooks that Sambyaku, the Shongaro chief, has promised me, while the kids finish the survey."
"What are all those figures?"
"Random numbers for locating the pits. If we dug them in neat rows, we might miss a linear feature, like a wall."
He made a few more marks on the chart. Kara said: "I think I'll turn in. It's been a strenuous trip."
"So shall I," said Salazar. "Just one more ... Okay." he escorted Kara to the canvas door of her compartment, cudgeling his brains all the while. How was one supposed to act toward a former spouse, whom one had not seen for nearly two years? He took refuge in one of the jingles for which he had a knack: