"Was Bembogu that last ruler of Nomoruvia you were telling me about?"
"Yep. Our information about him comes from much later documents and is partly fictionalized; but he's supposed to have been a scholarly king who amassed a library of 4,096 scrolls."
"That's a peculiar number."
"It's the square of sixty-four. Since their number system has a base of eight, it's their equivalent of ten thousand."
"What happened to him?"
"A barbarian invasion caught him without his body paint on; he'd neglected the army in order to raise his subjects' standard of living; so he was routed and slain and the city was sacked. Seems to have been one of those unfortunate rulers who were too humane and enlightened for their own good. It shows what happens when you try to make woolly-minded academics like me into kings or generals."
"Rubbish, Keith! You'd make a fine king or general."
Salazar grinned. "Thanks, but I think I know my limitations. Anyway, there's not the remotest chance of my being asked to fill either role."
As Salazar and Kara pedaled along the main street of Neruu, the industrial center of the Shongo nation, the sky was dark with the smoke of a hundred chimneys and the air was clangorous with hammering, sawing, and the whir and clatter of machine tools. Forges glowed redly through open doorways in the plain, boxlike stone buildings.
A few Kooks passed the Terrans, their scales painted with a multitude of symbols in a rainbow of colors. One could read from these symbols a Kook's age, sex, clan, caste, marital status, occupation, and achievements, but to master the complex system required years of study. To his regret, Salazar had only a rudimentary grasp of it.
Beaked heads turned as the Terrans rolled past; but there was no rush to crowd around the aliens. The Kooks gave each a cursory stare, then went incuriously about their business.
"Their industrial development is oddly unbalanced by our standards," Salazar explained. "Excellent timepieces but no electrical equipment; steam engines and vehicles but no flying machines. Somebody once made a steam-powered dirigible airship, but it blew up. Without petroleum, I suppose they have no way to get started in aeronautics. They make good masonry, pottery, and glassware; but their only cloth is crude stuff for things like tents and curtains. Not wearing clothes, they haven't had the motive to develop high-grade textiles."
"I wonder why they haven't begun to copy our advanced weapons?"
"It's their ultra-conservatism. They invented the muzzle-loading musket a couple of thousand years ago; but they've only just begun to rifle the barrels. They haven't started on breechloaders and repeaters, though they've known about Terran guns for a century."
"Just as well for them. Where's this ceremony?"
"At the athletic field outside the town."
"I thought they had no games or sports?"
"They don't; but they're enthusiasts for athletic drills, if you can call them enthusiastic about anything."
"They sound like bores."
Salazar chuckled. "Their social events make a meeting of the Maravilla Society seem interesting. They're easier to respect than to love. They're cold, rigid, formalistic, and hidebound; but for us that has advantages. Kooks are pretty honest and trustworthy; you can rely more on a Kook's word than on a Terran's. They betray their emotions by moving those bristles on their necks. Since it's an unconscious reaction, which they can't seem to control, each Kook carries a built-in he detector.
The exercise ground was about the size of an American football field, enclosed on three sides by a fence, towards which crowds of Kukulcanians were converging. Salazar said:
"If we move right lively, we can grab places yonder."
They leaned their bicycles against an unoccupied section of fence as more Kooks clustered beside and behind them. The rasping sounds of Kukulcanian speech assailed their ears, and the peculiar fishy smell of Kooks invaded their nostrils. At the base of the square-bottomed U outlined by the fence, a separate little crowd of natives clustered, jabbering and gesticulating. Kara asked:
"Which are those?"
"The loving couples," said Salazar, "about to consummate their union. There are also some couples already mated who haven't succeeded in begetting offspring."
"How do they feed their young? I don't see mammalian characteristics."
Salazar found himself staring at Kara's mammalian characteristics. When she noticed, he averted his gaze. "The primitive tribes regurgitate, like Terran birds that feed their young in the nest."
"Ugh!"
Salazar smiled. "Other species, other customs. These urbanized folk think that custom barbarous, too; they mince and mash the food and spoon-feed their little ones. Some of their physicians condemn this practice as nutritionally unsound. They call for a return to regurgitation, which they say gives the Kooklets some needed enzyme."
"How did they hit on this strange custom?" She nodded toward the clump of Kukulcanians inside the fence.
"Maybe a relic of primitive times, when any male could have any female he could catch. Now the females make sure their chosen mates catch them. It's a puzzle, because Kooks seems to have a strong pair bond—stronger than ours."
"I see what you mean," said Kara with an edge in her voice.
Salazar gulped at the unfortunate allusion to their felled marriage. "Anyway, they—ah—Cabot Firestone thinks this pair bond may be mostly imposed by their culture. Since they're born lawyers who worship precedent, they maintain customs and ceremonies going back hundreds of thousands of years."
"How do you archaeologists know what their customs were so long ago?"
"Because their written records go back more than ten times as far as ours. For instance, it was a major revolution for them to give up trial by ordeal, about thirty thousand years ago."
"You mean like those medieval trials where they threw you in the river and judged you innocent if you drowned?"
"Yep. Had a picturesque kind of ordeal. They tied you to a—" Salazar glanced away and stiffened. "Quick, down on one knee!"
"What's up?"
"High Chief Miyage is here. He doesn't like me, so be careful. Down!"
The two Terrans knelt, along with the mass of natives, as a small group of Kukulcanians strode through the squatting crowd. One, whose hide was painted in brilliant patterns of scarlet, gold, and azure, wore a golden disk the size of a hand suspended from his neck by a golden chain. With his big golden eyes fixed on Salazar, he strode purposefully towards the archaeologist, croaking:
"Hail, honorable Sarasara!"
"Hail to your Highness!" said Salazar.
"Is all well with your clan?"
"All is well with my clan. Is all well with your Highness's clan?"
"Thanks to the Universal Law, all is well. You may rise, and also the alien with you. We have pondered your excavation of the ruins of Nomuru. We do not wish this to continue, at least for the present."
The words struck Salazar like a blow in the solar plexus. He pulled himself together enough to say: "May I ask your Highness why not?"
"Certain of your fellow aliens have approached us, offering to lease the area. They wish to change the land to attract others of their kind, to perform whatever sinister rites you creatures indulge in. We are negotiating, and we do not wish our proceedings disturbed by your activities."