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F ootsteps whispered behind him, muffled by the grass. He turned and it shot past him, so close to his face that he jerked back. It struck the edge of the temple’s entrance, rebounded, clattering, and” skittered across the floor, coming to rest in a crevice between stones: a pebble. She who had thrown it stood several meters up the slope, right hand tucked innocently into a pocket, left hand still curled around more pebbles. She had been swimming again—droplets of water fell from her tangled black hair. Scofield, always near her, was coming around the hill temple, silhouetted against the pale sky. “You shouldn’t have moved,” she said. “I might have hit you.” He inclined his head in a mock bow. “Thanks, Margaret. I’ll remember that the next time someone throws stones at me.” “Do that. Where are the others?” “Darby’s reworking his notes. Wight’s gone for a walk. Mayeux’s helping me by developing yesterday’s film—” “—and you’re taking care of today’s filming. How industrious.” He saw her smile widen, realized his was trying to match it for sarcasm and turned away. “Hello, Schneider.” A nod. “Scofield. You two enjoy your swim?" Margaret’s laughter answered. Then: “If you see Wight, tell him I’ll be inside—that I want to talk to him again about Sumer.” When the faint echoes of her footsteps were gone, Schneider returned the camera to its case, looked up at the overhanging roof, the details of its construction now recorded for experts who would never have to leave their offices. Not glancing at Scofield, he said, “I thought one of the reasons for our coming out here was to avoid the scholarly atmosphere of the ship. Yet between Guevara and Wight—’’ “It’s a different thing.” “Yeah. Dead myth, instead of a review of new information that might prove useful. Not exactly—” “I’m going to look for Wight.” Schneider sat down on the grass and lit a cigarette as he watched the other man walking off down the valley. Scofield hadn’t been willing to listen to criticism of Margaret, but then what had Schneider expected? A half-hour later he was sitting in the aircar, sketching, wishing the radio worked and he could hear a ship voice, when the sound of conversation made him look up from the paper. Wight was barefoot, his feet caked with mud and dust, boots clutched in one hand. Next to him was Scofield, walking slowly but looking tense and impatient. “Schneider,” Wight called, “are you going to join us in the temple?” “No.” “You should. All this is of great educational value.” “So I’ve heard.” “What are you working on?” Wight came to lean over the side of the aircar, myopic eyes squinting as he examined the sketch. It was a raw but precise beginning. Schneider had sketched in the wall of the largest temple, next to which the aircar rested, and the outlines of the other three temples in the valley: the outward curving walls, the multifaceted domes that seemed to float above, barely touching. The hill temple wasn’t pictured-—it was on the other side of the large temple and what he couldn’t see he wouldn’t add to a sketch. “Excellent. You’re as careful an artist as you are a photographer.” A suggestion of mockery ran through the comment. Schneider ignored it—many of Wight’s remarks were double-edged. Scofield called, “Wight, aren’t you coming in?” He was standing in the temple entrance, even his size dwarfed by the massive opening. Not a door, it was a floor-to-ceiling gap in the wall. Nothing as inharmonious as a door marred the lines of the temples. “In a few minutes,” Wight said. “Sumer hasn’t been forgotten yet—” Scofield disappeared—“and won’t be for a while. Schneider, you have true talent for copying the physical world.” "Thank you.” The words held dual meaning again, but why give Wight the satisfaction of reacting to it? He toyed with the edges of the notebook. More sketches were there, including portraits, but he rarely showed the last to their subjects. Once he had done so, but people never recognized themselves—sometimes they even failed to identify others. He didn’t understand it—he’d compared his work to photographs and the likenesses were exact. “Wight?” “Mm?” “I was thinking a while ago that maybe this isn’t a better way to spend time than staying at the ship, waiting for the great and glorious experts to get here from Earth.” Wight’s smile curved into a grin— he had as little respect for carefully nurtured reputations as anyone. “I mean, Margaret’s going over everything she knows of Earth mythology—” “And everything I know as well?” A minor joke—Wight had given up the study of dead languages and cultures in middle-age for exo-archeology. Margaret didn’t have the questions needed to request even a small fraction of the man’s knowledge. “Yeah. It’s not exactly the sort of convivial atmosphere this group was supposed to generate. I said something to Scofield about it, hoping he’d talk to Margaret, but he didn’t want to listen.” Wight seemed amused. “Did you expect him to?” “I don’t know. Maybe. After all, I’m the only reason you’re out here. The site had to be photographed.” Wight’s smile had vanished. “Don’t be an ass, Schneider. We didn’t volunteer to come out here because we wanted to keep you company any more than you came because of dedication to your work. None of us wanted to sit around the ship.” Schneider opened his mouth to object, but said instead, “Do you think they’ve gotten into make- work projects yet, back at the ship?” “I don’t want to think about it. How they waste their time is none of my business.” “But for the grace of God—and me—you might be back there with them now.” “Damn you—” but Wight was chuckling—“and your ego. I’m surprised you didn’t ask for only female volunteers for a harem.” “If it had occurred to me I would have.” “No. They’d never have let you off the ship. But it’s a shame that only one woman wanted to come out here.” “And that she brought her pet bodyguard along.” “Yes. Well, I have to go in or Margaret will send her pet to retrieve me. See you later.” “Yeah.” With Wight gone Schneider’s restlessness was back. He put the sketchbook aside. Wight and Scofield would be talking now inside the temple, but no sound reached out here. The corridor wound three times before it opened onto a small, square room. The sanctum, Margaret had decided. Across the valley the slanting afternoon light set off the facets of the temple roofs. Wight had speculated that once the stone had been polished or covered with a lacquer. The domes would have glittered blindingly. But the truth would remain a speculation—no trace of polish was left. Had it existed it would have eroded away—how long ago? Centuries? Millennia? No artifacts remained in the temples or around them, no debris—it was as though the buildings had been deliberately abandoned, swept clean to leave no evidence of their builders but the strong curving lines of the walls and the low wide benches that filled the sanctums. No evidence here, but in the town the expedition had first discovered near the ship ... He pushed the nagging thought away. It was bad enough to stay here with a pretense of useful work, knowing that a large town only partially destroyed by fire needed to be explored, mapped, to have its artifacts typed and classified. It would be worse to be one of the hundred- plus waiting in the ship, with that valuable site only a few kilometers away. While back on Earth men who had long ago established themselves as authorities in the field would be setting up their own expeditions and arranging the publicity that would add another layer of fame to their reputations . . . He automatically conceded that the custom was unfair, but the injustice had long ceased to rankle. Only for a few, those whose work was a testimony to their ambition, would the delay be a torture. But those few always spread their misery to the rest. He stretched and leaned back, appreciating the silence. ’Hello, Darby ” “Hello.” Why had Darby come here? Looking down at the lined, somber face, Schneider wondered if he should have continued sketching and ignored the man’s arrival. But it would be rude now not to attempt conversation. "Working on your notes?” Darby nodded. “I’d like to give this expedition some type of order. We’ve been here two weeks and only you have been working. And there’s much to be done. For example, we could be measuring the temples, the outside walls, the sizes of the benches, et cetera. We should set up a scale for comparison. Right?” “Yeah.” At least Darby now said “temple.” Darby was a purist—worse, an anachronistic purist who should have been born on Earth several centuries before. Alone in the group, he’d insisted on not inferring the mental templates of Earth cultures from alien structures. To him the temples were buildings of unknown function until more evidence was found. But now— Darby was slipping. “What else?” Schneider asked. “It’s just an idea now, but I think we should consider an excavation of the tell.” “What tell?” “Here.” An index finger stabbed downward. “The hill?” “It’s too perfectly round. And this is the only temple not on the valley floor.” Could there be earlier structures buried beneath the hill temple? Schneider dismissed the possibility. Darby’s wishful thinking was contagious. “We weren’t sent out here to excavate. We have no tools." “No. We don’t even have equipment for the most elementary geophysical testing,” Darby complained. “Obviously we’re not supposed to start an excavation,” Schneider continued. This line of reasoning was redundant, simplistic, childish—Darby might understand it. “When we get back to the ship the others will hear your theory about the tell and maybe then they’ll give you permission to began an excavation.” “They’ll give it to someone else.” Schneider didn’t object. That hypocrisy was too much for him. He mumbled “See you later—” and walked away. A month of boredom past, a month remaining. Schneider left the temple for a walk. The night was cool around him. Wight was sitting in the aircar, dictating notes into a recorder. Another popular story of archeologists-at-work, intended for Earth- bound escapists. Schneider halted a few meters away, making no sound, waiting for the older man to finish. Minutes dragged past—then Wight paused for a moment, spoke a final sentence and shut off the recorder. “Is Margaret looking for me again?” “No.” “Then she isn’t holding forth on the mysteries of the past.” “She has her captive audience again. I believe she has an adequate repertory now. Your assistance is no longer needed.” Wight shrugged. “I was only a dispensable, minor character in her little drama anyway.” “Doesn’t it bother you?” “Why should it? It was becoming extremely boring.” “Not the mythology. Margaret’s obsession with it.” “Most people have obsessions. Darby’s is excavating; mine, the past in general. And Mayeux is an addict of escapism. Drugs, sex, music, drama—any vehicle of escape will do. Now there is an interesting obsession for you to observe. And there’s your obsession, Schneider. Watching the rest of us. Margaret, who wants to be a goddess. Scofield, who—” “I know.” “—wants Margaret and has her. He also derives a great deal of pleasure from your jealousy. If Margaret were trying to make you feel envy you might have a chance with her. But she doesn’t give a damn about you.” Silence. “No comments, Schneider?” Stillness. “All right. I’m through making speeches. Now I have a question. What are you doing out here with the rest of us and our private obsessions?” “I have as many degrees in archeology as any of you, as well as being the best photographer—” “Don’t be defensive. I know that. So do all the others, here and on the ship. Which stopped none of them from referring to you as a photographer because, despite the degrees, that’s all you are. You have no true interest in the past. No more than a layman’s interest, anyway.” “True interest? Mine is a more valid interest than yours, Wight. When I was studying on Earth I had a chance to see the ruins of all the grand, dead civilizations you love. I was more dissatisfied than impressed. It took years before I realized that I was unhappy because too many archeologists had been there before me. I couldn’t see the ruins clearly. The buildings were distorted by all the layers of interpretation and opinion, everything that I’d heard or read about them. Did you ever feel, at one of those Earth sites, that a shrine should’ve been built to the archeologists?” A smile was twitching the stubborn edges of Wight’s mouth. Schneider took a breath and hurried to conclude: “I wanted to see what had not yet been tainted by another man’s interpretation. You can’t do that on Earth.” The smile still fought to surface. Wight ended it with a cough, then said, “You surprise me. You’re a romantic. Tainted ruins. I’ve never heard of an archeologist searching for innocence, but that seems to be the only way to describe you. Practically lusting after innocence. Except in Margaret’s case, of course.” “Perhaps, Wight—” Schneider’s voice was steady—“you should consider your own motives. Yours and Darby’s and Margaret’s. What have you done but bring the myths of Earth to another planet? What are you trying to do but apply them to a society that probably had nothing in common with the Su- merians, or the Israelites?” The shadowy smile again. Wight covered it with his hand, fingers carefully stroking his mustache. “I’ll consider it. Now, Schneider, if you’ll excuse me, I have work—” II Schneider gave up trying to stifle a yawn. With luck, Margaret wouldn’t notice. Neither would Scofield, who had been asleep the past hour. And Wight was playing back his notes. To Schneider, at the opposite end of the bench, the sound was a low murmur, nearly drowned out by Margaret’s voice. He looked at the pipe and the dwindling supply of hashish Mayeux had left. It would be nice to take some, just a small amount. Mayeux would return in a moment. Schneider was searching through his pockets for something to wrap the hash in when Mayeux burst into the sanctum. “An aircar!” Before the echoes had quit he was gone again. Scofield had jerked awake at the shout—he was a half-step behind Schneider as they left the sanctum, scrambling and slipping in the darkness. Once outside, they saw Mayeux standing halfway up the slope to the hill temple, head tilted back as he watched the silver dart-shape glide over the temples, heading south, out over the inland sea. Mayeux stared down at them, bewilderment clear on his face. Was there another expedition on the planet? Or was the ship scouting the temple site? Scofield was shaking his head in confusion. ...
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