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commercial enterprises, and other organizations, and recruited by mercenary forces available for hire to
anybody striving to enforce claims, seize opportunities, or simply protect themselves in the salmagundi of
rivalries and alliances scattered across the Solar System.
Harry looked impressed. "Who were you with?"
"Oh, for the most part, a conglomerate effort in one of the Belt sectors that was organized against claim
jumpers. Then some merc strikes to take out launch bases being set up on Ganymede. I'm not sure we
were the good guys in that one, though. So these days I just work for me."
"Why did you do it?" Harry asked.
"To prove I was a tough kid, of course. That's when they know they've got you."
"In my book, that makes you all the more useful to have along. I hear this place can have its wild
moments."
Kieran secured the edges of the pad with adhesive tape and looked up. "There. Try not to wave it about
too much." As he began tidying up, he asked, out of curiosity, "What kind of biological research was
Pierre involved in, that made him drop out?"
"Oh, nano stuff pieces of molecules that come together inside body cells."
"What for?"
"Something to do with remote-controlling metabolic chemistry. You'd need to talk to Dennis and Jean
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when we get to Troy. They know more about it. Pierre was a friend of theirs." "Troy" was the name that
Hamil had given to the base camp at Tharsis. Dennis Curry and Jean Graas, together as a couple by the
sound of things, were geologists with the group that had remained at Troy with Hamil while Juanita and
Harry came back to Lowell to meet Trevany and the others from Earth, and collect the Juggernaut. Harry
examined the finished dressing on his hand and seemed satisfied. "So what should we call you?"
"Why not just `Kieran'?" Kieran suggested. "I also go by `Knight' from the initials."
Harry considered the options. "Is it okay if I stick with `Doc' anyway?"
"It's fine by me but you know it pushes one of Rudi's buttons."
"I know. That's why I like it."
Rudi Magelsberg was the group's scientific technician. He had greeted Trevany's announcement of the
new addition to the team with reservations regarding Kieran's suitability for the job, although without
going as far as open criticism. Kieran interpreted Harry's stance as a way of telling him that he had one
solid supporter on board at least.
Feet sounded on the metal steps below the outer door of the side lock. It opened to admit Trevany,
wearing a khaki bush shirt and tan jeans streaked and stained from the previous few days' work. He
came through the open inner door and glanced at Harry's hand while Kieran stood up and moved to the
galley sink to wash his hands. "I'm glad we didn't waste any time. You're earning your keep already,"
Trevany commented.
"I'll try not to lose anybody," Kieran promised.
"This guy's okay," Harry told Trevany. "It's not as if we're scheduling any transplants or heart surgery."
"How does the hand feel?" Trevany asked.
"Pretty good."
"Will you be able to work with it, do you think?"
"Sure, no problem."
"First Pierre, now this already. And we haven't even left yet." Trevany shook his head. "Don't tell me
there's a jinx or something on this expedition."
"I didn't think scientists believed in jinxes," Kieran said, reaching for a towel.
"I didn't, once. Now I've seen too many strange things to scoff at anything. Who was it who said that a
man can't begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows?"
"Epictetus, I think, wasn't it?"
"Hm. I do believe you're right." Trevany looked mildly surprised.
"Well, I've got a few things left to do," Harry said, getting up. "Thanks for patching me up, Doc . . . er,
Knight. Let's hope that's about the worst you have to do, eh? Glad to have you aboard." He left the way
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Trevany had entered, closing the outer door behind him. The sounds of objects rattling and being put into
drawers and closets came from the lab section behind the bunk area to the rear, where Juanita Anavarez,
Trevany's Peruvian scientific partner, was inventorying instruments and equipment.
Kieran put the items he had been using back in the medical box. "So, Walter," he said as he closed and
fastened the lid, "what's it all about? The expedition. I'm going to know in a matter of days anyway, and
you've no idea what the curiosity is doing to my tranquility."
Trevany lowered himself onto one of the end seats and eased back to rest himself, his hands braced on
the table. "Do you remember when you first came out here when you were looking for leads on that
woman, Elaine Corley? You were curious about Earth's ancient Technolithic culture."
"Right," Kieran said over his shoulder as he pushed the box back into its stowage space above the
bench seat. "Whether their disappearance was connected with whatever happened on Mars."
"They're called that because of the huge stone edifices they built in places like the Middle East, northern
India, Central and South America with a technical skill that was lost. The constructions were all works
of the same, or very closely related, people."
"So it wasn't the pharaohs who built the pyramids?" Kieran said. It wasn't the first time he'd heard the
suggestion. "There was an old song that said it was the Irish, but I never really believed it." He sat down,
interested now, at the other end of the table, facing Trevany.
"Oh, the pharaohs built some," Trevany replied. "The Sahure Pyramid, for example, dates from the Fifth
Dynasty around 2450 B.C. It's a dilapidated ruin, with little to tell it apart from a mound of desert
rubble nothing like the Giza complex, built from blocks weighing tens, hundreds of tons in some cases,
cut and laid with machine precision. You see what it means? The later Egyptians tried to copy structures
that they found, which went back to far earlier than the Dynastic Period. But they didn't know how. The
knowledge was gone."
"It's what a lot of the books still say, though, isn't it?" Kieran said.
"Ah, the tyranny of nineteenth-century English Egyptologists, reaching down through time." Trevany
showed his teeth. "The Giza pyramids are supposedly from the Fourth Dynasty the big one was
allegedly put up by Khufu Cheops around 2550. Do you really think standards could have declined
that much in so short a time?"
"Sounds pretty drastic, all right," Kieran agreed. "So why do you say `allegedly'? What are the reasons
for believing it wasn't?"
"The whole case rests on one piece of evidence. You can judge for yourself how solid it is. Want to hear
the story?"
Kieran made himself comfortable. "Sure, I never turn down a story."
"The Victorians figured life as a progression from primitive beginnings through steady improvement all the
way to the ultimate expression of excellence in the form of eminent Victorians which was obviously the
purpose of the exercise," Trevany said. "That meant there couldn't have been any advanced cultures [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]