Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Novel 19 (23 page)

 
          
"Can't
tell anything at all by ceremonial doors and gates; to find that out, we'll
need to find the doors they used all the time, every day." But it was not
a reproof, just an impersonal comment, and Cendri thought, with a sigh of
relief, he's
himself
again. This was
what he
needed. There had
been a time when they had shared their studies like this; before their
marriage, before she had—though temporarily—abandoned her own.

 
          
She
saw Rhu and Laurina, and Vaniya's servants, burdened with their equipment,
watching them, wondering what the alien scholars from University would do now.
Suddenly she wished she could get rid of all of them, get rid of the pretense
that she was the Scholar Dame from University, and he her unregarded assistant,
so that they could be free to interact in their own normal pattern, without
pretense or sham. But when she said so to Dal, almost yearningly, he shook his
head.

 
          
"Out of the question.
Let's not get involved in side
issues now, Cendri, there's a job to be done."

 
          
He
was right; there was no point questioning the postulates on which they were
free to explore the ruins of
Isis
. After
all, wherever they might have gone, there would have been some kind of adverse
working conditions. She said, "You want graphics of the exterior. Shall I
teach Laurina to use the recorder so that I can be free to make written or
voice-scriber notes?"

 
          
He
frowned. "That might be a good idea," he said, "but I hate to
trust it to a stranger, and a woman at that."

 
          
"Dal,
any qualified assistant we get here is going to be a woman," she reminded
him, and he chuckled. "Right you are. And you did tell me she was a
professor of history at the college here, so she must have a considerable
amount of intelligence." He turned around, glancing at Laurina, and
beckoned her close. "Show her how to work the thing, will you,
Cendri?"

 
          
Laurina
looked shocked. She whispered, "Do you allow it to talk to you in that
tone?"

 
          
Cendri
felt a moment of despair. The brief moment of naturalness between herself and
Dal had suddenly evaporated again, into the pretense that was their life on
Isis
! She said, with a trifle more sharpness
than she intended, "My assistant is a scholar in his own right on
University, Laurina, and as such he is fully qualified. We do not make
distinctions of this kind on University. There is work to be done, and we have
no time to waste in preserving such artificial distinctions. The important
thing is that together we are qualified to make these
explorations,
and which of us gives the orders is a matter we do not really stop to
consider." She thought: maybe I can actually make a point about
scholarship on University!

 
          
Laurina
looked crushed. She said, almost in a whisper, "I did not mean to offend
the Scholar—I mean, I did not mean to offend you, Cendri. Forgive me—"

 
          
"That's
all right." In a sense, Cendri knew, she was using Laurina's hero-worship
for her to enforce a point of view which went against all Laurina's cultural
and ethical preconceptions. Was she justified in doing this? Could the end ever
justify the means? There was no time to explore complex cultural and ethical
questions now. She said, with a pleasant smile, "I presume you would like
to know how to use the graphics-recorder?"

 
          
"I
would indeed," Laurina said, and she looked awed, "if you will trust
me with it."

 
          
"Very
well, then." Cendri moved to her side, and began demonstrating the complex
controls. She found Laurina a quick pupil, and after a few minutes had no
hesitation in turning it over to the woman for the recordings.

 
          
"From
now you record everything that we see and explore," she instructed.
"First of all, get the gates from all angles...."

 
          
Slowly,
working together, they recorded the giant gates, the two huge black-glass
towers just inside the gates, and the courtyards inside them. Then, slowly,
they began to explore the streets of the ancient city—although
"streets" was hardly the word for the huge, regular, but strangely
ordered spaces between buildings. After a very brief survey, Dal beckoned
Cendri to his side. She went, ignoring Rhu's shocked stare.

 
          
"I
want to check out a preliminary impression," he said, low-voiced.
"First of all, what strikes you first about these ruins?"

 
          
She
knew immediately what he meant.

 
          
"Their
newness," she said, "they don't look as if they had been here more
than a couple of thousand years at most. I'd almost say a couple of hundred,
but that's impossible; they were here when Cinderella was discovered and
mapped."

 
          
He
nodded, biting his lip. He said, "Right. And on a planet as seismic as
this, how in the hell did they manage to escape the quakes?"

 
          
She
hazarded, "Some form of building that can resist almost infinite
earthquake stresses?"

 
          
"Impossible,"
Dal said, "Technology can do a lot, but not that kind of resistance. It's
like the question of the irresistible force and the immovable object—how
immovable would they have to be, to resist a Force 9 or Force 10 quake? The very
definition of such a quake is—total destruction of all man-made structures, and
virtual destruction of the land configurations. I'm going to have to get a look
at the seismic patterns—you told me they had basic seismographs— but
statistically speaking, a planet like this should have at least one Force 9
quake every two or three thousand years, and for this particular area we could
make a statistically defensible prediction that nothing, and I mean nothing,
could survive from one civilization to another, giving each civilization
Rakmall's Limit of twelve thousand years."

 
          
"Would
Rakmall's Limit apply to a nonhuman technology, Dal?"

 
          
He
scowled and nodded, evidently thinking deeply.
"To a
nonhuman civilization, perhaps not.
But I can't think of a technology
which could survive Rakmall's. I'll have to explore all these structures—I
hesitate even to call them buildings, now. Maybe we can get a clue to the level
of the technology which built them. I do think we can confidently say they were
not human or even humanoid. Look—" he swept his arms in an
all-encompassing gesture, "The size, the arrangement of the structures—it
makes no sense for any culture I have seen. I can say confidently one thing;
they are no known civilization or technology." He sighed deeply.
"Sharrioz!
How I wish I had a fully accredited team
with me! An expedition, say, of ninety to a hundred men, equipped in all
specialties—"

 
          
Abruptly
he dismissed all that. He said, "Let's get on. Let's go straight through,
making a graphic record of the exterior of every structure, and we can code
them at our leisure."

 
          
Again
they started through the ruins, pace by pace. The sun climbed, began slowly to
decline. Dal finally yielded when Cendri demanded a brief stop for rest and
refreshment, seeing that Rhu was exhausted and sweating in the subtropical
heat, and even Laurina, fascinated by what they were doing, and bent on proving
she could handle the graphics recorder, looked wilted.

 
          
Vaniya's
servants had provided ample and pleasing food, and Cendri would have liked to sit
down by Dal and talk over the morning's work; but as Rhu approached them,
reluctantly, she recalled the social prohibitions of the Matriarchate. She and
Dal could perhaps be dispensed from these prohibitions for the duration of
their work. He was also their Companion, and had a right to share her meals,
she assumed, but she remembered Vaniya's scandalized question about whether or
not she would find it distracting. If she sought Dai's company out of working
time, she gave weight to that belief. She turned to Laurina, and they sat
together on some oddly-proportioned steps (did the original inhabitants of this
place have legs fourteen feet long, or did they fly?) spreading out their
lunches, while Dal, trying to conceal his annoyance, resigned himself to Rhu's
company. She noticed that Vaniya's servants, mostly women, separated
themselves, drawing near to Cendri and Laurina—though not near enough to listen
to what they were saying—while the few men among them kept strictly separate.

 
          
Dal
after a period of
time,
checked his timepiece and the
angle of the sun. "If we are going to finish the preliminary survey today,
we have no more time to lose. Laurina, you make a graphic of the steps from all
four directions before we leave here."

 
          
"How
dare you," Laurina flared. "I do not take orders from any male! We
are not now in the maleworlds!"

 
          
Shocked,
dismayed—this was what she had been most afraid of—Cendri sprang to her feet.
She had an irrational impulse to throw herself between them—to protect Dal?
Laurina had scrambled upright, and was facing Dal in angry indignation.

 
          
"Laurina,"
Cendri said sharply, and suddenly knew what she must say:

 
          
"If
you wish to work with us, you must to some extent respect and accept our
customs! I explained to you that on University, we do not make these
distinctions. Furthermore, my—my assistant—" she almost choked on the
words, but this at least was necessary, "did not give you an order, but
made a courteous request of a fellow worker. If you are not prepared to grant the
same courtesy to my assistant as to myself, we can dispense at once with your
assistance!"

 
          
For
a moment Laurina remained motionless, staring at Dal in angry
defiance,
and Cendri had a moment, her heart pounding, of
dread. Vaniya's servants, she thought, looked ready to tear Dal limb from limb,
and Rhu had turned as white as the bleached limestone of the courtyard under
their feet, and was bracing himself against a column as if his bones and
muscles no longer had the strength to hold him upright.

 
          
Then
Laurina dropped her eyes. She said, hesitantly, "I am sorry, Cendri—I
forgot. I am—I am not accustomed—"

 
          
Relief
washed like a spring-tide through Cendri's body and mind. She said gently,
"I know; custom of a lifetime is very hard to break. Dal, too, was
heedless; among these surroundings, a request should have been relayed through
me." She gave Dal a hard look—did he know what he had almost precipitated?
But at least they had proved a point
... .or
she hoped
they had. If this point had to be made again and again, it might indeed be
better to dispense with Laurina's assistance—or the assistance of any native of
Isis/Cinderella!

 
          
She
was glad she had left her voice-scriber running. It was sound-activated and
would provide a complete record of the episode for her mentors on University.
She wondered what it would provide in the way of semantic analysis. She
watched, a little fearfully, as Laurina went toward Dal, not sure which of them
she now wanted to protect, for Dal was glowering; but Laurina said, with shy
formality, "If the Scholar Dame's assistant will inform me which angles of
the steps should be recorded, I will endeavor to supply it with the adequate
graphics."

 
          
Dal
looked a little taken aback, but he was willing to meet Laurina halfway; was,
Cendri realized, aware of the enormous emotional step the woman of
Isis
had taken. He answered with perfectly
correct formality, "We should have a recording from each direction, and
one from the top of each flight of steps, in order. If the respected teacher
will avoid facing the instrument directly sunward, the quality of the
recordings will be greatly improved."

 
          
Rhu,
Cendri realized, was watching the episode with a surprise which reminded her
of—for a minute she could not remember what it reminded her of. Then she knew.
The male, Bak, who had penetrated into their quarters with a
message for Dal, and had been captured.
He had looked like that at Dal,
when Dal brushed Cendri aside and took over questioning him.