The Martian Pendant (20 page)

“Bwana Lady, Bwana Lady,” he murmured thankfully. Diana put her hand over his, and knowing no words of Maa, could only tearfully return his happy greeting with a smile of her own.

Just then a group of warriors dragged up the Mau Mau leader, bound with leather thongs, disheveled and bleeding.
Strange,
she thought.
There had been no gunfire, and now there was only one.
She recalled the reputation of the Maasai with the spear, and shuddered involuntarily as the hapless Kikuyu was roughly thrown down in front of the chief.

There followed a lengthy interrogation in a mix of African languages, progressively more strident as the captive prostrated himself increasingly, cowering as if trying to disappear into the very ground itself. Several gestures, accompanied by more forceful words from the imperious Maasai, indicated a threat of death, which finally brought the Kikuyu to recount why his band had invaded their territory.

In a voice trembling with fear, he explained in Swahili the offer, too good to refuse, of two American oilmen to supply them with weapons and ammunition so they could continue their campaign against the British in Kenya. That brought a rebuff and a kick from his questioner.

Diana recognized some of what was said. Of course, she recognized “Tanganyika” as well as “Uhuru,” the Swahili word for freedom. There was mention of “oil men” more than once. Some western terms had no equivalent in the native vocabulary, and these were frequent.

The Chief then bowed to her, saying something in Maa. What he said seemed of crucial importance, but she didn’t understand. It would take an interpreter to explain it fully, but she had heard enough to suggest that a conspiracy, leading to the Mau Mau attack on the dig compound, was behind it all.

She rested there for two days as her ankle rather rapidly improved with the women’s treatment. First the swelling subsided, along with the pain, followed by beginning resolution of the ecchymosis, the severe bruising caused by the gross leakage of blood from the torn ligaments. She tried to find out the composition of the compresses they applied to her ankle, but apparently it was a secret remedy, and she couldn’t get near the compounding mortar where the herbs and other ingredients were crushed and mixed. Perhaps it was for the best, as the one substance she recognized was cow dung.

On the third day, the scout car from the dig appeared, driven by Dan, accompanied by Chet Crowley and the Indian interpreter, Avtar. The Maasai had sent a runner to Arusha, where the authorities were able to notify Diana’s people by radio. Dan was beside himself with relief and love. Kneeling down, he gathered her into his arms, and covered her face with kisses. Through the interpreter, they learned of the conspiracy between the unidentified oilmen and the Mau Mau, leading to the unsuccessful attempt to destroy the exploration camp, and kill the whites working on uncovering the spaceship.

“Which oilmen?” Diana asked, “Could they be from the Cartel?” She had difficulty envisioning Americans plotting to kill them. No one had an answer to that. And the Maasai had sent their captive packing back to Kenya, before anyone thought to extract the information from him.

That night a great celebration was held. It was in Diana's honor, and for the two others, Dan and Chet, for having saved the Chief’s son. Men garbed in their colorful best performed dances, some acrobatic, while women served a feast, far more complex than their usual fare of milk and cow’s blood. Mainly for their honored guests, they had prepared hot bread, corn roasted in the husk, and barbecued beef, marinated with spices. They were served the strong native beer, very alcoholic and tasting of the yeast that made the brew creamy in color and consistency. Diana and her companions avoided the milk and blood mix, except for the necessary ceremonial sip when the common container was passed around.

Toward the end of the evening, the central fire was stoked up to twice its previous size, its color made greenish by throwing in handfuls of copper filings. A trio of warriors began to dance around it, to the stirring rhythm of drums. All three carried spears, and the leader wore a magnificent lion-skin robe, complete with the lioness’s head. The drumbeat became progressively faster and more forceful, the dancers beginning to move more frenetically, as their feet beat the ground in unison with the drummers’ cadence. This acceleration continued for several minutes. Just as it seemed that the men’s feet would disappear into blurs, the drumming suddenly stopped. Instantly, the men fell at the guest trio’s feet and lay still, despite their exertion, barely breathing.

The magic of the dance, obviously compounded by the strong beer that all present had consumed, led to absolute silence. Diana’s ears were ringing, and she experienced a feeling as if she were floating above the throng for the longest time. Then, after a few seconds, the drums suddenly crashed in unison, and the three dancers leaped to their feet. Next, to the cheers of the entire tribe, they bent, presenting their polished spears to the seated guests, tokens of their gratitude.

The head dancer then solemnly approached Diana more closely, and placing his lioness robe around her shoulders, said a few words in their language. Avtar, stepping up behind her, translated. “All of you are being honored for what you did to save the life of their Chief’s son and heir. And Diana,” he said, turning to her, “along with the tawny robe and spear, you’ve just been given the title of ‘Warrior Princess’ of the Maasai.”

The next morning, slightly hung over, they bade a respectful and fond farewell. Diana directed their return to the main highway by the track that had been the scene of her suffering. Nothing was found of the Mau Mau who had dropped out of the march north, except for a few scraps of the army fatigues they had been wearing, and their scattered weapons. When they reached the highway, the tail of the upended plane could plainly be seen. It would be easily retrieved with the right equipment, after their return to camp.

*    *    * 

That night, everyone crowded around in celebration. Everyone except the
Mafiosi,
who had some decision-making to do. Certainly they would be exposed when it was learned that the oil and mineral rights surrounding the dig had been pre-empted by an Italian company, already suspected in oil circles as a front for Mafia operations. Staltieri, their leader, decided they would have to get out. He had previously discussed arrangements with Max for transshipping the wrecked propulsion unit to Dar and loading it on a waiting freighter bound for the U.S. But he was
Mafioso
, and hatched a plot to desert and hijack that cargo instead.

He was elated. They would turn the valuable cargo over to their resident agent, Cavalieri, in Dar, where its shipment to their warehouse facility in Messina would be accomplished, along with their passage. The stolen Martian technology would then be sold to the highest bidder, the Soviet Union, or perhaps China, possibly both. The sum would be astronomical.
He would be rewarded when they reached Sicily,
he assured himself.
At last, a life of leisure would be his!

When the precious cargo had been loaded on the big flatbed truck, to his dismay, two armed Pinkertons were waiting to ride shotgun, assigned by Chet to the little convoy.

Well, we outnumber them,
Staltieri mused.
No one suspects that we keep pistols hidden in our trucks. It will be a simple matter to do away with the unwelcome guards, just as our own wounded comrade had been disposed of on the way to the hospital after the Mau Mau attack.
That had been easy to explain to the authorities there. He had died of his wounds
en route
. No need to tell them the
coup de grace
was delivered by a Mafia pistol.
The vultures would feast again,
he thought, rubbing his hands together with anticipation.

The unsuspecting guards were eliminated as planned along the deserted highway, and everything went well for the
Mafiosi
until their vessel, the cargo ship
Ancona,
had crossed the Mediterranean. By the time they were halfway between Malta and the Strait of Messina, the theft had been discovered, and at the request of the American Government, they were stopped by a Corvette of the Royal Navy.

Rather than submitting to boarding, explosives were detonated in the ship’s hold, sending it to the bottom within two minutes. The needed demolition charge had been grossly overestimated, resulting in all the culprits, and most of the crew, going down with the ship.

*    *    *

After the truck with the propulsion unit had left the camp, Diana and Dan took another rig to the crash site to salvage the plane. When they arrived, much to their shock, the craft was nowhere to be seen. It was well known in Africa that certain tribes would descend on aircraft, or anything else left in their territory, dismantling them and making off with everything they could carry. Even large airliners would be reduced to the point that the only thing left would be an empty shell. Tires, engines, upholstery, everything removable, gone. In the case of the L-5, there was no trace at all, except for the trampled earth surrounding the location where the plane had been upended in the ditch.

“Well, there goes our regular mail delivery,” Dan said facetiously, attempting to cheer Diana, who seemed on the verge of tears.

“Thanks,” she replied, “that little plane has served us well indeed, and has helped save at least one life. It’s sad to lose it.”

Standing there in the hot, dry grass, Dan felt renewed warmth for her. Impulsively, he put his arms around her, and affectionately kissed her on the cheek, missing her lips only because of her last-second avoidance.

“Don’t, Danny,” she said imploringly, as she disengaged and limped hastily back to the truck. She called to him, starting the engine, “Come on, it’s rather too far to walk.”

When they arrived at the camp, everyone was in a festive mood, for a reason at first obscure to the two. Mystified, she asked Max, who was standing nearby with an expectant look on his face. “What in the world is going on? Has there been an important discovery in the spaceship?”

“No such breakthrough, I’m afraid,” he replied. Then, with a broad grin, he pointed toward the airstrip, saying, as he held out a beer, “You’re back in business as a pilot again, girl.”

Despite her thirst and her still-healing ankle, she happily limped the hundred yards over to where the aircraft sat, finding it totally intact. The splintered propeller had been replaced, and the craft, at least outwardly, appeared perfectly airworthy.

“Not so fast,” she called back to Max, who was trotting after her. “About the reason for the forced landing. Whatever caused the rudder controls to fail?”

Max slowed to a walk, out of breath, but able to puff out, “Ted, our mechanic, found the cause and fixed the problem. The rudder control cables had been sabotaged by the Sicilian drivers, almost cut through. One had completely parted. You’re one lucky lady. If both had failed on that flight, it might have been the end. But you haven’t heard how the plane found its way back here,” he continued. “Listen, you wouldn’t believe it! Up the road came a chanting mob of natives, lifting the tail of the plane by shouldering the fuselage and pulling it along backward on its landing gear. We thought from a distance they might be the Mau Mau returning to mount another attack, and we were about to circle the wagons, when we saw the plane, and recognized them as Maasai.

“As they deposited the aircraft on the strip, we joined them in celebration, with dancing and singing. Then there was a feast, if you can call a meal of hotdogs and beer a feast. They loved the dogs, with ketchup and mustard, but politely told us that our beer was just so much cold cow
urine. We were forced to agree when they produced their own skins of brew. Certainly not watery! You’ve probably tasted it. Thick, milky and almost overpoweringly yeasty. Most of us sampled it out of courtesy, and our big drinkers loved it, if only after several. Me, I cut it with our own Chicago
Eidelweiss
, and that helped. Everyone had a great time before the warriors left for their Kraal around midnight, singing and repeatedly shouting, ‘Bwana Lady! Bwana Lady!’”

  SIX
TEEN

Competition

The Italian newcomers, six
Mafiosi
in all, were half a mile away busily digging where they had moved excavation equipment into the plain that was south of the oilrig. They had brought along drilling equipment, but when it became obvious that the Cartel had found no oil, those lengths of pipe and lumber were left piled on the rocky ground, to become shelter mostly for small rodents and their predators, the snakes.

Their mining efforts created a virtual dust storm, so vigorous was their search with a bulldozer of the dry subsurface soil. It reminded Diana of a kind of strip-mining. Fortunately for those at the dig, the prevailing winds carried the silt-laden air away from camp. Diana and the others climbed to the top of the drilling tower, where the rival operation could be better seen. She felt sick as she watched their uncovering many fragments of the lost second spaceship.

The Sicilian priest, Celestre, continued to come on Sundays, but in the absence of the truck-drivers, seemed more of a spy than ever. Conducting the confessional and Mass for a very few others from the camp, he spent more time snooping around the ship. Diana also noticed that he carelessly left his little confessional with the Italians to the south, and more than once was seen to drive to their headquarters tent.

She was sure they were plotting something, and on a Sunday, with everyone at leisure, she visited their new neighbors. Confrontational as she was, they at first feigned inability to understand English in an atte
mpt to avoid dealing with her. Celestre was able to convince them of her key status among the Americans, convincing their leader to finally produce the official documentation of their legal right to be there.

Mail confirmed further that the surrounding sections had been lawfully won by the Italians. In the same packet was Kindred’s answer to their question regarding Dragunov.  In a letter addressed to Diana, the Assistant Minister wrote that despite her concerns, his credentials as Krueger had checked out. It also stated that if they expected to be granted an extension of time to continue their exploration, they would have to afford the Minister all the courtesies due his rank, as long as he chose to stay with them.

In the meantime, the subject of their suspicions had finally recovered from his head wound under the somewhat ambivalent care of Adina, who had initially exposed him as a sexual predator and confirmed him as a fraud. As soon as he was able, he again attended the exploration of the hulk of the spaceship. The first thing he noticed was that the propulsion unit of the second ship had been removed from where it had been kept after its unearthing. This led to a tirade on his part, when he marched from the dig into Max’s tent.

“I say,” he fairly shouted as he confronted the professor, “Where is the remaining part that was excavated south of the ship?”

Max, shocked by the abrupt confrontation, replied, “Why, we shipped it to Dar last week. Is something wrong with that?”

Towering over Max, the Minister glowered down at him. “Anything removed from this site is subject to taxation, and must be appraised by the Ministry for its value. Neglecting to take care of that brings penalties and possible confiscation. You and your colleagues would then be subject to fines and deportation.”

Max looked him in the eye, and through clenched teeth, angrily said, “You were incompetent at the time, so we sent a formal notice of our intentions to your office in Dar-es-Salaam by mail. That legally discharged our duty, pending arrival of the material at the port of departure there, where customs will assign a value to it. That will be a matter of public record, our attorneys assured us, allowing you to levy whatever taxes are legally due.  In the meantime, you are free to monitor our operations, which, as you know, are allowed by the original permits granted us by the government, and not dependent on your whim.”

Dragunov had no response to that, and left in a huff, going back to observing and photographing in detail the continued activity 

*    *    *

Work continued in the hulk, the grad students and others laboriously chipping away at the concretions that covered everything. The hundreds of pods on the second deck were finally freed of their calcific deposits, but to their disappointment, they found every single one empty. Pumping at the main entry on the port side slowly drained the water down enough to allow unimpeded entry there, and another large opening, low and near the nose on the other side, was uncovered. Nowhere was there evidence of the crocodile, to everyone’s relief.

Much time was spent clearing away mineral deposits on the top deck also, accessed best by the port entry door. That entire level apparently had been devoted to the guidance of the ship on its journey to earth. The protrusion just behind the nose contained what was obviously the control center. It had evidently been manned by the crew on blast-off and during atmospheric entry and landing, judging by the array of seats next to consoles containing what looked like viewing screens. Around the inside of the nose itself was a network of pipes projecting through the overhead, which were obviously not periscopes, but finally determined to be part of the heat shield mechanism.

Diana found a ladder affording access to the mezzanine floor below, and thus was the first to come upon the pods used by the Martian crewmembers for sleep, not only during the long flight, but also after landing. This floor was accessible only from the control room, sequestered from the deck below, excluding passengers occupying the pods there. Because of the findings on the other decks, Max opined that those pods would be empty too, and that they should be ignored, their efforts directed instead to uncovering the secrets to be found in the ship’s technical equipment.

“Max,” Diana said firmly, “Are we paleoanthropologists or mechanics? No extraterrestrial remains have yet been found. A demonstration of the advanced state of their technology has been made many times over. We should leave all that to the appropriate scientists--nuclear physicists and metallurgists. We’ve done our part for them. They’ll soon be getting the propulsion units, which may lead to their unlocking all those secrets. But what of us?  As anthropologists, we’ve learned a little about the native tribesmen, but not one jot about the people who landed here a million years ago.” The professor looked at her, more with desire than professional interest. “God, you’re so sexy. Great-looking women are always wonderful, but combine that with brains, and well...”

At that point she cut him off. “What rubbish! Do let us keep this professional, Max. I’m serious. You’re a man, and naturally can’t believe in intuition as being important. But beyond that, just look at the facts. Almost two thousand empty pods
have been found. Obviously, all the passengers escaped the ship. But why did the craft become buried? It must have been that the crew became disabled, and unable to keep the ship and themselves from harm. You’ve seen what volcanic gases in low-lying land can do, and we’ve found that the ports were all open, except for screening, now crumbled away, that excluded animal pests and predators. Can’t you see? The toxic or suffocating gases could easily have overcome the crew as they slept, despite their sophisticated technology.”

Max objected. “Don’t you think they would have had alarms rigged to warn them in time? H
2
S, SO
2
and CO
2
are easily detected, rudimentary as our knowledge is compared to theirs, so how could they have literally been caught napping?”

“We know that the Martian atmosphere contains a much larger concentration of carbon dioxide than our own,” Diana explained. “They probably guarded against the toxic gases derived from sulfur, such as we frequently smell around here, but not overwhelming levels of CO
2
, heavier than air and odorless, which can totally exclude oxygen.”

“Okay,” he grudgingly said, “We can spare a worker on a couple of those pods. But if nothing is found in those, we’ll have to return to examining the rest of the hulk.”

Diana asked, “Only a couple? Max, we’ve explored both passenger decks completely, and you would stop short of the mere two dozen left? These would be where the crew and the command were quartered. I guarantee that if you leave any untouched, they will all be uncovered, if I have to do the work myself.”

The next day, as Diana and Max directed the workers with their jackhammers, the first pod in the row was uncovered, and found to be empty.

“See?” Max said, a little too gleefully. “I told you. They’ll all be vacant.” He then gave the order to start work on an adjoining mound.

“Wait!” She cried, “You picked the empty one. Let me decide on the second.”

Studying the 24 mounds, just as with detecting underground water, she let her muscles relax and cleared her mind of all thoughts other than of aliens. After a minute, holding her pendant, while the onlookers began to grumble impatiently, she pointed out one pod in the farthest corner.

“This is it,” she mumbled. “Go to it, but be careful. This one contains bones.”

She had to restrain the jackhammer operator, eager as the young worker was to uncover the contents of the mound. It took some time, with the crew knocking off for lunch just as the last thin shell of calcareous rock was breached at one point. The interior was dark and seemed empty, leading Max to triumphantly remark, “Well, so much for intuition!”

Disgusted with him, she replied in anger, “You’re supposed to be a scientist, not an ass, Max. This is not a contest between us. What satisfaction can you derive from a failure to discover Martian remains? Go to lunch with the rest. I’m staying here with hammer and chisel.”

Working on enlarging the opening, she found a subtle change in the mineral. As she adjusted the light, she chipped away the last calcium carbonate, and found what appeared at first to be a small dome of rock underneath the aft end of the exposed pod. She looked closely, and immediately recognized the characteristic woven suture lines of a human calvarium.

“A fossil skull!” she shouted. “Come quickly!”

The others dropped their sandwiches and coffee and came running, as she played the light into the cavity, revealing what appeared to be other bones. They were all thrilled as she gave each one a glimpse of the fossil skeleton, apparently intact, and in a contour position, as if asleep.

Even Max was pleased, saying, “Now we have some real paleoanthropology to work on!” With that he gave the order to carefully explore the remaining pod mounds, while Diana happily ate her lunch. Eleven more fossilized skeletons, all complete, were subsequently uncovered. All were male, and in almost every way identical to modern humans
and to the
Cro
-
Magnons
found in the caves of southern France. None had signs of disease, as all were relatively young. Their dentition revealed no carious teeth. They differed only in their apparent chest capacity, exceeding the average of both modern humans and that estimated for the early
Homo sapiens
specimens unearthed in France and Spain. This was thought most likely due to the increasingly rarified atmosphere of Mars. Interestingly, their fingertips were devoid of signs of pulmonary arthropathy, seen on earth in those with chronic conditions that cause a deficiency of oxygen in the blood. Increased lung tissue had apparently made up for the low oxygen tension on their home planet.

All pods with human remains contained buckles, buttons and weapons, side-arms made of metal, apparently electronic in type. No weapons had been found in the many vacated pods on the passenger decks, and nothing remained in the dozen empty ones next to the control room. As the nearby bulkhead surfaces on the mezzanine were chipped free of the thick mineral coatings, racks were exposed, apparently for larger weapons, all of them empty. That evening in their meeting, discussing the find, it was concluded that most of the people on the ship had escaped, taking those weapons, before the last dozen were overcome in their sleep.

Later, lingering by herself at the site of her initial discovery, Diana continued to comb through the debris beneath the fossil bones on the pod bottoms. Almost at the point of giving up, her fingers found in a far corner of one a flat object, colder than the bones and concretions. Shining her light on it, the object reflected brightly, leading her to think it might be a mirror, although thicker. And when she freed it from the rind of calcium salts, it proved to be a book. Its pages were of stiff fabric-like sheets, with one side covered with symbols of the type seen throughout the ship, the opposite page covered with a type of script resembling Greek.

By Jove
, she thought,
this could give us the key to their language, and at the same time allow us to decipher the symbols seen on the bulkheads awaiting an acid wash to better define them.
Elated, she stood up to run and tell the others, when she felt the firm push of a solid object in the small of her back. Turning around, she was confronted by Dragunov, holding his automatic pistol.

“Don’t make a sound, little lady,” he said softly. “Just quietly hand over that book, and I’ll let you live for now.”

She had no choice, and reluctantly handed him the thick, heavy tome. Taking it in his other hand, he swung the pistol, nearly breaking her jaw, sending her to the deck, unconscious. When she came to, he was still there, gloating over his booty, leafing through the pages.