“I’ve made my record for Father,” Harry said. “Master DaSerta is happy to give you access at a later time for further research into Commander DaSerta.”

  Porphyrio DaSerta nodded from beside him.

  “Ah!” Rick said. “Let me shut down here and I’ll be right with you.”

  “Your lordship?” Swanny said obsequiously. “I’ll be happy to log you out…”

  “If you’d be so good,” Rick said. He gave DaSerta an enthusiastic smile. “In that case, if you wouldn’t mind, Master DaSerta, I’d appreciate a glance at the main collection. I’m unlikely to be back on Quan Loi to see it again.”

  “Of course,” their host said and led the way back into the room down and across the hall.

  The objects included many biological oddities—there was the skeleton of a two-headed snake—and a considerable amount of memorabilia of Captain Romaine DaSerta. This included several uniforms; eyeing them Rick estimated that the captain had been slightly shorter than his descendent Porphyrio but with the same slender build.

  There were also files of documents, mostly of a political nature dating from after establishment of the colony on Quan Loi. These were of no interest to Rick, but he browsed a few of them for politeness’ sake. He’d gotten to the end of the long room before he’d repented of asking to see it. He certainly hoped that Harry had gotten more from the visit than he himself had, however.

  The last item was on a freestanding table covered by a curtain supported by a frame. Rick’s first thought was Like a birdcage at night, but he caught himself before he made what their host might have felt was a boorish joke. He was here as Harry’s guest, after all.

  “This is the great treasure that Lord Harper was particularly taken by,” DaSerta said, nodding to Harry, who nodded back in solemn agreement. “This is an artwork left by the Archaic Spacefarers.”

  DaSerta whipped the curtain away. On the pedestal was a disk of quartz crystal a foot in diameter. Because it was displayed on edge, Rick could see the engraving on the back simply by stepping around the pedestal.

  By looking at a shallow angle, Rick could read:

  THIS SCULPTURE WAS FOUND EIGHTY YEARS

  AFTER OUR LANDING ON QUAN LOI.

  IT DEPICTS MEMBERS OF A RACE WHICH

  INHABITED THE PLANET IN FORMER TIMES.

  Rick moved around to the front again and looked at the two spidery figures there. The quartz had been polished after it was carved. The subject appeared to be a man and a woman on either side of a narrow-trunked tree with fronds rather than branches.

  “I see,” he said. He cleared his throat and went on, “Master DaSerta, may I ask who engraved the legend onto the back of the disk?”

  “I don’t have any idea,” DaSerta said. “One of my ancestors, obviously, or rather one of his servants, but there’s no record of which one. I don’t suppose it really matters when it was found. Some of my ancestors have been very punctilious about inventorying the collections but others have not; and to be honest, I haven’t been as careful myself as I might have been. Perhaps your visit, Lord Harper, will cause me to mend my ways.”

  He and Harry laughed mildly; Rick managed to force a smile.

  The crystal disk was the condensing lens from the display of a Pre-Hiatus starship. Modern units used air-projected holograms for three-dimensional displays. Ancient consoles didn’t have that capacity and used quartz crystal. This was an absolutely standard thirty-centimeter unit of Terran manufacture. Rick had seen many of them in the History of Space Travel course he’d taken as an elective at the Academy.

  It was certainly ancient: two thousand years old at a minimum. But it wasn’t the millions of years old that Archaic remains tended to run to, as best as you could date those elusive fragments; and it was of human manufacture.

  Rick doubted whether he could convince Captain DaSerta that his cherished disk wasn’t of prehuman construction, nor would there be any advantage in having done so. He’d tell Harry as soon as the two of them were alone so that Harry wouldn’t be getting Doctor Veil’s hopes up with nonsense.

  DaSerta walked them out onto the porch. Harry said, “Excuse me, sir. Those comfit trees lining the drive?” He pointed. “They’re not native to Quan Loi. Can you tell me anything about them?”

  “Ah!” said their host. “In this case I can give you a solid answer. My founding ancestor, Captain Mortimer DaSerta himself, planted them. You knew that his ship, Russell 974, landed on Wasatch before proceeding here to Quan Loi, didn’t you?”

  “No, I did not,” Harry said in a neutral tone.

  Rick tried to hide his shock. That hadn’t appeared in the Far Traveller’s course data either. Quan Loi was listed as settled directly from Earth with no mention of Wasatch.

  “The initial plan was that the colonists on the Russell 974 would supplement those sent to Wasatch twenty-three years before,” DaSerta explained. “There was friction immediately, and before the year was out the later colonists reboarded the Russell and transferred to Quan Loi, which had been considered as an alternative destination. Captain DaSerta had become enthusiastic about comfit jelly by then and he brought the species with him to Quan Loi.”

  Rick thought about events hundreds of years ago—critically important to the participants at the time and now just a corner of local history. Remembered within the DaSerta family but probably unknown outside of it, even here on Quan Loi. Nonetheless probably true, since the comfit trees along the drive were certainly real.

  “The species is very long lived,” Harry said after consulting his handheld data unit. “Over a thousand standard years on Wasatch, so these may well have been planted by your ancestor just as your records indicate. But why is the third one down the left side stunted, sir?”

  That was the tree Harry had remarked on as they were driven to the house. The others were all about sixty feet tall; this was only half that, and the trunk was spindly besides.

  “It’s always been that way,” DaSerta said. “I’d have taken it out when I succeeded my father as Hereditary Captain, but that would leave a gap. Comfit trees take so long to grow that I decided to leave it the way it’s been for twelve hundred years or so.”

  “Would it be all right if I made some densitometer readings, then?” Harry asked. He looked at Rick and said, “Lord Grenville? Would you mind fetching the extended probes that I left with Kent?”

  Rick nodded and started down the drive at a fast walk. He’d been sitting as he went through the material on Romaine DaSerta. He was just as glad not to bother with the lowboy, and the vehicle wouldn’t have gained him much time either.

  By the time he got back with the bundle of meter-long rods, Harry was already taking readings from the stunted tree while their host watched in mild bemusement. For an instant Harry projected the meter’s findings, then nodded. He said to Rick and DaSerta, “The number of rings is identical to that of the first tree in the row—indicating 1,182 years, Master DaSerta, confirming your records. Now—”

  He turned to Rick. “If you’ll help me, Lord Grenville, to set a constellation of these probes around the tree about six feet out from the center of the trunk, I’ll activate them and they’ll screw themselves in.”

  Rick was perfectly willing to be doing lift and carry for his friend. It was simple enough and would make Captain Bolton happy when he learned about it.

  He pressed the sharp end of each half-inch beryllium rod into the soil, far enough to keep it from falling over when he took his hands away. He moved to the next one each time until he met Harry coming around the tree clockwise. Rick had never used the equipment before, but there wasn’t much to learn.

  “Now, step back,” Harry said. “And you too, Master DaSerta, because occasionally these fly loose and it might take me a moment to shut them off.”

  Rick obediently stepped onto the paved drive. At least that way nothing would be coming through the ground at him.

  Harry keyed his testing device with a small popping sound. The eight poles they’d set in a rough circle suddenly whirred and spun into the ground, throwing up piles of finely divided clay around each disappearing shaft. The heads were duplex, contra-rotating around their common axis.

  One probe hit something about a foot into the soil. Rick felt the clack through his boots and the shaft stopped. The others sank in till only a few inches were visible.

  Again Harry projected the display so that he and his audience could see what the probes had found. “That’s very odd,” he said.

  “Lord Harper?” DaSerta said. “I don’t understand what the image is.”

  “I’ve set it to show relative density as a color spectrum,” Harry said. “Violet is highest. As you see, the soil is basically green with flecks of blue for pebbles—like the one that the fifth probe hit. The trunk is blue-green. And there’s a ring of violet, there”—he pointed—“choking the tap root which has apparently grown through it.”

  DaSerta turned to the servant who’d accompanied him onto the porch and called, “Wesler, get the gardeners out here with shovels! I want this tree out of the ground in five minutes!”

  To Harry he added, “I’ll replace it with something local, maybe a spiked elm. They’ve got reddish foliage and I can put in a well-grown tree. I’d been thinking of doing that anyway.”

  Harry put his device away in its pouch and started removing the probes. Rick joined him.

  “Tap the center of the top and it’ll spin out on its own,” Harry explained when he saw Rick gripping the exposed end with both hands with flexed knees and trying to draw the probe out by straightening his legs.

  A touch on the button achieved what main strength had not. Rick caught the rod before it fell over when it had spun out. From stubbornness he pulled up by hand the one that had stopped a foot down.

  A man in his sixties and a boy arrived, both carrying shovels and wearing coveralls. They dipped their heads low to DaSerta and immediately got to work on the ground around the stunted tree. Whatever the steward had told them had sparked their enthusiasm.

  “Don’t worry about the tree!” DaSerta said. “Just get the root of it up!”

  “The ring appeared to be about eighteen inches down,” Harry said from where he and Rick stood out of the way.

  Rick had thought getting a backhoe in would have been faster in the long run, but in fact it was in less than the demanded five minutes that the gardener muttered to his assistant and they laid their shovels behind them. They gripped the tree trunk. Shifting together they worked the trunk in all four directions alternately, then lifted it out of the hole. They flopped it on ground behind the senior man.

  They stepped back. Neither appeared to be breathing hard.

  Rick got out his folding knife and knelt beside the lump where the tap root continued below a knotted halo of lesser roots. DaSerta stood beside him but didn’t kneel on the dirt. Harry was adjusting his device.

  Using the back of the long blade Rick scraped dirt from a smooth, clear object. Not a stone—

  “That’s silicon carbide!” Harry said, reading his display. “The clear variety—moissanite!”

  “What’s it doing here?” Rick asked.

  DaSerta said, “The Archaics regularly used moissanite in their constructions! This may be one of their devices or what survives of it!”

  “The ring is at least three thousand years old,” Harry said, “but we can’t prove it goes back any farther than that. Even so I’d like to clean it off and collect all possible data from it. And with your permission, I’ll bring Doctor Veil to see it and I hope handle it.”

  “Yes, of course!” DaSerta said. “This is wonderful! Another Archaic artifact!”

  Rick continued to scrape away dirt. At least, he thought, he’s breaking even for Archaic artifacts for the day.

  * * *

  “Where’s the boss?” Mahaffy asked as I entered the bio lab.

  “She’s still at the DaSerta estate,” I said, taking one of the empty workstations.

  “How long’s it going to take you to finish up there?” Mahaffy said. “We’re supposed to lift for Medlum as soon as the last pinnace gets back and it’s due any time now.”

  “I think Doctor Veil’s just going over the site again,” I said as I looked at what I’d gathered. I had densitometer scans of the tree to either side of the stunted one and root sections above and below the ring of the tree that’d been pulled out of the ground. The actual wood was filed in specimen storage in the separate compartment where most of my additional luggage had been transferred by now.

  So far as I could tell there was nothing to be seen at DaSerta House beyond what we’d already recorded in every fashion imaginable, but Doctor Veil was so excited to have an Archaic relic in her hand that she didn’t want to leave it. I didn’t say that to Mahaffy, just started sorting the electronic files.

  “Did you really find an Archaic artifact?” Mahaffy asked. He’d turned away from what he’d been working on and was looking at me. I didn’t meet his eyes.

  “Doctor Veil believes we have,” I said carefully. “I believe so also, though I might wish for additional supporting evidence.”

  I wasn’t going to publicly disagree with my superior; and I couldn’t imagine any other fashion in which a moissanite ring could have gotten into the soil of Quan Loi with a year of human settlement.

  What I’d told Master DaSerta was true, though. The ring was old, but as solid evidence it didn’t any more prove the existence of the Archaics than the carved quartz lens did. Perhaps further study and analysis back on Xenos with a larger sample of experts could at least suggest what the object was intended for. Silicon carbide was extremely refractory, so it was anybody’s guess how this ring fitted into a larger construct which had completely rotted away.

  “You know, the Shinings…?” Mahaffy said. “The Shining Empire, I mean? They say they come from the Archaics. Their ancestors weren’t from Terra at all. They say.”

  I smiled. The Shinings had built the barrel-shaped ship in Helle Harbor, I remembered. “I wonder what they cite as evidence for that, Mahaffy?”

  “I dunno,” the tech said. “I was just chatting with one of the Power Room crew who’s served in this neck of the galaxy before. He’s ex-Fleet, you see.”

  I closed the file I was working on. The visual and densitometer images were all tagged with full descriptions. I turned toward Mahaffy and said, “Well, without genetic samples I can’t disprove that theory, but I will say that I find it most unlikely. Still, not for me to quarrel with another man’s religious beliefs.”

  Doctor Veil entered the lab. “The third pinnace is back,” she said. “We’ll be transferring to Medlum within two hours, according to Captain Bolton.”

  She stepped over to me. I was afraid I’d done something wrong and started to get up. Instead she extended her hand and said, “Lord Harper, your skill and tact have gained me the greatest triumph of my career. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

  I shook her hand, feeling embarrassed. She thought I’d proven the existence of the Archaics. I certainly hadn’t, and I would have to say so if I were questioned.

  For now at least, Doctor Veil was pleased with her decision to hire me. I guess I could count that as a win.

  MEDLUM

  Rick tapped on the hatch to Bio Section but entered before there was a response. He’d become a frequent visitor to Bio Section since Harry joined the staff. Doctor Veil appreciated not only the help he’d provided on Quan Loi, but also his knowledge of Far Traveller and of the RCN generally.

  The scientists were necessarily separate from the naval personnel, but there was no reason they should be hostile. Until Rick and Harry had become friends, that had been on the way to being the case.

  Harry and the technician were at work stations; the hatch to Veil’s office was closed. She was probably inside, but Rick didn’t have any business with her.

  “Hey, Rick,” Harry called. “I hope you’re here to offer me something more exciting to do than sequencing crustaceans from Beiderbeke, which I’ve never seen. Not that it matters whether or not I’ve visited Beiderbeke.”

  “Well, I don’t know how exciting this is,” Rick said. “I’m hoping that you can give me a little help. We—the Far Traveller—got underway pretty suddenly and Navy House didn’t equip us with the background information that we’d normally have had. There isn’t even a set of the Sailing Directions for this region. I’d like to know a little more about where we’re operating than just route calculations.”

  Harry got to his feet and stretched. They were six hours out of Quan Loi in sponge space. It didn’t matter to a genetic sequencer, but to a human being it was a very lonely, boring existence. Nothing whatever would happen unless the hull were to fail catastrophically.

  “Well, we’ve got quite a lot of background material down here,” Harry said. “Our brief is to gather data on the life on planet, which meant we needed as much information about the planets as possible.”

  He sat down at the workstation to the left of the one he was using and brought it up. “I can’t help you with the Sailing Directions,” he said, “because they don’t exist for this region. We do have the Annotated Charts, issued by the Fleet Bureau of Cartography on Pleasaunce. I don’t guarantee that this is the most recent edition, but it’s the most recent that the Science Directorate could find on Cinnabar before the Far Traveller set out.”

  He rose so that Rick could take the seat at that station. Rick called up the section on Medlum, the next base on the Far Traveller’s itinerary. He began scrolling into the data, then looked up and said, “This is wonderful! All we’ve got on the bridge are the coordinates and the course—and I can tell you, the course data is pretty rudimentary. Of course that’s what we’re here for—but we didn’t even know that Medlum was self-governing with just an Alliance commissioner, a postholder this says.”

  He cleared his throat and said, “Ah, Harry—is there any way you can transfer this material to the bridge? It would be hugely helpful to us.”