“All right, lead the way… hero!” and the tone of her deep voice became gentle and filled with unfathomable mystery.
The bright night was full of the perfumes of grasses, the rustling of small animals and the cries of night birds. Veda and Darr walked cautiously, afraid of falling into some unseen hole or crack in the dry earth. The brush-headed grass stalks stealthily grazed their ankles. Darr Veter looked around vigilantly whenever they came in sight of dark clusters of bushes. Veda laughed softly.
“Perhaps we should have taken the accumulator and I cable with us?”
“You’re thoughtless, Veda,” said Darr Veter good-, humouredly, “more so than I thought!”
The young woman suddenly became serious. “ I felt your protection too strongly….”
And Veda began to speak, or rather, to think aloud, about further plans for the work of her expedition. The first stage of the work at the grave mounds in the steppes was finished ^ and her workers had returned to their old employments or were seeking something new. Darr Veter, however, had not chosen another job and was free to follow the woman ‘ he loved. Judging by reports that reached them Mven Mass’ work was going well. Even if he had done badly the Council would not have appointed Darr Veter again so soon. In the Great Circle Era it was not thought advisable to keep people too long at any one job. The most valuable possession of man, his creative inspiration, grew weaker and he could only return to an old job after a long break.
“Doesn’t our work seem petty and monotonous to you after six years communion with the Cosmos?”
Veda’s clear and attentive glance was fixed on him. “This isn’t petty or monotonous work,” he objected, “but it certainly doesn’t provide me with that tension to which I am accustomed. I need the strain, otherwise I’ll become too calm and good-natured, as though I were being treated with blue sleep!”
“Blue sleep…” began Veda and the catch in her breath told Darr Veter more than the burning cheeks that he could not sec in the dark.
“I’m going to continue my exploration farther to the south,’’ she said, interrupting herself, “but not until I have gathered a new group of volunteer diggers. Until then I am going to take part in the maritime excavations, I have been asked to help there.”
Darr Veter understood her and his heart beat faster with joy. A second later, however, he had hidden his feelings in a distant corner of his heart and hurried to Veda’s help.
“Do you mean the excavation of the submarine city to the south of Sicily?” he asked. “I saw some wonderful things from there in the Atlantis Palace.”
“No, not there, we’re working on the coasts of the Eastern Mediterranean, the Red Sea and India now. We are looking for cultural treasures under the water, beginning from the Creto-Indian period and ending with the Dark Ages.”
“You mean what was hidden or, more often, simply thrown into the sea when the islands of civilization were destroyed under the impact of new forces, fresh, barbaric, ignorant and reckless — that is something I can understand,” said Darr Veter thoughtfully, his eyes carefully Studying the whitish plain. “I can also understand the great destruction of ancient civilizations, when the states of antiquity, strong in their bonds with nature, were unable to make changes in their world, to cope with the growing horror of slavery and the parasitic upper strata of society.”
‘‘And people exchanged the primitive materialism that had led them into a blind alley for the religious darkness of the Middle Ages,” added Veda, “but what is there that you cannot understand?”
“It’s just that I have a very poor idea of the Creto-Indian civilization.”
“You don’t know the latest researches. Traces of that civilization arc now being found over a huge area from Africa, through Crete, the southern part of Central Asia, ^Northern India to Western China.”
“I did not suspect that in those ancient days there could have been secret treasure-houses for works of art like tliose of Carthage, Greece and Rome.”
“Come with me and you’ll sec,” said Veda, softly. Darr Veter walked beside her in silence. They were ascending a long, gentle slope and had reached the ridge when Darr Veter suddenly stopped.
“Thanks for your offer, I’ll come.”
Veda turned her head towards him somewhat mistrustfully but in the half-light of the northern night her companion’s eyes were dark and impenetrable.
Once past the ridge the lights turned out to be quite close. Lamps in polarizing hoods did not disperse the light rays and that made them seem farther away than they really were. Such concentrated light was a sign of night work and this was confirmed by a low roar that increased in volume as they neared it. Huge latticed trusses shone like silver under blue lamps high up in the air; a warning howl of sirens brought them to a standstill as the protective robots began working.
“Danger, keep to the left, don’t approach the line of posts!” shouted the loudspeaker of an invisible amplifier. They turned obediently towards a group of white portable houses.
“Don’t look in the direction of the field!” the robot continued warning them.
The doors of two houses opened simultaneously and two beams of light crossed on the dark road. A group of men and women gave the travellers a hearty welcome but were surprised at the imperfect means of transport that had brought them there, especially at night.
The cupboard-like cabin of the shower-bath with its streams of aromatic water saturated with gas and electricity, with the merry play of tiny electric charges on the skin, was a place that gave gentle pleasure. Refreshed, the travellers met at table. ‘‘Veter, my dear, we’ve come across some of our colleagues!” exclaimed Veda, freshly bathed and extremely young, as she poured out a golden liquid.
‘“The ten tonics, right now!” he exclaimed, reaching for his glass.
“Bullfighter, you’re growing savage in the steppes,” protested Veda. “I’m telling you interesting news and you only think of eating!”
“Are there excavations here?” said Darr Veter, doubtingly.
“There are, only they’re palaeontological, not archaeological. They’re studying the fossilized animals of the Permian period, two hundred million years old. That puts us in the shade with our petty thousands.”
“Are they studying them in the ground, without digging them up? How’s that?”
“‘Yes, in the ground, although as yet I don’t know how.”
One of those sitting at the table, a thin, yellow-faced man, joined in the conversation.
“Our group is now relieving another. We have just finished preparations and are about to start work on depth photography.”
“Hard irradiation,” hazarded Darr Veter.
“If you are not too tired I would advise you to watch it. Tomorrow we shall be moving the whole apparatus to another site and that will not be interesting.”
Veda and Darr gladly consented. Their hospitable hosts rose from the table and led them into a neighbouring house, where protective clothing hung in niches with a clock-face indicator over each of them.
“There is very great ionization from our powerful electron tubes,” said a tall, slightly round-shouldered woman with a faint suggestion of apology as she helped Veda into a suit of closely-woven fabric and a transparent helmet, and fastened a container with batteries on her back. In the polarized light every hillock in the steppes stood out with unnatural clarity. A dull groan came from a square space marked off by thin rails. The earth heaved, cracked and opened up in a crater in the centre of which appeared a sharp-nosed silver cylinder. Its polished walls were encircled by a spiral ridge and the sharp end was fitted with an intricate electric milling head of blue metal rotating as the machine appeared. The cylinder rolled over the edge of the crater, turned over, showed blades that moved quickly at the rear end and began digging in again a few metres away from the crater, diving almost vertically with its polished nose into the ground.