"Fergus! Look at this ... You see, now I have its whole flank exposed. In this flank are two limbs. See there and there? Both terminate in a process that is not quite a leg. I believe those little things are partly-calcified cartilagenous rays, evolving into webbed feet. Krishnan cartilage differs chemically from ours—that in the human nose, for example—and therefore fossilizes better. Do you realize what you have done?"
"Nothing wrong, I hope," said Reith.
"On the contrary, you have provided the clutching argument—"
"You mean 'clinching,' don't you?"
"Yes, yes, the clinching argument in the dispute with Foltz! See?" In his excitement, the portly Marot did a little dance step. "This creature has two limbs on a side, not three. And it is a true transitional form: a piscoid in the act of turning itself into a salamandroid. So the division between the Hexapoda and the Tetrapoda must have taken place before this emergence."
"You mean the division between the four-leggers and the six-leggers happened while these 'legs' were still just fins?"
"That is the idea."
Reith frowned. "Are you sure all the land-living—ah— Tetrapoda of today are descended from this guy? Could it be that his line died out, and then a branch of the six-leggers lost a pair of legs, the way Foltz claims?"
Marot sobered. "That will doubtless be Foltz's argument. Of course, we never have all the fossils we need to settle, beyond all doubt, the question of who descended from whom. But this guy, as you call him, is a weighty argument on my side. I shall name the species after you, Fergus—something reithi."
"Thanks. I'll call him 'Ozymandias'," said Reith. "You know: 'Round the decay of that colossal wreck ...' "
"Ah, yes. That was some nineteenth-century English poet, was it not? Byron? Tennyson?"
"Shelley. Are you going to dig the whole skeleton out, bone by bone? Some of those bones look pretty small and fragile."
"You are right," said Marot. 'This skeleton must be taken whole back to Novorecife, along with the additional fragments we have found."
"You mean in one solid rock? That'll weigh a couple of hundred kilos, won't it?"
"I do not think so. I shall mark out a block, and our stalwart helpers can earn their pay by digging a trench around the specimen and prying the whole loose from its matrix. Then I shall chip away at the block from various sides until I begin to strike bone, to reduce the weight to a minimum. Finally, I shall haul the block out of the pit and load it on one of our beasts." Marot climbed out of the depression and shouted: "Doukh! Girej! Come here, please!"
Marot explained to the Krishnans what he wanted done, scraping a groove around the specimen with the pointed end of his geologist's hammer to show them where to dig. For the rest of the afternoon he hovered over them, anxiously watching lest they cut too close to his find.
The afternoon sun scorched the riverbank and the laboring men. Stripped to the waist, Reith said, "I'm going to get one of those super-cowboy hats they wear here. How about you?"
Marot shrugged. "I have been so absorbed that I have not noticed the heat. Anyway, Roqir does not burn the flesh so severely as our own Sol, because of the deeper atmosphere."
"You swarthy Latins," said Reith, "can take the sun better than us pale-skinned Nordics. Redheads like me just burn and peel."
Later, Reith interrupted the scientist again: "Aristide, if we're going to Foltz's camp, we'd better start getting cleaned up."
"Ah, yes. I had forgotten in the ecstasy of finding this beautiful specimen. That will be all the digging for today, my good fellows."
An hour later, as Roqir sank in the west, Reith and Marot, freshly washed and in clean khakis, rode in to Foltz's camp. They found this camp much more impressive than their own. Five tents stood amid evidence of much work done in the time since Foltz arrived. They saw tables on which fossils were being cleaned and sorted, piles of fossil-bearing rock awaiting attention, and a pile of discarded rock fragments. Reith thought that Foltz's party must include about a dozen people.
The two armed guards, wearing vests of rusty chain mail, had been lounging before the main tent. As Reith and Marot appeared, the guards scrambled up and stood at attention with drawn swords resting against their shoulders.
Foltz emerged from the main tent, saying "Rabosh dir!" ("At ease!") to the guards. Then he came forward, shouting: "Ma'lum! Take charge of these gentlemen's ayas!"
As the visitors dismounted, Foltz extended a welcoming hand to each in turn. "I'm glad you came. Sit at that table, will you?" He raised his voice again. "Daviran! Serve us kvad."
When the drinks were poured, Foltz raised his mug: 'To all the fossils on Krishna!"
The kvad was the same fiery stuff that Sainian had served them. Marot drank, then raised his mug again: 'To the truth to which they will lead us, whatever it be!"
Foltz drank to that one, but silently. After the first gulp, Reith sipped slowly. Marot, he feared, was in such a euphoric mood that he might get tight and blab about his find. Reith resolved to stay sober and keep an eye on the Frenchman, who seemed to have forgotten his own warnings about Foltz's fanaticism.
"The truth," said Foltz, "will turn out to be my theory. You'll see."
Having finished his first mug of kvad, Marot smiled craftily. Foltz signaled Daviran to refill the vessels: Marot's; Reith's, still more than half full; and his own, empty. Taking another gulp, Marot said:
"Perhaps and perhaps not. If you saw the specimen that we found today, you might not be so chickensure."
Foltz looked puzzled, then laughed. "You mean cocksure. What's this marvelous specimen?"
Reith wanted to shout: "Shut up, you damned fool!" He glanced beneath the table to be sure of kicking the right ankle, then nudged Marot's leg with the toe of his boot.
Marot said: "Aha, do you not wish you knew? In any case, I cannot tell more, because it is only partly exposed. But from what I have seen, it will drive the screw in the coffin of your theory."
"I must come over and have a look," said Foltz.
"You will be welcome at any time," Marot laughed. "Just think of the irony! La Rochefoucauld could not do better. Here I, an established paleontologist of wide experience, come across light-years of interstellar space to dig up Krishnan bones. Then, the first day, what happens? A rank amateur—excuse me, Fergus, but that is what you are—finds what may be the most crucial specimen in the whole field of Krishnan evolution!"
"Congratulations, Mr. Reith," said Foltz. "If, that is, this find turns out to be as critical as my enthusiastic colleague seems to think. But brace yourself for disappointment. Scientists have gone wrong in such extrapolations before. I have firmly established the Hexapod ancestry of all Krishnan land vertebrates beyond—"
Marot interrupted: "Oh, quel sottise! You are an incorrigible self-deceiver, Warren—"
"On the contrary, it's you and the other fuddy-duddies who—"
"Please, gentlemen!" said Reith loudly, since the discussion promised to become an open quarrel. "Let's shelve the technical argument. Most of it's over my head, anyhow. There's plenty going on in Krishna to talk about. The nomads of Qaath are threatening—"
"Damn it, I—" began Foltz.
"But I insist—" began Marot.
The flap of the main tent parted, and out stepped a slender, striking woman of delicate features and golden-blond hair. She had almost reached the table when her gaze met Fergus Reith's. She stopped as if she had run into an invisible wall. Her lips parted silently.
"Lish!" said Reith, setting down his mug and rising.