When Reith and his companions emerged from the deckhouse, Marot dragged out his bag of fossil fragments. He also brought out his geologist's hammer, which had somehow survived the journey. With this and a pocket knife, he began going through his fossil-bearing stones, examining each to see what fragments of rock might be tapped or pried loose from the bone. He explained:
"This task awaits me sooner or later. If I do it now, perhaps I can reduce the weight of the mass till I can take the whole sackful back to Earth. Scientists would naturally prefer the original material to plastic replicas, no matter how accurate."
"How will you ever put all those pieces back together?" asked Reith.
"The computer in Paris will take care of that. If you put one piece in the machine and run a hundred others through on the conveyor, the machine will pick out the piece whose fracture surface matches the piece you are testing. It is, one might say, an electric jigsaw-puzzle solver."
Leaving Marot to his work, Reith saw that the Morkerád was angling towards the south bank. On a small, rickety pier stood a Krishnan signaling with a white square of cloth on a pole. Two crewmen leaped to the pier to snag lines around wooden bollards. They held the boat against the pull of the current while Captain Sarf climbed on the pier, conferred with the flag-waving Krishnan, and received a small package from him. The captain leaped back to the barge, the lines were cast off, and the vessel pulled away.
They stopped again around midday, when the Terrans were eating on deck, and made a third stop before sunset, to take on another passenger. The newcomer proved a short, middle-aged, black-clad Krishnan who paid his fare, stared hard at the Terrans, and silently moved to the other side of the boat.
At dinner, the Terrans joined the others in the deckhouse, where the cook had set up a folding table. As they took their places, Alicia addressed the newcomer: "Good-evening, sir. I am Doctor Alicia Dyckman; may I know your name?"
The Krishnan stared at his plate and said: "I care not to hold converse with godless Ertsuma."
"That simplifies things," said Reith in English. "We leave him alone, and he leaves us alone."
"But I only wanted to pick up a little data—" Alicia began.
"Which he obviously doesn't want to give. So pipe down, darling. We have enough problems."
Alicia's eyes flashed anger, but she pressed her lips together and resolutely remained silent.
The second day passed like the first, a long panorama of wild scenery with occasional stops at shabby little piers, while the Krishnan passenger ostentatiously ignored the Terrans.
On the afternoon of the third day, the quays of Jeshang hove in sight. As soon as the Morkerád was tied up, the Krishnan passenger stepped briskly ashore. Looking back at the three Terrans, all now clad in their shabby fossil-digging khakis, he snapped:
"Ye shall see what befalls heretics in the holy Dashtate of Chilihagh!"
"A real friendly fellow," said Alicia. "I'm a brass monkey if he's not on his way to make trouble for us."
"If he goes to the Bákhite temple and makes charges ... Oh, Captain!"
"Aye?" said Sarf, supervising the unloading of cargo. "What would ye?"
"When do you mean to sail?"
"Tomorrow morn, Bákh willing, as soon as we finish loading."
Later Alicia said: "He seems to like us. When he finishes loading, I'll tackle him about hiding us."
When the last basket, jar, and crate had been carried ashore, Alicia went to the captain and spoke earnestly and long—so long that Roqir sank behind the trees and Reith became uneasy. At last she returned, while Sarf hastened down the pier towards the town.
"I had some trouble with him," she said. "But I got what I was after. Now he's gone off on a drinking date with some cronies."
"What did he say?" asked Reith and Marot together.
"Any friend of his cousin Sainian is a friend of his; so he'll help. We talked about ways of concealment in case the priests come aboard looking for us. The only way that makes sense is to hide us among those big bags of ore in the hold."
"What shall we do with the ore, while we're tied up in the sacks?" asked Reith.
"That's the problem. Sarf said that, much as he wished to befriend us, he couldn't dump three bagfulls of good ore overboard to make room for us. He'd show up at Jazmurian three bags short. I suggested dumping the ore in some corner of the hold, but the idea horrified him. He runs a neat little ship.
"He proposed that one of us go ashore and buy three bags of the same design for us to hide in. He even lent me the money and gave me directions to the ship chandler's shop, three blocks west along the waterfront. I'll go if you like—"
"Not you!" said Reith. "This is a tough neighborhood, and some of the local hooligans might think it fun to gang-bang a Terran woman. Since I speak the best Mikardandou, I'd better go"
"I should go, too, to guard your back," said Marot.
"Hm." Reith hesitated. "Yes, I guess you'd better. Be sure to wear your sword!"
They found the chandler's shop, just as the proprietor was fastening his shutters. "Closed for the night!" he snapped.
Wanting to yell with frustration, Reith turned a dangerous red. Marot whispered: "Let me, Fergus." Then to the chandler he began: "Sir, do you know Captain Sarf bad-Dudán?"
"Aye, an old customer. What of him?"
"He has sent us hither on an urgent errand. He carries a load of ore in sacks. Three sacks have burst, spilling fragments about the hold. He begs—"
"He never bought those sacks from me!" said the chandler. "My sacks have only the best canvas and are double-stitched. He must have picked them up from one of those cheap-Jack dealers in Jazmurian."
"In any case," Marot resumed, "he begs you to sell him three of your superior sacks to confine the spilled ore before he makes delivery." When the chandler hesitated, Marot added: "He instructed me to tell you that it is a desperate emergency. He hopes for the sake of future transactions that you can accommodate him."
"Oh, very well," growled the chandler, folding back his shutters. "What size?"
"I know not the exact dimensions," said Reith, "but they hold—" In English he asked: "What's thirty kilos in Mikardandou pounds, Aristide?"
"About fifty, I think," replied Marot. Reith translated.
"That were a Number Four heavy-duty," said the chandler. "Come inside." He rummaged among piles of canvas, coils of rope, racks of tools, and jars of paint and tar until he found what he sought. He slapped down three sacks of heavy, dun-colored canvas. "One kard fifty, an ye please."
"A moment," said Reith, fumbling for the money. "Aristide, wouldn't you like a real bag for your fossils instead of that stiff, awkward hide?"
"You are right, Fergus." When the chandler had added a fourth bag to the pile, they paid and left with sighs of relief.
Back at the ship, in the gathering dusk, they found a big-eyed Alicia at the rail. She looked pale and shattered. "Fergus!" she called in a half-whisper.
"Yes?" said Reith.
"Do you know what happened while you were gone?"
"How should we? Tell us!"
"A Bákhite priest and four armed guards came aboard. After some argument with the crew, the priest cornered me and told me Her Holiness, High Priestess Lazdai, desires forthwith the presence of you and the bone-seeker."
"Did he say what for?" asked Reith.
"Only something about 'further questioning'."