“The village,” Burton explained as they drew up to the great stone gate, “isn’t nearly as well preserved as this site. We actually started our work there. There’s still a team at that site, but I moved the base camp here because this—” He made a sweeping gesture at the lichen covered walls, “—will likely yield much more fruit. Has already, in fact. Nyami’s more interested in the village than I am. It’s the cultural anthropologist in her.”
Rhys nodded, studying the scaffolded archway above them. Made of large blocks of ruddy-mellow stone, its sculpted haunch served as the centerpiece of the cool-toned front wall. Behind the scaffolding that partially covered it, Rhys could just make out a large, central figure. “Ets-eket again?”
Burton smiled. “Indeed. Flanked by a fine bas relief. And it’s in as remarkable shape as everything else here. You’ll find Ets-eket is well-represented hereabouts.” He led the way beneath the arch into the central plaza and Rhys was struck again by the sheer magnitude of the place.
Workers were already crawling over and around the buildings, carrying tools, instruments, finds trays. Rhys brought his eyes back to the tower where Scott Buchanan directed traffic for the group digging away the fall of soil and humus at its base. “That’s brick, isn’t it?”
Burton nodded. “Kiln fired, too, not Sun dried. We’re hoping to find the entrance within the next week or so.”
They toured each of the buildings in turn. What Burton called the Chapel had apparently been divided into several small rooms; the niche in which he’d discovered the Ets-eket icon was halfway up a broken wall next to a ruined doorway. The larger buildings—Temples One and Two, for the sake of identification—had been partitioned sparingly. Several small rooms ringed the perimeter of the huge main chambers which were buried in centuries of compost and littered with debris from the fallen roofs and overshadowing forest. Among the detritus of ages, diggers worked in their gridded areas, taking a decidedly horizontal approach to the site.
Rhys peered over shoulders, chatted with workers, and took notes on everything. In Temple One, he commented on the series of large rectangular depressions along the back wall. Burton immediately led him to one that was being excavated. The trough was lined with finely planed slabs of the native granite and looked as though it may have had at one time a highly polished facing. They ’d already dug down about four feet and had discovered literally hundreds of potsherds.
“We suspect this was a storage area,” Burton told him. “Possibly for foodstuffs the priests ate or used ritually. Or perhaps a burial cache of goods for the next life.” He shot Rhys a sharp glance. “We will find a burial.”
“The burial of Ets-eket?”
“Or of his mortal stand-in.”
“You think he’s a local or regional deity, then, rather than a ruler of some sort.”
“He could be both. Think of Osiris and his relationship to the pharaohs of Egypt. But Ets-eket’s influence is hardly regional, Doctor. There are ruins half a continent away with these same structures and images. Generally they’re in much worse shape —too bad, because it seems some of them were built on a grander scale even than this. But the cult of Ets-eket evidently extended to most of the inhabited regions of this planet.”
Rhys raised a flamboyantly red brow. “That’s amazing. In fact, it’s unprecedented.”
Burton grinned from ear to ear. “Now you understand my excitement over this find.”
“Well, if it’s that wide-spread, that rather removes it from cult status. It’s more likely you’re looking at the relics of a major world religion.”
“Dear boy… Yoshi, at Rhys’s shoulder, cringed at the patronizing note of rebuke in the professor’s voice, “we’re talking about the icon-ridden worship of a nature deity. I’ve read your treatises on xeno-religion. I don’t mean to sound disapproving, but they reek of cultural relativism.”
Rhys blushed to the roots of his hair. “I’m sorry you disagree so strongly with my theories.”
“Theories?” Burton laughed heartily and clapped Rhys’s shoulder. “My dear boy, theories can be supported by evidence. Your abstractions on the common roots of alien and human religion are dabbles in philosophy. Ah, but it’s engaging reading, Rhys! You’re a damn fine writer. Now, come, I want to show you the relief over the front gate.” His arm around the younger man’s shoulders, Sir Burton drew him away into the full sunlight of the outer plaza.
Yoshi, lagging behind, bit the inside of her lip to keep from saying something she might later regret. Rhys’s work in xeno-religion, she knew, was the heart and soul of his anthropological world. It was clear Burton had no idea how close to his colleague’s heart of hearts he’d stuck his egoistic dagger.
Watching her, Rick leaned in close to her presently red ear. “I heard that stream of mental abuse. Come on, Yosh, don’t blow a sealant ring. I think your ‘big brother’ can probably defend himself if verbal fisticuffs break out. I thought he took all that wallah pretty well, don’t you?”
“He shouldn’t have to defend himself. Not to Dr. Burton. He has nothing but respect for that man. He doesn’t deserve to be patronized.
“Respect?” Rick steered her out of the Temple One and into the plaza. “I’d say he idolizes him.”
“Yes, I can tell. I’m not blind.”
“Ouch! Yoshi Umeki, you, of all people, should understand that a little hero worship can be good for the soul. And for the career. You wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t made a hero of a certain Scotsman.”
“It’s not at all the same thing. First of all, I was sixteen when I met Rhys, and a sophomore in college. We have a student-mentor relationship because that’s what I am until I earn my doctorate—his student. Rhys is a grown man and has a double degree of his own. He’s at least Burton’s equal, but he doesn’t see that and Burton’s not about to encourage him to.”
“So let me get this straight. You hate Burton because you think Rhys likes him too much.”
“I don’t hate him. I don’t even know him. I just don’t believe he’s bigger than life.”
“Uh-huh. Which is why you snarl secretly every time he opens his mouth. You know what I think? I think you’ve become overly protective of our dear professor of antiquities. And I’m beginning to think it goes a little deeper than that pseudosibling defense mechanism you’ve been packing for the last three years.”
“Where’d you get the degree in psychology, Doctor Halfax? More Fool U.?” Her golden skin suffused with rose, Yoshi pulled out of his light grasp and strode ahead of him.
At the great stone gate, they joined the two archaeologists conversing below the scaffolded facade. “As you can see,” Burton was saying, gesturing to where several people worked next to the carving of Ets-eket, “flanking the icon are twin reliefs. We’ve got a four-foot-panel pretty well restored.” Waving, he caught Tzia’s eye. “Why don’t you all make room up there? I’d like to show off for our guests.”
Tzia gave a peculiarly reptilian version of a human nod, her entire head rising and falling, and shooed her crew of three off the scaffold. Burton had just set foot on the bottom of the access ladder when his comlink chirped. It was Wayne Bell, calling him to the Chapel. He bid the others continue and left, promising to return quickly.
Rhys climbed the ladder eagerly with Yoshi close behind. When she glanced back at Rick, he shook his head and stuffed his hands in the pockets of his khakis. “That scaffold looks like my worst nightmare. I’m going to go prowl around those big square pits in the back of the complex, see what’s being dug up there.”