The obelisk showed the Mage-Imperator’s inscrutable face, wide, soft features, all-seeing eyes. He looked round and plump, like a Buddha, but Davlin sensed a sinister aspect to this depiction, a moral complexity.

From the grime on the side of the obelisk, the dirt in the cracks, the generally scuffed appearance, he could tell the workers must have dropped it on the ground several times while wrestling it from its original position. The man who had spoken mopped his forehead under Crenna’s warm daytime sun. “Don’t know what else to do with them.”

“Why would I want an ugly statue on my lawn?” asked the sweaty, soot-streaked man working beside Davlin in the ashes.

“Use your imagination. I’m figuring I could make a fountain out of it, something for the garden.”

Davlin narrowed his eyes, studying the sculpture, surreptitiously touching his imagers to store numerous frames as he walked around it. “The Ildirans must have revered these obelisks very much, if they put so many of them in their town.”

The first man’s eyes lit up. “Hey, you think they might be worth something? Would the Ildirans pay to have them back? Lost cultural treasures, maybe?”

“I don’t think they want to touch anything that comes from Crenna. They’re afraid of this place,” called a man seated on one of the purring construction machines.

Davlin made up his mind. “Okay, I’ll take it. Put it next to my house.”

“Want me to help you make it into a fountain? We could chop out part of the base, install a pump—”

“No, I just want to be reminded of the people who lived here before we did. Sentimental reasons.” He ran his fingers over the dirty exterior of the stone.

He was growing desperate to find something, anything, of importance to tell Chairman Wenceslas. So far, he had uncovered only fragments, mysteries. Everything very innocuous. Too innocuous.

Davlin couldn’t decide if the Ildirans were hiding something, or if they were entirely unaccustomed to people snooping around.

62: DD

62DD

At the base camp on Rheindic Co, DD prepared the archaeologists’ evening meal and made certain that all the duties listed in his computer mind had been taken care of for the day. His tasks were organized in a priority ranking as he went about his business, one thing after another. DD ran an efficient camp.

As a Competent Computerized Companion, his greatest joy was in performing his functions adequately, thanks to the incentive algorithms built into him. When the compy received pats on the back, he responded with demure graciousness, then filed away the details of what had prompted the praise, so he could be sure to do a similar thing again.