“You love to explore and find the forest’s secrets, don’t you? Make sure you mark its location and keep an eye on its progress.” Beneto placed a warm hand on her shoulder. “In the coming days, the worldforest may have many important tasks for us green priests, but I promise I will be there so we can watch it hatch together.”

22MARGARET COLICOS

Rheindic Co called out to Margaret like an ancient book filled with secrets, a book that waited to be opened. The desert was raw and rich with muted colors, browns and ochres, tans and rusts. So much to see and explore, but so much work to do setting up camp before they could get started.

She looked out upon the mysterious wasteland. They had chosen a site near the most obvious Klikiss ghost city, though the slot canyons and banded cliff sides might hold innumerable other settlements.

Beside her, Louis wiped the back of his hand across his forehead, scattering perspiration. He leaned over to give her a polite kiss on the cheek. “We’ve been to worse planets, dear.”

Chairman Wenceslas had given the Colicoses their pick of any world to investigate, and they had chosen this abandoned planet. Rocky bluffs extended like mysterious monuments under a burnt-orange sky. Lava protrusions broke the monotony of dry alkaline lakebeds that gleamed like mirage mirrors.

Arroyos cracked the landscape where only a memory of rushing water remained.

“It’s here, old man,” Margaret said in a breathy voice. “I can sense it. I know we’ll find something. Even the Klikiss robots seem to think so.”

“I’m not one to argue.” Louis had a boyish grin on his weather-lined face. “After all these years, you’ve said ‘I told you so’ enough times that I’ll trust your instincts.” He looked appraisingly at his wife. “We’ll never know until we get our hands dirty, dear.”

A metal clanging shattered the still air as the green priest Arcas worked with a simple hydraulic assembly. The standard-issue drill pump chewed its armored bit into the ground, questing for a buried aquifer to provide fresh water. Next, he angled the solar panels that would provide energy for the camp lights, cookstoves, and comm systems, as well as their modular analysis lab and computers.

The newly purchased compy servant DD assisted him ably, though the green priest seemed somewhat nonplussed at being next to the small Friendly-model android. Margaret didn’t think the reticent Arcas actually resented the chest-high companion, but he seemed to prefer his own company.

The Colicos team worked without extravagance. Margaret and Louis laid out the plan for their base camp and erected portable aluminum-roofed sheds and polymer-walled tent structures. The litany of tedious tasks was welcome work to Margaret. She was glad to be back on a dig.

After the success of the Klikiss Torch, she and Louis had attended many celebrity functions and served as guest speakers at numerous gatherings. Hating the limelight, she had pulled every string with the Hansa to get to Rheindic Co as quickly as possible. Sarcastically, she had once muttered, “Maybe the Klikiss race really disappeared just to hide from persistent alien paparazzi.”