Gods and Pawns Read Online Free PDF Page B

through the mesh. “And I guess we really should see if we can dig out any more of the gear that got buried. Just so some Victorian explorer doesn’t stumble on it and claim it’s evidence for colonists from Atlantis.”
    A few strands of her hair were stuck to the side of her face. Lewis, unable to stop himself, reached out and smoothed them back. She pretended not to notice.
    “Do you want to go any farther afield to look for your maize?”
    “Teosinte. No…I think I’ve found pretty much everything there is to find, there,” she said. “I’m starting to be more interested in the place itself.”
    Lewis nodded. “It must have been quite an engineering feat on somebody’s part.”
    “There had to have been a huge resident population to build it all, and then to keep the land in production. I want to do some tests on the fruit trees here, to see if there’s much genetic difference from the cultivars grown in other parts of Amazonia.”
    “Okay,” said Lewis, unzipping the mesh and crawling out before the conversation could get more botanocentric. He dressed himself, performed such ablutions as were possible, and wandered off to see if he could find any more guavas for breakfast.
    There was a bearing tree just at the edge of the slide precipice. He approached with caution, so busy scanning for unstable earth that he didn’t notice the view until it was right before his eyes. When he did notice it, though, he stopped in his tracks, openmouthed.
    The land had become a shallow sea, sky-reflecting as a mirror, brilliant blue. The high mounds rose from the water, an archipelago of green gardens, and on their lower slopes grew purple flowers. Macaws sailed out on brilliant wings, blue and gold, scarlet and green, between the islands. All of it in dreamlike silence, but for the rustling of their wings; not a bird or a monkey cried anywhere.
    Mendoza came up behind him and gazed out.
    “Beautiful,” she said.
    “Another Eden,” said Lewis, but she shook her head.
    “Mortals built this place,” she said, and went to the guava tree and picked the fruit.
     
    They put their waders and ponchos back on and made their slow way down the hill after breakfast, paralleling the smooth chocolate-colored track of the slide, digging into the mud at the bottom with camp shovels. They found Lewis’s sleeping bag, very much the worse for wear, and a case of bottled water.
    “And there was great rejoicing,” said Mendoza, hoisting it on her shoulder. “Let me get this up the hill into the shade.”
    “I think I see the flamecube,” said Lewis, poking with the handle of his shovel.
    “Oh, good. That’d really give the Von Danikenists something to talk about, wouldn’t it, if that got left behind?” She set the water down and came back to peer into the slush. Lewis raked with the upper edge of the shovel and levered up a corner of the cube. Before it sank into the muck once more, Mendoza was able to reach down and grab hold.
    “Oh, no, you should have let me—”
    “It’s all right, just back up a little so I can—”
    “Really, let me—”
    So busy were they that neither one of them noticed the mortal’s approach.
    He was within arrowshot when they looked up and saw him at last, and then they stared in disbelief.
    He was an ancient mortal, poling along toward them in a flat-bottomed skiff. His boat was elaborately carved to represent some kind of water bird. It moved without a sound across the glassy water, leaving no more wake than a dream. His own garments were elaborate, too, woven cotton in several colors and a headdress of bright macaw feathers, and little pendant ornaments of shell and hammered gold.
    He brought his skiff up to the edge of the mound and stopped, leaning on the pole.
    “Good morning,” he said.
    They did a fast linguistic access and realized that he was speaking in a Taino dialect, though his accent was strange and archaic.
    “Good morning, sir,” Lewis replied, in Taino.
    “You