The Artifact of Foex Read Online Free PDF Page B

old days around here. Chet, can you get our
stuff later?”
    Chet nodded. “She’ll destroy your things if
she finds them. She’s vengeful like that.”
    “Is it true that she owns this dig site?”
    “Outright. She bought it from the city for a
huge lump sum of money. They closed this spring, which is why we
just started.”
    The Flame exchanged a significant look, then
dug faster. They’d long ago reached the body’s torso. Chet didn’t
want to accidentally hit—and damage—the hands, still covered in
dust. There was movement from the corner of his eye, and he glanced
up.
    One of the younger graduate students was
stepping between the pits and headed in their direction. He called,
“Chet, do you mind if I—oh, Pantheon. Oh,
Pantheon!
Look,
everyone! A body! They’re uncovering a human
body!
”
    Journey rolled her eyes and sat back on her
heels. “That’s done it.”
    Knife shot Chet an exasperated look. “You’ve
been digging here how long, and you haven’t even found a body,
yet?”
    Chet shrugged, nonplussed.
    Journey put in, “They haven’t even found a
live ceros yet. Told you they were going slow. Archaeologists,
huh.”
    It became a mob scene. Graduate students
gently tugged at the legs and discussed the style of clothing.
Lively debate and more digging determined that the hands had to be
above the body’s head, like those of a diver. Fenimore LaDaven,
Chet realized, hadn’t fallen into the lucid mud—he’d dived. From
the angle of the body, it hadn’t been a shallow dive, either. Had
it been a scramble, sheets of monsoon rain coming down and
engulfing everything, even rational thought? He could imagine the
scene so clearly... the dive was not the act of a timid man.
    There were silences behind Knife’s words, so
many significant gaps. Chet wondered how many details had been left
out for the sake of the story, and how many had been left out
because of delicate information.
    Knife is a spy,
he thought abruptly.
And he’s been a spy since forever
.
    The graduate students uncovered the head,
replete with lots of hair. The arms were still missing, shoulders
clearly articulated above his head. A dive, indeed. The body still
refused to be removed from the soil, as if it were stuck. Graduate
students who normally spent hours—days, even weeks—uncovering
artifacts, scrambled into action. Rope was found and tied to the
body’s ankles, then people formed a line as if they were in a
contest at a country fair. Caught in the moment, no one pointed out
how illogical their actions were. They tugged once, twice. Tthe
body shot out of the ground as if pulled by the roots. Fenimore’s
arms were whole, Chet noticed thankfully. He had long, bony
fingers, beautifully articulated.
    “Get his mouth and nose clear," Journey
called out.
    No one was listening. Knife put two fingers
in his mouth and whistled; Chet covered his ears reflexively.
Silence followed. Knife opened his hand to Journey, who repeated
herself and added, “He’ll need to breathe.”
    “Breathe?
Breathe?
But he’s
dead
," people murmured to one another, momentarily
stunned.
    Chet had to do something. “Someone get me
water.”
    Water was found. Chet held his breath, eyes
wide, as he washed LaDaven’s exposed skin, then began trickling
water into his open mouth. The moment stretched. In the breathless
silence, Chet studied the man’s face. Beneath the dust, Fenimore
LaDaven was... Chet gulped. Beneath the dust, LaDaven was a
romantic dream. His closed eyes were set wide apart with lashes a
girl would envy. His mouth was full and sensual. An arrow-straight,
aristocratic nose. He, too, was fallow skinned: the race of
superiority and colonialism on Uos. Chet imagined his long hair,
once clean, might be golden brown and puffy, like a cloud. Holding
his limp body was extraordinary—though not precisely alive, it
wasn’t corpse-like either. Chet had never realized how beautiful a
man could be.
    No, that wasn’t true. Chet had always