The dig site was vast and golden, wavering with the heat of the sun. Most of it had already been excavated; two years, and they were almost done. There hadn’t been much. Didn’t seem like there would be much of anything left. The planet was bare. They’d only found a handful of fossils, and, as if to apologize for the lack of goods, they’d dug up one complete skeleton. A rare find, but hardly enough to compensate for two years wasted in a barren desert, sweating every possible scrap of liquid in their bodies.
Ahivo slumped against his puddle of dirt, wiping his brow with the back of his hand. More dust came off it than sweat.
“Actually getting tired, Ahivo?” the grinning face of a co-worker peered over the edge of his own hole.
Ahivo jerked his head to the side, as if to shake it, and grunted,” The heat.”
“Yeah, I get you. One more week, bud, and we’ll be back in the cool confines of space.”
And looking for another dig. The routine was endless.
“Five days,” said Ahivo. He yawned and stretched back out over the rough sands, tiny rock pick and sand brush in hand.
They weren’t going to find anything. He knew, the overseer knew, everyone knew. They were just wasting time until the ship came to take them back to civilization.
The sandstone slid away easily with each tentative chip of his pick. Crumbling from clumps to fine grains and sliding away with a flick of his brush. Rock, rock, rock… The pick dug into something hard and stuck fast. There was a crack, as if stone or bone were splitting. Ahivo’s eyes widened.
Petrified bone.
It probably wasn’t much. Just a forearm or leg bone, maybe even just a toe. They’d probably found a scattered amount of these already. They didn’t need anymore.
But it was something, and it could be something important. But if it was, that meant months still to go before they left the desert heat. Months before he saw fresh water, clear and bright, rather than the mud-like sludge the cooks had to feed them to keep them hydrated.
Ahivo swiped his brush rapidly over the bone. Hoping, perhaps, that it wasn’t bone at all. Maybe just an unusual rock. Maybe just a hallucination, a mirage, that had crept into his brain from all the heat.
He squeezed his eyes shut and flicked his ears back with a muted groan.
It wasn’t. It was bone. It was fossil. He knew it.
“H-hey,”he sat up, squinting against the burning horizon. He waved a hand toward the overseer,”Hey! I…I found something.”
Groans filled the air around him.
It was three months before they returned to civilization.
.:.:.::.:.:.
“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”
‘She’ was. Towering well over twenty feet high, sporting a total of six legs that dangled different heights from her spine. Her heads, for there were two, were long and slender, with wide spaces for eyes, and a mouth full of long, serrated teeth. She was big, beautiful, and never before seen.
She was, of course, only a model. The real thing was tucked safely away behind doors, for the biologists to poke and prod at.
“How you found a new species on that planet, I’ll never guess.”
Ahivo stirred, his hands twisting awkwardly behind his back. It wasn’t as if they were actually talking about him, of course. They weren’t told who it was who actually came across the remains of…the yet to be named species.
“Absolutely magnificent,” said one of the scientists, stretching out a hand to rub the forearm of her middle set of limbs,” We’ve got to think up a name for her. Who found her?”
“Ahivo Nounce, sir,” the overseer, Tien, a tall, brawny man, who was just as good at Latin as he was at digging. Which is to say, a hell of a lot better than a great many other people. He was one of the senior workers on Ahivo’s team. Been there longer than the rest. Hence why he was an overseer.
Ahivo shifted again, pressing the knuckles of his left hand against his lips.
The pair of biologists cast him a quick glance. They nodded silently between themselves and turned back to the fossil.
Tien made his way toward the fidgeting ‘roo, slapping a heavy hand on his shoulder,” It was a good find.”
“Thank-you, sir.” He shrank a little, resisting the urge to wring his tail in his hands.
“It’s damn hard to find complete skeletons, let alone those of a new species.”
“Thank-you, sir.”
Tien’s grip tightened,” And as much as I appreciate you’re contribution to our research,” his voice changed suddenly, from appraising to a whispered hiss,”Don’t. Do that. Again..”
“Yes, sir.” He wouldn’t. Never again. How stupid of him, choosing his job over the happiness of his co-workers. How bloody stupid. It wouldn’t have hurt anyone not to have found the fossil. Not a single soul.
Tien moved away, slapping him on the back once more in mock-friendliness,” Good job, Ahivo. Keep up the good work.”
Ahivo nodded wordlessly, swallowing hard.
.:.:.::.:.:.
A week later the Labyrinth, largest space-station come museum, had reached her final destination and was ready to dock until the next excavation point was mapped out. Ahivo was anxious to get off the ship. Life had been little better than solitary confinement for the past month, shucked into his room and afraid to face the angry stares of co-workers. Nothing could last forever, though. As per usual, the team was rounded up and sent to the mess hall for a final farewells and list of dates they should return at.
“Alright team,” said Tien, grinning drunkenly atop a table,” We’re about to make our final landing in Star City. Anyone who wishes to stay on the museum may do so-“
The room was filled with a cacophony of ‘boo’s and crude, barking laughter.
“But the rest of you are free to do whatever you please for two months, until we’ve got the next dig set up.”
Cheers this time. Beer mugs were thumped against the table tops, accompanied by the stamping of feet. Ahivo glanced down at his own, oversized, elongated, and built for hopping, of the dashed odd ways of locomotion. He wiggled them a little before returning his attention to Tien.
“I congratulate you for finding what you did.”
“Barren piece of shit planet!” someone called out. The room erupted into laughter once again.
Tien lifted his glass to salute the words,” That it was, that it was,” he chuckled a little himself,” But it did produce two full skeletons, and one undiscovered species.”
Ahivo ducked his head, squishing himself as far as he could into the corner of his seat. A few patrons muttered and glanced over their shoulders in his direction. He refused to look up at them.
It was an excellent find, he reminded himself, and they had no reason to stay angry at him. Once the memories of the desert were gone they wouldn’t care. They’d be happy even. It was an excellent find.
“Hey.”
Ahivo glanced upward, ears perked. His digging partner from the excavation met his gaze, a sort of lopsided half-smile forced onto his lips. Catching Ahivo’s eye, he widened said smile further, flashing teeth,” Don’t let them get to you, aye? It was an excellent find.”
Ahivo managed a bit of a smile and nodded,” Thank-you.”
.:.:.::.:.:.
The Labyrinth made her landing in Star City’s hanger deck moments after the celebration. Anxious to get off the ship and to breath some new (albeit recycled) air, the entire paleontology crew ambled drunkenly from the mess hall into the shining, metallic streets of Star City. Ahivo, although much more sober than the rest of his peers, followed after them. The following didn’t last long, though, for as soon as the streets got busy the group began to separate, scurrying off in different pods, pairs, and trios of friends to enjoy the change of scenery.
Ahivo went by himself.
It wasn’t as if he was isolating himself on purpose. He wanted friends, or at the very least, friendly acquaintances. He was lonely, and there was nothing worse than being lonely and the focus of one’s fellow worker’s ill-contempt But the fact remained that he, Ahivo, was not one of the most popular people on his work team, and his job wouldn’t permit him to keep close relations with anyone else (years on a barren planet, accompanied by a couple weeks, maybe a month or two, on the mother ship didn’t lead to making best friends with anyone not in one’s field of expertise).
So he made up his mind. He’d done the thinking, the planning, the working out of consequences (not that there would be many, but one must always be prepared), and he’d decided.
The building loomed before him, deep, dark metallic colors glimmering with the reflection of florescent bulbs. Ahivo sucked his bottom lip into his mouth and stepped inside.
“Draconic Ministry Relations, how can we help you?”
“I…I’d like to sign up for candicy. I want to bond a dragon.”