"What?"
In another room, not far away, Aelbraugh Pritsch, who had heard nothing about any of this, sat up straight.
Elsewhere, in the sudden silence, the brilliantly colored songfish hanging in its cage beside Mister Thoggosh's "desk" began to warble the "Funeral March of a Marionette."
The nautiloid somehow managed to convey a nod. "That was another thing I wished to speak with you about, Horatio, once we'd established whether you desired to join us on this voyage. You are entirely correct in your surmise: it seems that your Mr. Empleado, finding himself no longer gainfully employed by the American KGB, has discovered a new way of keeping himself busy. I simply wanted to give you advance warning that I intend being rather abrupt with him."
"Fair enough."
"I look forward," the Elder added, "to using your own charming expression and telling him to piss off."
Laughing quietly, the man leaned back again. "Be my guest, Mister Thoggosh. Arthur isn't really my Mr. Empleado, anyway. He's Arthur's Mr. Empleado, which ought to be punishment enough for anyone. But why, er, be abrupt with him on this particular issue . . . ?"
"When in the past he's proven himself capable of so many other kinds of foolishness? I thought you might ask about that." The nautiloid lifted a tentacle and let it drop. "To borrow yet another phrase, it's the camel's nose under the tent-flap, Horatio. Switching metaphors in the middle of the conversation, it may even be the straw that broke the camel's backthe American camel, that is."
Obviously confused, Gutierrez shook his head. "A Committee for the Preservation of Antiquities?"
"Indeed." The Elder let a few internal compartments of his massive, brightly striped shell fill with metabolic carbon dioxide, lifted it a few dozen centimeters, and resettled himself more comfortably on the sandy floor. "Horatio, if I read the historic record correctly, America didn't become the last Marxist nation on Earth overnight. Nor was it done at a single, telling blow, a la Mr. Milius's Red Dawn. It happened in a series of nasty little collectivist revolutions pulled off while nobody else was looking, in this case, literally underground.
"In many ways, the nasty little revolution within archaeology strongly resembled a similar coup which saddled your people with the so-called International Law of the Sea."
"That sounds vaguely familiar." The general frowned, trying to remember. Red Dawn. He'd seen the interview with Chuck Tai, too, thanks to a computer setup Dlee Raftan Saon had sent to the camp.
"There's certainly no reason why it should. Your electronic mass media did their usual highly efficient job of keeping the whole thing out of public view until it was too late. The scheme was inspired by the Soviet Union and enacted into international law by certain Third World dictators greedy for the technological fruitswhich they could never have produced for themselves and didn't deserveof the remnants of your nation's intellectual and economic liberty."
"Such as it was," the former general remarked sadly, almost as if to himself. The most sobering thing about the interview, he thought, was that the PRC had been imitating an America which he'd never had the chance to see himself.
Mister Thoggosh made a sympathetic noise. "Such a battle could only have been waged, of course, such a travesty of law enacted, in the General Assembly of your United Nations. Ignoring the abuses which are inevitably visited upon collectively held assetsa phenomenon known historically as the `tragedy of the commons'they established your world's oceans as the `common heritage of all mankind,' effectively forbidding private property claims and private enterprise beneath international waters and therefore any significant exploration, exploitation or, ironically, preservation, of those oceans. Another such treaty was only prevented at the last minute from damaging your hopes for the future in space."
Gutierrez nodded. "That's probably why I remember it. But what does any of this have to do with archaeology or committees for the preservation of antiquities?"
"Horatio, most of the enemies of liberty in twentieth century America were part of no real organized conspiracy I can find any lingering traces of. Yet they formed a cohesive social entity sharing a similar worldview and values. The UN collectivists had their counterparts, advocates of a parallel variety of collectivism, mostly among American academics, including those practicing archaeology, a field obscure enough that they could get away with practically anything they wished, long before anyone outside the field even took notice."
"I don't get it." Gutierrez shook his head, "Even if I accept your theory, how could they promote their cause in a field that has nothing to do with politics?"
"In a majoritarian society like yours, Horatio, everything has something to do with politics." Mister Thoggosh took a long, last sip of his beer before he went on. "These academic collectivists promoted their cause by helping to alter the unconscious assumptions on which your culture was based, and by setting certain precedents which could then be applied elsewhere. Under the noses of citizens kept ignorant by their comrades in the mass media, their political objective was to establish ancient artifacts everywhere and anywhere, discovered or as yet undiscovered, as the common heritageand perhaps more to the point, the exclusive purviewof all academickind. Much of this transparently self-serving nonsense already had the force of law by the final quarter of the last century, and wherever it hadn't, new laws were being demandedand passedevery day."
"And so they got away with it," the man shrugged, "just like they got away with everything else. But the world didn't come to an end over archaeology, did it?"
"Great oaks from little acorns, Horatio." Without asking, the Elder sent his separable tentacle for more beer and coffee. "The nation-states that passed these silly laws had no more legitimate or natural a claim to objects buried beneath them ages ago than they did to seabed manganese nodules they couldn't collect without Western help or to Moon rocks they couldn't reach at all.
"Governments seldom have any historical or ethnic connection with the long-gone individuals whose abandoned property they claim. In fact the same can be said for people occupying a given geographical area in whose name governments usually make such claims. They're seldom descended from those who left the artifacts. Frequently they aren't even of the same race or speak any related language."
"I'll give you Greece and Italy," replied a familiar voice, coming through the same speakers Mister Thoggosh used. By coincidenceor some inconceivable designthe songfish abruptly broke off with whatever it had been whistling and took up Lennon and McCartney's "Here Comes The Sun." "The people there are mostly descended from barbarians who destroyed the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations. But there are those who'll argue with you over Mexico and China."
Mister Thoggosh responded, "Good morning, Sam, it's nice to see you, if only in a figurative sense."
"That's okay, Mister Thoggosh," the disembodied voice answered. "In the sense you mean, I'm only a figurative dog at the moment. Hi there, General. I overheard my name being taken in vain and thought I'd drop in cybernetically and see what's up."
Listening from his office, Aelbraugh Pritsch groaned inwardly. Life seemed to be heaping him with one burden after another lately. Sam had been a great enough nuisance merely as an ordinary talking dog. As a noncorporeal entity capable of inhabitingof hauntingthe entire cerebrocortical implant network, he was going to be truly unbearable.
Gutierrez grinned. "What about Sam's point, Mister Thoggosh, on the Mexican and Chinese populations?"
The Elder harumphed. "I'll gladly concede any point where he's correct. However the salient issue, Horatio, is that ethnic and linguistic histories only serve as an excuseexactly like those widows and orphans I mentioned earlierfor pedigree-waving academics attempting to assert some automatic and exclusive claim to the field, employing brute government force to back them up. A desire for knowledge is understandable and commendable, but it grants no monopoly. More importantly, it confers no right to beat people up and kill themwhich is what law and government are all about, under any system of analysis."
Gutierrez shook his head. "Except that without the laws you complain of, Mister Thoggosh, all kinds of historically important artifacts and information could be lost to clumsy, inept, random digging by curiosity-seekers."
"And what is any scientist," Sam asked, "but just another curiosity-seeker?"
"Correct again, Sam." The nautiloid resettled himself on the sand. "And so, of course, is Horatioin his way. Academic archaeologists do frequently charge that the unfranchised delver fails to preserve the historic context of his finds. That may even be true. And it's unquestionably better to reclaim the past methodically.
"But when were mere data more important than life and liberty? And how can anyone take proper scientific pains while worrying that he's about to be arrested or shot in the back because he didn't purchase the right paper from some corrupt official? If historic context is so blasted important, then why not take the more realistic step of persuading and educating amateurs toward cooperationinstead of coercing and brutalizing them in the name of some unenforceable prohibition?"
"I'll have to ask Pulaski about that." Gutierrez smiled, wishing the amateur paleobiologist were here, taking part in the discussion. "Toya's the closest thing we have to an expert in the field, and with due respect, Mister Thoggosh, I've too many other matters on my mind at present to meddle where I may lay claim to no expertise at all."
"For somebody without the advantage of an implant, General, that's an impressive memory you've got."
"For trivia." Gutierrez took the last sip of his coffee. "Call me Horatio, Sam. If you overheard the original comment, then you heard me say I'm no longer a general."
"And since I'm no longer a dog, that makes us even. Okay, Horatio, you're on."
"What I don't see," Gutierrez continued, "is why you're so worked up about this archaeology business, Mister Thoggosh. Talk about ancient historywhat effect can it have three hundred million klicks from Earth? Arthurand whoever is in this with himcan't represent any serious threat to what you're doing here."
The Elder lifted tentacles in a nautiloid shrug. "I suppose it's the hypocrisy of the thing I despise. Reading transcripts of their publications, as I have for some time, it's easy to see what really moved these jealous guardians of a history whose lessons they seem to have been incapable of learningespecially when they spent so much time and effort slandering the great amateur archaeologists whose contributions to the field even they couldn't entirely deny."
"Like Howard Carter," asked the former general, "who discovered the tomb of King Tut?"
"Or Heinrich Schliemann, for another example, the oddball who supposedly dug up Troy?"
"Schliemann was the prime example I had in mind, Sam, although, as you imply, his less-gifted and persistent successors claim he didn't discover Troy at all"
"But another city of the same name in the same place."
"Quite. Whenever I hear adventurers of the past castigated for their methods, I recall that in those days the academics, when they dug at all, did their digging with dynamite, too. And not just over artifacts; they were known to conduct authentic Western-style gun battles over sites containing dinosaur fossils. It's arguable that the best methodology was worked out by these amateurs, often pursuing dreams and legends ignored or dismissed by the experts."
"It's always seemed to me," the human agreed, "that experts exist only to tell you why something can't be done."
"Just before some gifted and persistent amateur who doesn't know any better goes ahead and does it."
"My opinion exactly," Mister Thoggosh replied. "From the academic standpoint, of course, the most grievous sin of these amateurs was simply that of any amateur with regard to any established profession. They were self-appointed, self-educated, uninitiated by the guild, uncircumcised by the priesthood . . ."
"And therefore untouchable and unspeakable," Sam observed.
The giant mollusc made a chuckling noise over the same sound system the dog was using. "Whenever we speak of archaeology, Sam, amateur or professional, we must always remember that what we're really talking about is abandoned property"
" `Little bits of junk,' as Marion Ravenwood described it in Raiders of the Lost Ark"
"Thrown away by their original owners who, in any case, couldn't take it with them. Whatever legislation is passed in an absurd refusal to confront that fact of pragmatic reality"
"Among others."
"those little bits of junk belong to no one until they're physically discovered and reclaimed."
"In other words," Gutierrez offered, " `finders keepers'?"
"I like the way you put that, Horatio."
"In any case," insisted Mister Thoggosh, "the value of those bits of junk, like all material value, is subjective. Some, whose goal was treasure and glory, were reviled by academics as `looters' and `pot hunters,' pursuing that ultimate dirty word, `profit.' In the end, even collectors came to be despised, although most were moved by the same thing that presumably motivates the professional: a fascinated curiosity with the past."
"You're right there," Gutierrez agreed. "Whenever I had time, and was stationed in the right place, I used to take my sons out to look for Indian arrowheads."
"Which makes you a pot hunter, Horatio, within the customary meaning of the term. And certainly the pot hunter's right to satisfy his fascinated curiosity"
"Or any other itch."
"Indeed, Sam, or any other itch, is just as great as that of anyone with an academic degree, whose personal profit, if you will, consists of academic preeminence, scientific priority, prestigious publication, professorial tenure"
"And government grants."
"As opposed to something as clean and uncomplicated," asked the general, "as cash?"
"Precisely. Nor have I yet thought to mention the greedy, self-righteous museum directors who stuff their basements with booty forever to be kept from private hands and the public eye until one day in a distant century perhaps, it's dug up once again by future archaeologists. . . ."
Gutierrez laughed.
"How," Mister Thoggosh went on, "do we avoid the inevitable conclusion that they and their colleagues were moved by a visceral, infantile, hypocritical hatred for the very concepts of private property and individual achievement, which had nothing to do with science?"
"I sympathize with your point of view, Mister Thoggosh," Gutierrez sighed, "but you still haven't explained how archaeology became `the straw that broke the American camel's back.' "
"Forgive me, Horatio, but you Americans started with a nation-state in which any individual could make of himself anything he had the gumption for. Then you let it go a little bit at a time to minor trespasses like zoning laws and building codesor the International Law of the Seauntil no one was at liberty any longer, even to dig with his hands in the dirt and keep what he found there."
"I think I see what you're getting at, Mister Thoggosh, but"
"One state, Oklahoma, I believe it was, demanded a written inventory of each individual's personal belongings, everything from wristwatches to farm tractorsthreatening to send its minions to break into people's homes and make the inventory themselves if it was not immediately forthcomingand there was no revolt."
"But that was"
"How about the federal judge during the same period who ordered local property taxes increased, despite the clearly stated wishes of the votersand even their elected officials?"
"Your Supreme Court backed him up, Horatio, ending the last pretense to democracy in America"
"And it never occurred to anybody to take him out and string him up like he deserved!"
"Now hold on, Sam, Mister Thog"
Gutierrez's sputtering objections were waved away by more tentacles than the man could count. "Your government routinely denied any obligation on its part to defend your life, liberty, or property, Horatio, while simultaneously forbidding you the physical means of defending them yourself. At the same time, ludicrously enough, toward the end of the last century, animals had rights in America"
"Nonsapient animals, he means."
"But human beings did not."
"Well, I"
"Finally, a blatantly power-hungry pack of conservative congressman, elected on the promise of bringing freedom back to the people, instead forced `emergency' legislation through, using drugs as an excuse, which suspended the Bill of Rights altogether, destroying the last vestiges of the system of which you Americans had been so proud for so long. Justifiably proud, I might add, considering the historic context. Your liberals `responded' by adopting more and more of the tattered trappings of Marxism being shed everywhere else in the world. In the end, they were even able to create an enormous slush fund through the World Bankusing three gigantic pseudoscientific hoaxes as a pretext: acid rain, global warming, and ozone depletionto finance and enforce the sovietization process."
"Horatio might be interested to know," Sam added, "that the last capital offense on record in the Elders' culturethe last death sentence before they shed government altogetherwas reserved for politicians caught lying to the public."
"In particular," Mister Thoggosh agreed, "for public misuse of the word `emergency.' "
"Which has what to do," Gutierrez sounded impatient, "with Arthur's group and archaeology?"
"It's all of a piece, Horatio, and I don't intend for a moment even to let it begin"
Mister Thoggosh suddenly fell silent, listening to his implant. Somehow sensing the Elder's tension, even the songfish momentarily stopped its trilling.
Then: "I beg your pardon once again, my friends, but I've just received some extremely disturbing news. My assistant, Aelbraugh Pritsch, informs me that your three spacecraft, Horatio, the Laika, the Geronimo, and the John Galt"
"Have caught fire!" Sam interrupted.
"And are burning out of control on the outer surface of the canopy!"