Free Ancestor's World by A. C. Crispin, T. Jackson King Page A

reminded him, as they reached the double doors and stepped out into heat that felt like a blast furnace. The air seemed to suck every bit of moisture from her skin, mouth, and throat in a bare second.
    "And, speaking of following rules, Doctor Mitchell, aren't you aware that weapons are restricted on alien worlds by CLS regs?"
    Mitchell opened the door of the small ground skimmer and waved her past him. His eyes narrowed, but his smile did not waver. "I suppose I should have taken it off before I came into town," he said, with a complete lack of regret. "But I'm so used to wearing it that I forget I have it on."
    "Pulse-guns are dangerous weapons," Mahree said. "I must insist that you remove it, Doctor." She sat there, scowling and fuming, as the archaeologist walked around the skimmer and slid into the driver's seat.
    "Pulse-guns are dangerous?" Mitchell started the skimmer and gave her a sardonic look. "Well, y'know what, Ambassador Burroughs? They aren't nearly as dangerous as the two blasters I keep in my footlocker at camp."
    "Blasters?" Mahree was genuinely horrified. "What if one of the Na-Dina got hold of one? They could do terrible damage completely by accident!"
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    Mitchell slammed on the brake and turned to regard Mahree. All traces of laid-back good humor were gone, and the backwoods accent had
    completely vanished. "You listen to me, Ambassador. I have permits for these weapons. The CLS recognizes that the canyon country of Ancestor's World is full of dangerous predators--and there has been one murder already. This gun stays right here on my hip, and nothing you can say is going to change that. I keep my guns locked up when I'm not there. I've had guns since I was a boy in Tennessee, and I know how to handle them responsibly. Do we understand each other?"
    Without waiting for her to answer, he turned away and the skimmer moved forward again.
    Mahree was quiet for several minutes, thinking hard. She was going to have to work with this man for weeks, possibly a couple of months. Making him angry was counterproductive. She knew that possession of blasters was illegal even if he had permit for the pulse-guns. Still, if he kept them locked up ... You 're supposed to be a diplomat, she reminded herself, but you've been acting like a priggish bureaucrat. She wiped futilely at the sweat trickling down her face and into the neck of her jumpsuit.
    "It's early summer," Mitchell said, with no trace of rancor in his voice. "Now you know why the Na-Dina evolved without sweat glands. And why they worship pools of cool water."
    Okay, Mahree. Be diplomatic.
    Mahree took a deep breath, then forced a smile. "How about we start over?"
    Holding out her hand, she added, "Hi. I'm Mahree Burroughs, who is usually nicer than this. Dying of heat exhaustion has made me grumpy, I'm afraid. I hope you've got something cool to drink."
    The archaeologist nodded amiably, smiled, then reached over and shook her hand. "I'm Gordon Mitchell. Call me Gordon, please. And yes, I've got some iced tea stashed under that dashboard. Help yourself."
    Mahree rescued the container from under the dash, swallowed some wonderfully cold tea, then watched as they headed for a distant stone-paved street. She could see
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    clearly through the one-way polarization in the skimmer windows.
    The streets of Spirit were crowded with Na-Dina steam buggies, animal-drawn-carts, and hundreds of Na-Dina on foot, their blue-scaled bodies a splash of bright color against the brown and green landscape. She pointed at the milling crowd. "Too bad the others can't see this. I feel like I've traveled back in time to ancient Cairo, or Baghdad."
    "I know what you mean." Gordon waved ahead, gesturing at the dozen stone temples rising from the center of Spirit and the low blocks of residential neighborhoods that filled the irrigated valley. Ahead of them, in the center of the city, flat-topped stone pyramids rose for twenty stories about the rest of the city. "You know, Ms. Burroughs,