Free Beneath the Eye of God (The Commodore Ardcasl Space Adventures Book 1) by Lee Payne

forest.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 6
     
     
    The overgrown road brought them to the lost city. They had investigated a number of ruins along the way but these turned out to be mainly small isolated complexes, connected with the road and the traffic that once passed over it. Only two of the mounds had been associated with others farther off in the forest. In both these cases, closer examination revealed a small cluster of mounds centered on a much larger one which the scanners found to be a stepped pyramid, flat-topped and crowned by an ornate temple. A laser burn showed both pyramids to be nearly twice the age of the road, 1,200 years for one and 1,400 years old for the other. Each had been built and rebuilt several times with the oldest structures used as a foundation for the newer ones raised on top of them. At the very core of the pyramid they found only a simple raised platform of mud-brick coated with a thin layer of plaster and topped by a wood or thatch building little different from those in which the early people lived. That simple temple had long since turned to dust and been replaced by the stone temples that, layer upon layer, entombed it.
    "When your neighbor sets his hut up on a platform higher than yours, watch out," the Commodore said as they watched the computer print a portrait of the long-buried structure. "Next thing you know, your descendents will be spending the next thousand years bowing down to a bunch of kings or gods."
    Elor sat before the console, his long fingers playing skillfully across the keyboard guiding the scanners' invisible probes. "Without those kings and gods, there would be none of the pretty artifacts we have come so far to find," he said.
    "Oh, I appreciate the multi-headed idols with their jeweled eyes, the crowns, the books of ancient wisdom and all that. I'm just not convinced that any of it did much good for the poor slob who had to haul all these stones up to the top of this pyramid."
    "He must get something out of it," Elor replied evenly, "or he wouldn't keep doing it, eon after eon on planet after planet from one end of the galaxy to the other."
    "Well, until you college types get all his motives figured out, I'll continue to think that anything beyond a cold beer and a hot wench is beside the point."
    Erol had been repositioning a scanner on top of the mound. Now he climbed down and perched on a tree branch above their heads. "If that were the case, you'd still be living with those triplets on Kalnat IV."
    "Ah, the triplets." The Commodore's eyes glazed over and his hand stopped in mid-swing, allowing an insect on the tip of his ear to complete its busy probing and fly away with a full load of blood. "And the beer was the coldest," he said as he rubbed the spot where the intruder had attacked.
    "Ohan, my boy, if anyone ever offers you a lift to the Kalnat system . . . " He paused and looked at Ohan who began to fidget under his scrutiny. "Ah, well, perhaps you need a bit more seasoning, a little more time under my expert tutelage.
    "But what was my point? I'm sure it wasn't the triplets. Confound you, Erol. How is the boy to learn anything if you keep sidetracking every philosophical discussion we . . . Ha! It was the triplets. Take ninety-nine percent of these poor dull savages and transport them to Kalnat IV, and they'd be content. All the kings and gods in all the galaxies in all the universe couldn't give any of these poor drudges half the bliss that the triplets could.
    "So why did I leave? That was your question, wasn't it, Erol? Because I'm not your ninety-nine percent. Warm triplets and cold beer indeed! I've seen the common man's heaven and passed it by. I've gambled away the treasures that dynasties of kings have plundered empires to possess. And you ask why?" He glared at Ohan who, startled, shook his head no, then yes, unsure of which question he had been asked.
    The Commodore gave him an indulgent pat. "Because I'm an adventurer,