"Charles L. Harness-The Araqnid Window" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harness Charles L)

The Araqnid Window
by Charles L. Harness
This story copyright 1974 by Charles L. Harness.Reprinted by permission of Linn Prentiss.This copy
was created for Jean Hardy's personal use.All other rights are reserved. Thank you for honoring the
copyright.

Published by Seattle Book Company, www.seattlebook.com.

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1. Archeology 411
***


Every morning, for many years, right after he turned off the alarm clock, and whether he was on
campus or in the field, Professor Speidel had permitted himself a brief visionary moment.
He saw a list of names:
Jean Champollion, Rosetta Stone, 1822.
Sir Henry Layard, Nineveh, 1845.
Heinrich Schliemann, Troy, 1870.
Sir Flinders Petrie, Egypt, 1880.
Sir Arthur Evans, Knossos, 1900.
Sir Leonard Woolley, Ur, 1922.
Hon. Jacques Derain, Ferria, 2095.
DR. REITER SPEIDEL, Araqnia, 21-- .
Yes!
He might have doubts and reservations about some things. He doubted that the terrestrial Stone Age
stopped and the Bronze Age began sharply at 2,000 B.C. He doubted that Egypt was older than Sumer.
He doubted that the Mayan cities had died because of local soil exhaustion. But there was one thing that
he knew for certain, and which he did not doubt. And that was that he, and he alone, was destined to
discover the home civilization of the elusive Araqnids. The name of Speidel would be entered in the hall
of fame along with other archeological greats. And from this fame would come great influence and
power, and money. He would wave his hand, and scores of assistants would put together beautifully
illustrated texts on Araqnia. The stereo frontispiece would show him leaning modestly on a shovel, beside
a complete piece of the most delicate Araqnid statuary, done doubtless in alabaster. The statue would be
sitting on a black velvet cloth spread out at the very spot where it had been teased out of the dig site. He
would be smiling. It would be a faint, very wise, very confident smile.
Everything was certain but the date. This morning, as he slowly rose from his cot and fished for his
slippers, he had a presentiment that he would make it this summer. He had a good group on this field
seminar. One or two exceptions; of course, such as he always had in a group this size. But by and large,
most were competent. In a couple of weeks he would be finished here at the base line, and he would
send them out in several search parties to other likely sites where Araqnid artifacts had already been
found. They knew what to look for. Somewhere on this very Earth-like planet of Ferria were the ruins of
a city with a technology so advanced that they had visited all the outlying sun systems of the local star
cluster over three thousand years ago. But then, very suddenly, they had disappeared, almost without a
trace.
It would have to be this year. He was seventy. The Department was going to retire him. Lack-Coeur,
the Departmental Head, had told him so, months before the expedition. "No chance of staying on
afterward, Speidel. Nothing in the budget. Sorry."