"The possibility certainly exists. Here we are."
"But for Pete's sake! Do you really expect that they stayed long enough to build a city, or do you think you have the remains of a camp like ours, or what?"
"I don't think anything. It has been suggested that such people did come, and stayed long enough to—"
"And you think you've found them."
"I think nothing, except that I have found, with Rob's help, something which neither his professional knowledge, nor mine, nor even yours, is able to explain; and I think an explanation is desirable. I hope you won't consider me discourteous for pointing out that each time you have tried to accuse me of jumping to conclusions, you have been able to do so only by jumping to some yourself. I might further add that the suggestion that this planet had been stocked with its present supply of life types by visitors from space was advanced by a paleontologist, not by one of my colleagues. I gather he could not understand how life could evolve to the state it shows in the thirty-odd million years that the planet seems to have been solid. I neither support nor deride the idea; I simply want to gather data, in an attempt to explain a much simpler question—why are narrow threads of copper compounds to be found every few feet in the volcanic tuff filling the joints in a certain limestone hill, and why are those threads always nearly horizontal? You and Hans say they are not organic fossils, and I accept your conclusion. Rob says that there is no copper in that rock, detectable with his equipment, except within a few millimeters of the green threads. I say nothing except that I have never seen such a thing before. Under the circumstances, I fail to understand where you get the idea that I think there is a city built by the people who stocked this world thirty million years ago buried under that hill. I know I said 'city' when I first saw it, and I still think I was justified in the opinion; I have now seen evidence which causes me to admit that the vegetation pattern was not caused by artificial structures, and I dismiss the original hypothesis. I still want to dig there, and in accordance with Rob's agreement I am going to dig there, with the assistance of anyone who chooses to help. I know you want to go back to your set of leg bones in the cliff, and have no objection to your doing so. Even I can now see, on the basis of your description, that you are uncovering the fossil of a land animal; and I agree that it is of great importance to get it out intact, if possible. But if I can see the importance and even the nature of your work, why can't you do the same for mine?" The little man was leaning forward and staring intensely into Sulewayo's face by the time he finished this harangue, and Ndomi once more felt a trifle ashamed of himself. Lampert, however, saved him the need of formulating an apology.
"I'm sure Ndomi didn't mean to ridicule your work in any way, Take," he said. "We all realize perfectly that an underground phenomenon which cannot be explained at sight either by geology, paleontology or archaeology is something which requires investigation. I imagine that the best plan will be for String and me to go with you tomorrow, while the others continue their stone-cutting. Hans, just how far along are you, anyway?"
The older paleontologist thought for a moment.
"We don't really know," he said at last. "Of course, we aren't trying to get the individual bones completely free of the matrix; that will take somebody months or years. We're uncovering just enough to determine the extent of the specimen, so we can take it all out in one block—or more, of course, if it's too big. So far we can only guess at how big it is. We've uncovered with certainty two feet, and gone about half a meter along one of the attached legs. They seem to be extending straight back into the cliff, so in effect we're cutting a tunnel beside the thing. Assuming it had two main leg sections, as most of the present animals on both Earth and Viridis appear to have, we're about halfway between knee and hip joint. Of course, it might turn out to be the Viridian equivalent of a horse or chicken. In that case, we're about half way between ankle and knee. We certainly have several feet yet to penetrate before we can outline the whole block, assuming that the specimen is essentially complete. Several days, I would guess."
"Can you use any sort of power apparatus for any of your cuts?"