The mummy lying on a sculptured catafalque beyond the glass was amazingly well preserved—far more lifelike and immensely older than anything Egypt had yielded. Long-dead Martian embalmers had done a good job even on what to them was the corpse of an other-world monster.
He had been a small wiry man. His skin was dark though its color might have been affected by mummification. His features suggested those of the Forest Indian. Beside him lay his flaked-stone ax, his bone-pointed spear and spear thrower, likewise preserved by a marvelous chemistry.
Looking down at that ancient nameless ancestor, Dalton was moved to solemn thoughts. This creature had been first of all human-kind to make the tremendous crossing to Mars—had seen its lost race in living glory, had died there and became a museum exhibit for the multiple eyes of wise grey spiderish aliens.
“Interested in Oswald, sir?”
Dalton glanced up and saw an attendant. “I was just thinking—if he could only talk! He does have a name, then?”
The guard grinned. “Well, we call him Oswald. Sort of inconvenient, not having a name. When I worked at the Metropolitan we used to call all the Pharaohs and Assyrian kings by their first names.”
Dalton mentally classified another example of the deep human need for verbal handles to lift unwieldy chunks of environment. The professional thought recalled him to business and he glanced at his watch.
“I’m supposed to meet Dr. Oliver Thwaite here this morning. Has he come in yet?”
“The archeologist? He’s here early and late when he’s on Earth. He’ll be up in the cataloguing department now. Want me to show you—”
“I know the way,” said Dalton. “Thanks all the same.” He left the elevator at the fourth floor and impatiently pushed open the main cataloguing room’s glazed door.