Really glad I went through and made a list of names before I got started.
Day 4
Ames smiled and pushed to his feet. He stood slowly, a polite gesture and not a jumping to attention he saw some of the others do when the Dean arrived on their doorstep. Dean Halliwell liked respect but he detested anyone he thought of as sucking up. Ames was always careful to stay on the respectful side.
“Dean, what a pleasant surprise,” Ames said. “I didn’t realize you would be escorting my visitor in or I would have come to the office.”
“Not a problem,” Halliwell replied waving away Ames’ concern. “I was heading over here anyway to check on things and simply walked over with Mr. Foston.”
“Which I appreciate,” the man, Foston replied. “I didn’t realize it was such a rabbit warren of offices as I’ve only been down to the classroom level.
“Part of the graduation requirement involves setting the students loose to see if they can find their way out on their own,” Ames told him with a smile. From the appearance of the dean Ames knew that either Foston was important or the project was. As the name didn’t ring any bells, Ames guessed that it was an important or at least publicly noticeable project.
“Do any of the students fail?” Foston asked with a smile.
“On occasion,” Ames said, but don’t worry, all offices come equipped with a coffee pot and we always put snacks in designated locations before we turn the students loose so they won’t starve before we can locate them. Speaking of refreshments, I was about to put on a pot of coffee, would you care for some?”
Both men accepted and as Ames waved them to the seats and went to the pot he caught a look of approval on Dean Halliwell’s face. ‘Definitely important,’ Ames thought.
As he set up the coffee pot before he left the office the night before, all that was required now was a flick of the switch to turn it to brew. Ames walked back to his chair.
“I’m afraid the message this morning was a bit vague,” Ames began. “You are from the LMC?”
“I am,” Foston replied. He opened his satchel and took out a thick file. He set it on the edge of Ames desk. The LMC is working on a development at the edge of the Pascar Mountain range. Do you know of it?”
“Medical complex isn’t it?” Ames said after a moment of thought.
Foston nodded. “It is,” he said. “There are numerous small towns and villages and while many of them have small clinics or local doctors there are no full service medical facilities, so to speak, in the area. It is hoped that this project will provide such services for those communities and reduce the travel time when they are needed so the communities can be more effectively served.”
Ames nodded, Foston’s speech sounding almost identical to the report he heard on the news a few days prior. Looking at him, Ames thought that Foston might have been the official interviewed for the news spot.
“I imagine that will come as a great relief,” Ames replied.
“It will save lives.” Foston said.
“Of course,” Ames replied. “Although I am not sntirely certain why this brings you to me.”
“Of course,” Foston said shaking his head. “This rainy season was one of the worst on record and it hit tie Pascar Mountains very hard. There was massive flooding and it was determined that to ensure the safety of the medical facility we were building we should expand our water management plan for the surrounding area.”
“Sounds sensible,” Ames replied. “An ounce of prevention and all that.”
“Exactly,” Foston replied. “However when the survey teams were sent out, they located what appeared to be an old village or town site were no one thought there would be one. It is well off the main path and indeed in a place where locals tend not to go. They claim it is a place best avoided and given the combinations of marshy ground during the rainy season and rockslides I can see the wisdom of it. Which is why the town site surprised us.”
“That does seem surprising,” Ames replied. He felt his interest quicken. In his research the Pascar Mountain range was one of the last holdouts of those who refused to turn against the Couran. Other villages shunned the area in hopes of killing off the Couran. He wondered how much of the current avoidance had anything to do with the terrain and more about beliefs that lived in the back of the mind long after the stories faded.
“Our team photographed everything,” Foston continued. He pushed the file towards Ames. Ames leaned forward and picked it up. He heard the small coffee pot click to signal it’s brew cycle was complete.
“Please help yourself,” he told the other two as he opened the folder. The sugar is on the top and the cream is in the small fridge below.”
The two men stood and went to fix themselves cups of coffee as Ames began slowly flipping though the photographs studying each one in turn. The area was placed between two steep hills. Thee was a bit of an incline with a flat space in the middle of the incline, like a stair step. In years where there was less rain, he could see how debris was washed into the area and piled up in the small area that was flattened space.
This year with the heavier rains that were reported he could see that the small flattened area had done nothing to slow the floodwaters. The passage between the two hills no doubt turned into a raging river. He could see uprooted trees and it seemed almost as if the land were swept clean of years of accumulation.
Ames could also see outlines on the ground. Straight lines, intersecting into box like shapes. Whoever took the photos didn’t add in anything for scale so he wasn’t certain if the lines demarked small areas or large ones. ‘Either way they have a pre-empire feel to them.’
Early empire buildings tended to be round, or at least to leave round imprints on the ground. Sometimes the remains were found but often the metal of them rusted away. By the time the Empire arrived on Scovan they were using prefabricated units and circular shapes were considered more efficient. Trenches were dug when they were installed and often the buildings would be either uprooted when the pacification forces moved on, or concrete walls would be built around the metal, the portable unit turned into a structural framework.
Whatever this was had to have been built Pre-empire given the lines. Slowly Ames continued through the stack of photographs. He paused when he saw a chunk of earth was removed, exposing mor of the buried structure. Ames took out his magnifying glass as the other two settled back in their seats. He recognized the symbols carved into the stone. Despite the fact that they had to have been carved centuries prior they were still sharp and easy to distinguish.
“It’s a pre-empire temple site,” Ames said as he looked over the images. He pointed to the glyphs. “See, here and here,” he turned to another photo. “And here. This was a temple dedicated to the Couran.”
“The Couran?” Foston asked.
“Ames smiled and set down his magnifying glass. “Believed to be ancient demons,” he said, careful to maintain the accepted explanation. “They were believed to have caused the wasting sickness that took out a large amount of the native population. In fact it is believed that it was this widespread disease that decimated the local populations enough to allow the Empire a foothold.”
“There were too few to resist?” Foston asked.
“Not entirely,” Ames said. “I believe it was a combination of reduced numbers and the fact that with superior medicine the Empire helped stop the spread of the wasting disease.”
Foston chuckled. “Tolerated because they brought medicine,” he said. “Having been at many lcal town planning meetings lately I can understand. I’m fairly certain if we were building anything but a medical facility we wouldn’t be tolerated in the area.”
“Some people don’t like change,” Ames said.
“True,” Foston replied.
“So what is it you are looking for from me?” Ames asked. He set the photograph down, stood and went to pour his own cup of coffee.
“The site is obviously old,” Folson said. “It isn’t in an area where we plan to build and indeed those coming up with the flood management plan think that leaving the area to funnel water as is would be for the best anyway. However the floodwaters will continue to flow through there and due to adjustments elsewhere in the landscape more water may route through there which means the site is in jeopardy. We doubt it can be preserved long term as there simply isn’t a feasible way to reroute the water.”
“You want someone to document the area before it is destroyed,” Ames said.
“We do,” Folson told him. “We believe the area might be larger than the affected area but if we could get a dig team in there to collect artifacts and record the site before the next rainy season, and determine the extent of the site, perhaps coming back to the less affected areas in future dig seasons it would fit our mandate.”
Ames nodded. The LMC was mandated to document and if at all possible preserve any historic or archaeological sites it came across in the course of their duties so the request made sense. Looking at the photographs, Ames could see how the shape of the land itself made the rerouting of the water a difficult possibility.
He wasn’t even sure it could be done short of detonating two entire mountains. He could also tell from the few detailed pictures that this was one of the temples. The temples to the Couran were destroyed in any of the villages that rebelled and only a few paintings remained. Other temples built to anything other then Empie gods were destroyed during the colonization process.
‘Although no one thinks there were that many.’
The pre-empire cultures seemed more focused on destroying the demon Couran than in worshiping any gods. They beseeched the elements for assistance but didn’t appear to deify them. It was one of the reasons most believed the Couran were part of an unknown religious system. Everyone assumed that if you had demons, you also had some sort of religious framework for them to fit into.
