The ship who searched by Anne McCaffrey; Mercedes Lackey

Author:Anne McCaffrey; Mercedes Lackey
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fantasy, Science Fiction & Fantasy, General, Science fiction, Fiction
ISBN: 9781857232059
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2010-01-21T14:54:44+00:00

The only problem with the vase—if it was a genuine artifact — was that it did not match the style of any known artifact in any of Tia's files.

"You know that smuggling and site-robbing has always been a big problem for us," Professor Barton continued. "It's very frustrating to come on a site and find it's already been looted. But this — this is doubly frustrating. Because, as I'm sure Hypatia has already realized, the style of this piece does not match that of any known civilization."

"A few weeks ago, hundreds of artifacts in this style flooded the black market," Sinor said smoothly. "Analysis showed them to be quite ancient — this piece for instance was made some time when Ramses the Second was Pharaoh."

The professor was not wringing his hands, but his distress was fairly obvious. "There are hundreds of these objects!" he blurted. "Everything from cups to votive offerings, from jewelry to statuary! We not only don't know where they've come from, but we don't even know any thing about the people that made them!"

"Most of the objects are not as well-preserved as this one, of course," Sinor continued, sitting with that incredible stillness that only a professional politician or actor achieves. "But besides being incredibly valuable, and not incidentally, funneling money into the criminal subculture, there is something else rather dis- tressing associated with these artifacts."

Tia knew what it had to be as soon as the words were out of the man's mouth. Plague.

161

"Plague," he said solemnly. "So far, this has not been a fetal disease, at least, not to the folk who bought these little trinkets. They have private physicians and iii-house medicomps, obviously."

High families, Tia surmised. So the High Families are iiaxedupmthis.

"The objects really aren't dangerous, once they've been through proper decontam procedures," the professor added hastily. "But whoever is digging these things up isn't even bothering with a run under the U V gun. He's just cleaning them up — "

Tia winced inwardly, and saw Alex wince. To tell an archeologist that a smuggler had "cleaned up" an artifact, was like telling a coin collector that his nephew Joey had gotten out the wire brush and shined up his collection for him.

*• — cleaning them up, putting them in cases, and selling them." Professor Barton sighed. "I have no idea why his helpers aren't coming down with this. Maybe they're immune. Whatever the reason, the receivers of these pieces are, they are not happy about it, and they want something done."

His expression told Tia more than his words did. The High Families who had bought artifacts they must have known were smuggled and possibly stolen, and some members of their circle, had gotten sick. And because the Institute was the official organization in charge of ancient relics, they expected the Institute to find the smuggler and deal with him.

Not that any of them would tell us how and where they found out about these treasures. Nor would they ever admit that they knew they were gray market, if not black.

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