Allochthonous Artifact
I
<Nirrah.>
Efret let up on the speeder’s handlebar accelerator. She leaned to one side as it still was moving, causing the bike to swing sideways in an arc, kicking up sand as it did. The humming repulsor engine shut off just as she kicked out the brace stands on either side of the vehicle. She scooted back towards the pillion to bring her left leg up over the worn durasteel frame but remained seated. <Look-at that,> she signed, pointing to the canyon wall ahead. <No-way!>
The outcrop that a group of locals had pointed her to stood roughly parallel to her twenty or so meters away. It had been a while since she did any proper geological field research but basic visual identification of rock types remained well within her ability. That was how she knew, even from this distance, that the material making up that outcrop and the artifact in her satchel weren’t the same.
She reached down to undo the fabric tie holding the crossbody bag closed, folded back the flap, and retrieved the only thing within: an abnormal shape wrapped in a clean handkerchief. The parcel fit into the palm as she took it from the leather-cast shadows, and peeled the thin cloth away from the upwards face of a hand axe to expose it to the sun. The artifact had been presented to her by an Iskalonian on her recent visit to New Pavillion with hopes of surveying local Forcer traditions. Three of them had been in his family for generations and had blessed them with productive fishing ventures. He had given this one to her because, as he said, he heard it call to her.
She had felt the same then, of course not hearing it but feeling it tug at her, and felt it more strongly now.
She turned the hand axe over in her hand. Glancing from its opaque orange and irregular shape to the outcrop’s translucent amber was almost inconceivable. The rock face before her contoured its mass against gravity, as if it had stretched and folded on itself like chewy candy as some giant pulled the dusty, rusty granitoid-looking crags at its boundaries apart. It nearly glowed under the Tosharan sun and Efret understood why the locals called this phenomenon amberine. A fitting name.
<You think what?> she asked Nirrah with her free hand.
Nirrah bent down to peck gently at the axe, then threw her head up towards the outcrop.
<Right. We should give it chance.>
She began to stand from the driver's seat.
