Beastchild

archaeologist?"
        "Seventy-three."
        "Before that?"
        "A writer."
        "How interesting!"
        "Yes."
        "A writer of what?"
        "History. Creative history."
        "Archaeology, then, was a natural follow-up."
        "I suppose so."
        "Why do you like archaeology, Hulann? Wait. Why do you like this archaeological job in particular?"
        "The excitement of resurrecting the past, of finding things unexpectedly, of learning."
        Banalog checked the readout monitors on his desk and tried to keep from frowning. He looked up at Hulann and, with an effort, smiled. "Does your work here on this planet assauge your guilt any?"
        "I don't understand."
        "Well, do you feel as if you are working out a penance, so to speak, in re-constructing the daily life of mankind?"
        And so the questions went. Probing… prodding… It soon began to be clear to Hulann that Banalog was learning more than he had intended to let him discover. He tried to answer as well as he could, but there was no way to hide from the probing traumatist and the clever machines.
        Then the trouble came.
        Banalog leaned forward, conspiratorially, and said, "Of course, Hulann, you are as aware as I am that your subconscious guilt is now a conscious one."
        "I-"
        Banalog frowned and waved him to silence before he could offer denial. "It is. I can see that, Hulann. But there is something else you are hiding from me."
        "Nothing."
        "Please, Hulann." Banalog looked pained. "This is for your own good. You know that, don't you?"
        "Yes," he said reluctantly.
        "Then, will you tell me?"
        "I can't."
        "You would feel guilty?"
        He nodded.
        Banalog sat back in his chair and was quiet for a long while. The machines continued to hum and lance their invisible fingers through Hulann. Banalog turned to the window and watched the snow falling in the dim light. It had been spitting for a day now, but it was putting the white stuff down in earnest finally, had been doing that since noon. He worked over the details he had thus far uncovered, munched them with his overmind until he thought he had the proper question to pose next.
        "Hulann, does this have anything to do with something you have uncovered in your diggings?"
        The monitors on Banalog's desk reacted violently.
        "No," Hulann said.
        Banalog ignored the answer and paid close attention to the opinions of his machines. "What have you found?"
        "Nothing."
        "What could it be that you would consider so important that you would risk a washing and restructuring to hide it from me?"
        Hulann was terrified. Suddenly, he saw his world falling down around him, crumbling to ruin, powdering, blowing away on a cold wind. His past would be erased by the washing techniques. His first two hundred and eighty-seven years would be taken from him. He would have no past for his children. The stigma would be borne by his family for a dozen generations.
        Banalog raised his head, his lids stripped back, looking suddenly shocked. "Hulann! Have you found a human in those ruins of yours? A living human?"
        "You have!" Banalog gasped.
        Hulann had a vision of Leo being dragged from the shattered, charred building. He had another vision of the boy's frightened face-and a final picture of the small, twisted, bloodied body lying on the frozen earth after the executioners had finished with it.
        He came out of the chair with a swiftness he did not know he could summon, a swiftness reserved for the first two hundred years of a naoli's life. He went over the desk, not around it, tramping on the screens of the traumatist's data devices, flicking switches off and on as he scrambled over them.
        Banalog tried to scream.
        Hulann toppled the traumatist's chair, spilled both of them onto the floor, using his forearm to choke the other naoli's mouth so full that the call for help could not be heard. Banalog tried to push up. Though he was a hundred years Hulann's senior, he almost managed to break free.
        Swinging his arm, Hulann cracked Banalog's head. It bounced off the floor. The wide, green eyes were shut off by the slowly descending double lids.
        Hulann struck again, to make certain. But Banalog was unconscious and would remain that way long enough for Hulann to make