Brain Ships - Anne McCaffrey [69]
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 anything 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 distressing associated with these artifacts."
Tia knew what it had to be as soon as the words were out of the man's mouth. Plague.
"Plague," he said solemnly. "So far, this has not been a fatal disease, at least, not to the folk who bought these little trinkets. They have private physicians and in-house medicomps, obviously."
High Families, Tia surmised. So the High Families are mixed up in this.
"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 UV 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. And if they'd stop buying smuggled artifacts, they wouldn't get sick.
But none of that meant anything when it came to the High Families, of course. They were too wealthy and too powerful to ever find themselves dealing with such simple concepts as cause and effect.
Hmm. Except once in a great while—like now—when it rises up and bites them.
"In spite of the threat of disease associated with these pieces, they are still in very high demand," Sinor said.
Because someone in the High Families spread the word that you'd better run the thing through decontamination after you buy it, so you can have your pretty without penalty. But there was something wrong with this story. Something that didn't quite fit. But she couldn't figure out what it was.
Meanwhile, the transmission continued. "But I don't have to tell either of you how dangerous it is to have these things out there," Professor Barton added. "It's fairly obvious that the smugglers are not taking even the barest of precautions with the artifacts. It becomes increasingly likely with every piece sold at a high price that someone will steal one, or find out where the source is, or take one to a disadvantaged area to sell it."
A slum, you mean, Professor. Was he putting too much emphasis on this?
Tia decided to show that both she and her brawn were paying attention. "I can see what could happen then, gentlemen," she countered. "Disease spreads very quickly in areas of that sort, and what might not be particularly dangerous for someone of means will kill the impoverished."
And then we have a full-scale epidemic and a panic on our hands. But he had to know how she felt about this. He knew who she was—there weren't too many "Hypatias" in the