Wreckdive

Every diver had his own way of sniffing out a wreck. Some used esoteric gravitometers, relics of ancient times, some metal detectors, others - working in more specialized markets - geiger counters. Tayta seemed to use his nose and his wits.

"There's an old route down there, connecting those two gorges", the old buzzard announced after an hour of peering down into the murk through polarizing glasses. "The slope is gentle enough. There were settlements on both canyon floors, too deep for us to go. The military can scour those out with their heavy lift ships. But the high saddle between them is just about safe diving depth." He dialled the wheel around and span the throttle that exposed the starved embers in the engine to oxygen. They drank it in greedily. "Get the cage ready; you're going down."

Micos could see nothing; the deep levels were, as ever, a mass of folded brown that might have been rock, might have been an extreme naked close-up of his aunt Anahuarque. If living beings had ever existed down there, they had been buried by drifting sand.

In the comms screen, a grainy image of a male face flickered into life like a cartoon drawn on the pages of a book, locked into a sneer. Micos wondered if the permanency of the sneer might be due to a malfunction at the transmission end. He had, after all, never seen the face in the flesh.

"Hey, Mamani! What's your position?"

The old man didn't even look up. "Two hundred metres above a very valuable prospect, Cuntur. I hope your day is going just as well."

"Alas! Less well. I am cruising three hundred metres above what looks like the wreck of an apology for a cage grab. There seem to be few signs of life." The audio feed was equally bad, but Micos was certain he caught titters from off camera. Cuntur was performing for an audience.

"I am sorry for your misfortune, Cuntur, which began, after all, with your genetic heritage."

More laughter came from off-camera; Micos was sure, however, that this time he caught a sharp outbreath from an angry dig in the ribs. "Never you mind genetic heritages. I could tell that boy of yours a thing or two about genetic heritages. I am certain my luck will change. How good a prospect is it?"

"I will not know until my man goes down to see. Have a good day, Cuntur."

The old man switched off the teleceiver, which was illegal. The ship could now neither send nor receive emergency messages.

"Where is he?" said Micos.

The old man squinted up into the sun. "Up there somewhere, right above us. His little joke, you see. We are the 'wreck of an apology for a cage grab'. He can't locate his own prospects, so he conserves fuel by following us around hoping to steal ours."

"What did he mean about 'genetic heritage'?"

"He means you are a mitmaq", said Tayta. "Which is true enough."

Micos was incensed. "He doesn't know so! Mitmaq are dung collectors! It is evil luck for a mitmaq child to be born to a runa household. Besides, I have runa hair! I have runa eyes!"

Tayta nodded. "There are forty-seven signs laid down by the Race Recognition Office for identifying mitmaq. One of those, the most obvious one, is the presence of blue eyes; another hideous ginger hair. Less likely ones are the ability to fly to the Moon on a microchip and cause women to miscarry by breathing dioxins on them. Another one, however, is the ability to grow a full manly beard." He stroked his own threadbare chin. Micos, despite himself, felt his hand move guiltily to his own chin-fluff.

"If we had troubled to listen further", continued Tayta, "we'd doubtless have heard him claim your mother also had a beard. This is Cuntur's one and only joke, and, may Viracocha bless him, a man should not be deprived of the little that he has." Tayta set the resistance on the capstan drum, winding the rust-crusted handle round with difficulty.