He took a few steps inside, scarcely daring to breathe. They knew what the natives looked like because they’d found remains. But they’d never seen any depictions of them. No sculptures, no graphics, no engravings. How odd it had seemed that a species so given to art had given them no copies of its own image.

The others filed in and spread out around him, all enamored of the statue. Jerry raised his lamp slowly, almost reverently, and played the light across it. It was a feline. Claws were replaced by manipulative digits, but the snout and fangs remained. Narrow eyes, in front. A predator. But it wore a hat, rather like an artist’s beret, angled down over one eye. It was decked out in trousers, a shirt with long fluffy sleeves, and a jacket that would not have looked out of place in Boston. A bandanna was tied around its neck. And it sported a cane.

One of the women giggled.

Collingdale couldn’t suppress a smile himself, and yet despite its comic aspect, the creature displayed a substantial degree of dignity.

There was an inscription on the base, a single line of characters, executed in a style reminiscent of Old English. It was probably a single word. “Its name?” someone suggested.

Collingdale wondered what the subject had done. A Washington? A Churchill? A Francis Bacon? Perhaps a Mozart.

“The architect,” said Riley, short and generally cynical. “This is the guy who built the place.” Riley didn’t like being out here, but needed this last mission to establish his bona fides with the University of Something-or-Other back home. He’d be an inspiration to the students.

It was odd how the intangibles carried over from species to species. Dignity. Majesty. Power. Whether it was seen in an avian or a monkey, or something between, it always had the same look.