Nosuma was tired.
She and Chenai had carefully excavated the hard, compacted soils from around the Hungwe Mutupo and had reverently set it on a table beside the wall a few feet over from the pit.
A crowd had gathered, everyone from the Institute excavation team, plus all the tourists. More people seemed to appear out of nowhere by the minute, all of them crowding around the statuette of the woman giving birth to the fish eagle. Spectators also lined the top of the wall, twenty-five feet up, peering down at the statuette.
Nosuma had borrowed a holocam and had recorded the statuette"s salient features. “The female is positioned with her legs drawn up on either side. Outlines of her arms indicate she is clutching her legs tightly to her body, each knee near the shoulder, her legs spread la
