The Dig (11 page)

“Right. Your request sounds ever so different from his. I will not be leaving either of you alone with my artifact. You will begin your examination now, in front of my eyes, or it will be returning to my safe.”

Matt sighed. He didn’t trust the professor, and he had made no plans to bring someone new into the circle, let alone someone as sketchy as
this
character. But it didn’t appear that he would be getting any private time with the object, and he was still intent on leaving as soon as possible. Matt decided to be mysterious about it—let the man be unconvinced. He didn’t need or want him to believe in his ability.

“Fine, Dr. Rheese, I’ll proceed. This is a little-known method that few can comprehend. I’m going to have to insist that you not interfere, regardless of what you think. Is that agreeable?”

Rheese nodded. “As long as nothing happens to give me cause to fear for the safety of the artifact. What exactly do you plan to do?”

Matt ignored the question, knowing it would only lead to more, perhaps even resulting in the object’s removal to the safe before he could read it. He pulled a clean piece of paper from a notebook in his duffel, slid the fabric onto the paper, and pushed the square plastic piece away from him. Then, taking off the gloves, he gave Tuni a look.

“Just like with the shots, okay?”

She nodded her understanding.

Rheese crossed his arms and, with an impatient sigh, leaned back against a cabinet. Tuni shimmied her bottom closer to the edge of the seat. Her eyes opened wider.

Matt stretched his hands out over the woven metal fabric and pressed them firmly against it.

D
ARKNESS…

Going…

Breathing…

We?

Other breathing…

Scritching…

We walk.

We carry.

Death carry? Death walk?

Feel danger. I feel danger.

I am man. I am wet. It is sweat. Sweat means danger. Need clean.

I see now. I see movement in front of me, and it is nighttime. This is so odd. Who am I? I am a man, and sweat is pouring down my back. Why am I worried about my sweat? They smell it, that’s it. He’s counting. Yes, I’m counting numbers in my head. Strange numbers.
Single plus single plus single plus single plus single plus single plus single plus single,
batch
, single plus single plus…
it goes on
.
It’s sets of eight
. Full batch and stop.
Full batch is sixty-four. Sixty-four steps from peak
.

We’ve stopped. We put him down. Scritching in ears.
Who is him?
Oh, I miss him. There are others around me. I see their hands and arms. We’ve put down Inni. That’s his name. He is naked and dead. I see his skin; it is black. I feel more heat beside me. I hear more now. Bubbling. It sounds like boiling water. I am afraid to put him in.
Faces!
We all make a circle around him and look at each other’s eyes.
Those eyes, so huge! Human-like, but so big and very widely set. And the faces, so similar! They look almost like cartoons with those features so exaggerated. Circles of face are exposed, but a headdress surrounds them. It is the scritching sound in his ears. He’s wearing a metal fabric headdress. It’s called a
top
. The
middle
is the jacket,
lower
is pants, and
bottom
is foot covering. All must wear their
k’yot
when outside at this time. There, that’s the whole outfit:
k’yot
. It means protection. Protection from what?

We push him to melt.
Melt?
Pain! Face burning. There’s steam shooting from a crack in the ground. Droplets spray out and burn my face. We think
ylt pwino, ylt pwino.
We think
good-bye, dear friend
. The naked body falls in, and we move away quickly. Back to safe. Full batch steps to peak. Full batch single plus single plus single to safe. To safety.

We walk in a straight line. I know that Pwig walks in front of me. I know that Norrit walks behind me.

Back to structure, Matt. Solidify yourself.

I am Irin. I am old.

What is that, “old”?

My father is
oldest
; I am
old
. When a baby comes, it is
newest
, later it is
new
. I am old; Father is oldest.

I am Irin. I am old. I came new in my house.

Okay, Matt, the usual drill doesn’t work here. When is this? Where is this? This is some kind of African tribe wearing the metal fabric all over their bodies, and that was a sort of death ceremony. Now we’re walking, and Irin won’t stop thinking “single plus single plus single… batch!” He has no concept of when. No, wait, he does! The moon.
Single plus batch plus batch plus batch plus full batch plus gross batch plus single plus single past.
Past what? How the hell am I going to figure out these stupid numbers?

Okay, we’ve reached the peak, and the single pluses continue.

He wipes the sweat from my eyes. They were stinging. Wait—what the hell was
that?

Rewind!
… Wipes the sweat…

Rewind
… I wipe the sweat from my…

Four fingers. He’s got three fingers and a thumb! And not like one was cut off, either. I feel my hands and they both have four fingers each. I think my feet have four toes, but I can’t tell from the feel. Does everyone else have these hands?

Rewind
… We push Inni into the melting place…

I’ll be damned! That guy’s hands are the same.
We think
good-bye… Okay, fast forward to end, back to the sweat. I have no idea how to figure out the time.

Oh, God… time.

No! I didn’t set my timer! That asshole Rheese had me all distracted!
Plus single plus single plus single…
yeah, I get it, okay! How long will Tuni let me sit on that bench before she gets worried? How long will Rheese wait until he gets tired of watching this idiot sit there with his eyes closed and his hands on “my artifact”? How long does this imprint last? It should be fading out anytime—unless some other event is coming up that overlaps that dead friend thing back there.

I see stars now.
Wow, so bright! Is that the Little Dipper?
Safety is around the corner…
I see the silhouette of the mountain up ahead. It looks like we’re walking on a path between two small yet steep peaks that converge right up ahead in about half a full batch, I’d say. What’s that around the bend? I see light?
The light of safety.
That’s where I’m from!
“Safety.”
Pwin-T.
It means safety.
I guess that’s the name of the village around the…

Oh… my… God…

It’s a
city!
There’s light everywhere, all a light blue shade, and I am relaxing as we walk down the hill. Pwin-T is huge! There are real buildings down there. We should be there in just a couple of full batches!

I have to meet in the Center house to have time with Inni’s family and friends. Norrit needs to remember to seal the wall when—

“Enough of this rubbish!” Rheese yelled as he replaced the artifact on the plastic and set the second piece atop it. “Where’s the bloody screwdriver? Miss Maggie better decide she knows where bloody Sharma is—and fast—or I’ve a good mind to…”

Tuni had leaned over the table and was helping Matt put his gloves back on as he reoriented himself and stared at her with huge eyes. Ignoring Rheese’s ranting as if it were no more than the droning of cicadas, she whispered to Matt, “What did you see? Did it work, did you see anything?”

“I saw…” He smiled a smile she hadn’t yet seen in their short acquaintance. It was like a child walking toward the front castle at Disneyland for the first time. “I saw so little! I mean, I saw these people, so different. They…
think
totally different. It’s like, sort of a big mess actually, and the numbers, it was like single plus single plus single equals a batch, and that was droning on in Irin’s head
forever
and—oh, they were dropping this dead guy into this boiling steam bath fissure thing in the mountains…”

He stopped, realizing that Rheese had grown silent and was now listening to his speedy rant.

“So you have a whole bloody story around your five minutes of intimate time with my artifact?” He was obviously unconvinced, though he seemed to be interested in what Matt was going to make up to complete the whole charade. “What’s the date, Merlin?”

“Actually, I couldn’t really figure it out.”
Throw in some bullshit.
“The energies were asynchronous. It didn’t make any sense.”

“Obviously,” Rheese replied with contempt. “I’m going to track down Sharma, and the two of you are going to be on your merry way home shortly, mm-kay?”

He picked up his satellite phone just as the sound of approaching tires caught their attention.

Tuni leaned over and spread open a section of blinds to peer through. Two people in a big black SUV had arrived. Dr. Rheese vultured his head down to see through the window in the door. Tuni jumped a little and turned to Matt with an excited smile.

“It’s Peter!”

P
ETER
S
HARMA STEPPED OUT OF THE
Land Rover and stretched his legs. The four-hour drive had been brutal on his back. Only the first half hour had been on pavement; after that, it turned into a jouncing, jarring sickfest.

The air at site 00876-B223KY reeked of death. Peter walked to the top of the slope that led to the excavation. He saw that the remains were still there, obstructing his corner. He heard the RV door open behind him and turned to see Rheese stepping out to greet him.

“Mr. Sharma, a pleasure to have you at the site!”

“I’m sure it is, Doctor. Mind if I ask why that thing is still over there?”

“Oh, the bloody Interior Ministry keeps promising a crew is on its way, and they never quite show. I tell you, I’m this close to having it burned and buried.”

“Yes, well, I’m not sure why you’ve waited
this
long. The thing appears to be well into decomp now, and it’ll be a horror show to clean out.”

Obviously flustered, Rheese stammered, “Well, I… it wasn’t… if it wasn’t for the bloody ministry and their bloody rules about disturbing the remains…”

“It’s covering up access to that sediment—and possibly further damaging the historic record. I do not know of any law that would keep us from removing it. If anything, there are labor laws protecting the men down there from having to work in such unsanitary and hazardous conditions.” He glanced down at the cloud of buzzing insects filling the excavation and noticed the laborers wore bandanas over their noses and mouths. “I’m about to toss my breakfast smelling it from this distance—I’m sure being that close is utter misery. Please, you’ve got backhoes—get it out of there and bury it away from the camp.”

Nodding enthusiastically, Rheese pasted on a smile. “Enzi, dear boy!” he shouted to the food tent, where his foreman was cleaning a scrape on one of the men’s knee.

“Yes, Professor?”

“Let’s give the men a break, what do you say?”

Enzi shrugged and shouted back, “Sure, Professor, no problem!” He whistled with his fingers, signaling the men to hike out of the stinking, fly-ridden inferno.

“Peter Sharma,” Matt said as he walked up to the new arrival. “Good to see you.”

Peter turned and smiled.

“Good to see
you,
Matthew! Look at you—you’re a full-on
man
now, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I guess I’m all grown up,” he said with all the good humor he could muster.

“You know what I mean, man!” Peter replied, swatting him on the shoulder. “Last time I saw you, you were, like, seventeen!”

The driver of the Land Rover moseyed to Rheese’s side. Rheese looked up and saw that it was the same driver who had brought the two ministry officials. The man beamed an obsequious half-gold smile, obviously hoping for another manifestation of the Englishman’s generosity. Rheese ignored him.

“So, have you, uh, had a moment with the artifact yet?” Pete asked Matt eagerly.

“I have, actually. Just now, but Dr. Rheese ended it abruptly and put it back in his safe.” Turning to face Rheese, Matt continued, “I don’t think he’s all that comfortable with my expertise.”

“May I have a word with you in the motor home, Sharma?” Rheese asked, taking Peter gently by the arm.

“Oh, hello, Miss St. James,” Peter said as he passed her. “I didn’t know you were doing field work now.”

“Just caretaking, Peter.”

Matt’s face flushed.
Caretaking!
And what was that in the way she said “Petah”? Was she interested in him? Had they had a thing at some point?