The Kukulkan Manuscript (8 page)

“We know it’s not exactly legal,” Masterson said, putting up a hand, “but it could also be something important enough for all of us here to drop what we’re doing…and investigate.”

Everyone stopped to examine Alred’s expression. But where they seemed to have expected to find awe and curiosity, she kept her face stone-like and unaffected. “You’re saying Ulman found something so revolutionary that everyone here is considering a sudden sabbatical to study it?”

Masterson nodded, his grin intensified by the signs of her growing interest.

Wilkinson said, “Of course we’re all engaged this semester and can’t just run off.”

“At a major university like this? Sure you can. You all have assistants, don’t you?” Alred said. “They could take your classes easily enough, couldn’t they? There’s more to it…isn’t there. You don’t want to drop everything and risk a bad reputation on sketchy finds. You want me to take the risk, to get my hands dirty first. Then, if there really is something out there, you’ll gladly jump in. But only after I’ve had my shot.”

Goldstien smiled. “Very good!”

Masterson nodded, “That’s right.”

“But you also want me to clean up this mess and present my finds first…in the case there
isn’t
really anything there.”

No one nodded, and that meant yes.

Kinnard rested his thick chin on his clasped hands. His eyes told her he wasn’t as interested. In fact, he looked exhausted and trapped in the room.

“And what about you?” Alred said, pointing at Arnott with her chin. “Why don’t you have anything to say?”

He smiled. “It’s all been said.”

Everyone waited, but she wasn’t sure for what. Finally she asked, “So what’s the catch.”

“There isn’t one,” Masterson said with his false grin.

“Actually—” Kinnard started.

“Ah!” Alred nodded, sure that she knew everything a step ahead of the play.

“There is something, but it’s not exactly a catch,
per se.
” Kinnard looked up at her. He touched the black rims of his glasses, but didn’t remove them. He looked at Alred’s tight little mouth, her straight brow, and her slender nose. She got the feeling that he was looking inside her, asking questions she couldn’t hear. “There is already another student working on the project.”

“A joint dissertation?” said Alred, looking again at Masterson, with disdain on the back of her tongue. How was that going to help her shoot up the ladder as Masterson had repeatedly promised?

“A
counter
dissertation!” said Masterson.

“I’ve never heard of a counter dissertation.”

“Well maybe you have,” Masterson said. “Many times when a dissertation is argued, the student is countering a previous study, sometimes someone else’s dissertation.”

“So what are you saying,” she asked.

Wilkinson smiled, and she could see a lot of thought behind those old lips. The words about to come out had been well-discussed. She held her breath as he spoke. “Ms. Alred. What do you know about the Mormons?”

She breathed. That wasn’t a question she’d expected, and she let it show on her face. Her brow bent, and her eyes squinted.

Wilkinson waited.

She looked from Masterson around the table to Kinnard on the end. “Mormons,” she said, her eyes accessing the dictionary in her mind, “I believe they are a Christian sect founded in Utah, aren’t they?”

“Whether or not they are Christian is debatable,” Wilkinson said, rubbing the side of his nose. “They say they are. They also believe they have a special tie to ancient South and Central America.”

“
The Book of Mormon
,” she said.

“Right,” Masterson said, looking through eyelids that had long ago grown into thick layers of skin which now almost cut off his vision entirely. “Have you ever read their holy scripture?”

“No,” she said and saw the sigh. “Never.”

Masterson took over. “The Mormons believe a group of Jews built an ark, sailed across the Pacific, and settled somewhere in the mid to lower Americas. Of course, they don’t have anything to back up this claim.”

“That’s right,” Alred said, looking at the ceiling. “Don’t they believe the Amerindians to be the descendants of these Jews?”

Masterson nodded.

“So how does this fit into my dissertation?”

Kinnard answered. “The student I brought into the project is a member of the Mormon church.”

“I…see. And I’m supposed to debunk the pronouncements you expect him to make.” Alred pushed her hair over her right ear and kept her face at ease. “Why did he get the project before me?”

“I’m not technically a professor of Archaeology or anything that has to do with Mesoamerican studies,” said Kinnard. “I teach ancient Near Eastern history. Porter is my student.”

“Do you know John Porter?” Goldstien said with a suspicious smile, as if suspecting that the two had dated secretly or she was a Mormon and was hiding the fact for some reason.

“Should I?” she said, shaking her head. “He’s an archaeology student?” she asked, confused. Why would this John Porter be studying under Dr. Kinnard if Kinnard has nothing to do with American archaeology?

“Only wondering,” Goldstien said, leaning back in his chair.

“Porter’s an analyst of ancient Near Eastern studies,” Kinnard said. “Ulman sent me the package, because he thought
I
might be interested. I shared it with John Porter before discussing it with Dr. Masterson, which I shouldn’t have done. But it’s done. Porter’s been working on the project for a few days now.”

“How could he be working on an archaeological find from Mesoamerica if he has no knowledge of Mesoamerican studies?” Alred said, feeling offended and assaulted.

“The find,” Wilkinson said with a pause, “seems to draw…a connection to the ancient Near East.”

No one said a word.

“So the Mormons are
right
?” Alred said. She saw the smiles, but didn’t change the shape of her face. Her question was both sincere and sarcastic. She didn’t believe any religion had logical bearing or any integrity. They helped people be morally and ethically better than they might otherwise be, but the rest was a fill-in-the-blank to lessen the fear of death—look at Heaven’s Gate, the thirty-nine human-inhabiting “aliens” who committed suicide at the end of last week! She smirked and looked at Kinnard who sat still with his hands in front of his mouth.

“If the Mormons are right, we are all in grave spiritual trouble,” Masterson said with a chuckle.

The room rumbled lightly with laughter before Wilkinson continued. “If you look hard enough, you’ll see what you want to see. That’s an old idea historians must deal with daily.”

“Of course,” Alred said, hoping this was all some huge April Fools joke.

“Porter is a keen student,” Kinnard said. “He is very skilled in what he does and loves it when everyone disagrees with him. He thrives on argument—”

”—But then so do you!” Masterson added, jabbing his finger in the air, grinning at Alred. “That’s why I knew you would be the best student for the project.”

“John Porter will give a wonderful analysis of the find, though his time is extremely short,” said Wilkinson.

“And therefore so is mine,” Alred replied with a sting at the aged scholar.

Goldstien squinted at Alred, “But Porter will also have a resolute Mormon bias.”

“What we want from you is an unbiased study of Ulman’s discovery,” Masterson finished. “While Porter quickly presents his dissertation, which will no doubt excel in the field, you will present a counter dissertation just as briskly, which will be the first objective view of the discovery presented by Porter. The scholars of the world will love you, and you will soar to the top of all the most recent doctoral graduates. You will then gain access to any university in the world and be set for life as a well-known scientist!” He grinned, and it was his real smile: one full of greed.

Alred shot a quick and curious glance at Kinnard who continued to silently stare into the tabletop.

Masterson added, “You and John Porter are assigned to work together, and that you will. At the same time, you shall be fighting head to head with him. Only…Porter must never know it!”

April 10
9:54 a.m. PST

“Well it’s about time you showed up,” said Porter with a smile on his face and fire in his eyes.

“Good morning,” Alred said as she slid through the tight portal. The door wouldn’t open all the way.

“Sorry about the mess,” Porter said without enthusiasm.

The stuffy air choked Alred almost as badly as the tension she felt from her fellow student. She thought she smelled forgotten lettuce and bologna sandwiches and wouldn’t be at all surprised if a few hid beneath the disordered piles of papers, the open files, the scattered heaps of books.

“Need a bookshelf?” she said, only to regret it. The walls were naked and white, but there definitely were enough volumes in the tiny room to carpet at least two walls. Obviously, whole cases wouldn’t fit in the room. If Porter lined each wall with independently hanging shelves, his books would practically be falling on him. His desk wasn’t a desk, but a common four foot by two and a half foot classroom table, and some of the stacks on top of it stood two feet high. Florescent lights shined from behind a rectangular plate in the ceiling. There was no phone that she could see. His ergonomic chair squeaked with every movement.

“I’m fine, thank you,” Porter said, bending around his desk to remove a one-foot high mountain of pages from the only extra seat in the room.

Alred stepped carefully wherever she could see the floor. She really couldn’t believe it. “Nice office,” she said. If it sounded sarcastic, she didn’t care. Porter’s response would probably be bitter no matter what she said.

“I realize the room is disguised as a closet,” he said, landing noisily back in his chair. A pencil dropped from behind his ear, and he bent to pick it up while speaking. “I won’t be offended if you try to hang your coat on the door.”

Alred sat.

“How’d you manage to get an office?” she said, trying to see what he was doing. His back and shoulders shook quickly as he erased some unseen mark his stylus must have made on one of the open files on the floor, and the jiggle made the chair squeak like a captured rodent.

“Oh,” Porter said getting up. His short hair fell like the fur of a long-haired dachshund after hanging upside down. “I’m a research assistant.”

“I know plenty of research assistants without offices,” she said, measuring him with her eyes. He looked tall, but that may have been due to his thin bone structure. His face also looked thin and awfully plain. There was nothing attractive about him, but nothing unattractive at the same time. Well…his hair did look soft, but it caused no emotional stir. If only he could clean up his attitude.

Porter smiled again and sighed. “It’s who you know in the world that counts, they say.”

“Yes, but who is
they
?”

“The cause of all good and bad; the blamed in every society,” Porter said as she smiled. He stood and gave her his hand. “John D. Porter.”

She took his hand without getting up. “What does the
D
stand for?”

“Desirable,” he said, sitting down.

“I guess you…already know who I am.”

“Erma Alred. No middle name. Been with us at Stratford for…five semesters now? And you’re in the same position I am in.”

“What position would that be?” said Alred.

“The desperate need for a dissertation, of course,” his smile faded slightly.

“If I understand things correctly, the
D
in your name deserves the word
desperate
far more than I do.”

He scratched his head with one abrupt movement, focusing his eyes on his desk. John
Desperate
Porter. Why did that have such a natural ring to it?

“Why aren’t you married?” she asked suddenly.

“Why do I get the feeling everyone’s asking me that?”

“I thought Mormons were supposed to wed and have lots of little kiddies like the Catholics,” she said matter-of-factly.

“You know I’m Mormon.”

“It sounds like we know a lot about each other.”

He smiled at her. “And still so very little.” She watched him examine her medium-length auburn hair, green eyes, and fair, unfreckled skin.

“Just enough to get the job done,” she said.

“What?”

She tilted her head. “Mind wandering, Mr. Porter?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “You have green eyes.”

“You always this perceptive?”

“Lived in Japan for a few years. Green eyes are highly praised there. If you were half Japanese and kept the eyes, you could make it big in the
Nippon
entertainment industry.”

“That’s good to know in case this dissertation ruins me.”

“You don’t want to do this?” Porter questioned as her eyes wandered down and over the papers throttling her chair.

From the floor, she lifted a thick pad of pages bound by one heavy paper clip and said, “Frankly, I was hoping to do a dissertation on early Athapaskin settlements.”

“Who are they?”

“The Athapaskins?” She looked up at him, her eyes wide and wondering if he was joking. “The ancestors of…many North American Indian tribes. Tell me, how is it that you are leading a study on an ancient Mesoamerican find without knowing the rudiments of American archaeology?”

“Just lucky I guess,” he said. “You already know I have religious interest in Mesoamerican history.”

“Yes, but I hardly believe someone’s religion validates a worthy academic assessment of an area outside one’s expertise.” She looked down and dragged her eyes over the paper in her hands. “This is written in Spanish. What is it?”

“Nothing you’d be interested in. Solid evidence of the authenticity of the Book of Mormon. It’s an ancient Indian history compiled by a Aztec prince.”

“Ixtlilxochitl?” she said, trying to find the first page—an impossible task.

Porter waved his head in what might have been a nod. “Seems his curiosity about the white, bearded god revealed some finds so disturbing that after the book was shipped to Spain, it got buried in the archives of a church until only recently. Of course, now that it has been so long since the original writing, scholars can say the man made the entire thing up based on his own religious system. But it does back up facts already in our grasp.”