The Dig (3 page)

What was wrong with a lunchtime visit to Macy’s? Granted, the shopping trip had been inspired by Tuni’s glance at his red and graypatterned sweater vest and her comment, “Well, don’t you look dashing today, Jon!” He couldn’t recall the last time he had felt dashing, and decided he could use a few more sweater vests of varying pattern and color.

He squeezed his eyes and reread the e-mail for the third time, glancing between sentences at the attached photo. Peter Sharma, his former assistant, had sent it late last night. Meier thought the signature on the e-mail was quite impressive. His protégé had earned a promotion to director at the revered Cambridge Museum of Natural History.

Dear Dr. Meier,

Attached hereto you will find a photograph of an artifact excavated from a sub-Jurassic dig in southeastern Kenya three weeks ago. The object itself was recovered from strata estimated to be between 150200 million years old. As you can imagine from the photo, this discovery has caused quite a stir in the organization.

Potassium-argon dating equipment was shipped to the site (the Kenyan government has prohibited removal of the object from the country), and repeated tests have verified the initial estimate of the artifact’s age. Needless to say, the nature of the object has resulted in doubts about the accuracy of these tests.

I am aware that your facility has no staffed metallurgy expert, but I do recall your occasional use of a more precise “dating technology,” which I am hoping can be lent to the CMNH. I have not discussed details of your methodology but have only expressed to the board that you have an expert who, with your express approval, might be able to bring himself and his equipment to the site with some urgency. Obviously, the board has approved release of funds for such a trip, as well as compensation to your establishment during said expert’s absence from regular duties at home.

I eagerly await your response and can discuss further details of the artifact via telephone, as I am certain you have questions unanswered by this brief note.

Warmest regards,

Peter Sharma
Director, Mesozoic Research
Cambridge Museum of Natural History
Cambridge, UK

Dr. Meier removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. At first glance, the object appeared to be a simple piece of torn fabric with a wide, sewn-in belt loop in the middle. But Pete’s e-mail mentioned metallurgy, which inspired a closer look at the photo.

Someone had laid the piece flat on a white surface beside a metric ruler. It was about sixteen centimeters in width and height, though it was straight on only one side, where the fabric appeared to have been folded over and restitched to itself to create a seam. The belt loop suggested this would be the waistband of a pair of slacks, or perhaps a sort of fine chain mail worn over one’s inner clothing. Or maybe it wasn’t clothing at all but a piece of a satchel, stitched from metal to increase its weight-bearing capacity. Alternatives flew through his mind.

It would be extraordinary enough to find a piece of woven fabric in so deep a sediment, due to (a) the obvious lack of any species present on Earth at the time with the necessary intelligence to create such an item, and (b) the fact that it hadn’t deteriorated out of existence millions of years ago. That it was crafted of metal fibers removed some of the shock over its longevity. But it remained outright inconceivable that an intelligent being possessed not only the weaving skills but all the considerable array of technology that would be required to mine and isolate the raw minerals, create the alloy, and spin or extrude the threads. There were just too many aspects to consider, and none of it made a damned bit of sense.

He tugged at his neat gray beard and sighed.

The object was simply an OOPArt—an out-of-place artifact—he decided, like the zinc-silver alloy vase found in the 1850s near Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 100,000-year-old rock. Or the rusty screw recovered from a piece of 20-million-year-old feldspar. There were long lists of mysterious out-of-place artifacts that no one could explain, though many professionals had invested years of research to no satisfactory end. If this one couldn’t be debunked, it would likely be added to the bottom of the lists.

It was an easily dismissible unknown, but Meier could not just shelve it so blithely—especially considering that Pete, a solid scientist with a healthy sense of skepticism, seemed fairly well convinced. He picked up the phone and dialed George Miller’s extension.

“Yes, Dr. Meier,” George answered between indelicate slurping sounds—obviously, he was eating.

“George, I need to speak with Matthew Turner.”

A choking sound replied.

“George… ?”

“Yeah—yes sir, um… after the, uh… I don’t know how easy that’s going to be.”

“I don’t care—make it happen.”

He hung up the phone.

Dr. Meier’s door swung open, and in walked Tuni, followed by a stream of people with notepads in hand and name tags pinned to their shirts.

“What the hell is this!” he spluttered.

Tuni’s eyes narrowed as she crossed her arms.

“The tour that was scheduled two weeks ago for this very moment, Doctor,” she replied through her teeth, “of which I reminded you but a few short minutes ago. Please, ladies and gentlemen, file in around the director’s desk—and feel free to touch anything you like.”

T
HE MONSOON IRRITATED
D
R.
R
HEESE TO
no end. As he sat protected by the canopy jutting from the top of his RV, the back legs of his lawn chair began to sink in the mud.

“Blasted bloody useless piece of… !” he muttered, and stood up. He had sent home all but a few of his laborers. Across the trench in front of him, Enzi and the other two men he kept on-site were wrestling with the tarps in the wind. It wasn’t as though Rheese really cared what happened to that corner of the excavation now, but in the interest of appearances, he would make his best effort to feign appropriate concern for its preservation.

As Enzi gestured for one of the men to anchor the tarp’s corner with a rock, Dr. Rheese surveyed the encircling forest around them. It was thick in this area. They had chopped down quite a few trees to clear this particular patch (with appropriate permission from the government, of course). The pack of thieves had demanded 60 percent of the proceeds from the logging company, leaving Rheese with a piddling eight thousand pounds sterling for himself.

Now he wished he had cut down three times as many trees, if for no other reason than the uneasiness he felt at night. Who knew what could be on the other side of that black wall? He almost didn’t mind walking it in the daylight—it would actually serve as a rather nice escape from the flies drawn to the dig site, if it weren’t for the snakes. He’d seen two already: a mamba, eight lithe feet of gray-green terror moving along the forest floor faster than he could trot; and—perhaps even scarier—a puff adder, the length and thickness of his leg, lying camouflaged almost to invisibility right where he had been about to sit.

He glanced to the other side of the pit, where the light tower sat on its four-wheeled carriage. He always hated turning off the generator before bed, knowing that the few hours of light from his laptop screen was all that would remain between him and the primal darkness.

The satellite phone in the trailer began to ring, and Rheese skidded, nearly sprawling in the mud, in his haste to reach it.

“Rheese here,” he said into the large handset.

“Doctor, this is Peter Sharma. How are you today?”

“Glorious. What do you have to tell me, Mr. Sharma?”

“We’re trying to get you some new equipment and an expert to certify the results, but it may be another couple of weeks.”

Rheese’s biceps tensed as he restrained himself from throwing his one communication link to the civilized world through the window and into the mud and rain.

“Listen to me, Sharma, I’m not staying out in the bloody rain and flies, twiddling my thumbs for two more blasted weeks! At the very least, I’m bringing back the crew to get digging again.”

“Very well, Professor,” Sharma replied, his voice taking on a soothing diplomatic tone. “As long as you keep the work away from the discovery location. Also, it would be a good idea to get more photographs of that corner, from various angles and distances, in case anything should happen. We only have those few you e-mailed.”

“Yes, yes,” he replied and hung up. Finally, he could get back to some real work!

Rheese had given up on any chance of the artifact paying off in the near future. Still, he was well aware that if the thing proved authentic, his name would forever be tied to its discovery. That was
something,
anyway. But would it get him out of his “nice” Mayfair house and into a Kensington castle? Not likely. And so, unbeknownst to Peter Sharma, Rheese now had authorization to resume his private plans.

He had no intention of continuing digging in this place. The artifact recovered from the soon-to-be famous northeast corner of dig site 00876-B223KY had actually revealed for him the site’s
lack
of value.

Rheese unrolled his satellite maps to the red circle around the current site. He could see why he had identified its potential from the geologic markers in the area, but realized now why it was illogical. He slid his finger to a different circle, also marked in red pencil, several centimeters to the left. After an unsatisfying sip of cold tea, he found a metal ruler and calculated the distance: four kilometers west.

Garrett Rheese had gone through this process enough times in the past that he had the steps down to a routine. A childlike excitement came over him as he prepared for the coming month.

First, identify site: done! Second, identify intermittent “finds” to keep the museum interested and the money rolling in. He moved over to the laptop and opened his personal catalog spreadsheet. In his career, Rheese had worked all aspects of an excavation, and he knew that finding missing bones from nearly complete dinosaurs was a heady thrill for legitimate paleontologists. Over the years he had accrued a healthy sum of “missing bones,” for which he kept a well-maintained catalog. The world’s only intact #4 left metacarpal from a
Saurophaganax
? Easy—sealed in a box in his basement, on a shelf with hundreds of other rare or unique bones. After a couple of weeks’ digging, call up the lab and let them know you’ve found something they’ll like. Have Jimmy ship the package to the site, repack it with some native minerals it was “found with,” and send it off to the lab. They’re all happy, and better yet, the project checking account gets refreshed.

Scanning his list of known species discovered in Kenya, Rheese decided on an early Cretaceous encephalopod’s spinal disc. He smiled at the thought that many of his “finds” threw scientists so far off base that he had already caused permanent damage to humanity’s understanding of recorded history. A marine creature discovered in an area known to have been well above sea level for the past billion years? Well, obviously someone made a mistake somewhere. Maybe those paleogeographers would just have to redraw their maps of Pangaea. So what if it was completely off? Of course, his shenanigans were immensely destructive, but how much of his life had he wasted digging up the past for the sake of science?
Meaningless, all
.

There was a light rap on his trailer door.

“Yes,” he said cheerily.

Enzi opened the door and popped his head in.

“The tarps are secure, Professor, and it look like rain easing up a little for rest of the night. Okay I send home Chui and Zuzuwi?”

Rheese leaned back and peered outside through the door. The tarps did look well set. The men had strung a few together and weighted the corners along the top to form a blue triangular umbrella that would keep the corner dry.

“Very well, Enzi. You planning on going back to camp as well, then?”

Enzi tried not to appear distracted by the doctor’s good spirits.

“Oh, no, sah. I would not leave you here alone. I stay in equipment trailer with sleeping bag. No problem, sah.”

“Good man, Enzi. Send them back. Next time, though, you can go yourself, too—just leave me a few men for security. Let
them
squat it in the trailer, eh?”

Enzi responded with the usual nod and quick, practiced smile, then closed the door behind him. Rheese could hear him speaking to the two men outside in Swahili. He didn’t speak a lick of it, but he knew they spoke ill of him behind his back. Who wouldn’t? And besides, it kept their morale up to have a common antagonist. The thought of letting Enzi sleep in one of the empty beds in his RV flashed through his mind for a second, but he didn’t actually consider offering.

He rolled himself back to his laptop and started a new e-mail to send to Jimmy Moon back in London. He copied and pasted the container ID number from his spreadsheet into the message, then suddenly cocked his head to the side.

What was that outside? It sounded like the distant crack of a falling tree. He had heard that distinctive sound just over a month ago, when the trees were being cleared from this site. It was like several snaps, building in volume ahead of one very large crack, followed by several smaller ones at the end. He had thrilled at the power of the earthshaking thud when the bigger ones hit the ground.