"Alice! So good to hear your voice. I’m fine, sweetheart."
"I was a little worried about you. Nothing’s wrong, is there? With you?"
"With me? Oh, no. Everything’s all right."
"It was such a weird message. You sounded-" Her voice caught and she closed her eyes. For a moment she was a girl again, a girl on her own in the world, with no one but Horace. Horace, who took care of her with all his power, his clout, his strength.
"Wait a moment, darling." He put her on hold; clearing out his office, probably. He came back on. "Now, my favorite girl, that’s better. Don’t worry, everything’s terrific. Where are you?"
"China, Horace. Of course."
"And what are you doing right now?"
"Working for an archaeologist. He’s looking for some proof about the origins of man."
"That sounds interesting."
"It is," she said, and felt herself smile, the echo of Pierre and Lucile coming to her mind, the ghost of the Peking Man skull. "But I was worried, Horace. The message you and Roger left-"
"Oh, that was nothing," he assured her. "I’m perfectly strong."
"Did something happen?"
"Nothing, really. An anomalous number on my blood test."
"What blood test?" Her stomach dropped.
His voice was casual. "I had an elevated PSA level, that’s all."
"What’s that?"
He paused. "Prostate."
"But what does it mean?"
"Nothing much. An infection. Don’t worry! You’re not getting rid of me that easily."
"Oh, Horace." She kept a chuckle in her voice but inside she felt she might collapse, she was so washed with relief. The stasis she had built around herself was teeteringly fragile, and Horace’s continuing presence in her life-from a distance- was one of its building blocks. But he was okay. He was.
"Call me in ten days or so when the antibiotic’s finished, if you like."
"Okay-"
"Or better yet, come home and visit. You haven’t come in two years. Please, darling. I’d love to see you."
"I don’t know, Horace. I’ll try. But please take care of yourself-"
He cut in, his voice different, businesslike. "My meeting’s here now. Got to go."
"Bye, Horace-"
But the line had gone dead.
She sat staring at it before she replaced it in its heavy black cradle. Then it rang again.
She jumped. "Wei?"
"Shuo-wan-le ma?" the operator screamed, Are you finished?
"Wan-le, " she answered, fighting back her apprehension, I’m finished. She tumbled the phone back down.
In Beijing, International Operator Yu finished filling out the little onionskin form with its six layers of carbon. She filed one copy in her logbook and carried the rest to her supervisor. "This call was to an official government office," she told the older woman. "It came up on our highest-level track."
"Well done, Fourth Apprentice Yu." Supervisor Ling did not conceal her excitement. Phone numbers that sorted to top diplomatic status were always reported. And this call originated from the people they’d already been asked to record-by the Army, no less. By the PLA. Supervisor Ling set aside the stack of paperwork she’d been sorting through, and lifted her tea mug for a long lukewarm drink. She clicked the ceramic lid back on the cup decisively.
"Try to get through to District Commander Gao of the PLA," she ordered the apprentice. She watched the girl hurry to an empty desk and dial.
"It’s ringing," Apprentice Yu reported, head twisted over her shoulder.
Supervisor Ling laid a hand over the receiver, ready to pick it up. She felt flushed, important, her heartbeat steady and strong. Things like this never happened on her shift.
6
"Okay," said Dr. Spencer. "Here’s what we’re going to do."
They sat facing him in his room.
Spencer waved at the pile of books, manuscripts, and essays on his desk. He might just have brought along every single thing Pierre Teilhard de Chardin had ever published.
"All right. Nineteen twenty-three. He and Émile Licent took the train as far as Baotou, then rode mules. When they arrived here in Yinchuan they stayed with a Dutch missionary, Abel Oort. Interesting man; Catholic, but knew a great deal about Buddhism and Lamaism. He and Teilhard seem to have had a philosophical meeting of minds. Then the two French-men stocked up on supplies and rode out of the city on April twenty-sixth."
Kong and Lin listened attentively.
Spencer studied his notebook. "Heading northwest, they found the Border River and followed it. This was the edge of Mongolia. And here is the important clue: the Mongol family. When they stumbled on the site alongside the river-the site we now call Shuidonggou-there happened to be a family of Mongols living nearby. The Mongols helped them, and Teilhard in particular struck up a close relationship with the family. He said he felt free there, with them."
"He felt free-why, exactly?" Lin asked.
"Because there he could be his true self," Alice said. "Imagine. Him traveling along the river on mules, stopping, sitting by the water to eat. Then glancing up to see a stone tool protruding from the cliff! He must have seen it all-the site, the first proof of ancient man in Asia-and yet he knew the Church would only laugh at him. All others might see the truth, but it was to the Church he’d made his lifetime vows. And they would say it proved nothing."
He stared at her. Eh, how her face shone with feeling and fascination. She seemed to want so badly to make him see. Like Meiyan used to do. She’d have had some point, some insight, and would come near to tears, explaining it to him. As if nothing on earth mattered more than that he should know. So long since he’d thought of that. "I see," he said to Alice now.
"The Mongols were different," she finished. "They were wild about the find. Totally into it. They dropped everything to help the priests dig. Sorry," she said, turning back to Spencer. "Go on."
"Okay," Adam continued. "They found the skeleton of a man, bone ornaments, crude stone tools. Crates and crates of stuff. And the Mongols, of course-they believed in him. That’s why I know he brought Peking Man back out here. Teilhard scholars never made much of his relationship with them, but I think it was central for him. Birth of hope. Acceptance."
"Who were they?" Kong asked.
"He never mentions a name. They must have been living there in 1923. Now…" Spencer shrugged. "Way I see it, we go out to the site and start looking. Maybe their descendants will be there. Or somebody who knows where they went."
"Because," clarified Kong, "you believe this Akabori actually returned Peking Man to the priest in 1945, and then the priest carried it out here? And contacted the Mongols?"
"That’s… one scenario."
"Hmm," Kong said. He crossed one narrow leg over the other and wagged a running shoe rhythmically in the air.
"And just to refresh your memory…" Spencer pulled out a photocopied list and passed copies around. "Alice, would you…"
She began reading aloud from her list in Chinese, while Lin and Kong took notes. "Six facial fragments, fourteen cranial pieces and six partial skullcaps, fifteen jaws, one hundred and fifty-seven teeth, four arm pieces, eight leg pieces, one collarbone-parts of forty different hominids, in all. These were the contents of the crate when it was last seen."
They all stared at the list.
"There’s one other thing," said Spencer. "Alice and I found this letter in Beijing, in some boxes left by Lucile Swan. You both know the name, Lucile Swan?"
"Yes-the American," said Dr. Lin. "The woman friend of the priest."
"Right. It was among her effects, but it actually appears to be a letter written to Teilhard." Spencer handed it to the Chinese scientists. "Whoever wrote it is talking about the warlord out here, Ma Huang-gui, saying he kept out the Japanese and he’ll keep out the Communists too. See? As if he’s reassuring Teilhard that it’s a safe place to hide Peking Man. It all fits. Except that little drawing-I don’t know what that is."