"I can think of worse ways to thaw out. Where does the Kiolya tribe come in ?"
"They were the ones who saved him."
"That seems out of character with what you told me of their blood- thirsty ways. I would have expected them to kill a stranger."
"That would have been the normal case, but don't forget that Barker stood out from the ordinary whale hunter. With his pure white hair, pale skin and eyes, he must have looked like some sort of snow god."
"Toonook, perhaps." "Anything is possible. Barker didn't go into detail about some things. Quaker society in New Bedford would not have approved of one of their number posing as a god. The experience transformed him, though."
"In what way?" "He became a staunch conservationist. When he got home, he urged his fellow whale men to stop slaughtering the walrus. The Ki- olya rnuscled in on the walrus hunting grounds like a street gang tak- ing over new drug turf. They even took women and tools from those they conquered. The other Inuit tribes practically starved as a result until they banded together and drove the Kiolya away. Barker saw this conflict over walrus meat and wanted to end it. He was grateful
to the Kiolya and thought if the walrus were saved, they might change their marauding ways." "Was he right?"
"Barker was naive, in my view. I don't think anything would have changed their behavior, short of brute force."
Austin pondered over the answer. As a student of philosophy, he was a great believer in the theory that past is present. The Kiolya might be the key to unraveling the tangled skein that surrounded Oceanus.
"Where could I go to learn more about the tribe?" "Canadian police blotter, for the most part, I'd venture. There isn't much information between their diaspora and the present, but I did find a crazy story that verifies what I said earlier about the god thing." He rummaged around in a filing cabinet and produced a 1935 clip from The New Yor/ Times, encased in a plastic envelope. It was datelined Hudson Bay. Austin took a minute to read the story:
The Arctic north added another mystery to its history of explo- ration when a half-crazed German crawled out of the frozen tun- dra claiming that he was the sole survivor of an airship disaster.
Canadian authorities said the German, who identified himself as Gerhardt Heinz, was brought in by a group of unknown Eskimos who had apparently rescued him. The Times found Mr. Heinz in a hospital ward, where he died a short time later. In the interview, Mr. Heinz said,
"I was on a secret trip to the North Pole for the greater glory of the Fatherland. We landed at the pole, but on the way back, we sighted the wreck of a boat frozen in the ice. The captain insisted on landing on the ice to investigate. It was a boat of great antiquity, probably hundreds of years old. We removed a frozen body, which we placed in the airship cooler, along with some unusual items.
"After rising from the ice and traveling a distance, we experi- enced mechanical problems, and had to land. The survivors de- cided to try to cross the ice, but I stayed to guard the zeppelin. I was near death when the local natives found me, and I was nursed back to health."
Mr. Heinz said that the natives spoke no English, but he learned that their name was 'Kiolya.' He said that they thought he was a god, having come from the skies, and when he requested through sign language that they bring him to the nearest settlement, they complied.
German authorities contacted by the Times said that they had no knowledge of Mr. Heinz nor of any dirigible voyage to the North Pole.
Austin asked Gleason to run off a copy of the article and thanked him for his time and information. "Sorry about your exhibition," he said on the way out.
"Thank you." Gleason shook his head. "It simply astounds me why they pulled up stakes so abruptly. By the way, have you heard about Senator Graham? That's another disaster. One of our strongest supporters."
Austin said, "I think I saw Graham last night at the reception."
"You did. While he was driving home to Virginia, his car was forced off the road by a truck. He's in critical condition. Hit-and- run."
Sorry to hear about that, too.
"Damn," Gleason said. "Hope it's not true about bad things run- ning in threes."
"There may be a simpler explanation for your run of bad luck," Austin said.
"Oh, what's that?" Austin pointed to the sky, and in all seriousness, said: "Toonook."
27
ST. JULIEN PERLMUTTER stepped into his spacious Georgetown carriage house and cast an appreciative glance around at the hundreds of volumes, old and new, that spilled off the sagging wall shelves and flowed like a vast river of words, breaking off into tributaries that ran into every room.
An ordinary human being confronted with this seeming confusion would have fled the premises. A beatific smile came to his lips, as his eye lingered on one stack, then moved on to another. He could rat- tle off titles, even quote whole pages, from what was generally ac- knowledged to be the world's most complete collection of literature regarding historic ships.
He was starving after dealing with the rigors of a trans-Atlantic flight. Finding space aboard a plane to accommodate his substantial bulk was not a problem; he simply reserved two seats. But even the Binary offerings of first class were, to Perlmutter's way of thinking, the equivalent of a church ham-and-bean supper. He headed for the kitchen like a heat-seeking missile and was glad to see that the house- keeper had followed his shopping instructions.
Even though it was early in the day, before long he was dining on a Provenale-style stuffed lamb with potatoes perfumed with thyme and washed down with a simple but well-balanced Bordeaux. Thus fortified, he was dabbing at his mouth and magnificent gray beard with a napkin when the phone rang.
"Kurt!" he said, recognizing the voice on the line. "How in blazes did you know I was back?"
"There was a report on CNN that Italy had run out of pasta. I as- sumed you would be coming home for a square meal."
"No," Perlmutter boomed. "Actually, I returned because I missed being taunted on the phone by impertinent young whippersnappers who should know better."
'You sound in fine fettle, St. Julien. It must have been a good trip."
'It was, and I do feel as if I've eaten all the pasta in Italy. But it's good to be back on my own turf."
"I wondered what you had turned up on my historical query." "I was going to call you later today. Fascinating material. Can you drop by? I'll brew up some coffee, and we can talk about my find- ings.
"Five minutes. I just happen to be driving through Georgetown." When Austin arrived, Perlmutter served two giant cups of cafe latte. He pushed aside a pile of books to reveal a chair for Austin, and another stack to make room for his own wide haunches on an over- sized sofa.
Perlmutter sipped his coffee. "Well, now, getting down to business… After you called me in Florence, I discussed your query about the Roland relics with my host, a Signor Nocci. He remembered a his- torical reference he had seen in a letter to the Medici Pope penned by a man named Martinez, who was a fanatical supporter of the Span- ish Inquisition, particularly where it applied to the Basques. Mr. Nocci put me in touch with an assistant curator at the Laurentian Li- brary. She dug out a manuscript written by Martinez in which he di- rects particular venom at Diego Aguirrez."
"The ancestor of Balthazar, the man I met. Good work." Perlmutter smiled. "That's only the start. Martinez says flatly that Aguirrez had the sword and the horn of Roland and that he would pursue him, and I quote, 'to the ends of the earth,' to retrieve these objects."