The Clouds Beneath the Sun (2 page)

Eleanor sat at the end of the long table, where she was always served last. She took a few strips of kudu, then leaned back, so that Mutevu could withdraw the serving plate. Leaning forward again, she picked up her knife and tapped her champagne glass with it. The chatter around the table died.

She smiled at all the others, one by one, and held up some envelopes. “Post,” she announced. “Russell, there’s one for you, one for Kees, and
three
for Richard.” She handed them around. “Nothing for you, Arnold, I’m afraid.”

“None of my wives missing me? Oh dear.” He made a face, before grinning.

Because he was sitting next to Natalie, she had already learned from Arnold Pryce, a botanist, that he had been married four times. And as often divorced. Though small and round he was, in his way, a bit of a dandy. Tonight he was wearing a cravat at his throat with a college design on it, shields and unicorns. She was also aware of some pungent aftershave.

Beyond him was Kees van Schelde, a Dutch geologist, probably in his twenties, and Jonas Jefferson, a specialist in human anatomy and the camp doctor. So far as Natalie could see, he was more or less Eleanor’s age.

Christopher Deacon, Eleanor’s son, sat at the far end of the table. Among other things, Natalie had learned that he was the excavation’s photographer.

“As I think you all know, Natalie Nelson—who picked up the post for us in Nairobi—is the latest addition to our team.” Eleanor nodded to Natalie. “Natalie is a paleozoologist, a specialist on extinct forms of vertebrate life, who did her Ph.D. under Frank Whittard. I expect she’s going to flake out at any minute, because she came directly from Cambridge in one day, but I want to welcome her formally to Kihara, and to tell her that her timing couldn’t be better … because I also want to offer a toast to Daniel.” She raised her glass. “Daniel, what
would
we do without you—Daniel, the lion of the gorge!”

Around the table, glasses were raised.

“Daniel!” they chorused. Someone did an imitation of a lion’s roar and they all laughed.

For his part, Daniel Mutumbu didn’t touch his drink. He was the only black paleontologist on the team and didn’t really like champagne, or alcohol in general, come to that. But he smiled back at them.

Eleanor turned to Natalie. “Normally, my dear, alcohol isn’t allowed here in Kihara.” She smiled. “But I suppose everyone knows I keep a few bottles of champagne handy for when we have something to celebrate—and we certainly have something to celebrate tonight.”

She waited for the hubbub to die down. Two bottles between ten didn’t go very far but it was enough to loosen tongues.

“Daniel, and Richard here, Richard Sutton, whom you will get to know, and Russell, Russell North … well, they made a discovery in the gorge today, an important discovery, a
spectacular
discovery—at least we think it is. They found a knee joint, a tibia and a femur, two leg bones of a hominid at a level which indicates that this early form of mankind walked upright here, right here, in Kihara, two
million
years ago. Early man left the trees and raised himself up on two legs in this very gorge.”

“Yesss,” hissed Richard Sutton. He was thin, spare, fair-haired, handsome, Natalie thought. From what had been said earlier, as dinner was beginning, she knew he was a New Yorker, a full professor at Columbia University.

Mutevu Ndekei had reached Eleanor’s place the second time round, with the vegetables. As she took some potatoes, she addressed herself to Richard Sutton and Russell North.

North was a burly redhead with vivid blue eyes. He was taller than Sutton, taller than everyone else on the dig, with massive hands. He was Australian, Natalie had learned, though he lived in America too, as an associate professor at Berkeley in California. Freckles sprawled over his skin.

“We’ll check tomorrow,” Eleanor went on, “but I agree the bones you found are hominid, human-like. On the small side, but you’d expect that. We’ll confirm the level of excavation tomorrow. I take it you photographed everything, and marked the site?” She sliced her potato.

Richard colored. “Of course we did, Eleanor. We’re not novices, for Christ’s sake.”

“Watch your language, Richard, please. I was just making sure you had everything covered. If this is as important as you say it is—and the champagne tonight means I think I agree with you—we are going to come under intense scrutiny from other colleagues. Our methods must be above suspicion. Don’t be so jumpy.”

Richard was just draining his champagne glass and he wiped his lips with his napkin before replying. He shook his head. “Don’t worry, Eleanor. We made a sensational discovery, at the two million level. There’s no doubt about the date, the excavation itself was clean and neat, everything has been properly recorded and photographed. We fenced off the site with thorny acacia branches. We can build a proper fence tomorrow. Relax.” And he launched himself on his dinner.

Eleanor nodded, watching him eat: his precise movements, his sharp features. One of the reasons she had selected Sutton for the dig was because he was a thorough, rigorous scientist, utterly competent, whose capacity for work matched her own. A New Yorker by birth, Sutton, she knew, was the son of a Manhattan lawyer, the right-hand man to a real estate millionaire, who had not been entirely happy when his son had shown academic leanings. But since he had, Richard Sutton Senior had done everything he could to ensure Richard Junior was the best paleontologist in the business, providing his son with the finest education money could buy, and then supporting important excavations financially so long as his son was part of the team. This did not make the Suttons friends with everyone, but most digs were so inadequately funded that many directors were only too happy to have Richard Junior along, if that meant the books would be balanced. And in any case, he did not really need his father’s support anymore; Richard Junior was an excellent excavator, with a good mind. As Eleanor knew, he already had several discoveries under his belt, including a hominid skull dating to 150,000 years ago, and a species of extinct hippopotamus.

“The way that tibia and femur fit together strongly suggests an upright gait—we are agreed?” Eleanor set about her own dinner.

“That’s the point,” said Russell North, worrying at his watch strap with his fingers. “It’s a knee joint like that which makes shopping and bowling possible.”

Eleanor grinned. She liked North. Whereas Sutton, though ferociously efficient, was a shade on the automatic side, North was a warm human soul, with a sharp sense of humor. His size was daunting and he had a temper, she knew; he could be awkward, direct in the Australian way, but mostly he was fun on a dig, also with a number of discoveries to his name, and no one was perfect. Though he was from down under, he was an associate professor at Berkeley, California, and destined, she felt sure, for greater things. He was a year or two younger than Sutton. Having been brought up in the Australian outback, he was very practical minded and helped out Daniel in looking after the vehicles.

“The way the two bones fit together,” North went on, “implies that some form of hominid was walking upright two million years ago. That is much earlier than we thought, much earlier than anyone thought, much earlier than the textbooks say. Richard and I have discussed it and we think we should write a paper on this and rush it to
Nature.”

Nature
was the weekly science magazine, published in London, where most major scientific discoveries were announced.

Eleanor nodded. She reached for the water jug and filled her own glass. Then she fixed her gaze on Natalie Nelson. “Natalie, let’s hear from you. You’ve just arrived, you have a fresh mind, how does the discovery strike you?”

Since the Nelson woman had arrived only that day, Eleanor had yet to form an opinion of her. The newly minted Dr. Nelson came highly recommended. Her specialism was a very useful expertise to have on a dig like the one Eleanor ran, but the director had not anticipated Dr. Nelson being so attractive. She was tall, almost as tall as Eleanor herself, and had close-cropped dark hair, which curled forward under her ears, a longish face with cheekbones that stood out and cast their own shadows down her cheeks, long tapered fingers, and what the women’s magazines, the last time she had looked, called a full figure. Eleanor Deacon had already taken on board that both Russell North and her son Christopher had been immediately drawn to the newcomer and she hated that sort of emotion in the confined quarters of an excavation. Romance on a dig was not unknown—her own late husband had made a speciality of it—so she knew at firsthand that it could make life very difficult.

Natalie swallowed some water. After a few hours’ sleep she had unpacked, showered, and changed into a blue shirt with khaki trousers. She wore no ring or necklace but had on a man’s watch. Her eyes were as dark as the night outside the tent.

“I’m sorry to be a wet blanket,” she said, setting down her glass. “But I think you would be unwise to publish until you can check the tibia and femur you have found against a set of modern bones. If your dating is right, they’re two million years old, but you can’t be certain they prove bipedalism without a close comparison and … well, you have probably thought of it, but if you get such a simple thing wrong … it could be embarrassing.”

“No!” breathed Sutton. “No—I won’t have that!” He slapped the table and looked hard at Eleanor. “How many digs has Natalie been on, how many hominid bones has Dr. Nelson seen close up, in the field?” He paused. “Very few, very few if any, that’s my bet. This is her first day here, for pity’s sake. What does
she
know? This creature was bipedal. It’s a straightforward piece of anatomy.
I feel it!
I’ve been excavating in Africa for ten years.
Nature
, here we come!” He thrust his chin forward and glared hard at Natalie, staring her down, his lower lip stuck out beyond his upper lip, daring her to contradict him.

Natalie colored. As he had reminded everyone, she was the least experienced of those present. But she still thought he was being
méchant
, as the French said, cruel.

Eleanor came to her defense. “Don’t be such a bully, Richard. Natalie is right. We have to be careful.”

“But that means delay,” complained North, putting his knife and fork together. “Dick and I are here only until Christmas. After that, we disperse, back to the States, to teach. It will take much longer to write this paper when Richard is back in New York, I’m in California, and you are still here in Kenya, Eleanor.”

“I agree, Russell.” Eleanor smiled. She paused as a great barking of baboons broke out nearby. But it quietened down as quickly as it had started. She laid her hands on the table, palms down. “But we are scientists, not journalists with a deadline to meet. Of course we need modern bones, to make the comparison Natalie suggests. I don’t know why none of us thought of it—perhaps the champagne has gone to our heads, clouding our minds. Natalie, coming from the outside world, has brought us some fresh air.”

She sat back and transferred her gaze from Natalie to Richard, to Russell. “I understand your sense of urgency—both of you—but you must curb it. Richard, what would your father think if you published prematurely, and then got egg on your face—egg that might be plastered all over the
New York Times?”

Sutton said nothing but he worried at the watch strap on his wrist. Eleanor’s barb had hit home.

Mutevu Ndekei came round again, clearing the dinner plates.

Richard and Russell exchanged glances.

“Look,” said Eleanor, modifying her tone. “We’ll assume that the bones tell us what we
think
they tell us. We’ll write up the paper, here, now, in camp, while we’re all together, as if the comparison with modern bones has been done, so that we are all ready to go into print as soon as the comparison has actually been made. That way the delay will be minimized.” She looked around the table. “Don’t worry. No one else is going to find bones like this—Arnold here is more likely to find another wife.” She grinned and the others laughed. “You can afford to wait a few weeks—what Natalie suggests is a very simple piece of science craft, Richard. Very simple, but vital. And you know it in your heart.” She smiled at Natalie and then looked back to Richard. “Think how convincing a photograph of your bones would be alongside some modern bones.” She rested her elbows on the table. “You should thank our new arrival, Richard, not abuse her.”

She raised her glass. “Now, enjoy what’s left of your champagne. Who knows when We’ll taste the next bottle?”

•   •   •

Natalie sat in the canvas chair outside her tent and looked out at the night. Everyone had their own quarters on Eleanor Deacon’s digs, each tent big enough to stand up in, and Natalie was grateful for that. All tents, she had discovered, had their own bucket shower and latrine, too—another real luxury—and were spaced far enough apart from the other tents for true privacy. No doubt because she had been the last to arrive, Natalie’s was in fact at the end of the line. The tents were laid out in a large T shape and hers was at the foot of the central line, so she was doubly fortunate. This was the first excavation she had been on since she was a student, and the first where she had full responsibility for one particular aspect of affairs. She was already finding the experience very intense: everyone else was so much more experienced than she was, and all were extremely motivated, as the exchanges at dinner that night had shown, and they took their responsibilities so very seriously. She didn’t mind. That’s how she liked it, in fact, but she was grateful, for tonight at least, that people hadn’t lingered over the dinner table, so she could return to her tent, sit outside, wind down, smoke a cigarette, and, her guilty secret, sip a late whiskey. The flask was on the table in front of her now. She knew alcohol was banned but she wasn’t an alcoholic—far from it. She liked one whiskey a day, late at night, when the busyness was all over and she was by herself. She was ready for bed—more than ready—but one nip settled her; it did no harm.