Channeling Cleopatra (5 page)

The younger woman with her was quite a
contrast. Curling dark masses of hair with as much vitality as
Medusa's snakes tried to escape the hot pink scrunchie elastic
inadequately restraining it. Sunglasses here, too, but the tan was
dark, though darker on her hands and forearms, face and neck, than
on her chest, elbows, and upper arms. Long legs with dark hairs
poured out of khaki shorts, the legs darker at the ankles and feet.
She wore rubber sandals with velcro closings, the same kind Leda
had. When she sat up and waved as Wolfe greeted Chimera and Leda,
her T-shirt revealed the image of Marvin the Martian, Leda's
favorite cartoon character, blazoned on its front.

Wolfe stood. "Allow me to present the
Contessa Virginie Athene Dumont and her niece, Dr. Gabriella Faruk.
Contessa, Dr. Chimera and our mutual friend, Dr. Leda Hubbard."

The contessa's hand should have been dry and
cool to go with the rest of her appearance, but it was hard to have
anything other than a sweaty paw in such weather, and hers was
unexceptional in that regard, except that it was a sweaty paw with
rather pronounced knuckles and one gold ring.

Her nod was the cool thing about her. But
her niece made up for that with a frank, open grin. Leda answered
in kind.

"And who will be joining you, Contessa?"
Chimera asked.

"Pandora Blades," she said.

"Why is it that you wish to blend with that
lady?" This seemed to be Chimera's brand of small talk in these
situations. Leda thought it much more interesting than the usual
social babble.

"That should be clear enough," Gabriella
Faruk said with an undignified giggle and a light prod to her
aunt's snowily clad arm. "She'll finally have all of the talent
money can buy! Pandora was, until her murder, one of the finest
painters and poets modern Greece has ever produced."

Her aunt allowed a tiny smile to play around
her mouth and made a harumphing noise. "Please do not get the wrong
impression of my niece, Dr. Chimera, Dr. Hubbard.

“
She is actually far
brighter and more useful than her flippant attitude might lead you
to believe. I would hate it if you barred her from attending me
because you feared she would find some way to turn it into a joke.
But to answer your question, in part Gabriella is correct. I wish
to blend with Pandora Blades because her death truncated what I
believe could be an even more splendid volume of work than that
already produced. I would be thrilled to be a vessel for it. As you
may know, Pandora was in constant pain from the deformities she
suffered from polio in childhood and later, as the result of the
terrible accident that impaled her. My own pain and slight
deformity will not, therefore, be daunting to her. Also, we are of
an age, so she may feel that she is starting where she stopped
before. However, once we blend, she will have far greater financial
resources, enabling her to travel, to seek out like minds. She will
be able to devote most of her time to her work without worrying who
will support her or how she is to live."

Gabriella spontaneously squeezed her aunt's
hand and grinned. "Isn't she wonderful? Really? Who else has used
your process to prolong the life of a cultural heroine and provide
for her rather than to elevate her own status? Pandora Blades will
not only have a good home with Ginia, she will also have the
companionship of every stray cat and dog fortunate enough to find
their way to Dilos."

Leda listened, slightly bemused, while her
mind was grappling with the niece's very familiar name. Where had
she heard of Gabriella Faruk before? Not here, not as the niece of
a rich aunt. The interior of Powell's City of Books in Portland,
with its rabbit warren of rooms filled with books old and new—the
myth and folklore section, Egyptian, the—

"The
Gabriella Faruk?" Leda found herself asking with a squeal of
fannish glee. "Author of
The Changing of
the Gods?”
She proceeded to recite the
subtitle. “
The Metamorphosis of the Divine
in Egyptian Culture from Ancient Times to Present
by Dr. Gabriella C. Faruk, followed by a string of
distinguished alphabet soup after your name?"

Gabriella's teeth shone white against her
tanned skin as her grin broadened. "Guilty of all but the soup. You
have read my book then? And you obviously didn't even have it
forced upon you by my aunt, since you've just met her."

"Yes, I read it. It was terrific. One of the
most insightful books about how Egypt has adapted under the various
invaders and their gods, while retaining its essential difference
owing to a deep-rooted allegiance to the past. Of course, there was
that typo on page 264, but I figured that was the printer's
fault."

"Dr. Faruk is also assistant curator at the
new Alexandria Museum and on the board of the new library," Wolfe
said smoothly.

"Wow," Leda said, "You sound like a good
person to know, Dr. Faruk."

"Oh, call me Gabriella,
please!" said the young woman—for she
was
a young woman, maybe fifteen years
Leda's junior. "I loathe formality. So much is required at home
sometimes I cannot wait to get away and kick back. Fascinating as
my work can be, some of the people involved in it can be very
tiresome."

"That has the ring of a universal truth,"
Leda agreed, "though 1 probably shouldn't say so in front of a new
employer. Your English is really good and uh . . . it seems kind of
American."

"I did my undergraduate degree at UC
Berkeley," Gabriella said.

"She was such a nice girl
before that," the contessa said with mock mourning, raising her
wrist to her forehead like the heroine of a melodrama. "Docile and
obedient. Since then, she has been an activist, I believe it's
called in America? Here we say
terrorist."

Gabriella slapped at her
aunt's arm, "You mustn't tell all my secrets. And you would be an
activist, too, if you still lived in today's Egypt where the
fundamentalist Muslims are becoming noisier and noisier and—I beg
your pardon, doctors, but I must say it—if one has no penis one is
also presumed to have no soul. Now
that
is tiresome.”

"Another problem on which I wish to consult
with Pandora," the contessa said lightly. "She had a very deep
insight into men."

"If you didn't count her husbands,"
Gabriella said.

Her remark was lost, however, in the general
scraping of chairs as Wolfe looked at his watch and gestured to the
ladies that the lab would be ready to begin the procedure.

The room where the procedure was to take
place looked more like a lady's tropical boudoir. Fresh flowers and
tasteful furnishings included a luxurious double bed that lacked a
canopy, to Leda's disappointment. The canopies in this part of the
world tended to be mosquito nets, and despite its spalike
appearance, the room was part of an underground laboratory.
Mosquitoes were zapped with electronic bouncers before they could
get past the main floor. Netting was unnecessary. Wolfe gestured
toward the bed, and the contessa composed herself atop the
spread.

Leda didn't see the equipment for the
transfer at all until Chimera pushed a button that lifted a panel
concealing a computer and what looked like a small magnifying lamp.
The panel was right next to the bed, and the device easily extended
so that the lens could be fitted to the contessa's face.

"We have streamlined the code transference
device, or CTD, from the clumsier ones you perhaps noticed in the
labs in Oregon, Leda," Chimera explained.

Wolfe said enthusiastically, "There is even
a completely portable one just coming out of production for taking
the process into the homes of the clients. Of course, these will be
special cases for some time, and the only one who will be
authorized to use the new device will be Chimera. But eventually .
. ."

"A chicken in every pot?" Leda asked. The
idea gave her a tiny chill, even though she knew that wasn't
showing the proper team spirit for her new job.

"Only the gold-plated ones," Gabriella
whispered to her from behind her hand.

Chimera did the honors, placing the lens of
the compact machine over the contessa's eyes and, after a brief
fiddle, a computerish beep, and a strobe of light, the device was
removed from the contessa's face. The little pieces of adhesive
that held her eyelids open were also removed, and without another
word, she fell into a deep sleep.

"She wanted me to wait here with her,"
Gabriella told them. "Any special instructions?"

Chimera smiled. "Only from you to let us
know what you would like to eat while your aunt is sleeping. You
will find that large chair there converts into quite a comfortable
cot. The sleep cycle can be anywhere from thirty-six to seventy-two
hours while the blending takes place."

"That long? I didn't know. Perhaps I could
borrow something to read?"

"Certainly," Wolfe said. "I'll have someone
make a trip to our library for you if you don't wish to leave the
room. Dr. Chimera, there is another client due now, and I'd
appreciate it if you could attend."

"Me, too?" Leda asked.

Wolfe said quickly, "I don't think that will
be necessary."

"Maybe I could go to the library for Dr.
Faruk then," Leda said hopefully. She had a thing or two to ask the
young scholar about the ideas presented in her book. Besides, Leda
liked her. Any fan of Marvin the Martian's was eligible to be a
friend of Leda's.

"Perhaps you could prevail upon her to fill
you in on the situation in Alexandria also," Chimera suggested.

"You're reading my mind," Leda said.

"And mine!" Gabriella declared. "I would be
delighted."

Leda didn't make it to the library before
the contessa awoke. Gabriella was full of amusing stories about
Alexandria and the digs and especially about the amazing
reclamation project taking place in Alexandria's eastern
harbor.

"I don't envy you working with that crew,"
Gabriella said. "Namid is a pig. An eminent pig, but a pig. And he
has chosen other swine to work with him."

"Also eminent?" Leda asked.

"Oh, yes. All of the team leaders are
Egyptian, of course, the project being sponsored by the government,
though I understand from Virginie that it is Nucore money
sponsoring the sponsors, as with so many of the new digs in my
country. Without Nucore, the project would have remained one of
diving under the water as it was back in the latter part of the
20th century when Jean-Yves Empereur and Franck Goddio were
conducting the retrieval of artifacts from the harbor floor. The
cofferdam of course enables the study to deepen, layers of
interiors to be actually excavated. It would be very exciting if
they had found anything new, but so far, they haven't and are still
removing the statuary the divers replaced once it had been
studied."

"I've heard it's a bit like the military
that way—months of boredom with intermittent moments of sheer
terror—though I suppose you'd have to substitute excitement for
terror in the case of a dig."

"Don't be so sure," Gabriella said. "There
have been many politically motivated crimes occurring in other
parts of Egypt recently. The dam and the dig are easily accessible
from the city. In fact, it's a favorite tourist attraction for
local people as well as for actual tourists." She shook her head,
the brown curls bouncing and her thick eyebrows drawing together
against the nosepiece of her glasses. "Guards are posted, but not
enough, I think."

"Not until now, anyway," Leda said. "My dad
is going to do security on Nucore's behalf. Archaeologists who
worry about the mummy's curse ain't heard nothin' yet. Wait till
they hear my daddy's."

Gabriella laughed, and Leda entertained her
for a while telling Duke stories about his wives, his bikes, his
police work.

Later, watching the contessa sleep,
Gabriella asked, "Would you do that yourself?"

"You mean have someone come into my mind
like that? I don't think so. I seem to have enough personalities
for three people already. Besides, I don't think I could get Daddy
to give me away for the occasion. He thinks this is all kind of
spooky."

Gabriella shrugged. "It is, really, but
fascinating, don't you think? You won't be able to mention any
specimen collecting you'll be doing while in Egypt, you
understand."

"Oh, no, I've been warned. I hope I can call
on you if I have any questions I need to ask without—well,
compromising Nucore."

"Certainly."

"So, how about you, would you ever have this
done?"

Gabriella's long, spatulate fingers tugged
at a tangle of curls.

"Perhaps," she said. "If I thought it would
do any good. I mean, you wouldn't undertake such a thing lightly,
would you?"

"I wouldn't undertake it at
all," Leda said firmly. To herself, she added thoughtfully,
Well, probably not.
As she
grew older, she had learned to avoid absolutes. Both women lapsed
into silence, Leda wondering with whom she
would
consider blending, Gabriella
apparently doing the same. Leda thought it was rather like the game
of imagining what you would do if you won the lottery. It never
occurred to her that her silence might be mistaken for
evasiveness.

Chimera was not exactly a chatterbox most of
the time, but when Leda returned to the villa, she found the
scientist there already, engrossed in lab work. There was a
withdrawn quality about her friend she hadn't previously felt. "Hi.
How'd it go with the other interview?" she asked.

After a moment, Chimera straightened, took a
deep breath, and let it out again. "We hope you will believe us,
Leda, when we tell you we came upon our process in a good way, and
we intend it for good purposes."