Channeling Cleopatra (6 page)

"Well, sure, but then, you can't always
control how other people are going to interpret it, what uses
they'll want to make of your work."

"True. We are beginning sometimes to feel
like Victor Frankenstein. You know, from that movie?"

"Everyone knows that movie," she reassured
Chimera. "Why now in particular?"

"Today we had a very important client—other
than the countess, who was most delightful, especially by
comparison. This was another Nucore board member, however, which
was why Wilhelm felt it necessary that we be present."

"Who did this guy want to be? Caesar?
Napoleon? Not Hitler!"

"No, none of those. He probably doesn't
consider them worthy to share his mental space. He wanted to use
the process in a less usual way. He wished to donate some of his
DNA so that his heir could undergo the process."

"Oh, the old 'make me eternally young and
beautiful' deal, huh?"

"Pardon?"

"Immortality. You mean this is the first
time someone has asked you to do this kind of thing?"

"It doesn't surprise you?"

"Oh, no, I thought all of the egomaniac
billionaires would be busting down your doors to do the same thing.
They must have been too busy counting their petty cash to have
thought of it until just now."

"He brought along several young associates,"
Chimera said glumly. "In order that they could attend his interview
to hear what he proposed, he paid for all of them to have the
process done themselves. Each may choose a donor personality later.
It was the arrogance of it all that was so staggering," Chimera
said, eyes wide and offended.

"You—both of you—are pretty innocent, in
spite of all of the things you've seen through a microscope," Leda
told her friend. "What did you tell the guy?"

"No. Of course, no. Wolfe tried to be
diplomatic—the man is one of the major shareholders in Nucore—but
the process requires a willingness to learn, to grow, to . . .
expand. This man clearly wished only to dominate another so that he
could prolong his own life and the pursuit of his own desires."

"I guess it works for him," Leda said. "I'm
glad you turned him down, though. Sounds like a jerk."

"We worry what will happen when the process
becomes better known, when it begins to slip from our immediate
control. For what other sorts of perverted purposes will it be
used? We are not happy with this, Leda."

"Well, you can comfort yourself that at
least so far, governments aren't bidding for it to use for military
purposes. Or are they?"

Chimera just groaned and returned to the
solace of the microscope.

CHAPTER 4

Alexandria in the afternoon had all of the
dubious charm of a Turkish bath, or more accurately, an Egyptian
bath. A welcoming committee of heat waves danced up from the
runway, enveloping Leda in a sticky embrace as soon as she stepped
from the plane. After which she and the pilot spent a strenuous
sweaty time unloading large boxes of equipment she would need to
set up her lab, the sensitive instruments, the special computer,
and her own bags. Then her plane took off again, and she stood
sopping in the middle of the runway. The heat was the only thing
waving at her. There was no welcoming committee. The airfield was
occupied by a solitary helicopter, a mountain of boxes that made
the pile she had just unloaded resemble a mere foothill by
comparison, and a hangar with a Quonset hut beside it. If there was
any ground transportation, she didn't see it.

The people from the site knew she was
coming. They knew she'd be bringing lots of stuff. Wolfe had
instructed his people to call their people. And yet, nobody. Not a
damn soul. She carried her duffel bag to the Quonset hut.

"Hello?" she called, but nobody answered.
The computer on the battered metal desk was turned off. She was
turning to go, to see if she couldn't find someone to help drag her
stuff off the runway, when a door she hadn't noticed in the back of
the hut banged open, and a man with hair sticking up in all
directions peered out of it like a tortoise from his shell.

"Hi," she said before he could withdraw
again. "Are you the guy in charge?"

The man looked at her suspiciously, as if
sweaty women didn't come and go from this airport a lot. He could
possibly have been Egyptian, he was dark and swarthy, but surely he
would understand other languages if he had this job. He continued
to look blank as she tried pidgin Arabic, high school French, GI
German, and gutter Italian.

"Screw it," she said finally, deciding
Nucore must be improving its image by hiring the handicapped, since
the man was apparently hearing impaired. Which could actually be an
asset, working at an airstrip where, if you weren't somewhat deaf
to begin with, the noise of the aircraft engines could wreak enough
damage on your eardrums that you soon would be. "I'm calling my
dad."

She dialed Duke's cell
phone number. He'd been sent here a week earlier, while she
received some further instructions from Chimera and Wolfe. A
message in three languages told her that her party had traveled
beyond the range of his instrument. "Shit," she said. For the
benefit of the guy still rubbing his head in the doorway, she
added,
"Merde. Alors,"
just for French emphasis.

At that the man shuffled forward. He was
barefoot, his shirt untucked from cargo pants with the seat
dragging between his thighs.

"You French?" he asked finally in
Australian-flavored English. Maybe he was from so far in the
Outback he had to think about switching from kangaroo to People
talk. "I thought at first you was a Yank."

"Talk a little louder," she
suggested. "If I'm French, I can't understand your question." Then,
before he took her seriously, she said,
"Yes,
I am a Yank. My name is Leda
Hubbard, and I brought a whole bunch of important and very
expensive equipment to work with the crew excavating the harbor
basin. Do they have like, a headquarters or anything? I was told
they knew I was coming, and someone would be here to meet
me."

"Nobody mentioned anything to me," the man
said.

"The guy in charge is a Dr. Namid," she told
him. "Could you call him, please?"

"Oh, sure," the man said, glad she had asked
for someone he'd actually heard of. Then his blank expression
turned to one of anxiety. "He won't like it, though. Hates being
interrupted. And it's nap time, you know. Nobody'll be working at
this hour."

"Oh, right, siesta," she
said, remembering belatedly what sensible local people did about
the heat that was melting her like the Wicked Witch of the West.
"Well, I'm not a mad dog
or
an Englishman. I'm an extremely overheated
German/Blackfoot Indian with a soupcon of Romanian Gypsy, and I
want to get out of the hot sun and take a nap as much as the next
person. So I guess Dr. Namid will just have to be unhappy as long
as he sends someone to get me and several million bucks' worth of
equipment baking on the runway."

"Okay, okay, sit down,
lady. Your face is red." He fished out a Coke from a cooler under
the desk. "Here. Chill." The accent
was
Aussie, she decided. She used to
know one of those. Well, Kiwi, actually.

He dialed a number and quickly handed her
the phone. "Namid," said a gruff, impatient voice on the other end
of the line.

"Dr. Namid, I'm Leda Hubbard, the forensic
anthropologist assigned to your project on behalf of Nucore?"

"I have informed Nucore we have no need of
another physical anthropologist. Now, if you will excuse me—"

Leda took a deep breath to keep herself from
saying things like, "Look here, you horse's ass," and instead said,
"I'd be happy to, but I have myself and some equipment to bring to
the dig from the airstrip and no transport, sir."

"If you can get a hold of me, surely it is
within your capabilities to call a taxi, Miss Hubbard?" he said,
and hung up.

"Damn!" she said and the swarthy Aussie
smirked.

"Trouble?" he asked.

"Only for him," she said. "Later." Another
idea had occurred to her. She dug in her duffel-sized purse for her
full-sized address book and shuffled through cards until she found
the one from Gabriella. Yes! There it was. And according to the
dates the good Dr. Faruk had so considerately inscribed upon the
card, she should be in Alexandria and perhaps even reachable by
phone, though that eventuality seemed remote, considering Leda's
recent luck.

The man opened his mouth to protest. His
name tag said Byrne. Didn't sound awfully exotic.

"I'm not busted. I get more than one phone
call, right?" Leda asked, not much caring what he thought.

And wonder of wonders, a voice spoke unto
her from the other end of the telephone line. "Dr. Faruk speaking,"
it—she—said.

"Gabriella! It's Leda Hubbard! This eagle
has just landed and is stranded. Dad isn't answering his cell
phone, and Dr. Namid told me to take a cab. I'm here with two tons
of very valuable stuff, and I don't know how the hell to get it
there. It's too much for me to move from the airstrip out of the
path of passing planes, much less tuck into a cab. Also, I'm in
meltdown. Help!"

"Didn't I tell you the man is a swine?"
Gabriella asked. "You poor dear. Hold on, my friend. I will get a
taxi and some muscular people and come to your aid at once."

"I will be the grease puddle in front of the
desk at the Quonset hut."

"Ciao," Gabriella said and rang off.

Leda was already distracted. Looking up, she
saw more evidence of lack of consideration for her tender self.
"Hey. Byrne, is that a fan I see up there? Or is it a sculpture?
Why is it standing still instead of going round and round, making
me cooler?"

Byrne opened his mouth,
shut it again, and pulled on the fan cord. The air wasn't cool, but
it was different hot air than had been on her before. She was about
to sit on the floor and weep for a moment when Byrne gallantly
shoved a metal folding chair hot enough to barbeque a pig toward
her. He might make old bones after all. She reached into her purse
for her sweater (what had she been thinking about bringing
that)
and draped the wrap
over the chair. She was wearing pants instead of shorts,
fortunately, so she could sit.

To her pleasure and amazement, it was barely
twenty minutes before a latter-day caravan arrived, with Duke on
the renovated Sopwith riding point, followed by Gabriella in a
capacious taxi-van, bringing with her three young men, all
Egyptian-looking. For good measure, the van was followed by two
donkey carts. Leda, having broadened her cultural horizons while
visiting foreign lands in the Navy, didn't bat an eyelash at the
donkey carts.

"You poor thing," Gabriella said to Leda,
while Leda's Dad gave her a brief wave. Sometimes they were into
hugging but not when it was this damned hot.

"Where is your cargo?" Gabriella asked.

"Out there on the so-called tarmac, waiting
for things with wings and rotors to run over them," Leda
replied.

Duke heard this, and before the young men
could react, he had lifted the largest of the boxes and carried it
on his shoulder like some sort of golden years native bearer. The
young men, not to be outdone, freed the runway of obstructive,
expensive debris in one trip with each of the lads carrying as much
as he could. Most of it fit into the taxi and the front quarter of
one of the donkey carts. The other donkey cart driver, with great
dignity, removed one of the boxes from the front cart and carried
it back to his.

None of these people even seemed to be
sweating, and in fact, Gabriella was wearing a long-sleeved blouse
over a crew neck red T-shirt and a full skirt and sandals.

It wasn't fair.

"Where did you find Dad?" Leda asked
Gabriella. "Or did he just happen to hear I had arrived when you
did?"

"Oh, no, he actually was in the library when
you called."

"Don't tell me he's getting into
Egyptology."

"No, hydrology, actually. He's become great
friends with the contractor who maintains the cofferdam and wanted
to read up on the Aswan project. Also," she said after a bit of a
pause, "I think he comes to flirt with me."

"You're female. Of course he comes to flirt
with you. But don't worry, you're not his type. Well, not his
serious type. You have to be a bookkeeper or an accountant to be
eligible to be Mrs. Daddy."

"Really?"

"Yep, all of his wives have been."

When Duke approached, wiping the sweat from
his face, Leda asked him, "Do you know where my lab is, Daddy?
We'll need to park this stuff once we get there."

"Lab?" He scratched his head. "Namid's
people have this place where they wash the artifacts and date them
and so forth but—"

"Nah, that's not it. I mean my lab. The
Nucore lab. I'm supposed to work it alone. Never mind, I'll give
Wolfie's people a call. I don't feel like asking Namid for so much
as a cup of sugar." She punched in numbers with the pads of her
fingers, avoiding contact between the keys and her unusually long,
strong fingernails, now devoid of purple polish. After having her
call shuttled through three offices and back again, she had an
answer of sorts.

When Duke wandered back, he wore a bemused
expression.

Gabriella, having supervised the loading of
the taxi, strode back toward them, too.

"It's a beluga," Leda told both of them.

"Whale or caviar?" Gabriella asked.

"Neither. Big white fluffy building that
looks like you inflate it with a bicycle pump, but allows for
extreme temperature control inside. It's on the mainland, at the
base of the Heptastadion," Leda said, referring to the land bridge
that connected the Isle of Pharos to the rest of Alexandria and
separated the city's eastern harbor from the western one. The
eastern harbor had been largely man-made, dug in ancient times from
the floor of the Mediterranean to serve as the royal harbor.