Michael Crichton - Timeline

"Right here."

"Lying in the open, just like now?" His voice was tense, almost accusing.

"No, only the edge was exposed. I cleaned it off."

"How?"

"With my finger."

"So: you are telling me it was partly buried?" He sounded like he didn't believe her.

"Hey, what is this?"

"Just answer, please."

"No, André. It was mostly buried. Everything but that left edge was buried."

"I wish you had not touched it."

"I do, too, if I'd known you were going to act like-"

"This must be explained," he said. "Turn around."

"What?"

"Turn around." He took her by the shoulder, turned her roughly, so she was facing away from him.

"Jesus." She glanced over her shoulder to see what he was doing. He held his light very close to her backpack and moved over the surface slowly, examining it minutely, then down to her shorts. "Uh, are you going to tell me-"

"Be quiet, please."

It was a full minute before he finished. "The lower left zip pocket of your pack is open. Did you open it?"

"No."

"Then it has been open all the time? Ever since you put the pack on?"

"I guess…"

"Did you brush against the wall at any time?"

"I don't think so." She had been careful about it, because she hadn't wanted the wall to break loose.

"Are you sure?" he said.

"For Christ's sake. No, André, I'm not sure."

"All right. Now you check me." He handed her his light, and turned his back to her.

"Check you how?" she said.

"That glass is contamination," he said. "We have to explain how it got here. Look to see if any part of my pack is open."

She looked. Nothing was.

"Did you look carefully?"

"Yes, I looked carefully," she said, annoyed.

"I think you didn't take enough time."

"André. I did."

Marek stared at the earthen mound in front of them. Small pebbles trickled down as he watched. "It could have fallen from one of our packs and then been covered…"

"Yes, I guess it could."

"If you could clean it with a fingertip, it was not tightly buried…"

"No, no. Very loose."

"All right. Then somehow, that is the explanation."

"What is?"

"Somehow, we brought this lens in with us, and while we were working on the oilskin documents, it fell from the pack, and was covered by dirt. Then you saw it, and cleaned it. It is the only explanation."

"Okay…"

He took out a camera, photographed the glass several times from different distances - very close, then progressively progressively farther back. Only then did he bring out a plastic baggie, lift the glass carefully with tweezers, and drop it into the bag. He brought out a small roll of bubble wrap, encased the bag, sealed it all with tape, and handed the bundle to her. "You bring it out. Please be careful." He seemed more relaxed. He was being nicer to her.

"Okay," she said. They climbed the dirt slope again, heading back outside.

They were greeted by cheers from the undergraduates, and the oilskin package was handed over to Elsie, who quickly took it back to the farmhouse. Everyone was laughing and smiling, except Chang and Chris Hughes. They were wearing headsets, and had heard everything inside the cave. They looked gloomy and upset.

Site contamination was extremely serious, and they all knew it. Because it implied sloppy excavation technique, it called into question any other, legitimate discoveries made by the team. A typical instance was a minor scandal at Les Eyzies the year before.

Les Eyzies was a Paleolithic site, a habitation of early man beneath a cliff ledge. The archaeologists had been digging at a level that dated to 320,000 B.P., when one of them found a half-buried condom. It was still in its metallic wrapper, and nobody thought for a moment that it belonged at that level. But the fact that it had been found there - half-buried - suggested that they were not being careful in their technique. It caused a near panic among the team, which persisted even after a graduate student was sent back to Paris in disgrace.

"Where is this glass lens?" Chris said to Marek.

"Kate has it."

She gave it to Chris. While everyone else was cheering, he turned away, unwrapped the package, and held the baggie up to the light.

"Definitely modern," he said. He shook his head unhappily. "I'll check it out. Just make sure you include it in the site report."

Marek said he would.

Then Rick Chang turned away and clapped his hands. "All right, everybody. Excitement's over. Back to work!"

In the afternoon, Marek scheduled archery practice. The undergraduates were amused by it, and they never missed a session; recently Kate had taken it up, as well. The target today was a straw-filled scarecrow, set about fifty yards away. The kids were all lined up, holding their bows, and Marek strode down behind them.

"To kill a man," he said, "you have to remember: he is almost certainly wearing plate armor on his chest. He's less likely to have armor on his head and neck, or on his legs. So to kill him, you must shoot him in the head, or on the side of his torso, where the plates don't cover."

Kate listened to Marek, amused. André took everything so seriously. To kill a man. As if he really meant it. Standing in the yellow afternoon sunlight of southern France, hearing the distant honk of cars on the road, the idea seemed slightly absurd.

"But if you want to stop a man," Marek continued, "then shoot him in the leg. He'll go right down. Today we'll use the fifty-pound bows."

Fifty pounds referred to the draw weight, what was needed to pull the string back. The bows were certainly heavy, and difficult to draw. The arrows were almost three feet long. Many of the kids had trouble with it, especially at first. Marek usually finished each practice session with some weight lifting, to build up their muscles.

Marek himself could draw a hundred-pound bow. Although it was difficult to believe, he insisted that this was the size of actual fourteenth-century weapons - far beyond what any of them could use.

"All right," Marek said, "nock your arrows, aim, and loose them, please." Arrows flew through the air. "No, no, no, David, don't pull until you tremble. Maintain control. Carl, look at your stance. Bob, too high. Deanna, remember your fingers. Rick, that was much better. All right, here we go again, nock your arrows, aim, and… loose them!"

It was late in the afternoon when Stern called Marek on the radio, and asked him to come to the farmhouse. He said he had good news. Marek found him at the microscope, examining the lens.

"What is it?"

"Here. Look for yourself." He stepped aside, and Marek looked. He saw the lens, and the sharp line of the bifocal cut. Here and there, the lens was lightly spotted with white circles, as if from bacteria.

"What am I supposed to see?" Marek said.

"Left edge."

He moved the stage, bringing the left edge into view. Refracted in the light, the edge looked very white. Then he noticed that the whiteness spilled over the edge, onto the surface of the lens itself.

"That's bacteria growing on the lens," Stern said. "It's like rock varnish."

Rock varnish was the term for the patina of bacteria and mold that grew on the underside of rocks. Because it was organic, rock varnish could be dated.

"Can this be dated?" Marek said.

"It could," Stern said, "if there was enough of it for a C-14 run. But I can tell you now, there isn't. You can't get a decent date from that amount. There isn't any use trying."

"So?"

"The point is, that was the exposed edge of the lens, right? The edge that Kate said was sticking out of the earth?"

"Right…"

"So it's old, André. I don't know how old, but it's not site contamination. Rick is looking at all the bones that were exposed today, and he thinks some of them are later than our period, eighteenth century, maybe even nineteenth century. Which means one of them could have been wearing bifocals."