Mackenzie Ford - The Clouds Beneath the Sun

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.