Mackenzie Ford - The Clouds Beneath the Sun

And so, Eleanor pressed on, introducing the jaw, teeth, and skull bones that Natalie had discovered, Natalie’s shelter, Kees’s hand axes. She didn’t hurry, and it took a good fifty minutes before she began to wind up.

“It is an amazing story when you stop to reflect on it. Kenya, the Kihara Gorge, is the cradle of mankind. Humans first evolved right here in this part of East Africa and then spread out to populate the globe, as we see around us today. In honor of this phenomenon, this great story, this romantic idea, we are calling this new species of man’s ancestor Homo kiharensis . The Kihara Gorge should become one of the wonders of the world. To us, it already is. Thank you.”

The lights went on and a ripple of applause spread around the assembled audience.

Eleanor stood up. “As I said, copies of the press release and photographs will be available at the back of the hall afterwards. We will now take questions. Please identify who you are and which publication you represent.”

There was a short delay before a small, balding, rather fat man stood up. “I’m Tom Jellinek, from the Daily Telegraph in London. I found your presentation very interesting but I am a political reporter out here from London, so forgive me if my question is naive. Would this early form of humanity—if I can put it that way—have been able to speak? Did he or she have language?”

“No, that’s a good question,” said Eleanor, “but we have no information on this, one way or another. If we had found the hyoid bone as part of the skull, its shape might have told us about the structure of the creature’s throat, which would have enabled us to say something, but we haven’t found it yet. Some people might think that, in order to construct stone tools of the kind we have found, early man would have needed language, so that parents could explain to their children what to do, but that is conjecture, indirect argument, and we have avoided speculation. I hope that helps.”

Another man stood up. “Curtis Vallance, Reuters.” He had an American accent. “Can you say something about these stone tools. Why is the change in style so important?”

“Yes,” said Eleanor. “The first use of stone tools was important because those tools enabled early man to pierce the hide of other animals. That indicates a change in diet, from one made up predominantly of vegetables to one rich in animal flesh—or protein, meat. Protein, we know, aids brain development, so the use of tools increases the difference in intelligence between humans and other animals. The change to smaller tools means two things at least. One, the tools are getting more efficient and, two, they can be carried farther, they are less bulky. Early man could go looking for food, rather than have to wait till it came to him.”

Vallance nodded his thanks and scribbled in his pad.

Eleanor’s gaze raked the room but before any other journalist could speak, Russell stood up. He didn’t bother with who he was, but just launched into what he had to say. His size meant that everyone could see him well enough.

“You paint a very cogent and exciting scientific picture but, speaking as a scientist myself, isn’t there something rather odd about the procedure you are following, this very press conference itself, for example?” He had half turned, so the rest of the room could hear him better. “What I mean is: so far as I know, you haven’t published any of your most recent discoveries in the scientific press, which normally would take priority. The scientific press—the scientific community —take a dim view of colleagues who announce their results at a jamboree like this one, so why have you gone down this route?”

Natalie was stiff with nerves; what was Russell playing at? But Eleanor kept her tone relaxed as she said: “I would have thought that was obvious, Professor North. A contingent of British journalists is here in Nairobi, on a fact-finding mission ahead of the independence conference due to take place in London in mid-February. It presents a golden opportunity for us to make known our results to a wide public and to show Kenya at its best when the eyes of the world will soon be upon her. We are of course planning scientific publication at a later date.”

Russell was still on his feet. “So this conference has nothing to do with the upcoming trial of Mutevu Ndekei, who used to be the camp cook at Kihara and who virtually beheaded one of your team, Professor Richard Sutton? It has nothing to do with the fact that Dr. Natalie Nelson, sitting there on your left, will be the main witness against Ndekei, in a trial that will pit a white witness against a black defendant, and is due to take place in the very week that the independence conference will begin in London? It has nothing to do with the fact that the Maasai tribe, who claim ownership of the gorge, have threatened to reoccupy it and destroy it if Ndekei is convicted and sentenced to hang? Are we to take it that the timing of this conference is pure coincidence?”

“Those are all—” Eleanor began, but Russell was in full stampede mode, his face redder than Natalie had ever seen it.

“Is it not true that, despite the united front you display here, today, this morning, in this lecture hall, that in fact your team is bitterly divided?” He pointed directly at Natalie. “Is it not true that Dr. Nelson here fully intends to give evidence against Ndekei, despite the threats posed by the Maasai, but that you, Dr. Deacon, have repeatedly tried to get her to change her testimony, so that the proceedings against Ndekei will be dropped, a maneuver that will preserve your precious gorge at any cost? Is it not true that you, Dr. Deacon, are willing to sweep the murder of a noted professor under the carpet so as to maintain your research opportunities? Isn’t the whole point of this press conference to bolster your achievements in the gorge and to head off the Maasai? Isn’t that why you are not following normal scientific protocol—you are trying to salvage your reputation in the face of impending disaster, that the tribal customs of Kenya will stop scientific progress in its tracks, only you can’t say so for fear of being thought racist or colonialist?”

Eleanor stood up in an attempt to stem the flood, but Russell wouldn’t be stemmed.

“A white man, a talented white man, a world-class scientist, was brutally murdered in a camp run by you, sliced up by a black man with a machete, a mere camp cook from the Maasai tribe, who ran off. A white woman, Dr. Natalie Nelson, was a witness. Now the murderer claims he was acting according to Maasai tradition. Where do you stand, Dr. Deacon? Should Ndekei be tried and, if convicted, hanged? Or do you think that the defense he is going to run is sufficient and relevant in today’s new Kenya?”

He sat down. The stampede was over.

Natalie was sweating. There was no question but that the journalists had listened to Russell in a way different from how they had listened to Eleanor.

Natalie stared at Russell. At first he wouldn’t meet her gaze, but when he did he looked at her hard, rigid, unblinking, defiant.

Eleanor was deep in conversation with Daniel and with Jack, who had left his seat in the auditorium and mounted the stage. A buzz of conversation had broken out in the audience.

Finally, Eleanor stood up. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said and paused, to give everyone a chance to quieten down.

Jack went back to his seat.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I want you all to know that I still stand by all the comments—each and every one—that I made earlier, about the nature and importance and implications of our discoveries in Kihara Gorge. They are in my view—in our view—” and she motioned to the others on the stage with her, “quite independent of other, tragic events that have taken place during the digging season. Those events have very little, if anything, to do with science, and more to do with human folly, greed, and ambition. However, since Professor North has raised the matter—entirely unexpectedly and gratuitously, I might add, since he was not invited to this press conference in the first place, though we would have had no wish to keep him away—I will now satisfy the curiosity his remarks will inevitably have aroused among you.”