"I found something"
It wasn't the words; the last seventy-six times Carol had
heard it, it had turned out to be six hundred years of decay on a dog, at the
very most interesting. At least a dog was a sign that someone had at least been
close by at some point.
But this was different.
Every time before, there had been excitement in the voice, but something
had still been missing. Something that was there, now.
Carol picked up her trowel and headed over to the call. It
was repeated, with a note of uncertainty - which might have removed the promise
of an interesting find, but there was a note in the uncertainty that somehow
reassured that whatever it was, it was worth seeing.
She turned her head
torch back on and stowed the electric lantern in her tool-belt. Three students
had gathered around the caller, and the other dozen or so were converging from
points around the cave.
"Let's see," said Carol, a touch less gently than
she'd intended. It had been an order, but she'd meant it to sound like a
request. Regardless, the girl moved.
Carol pulled on a glove as she crouched, and stared down at
the surprisingly fleshy shoulder revealed in the cave floor.
"It moved," said the student who'd called out, 'I
swear it moved.'
Carol glanced at the student, one of the twins. By the fact that
her face wasn't glowing in the dark from a beyond-liberal application of
spray-on tan, it was probably the more level-headed Amy.
"It may have," Carol returned her attention to the
shoulder, and traced her finger along the seam where earth met flesh, "it
did. It's been held in place for centuries, by the look of things, and has lost
a good deal of mass since it first got here. Lewis?"
Her most useful PhD student always put her in mind of a
spaniel when she called to him; bounding chaotically over with no regard for
anything other than serving his master. She waved a hand vaguely at the body,
and left him to it. It wasn't just that he knew precisely what she needed him
to do in this long-awaited situation; she loved that it was possible to date
samples based on pollen and radioactive carbon isotopes collected at the site,
but the actual processes involved were dull and alien to her. Dull enough,
even, to get her to discuss the find with undergraduates rather than
participate.
"Who can tell me what Lewis is doing?" she asked
the group in general. One hand went up. "Yes, Amy?"
"He's collecting a sample of the surrounding humus for
comparison to known samples, so that the bacteria-rich layer associated with
the initial decay of animal tissue can be identified with reference to the
plant pollens abundant at the time of the arrival of the body, and within the
broader context of the island, the find can be assigned to one of the
bands."
"Are you done?" Carol asked. She would have
preferred to have Francesca - Professor van Dein - explain this to the
students, but Amy always seemed to retain the information perfectly, even from
Francesca's information-heavy sessions.
"He will also collect a minimum of three tissue samples
for carbon dating, and soil samples from all surfaces that touch the body,
which Professor van Dein will then use to give us a more specific and seasonal
picture of when this body got here, and confirm the date of death based on the
predictable decay of radioactive carbon isotopes. Stomach contents, if
accessible, will typically be collected
-within the laboratory environment, to avoid contaminating the
samples."
"Lewis, did you get all that?"Carol turned to the
PhD student. Lewis laughed appreciatively at her wit - it grated. He always
laughed.
"Lucan, as I recall, you were partnered with Amy for
today. Tell me, which band does this body belong to?"
Lucan looked blankly at her. It wasn't that he didn't know.
For the first semester, she had labelled him as an administrative error in
admissions, and assumed he'd be gone soon enough, but when the exams came it
was clear that he had heard and engaged with everything she'd said; what he
didn't know was how to express anything at all verbally.
"Three." He said once his mouth stopped opening
and closing like a goldfish in a net. She left the discussion there - trying to
get him to explain his deduction out loud was futile - but made a mental note
of his answer, and kept her own to herself. She wasn't going to contradict him
and find out later that he'd been right all along, not again. She'd lose all credibility if she
did that twice in one academic year.
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