of low-riders from one of my interns and bend over more often than I have been.”
Ryerson shrugged. “It might not be a bad idea, but I think a 30 second spot of you drawing pictures of a dinosaur skull, with the appropriate voice-over, ought break up some of the academic monotony.”
Honoré sighed. “All right, then. Amanda—!”
A brown-skinned girl standing at the rim of the excavation turned toward her. Her hair was a rat’s nest of dreadlocks and beaded braids. “Yes, Dr. Roxton?” Her voice held a strong Liverpudlian accent.
“Would you mind fetching my sketchbook and a few pencils from the op center?”
Amanda Redding formed an OK sign with her thumb and forefinger and jogged toward the main camp. For miles around it was basically flatland, with not even sproutings of scrub to relieve the sameness of the terrain. A lifeless and sere lake basin spread out like a vast bowl of desolation.
There was nothing left of the lake, not even a few ponds. It looked as though an impossibly huge animal had stomped a hoof print into the center of the basin, sinking it well below the foothills of the mountain range.
Mineral deposits in the rugged Andes range glittered dully with the reflected radiance of the sun. The jagged serrations of the white peaks resembled the points of diamonds.
A dozen dust-filmed Land Rovers and a cluster of tents formed an uneven wall around the outer perimeter of the site. Rock hammers clicked, dental picks ticked and the little red marker flags fluttered in the constant breeze. Twenty people labored among four square-cut, sectionized pits, sifting through sedimentary gravel and carefully whittling away at stone with putty knives.
Honoré Roxton glanced at the cameraman and sighed. She didn’t feel comfortable lecturing students in her paleontology classes at Oxford, so to look and sound at ease in front of a camera was a real stretch. But, she had learned that in order to acquire funding for her research projects, as well as guarantee her tenure, she had to present herself as something of the Jane Goodall of paleozoology, the attractive, fairly youthful public face of a largely misunderstood scientific discipline.
If she had to give the impression that she was a cross between Lara Croft and Indiana Jones while she made the rounds of talk shows or served as the anchor of Discovery Channel specials, she had resigned herself to it.
“Doctor Roxton!”
Honoré turned in the direction of Amanda’s voice. She gestured to the big main operations tent that held most of their equipment. “London calling on the Wi-Fi!”
Honoré frowned, confused. She glanced at her wristwatch. Not only was it very late in England, she had no immediate family in London and most of the people she considered friends were with her at the site.
Quickly, she climbed out of the pit and crossed the open ground to the tent. As she reached Amanda, she asked, “Who is calling me out here?”
The young woman mimed patting a child’s head at waist level and made a face as if she tasted something sour. “Himself the elf.”
Honoré instantly knew to whom Amanda referred, and a shudder shook her frame. “Oh my God,” she murmured.
Despite its size, the tent felt crowded, filled as it was with packing crates, drafting tables, toolboxes and three state-of-the-art computer consoles. By the time she had sat down in the camp chair before a monitor screen, taken off her hat, put on the headset and adjusted the video feed, she felt nominally prepared to speak to Dr. Aubrey Belleau.
As one of the preeminent curators of London’s Natural History Museum as well as her self-appointed mentor, Belleau’s credentials were worthy of respect, even if his personal behavior had earned little more than contempt.
The screen framed only Belleau’s head and shoulders but that view was sufficient exposure for Honoré. She had seen the man naked in a hot tub several years before, the memory of his gnarled, misshapen body still gave
Ryerson shrugged. “It might not be a bad idea, but I think a 30 second spot of you drawing pictures of a dinosaur skull, with the appropriate voice-over, ought break up some of the academic monotony.”
Honoré sighed. “All right, then. Amanda—!”
A brown-skinned girl standing at the rim of the excavation turned toward her. Her hair was a rat’s nest of dreadlocks and beaded braids. “Yes, Dr. Roxton?” Her voice held a strong Liverpudlian accent.
“Would you mind fetching my sketchbook and a few pencils from the op center?”
Amanda Redding formed an OK sign with her thumb and forefinger and jogged toward the main camp. For miles around it was basically flatland, with not even sproutings of scrub to relieve the sameness of the terrain. A lifeless and sere lake basin spread out like a vast bowl of desolation.
There was nothing left of the lake, not even a few ponds. It looked as though an impossibly huge animal had stomped a hoof print into the center of the basin, sinking it well below the foothills of the mountain range.
Mineral deposits in the rugged Andes range glittered dully with the reflected radiance of the sun. The jagged serrations of the white peaks resembled the points of diamonds.
A dozen dust-filmed Land Rovers and a cluster of tents formed an uneven wall around the outer perimeter of the site. Rock hammers clicked, dental picks ticked and the little red marker flags fluttered in the constant breeze. Twenty people labored among four square-cut, sectionized pits, sifting through sedimentary gravel and carefully whittling away at stone with putty knives.
Honoré Roxton glanced at the cameraman and sighed. She didn’t feel comfortable lecturing students in her paleontology classes at Oxford, so to look and sound at ease in front of a camera was a real stretch. But, she had learned that in order to acquire funding for her research projects, as well as guarantee her tenure, she had to present herself as something of the Jane Goodall of paleozoology, the attractive, fairly youthful public face of a largely misunderstood scientific discipline.
If she had to give the impression that she was a cross between Lara Croft and Indiana Jones while she made the rounds of talk shows or served as the anchor of Discovery Channel specials, she had resigned herself to it.
“Doctor Roxton!”
Honoré turned in the direction of Amanda’s voice. She gestured to the big main operations tent that held most of their equipment. “London calling on the Wi-Fi!”
Honoré frowned, confused. She glanced at her wristwatch. Not only was it very late in England, she had no immediate family in London and most of the people she considered friends were with her at the site.
Quickly, she climbed out of the pit and crossed the open ground to the tent. As she reached Amanda, she asked, “Who is calling me out here?”
The young woman mimed patting a child’s head at waist level and made a face as if she tasted something sour. “Himself the elf.”
Honoré instantly knew to whom Amanda referred, and a shudder shook her frame. “Oh my God,” she murmured.
Despite its size, the tent felt crowded, filled as it was with packing crates, drafting tables, toolboxes and three state-of-the-art computer consoles. By the time she had sat down in the camp chair before a monitor screen, taken off her hat, put on the headset and adjusted the video feed, she felt nominally prepared to speak to Dr. Aubrey Belleau.
As one of the preeminent curators of London’s Natural History Museum as well as her self-appointed mentor, Belleau’s credentials were worthy of respect, even if his personal behavior had earned little more than contempt.
The screen framed only Belleau’s head and shoulders but that view was sufficient exposure for Honoré. She had seen the man naked in a hot tub several years before, the memory of his gnarled, misshapen body still gave
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