Read Online Order of the Air Omnibus: Books 1-3 by Melissa Scott - Free Book Online Page B

the sanctuary and sections of the surrounding grove, but actually draining the lake itself. The last report he had seen said that the superstructure of the first ship was now above water, and that it was far larger than any Roman ship previously discovered, and would rewrite half a dozen well-worn assumptions….
    “Why aren’t you asking Davenport?” he said aloud. “Or isn’t he part of your lodge anymore?”
    Henry’s eyes flickered, and for a second Jerry thought he was going to agree, but then he made another face. “Bill is — he’s not interested in this piece.”
    “That makes no sense at all,” Jerry said. Even at first glance, he could tell this tablet was something special, especially to anyone who knew anything at all about occult history. “Doesn’t he know you have it?”
    “He knows,” Henry said. “He — well, that’s not important. He’s got other things he’s handling right now, including a donation of bronzes to the University —”
    He stopped, and Jerry looked at him over the rim of his glasses. “Davenport is here? In Los Angeles?”
    “He arrived on Tuesday,” Henry said, after a moment. “Leave it, will you?”
    “It doesn’t make sense,” Jerry said again. “He must see — feel, anyway — he must know what he has here —”
    “There’s a story that goes with it,” Henry said. “Not a very nice one.”
    “They usually aren’t,” Jerry began, stopped as the expression on Henry’s face really registered. “Go on.”
    “One of the Italian archeologists working on the dig had a brainstorm and disappeared for a month. Just up and vanished one night, and a week later some guy hunting mushrooms spotted him up in the hills above the lake. It took the cops a good month to track him down, but they finally managed to catch him. He was stark staring crazy by then. Couldn’t talk, didn’t recognize anybody, not even his own wife. They took him to a hospital in Rome, but he was in pretty bad shape from being on the run so long — malnourished, feet cut to hell, you get the picture.”
    Jerry nodded.
    “There wasn’t much they could do for him,” Henry said. “Bill said the doctors thought he might have had some kind of stroke, maybe. The sad part is, he was starting to get better — he’d calmed down some, actually seemed to know his wife — and then he had another stroke, and that one killed him.”
    “Not nice,” Jerry said, after a moment. “But what does that have to do with the tablet?”
    “I think Bill got the tablet from Gadda,” Henry said. “The Italian guy. And I think he can’t figure out how to explain having it, so he’s trying to pretend it doesn’t exist, at least until he can think of a way to bring it back to light. But I want to know what it says.”
    Jerry nodded again, thoughtfully this time. It mostly made sense. Oh, there were plenty of things that Henry wasn’t saying, but he was willing to bet most of those had to do with lodge politics. Davenport had been pretty scathing about Henry’s talents, or lack of them, back in Italy; he’d been willing to use Henry, and Henry’s money, when the lodge split, but he probably hadn’t had any reason to change his opinion since then. And, knowing Davenport, he wasn’t going to go out of his way to be polite about it.
    “All right,” he said. “Fine. Not Davenport. What about Geoffrey Bullfinch? This is right up his alley, and he’s just down in San Valencez, which is a hell of a lot closer than me. Not to mention that he’ll work for free if it interests him.”
    Henry looked away again. “There’s been some — call it tension — between the lodge and Bullfinch lately.”
    “He and Davenport fought about — what?” Jerry asked.
    “You name it,” Henry said, his expression sour. “Archeology. Provenance of certain relics. Proper procedures.”
    “And you went along with it.”
    “Our Magister took Bill’s part, yes,” Henry said. “As he should.”
    “Right,” Jerry