Darwin’s Radio

Dirty little wars between ancient neighbors with ancient grievances.

This was not going to be good for her, but she could not refuse.

Lado wrinkled his face and stared up at Beck. ‘They were going to be mothers?’

‘Most of them,’ Beck said. ‘And maybe some were going to be fathers.’

CHAPTER THREE

The end of the cave was very cramped. Tilde lay under a low shelf of rock, knees drawn up, and watched Mitch as he kneeled before the ones they had come here to see. Franco squatted behind Mitch.

Mitch’s mouth hung half open, like a surprised little boy’s. He could not speak for a time. The end of the cave was utterly still and quiet. Only the beam of light moved as he played the torch up and down the two forms.

‘We touched nothing,’ Franco said.

The blackened ashes, ancient fragments of wood, grass and reed, looked as if a breath would scatter them but still formed the remains of a fire. The skin of the bodies had fared much better. Mitch had never seen more startling examples of deep freeze mummification. The tissues were hard and dry, the moisture sucked from them by the dry deep cold air. Near the heads, where they lay facing each other, the skin and muscle had hardly shrunk at all before being fixed. The features were almost natural, though the eyelids had withdrawn and the eyes beneath were shrunken, dark, unutterably sleepy. The bodies as well were full; only near the legs did the flesh seem to shrivel and darken, perhaps because of the intermittent breeze from farther up the shaft. The feet were wizened, black as little dried mushrooms.

Mitch could not believe what he was seeing. Perhaps there was nothing so extraordinary about their pose – lying on their sides, a man and a woman facing each other in death, freezing finally as the ashes of their last fire cooled. Nothing unexpected about the hands of the man reaching toward the face of the woman, the woman’s arms low in front of her as if she had clasped her stomach. Nothing extraordinary about the animal skin beneath them, or another skin rumpled beside the male, as if it had been tossed aside.

In the end, with the fire out, freezing to death, the man had felt too warm and had thrown off his covering.

Mitch looked down at the woman’s curled fingers and swallowed a rising lump of emotion he could not easily define or explain.

‘How old?’ Tilde asked, interrupting his focus. Her voice sounded crisp and clear and rational, like the ring of a struck knife.

Mitch jerked. ‘Very old,’ he said quietly.

‘Yes, but like the Iceman?’

‘Not like the Iceman,’ Mitch said. His voice almost broke.

The female had been injured. A hole had been punched in her side, at hip level. Blood stains surrounded the hole and he thought he could make out stains on the rock beneath her. Perhaps it had been the cause of her death.

There were no weapons in the cave.

He rubbed his eyes to force aside the little jagged white moon that rose into his field of vision and threatened to distract him, then looked at the faces again, short broad noses pointing up at an angle. The woman’s jaw hung slack, the man’s was closed. The woman had died gasping for air. Mitch could not know this for sure, but he did not question the observation. It fit.

Only now did he carefully maneuver around the figures, crouched low, moving so slowly, keeping his bent knees an inch above the man’s hip.

‘They look old,’ Franco said, just to make a sound in the cave. His eyes glittered. Mitch glanced at him, then down at the male’s profile.

Thick brow ridge, broad flattened nose, no chin. Powerful shoulders, narrowing to a comparatively slender waist. Thick arms. The faces were smooth, almost hairless. All the skin below the neck, however, was covered with a fine dark downy fur, visible only on close examination. Around their temples, the short-trimmed hair seemed to have been shaved in patterns, expertly barbered.

So much for shaggy museum reconstructions.

Mitch bent closer, the cold air heavy in his nostrils, and propped his hand against the top of the cave. Something like a mask lay between the bodies, actually two masks, one beside and bunched under the man, the other beneath the woman. The edges of the masks appeared torn. Each had eye holes, nostrils, the appearance of an upper lip, all lightly covered with fine hair, and below that, an even hairier flap that might have once wrapped around the neck and lower jaw. They might have been lifted from the faces, flayed away, yet there was no skin missing from the heads.

The mask nearest the woman seemed attached to her forehead and temple by thin fibers like the beard of a mussel.

Mitch realized he was focusing on little mysteries to get past one big impossibility.

‘How old are they?’ Tilde asked again. ‘Can you tell yet?’

‘I don’t think there have been people like this for tens of thousands of years,’ Mitch said.

Tilde seemed to miss this statement of deep time. ‘They are European, like the Iceman?’

‘I don’t know,’ Mitch said, but shook his head and held up his hand. He did not want to talk; he wanted to think. This was an extremely dangerous place, professionally, mentally, from any angle of approach. Dangerous and dreamlike and impossible.

‘Tell me, Mitch,’ Tilde pleaded with surprising gentleness. ‘Tell me what you see.’ She reached out to stroke his knee. Franco observed this caress with maturity.

Mitch began, ‘They are male and female, each about a hundred and sixty centimeters in height.’

‘Short people,’ Franco said, but Mitch talked right over him.

‘They appear to be genus Homo, species sapiens. Not like us, though. They might have suffered from some kind of dwarfism, distortion of the features …’ He stopped himself and looked again at the heads, saw no signs of dwarfism, though the masks bothered him.

The classic features. ‘They’re not dwarfs,’ he said. ‘They’re Neanderthals.’

Tilde coughed. The dry air parched their throats. ‘Pardon?’

‘Cave men?’ Franco said.

‘Neanderthals,’ Mitch said again, as much to convince himself as to correct Franco.

‘That is bullshit,’ Tilde said, her voice crackling with anger. ‘We are not children.’

‘No bullshit. You have found two well-preserved Neanderthals, a man and a woman. The first Neanderthal mummies … anywhere. Ever.’

Tilde and Franco thought about that for a few seconds. Outside, wind hooted past the cave entrance.

‘How old?’ Franco asked.

‘Everyone thinks the Neanderthals died out between a hundred thousand and forty thousand years ago,’ Mitch said. ‘Maybe everyone is wrong. But I doubt they could have stayed in this cave, in this state of preservation, for forty thousand years.’

‘Maybe they were the last,’ Franco said, and crossed himself reverently.

‘Incredible,’ Tilde said, her face flushed. ‘How much would they be worth?’

Mitch’s leg cramped and he moved back to squat beside Franco. He rubbed his eyes with a gloved knuckle. So cold. He was shivering. The moon of light blurred and shifted. ‘They’re not worth anything,’ he said.

‘Don’t joke,’ Tilde said. ‘They are rare – nothing like them, right?’

‘Even if we – if you, I mean – could get them out of this cave safely, intact, and down the mountain, where would you sell them?’

‘There are people who collect such things,’ Franco said. ‘People with lots of money. We have talked to some about an Iceman already. Surely an Iceman and Woman –’

‘Maybe I should be more blunt,’ Mitch said. ‘If these aren’t handled in a proper scientific fashion, I will go to the authorities in Switzerland, Italy, wherever the hell we are. I will tell them.’

Another silence. Mitch could almost hear Tilde’s thoughts, like a little Austrian clockwork.

Franco slapped the floor of the cave with his gloved hand and glared at Mitch. ‘Why fuck us up?’

‘Because these people don’t belong to you,’ Mitch said. ‘They don’t belong to anybody.’

‘They are dead!’ Franco shouted. ‘They do not belong to themselves, do they, any more?’

Tilde’s lips formed a straight, grim line. ‘Mitch is right. We are not going to sell them.’

A little scared now, Mitch’s next words rushed out. ‘I don’t know what else you might plan to do with them, but I don’t think you’re going to control them, or sell the rights, make Cave Man Barbie dolls or whatever.’ He took a deep breath.

‘No, again, I say Mitch is right,’ Tilde stated slowly. Franco regarded her with a speculative squint. ‘This is very huge. We will be good citizens. They are everybody’s ancestors. Mama and Papa to the world.’

Mitch could definitely feel the headache creeping up on him. The earlier oblong of light had been a familiar warning: oncoming head-crushing train approaching. Climbing back down the mountain would be difficult or even impossible if he was going to fall under the spell of a migraine, a real brain-splitter. He hadn’t brought any medicine. ‘Are you planning to kill me up here?’ he asked Tilde.

Franco shot a glance at him, then rolled to look at Tilde, waiting for an answer.

Tilde grinned and tapped her chin. ‘I am thinking,’ she said. ‘What rogues we would be. Famous stories. Pirates of the prehistoric. Yo ho ho and a bottle of Schnapps.’

‘What we need to do,’ Mitch said, assuming that she had answered in the negative, ‘is to take a tissue sample from each body, with minimal intrusion. Then –’

He reached for the torch, which he had placed near his feet, and lifted it, shining the light beyond the close, sleepy-eyed heads of the male and female to the far recesses, about three yards farther back in the cave. Something small lay there, bundled in fur.

‘What’s that?’ he and Franco asked simultaneously.

Mitch considered. He could hunker and sidle his way around the female without disturbing anything except the dust. On the other hand, it would be best to leave everything completely untouched, to retreat from the cave now and bring back the real experts. The tissue samples would be enough evidence, he thought. Enough was known about Neanderthal DNA from bone studies. A confirmation could be made and the cave could be kept sealed until –

He pressed his temples and closed his eyes.

Tilde tapped his shoulder and gently pushed him out of the way. ‘I am smaller,’ she said. She crawled beside the female toward the rear of the cave.

Mitch watched and said nothing. This was what it felt like to truly sin – the sin of overwhelming curiosity. He would never forgive himself, but, he rationalized, how could he stop her without harming the bodies? Besides, she was being careful.

Tilde squeezed so low her face was on the floor beside the bundle. She gripped one end of the fur with two fingers and slowly turned it around. Mitch’s throat seized with anguish. ‘Shine a light,’ she demanded. Mitch did so.

Franco aimed his torch as well.

‘It’s a doll,’ Tilde said.

From the top of the bundle peered a small face, like a dark and wrinkled apple, with two tiny sunken black eyes.

‘No,’ Mitch said. ‘It’s a baby.’

Tilde pushed back a few inches and made a small surprised hmm!

Mitch’s headache rolled over him like thunder.

Franco held Mitch’s arm near the cave entrance. Tilde was still inside. Mitch’s migraine had progressed to a real Force 9, with visuals and all, and it was an effort to keep from curling up and screaming. He had already experienced dry heaves, by the side of the cave, and he was now shivering violently.

He knew with absolute certainty that he was going to die up here, on the threshold of the most extraordinary anthropological discovery of all time, leaving it in the hands of Tilde and Franco, who were little better than thieves.

‘What is she doing in there?’ Mitch moaned, head bowed. Even the twilight seemed too bright. It was getting dark quickly, however.

‘Not your worry,’ Franco said, and gripped his arm more tightly.

Mitch pulled back and felt blindly in his pocket for the vials containing the samples. He had managed to take two small plugs from the upper thighs of the man and the woman before the pain had advanced; now, he could hardly see straight.

Forcing his eyes open, he looked out upon a heavenly sapphire blueness precisely painting the mountain, the ice, the snow, overlain by flashes in the corners of his eyes like tiny bolts of lightning.

Tilde emerged from the cave, camera in one hand, pack in the other. ‘We have enough to prove everything,’ she said. She spoke Italian to Franco, rapidly and in a low voice. Mitch did not understand, nor did he care to.

He simply wanted to get down the mountain and climb into a warm bed and sleep, to wait for the extraordinary pain, all too familiar but ever fresh and new, to subside.

Dying was another option, not without its attractions.

Franco roped him up deftly. ‘Come, old friend,’ the Italian said with a kindly jerk on the rope. Mitch lurched forward, clenching his fists by his sides to keep from pounding his head. ‘The ax,’ Tilde said, and Franco slipped Mitch’s ice ax out of his belt, where it tangled with his legs, and into his pack. ‘You are in bad shape,’ Franco said. Mitch clenched his eyes shut; the twilight was filled with lightning, and the thunder was pain, a silent crushing of his head with every step. Tilde took the lead and Franco followed close behind. ‘Different way,’ Tilde said. ‘It’s icing badly here and the bridge is rotten.’

Mitch opened his eyes. The arête was a rusty knife edge of carbon blackness against the purest ultramarine sky, fading to starry black. Each breath was colder and harder to take. He sweated profusely.

He plodded automatically, tried to descend a rock slope dotted with patches of crunchy snow, slipped and caught on the rope, dragging Franco a couple of yards down the slope. The Italian did not protest, instead rearranged the rope around Mitch and soothed him like a child. ‘Okay, old friend. This is better. This is better. Watch the step.’ ‘I can’t stand it much more, Franco,’ Mitch whispered. ‘I haven’t had a migraine for over two years. I didn’t even bring pills.’ ‘Never mind. Just watch your feet and do what I say.’ Franco shouted ahead to Tilde. Mitch felt her near and squinted up at her. Her face was framed with clouds and his own lights and sparks. ‘Snow coming,’ she said. ‘We have to hurry.’ They spoke in Italian and German and Mitch thought they were talking about leaving him here on the ice. ‘I can go,’ he said. ‘I can walk.’ So they began walking again on the glacier slope, accompanied by the sound of the ice fall as the slow ancient river flowed on, splitting and booming, rattling and cracking on its descent. Somewhere giant hands seemed to applaud. The wind picked up and Mitch turned away from it. Franco turned him around again and pushed less gently. ‘No time for stupidity, old friend. Walk.’ ‘I’m trying.’ ‘Just walk.’ The wind became a fist pressed against his skin. He leaned into it. Ice crystals stung his cheeks and he tried to pull up his hood and his fingers were like sausages in his gloves. ‘He can’t do this,’ Tilde said, and Mitch saw her walk around him, wrapped in swirling snow. The snow straightened suddenly and they all jerked as the wind grabbed them. Franco’s torch illuminated millions of flakes whipping past in horizontal streaks. They discussed building a snow cave, but the ice was too hard, it would take too long to dig out. ‘Go! Just head down!’ Franco shouted at Tilde, and she mutely complied. Mitch did not know where they were going, did not much care. Franco cursed steadily in Italian but the wind drowned him out and Mitch, as he dragged forward, pulling up and putting down his boots, digging in his crampons, trying to stay upright, Mitch knew that Franco was there only by his pressure on the ropes. ‘The gods are angry!’ Tilde yelled, and that was the last he heard from her, a cry half triumphant, half jesting, with a yelp of excitement and even exaltation. Franco must have fallen, because Mitch found himself being tugged hard from the rear. He had somehow come to be holding his ax and as he went over, he fell on his stomach and had the clarity of will to dig the ax into the ice and stop his descent. Franco seemed to dangle for a moment, a few yards down slope. Mitch looked in that direction. The lights were gone from his vision. Somehow he was freezing, really freezing, and that was allaying the pain of his migraine. Franco was not visible in the straight parallel bands of snow. The wind whistled and then shrieked and Mitch pulled his face close to the ice. His ax slipped from its hole and he slid two or three yards. With the pain fading, he wondered how he might get out of this alive. He dug his crampons into the ice and pulled himself back up the slope, by main force dragging Franco with him. Tilde helped Franco get to his feet. His nose was bloody and he seemed stunned. He must have hit his head on the ice. Tilde glanced at Mitch. She smiled and touched his shoulder. So friendly. Nobody said anything. Sharing the pain and the creeping evil warmth made them very close. Franco made a sobbings, sucking sound, licked at his bloody lip, pulled their ropes closer. They were so exposed. The fall cracked above the shrieking wind, boomed, snapped, made a sound like a tractor on a gravel road. Mitch felt the ice beneath him shudder. They were too close to the fall and it was really active, making a lot of noise. He pulled on the ropes to Tilde and they came back loose, cut. He pulled on the ropes behind him. Franco stumped out of the wind and snow, his face covered with blood, his eyes glaring behind his goggles. Franco knelt beside Mitch and then leaned over on his gloved hands, rolled to one side. Mitch grabbed his shoulder but Franco refused to budge. Mitch got up and faced down slope. The wind blew from up the slope and he keeled forward. He tried it again, leaning backward awkwardly, and fell. Crawling was the only option. He dragged Franco behind him, but that was impossible after a few feet. He crawled back to Franco and began to push him. The ice was rough, not slick, and did not help. Mitch did not know what to do. They had to get out of the wind, but he could not see well enough where they were to choose any particular direction. He was glad Tilde had abandoned them. She could get away now and maybe someone would make babies with her, neither of them of course; they were now out of the old evolutionary loop. All responsibility shed. He felt sorry that Franco was so banged up. ‘Hey, old friend,’ he shouted into the man’s ear. ‘Wake up and give me some help or we’re going to die.’ Franco did not respond. It was possible he was dead already but Mitch did not think a simple fall could kill someone. Franco was still breathing. Mitch found the torch around Franco’s wrist, removed it, switched it on, peered into Franco’s eyes as he tried to open them with his gloved fingers, not easy, but the pupils were small and uneven. Yup. He had pranged himself hard on the ice, causing concussion and flattening his nose. That was where all the new blood was coming from. The blood and snow made a red messy slush on Franco’s face. Mitch gave up talking to him. He thought about cutting himself loose, but couldn’t bring himself to do that. Franco had treated him well. Rivals united on the ice by death. Mitch doubted any woman would really feel a romantic pang, hearing about this. In his experience, women did not much care about such things. Dying, yes, but not the camaraderie of men. So confusing now and warming rapidly. His coat was very warm, and his snow pants. Topping it off was that he had to pee. Death with dignity was apparently out of the question. Franco groaned. No, it wasn’t Franco. The ice beneath them vibrated, then jumped, and they tumbled and slid to one side. Mitch caught sight of the torch beam illuminating a big block of ice rising, or they were falling. Yes indeed and he closed his eyes in anticipation. But he did not hit his head, though all the breath was slammed out of him. They landed in snow and the wind stopped. Clumped snow fell on them, and a couple of heavy chunks of ice pinned Mitch’s leg. It got quiet and still. Mitch tried to lift his leg but soft warmth resisted and the other leg was stiff. It was decided.

In no time at all, he opened his eyes wide to the sky-spanning glare of a blinding blue sun.

CHAPTER FOUR Gordi

Lado, shaking his head in sad embarrassment, left Kaye in Beck’s care to return to Tbilisi. He could not be away from the Eliava Institute for long.

The UN took over the small Rustaveli Tiger in Gordi, renting all of the rooms. The Russians pitched more tents and were slept between the village and the graves.

Under the pained but smiling attention of the innkeeper, a stout black-haired woman named Lika, the UN peacekeepers ate a late supper of bread and tripe soup, served with big glasses of vodka. Everyone retired to bed shortly after, except for Kaye and Beck.

Beck pulled a chair up to the wooden table and placed a glass of white wine in front of her. She had not touched the vodka.

‘This is Manavi. Best they have here – for us, at any rate.’ Beck sat and directed a belch into his fist. ‘Excuse me. What do you know about Georgian history?’

‘Not a lot,’ Kaye said. ‘Recent politics. Science.’

Beck nodded and folded his arms. ‘Our dead mothers,’ he said, ‘could conceivably have been murdered during the troubles – the civil war. But I don’t know of any actions in or around Gordi.’ He made a dubious face. ‘They could be victims from the 1930s, the forties, or the 1950s. But you say no. Good point about the roots.’ He rubbed his nose and then scratched his chin. ‘For such a beautiful country, there’s a fair amount of grim history.’

Beck reminded Kaye of Saul. Most men his age somehow reminded Kaye of Saul, twelve years her senior, back on Long Island, far away in more than just distance. Saul the brilliant, Saul the weak, Saul whose mind creaked more every month. She sat up and stretched her arms, scraping the legs of her chair against the tile floor.

‘I’m more interested in her future,’ Kaye said. ‘Half the pharmaceutical and medical companies in the United States are making pilgrimages here. Georgia’s expertise could save millions.’

‘Helpful viruses.’

‘Right,’ Kaye said. ‘Phage.’

‘Attack only bacteria.’

Kaye nodded.

‘I read that Georgian troops carried little vials filled with phage during the troubles,’ Beck said. ‘They swallowed them if they were going into battle, or sprayed them on wounds or burns before they could get to hospital.’

Kaye nodded. ‘They’ve been using phage therapy since the twenties, when Felix d’Herelle came here to work with George Eliava. D’Herelle was sloppy; the results were mixed back then, and soon we had sulfa and then penicillin. We’ve pretty much ignored phage until now. So we end up with deadly bacteria resistant to all known antibiotics. But not to phage.’

Through the window of the small lobby, over the roofs of the low houses across the street, she could see the mountains gleaming in the moonlight. She wanted to go to sleep but she knew she would lie awake in the small hard bed for hours.

‘Here’s to the prettier future,’ Beck said. He lifted his glass and drained it. Kaye took a sip. The wine’s sweetness and acidity made a lovely balance, like tart apricots.

‘Dr Jakeli told me you were climbing Kazbeg,’ Beck said. ‘Taller than Montblanc. I’m from Kansas. No mountains at all. Hardly any rocks.’ He smiled down at the table, as if embarrassed to meet her gaze. ‘I love mountains. I apologize for dragging you away from your business … and your pleasure.’

‘I wasn’t climbing,’ she said. ‘Just hiking.’

‘I’ll try to have you out of here in a few days,’ Beck said. ‘Geneva has records of missing persons and possible massacres. If there’s a match and we can date it to the thirties, we’ll hand it over to the Georgians and the Russians.’ Beck wanted the graves to be old, and she could hardly blame him.

‘What if it’s recent?’ Kaye asked.