“What kind of connections?” said Porter.
“Architecture, art forms, symbols…but I don’t believe Rameses had anything to do with America. Some things just look alike.”
Porter smiled a wry grin.
“You don’t think-”
“No, I doubt there is any relation between Rameses III and Mesoamerica,” Porter said, closing his eyes. “But some of the facts cited in the book might be valid.”
“Two Egyptian figurines were also purportedly found on the west coast of El Salvador. Roman coins dating back to the year 200 have been discovered in North America. but those things could have easily been transplanted.”
Porter nodded.
Alred put KM-2 back on his desk. “I’d like to examine the codex in detail when you can take a break.”
“Sure,” Porter said. He felt the back of his teeth with his tongue.
“So why do you think Albright’s paleographic dating is incorrect,” she said, a sigh in her voice.
“Just a hunch,” Porter said, realizing it was pointless to continue the discussion. Alred’s mind stood solid. She wouldn’t listen. If he said anything else, it would only make her regret her participation in the project more. It was obvious she wasn’t enjoying this. If he was going to work with her, he’d have to be more amiable.
“I see,” she said with a light nod. “I say we subject the codex to carbon 14 dating. We can get Dr. Atkins to do it with little hassle.” She stood. “Unless you have a problem with that?”
“In my first archaeology class,” Porter said, “we…talked about different dating processes. When my professor, Dr. Jacob Noble, told us that many scientists argue the date of a find or question the validity of the year concluded by the tests, I pursued the idea of arguing archaeologists with a string of questions which probably made my professor sorry for writing up the lecture that day. I just couldn’t understand how science could bicker with itself. If the carbon dating’s done, I naively figured…the date had to be right. If it wasn’t, how could scientists continue to use that dating procedure. I asked Noble what would happen if I removed my right ear and had it carbon dated? What year would the process present? He shocked the class by telling us…my ear could be 150 years old.”
“That can’t be true,” Alred said, shaking her head, her eyes drawn into thin slits.
“Right! I would have just cut it off. Two opposing truths cannot exist at the same time. And yet in science, they often do! When I came to Stratford, Kinnard told me that the problem with scholarship is that about fourteen years after you write a paper on a given subject, some other scholar formulates a paper proving what you said to be false. It’s all a big game, with new truths forever overriding old ones. But then, if the discoveries had really been true in the first place, no one could debunk them at any point in the future. So we are not necessarily dealing with truths here, but the redefining of reality. Every scholar wants to make a name for himself-”
Alred frowned.
“-herself,” Porter smiled. “In order to do that, we have to write something that stands out. The best way anyone has found of doing that is to find something new in all the old material; stand on the shoulders of past scientists, and say they were wrong, and we are right, and here’s why!”
“What does this have to do with carbon 14 dating?”
“After my archaeology professor informed us that my recently severed ear would register to be older than my great grandfather, he gave us examples of numerous artifacts which have been dated far older than they could have been. A cola can found in Germany on the side of the autobahn weighed in at a hundred plus years. That particular can was obviously a recent invention.”
“So all the scientists are wrong?” Alred said, folding her arms tightly.
Porter caught a sudden whiff of Alred’s pleasant perfume and felt moisture run down the small of his back. “Not at all.”
“You’re saying all the dating archaeologists have been doing is completely useless. I understand your facts, but wouldn’t scientists recognize these peculiarities? Or is this knowledge yours alone?” Wise sarcasm colored every word.
Porter turned his chair to the left, stared for a moment at one pile of books, withdrew a red hard-bound copy, and flipped into the pages. “Robert Eisenman and Michael Wise write of the problem in carbon dating the Dead Sea Scrolls, stating clearly that ‘the process is still in its infancy, subject to multiple variables, and too uncertain to be applied with precision to the kind of materials we have before us.’ Of course scholars see the problems with dating procedures we use today.”
“So why do they continue to use carbon dating…if it’s faulty?” Her voice was sharp and almost demeaning. She squinted her eyes and looked down on him as if he was nothing more than an arrogant child arguing against the existence of the wind.
“Same reasons chemists, biologists, and physicists use faulty ideas in their experiments. Until someone proves the world is round, we are forced to accept that the world is flat! It may not be flat, but we can only use evidences available to us…in science. Someone always comes along and changes the system to one degree or another. As far as archaeologists know, there is at least a fifty to a couple-of-hundred years potential variation on anything we date. And that is what we know. But then that truth could change any day now! In the meantime, we can only work with what we have.”
“Then we’ll send KM-2 in and let them cut a piece from it,” Alred said.
“Soon as you’re finished with your analysis,” Porter grinned.
Alred left without saying good-bye.
Porter leaned into his leaning desk and stared at the cracked door. She hates me, he thought. She didn’t stay, as planned, and they were in a rush. She even forgot her bag. Would she return for it?
He put his fingers to his lips and rested on his elbows.
He knew he had a reputation for being overbearing. His eccentricities had gifted him with a lonely life. And here was someone willing to share some time with him…he hoped. He had to straighten out, be helpful.
Porter slapped himself in the forehead and returned to his translating.
They would know within a few days when the manuscript had been written.
Alred stomped away with one thing in mind. She only needed a few major pieces of the puzzle to give her counter dissertation power. Other scholars had already set the foundation for her argument. KM-2 would prove to be the final key to destroying the theory of ancient transoceanic contact as Porter described it.
Soon, those points would present themselves.
But on the way to her car, she couldn’t help but scan the darkness…for Dr. Ulman.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
April 17
11:53 p.m. PST
Polaski’s breathing seemed to echo off of the office walls as his good fingers flipped quickly through the file. Wilkinson gurgled his last breath from the floor. Polaski dropped the papers with shaking hands. They spilled over the desk, the chair, the carpet.
“That’s it, I’m out’a here!” he said, running to the door.
He reached the street and looked around, driving thin fingers through his thick hair. “Great!” he said, remembering his car parked two blocks away. Sprinting, he crossed the quiet road, his heart thundering. Mutts barked somewhere in an alleyway. With a sigh, he swung around the corner and spotted his gold Mazda hatchback.
Figeroa leaned like a gargoyle against the door on the driver’s side. His dark skin frozen in the cold air, his black goatee shifted like porcupine spines as his eyes met Polaski’s.
“What are you doing here?” Polaski said to the brute, who glanced at his misshapen hand. Polaski hated it when people did that.
“Was the parking lot filled behind Wilkinson’s office?” Figeroa said. He shook his head. “You did it, didn’t you.” He came around the side of the car, his voice icy. “You murdered him!”
“You know what would have happened if I didn’t!” Polaski said as Figeroa shoved him. Polaski’s lanky body stumbled backward, his scarecrow arms waving in the air until he steadied himself.