The Exodus Quest

III

'Tell us about him,' said Lily.

'About who?' asked Gaille.

'This friend of yours. Daniel Knox, wasn't it? The one who's going to save us.'

'Oh, him,' said Gaille.

'Yes,' agreed Lily dryly. 'Him.'

Gaille swept her hair back from her brow, held it there in a bunch. 'He's just this guy I work with, that's all. But he has a knack of making things happen, you know.'

'A knack,' said Stafford. 'Oh, good.'

'I can't explain it better. But if anyone can find us, he will.'

'Are you two…?' asked Lily.

'No.' She sensed how thin that sounded, so she added: 'It's complex. We have history.'

'Please, Gaille.'

She sighed. 'My father meant a great deal to me when I was young. He meant everything. All I ever wanted was to please him. I became an Egyptologist because that's what he was, because it meant I could go away on excavation with him. That's when I first came on excavation at Amarna, even though I was still at school at the time. Then he started a new dig in Mallawi, just across the river from here. I was to be his assistant. But he postponed at the last minute, so that it didn't get underway until after my school term had started, and I couldn't go with him. Then I found out that he'd taken this man Daniel Knox in my place.' She took a deep breath. 'The thing is, my father was… that's to say, he preferred men to women.'

'Ah.'

'So I got the wrong idea about all this. I thought he'd put me off because he'd fallen for Knox; or, rather, because Knox had wormed his way into his affection, you know. But it wasn't like that at all. Apart from anything else, Knox isn't like that. My father tried over and over to explain, but I'd already turned my back on him by then; I wouldn't listen. It felt too good being angry, you know? It felt righteous. But time passed. I grew up. I got over myself. I began to realize how badly I missed my father. I was just about ready to swallow my pride and mend fences when I got the letter. An accident. A climbing accident.'

'Oh, Gaille,' said Lily. 'I'm so sorry.'

'It shouldn't have meant anything. He'd already been out of my life for years, after all. But it wasn't like that. It knocked me all over the place. I did all the usual stupid things. I slept with everybody. I slept with nobody. I drank. I took drugs. It took me ages to pull myself together. And my anger was one of the things that helped me get through it. Not anger at my father. At Knox. Being my father's assistant had always been my job, you see. It should have been me out there with my father on that climbing trip. I'd have saved him. So it followed logically that Knox had killed him. He gave me a focus of blame, you know, so that I wouldn't have to blame myself. Christ, I used to hate him.' She shook her head ruefully, struggling to believe how violent her passion had been. 'I mean, I really used to hate him.'

'You obviously don't hate him any more,' observed Lily. 'What happened?'

The question took Gaille by surprise. She had to consider it for a moment. When she realized the answer, it made her laugh out loud. 'I met him,' she said.