The Nemesis Origin

III

‘What’s an australopithecus?’

‘Why did the Tyrannosaurus have such small arms?’

‘If we evolved from monkeys, how come there are still monkeys alive?’

Dr Lucy Morgan stood in the central hall of the Field Museum and raised her hands to forestall the flood of questions rushing upon her from the excited group of children she was shepherding between the exhibits. She turned to face them and replied with a voice quiet but commanding enough to gain the complete attention of her charges, her long blonde hair blowing in the light that beamed through the museum’s massive windows.

‘An australopithecus is an extinct form of human that evolved in Africa seven million years ago,’ she explained. ‘The Tyrannosaurus did not much use its arms for the purpose of hunting, mating or eating and so over time the arms devolved compared to the rest of its body. Finally, we did not evolve from monkeys but alongside them. Our species has changed over millions of years, but so have the apes at the same time — the monkeys of today do not look like the monkeys of seven million years ago.’

One of the children, an inquisitive boy with spectacles and floppy brown hair, frowned as he looked at Lucy. ‘How did the Tyrannosaurus clean its teeth then?’

‘It didn’t,’ Lucy explained. ‘The first warning you would have got that a Tyrannosaurus was nearby would have been the stench of all the meat rotting in its mouth.’

A ripple of delighted disgust chortled through the crowd of children as Lucy led them between large glass cabinets filled with the remains of human ancestors. During her career with the Field Museum, Lucy had excavated many of the remains herself, most usually out on the plains of Africa where so many ancient human ancestors had been discovered. Arranged as they were in the glass cabinets it was easy to see the gradual changes that had evolved ancient human ancestors into modern Homo sapiens. Through the glass Lucy could see other visitors to the museum examining the remains, peering in and pointing at the various species on display. Grandparents and children, tourists, a man in a blue suit, people of all ages keen to learn about history.

‘How do you know that these are not just really old monkeys?’ asked another child, a young girl who was clasping one of the museum’s brochures. ‘They all look the same.’

Lucy smiled, having heard the same questions many times over during the tours she gave to schoolchildren when they visited the museum.

‘There are many features that distinguish our ancient ancestors from us and from the monkeys along with whom we evolved. Probably the most obvious is the changes in leg and pelvis structure as our ancestors descended from the trees and began walking upright on the open plains, but for me the most compelling evidence is the position of our spines. Reach around to the backs of your necks and press where you can feel your spine where it enters the skull. Can you all feel it?’

The children all reached around behind their necks and Lucy could see them all nodding and smiling as they probed the bones of their spines.

‘Well, now look at the monkey skeletons or those of our very oldest ancestors. Where do the spines enter the skull on them?’

The children peered at some of the fossils inside the glass cabinets and their sharp eyes quickly notice the difference.

‘The spine is going into the very back of their skulls,’ said the child with the glasses.

‘That’s right,’ Lucy said. ‘Present-day apes and our own oldest ancestors still walked on all fours for the most part, and thus their spines entered the skull in a place that allowed them to look forwards while being on all fours. As we evolved to walk upright on the open plain on two legs, so the entry hole for our spines gradually moved until it is where is today, allowing us to look forwards naturally whilst walking on two legs. It is adaptions such as this that show how we evolved over many millions of years to become who we are today.’

The children were silent as they considered this new piece of information, and Lucy felt a glow of warmth inside as once again she saw how simple evidence could be presented to the children that made perfect sense of the complexities of evolution while allowing them to make their own judgements.

‘I still don’t get how somebody’s bones knew how to move place in order to help us?’ asked another young boy with curly brown hair.

‘That’s not how it works,’ Lucy explained patiently. ‘As we learned to live on the savannahs and it became helpful to be able to stand upright and see further, so those individuals who naturally had a slightly more upright gait would have been given an advantage living in that environment. That would have allowed them to hunt better, survive better, avoid predators better and find a mate easier, which would then have passed those advantageous traits on to their children. Those people who did not have such an upright gait would have found life a little bit harder and would have been less likely to mate, meaning they would have no children and would not have been able to pass on their traits. After long enough only the upright people would remain. That in essence is how evolution works, passing on the traits that work well to our children until only the things that work well remain.’

The children remained fascinated by the fossils around them and Lucy could see that they were accepting of her explanations. Their teacher, a friendly man named Clive, smiled in gratitude or possibly relief to see the children enraptured by the museum’s exhibits.

‘Feel free to walk wherever you want to,’ Lucy said to Clive as she moved to stand alongside him and watch the children peering in at the remains inside the glass cabinets. ‘I’ll be in my office for most of the day.’

‘Are you sure you don’t want to look after thirty kids all day instead?’ Clive suggested. ‘You’re clearly a natural at it.’

Lucy smiled. ‘Being a natural doesn’t mean it’s something I want to do, that’s why I became a scientist and not a teacher.’

‘Can’t blame me for trying.’

Lucy gave Clive a pat on the shoulder and took the opportunity to slip away from the fascinated children as she headed towards an access door that led to private offices kept out of sight from the general public. She strode up to the door and tapped in her personal security code into a panel beside the door, and the door clicked open and allowed her to pass through.

Lucy strode down the main corridor, glancing briefly left and right through glass windows into various laboratories where staff scientists were working on the museum’s many projects. Recently excavated fossils were being cleaned, new species discovered in far-flung corners of the globe examined and recorded, ice cores retrieved from distant Arctic shores measured and examined for signs of climate change. Lucy passed them all by and then turned to her own office, opened the door and stepped inside. She closed the door behind her and strode across to a small desk that contained a computer and several files.

Lucy Morgan was not a senior scientist at the museum and so was not blessed with a large office, but she liked the view across the museum’s lawns and the cosy feeling the small room gave her, which was warm even in Illinois’ bitter winter months. Across one entire wall opposite the window were ranks of tiny shelves upon which were stacked countless specimen jars containing bones, fossils and exotic species collected over centuries by explorers and suspended in alcohol to preserve them.

Lucy slumped down into her comfy office chair and stared out across the lawns at the bright blue sky outside, wishing she was in the field rather than cooped up in the museum. She was lost in her thoughts when a sharp knock rattled against the office door.

‘Come in?’

The door opened and Lucy was surprised to see the man in the blue suit she had spotted in the main hall standing in the doorway looking at her. On impulse she stood from her chair and the man smiled as he held out a card toward her.

‘My apologies, doctor,’ the man said, his voice heavily accented in what could have been Russian. ‘I hope you do not mind me contacting you in this way?’

Lucy took the card and look down at it, reading quickly the name Vladimir Polkov and a title across the top of the card that read: Moscow Institute of Anthropological Studies.

‘You never thought to try the phone?’ Lucy quipped.

Vladimir smiled. ‘I did, but my English is not so good and I thought it better to meet you in person. Having seen you teaching those children, I believe I’ve done the right thing.’

‘How did you get in here?’

‘I watched you input your code into the security door,’ Vladimir shrugged. ‘Again, I apologise.’

Lucy glanced again at the card briefly and then laid it down on her desk as she beckoned Vladimir into the office. Stocky and with thickly gelled black hair, something about Polkov seemed off to Lucy, as though he were a bad actor in a B-rated movie.

‘What can I do for you, Mr Polkov?’

‘Please, it’s Vladimir, and I was wondering if you could help me with an investigation we are making?’

Lucy gestured to a spare chair in the corner of the office as she sat back down. ‘Sure, shoot.’

‘It is something of a delicate matter and I wasn’t quite sure where to start.’

‘Delicate?’

‘It involves an excavation that occurred within the borders of a country which would not be happy with Russian investigators being present.’

Lucy raised an eyebrow but said nothing, letting the silence provoke the Russian into speaking further.

‘My superiors have become interested in a discovery that was allegedly made in the deserts of Israel some years ago, the remains of a very ancient tomb in which bones were found and excavated. It is our understanding that those remains were then taken to America, but from there the trail has gone cold.’

This time it was the Russian who fell silent and allowed the silence to build.

‘I’m not aware of any recent discoveries being made in Israel,’ Lucy replied with a vague shrug. ‘Not in anthropological terms anyway.’

‘But you are aware of discoveries, however?’

‘Fresh archaeological digs are ongoing in Israel at all times,’ Lucy agreed. ‘We try to keep up with the flow but given the country’s complex history there are far too many to document.’

Vladimir smiled with thin lips only, his eyes fixed upon Lucy’s. ‘My superiors have gone to great lengths to follow what happened in Israel and have solid evidence that you were there and were present at the excavation site. They know and understand that you may not be able to speak of what you found, just as they are aware that you would love to do so given the nature of your discovery and that it was stolen from you.’

Lucy Morgan remained silent for a long time, her gaze likewise affixed to the Russians but her mind already travelling back several years to the dusty plains of the Negev desert. She had been sent there by the Field Museum in order to make archaeological excavations, but while present she had found herself on an entirely unconventional dig that she had kept secret from her employers. Guided by the expertise of native scientist and former mentor Doctor Hans Karowitz and by her own instincts she had eventually located an extraordinary tomb which she had successfully dated as being in excess of seven thousand years old.

Working alone in order to maintain absolute secrecy, she had been about to complete her excavation and have the remains flown out of Africa when she had been betrayed by the very benefactors who had privately funded the dig. Imprisoned and isolated, it had only been the efforts of her mother and a roguish American former soldier and investigative journalist who had been willing to travel into Israel to rescue her that had kept her alive. Lucy Morgan knew that she had faced death and had absolutely no intention of having anything more to do with either Israel or anything that had been found within its borders.

‘I was on holiday in Israel some years ago,’ Lucy replied, giving the exact response that the Defense Intelligence Agency had instructed her to so many years ago. ‘I did quite a lot of digging in the Negev area but I can assure you I came back with nothing more than fossils of shells and some ancient pottery. I can show them to you, if you wish. They are absolutely fascinating examples of Neolithic and even Paleolithic origin.’

Vladimir leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees and his hands clasped before him as the smile slipped away from his features.

‘My superiors are willing to pay handsomely for any information that might help us locate the remains that were found in Israel.’

Lucy began to warm to her theme. ‘They want to pay for my shells? That’s great! Please, let me arrange them for you and you can choose the ones you feel will please your superiors best. My personal favourites are the ammonites, some really good examples and almost pristine in the preservation of their features in the rock strata.’

Lucy stood up from her seat and reached across for a drawer that contained a collection of shells and assorted fossils. Opposite her, Vladimir stood up and one large hand pushed the drawer shut and pinned her hand in place.

‘My superiors will only make the offer once,’ he said. ‘I do not wish this to become any more difficult than it needs to be.’

Lucy, her hand pinned beneath the Russian’s, smiled sweetly as she erected a thin veil of confidence over her sudden fear.

‘If that’s your idea of a threat, then you just lost yourself a sale. I’ll keep my shells. Now get out of my office and don’t come back.’

Vladimir kept her hand pinned in place for a moment longer and then he turned and whirled from the office.

As soon as he closed the door behind him, Lucy exhaled heavily and slumped into her chair. It had been a long time since anybody had mentioned the things that had occurred in Israel and reminded her of the extraordinary, almost unbelievable discovery that she had made and been forced to abandon. To deny any knowledge of its existence pained her far more than the Russian would ever have known, especially as the Defense Intelligence Agency had forced her to sign nondisclosure agreements assuring that she would never share with anybody what she knew.

Lucy thought for a moment. She had not been alone in knowing of what had happened in Israel, and non-disclosure surely did not apply to individuals who already knew what she did. The Russian had threatened her, and what annoyed her most of all was that her work on the scant remnants of the remains she had been able to smuggle out of Israel without the agency’s knowledge now concerned something far more important that archaeological curiosity.

Lucy turned to look at a mock human skeleton standing in one corner of her office, used for instructional purposes during lectures across the country. She looked down to one of the skeleton’s hands, the index finger of which was somewhat longer than it should have been, the genuine bone perfectly disguised among fabricated replicas.

Lucy reached out and picked up the phone to dial a number she thought she would never actually ring.