Channeling Cleopatra (13 page)

Show them even, though without revealing
anything about what the information had been used for, of course.
Then, if Namid hadn't done so already, he would have his crews
conduct a thorough deep excavation of the area and maybe find more
of the last pharaoh and her goodies. That would also keep them off
Leda's back. So she would let them know. Later.

However, first she had to open the jar and
make sure there was enough tissue there to obtain the samples she
needed. Besides, it wasn't unknown for one corpse to end up in the
funeral equipment of another. Even canopic jars. And she needed
positive proof that the tissue belonged to Cleopatra, not just the
jar.

She was puzzling over the best method to
open the jar without damaging anything when there was a knock on
the door. She carefully set the jar on a countertop beside the
computer and checked the exterior TV screen her father had
installed the day after Rasmussen's visit. Gabriella stood outside,
dancing from foot to foot as if she needed to use the bathroom.

Leda separated herself from her friend's
find long enough to go to the door and pull back the deadbolt Duke
had installed the same day he put in the camera.

Gabriella burst through the door and danced
inside before Leda fully opened it. Eyes sparkling, Leda's friend
stood looking around the lab as if it had turned into a
ballroom.

"Leda! Is it true?" she asked while Leda
cautiously re-bolted the door. "Namid called and told me you found
a canopic jar and had become completely paranoid guarding it from
all comers."

"That was thoughtful of him. I was about to
call you myself," Leda replied and led her to the jar. Gabriella
peered at it cautiously but did not touch it while Leda turned it
to show her the cartouche.

Gabriella gasped, a satisfying reaction.

"Have you got anything over at the museum to
open this with?" Leda asked. "Like an ancient Egyptian can
opener?"

"Oh, Leda, really, this is not something
that should be left to one person. This should go back to Nucore's
lab on the island or at least to the one in Cairo—a discovery of
such magnitude! What were they thinking to put you here alone!"

"That's how they wanted it. Most of the
stuff is done on computers, anyway, and it only takes one person to
run.

Besides, with fewer people, the security
risk is less."

"Well, yes, unless, of
course,
you
decided
to take advantage of the situation—"

Leda laughed. "They've checked my clearance
and also, both Wolfe and Chimera know me pretty well. Otherwise, my
computers are linked to their computers. My work is constantly
monitored by the lab. If 1 made a questionable move, I'd hear about
it. Besides, no one outside of Nucore has the equipment for
transferring the data to the host, and the data is, while not
exactly useless, not nearly as valuable without it. So it's safe
enough for them to rely on a one-woman, one-security-dad,
one-computer team here. In fact, had you not shown up, I could have
downloaded information on how to open the jar."

"All of these archaeologists salivating to
get their hands on the jar, and you would have used the
Internet?"

"Nucore's site. They have experts on tap,
too. I guess they'd have their own people here, except that Egypt
is so touchy about foreign archaeologists these days. Gracious
knows I'm having a hard enough time as it is. So I'm glad you're
already here and in the loop. The fewer people who know what we
have here, the better, at least for now."

"Are you kidding? This is the find of the
millennium! Surely you can't hope to keep it secret?"

"Only for a little while. Until I can test
the tissue, do the match, then patch and replicate a complete
strand. I send the computerized version to Chimera and return the
original material as well, so it can be cross-checked. You may find
you've really got your liaison work cut out for you, once news of
this gets out, Gabriella. The truth is, whether or not anyone knows
about the process, Nucore has the closest and most authoritative
facilities for this kind of testing. Even if I weren't here, the
samples would probably be sent to them eventually by Namid and the
others. But by then, they would have wrecked the tissue for this
kind of work."

"So, if that is true, why
doesn't Nucore just tell them so and tell them how to prepare it to
be sent to the labs? Why
do
they need you here, Leda?"

Leda laughed. "Don't take this wrong,
Gabriella, but there's an old saying in the military among the
high-clearance spooks. 'If I told you any more, I'd have to kill
you.' Actually, you know enough to put two and two together."

"Oh, of course, you must
already have a client anxious for this specimen. Naturally. A very
important client, I would guess, for Nucore to have you ready with
this nice laboratory
in case
of a miracle like the one that just happened—and
you found the right specimen."

"Why, Gabriella! I'm sure
your aunt could tell you that at Nucore, we consider all of our
clients
reeeeally
special," Leda joked, almost giddy. "But seriously, finding an
intact jar like this that
seems
to belong to such an important person is a lot
more than anyone expected. Especially since anything we find on
this site has been underwater. Apparently, this has been in a
sealed chamber of some kind for a long time. Well, shall we see
what we've got here?"

They very gently removed the golden seal,
the resin, the beeswax beneath the resin. Before removing the lid,
Leda took the jar back to the clean room, where the fingerprinting
and splicing was done with the least contamination. Gabriella
followed. The room was actually an indoor tent made of heavy-duty
clear plastic and zipped shut when not in use. Most of the very
expensive equipment Leda had brought with her was here. Now she
unzipped the doorway and she and Gabriella slipped inside. She
unwrapped a sterile tray and tongs. Then Gabriella held the jar
steady while Leda pulled off the dog-shaped lid and reached with
the tongs to pull forth the material inside.

Both women held their breath. Leda supposed
that for strictest security, she should ask Gabriella to leave now,
but she suspected she'd have to pull a gun on her friend to make
her do it. She already knew almost as much as Leda did, anyway, and
Leda needed the help.

Pulling forth the ancient papyrus-wrapped
bundle, Leda felt a moment of pure awe. This was nothing like
dealing with the remnants of more recent bodies. If the canopic jar
was to be believed, people all over the world, down through the
centuries, knew about the life and death of the woman to whom this
little scrap belonged. And maybe, just maybe, they were about to
discover some answers to her mysteries.

* * *

When the sample was taken and its initial
preparation complete, Leda stored the rest of the tissue before she
and Gabriella toasted the grand opening with a couple of Cokes from
the fridge in the outer room of the beluga, and Gabriella asked,
"How soon will you know?"

"Well, for the PCR—preliminary chain
reaction—I can find out right away. I have a sample from
Cleopatra's daughter's tomb. So our tissue can be compared to that,
and we can find out that the sample is from Cleopatra Selene's
mother or maternal line the next generation up. It could be one of
Cleopatra the seventh's sisters, of course, but they would have
been long dead or out of the country before the queen took on some
of the titles mentioned on the jar."

"Yes, well, still, one must be certain.
There are surely a great many cells there in that little packet of
tissue. Will you need to use all of it?"

"Probably not, but I'll have to find enough
intact material to piece together the information I want. Then I
make a good new copy of it for our use. I'm not telling you any big
secret here. That's how it's always done. But I need to send back
some of the original evidence for Nucore's own verification, even
though I can upload the part they need for the process."

"I see. So you will really have an unlimited
supply of whatever it takes for the transfer?"

"Uh—I have to plead no comment there."

"I understand. But say, if you do have a
good supply, will Nucore offer the blending to more than one
client?"

"I'm not sure. I asked about that, and from
what Chimera said, I doubt it, at least for a while. Besides, we
can't be greedy. Most—all, as far as the world knows—will have to
be reburied under current Egyptian law. Seems like a waste, doesn't
it?"

"It certainly does," Gabriella agreed, her
voice even and light. Leda, anxious to return to the machine that
would give her the mitochondrial code for her specimen, sucked down
her Coke and headed back to the clean room. Gabriella watched her
go, but Leda was already thinking ahead to what the machine might
show her and didn't see that her friend's fierce expression in no
way matched her tone.

CHAPTER 11

Leda deserted her room at
the Cecil, except for an occasional shower, and moved her
toothbrush and sunscreen into the beluga. Her dad had one of his
crew buy a sleeping bag, pillow, and mat for her at the
souq
so she could sleep in
the lab when she came to a stopping place in her work.

For almost three weeks she saw little except
her computer, the samples and chemicals, and her microscope. The
little Ziess electron microscope she had carried in a suitcase from
Nucore headquarters was strong but not quite strong enough, so she
had to request a booster lens from Nucore and asked Duke to ride
out to the airstrip to get it.

He called her on the cell phone from the
door so she could unlock the deadbolt. Otherwise, the door stayed
locked, and she spent most of her time zipped inside the clean
room, her world centering on the DNA fragments she pieced together
like a jigsaw puzzle.

Inside the windowless beluga, she was
unaware of day and night. Often, when she broke for a breath of the
hot, salty air outside, she was surprised to see the site empty and
quiet, though not unlit. Huge floodlights illuminated it at all
hours, and Duke's guards patrolled the outer perimeter, wary of
looters, terrorists, or even overly inquisitive tourists.

In relatively short order, she established
that the DNA in the jar's contents belonged to someone the next
generation back from Cleopatra Selene, from whose tomb a tooth had
been clandestinely removed. The mitochondrial DNA proved that.
Also, from what some historians reported, it was possible that had
the jar's DNA belonged to one of Cleopatra's sisters, and there
would have been no match at all. It was widely believed that all
three of her sisters had been born to a different mother than the
famous queen.

Insubstantial thoughts flitted across the
surface of Leda's mind while she searched the field for fragments,
for the tiny attachments to the main strands that indicated the
additions of data collected during life, not present at birth.
These, amazingly enough, were memories, those ephemeral things
formerly believed to be housed solely in the brain and now
confirmed to lodge in most cells of the body.

The nuclear DNA contained in the lungs was
in remarkably good shape, considering its age, but still it
required much painstaking work to make the necessary matches, to
splice the broken ends. The computer did much of it, of course, but
it had to be fed new data from new samples to give it sufficient
material to work with.

She had been afraid that the substances used
to embalm the organs had damaged the DNA, but somehow the ancients
had steered clear of that hazard. The natron they used to preserve
the tissues was little more than a highly concentrated saline
solution. Had they somehow magically been guided in their choice of
substances that would achieve the ultimate goal, preserving the
body for immortality? Because Chimera's process was as close to
immortality as anybody was likely to come.

Folkloric beliefs always seemed to her to be
the smoke hovering over some very hot sparks of truth.

Once she was sure that the material in the
canopic jar belonged to Cleopatra, Leda sent her preliminary
message to the Nucore home office with the code Chimera had given
her. Normally, all results from remote sites went into the banks of
Nucore computers at large, but this code would give the
transmissions an exclusive rating, allowing the data to be viewed
only by Chimera and a few trusted assistants. Chimera would
personally notify the client.

She decided against alerting Namid that the
remains had indeed been Cleopatra's. He had stayed away so far, and
she liked it that way. Besides, he'd want to tell the press, and
she really didn't want that until she had finished her work.

Once she had pieced together the strand, the
computer replicated it and performed one more task that went beyond
identifying a person from her cells and replicating a DNA strand.
Now the computer decoded the strand, read and re-encoded the
material containing memory and personality traits to a form that
could be transferred to light frequencies. These patterns were what
would be imprinted on the retina of the client.

Leda had to admit she'd had some initial
qualms about being in cahoots with Chimera to use Nucore resources
to make Gretchen Wolfe's secret wish come true. Saving a marriage
was not a real big motive to most executives of multinational
corporations, especially when it involved setting aside protocol in
such a drastic fashion. But then, when she thought about how the
process had come to be created—from the strength of Chime's and
Jetsun's bond—she realized that Chimera took marriage much more
seriously than almost anyone she knew. Given her own background, as
her father's daughter, she found the scientist's (scientists'?)
attitude touchingly sweet and naive. She was all for it.