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
