Storm cycle, p.32
Storm Cycle, page 32
Then, slowly, something emerged from the box.
Peseshet.
Dawson held his breath as the mummified remains slid headfirst down the sloping pile of debris.
Directly toward him.
The flashlight beam lit Peseshet’s face, brown and leathery, as the ancient bandages caught on the edges of the broken sarcophagus and tore away. Her face drew ever closer, now inches away from Dawson’s own.
God, was she smiling?
She was taunting him, he realized. Laughing at him. Mocking his helplessness. Mocking his defeat.
And there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it.
He screamed.
He was still screaming when the entire chamber collapsed on him.
EPILOGUE
SIX MONTHS LATER
CLOVIS, NEW MEXICO
Rachel climbed to the top of the hill and gazed out at the hundreds of acres below. It was almost sunset, and the late-afternoon rays fell on the earth like a benediction. Dear God, it was beautiful. Every time she came here, she went away renewed and full of hope.
“You look like a high priestess about to offer alms.”
Tavak.
She stiffened but didn’t turn around. “It’s about time you showed up. It’s been months. I thought you’d disappeared from the face of the earth.”
“I had a few things to do.” He joined her on the crest of the hill. “And I knew you were going to hit the ground running the minute you left Cairo.”
“I did.” Rachel turned to look at him. His tan was deeper, but his eyes held the same alert intelligence to which she’d become accustomed. He wore khakis and a white shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbow, and he appeared a little thinner. Lord, she had missed him. “You’re lucky I didn’t try to cheat you out of your share of Peseshet’s cure.”
He smiled. “I wasn’t worried. I knew where to find you.” He gazed down at the valley below, at the rows of ivylike plants adorned with dangling clusters of berries. “No wonder you were looking like a high priestess. Is this Peseshet’s magic? It’s very pretty.”
She shook her head. “No, it’s not. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
He smiled. “I stand corrected.”
“And it will be even more beautiful when we find one that actually works.” Her hands clenched into fists at her sides. “And we will.”
“I don’t doubt it.” He glanced back at the Dowd Agricultural Research Center, a sprawling one-story facility surrounded by farmland. “Is that your pride and joy?”
“This is only one of a half a dozen labs racing to synthesize the active ingredient of lyiathe. It’s a plant that’s been extinct for centuries, but it was a key ingredient of Peseshet’s cure.”
“How close are you?”
“Those plants down there are distant cousins of lyiathe. Future generations will be even closer. We’re almost there.”
“How long?”
“Six months. A year. It can’t happen soon enough.”
There had been considerable skepticism in the scientific community, but most naysayers were silenced when GLD Foundation researchers used Peseshet’s technique to demonstrate the beginnings of nervous-system regeneration in small mammals. With the missing ingredient, it appeared, the regeneration would continue until the damaged sections were repaired completely.
“I’m very happy for you,” Tavak said quietly.
“Did you hear about Simon?”
He nodded. “I made sure I wasn’t completely out of touch. I know it must have hit you hard.”
“Yes, it did.” Simon’s betrayal and death had stunned her. There had been so few people she would have trusted with her life’s work, but Simon was one. She missed his brilliance, his wit, and the humor he used to break the tension when she didn’t think she could spend another minute in the lab.
She hated that those years of fond memories had been poisoned by his horrible final act. Both NSA Deputy Director Robert Pierce and Ted Mills were now awaiting trial for murder, and as angry as she was at them for hijacking her network for their own purposes, she despised them more for luring Simon down that dark path.
“How is Allie doing? When I called Val and asked where you were, she thought Allie might be with you.”
She shook her head. “She’s with Demanski in Nevada. They’re touring the new hydroagricultural lab that he’s set up. The researchers there may be even further along than this place. They’re estimating four months.”
Tavak chuckled. “Most guys woo women with candy and flowers. Demanski built an entire research facility that may save her life.”
“What can I say? He’s a master of the grand gesture.” She paused. “Why did you disappear? What was so damn important that you couldn’t even wait to talk to me?”
Tavak’s smile faded. “I had to arrange for Ben’s funeral.” He looked down at the valley. “And I had to make sure Nuri was going to be all right. I’ve been walking away from people I care about all my life. I thought it was time I stopped.”
“But you walked away from me.”
“I thought I’d give you a chance to decide if you wanted me in your life. I haven’t given you much choice since I sent you that e-mail from the tomb.”
“And what if I’d decided to cross you off my list?”
He tilted his head. “Have you?”
“Dammit, you left me without a word. And now you say it was some kind of test?”
“I was being noble.” He grinned. “But then I got over it. So here I am like a bad penny.”
“Great description.”
“I thought it over, and bad pennies aren’t all that bad. I may not be the most stable man in the world, but I’ll spend the rest of my life teaching you to hear the music. You need someone like me.”
“And do you need someone like me?” she asked unevenly.
He reached over and touched her cheek with gossamer gentleness. “Oh, yes.”
She felt a melting deep within her. “It’s not at all sensible. We’re completely different.”
He nodded. “And there will be times when you’re working so hard you’ll forget I’m alive, and I’ll have to jar you back into my world.”
“And I know you. You’ll probably wander away somewhere and let me worry myself into a nervous breakdown.”
“Probably. But I’ll always come back. And when you need me, I’ll be there.” He smiled. “Think about it.” He stepped back. “I want to go down to the valley and get a closer look. Do you want to go with me?”
She shook her head. “I like looking at it from up here.”
“Okay.” He reached into his duffel and handed her a cloth-wrapped object. “I brought you a present. It’s the Peseshet letter to her students. I had it engraved on granite. I thought you’d want it to last at least another five thousand years.”
She watched him move down the hill. He seemed bathed in golden light, the only vital, moving entity in the sea of plants. Yet he was casting a giant shadow before him as he had dominated and foreshadowed every moment of her life since she had met him.
She looked down at the gray granite tablet he had given her. Peseshet’s message to her students delivered with the wondrous cure that ironically caused so many of their violent deaths.
My loyal and treasured students, I bestow upon you my greatest gift. You have made a solemn pledge to heal the sick, bring them hope, and give them many years of health and happiness. Your skills are a great power, and you now have a responsibility, a sacred duty, toward your fellow citizens. There are those who might wield such power as one might wield a weapon, granting life only in exchange for great riches or influence. But our calling is a nobler one, and I grant you this gift so that all people, regardless of station or personal allegiances, may benefit from our knowledge and enjoy long and fruitful lives.
Spread your knowledge far and wide, my sisters, and the citizens of the world will celebrate our skill, compassion, and boundless spirit through the ages.
Rachel smiled as the sun dipped farther into the horizon, casting dark shadows that made the plants appear like a rolling sea that went on forever. “Soon, Lady Peseshet,” she said softly. “Very soon.”
AUTHORS’ NOTE
Although we enjoy writing stories that stretch the limits of our imaginations, the technology showcased in Storm Cycle is rooted in the real world. The concept of distributed computing has been around for more than a decade, and there are currently hundreds of worthwhile projects that pool the resources of personal computers and game consoles all over the globe. We encourage readers to find a cause meaningful to them (at www.distributedcomputing.info) and spend a few minutes setting up their systems to contribute cycles to a worthy endeavor. Much of this book, in fact, was written on a computer that fights disease as part of the Compute Against Cancer project.
Our characters’ visit to the fictional Pixel Dance Incorporated showcases technology accessible even to hobbyists. There are several software packages that render virtual models from scanned photographs, and readers can do it themselves with a program called Photomodeler Pro obtainable from Eos Systems. A University of Washington technology group has created digital models of world landmarks based on images posted on public photo-sharing Web sites. Some of their exciting results can be viewed at http://grail.cs.washington.edu/projects/mvscpc/. And there are many firms that will, through the use of a 3-D printer, create solid objects from digital model files e-mailed to them.
Although the ancient Egyptians were just as prone to superstition and pseudoscience as many civilizations throughout the ages, they made astounding contributions to the field of medicine. And in a world where many can remember when a female doctor was a novelty, it is impressive that ancient Egypt boasted many female physicians. History’s earliest known female doctor was Peseshet. Her memory was lost to the ages until archaeologist Selim Hassan discovered the tomb of her son, Akheptep, in 1929. Carvings offer only a few tantalizing details about Peseshet, including the fact that she presided over an association of female physicians. The mastaba from Akheptep’s tomb now stands in the Louvre in Paris as a centerpiece of its Egyptian collection.
Even though we are not privy to the specific medical advances Peseshet may have forged, modern-day researchers have made encouraging progress in the field of central nervous system regeneration. We referenced the University of Miami study to examine the regeneration effects of magnetic nanoparticles on damaged nervous system cells, but even more profound results may be forthcoming from the glial cell transplantation experiments of W. F. Blakemore and A. J. Crang, and scores of other studies around the world. Our best wishes go to all the researchers involved in such projects, and we will be the first to celebrate when this aspect of our book is rendered obsolete.
ALSO BY IRIS JOHANSEN AND ROY JOHANSEN
SILENT THUNDER
ALSO BY IRIS JOHANSEN
DEADLOCK
DARK SUMMER
QUICKSAND
PANDORA’S DAUGHTER
STALEMATE
AN UNEXPECTED SONG
KILLER DREAMS
ON THE RUN
COUNTDOWN
BLIND ALLEY
ALSO BY ROY JOHANSEN
DEADLY VISIONS
BEYOND BELIEF
THE ANSWER MAN
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations,
and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the
authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously.
STORM CYCLE. Copyright © 2009 by Johansen Publishing,
LLLP, and Roy Johansen. All rights reserved.
For information, address St. Martin’s Press,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Johansen, Iris.
Storm cycle / Iris Johansen and Roy Johansen. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-142-998-3785
Date of eBook conversion: 07/05/2010
1. Women computer programmers—Fiction. 2. Archaeologists—Fiction. 3. Egypt—Antiquities—Fiction. 4. Texas—Fiction. I. Johansen, Roy. II. Title.
PS3560.O275S75 2009
813'.54—dc22
2009010202
First Edition: July 2009
Iris Johansen, Storm Cycle
