already another student working on the project.”
“A joint dissertation?” said Alred, looking again at Masterson, with disdain on the back of her tongue. How was that going to help her shoot up the ladder as Masterson had repeatedly promised?
“A counter dissertation!” said Masterson.
“I’ve never heard of a counter dissertation.”
“Well maybe you have,” Masterson said. “Many times when a dissertation is argued, the student is countering a previous study, sometimes someone else’s dissertation.”
“So what are you saying,” she asked.
Wilkinson smiled, and she could see a lot of thought behind those old lips. The words about to come out had been well-discussed. She held her breath as he spoke. “Ms. Alred. What do you know about the Mormons?”
She breathed. That wasn’t a question she’d expected, and she let it show on her face. Her brow bent, and her eyes squinted.
Wilkinson waited.
She looked from Masterson around the table to Kinnard on the end. “Mormons,” she said, her eyes accessing the dictionary in her mind, “I believe they are a Christian sect founded in Utah, aren’t they?”
“Whether or not they are Christian is debatable,” Wilkinson said, rubbing the side of his nose. “They say they are. They also believe they have a special tie to ancient South and Central America.”
“ The Book of Mormon,” she said.
“Right,” Masterson said, looking through eyelids that had long ago grown into thick layers of skin which now almost cut off his vision entirely. “Have you ever read their holy scripture?”
“No,” she said and saw the sigh. “Never.”
Masterson took over. “The Mormons believe a group of Jews built an ark, sailed across the Pacific, and settled somewhere in the mid to lower Americas. Of course, they don’t have anything to back up this claim.”
“That’s right,” Alred said, looking at the ceiling. “Don’t they believe the Amerindians to be the descendants of these Jews?”
Masterson nodded.
“So how does this fit into my dissertation?”
Kinnard answered. “The student I brought into the project is a member of the Mormon church.”
“I…see. And I’m supposed to debunk the pronouncements you expect him to make.” Alred pushed her hair over her right ear and kept her face at ease. “Why did he get the project before me?”
“I’m not technically a professor of Archaeology or anything that has to do with Mesoamerican studies,” said Kinnard. “I teach ancient Near Eastern history. Porter is my student.”
“Do you know John Porter?” Goldstien said with a suspicious smile, as if suspecting that the two had dated secretly or she was a Mormon and was hiding the fact for some reason.
“Should I?” she said, shaking her head. “He’s an archaeology student?” she asked, confused. Why would this John Porter be studying under Dr. Kinnard if Kinnard has nothing to do with American archaeology?
“Only wondering,” Goldstien said, leaning back in his chair.
“Porter’s an analyst of ancient Near Eastern studies,” Kinnard said. “Ulman sent me the package, because he thought I might be interested. I shared it with John Porter before discussing it with Dr. Masterson, which I shouldn’t have done. But it’s done. Porter’s been working on the project for a few days now.”
“How could he be working on an archaeological find from Mesoamerica if he has no knowledge of Mesoamerican studies?” Alred said, feeling offended and assaulted.
“The find,” Wilkinson said with a pause, “seems to draw…a connection to the ancient Near East.”
No one said a word.
“So the Mormons are right?” Alred said. She saw the smiles, but didn’t change the shape of her face. Her question was both sincere and sarcastic. She didn’t believe any religion had logical bearing or any integrity. They helped people be morally and ethically better than they might otherwise be, but the rest was a fill-in-the-blank to lessen the fear of death-look at Heaven’s Gate, the thirty-nine human-inhabiting “aliens” who committed suicide at the end of last week! She smirked and looked at Kinnard who sat still with his hands in front of his mouth.
“If the Mormons are right, we are all in grave spiritual trouble,” Masterson said with a chuckle.
The room rumbled lightly with laughter before Wilkinson continued. “If you look hard enough, you’ll see what you want to see. That’s an old idea historians must deal with daily.”
“Of course,” Alred said, hoping this was all some huge April Fools joke.
“Porter is a keen student,” Kinnard said. “He is very skilled in what he does and loves it when everyone disagrees with him. He thrives on argument-”
”-But then so do you!” Masterson added, jabbing his finger in the air, grinning at Alred. “That’s why I knew you would be the best student for the project.”
“John Porter will give a wonderful analysis of the find, though his time is extremely short,” said Wilkinson.
“And therefore so is mine,” Alred replied with a sting at the aged scholar.
Goldstien squinted at Alred, “But Porter will also have a resolute Mormon bias.”
“What we want from you is an unbiased study of Ulman’s discovery,” Masterson finished. “While Porter quickly presents his dissertation, which will no doubt excel in the field, you will present a counter dissertation just as briskly, which will be the first objective view of the discovery presented by Porter. The scholars of the world will love you, and you will soar to the top of all the most recent doctoral graduates. You will then gain access to any university in the world and be set for life as a well-known scientist!” He grinned, and it was his real smile: one full of greed.
Alred shot a quick and curious glance at Kinnard who continued to silently stare into the tabletop.
Masterson added, “You and John Porter are assigned to work together, and that you will. At the same time, you shall be fighting head to head with him. Only…Porter must never know it!”
CHAPTER SEVEN
April 10
9:54 a.m. PST
“Well it’s about time you showed up,” said Porter with a smile on his face and fire in his eyes.
“Good morning,” Alred said as she slid through the tight portal. The door wouldn’t open all the way.
“Sorry about the mess,” Porter said without enthusiasm.
The stuffy air choked Alred almost as badly as the tension she felt from her fellow student. She thought she smelled forgotten lettuce and bologna sandwiches and wouldn’t be at all surprised if a few hid beneath the disordered piles of papers, the open files, the scattered heaps of books.
“Need a bookshelf?” she said, only to regret it. The walls were naked and white, but there definitely were enough volumes in the tiny room to carpet at least two walls. Obviously, whole cases wouldn’t fit in the room. If Porter lined each wall with independently hanging shelves, his books would practically be falling on him. His desk wasn’t a desk, but a common four foot by two and a half foot classroom table, and some of the stacks on top of it stood two feet high. Florescent lights shined from behind a rectangular plate in the ceiling. There was no phone that she could see. His ergonomic chair squeaked with every movement.
“I’m fine, thank you,” Porter said, bending around his desk to remove a one-foot high mountain of pages from the only extra seat in the room.
Alred stepped carefully wherever she could see the floor. She really couldn’t believe it. “Nice office,” she said. If it sounded sarcastic, she didn’t care. Porter’s response would probably be bitter no matter what she said.
“I realize the room is disguised as a closet,” he said, landing noisily back in his chair. A pencil dropped from behind his ear, and he bent to pick it up while speaking. “I won’t be offended if you try to hang your coat on the door.”
Alred sat.
“How’d you manage to get an office?” she said, trying to see what he was doing. His back and shoulders shook quickly as he erased some unseen mark his stylus must have made on one of the open files on the floor, and
