completely bald on top. Kinnard wore dark-rimmed glasses, a weak prescription, so at least he could take them off whenever possible. And the dark hair that wrapped around the sides of Kinnard’s head had begun to gray a few years ago. He didn’t consider himself as handsome as he used to be, but then he didn’t know why he was thinking about it. He hated pondering his looks.
“How’s your paper coming?” Kinnard said, rubbing his eyes again.
Nodding comfortably, Porter said, “Fine. I can have a copy of it to you by Friday.”
“That would be nice,” Kinnard lied. He had at least twenty-five thick essays to read and couldn’t pass them on to assistants because they came from the assistants. All he needed was another anchor to pull him down. He cursed Ulman inwardly and then all who worked for him.
“If you’d rather, I could give a quick oral overview of the project,” Porter said. “Stratford has reminded me recently I have other pressing work to get started on.”
“What’s that?”
“My dissertation.”
Kinnard stopped. His tired eyes looking over the tips of his fingers. His mind churned. Porter doesn’t have his dissertation done, he thought. How long has he been working at Stratford? It’s not seven years yet…
“I have this semester to do it-”
“May twenty-first?” Kinnard said, his eyebrows going up. “Can’t be done.”
“I appreciate the pessimism, but you know I’m not your regular Joe Bloggs student,” said Porter with his best humble grin.
That was for sure! Kinnard smiled. Few students were so comfortable around a supervising professor that they started bragging about their intelligence-especially in light of threatening impossibilities.
“I think I can accomplish the task, Professor Kinnard…but I could use your help.”
“How much help,” Kinnard said. His voice was strong. He could imagine getting sucked into some big project in order to save a student who hadn’t used his time efficiently. Of course, Kinnard also knew he was partly to blame. Instead of directing Porter toward his dissertation, he’d had the assistant running around doing dirty work. Kinnard had too many other jobs to attack.
“Well,” Porter said with a weak smile that quickly went away, “I could use an idea for direction.”
“You said you’d give me an oral review of your paper?” Kinnard leaned back in his chair. The high back of the seat squeaked.
Porter nodded. Kinnard could see the student fiddling with the dry skin on his knuckles.
Kinnard lifted a hand.
“Well,” said Porter. “I think I’ve found sufficient evidence indicating Nabataean trade with China.”
“Something new? Like what?”
Porter licked his lips and looked through the desk as he spoke. “The Parthians regulated the trade of most Indian merchandise-”
“And we know the Nabataeans traded with the Parthians. But that only indicates trade as far as Parthia.”
Porter nodded with a grin. “But I may also have found evidence of a Nabataean temple in Tengyueh.”
“ You do. Who found it?” said Kinnard, focusing a little more on Porter.
“Dr. Bertrand from Crispin University in Maryland.”
“I’ve never heard of him or his college,” Kinnard said.
“Bertrand’s a Berkeley graduate, younger than I am, who’s taken the chair of the History department at Crispin. Crispin’s the youngest university in the states.” Porter straightened his slouching posture.
“Why haven’t I heard of it,” said Kinnard. His mind floated back to Ulman’s package. He thought he could smell the dusty paper. He tried to regain his declining attention in order to sound coherent. “Where did you say it was again?”
“Still small. You don’t have plans to leave Stratford, do you Dr. Kinnard?”
Kinnard didn’t bother shaking his head. He nudged away the image of Ulman writing quickly in some beaten box he called a house in the mountains of southern Guatemala. His mind finally clicked back to Porter’s insinuations. Evidence of a Nabataean temple site in China was sufficient to alter the history books-something scholars love to do. Relics of Nabataean temple sites had been found in Rhodes in the Aegean sea and Puteoli, just north of Naples, Italy, indicating such a high degree of trade that permanent structures were required so that Nabataean traders traveling afar could still worship Dhu-Shara, Hadad, Al-Uzza, and the rest of their gods.
“Refresh my memory; where’s Tengyueh, exactly,” he said. Kinnard was a professor of Ancient Near Eastern studies, and regardless of what he may have learned in the past, he continued to recognize areas of his own ignorance-something many of his colleagues refused to do.
He saw Porter smile before speaking. At least someone was happy with Kinnard’s deteriorating mind. “In China. Southwest from Yangtze Kiang. Close to the Northeast border of Burma.”
Kinnard nodded. “And this Beartrend-”
“Bertrand.”
“-thinks he found a Nabataean temple site?”
Porter shifted in the chair. “Not…exactly…but what he describes, the pictures he presented…it looks Nabataean to me.”
Kinnard’s tense eyebrows relaxed.
In other words, Porter didn’t have anything at all. Just another organized example in speculation. Porter was a master at this sort of thing, but plenty of people disagreed with him as a common practice.
“I think you’ll agree with me, once you read-or hear-my paper.”
“I’m sure,” Kinnard said without interest. Porter was in a difficult situation, and they both knew it. He looked at the Near East books on his desk. “Do you intend to continue your study of the Nabataeans for your dissertation? It will definitely give you something to argue.”
Porter stuttered a moment, then said, “I was…hoping for-for some advice.”
Leaning forward and putting his elbows on his desk, Kinnard looked Porter right in the eyes. “You know, some universities don’t even accept students anymore without some idea of their intended thesis. Stratford just hasn’t jumped onto the wagon yet. Do you realize the predicament you’re in?”
“I am well-reminded,” Porter replied without feeling. He knew he was stuck, and it was obvious. But Kinnard could see that the student planned to go out fighting. May twenty-first was still a full two months away.
“I don’t think I can help you, Mr. Porter.” Kinnard said, leaning back and putting his hands in the air. “I’d love to, but I don’t have any ideas for you.” He let his hands fall to his lap and sighed. “You really should have come to me sooner.”
Porter nodded to the window, squinting his eyes. He stood and put his hands on his thin hips. His lips twisted as he thought. “Then I’ll come up with something on the Nabataeans.”
The problem was, Nabataean finds were relatively few and didn’t say all that much. Besides, Dr. Glueck and a few others had already said it all. How Porter could come up with a new Nabataean idea in the next few weeks, then write, present, and argue a paper about it by the end of the semester seemed impossible. They both knew it. Porter was in real trouble.
“Call me tomorrow,” Kinnard said, glancing from his desk to his student, to his desk again, then back to his student. His face showed no emotion. The gravity of the game demanded seriousness. Kinnard’s brown skin hardened, and his muscular jaw flexed. He had to think this out. Turning his eyes and hands to the papers on his desk, he said in a low tone, “Pray for magic, and maybe we’ll come up with some.”
Porter nodded without a sound, without a smile, without a single sparkle in his eyes. He closed the door behind him.
CHAPTER FIVE
March 25
11:27 a.m. PST
“What do you think you’re do’n here!?!” the old man bellowed. He was lean and tall, but had a hunched back
