in various museums, but nothing that corresponded directly with the items Luke described. The end of one of these communications politely inquired if Mr. Lucas had any personal knowledge that such artifacts actually existed in the West. Luke wrote back and, sticking to the truth as it stood at that moment, said that he did not.
However, Luke had found out something that Dr. Gilbert never suspected. If Zhou Man’s plaque and seal had been returned to the Chinese government around 1907, or soon thereafter, there was no record of it, and assuming that Chinese scholars would be very particular in matters of this kind, Luke could only believe the artifacts had never left California. Either that, or they had been lost due to a shipwreck or some other unforeseen misadventure. But one way or another, Luke would have to do a great deal more research to find the truth, if in fact there was any truth to be found. The trick was to search out the proper resources, but Luke hadn’t a clue where to start looking for them without revealing what he knew, or showing someone his copy of Dr. Gilbert’s evidence.
This suddenly posed another sticky problem: What if someone else at Hopkins decided to look through Dr. Gilbert’s trunk? Luke would have to somehow secure the doctor’s papers against that eventually, and without actually keeping them in his personal possession.
The following day Luke found his way back to the vault under the pretext of doing more sorting. He was relieved to find the trunk still undisturbed beneath the stack of file boxes just where he’d stashed it. He suffered only minor qualms about removing the papers from the vault, since he had every intention of returning the property before word got out about his discoveries. When everyone left for lunch, Luke again removed Dr. Gilbert’s folio and journal from the trunk. He wrapped the items in new paper, packed them in a sturdy corrugated box with tissue paper, and sealed the package with heavy packing tape. He printed out a label addressing the package to himself in care of his grandmother in Watsonville. And after visiting the post office, where he registered and insured the package for a thousand dollars, he mailed it priority parcel post. That done, Luke called his grandmother on his cell phone and told her to expect a package addressed to him. She was to put it away in the attic until he called for it. Luke’s loving grandmother was more than happy to oblige. Luke had debated with himself whether this might be considered theft, but he knew there was a good chance that someone else might just throw out the old trunk as mere junk, and so he went ahead under the banner of preservation, with every intention of setting the matter right at a later date.
THAT JUNE LUKE GRADUATED FROM Stanford with top honors. He immediately requested to be enrolled in a master’s program, but only if he could continue his studies at Hopkins. He chose a relatively new area of study, specifically the effects of global warming on deep submarine deposits of carbon dioxide, methane, and other trapped gases. The proximity of the cavernous Monterey marine trench, practically at Luke’s front door, made this a reasonable field of research to accomplish at Hopkins, and so his request was granted. Luke also ferreted out another scholarship, much to the relief of his parents, who were now saddled with Beth’s insistence that she go to Paris for a graduate studies program at the Sorbonne.
After graduation it was an ecstatic young man who returned to Hopkins wreathed in glory. Luke had come to love Monterey more than his own hometown, tourist trade notwithstanding, and he had no desire to leave. Besides, Monterey was where the trail of the Zhou Man artifacts had gone cold, and he instinctively felt that the thread leading back to it lay somewhere nearby.
After graduation Luke was offered a more responsible position at the Monterey Bay Aquarium doing work in the field of ichthyologic diseases unique to aquarium-maintained specimens. His previous experience in water purification and maintenance proved invaluable in this regard. The fact that he also had access to Hopkins’s research laboratory only added to his value in that capacity. He was dedicated to his work and enjoyed it as much as anything he had ever done. But there was that one fixation that haunted him every day regardless of whatever else he was doing: he couldn’t shake free of his abiding passion to find Zhou Man’s plaque and seal, and this obsession would engage more and more of his attention for some time to come.
Rosie still came down to visit every other weekend when her heavy premed schedule permitted. She would not graduate Stanford until the following June, and her choice of a medical school was predicated on her grades. For as long as she could remember, she had wanted to be a doctor like her famous father.
Luke had always supported her in that ambition, and never pressed her to give him more time than she could comfortably spare from her studies. On the other hand, Luke wasn’t exactly wallowing in free time. Between his work at the aquarium, his graduate studies, and his private research, it was all he could do to find time for a little surfing now and then. His enthusiasm for that pleasure had waned slightly since a fatal white shark attack had taken another surfer off Lover’s Point three months earlier. Luke had seen the surfer’s board on the news. The shark had not only cut the surfer almost in half, it had also taken an identical bite out of his board at the same time. From the width of the bites, one of the biologists at the aquarium estimated the shark at sixteen to eighteen feet long. Luke had no desire to make the acquaintance of that particular fish, so he’d hung up his own board until he could find a safer set of waves farther down the coast.
As far as his Zhou Man research was concerned, Luke had decided that it was time to get the inscription on the marker stone translated. The question remained as to how to accomplish this without either giving away the game or showing his evidence prematurely. To that end, Luke worked up some computer magic. He isolated the Chinese portion of the plaque, which, because it was a rubbing, showed the inscription as white against black, like a photographic negative. He reversed the tones so that the text came out black against white, and then he enlarged and printed the image. After close examination, Luke believed it would be quite impossible for anyone to determine where the text came from, or how it had been executed.
Luke called one of his old Stanford history professors, Dr. Lane, and asked if he could recommend someone who could translate old Chinese texts. He said it was for a paper he was writing. Dr. Lane said he would ask around and get back to him when he had a contact. But he warned Luke not to hold his breath, as real talent in that arena was hardly commonplace.
It was almost a week before Dr. Lane called back with a name. He said that a colleague had recommended one of his star pupils, and as luck would have it, the person in question was working on his second doctoral thesis at Stanford. His name was Dr. Robert Wu, and he was considered a linguistic genius. Dr. Lane said he was told that Dr. Wu could speak, read, and write in nine languages, including Greek and Latin, and that he spoke both Mandarin and Cantonese with equal skill. Dr. Lane gave Luke Dr. Wu’s e-mail address and wished him luck with his paper.
Luke e-mailed Dr. Wu at once, introduced himself, stated his business, and asked for an appointment. Three days later Luke got a response. Dr. Wu wrote that the only time he had marginally free was the following Thursday between two and five in the afternoon. He indicated that he could be found at his office in the language lab. Unfortunately, if that proved inconvenient, Mr. Lucas would have to wait for another six weeks, as Dr. Wu was departing for Taiwan the following morning. Luke wrote back thanking him, and confirming that he would be at the lab promptly at two o’clock on Thursday.
On the appointed day Luke arrived at the lab on campus and asked for Dr. Wu. He was directed back to a tiny office that looked like it had once been a large coat closet. There was a messy pile of books on the desk, many of them left open to marked pages. A leather motorcycle jacket and helmet hung on an old coat rack in the corner, and an open briefcase stuffed with papers sat on the floor beside the desk. But there was no Dr. Wu in sight. Then a voice spoke from behind him and said, “Can I help you find something?”
Luke turned and found he was looking at a fellow who appeared approximately his own age, or perhaps a little
