Free CRO-MAGNON by Robert Stimson Page A

anyway, ignoring Teague’s frown.
    He slipped off his mittens and extended his hand. “ Assalomu aleikum. I am Murzo Ayni.”
    Calder noticed that his speech was accented differently than the others. He felt steely fingers.
    “ Ian Calder. We’re here to—”
    “ Ha, I know.” Ayni gave Calder’s hand a Continental pump-and-release. “I am a forest ranger and game warden for the Zorkul Zapodevnik.”
    “ Zapo . . .”
    “ Federal nature reserve, not-long-ago established. Should you need a guide, I will be happy to assist.”
    Calder glanced at the frigid-looking lake, the snowy hillside, the barren peaks thrusting beyond the rock berm. Guide to where? He stepped aside as Blaine approached.
    Ayni inclined his head rather than offering to shake hands. “Murzo Ayni.”
    “ Caitlin Blaine,” she said, matching his rather formal nod.
    “ Salom. You would be the specialist in the art of the ancient ones.”
    “ That’s right,” Blaine lied for the second time. Calder was gratified to watch her fall smoothly into the role.
    “ I am at your service,” Ayni said.
    What kind of service? Calder wondered. Rangers probably worked for the ministry of nature conservation, so Ayni must report at least indirectly to Evgenii Delyanov. He wondered whether the man was there to help them or to monitor their activities. Government agents, including our forest rangers, keep watch on the militants , Delyanov had said.
    Zinchenko stepped through the door and closed it behind him. Through the window Calder could see him and Fitrat walking along a snowy trail toward the larger trailer, their shoulders nearly touching, Teague following with a choppy stride.
    Calder eyed the newcomer, noting that his aquiline features looked Iranian rather than Central Asian. He knew that the people in this area spoke an antiquated version of Farsi called Wakhi, which might account for the man’s distinctive accent.
    A local, then, unlike Zinchenko or Fitrat.
    Three Tajiks, he thought—a bureaucrat, a professional outfitter, and a law officer, each with a different responsibility. And a mission for himself and Blaine, partially concealed from the Tajiks, that embodied a veiled objective and unacknowledged dangers. Not a promising picture. He wondered again if he should scrap the endeavor as being too risky.
    But the remains in the cave had to be considered. Suppose Salomon was correct, and they actually were prehistoric? And suppose one was Neanderthal, be it ever so unlikely; another, anatomically modern human; and the third, hybrid. Could he, as a paleoanthropologist, pass that up? And could Blaine, as a geneticist, be expected to ignore a find that bore on her theory, of human origins? He watched as Ayni glanced around the spartan interior of the trailer before turning to him and Blaine.
    “ The geologist, and later her diver, preferred to sleep here. However, I have a—I believe you would say ‘hut’—two kilometers northwest of the lake in a protected valley. It is warmer than this place, although you would still sleep on the floor.”
    Calder recalled the log cabin the helicopter had flown over on its approach to the lake. “You’re offering to put us up?” he said.
    The Tajik looked puzzled. “Put you up?”
    “ Allow us to sleep in your hut,” Blaine said.
    Ayni smiled. “Ha.”
    “ Thank you.” Calder lifted his chin at Blaine and received a nod. “We accept.”
    He glanced again at the bleak lake and frozen mountains. Anything, he thought, to get away from a place that would probably turn into a windswept wasteland as soon as the sun went down. Of course, such conditions awaited them in the morning anyway, plus a lengthy dunking in freezing water. A shiver ran up his spine, turning into a small burst of warmth as he remembered that tomorrow he and Blaine might begin an unprecedented journey into mankind’s remote past.
     
    #
     
    Darkness was falling as Murzo Ayni led the two scientists around the west end of the mountain