Rob looked at him. "I haven't been, Ed. Not really. Not since I moved down here."

"You know what I mean," Edwin said, embarrassed. "I wonder why this other guy is in Asia. Or girl-can't be sexist about it. With such a wide separation you can't be sharing a microbe or a virus. You don't have any Russian ancestors, am I right? Have you ever traveled to Europe or the Middle East?"

"Went to the Virgin Islands on our honeymoon, that's it. My folks have been Californians for three generations. Before that they came from Massachusetts, and before that, Ireland."

"Then a genetic link isn't very likely. Maybe a random mutation? You were right-we have to find that site report. Let's not go off half-cocked on this. Let me ask around about the dig and the area, do the background research."

"Wait a minute, Ed. What you mean, 'we'? You don't want to come, do you?

Not to Kurdistan or wherever it was, in January."

"Of course I want to come! I've been wanting to get to the bottom of this for months!"

Rob thought about it. If he traveled alone he could go faster, without tickets or passport in fact, like a ghost. What about Edwin's job and family? Carina surely would not approve of his jauntering off like this. On the other hand Rob now knew the perils of becoming a ghost. Edwin was a smart and resourceful fellow, excellent in the planning phase, though he tended to collapse in a crunch. It would be fun, Rob realized, to travel with a friend.

Edwin rested his elbow on the table and leaned his chin on his hand. "I hate it when you do that piercing ice-blue stare," he remarked. "I know you're not rooting through my thought processes, but it looks like you are."

"Sorry," Rob said, glancing away. "No, I was just wondering if it was really a good idea for you to come. What about your book? Your research?"

"The manuscript's gone to one of my co-authors for revision. And I can take some vacation. How long is this likely to take, anyway? A week?"

"Longer, I bet. It sounds pretty well off the beaten track."

"A travel agent." Edwin wrote it in his notebook. "Equipment. Boots.

Clothes. I know, let's go shopping for you!"

"No toys," Rob begged. "Let's travel light!"

Of course they did not. Rob had to get a copy of his birth certificate by mail from California to apply for a passport, and then they both needed visas. All this took more than a month, and during that time Edwin contrived to gather an astounding amount of luggage. "All these things are essential," he insisted. "You've never been to a primitive dig, Rob.

Believe me, sometimes Ziploc bags and paper towels are a life saver. I went with Carina to Chile once-thought I would die."

"We're not going to dig," Rob argued. "We're just going to visit. We're tourists! We are not going to need case lots of paper goods."

Then Edwin hauled Rob to his favorite outdoor equipment store. "Everything for him," he told the clerk. "From the skin out, for outdoor winter work.

Boots, Polarfleece, thermals, parka, Thinsulate, everything."

"Is this really necessary, Ed?" Rob pleaded.

"Do you want to turn into a popsicle? We're going camping in Central Asia in March. Get real, Rob!"

"We're not going to the North Pole," Rob began, but then he subsided. It came to him that Edwin had been itching for weeks to get him into thoroughly weatherproof clothing-as if Rob might suddenly start sleeping on street corners again. How could he thwart such a paternal motive? So he meekly let them put him into a plaid flannel shirt, a green waterproof down parka like Edwin's, Vibram-lugged hiking boots lined with both Gore-Tex and Thinsulate, and flannel-lined jeans. Dressed, he felt twenty pounds heavier. In the mirror he looked rugged and competent, a blond bearded lumberjack, ready for anything. "I'll never be cold again," he remarked.

"Polarfleece mittens," Edwin muttered. "They're warmer than gloves.

Gore-tex overmittens. Wool hat, wool hiking socks. Long underwear." He piled these garments on the counter.

It was certainly different from shopping at the Salvation Army store. When Rob saw the grand total he blinked and looked again. Luckily he had thought to close out one of his savings accounts. "I can tell you where my next stop will be," he remarked.

Edwin looked up from his own stack of minor purchases: a folding shovel, three cheap disposable button lights, some nylon webbing luggage straps, and a quartz-krypton 360-degree camping lantern that could be recharged from a car battery. "Yeah? Where are you going?"

"Atlantic City," Rob said, and Edwin laughed.

CHAPTER 7.

During that month Rob hustled as hard as he could on the Open Door Center's front porch. Shingling a roof in January was so crazy that passersby stopped on the sidewalk to watch him. But once the crucial weather-flashing was installed he could relax. No water or ice could creep in between the house and the porch roof to loosen joists or rot wood. The electric hammer made installing the flooring fun and easy. He laid all the floor boards and ran the circular saw around the perimeter of the porch to trim them even.

"What's the rush, dear?" Mrs. Ruppert asked, astonished at this efficiency.

She was always bringing him hot chocolate or coffee, to keep off the chill.

"You'll catch your death working outside in this cold."

"I'm going to be away a few weeks the beginning of March," Rob explained.

"If you have a floor, the porch is basically useable. I'll do the railings and banisters when I come back."

It was beyond his skill to duplicate the old gingerbread trim, and anyway he had no table jigsaw. So he opted for a more Southern effect, with big square porch columns and stepped pediments and moldings. To keep kids from falling off until he could build a railing, he strung two-by-fours between the pillars.

Even on the day of their departure Rob was working at it, balanced on a stepladder shooting nails into the final dentil trim. "This is gorgeous, Rob," Edwin exclaimed when he pulled up in the Mazda. "It's the same old porch, only brand-new. Are you going to paint it white?"

"Not till spring-you can't paint in freezing weather." Rob pulled off his work gloves and dropped them into the tool box. "And I'll tell you, a fresh-painted porch will stand out like a sore thumb against this siding.

Ideally, I'd paint the whole house to match."

"This is neverending-I thought you were almost done!"

"The slogan of the home improver: It's never done," Rob said. "Let me put these tools in the office. I've got my bag here."

When he saw the old brown duffel bag, Edwin said, "Oh, you're joking.

That's all you're bringing?"

"This is everything I own, except a few books and the laptop. One of us has to travel light." Rob popped the passenger seat forward and tossed the duffel into the back on top of the five fat bags already inside-Edwin's absolute minimum. "They're not going to let you on the plane with all this junk."

"Books-I forgot to bring something to read!" Edwin exclaimed.

"I'll lend you one of mine."

"You have reading material in there too," Edwin muttered as he started the car. "I don't believe it."

Their plane left from Baltimore-Washington International Airport, and connected in New York to the overnight Moscow flight. There was hardly time to settle down on the first short leg, but once the jet left JFK Rob said, "Well, I'm going to sleep. I've been up since five, putting the final licks on that porch."

"You can sleep? I can never sleep on planes. I get too excited about traveling."

"I can sleep anywhere. I'm glad I let you have the aisle seat."

"Let me have a book too, or I'll go buggy. The magazine rack only has Golf World and Working Woman."

"You do have your Diskman and the laptop," Rob pointed out. But he unzipped his duffel and handed over an MIA Hunter paperback. "So I'm a lowbrow-sue me."

"Surely not. Pastor Phillipson told me you quote Virgil."

"She's a liar. She quoted, I recognized it. Wait, here's something else."

He handed Edwin the Gilgamesh book.