"No, no. That's not necessary." She raised a hand. "But listen, Ahmed. My friend and I must leave the excavation tonight. I fear that Mr. Vanderschmitt will do something that will cause problems for the tomb, and I must go to Cairo to prevent it."

He laid his hand over his heart. "I will go with you."

"No, Ahmed. No need. The way is due east, and I have traveled it many times now. But I do need you to get rid of these." She held out six lm capsules and dropped them into his hands. "Throw them into the latrine. An excellent insult."

He put the objects in the pocket of his galabaya. "Oh, that will be a great pleasure. We will add camels' insult too." He did not leave, but stood waiting.

Valerie considered for a moment, then took a breath. "Ahmed, when you go back into the tomb tomorrow, you will make a great discovery."

"Discovery? More than yesterday?" He seemed to consider for a moment as well. "Dr. Foret. Do not make me wait another day to take revenge on this dog of a man. Whatever you are doing tonight, please let me help."

Valerie studied the earnest face of the foreman who had worked for months at her side, directing the men with an understanding of both her needs and theirs. He had proven himself a hundred times. "All right, Ahmed. Listen. We've discovered the burial chamber. The sarcophagus is empty, but the chamber is full of artifacts. We must go back and photograph everything so the government has a record."

He pressed his gnarled hands together in front of him, as if in joyous prayer. "Surely, God is great. Oh, Dr. Foret. I am so happy for you. How can I help?"

Valerie loaded lm into her camera. "When I'm in Cairo, I'll go to Antiquities and amend the registration to say that you and I have made the discovery. But after we leave tonight, you must close the burial chamber again until someone from Antiquities returns. Do you understand the danger?"

"Yes, and I am honored that you would speak to me so, Dr. Foret.

Now let us to stop wasting the time."

v * 87 *

Ahmed registered approval. "Ah, you replace the little papers that Dr. Vanderschmitt has put on. This is a good thing."

"Yes, but as far as you are concerned, you know nothing about it, all right?"

"Whatever you say, Doctor. Here, let me take the new pictures of you with treasures. You can give to Egyptian government and to your school."

"That's the plan. But we must do it methodically, according to the numbers we've put on the objects. Start here at the entrance and photograph along the tables and wall, until you've made a full circle.

And don't forget the small things on the oor."

She placed the new numbered cards against the artifacts, and he followed, photographing every object from a distance and from up close. For nearly an hour they worked together in the dusty air, the only sound the snap of the shutter and the whirr and click of the automatic advance.

Finally Valerie knelt by the hidden entrance. "And now for the best part, Ahmed. You will be the rst Egyptian to see this room in three thousand years." She pulled open the Osiris door and waved him through the narrow opening into the burial chamber.

"Alhamdulillah!" he whispered. "This is a great thing. After all your work, Dr. Foret."

"No, it was your work, Ahmed. You and the men had to dig in limestone for so many months. I promise you, I will tell the world your name. But after we photograph everything, you must close it up again until the Council of Antiquities comes to see it."

"Of course. And what should I tell them when they come? Mr.

Vanderschmitt will be with them, yes?"

"Tell the truth, or most of it. It'll be easy to remember. Well, you might forget about our changing Mr. Vanderschmitt's little tags. But most importantly, you should say that we discovered this chamber together, you and I. It'll be true enough."

He chuckled, a high, light "hee hee" she had never heard before and that did not match his somber face. And then he touched her elbow, which he had also never done before, and drew her over to the empty sarcophagus to take the rst picture.

After two hours they were nished and returned to the tent where Derek had all their bags packed and the mummy concealed in two of * 88 *

the camp blankets. Before the tent, the boy Ibrim held the reins of two camels.

Ahmed checked the security of the saddle bindings and nodded approvingly. Then he excused himself suddenly. Valerie waited nervously by the tent with a small canvas bag under her arm, wondering if she had misjudged him. She was after all committing a crime, and it must certainly be apparent that she was running away. Had he grasped the grave danger she was putting him in?

After a few moments the foreman returned with something tightly folded held to his chest. When he stood before her, she withdrew a wad of Egyptian pound notes and handed it to him. "This is the money due the men this month. There's some extra too. After you pay them their salaries, you can distribute the rest as you see t."

Ahmed lowered his eyes, taking the payroll. "Thank you, Doctor, for your trust. I think that you do a good thing tonight." He pressed his cloth bundle into her hands without explanation. "Ma' as salaamaa, Doctor," he said, and took his youngest son by the hand. He walked away whispering something to the boy, and neither one of them glanced back.

"Ma' as salaamaa," she murmured after them, looking down at the folded material in her hands. It was his good galabaya. Exactly what they needed.

* 89 *

* 90 *

CHAPTER XIII:.

FORTH INTO THE WORLD.

Scarcely twenty meters out, Valerie felt a twinge of regret and looked back. The tents, the water tank, and the gaping hole of the tomb entrance seemed forlorn in the moonlight.

Something caught her eye. A gure had stepped out from behind the smaller tent. Someone in a dark robe, with loose uncovered hair that fell to the narrow shoulders.

A woman in the camp? Impossible. There were no other women, unless one had followed her out there. Her heart began to pound. "Wait!"

Valerie called out suddenly. "I have to go back. Just for a moment."

She turned her camel and nudged it back toward the camp. The gure was no longer visible, but Valerie circled the tent once and then a second time, obsessed.

"Dr. Foret!" The gure stepped out from inside the tent. "I was looking for you."

"Oh! Hamada. I didn't recognize you." She laughed nervously.

"I've never seen you without your turban. Why were you looking for me?"

"The men are worried. We do not want to work for this man Vanderschmitt."

"I am sorry, Hamada. I cannot help that he is in charge now. What will happen now I do not know. Please tell the men how much I value their work. I have left money with Ahmed to pay everyone well. I will tell the world your names."

She turned the camel again, rst angry at herself, then despondent, and heard the voice behind her say, "Inshaa'Allah, Dr. Foret."

She tapped her camel on the ank and caught up with Derek, who had advanced some distance into the desert. Wisely, it appeared.

* 91 *

As she neared, she saw the faintly iridescent form of the Ka hovering beside him and the Ba perched on the camel's rump behind him. Derek sat awkwardly, holding the rigid mummy diagonally in front of him.

Ahmed's galabaya hung down over its gauze-wrapped feet, and a khaf a covered the masked head. A relief that the foreman was so tall.

"What was that all about?"

"Nothing. Just another of the workers I had to talk to." She changed the subject. "But I see you two are getting to know each other."

"Well, he hasn't said anything yet. He just keeps smiling at me."

The apparition apparently noted the arrival of his interpreter and began to speak. "May you be light of heart, Ayemderak. Whither do you come?"

Valerie dutifully translated as both camels began the journey eastward.

"He's asking where I'm from? That's cute. Just like in a bar."

Derek looked over the shoulder of the mummy and said, "From very far away." He shifted on his saddle, trying to nd a comfortable position.

"Weird, to talk to you this way. I mean over there when I'm holding you dead in my arms right here."

Valerie intermediated between the two, faltering at rst, then with greater ease, as long as they spoke of simple things. And still, she thought to herself in the silences, I'm having a conversation with the dead. I'll wake up from this dream soon.

"Yes, I have become all my parts," Rekemheb explained. "Here I am mummy, Ka, and Ba. In the Duat dwell also my light and my shade and my immortal name. But what of you? Do you have wife and child?"

"Uh. Well, not a wife. Not exactly. But a woman, a dear friend, carries my child." Derek kept his face slightly behind the head of the mummy.

Uncanny, how similar they were, Valerie thought. If the Ka was real, perhaps the kinship claim was true. Impossible. All of it. More likely she was dreaming and lacked the imagination to keep them separate.

"Ah, the Child! Of course." The Ka of Rekemheb clapped his hands. "The birth prophesied by the god. And what is the name of the woman who bears the next son in our line?"

Valerie translated numbly.

* 92 *

"Our line?" Derek laughed. "Uh, well, I suppose it is. Her name is Auset."

The Ka raised his hands skyward. "Praise to Ra and Hathor! No woman could be better chosen."

Valerie explained. "He's excited because Auset is one of the names of the Mother Goddess also known as Isis and as Hathor. She's sort of the Egyptian Virgin Mary, without the virgin part."

"Ah, well, that ts Auset," Derek quipped. "But that reminds me. I've got to try to contact her. She's our only hope right now." He extracted a small cell phone from his pocket. "Can you use these things way out here?"

Valerie shrugged. "I think the Egyptian military uses them, or something like them. Give it a try."

With the dexterity of one who did it frequently, Derek dialed a number with his thumb and held the tiny object to his ear. "Ah, ringing.

Guess it works," he said, nonchalant, as if he were ordering takeout.

Rekemheb watched intently as Derek spoke into the small dark phone and repeated, "Auset, Auset."

"Does he pray to the goddess through the little stone?"

"Stone? Oh! The cell phone. No, he does not pray. He talks to her who is far away, and she replies. It is not the goddess, but the woman named after her. Well, I will explain later."

She turned to Derek, who had tucked away the cell phone. "That was quick. What did she say?"

"She'll meet us tomorrow in Giza, at the camel stable with a car.

She's invited us for lunch."

"Lunch? You talked about lunch? Did you mention Rekemheb?

Did you tell her that we need to hide a mummy in her at?"

"Uh, I told her to come in a company truck, there'd be an...uh...

artifact. I just thought that after she's seen Rekemheb's Ka and the little Ba thing, we won't have to convince her that we aren't crazy. Once she sees he's real, she has to agree to the rest."

Rekemheb looked back and forth at the two speaking English and seemed to accept that not everything would be explained to him.

When they paused in their conversation with each other, he spoke in his clipped, Flemish-sounding Egyptian. "Ayemderak, my grandchild.

How do you serve the gods? What is your profession?"

Valerie mediated again.

* 93 *

"I sing," Derek said simply.

"Sing?" The priest repeated the word in English and wafted closer to his descendant. "In the temple, as I do? You too are a lector priest?"

"Yes, I have sung in temples and churches. But not like a lector priest, whatever that is. I usually perform on a stage, before people. We call that a concert."

Valerie translated but the Ka still looked perplexed. "You sing to amuse the people? Like a slave?"

"Oh no, a concert is a like a....a big ceremony, but without God. A singer is greatly valued in this time. Sometimes he wins glory."

The priest seemed relieved.

Derek shifted the mummy so that its head rested on his other shoulder. "There is something I must ask you, Rekemheb. It has been troubling me since I saw you in the tomb. Please do not laugh at me.

And not you either, Valerie. I have to know this."

"Know what?" she said. "So ask already."

He exhaled slowly. "Rekemheb...is Jesus there in the afterlife?"