Darwin’s Radio

Mitch began, ‘They are male and female, each about a hundred and sixty centimeters in height.’

‘Short people,’ Franco said, but Mitch talked right over him.

‘They appear to be genus Homo, species sapiens. Not like us, though. They might have suffered from some kind of dwarfism, distortion of the features …’ He stopped himself and looked again at the heads, saw no signs of dwarfism, though the masks bothered him.

The classic features. ‘They’re not dwarfs,’ he said. ‘They’re Neanderthals.’

Tilde coughed. The dry air parched their throats. ‘Pardon?’

‘Cave men?’ Franco said.

‘Neanderthals,’ Mitch said again, as much to convince himself as to correct Franco.

‘That is bullshit,’ Tilde said, her voice crackling with anger. ‘We are not children.’

‘No bullshit. You have found two well-preserved Neanderthals, a man and a woman. The first Neanderthal mummies … anywhere. Ever.’

Tilde and Franco thought about that for a few seconds. Outside, wind hooted past the cave entrance.

‘How old?’ Franco asked.

‘Everyone thinks the Neanderthals died out between a hundred thousand and forty thousand years ago,’ Mitch said. ‘Maybe everyone is wrong. But I doubt they could have stayed in this cave, in this state of preservation, for forty thousand years.’

‘Maybe they were the last,’ Franco said, and crossed himself reverently.

‘Incredible,’ Tilde said, her face flushed. ‘How much would they be worth?’

Mitch’s leg cramped and he moved back to squat beside Franco. He rubbed his eyes with a gloved knuckle. So cold. He was shivering. The moon of light blurred and shifted. ‘They’re not worth anything,’ he said.

‘Don’t joke,’ Tilde said. ‘They are rare – nothing like them, right?’

‘Even if we – if you, I mean – could get them out of this cave safely, intact, and down the mountain, where would you sell them?’

‘There are people who collect such things,’ Franco said. ‘People with lots of money. We have talked to some about an Iceman already. Surely an Iceman and Woman –’

‘Maybe I should be more blunt,’ Mitch said. ‘If these aren’t handled in a proper scientific fashion, I will go to the authorities in Switzerland, Italy, wherever the hell we are. I will tell them.’

Another silence. Mitch could almost hear Tilde’s thoughts, like a little Austrian clockwork.

Franco slapped the floor of the cave with his gloved hand and glared at Mitch. ‘Why fuck us up?’

‘Because these people don’t belong to you,’ Mitch said. ‘They don’t belong to anybody.’

‘They are dead!’ Franco shouted. ‘They do not belong to themselves, do they, any more?’

Tilde’s lips formed a straight, grim line. ‘Mitch is right. We are not going to sell them.’

A little scared now, Mitch’s next words rushed out. ‘I don’t know what else you might plan to do with them, but I don’t think you’re going to control them, or sell the rights, make Cave Man Barbie dolls or whatever.’ He took a deep breath.

‘No, again, I say Mitch is right,’ Tilde stated slowly. Franco regarded her with a speculative squint. ‘This is very huge. We will be good citizens. They are everybody’s ancestors. Mama and Papa to the world.’

Mitch could definitely feel the headache creeping up on him. The earlier oblong of light had been a familiar warning: oncoming head-crushing train approaching. Climbing back down the mountain would be difficult or even impossible if he was going to fall under the spell of a migraine, a real brain-splitter. He hadn’t brought any medicine. ‘Are you planning to kill me up here?’ he asked Tilde.

Franco shot a glance at him, then rolled to look at Tilde, waiting for an answer.

Tilde grinned and tapped her chin. ‘I am thinking,’ she said. ‘What rogues we would be. Famous stories. Pirates of the prehistoric. Yo ho ho and a bottle of Schnapps.’

‘What we need to do,’ Mitch said, assuming that she had answered in the negative, ‘is to take a tissue sample from each body, with minimal intrusion. Then –’

He reached for the torch, which he had placed near his feet, and lifted it, shining the light beyond the close, sleepy-eyed heads of the male and female to the far recesses, about three yards farther back in the cave. Something small lay there, bundled in fur.

‘What’s that?’ he and Franco asked simultaneously.

Mitch considered. He could hunker and sidle his way around the female without disturbing anything except the dust. On the other hand, it would be best to leave everything completely untouched, to retreat from the cave now and bring back the real experts. The tissue samples would be enough evidence, he thought. Enough was known about Neanderthal DNA from bone studies. A confirmation could be made and the cave could be kept sealed until –

He pressed his temples and closed his eyes.

Tilde tapped his shoulder and gently pushed him out of the way. ‘I am smaller,’ she said. She crawled beside the female toward the rear of the cave.

Mitch watched and said nothing. This was what it felt like to truly sin – the sin of overwhelming curiosity. He would never forgive himself, but, he rationalized, how could he stop her without harming the bodies? Besides, she was being careful.

Tilde squeezed so low her face was on the floor beside the bundle. She gripped one end of the fur with two fingers and slowly turned it around. Mitch’s throat seized with anguish. ‘Shine a light,’ she demanded. Mitch did so.

Franco aimed his torch as well.

‘It’s a doll,’ Tilde said.

From the top of the bundle peered a small face, like a dark and wrinkled apple, with two tiny sunken black eyes.

‘No,’ Mitch said. ‘It’s a baby.’

Tilde pushed back a few inches and made a small surprised hmm!

Mitch’s headache rolled over him like thunder.

Franco held Mitch’s arm near the cave entrance. Tilde was still inside. Mitch’s migraine had progressed to a real Force 9, with visuals and all, and it was an effort to keep from curling up and screaming. He had already experienced dry heaves, by the side of the cave, and he was now shivering violently.

He knew with absolute certainty that he was going to die up here, on the threshold of the most extraordinary anthropological discovery of all time, leaving it in the hands of Tilde and Franco, who were little better than thieves.

‘What is she doing in there?’ Mitch moaned, head bowed. Even the twilight seemed too bright. It was getting dark quickly, however.

‘Not your worry,’ Franco said, and gripped his arm more tightly.

Mitch pulled back and felt blindly in his pocket for the vials containing the samples. He had managed to take two small plugs from the upper thighs of the man and the woman before the pain had advanced; now, he could hardly see straight.

Forcing his eyes open, he looked out upon a heavenly sapphire blueness precisely painting the mountain, the ice, the snow, overlain by flashes in the corners of his eyes like tiny bolts of lightning.

Tilde emerged from the cave, camera in one hand, pack in the other. ‘We have enough to prove everything,’ she said. She spoke Italian to Franco, rapidly and in a low voice. Mitch did not understand, nor did he care to.