Lost in Translation Page 0,7

of neutral nationalities, if his memory served him right. But an interest in paleontology? In Peking Man? This he did not recall.

Now the blond man was speaking.

"Dr. Spencer wants to stress the research importance of these fossils," said the female interpreter. "Peking Man was the most coherent group of Homo erectus fossils ever found in Asia. If it were somehow recovered it could be used to resolve the most important disagreement in the study of human origins— the debate between the regional evolution theory and the out-of-Africa theory. When the remains were last seen, they included one hundred and fifty-seven teeth. Pieces of forty different individuals. All that is needed is one that is completely intact. By taking tissue from such a tooth plug, the scientists could analyze the creature’s DNA structure, and compare it with the DNA of modern Asians and modern Africans. This would be research of worldwide importance."

Worldwide importance? Han thought. Ke bu shi ma. If Peking Man were found, international interest would surely return to this once-preeminent Homo erectus site. As it was now, the new fossils they’d managed to unearth since 1941 were stuffed here and there, in dusty boxes, around Beijing. Unsorted, unlabeled, low priority. Recovery of Peking Man would change everything. But aloud, he parried, "You know, I have been searching back and forth the technical literature ever since I received Dr. Spencer’s letter." He paused and glanced away from them, out the window to the busy boulevard below. "Forgive me. I am ignorant! I do not find any citations from Adam Spencer of the University of Nevada at Reno. No articles, no references, no footnotes..."

The interpreter rendered this hesitantly. Vice Director Han observed the man’s discomfort when he put a reply to her. Eh, the childlike Americans, was there nothing they could conceal? It was obvious this man, making such careful notes in his benzi, was a minor figure from an inconsequential university.

She spoke. "Dr. Spencer does not contribute to the international journals. His work has only appeared in two journals: the Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology, and American Antiquity. His specialty is archaic desert cultures. In the last year, though, he has concentrated all his research on the recovery of Peking Man."

Vice Director Han nodded, but thought, preposterous! They would never recover Peking Man. Though what enormous face such a miracle would confer on the nation! The entire world would be reminded that China was not only, of course, the oldest continuous culture on earth but also—quite possibly—man’s point of origin. Ah, yes, the honor would be huge. But it would never happen. The bones had been missing too long.

He stroked his chin, staring out the window at the crowds on Xizhimenwai parting for a marching formation of green-clad, lockstep PLA soldiers, the kind of strong-arm show of force that had become so much more frequent in the capital since the Six-Four at Tiananmen Square. The soldiers stamped past and the milling crowd re-formed in their wake, the black-headed human tide of pedestrians and bicyclists that poured always through the streets.

He returned his attention to the room, reminding himself that there was another thing about Peking Man he should consider—that the Europeans had always wanted the fossils for themselves. Were not the museums of London, Paris, and Berlin filled with the treasures of China? A thrill of fear ran through Vice Director Han as he contemplated the chasm that had just split open in front of him. Peking Man was one of the country’s great cultural prizes. If these foreigners found it, they might spirit it out. Was that not more or less how things had gone before? Vice Director Han studied the polished surface of his desk and thought back. At the time of Peking Man’s disappearance it had been en route to the Museum of Natural History in New York, whence—wasn’t it so?—it would almost certainly never have been returned to China.

He allowed a silence to take shape and then drag out until it was vaporous, almost a visible coil in the air between them. The American man perched and craned. With great interest the vice director watched him exhibiting his waibiao—his impatience with his pen and notebook, his bluntness, his superior Western certainty that everything would, eventually, be done his way. As if that were the right way to do it.

The vice director could grant the permits, of course, if it seemed expedient. Did it? Should he? The project would fail, certainly. Though there was one