Past Perfect: A Story About a Past That Became the Present

By A. Reynolds

Dr. Christine Eastman is a rising star in analytical chemistry who has always wondered what it would be like to have a child growing inside of her. Abandoned by her husband, Eastman takes a job as head of analytics for an archaeological company and heads to Antarctica, where scientists have discovered the body of a man preserved in ice for at least five thousand years. It is not long before an intrigued Eastman begins secretly speculating whether the frozen mans sperm could become a viable component in her mission to become pregnant.

After overcoming ethical hurdles, Eastman relies on chemical skills to extract the mans sperm and impregnate herself. Nine months later, she gives birth to an ancient mans baby boy, suddenly transforming both her and Jemmy into reluctant scientific celebrities. Eventually an unhappy Eastman secretly travels to Rio de Janeiro with Jemmy to begin an anonymous life. Years later when she finally returns to America with Jemmy so he can attend college, he learns the truth about himselfand his inherited abilities. Unfortunately, Eastman has no idea that the decision she made long ago is about to lead to lethal consequences.

In this science fiction tale, a chemist who ingeniously utilizes modern science to help her achieve a lofty goal unwittingly unlocks secrets from the past with the power to change everything.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Oct 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9781480811775

A. Reynolds

A. Reynolds is a PhD in chemistry and math who has spent thirty years working with inventors. He enjoys writing short stories, dramatic presentations, and science fiction novels. Reynolds currently resides in Exeter, New Hampshire. This is his first novel.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

In 2005, Israeli scientists germinated seeds that had been stored at historic Masada for two thousand years.

A decade later, scientists in Antarctica discovered the body of a man frozen in solid ice for five thousand years.

I

I t all began when I read that article in Smithsonian magazine about the new Antarctic expedition and its discoveries.

No, it all began long before that.

Under my picture in my high school yearbook the editors wrote, Most likely to succeed—if she ever figures out in what. I didn’t even know the editors, so how did they know me so well? And now, twenty years later, I’m still trying to figure out in what. But not because I haven’t tried a lot of whats. I guess it was pretty obvious to the editors, and everyone else, that I was like a leaf in the wind.

My school courses were breezes. I enjoyed them all. My parents passed on to me the genes that let me get all As. Well, I did get one F, in social studies as I remember. And that was because I hated the teacher. I thought the course a waste of time—of all of our time. Never opened the book. But I was just one spot behind the valedictorian of my class. She got an A in social studies.

My stellar grade level did not help my place in any social constellation. In fact, it outright disqualified me, because it caused some to refer to me as smarty-pants. I never could understand what my underwear had to do with it. If my underwear did fit in, I thought bras would be more appropriate. When I was president of the student assembly in my senior year, I proposed a boob competition as a fund-raiser for our sea turtle program. We would have several categories, such as biggest (easy to measure), most well-handled (hard to determine), least noticeable, etc. I was sure we would develop a lot of interest and make a lot of money. The boys in the student assembly were all in favor; some even volunteered to help! But my proposal never got off the ground. Our faculty vetoed it. They said it was not nice. I really think our class advisor was concerned about where she might fit in.

My academic skills did not help my relationships with boys either. I just didn’t think of boys as big heroes. Most girls believed them to be.

I thought maybe sports might be the answer for me, so I gave them serious thought. At five foot six, with some muscles, some padding, and some ability to move, why couldn’t I be a sports figure? Well, of course, football and basketball were out. I wanted to compete directly with the boys. There was golf. Okay, but boring. Tennis. That was it! I worked until I got good at it. No, I did not have the brute strength, nor the big boobs of the Williams sisters, nor the height for big serves like Federer. But my dad taught me a lot about the old days of tennis, when the players wore white slacks and shirts, and did not yell at the judges. When Bill Tilden and Ellsworth Vines were the stylists in tennis, there was a small guy named Bitsy Grant. He never got top billing, but he played with them. He won a lot. My dad said that was because he was quick and agile and could return everything—maybe not in pretty fashion, but he got it back. That’s how he won. He wore out his opponents mentally and physically. That became my game.

On the town courts, I played a lot of the guys, beat many of them. But after a while, not one would play me, for one excuse or another. I finally understood that it hurt them to have a girl beat them. Girls would not play me because I always won. So my well-planned sports career did not get me much, except exercise. I finally realized that Billie Gene King had played only one match with a man because she beat him.

I made another attempt to be normal: music.

I grew up hearing marching-band music: Sousa, Fillmore, King. My dad played their records all the time. I liked them, so I decided to learn to play an instrument so I could be in the high school band. I chose the French horn because I like the sound of hunting calls. Also because I thought I looked attractive playing it; it covered up my less-than- ample chest better than a trumpet. There was another reason that I never told anyone about—the French horn had a small mouthpiece, which fit me very well. My theory was that it would help my kissing ability. Later on, when I learned triple tonguing, and after reading some stories that were not on the library reading list, I elected to take French. I read that French kissing was very sensual. I got a lot of As in French and did realize some kissing returns from this approach.

Most fascinating of all to me was biology. This subject is life itself as far as I’m concerned: life, death, creation, change. I just could not learn enough about biology. I became sure of one thing in high school—that I was going to study biology in college and make a career of it. To me this subject seemed like a helium balloon; the higher it went, the bigger it got. I wanted to be on that balloon.

Despite myself, I did have a lot of dates with many boys. They were of two kinds: the nerds and the jocks. I was very comfortable with the nerds. I could keep up with their high-tech thinking, knowing, and talking. I could argue with them—sometimes winning, but always accepted. Except what was the point? It was not much more exciting than arguing with a computer. I could do that too, but that didn’t stir up any of my hormones. So I decided nerds were nice guys, but not for me.

The jocks. It was always a good move for a girl to hang out with the jocks, especially the team captains, the high scorers, the best looking. And usually they were fun. I always felt sort of safe with them, meaning, say, from getting picked on by other guys. Sooner or later—usually sooner—they focused on the body: biceps, muscles, push-ups, endurance. Soon after the talk came the visual effects: chest expansion, waist, reach, etc. Then came a series of moves related to Gray’s Anatomy.

When my family went to Florence, I was in middle school. Of course we saw Michelangelo’s David. I was not totally surprised by this larger-than-life-size naked man (I had long before researched that subject in the library and on the Internet). I was taken aback by the immense size of the statue. He was a pretty good-looking guy, even for way back then. Everyone in our tour group was oohing and ahhing over his wonderful shape and form. Personally, I did not buy into that; I kept remembering the famous Venus de Milo we had seen earlier in our trip. Now there was a body! Talk about streamlined, cool! Even without arms, she was a beauty. I thought I would like to grow up to have a body like hers. (So far I haven’t made it, except I do have both arms). So compared to Venus, David did not impress me, and I thought his peeing apparatus was not pretty at all. If God designed both men and women, He sure did best when he made Eve.

Sorry, I got on a tangent with David and Venus. I did learn from guys why they wear jockstraps—because their apparatus really does get in the way of running and jumping. But then, isn’t that why we girls wear bras?

II

I really started college when I was still in high school. What I mean is that I really started imagining what it was going to be like in college. I visited many campuses, on the Internet of course. They all have such great websites. Very professional. Very complete. And very commercial, carefully crafted sales pitches; just as auto companies pitch high gas mileage, easy financing, and style, the college pitch is about athletic facilities, gracious student lifestyle, and the Nobel laureates on their faculties. I wondered if I might ever meet one of them. And of course colleges offer many kinds of student aid, because all those campus amenities cost money. If I scrolled down far enough, I could find what sorts of degrees and disciplines they offered students. But I could never find detailed, actual information about the courses and professors.

I soon caught on to the standard format. After careful thought, and dreaming, I created my personal set of criteria to search for:

• geographical location and weather

• surrounding attractions

• size, number of students

• flexibility in choosing courses

Finally I had my preferred list of three colleges. At the top of the list was Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, Maryland (not John Hopkins, but Johns Hopkins).

• East Coast, near Baltimore, which was far enough away from Mom and Dad that they wouldn’t be dropping in for coffee

• a different sort of culture from upstate New York, and on the sea!

• only 4,200 students

• The Krieger School of Arts and Sciences: double majors possible and common—even some undergraduate research; offered biology (my thing), chemistry, math, premed, nursing

What more could I want? I even liked their old Eastern-style brick buildings. I applied early. Accepted. Small scholarship. Single room in dorm. Mom and Dad pleased. Life was good!

High school graduation was a blast. And I had a neat date with a jock for the prom, which turned into a very interesting night. Some other time I’ll tell you about that.

I tested out of freshman chemistry, so the school jumped me into sophomore physical chemistry and biology. And that is where my high school major interest stopped being my college major interest. I found the biology course boring, the professor wimpy. Lots of time spent on bugs, worms, and birds. The only really interesting parts were about reproductive systems. That seriously intrigued me—the many different ways living things had developed to reproduce. The only common theme was It takes two to tango, as my Dad always said. Although the prof pretty well explained how it worked, he never talked about why it worked. Why would a salmon go through the big effort to swim upstream to lay some eggs so there could be more salmon? They sure didn’t get any thrills of a sexual encounter like humans. And why did they want to make little ones anyway? I can sort of understand some reasons for humans—maybe hopes that the little ones will take care of you later, or maybe just to create a little tribe of your own for company, or for security, or for pleasure. Why would a fly want to make more flies? Is there something I’m missing here? Is it just the magic of it all? Or is this God at work? Just to make flies and trees and cats for us to enjoy—is that the why of it all?

When we did get around to studying human sexuality, I broke up the class by asking, Are human beings the only ones who look at each other eye-to-eye during intercourse? Amid all the laughter I never did hear the professor’s answer, if he had one. But that question first came to my mind on prom night with Jim. I think I even asked him that then. If I did, I don’t remember his answer either. Well, so much for biology.

Now, about physical chemistry. It’s a whole different ball game. When I first saw the professor, I thought, Here we go again. Short little guy, maybe fifty, thin reddish hair, shy. Until he spoke. Wow! What a voice! He ought to have tried out for American Idol, or the Met, or maybe he should have sung his lectures. His whole body woke up and showed how happy he was to be teaching. And right away I was listening and loving it. He was talking about physical chemistry! I had a new hero and a new passion—for chemistry, that is. Physical chemistry, to be exact. It is so organized and logical, and varied; it is chemistry with some physics and a lot of math, and it relates to so many different parts of our world, and our lives too.

This orderliness of chemistry got to me way back in high school chemistry when we learned about the periodic table of the elements. Mendeleev was the first to work that out in the nineteenth century. He had only a little information about the elements—some physical and some chemical properties; not much by our standards today. But he recognized similarities among the elements and saw that they fell into families. Now we know much more about the elements themselves. In fact we can use our knowledge to line up the families. I always marveled at the great work done by Mendeleev. Seems to me these periodic relationships among elements are like the relationships among people—races, families, individuals.

I also had a course on chemical bonding, which explored how different atoms connect to other atoms, with different chemical bonds that have different strengths and weaknesses. We studied the work the great thinker Linus Pauling did on the nature of chemical bonds in the early 1900s. He did not have electronic microscopes, mass spectrometers, lasers, and all our modern technology. He had only basic data, such as heat capacities and some X-ray diffractions. With just these basic inputs and his mind, he determined the nature of the bonds between elements, their strengths, their distances, their reactivities. He won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this work. I found this all very fascinating. My imagination was really challenged when I tried to visualize these infinitesimally small atoms relating to each other.

And then my mind began to ask me, How about how we little people relate to each other? Seems to me we make these bonds in different ways too. Some are stronger and closer, like iron and oxygen, which form rust, which lasts forever. It takes a lot to separate rust back into iron and oxygen.

I had never experienced that kind of bond with someone else. Yes, my bond with my mom and dad is pretty strong, but even now I feel it being stretched. And besides, that is a three-way bond. In my statistics class, we looked at the probabilities of a three-way combination happening. It has an enormously lower chance of happening than a two-way combination. I think that is probably true with people too. Some are pretty weak and separate easily. Some seem never to break apart or become separated, such as my mom and dad. Over so many years, through so many ups and downs, they are still bonded together like iron and oxygen in rust.

But me—no strong bonds so far with anyone else. Oh sure, on prom night Jim and I bonded in a way, but that sure didn’t last very long. Kind of like heat from a fire—hot for a moment, but quickly turning to smoke that disappears in the air. (Hey, I think that is in the Bible somewhere.) I guess I am just not the bonding type. Different atoms have different personalities too. Take chlorine, for instance. It reacts quickly and strongly with a lot of things, such as sodium and hydrogen. I am not like that. I am more like the noble gases: neon, argon, xenon. They go their own way and don’t react with anything. My name should be Christon, not Christine. I am just another noble gas floating around.

III

M y social life did not graduate to the college level. It was sort of stuck in high school mode. I did have a few dates—more nerds and fewer jocks. Some fine, some not. At least I got to go to some different places—mostly bars. Learned about the chemistry of alcohol. Another analogy with people: some liquors and mixes really go together, and some don’t. For example, I like Jack Daniels with ginger ale. I wonder what Linus Pauling would say about that sort of bonding.

A giant step in my social life was meeting the girl across the hall, Celestina. I noticed her the very first day. Long, gorgeous black hair, shiny and very dark, hanging straight like water flowing over a dam. Sort of a natural, deep tan complexion. Dark, penetrating eyes, and a wonderful smile. (Nice teeth too!) I am not sure who made the first move to connect, but we did connect. Almost right away we knew we could be good friends. A strong bond was forming!

Celestina (as we became closer friends, we shortened our names. I of course, became Chris, and she became Celeste, then Cele, and then just Ce) was born in Espanola, New Mexico, but her home is in San Ildefonso Pueblo, near Espanola. Her mother was of that Pueblo; her father from Mexico. So Ce is usually considered Hispanic. I consider her a best friend.

Her mother is very artistic and has the San Ildefonso talent for pottery. That reputation for the Pueblo was established years ago by the unique black pots made by Maria Marinez. Her father works cattle on a ranch. I consider him a real cowboy.

We talk a lot about her family, her Pueblo, her heritage, her. We are so different—me, an all-white Republican New York State kid. About all I know to brag about is Niagara Falls And the Finger Lakes. Ce has not seen them but tells me there are a few lakes and big falls in New Mexico. So she likes to hear about them. We actually trade stories.

Ce is studying anthropology and archaeology here at Johns Hopkins. She says that from way back, that is what she wanted to do, because she grew up among many Anasazi ruins, customs, and history. I am learning about her ancestors. She told me about the many books written by the famous New Mexican author Tony Hillerman. She said I would learn a lot from his writing. I have.

We are both pretty nerdy, talking about our classes, sciences, doings. We found at least one unexpected connection (bonding?) among our diverse interests. Ce told me about the importance of determining the dates of ancient artifacts found by archaeologists and how that has led to some fraudulent determinations to gain fame and fortune. Radioactive carbon dating is one of the proven methods, but there are lots of problems with doing it correctly. I began to see this is somewhat analogous to using analytical chemistry to determine the contents of valuable compositions in all sorts of materials. And that too has led to fraudulent claims for fame and fortune. Ce said she thought I fit in the archaeological environment. She told me that a huge archaeological project in Israel is headed up by a female chemist.

We have become good friends. Close friends, as the cliché goes. We have discussed love in general and homosexual love in particular. But we both have concluded neither fits with us, happy just to be close friends. My close friendship with Ce has changed my direction again. Searching, studying, and analyzing things of the ancients seriously captured my interest and has redirected my next move.

IV

W hen I was in high school, I got interested in archaeological things. I thought maybe that would be my natural sport. Well, it wasn’t. But I learned one thing from that experience—I really do better when I have a target to shoot at. Now it seems, for the first time in my academic life, I have a real target: analytical chemistry is the center bull’s-eye. The next ring around the bull’s-eye is archaeology. And beyond that are other rings, such as, maybe, anthropology. But they hardly matter now, because I intend to hit the bull’s-eye within the first ring.

I want to explain how I came to adopt this target for my career, maybe even for my life: my long love affair with chemistry never faltered. I took all the chemistry courses I could at Johns Hopkins. Of them all, I really got hot about analytical chemistry. Why that?

1. Because it involves all branches of chemistry and physics and math and logic and imagination

2. Because it is like detective work, like CSI, like Sherlock Holmes

3. Because it leads to a conclusion, an answer to a question

But Ce has added even more considerations. She doesn’t have a target; she has a dream, which is different. Here’s the way I understand it:

She grew up in an Indian culture. Her grandfather was a shaman, a wise man, in her Pueblo. From the time she was a small child she heard about their beliefs; about Mother Earth and Father sky. She learned history and traditions, and their many dances. She was a part of the planting and tending of corn, beans, and squash. And then cooking those into meals, some with animals hunted by her father. She played in the dirt, the streams, the mountains, and the forest. She learned to appreciate the air, the clouds, the sky.

Ce was smart and made the best of the schooling in the Pueblo, and in Espanola. And the teaching of her clan. One of the important beliefs of the Pueblos is that ancient people were led up from a place below into this world, through a small hole. They remember that even to this day. In their kivas there is a small hole in the floor called a sipapu. Ce said from her childhood she loved hearing the stories of their history. This led to her belief in archaeology, the study of ancient artifacts created by ancient people.

But her dream goes beyond that, which is why she is also studying anthropology, the study of races and cultures of living people. In this she feels her whole life has been an anthropological study of her people. So, academically speaking, she is specializing in a branch of anthropology called ethnography. This deals with the cultures of primitive people—in her case, her ancestors. She said her wildest, ultimate dream would be if she found a person from that ancient world so she could learn firsthand. She dreams of climbing down that sipapu to meet that ancient person. I stand in awe of her living dream. How wonderful that must be. I do not have a dream like hers, but I do have a target.

I have never had such a feeling as this before. Previously I was just completing assignments, finishing courses, getting As. Which was fun and easy for me, but no real challenge. Now I am challenged and fired up to get on with it, to hit that bull’s-eye. Because I doubled up on some courses and skipped all vacations, I finished my undergraduate work with honors in three years. My mom and dad were pleased and were willing to fund graduate school for me. I started to research graduate schools, but Ce saved me the trouble. She told me more and more about New Mexico. About past and present studies of ancient ruins at Bandelier, Puye, Aztec, Pecos, about some of the remaining mysteries, such as Chaco. How much did they know about astronomy, people, history, science, beliefs? My decision came quickly. I would go to the University of New Mexico for my graduate work, for my personal quest, to do target practice.

V

F ound an adobe-style (what else is there in New Mexico?) Casita near the Albuquerque airport. I can walk to school. Good for my body dimensions. With jet noise to remind me I am in a modern time and place.

Filed my plan for my PhD. The school allows a lot of flexibility. My records at Johns Hopkins gave me more. I worked up a major in analytical chemistry, a minor in math, and a second minor in archaeology. (Yes, Ce’s influence, she sure has influenced me a lot. Good.)

My major problem was finding a subject for my doctoral thesis. That choice was just about totally up to me. Well, subject to faculty endorsement. I talked to the professors in my major area. They did not know me yet, and vice versa. One of them suggested I might want to talk to Dr. DeCamp. He had been the head of the chemistry department, became tenured, and—about a year ago—retired. Some professors said he was bored with retirement and might actually enjoy talking to me. Might even like to be my thesis advisor, which would be officially okay with them.

I called Dr. DeCamp; asked if I could talk to him about a plan for my doctoral research. Surprisingly, he was very pleasant on the phone, even sort of happy. Invited me to come to his home for coffee. I hastily accepted, even though I hate coffee.

Dr. DeCamp was not an impressive-looking man. Not for a professor emeritus, former department head, and Nobel Prize winner. Yes, I met a real, live, Nobel laureate! It can happen. Conversation was easy, comfortable, the usual. We spoke about what I had done, what I wanted to do. I noticed he was drinking tea, not coffee. Which I mentioned to him. He apologized for not offering me some; said he just assumed someone from Johns Hopkins would want coffee. We were off to a good start. When I mentioned that at Johns Hopkins I had done some independent lab work on chromatography he really lit up.

Funny, just at that instant I remembered my first experiment with chromatography. I guess I was about four years old, pouring myself some grape juice. Spilled some on the white tablecloth (we used them back then). I knew that was a bad thing, but I didn’t know what to do about it. So I just watched as the purple spot spread bigger and bigger and then turned blue and red. What magic!

I explained to Dr. DeCamp that I had worked on chromatography as a part of my analytical chemistry major because it is an important technique for separating compounds in complex mixtures so those compounds could then be accurately measured and characterized. I had done separations using liquid/solid adsorption differences, and liquid/liquid partition differences, with various solvent and substrates. My work focused on tree saps, especially saps from sugar maple trees. This had never been done before. It provided information to help maple syrup producers. Dr. DeCamp became totally attentive. Then I realized I was lecturing to a Nobel laureate and he was listening! I stopped short, and then he asked if I realized how that technique of separating mixtures of complex compounds could be applied to ancient artifacts. Like archaeological work being done in Israel on the original coloring of that ancient ceramic army. No, Dr. DeCamp, I had not thought of that connection. But right then I did! We were quickly honing in on subjects for my doctoral research.

Then he suddenly changed the subject to some of his earlier work on chemical reactions and liquid ammonia—the works that had led to his Nobel Laureate. I had read a little about liquid ammonia systems. Ammonia, a common gas at ordinary temperatures, can be converted to a liquid at very low temperatures. And that unusual solvent reacts differently than water or organic solvents at normal temperatures. In effect, the liquid ammonia systems represent a totally different chemical environment—cryogenic (very low temperature) conditions. Dr. DeCamp was giving me a private lecture on his specialty. When he finished his discussions, he stopped talking. I stayed quiet, for a long while. Then he finally said, Well, don’t you see? I didn’t see, so I shook my head. Christine, do your pioneering research on cryogenic chromatography with liquid ammonia! A natural for you in all ways. Then I got it! The light bulb clicked on. We both smiled, laughed, shook hands, and had another cup of tea.

That’s how my research began, with Dr. DeCamp as my faculty sponsor. This unexpected target-practice session helped me hit my mark.

VI

T he first step of my research project is completed! Easy. I buy cylinders of liquid ammonia at the local feed store; it comes packaged just like butane. The fertilizer businesses made that possible. I’m busy now studying this nonaqueous solvent: it dissolves alkali metals; is corrosive to iron, copper, brass; boils at twenty-eight degrees below zero Fahrenheit; is at 250 pounds per square inch pressure in a closed storage container at room temperature. I have a lot to learn about it and about cryogenics, and I need to figure out how to build chromatographic apparatuses and operate under those conditions. I feel really challenged. Which feels great. Did the Wright brothers have this feeling when they began working on their impossible dream? It sure is keeping me busy. Which is good, because I do miss Ce. We talk a lot on the cell, and in some e-mails. Even some real mails. But I miss just hanging out with her. She is doing well on her studies. She’s not as fortunate as I; her parents cannot pay all the bills, so she works a couple of part-time jobs. Maybe another year, plus or minus, and she’ll graduate. But she is such an encourager to me. She says I will find a perfect job as an analytical chemist with some big archaeological project. She sends me clippings in journals from our fields to keep me inspired. And they do.

This Friday has been a long, tiring day. Got a lot done, but I am bushed. So this evening I dropped everything and went to a bar. The Road Runner bar and grill, just off campus. I had often noticed the big bird on its sign. Later that night, I learned that the roadrunner is the New Mexico state bird. Inside—well, a bar is a bar. This one was pretty big, lots of wood, well polished from many elbows. I parked on a stool and ordered a Drambuie with ginger ale. To my surprise, the young cowboy bartender never flinched, poured me a substantial one. So even out here in the wild West they know about Drambuie! It really tasted good. A lot of the flavor was memories of many times at the Chesapeake Sandbar Baltimore, with Ce and sometimes with others.

The Drambuie began to do its thing. And as I started to relax, I looked around the Road Runner bar and grill. Sure different—no lobster traps, oars, buoys, pictures of lighthouses. Instead there were Indian blankets, artists, rifles, pictures of mountain sunsets. Yep, this is a bit of what Ce told me about. I am in New Mexico. I just had not recognized it before. Nice. Big change. Like liquid ammonia instead of liquid water. I like it.

I was just beginning to think about ordering another Drambuie when a man pulled up the barstool next to me. (I hadn’t noticed, but the place was filling up with people). We sort of nodded hello. He ordered a scotch and soda. I ordered another Drambuie. And at that he spoke. That’s a pretty unusual order around here. Nice to meet another scotch lover. He smiled. Nice teeth, I thought. I smiled back. Then I noticed he was a good-looking man: shaved, neat hair; deep-set brown eyes; dressed in a suit with a silver bolo. This guy was not a cowboy!

We followed the standard script of bar talk. Pleasant. He was also a grad