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He turned to the laborer and spoke tersely in Spanish.
    "Avelino, I want a tripod with a hand winch rigged up. And some bracing poles. Go tell the others."
    Gideon frowned. This was a tricky operation, better left until the next day when preparations could be more calmly made. He began to say something but changed his mind. No director liked having his authority contested in public, and the leadership of the dig belonged in Howard's hands. Gideon was only there for a few weeks, strictly to analyze the skeletal material. Besides, it was always possible that Howard knew what he was doing.
    For the moment it seemed that he did. His directions were concise and accurate, and the tiny Mayan workmen were used to lifting heavy things in cramped spaces. Working efficiently, they spoke quietly to each other in their soft, rustly language. In twenty minutes they had one edge of the lid raised three or four inches, enough to force several wooden rods under it to prop it up.
    Howard jumped forward as soon as they were in place, his flashlight already flicked on. He knelt in front of the chest like a man before an altar and shone the light into the narrow opening, leaning forward to get his eyes up against the crevice. For long seconds there was no sound other than the clinking of the metal flashlight barrel against the rim of the chest as he moved it along.
    He peered into the chest without saying anything, forearms braced against the rim, forehead leaning on them. The only sound now was an erratic flutter above their heads, like spattering fat: insects igniting against the lights. Nobody in the crew spoke, nobody moved. If they were like Gideon they weren't even breathing. Howard's back was to them, his soft, slabby shoulders buttery with sweat. He looked, thought Gideon, as if he were well on the way to melting into a greasy puddle at the foot of the chest, like something out of H. P. Lovecraft.
    "Jesus Christ,” he said; tight-voiced and expressionless. “Gideon, look at this."
    Swallowing hard, his neck aching with anticipation, Gideon moved forward, not sure whether Howard was looking at the find of the century or the letdown of his life. When he stepped into the recess, stalagmites crunched underneath him, a startlingly crisp sensation in the mucky heat. He dropped to one knee beside Howard while the others watched avidly. Howard shone the light into the chest for him.
    Gideon leaned intently forward, profoundly grateful for his life. What other occupation offered moments like this?
    Once he got used to the bobbing shadows from Howard's trembling flashlight his reaction was piercing disappointment. There was nothing in the chest but a few dusty, common objects like hundreds of other objects from dozens of other digs: a few jade beads in a heap; a pair of ear ornaments made from scallop shells; two painted plates; and two slim, rectangular, neatly folded bundles of bark lying side by side, also daubed with paint. They all had value from a scholarly point of view, but they were definitely not the find of the century. Why in the world had the Maya gone to such elaborate trouble to hide and preserve this homely junk?
    But Gideon was a physical anthropologist; bones were his specialty, not artifacts. Howard was an archaeologist, and he knew better. The flashlight jerked in his hand.
    "A codex!” he whispered thickly.
    Gideon looked again and of course they weren't simple bundles of bark at all. Now he could see the glyphs across the tops of the leaves and the comicstrip—like panels with their gaudy drawings as the beam from Howard's flashlight picked them out. It was a Mayan codex, a pre-Conquest Mayan “book,” lying on its spine, opened in the middle so the two halves lay flat.
    His lips parted for speech, but he couldn't think of anything to say. Maybe it was the find of the century after all. At least in Mayan archaeology.
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    Chapter 4
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    Literally of the century. There were only three