The Eye of Horus Read Online Free PDF Page B

here?”
    “She’s nobody important and the Department of Antiquities needed money to modernize the Cairo museum, so they allowed an indefinite loan in exchange for the requisite baksheesh. Considering the pollution in Cairo, she’s probably better off here.” Actually, Kate wasn’t too sure about that, given the budget constraints Dave Broverman was always throwing in her face to explain why they couldn’t buy theequipment she needed, let alone do the one thing that would solve most of her problems—have Tashat scanned.
    “Okay.” He scooted forward as if he’d come to a decision. “That you’re familiar with what I’m going to suggest only makes it easier. Can I call you Kate?” She nodded. “As I’m sure you know, a CT scan produces cross sections without the shadows cast by surrounding tissue or bone. We also can do three-dimensional images, of an entire organ or a single tooth. That’s what I’d like to try on Tashat.”
    “Look, Dr. Cavanaugh—”
    “Max.”
    “Max,” she agreed. “It’s been a while—five years—so I’m not really up on what the latest scanners can do.” She pushed her hair away from her face and tried to slow down. “Would you mind if I ask a few questions?”
    “Ask away,” he invited.
    “Is there any chance of determining which fractures may have occurred before she died?”
    “Not unless we found some evidence of primary callus. Otherwise, we’d have no way of telling whether there’s no new bone growth because she died right away or because the fractures occurred postmortem.”
    “I meant can the new scanners pick up bone growth the older X rays might have missed?”
    He hesitated. “Maybe.”
    “How about whether that extra skull was wrapped before it was placed between her legs?”
    “I’d certainly think so. How much contrast we can develop might be a question, if you’re thinking of using the films as illustrations. I’ve never scanned a mummy, but if it’s important, I can check the literature. Is it?”
    She nodded. “That would be pretty compelling evidence against any accident.” He waited for another question, but Kate was concentrating on how to approach the touchiest subject of all—money.
    “At the very least,” he continued, “we ought to learn whether that shadow on her right hip was caused by an injuryor infection. It could even be an artifact of the conditions under which they shot the X ray, if they were using portable equipment.” Kate hadn’t even thought of that, which only brought home again how much they needed someone with Maxwell Cavanaugh’s expertise.
    “The problem is, Dr. Cavanaugh—”
    “Max.”
    “I doubt my director would even consider shipping her—”
    He was shaking his head. “I mean do it here, at an imaging facility I sometimes consult for. That way you and anyone else from the museum could help us interpret whatever we run into.”
    “I thought you weren’t going to be in town very long.”
    “I can always arrange to stay a little longer, or else come back.” His eyes stayed on her face. “The museum wouldn’t be out anything except the cost of transporting her across town, if that’s what’s worrying you.” He paused to see if that made any difference before adding, “I really would like to do this, Kate. It wouldn’t be a one-way street, all give and no take.”
    She didn’t feel comfortable asking, but obsessing over a woman who lived over three thousand years ago wasn’t her usual thing, either. “Why?”
    A piece of wood popped and he glanced at the fire, then back at her. “My grandmother was sort of the Auntie Mame type, I guess, and one year during the Christmas holidays she took me to Egypt. Just the two of us. I was twelve, but like so many kids, infected with the bug even before that. Wanted to be an Egyptologist, spent hours poring over pictures of mummies and tomb paintings. I must’ve read
God, Graves and Scholars
at least five times, cover to cover.” He gave her a