“I’m not an expert in this area,” Oliver said to the women, as all three peered at the computer screen. Abelard was fast asleep in his room. “All I can venture right now is that Abelard may not be all that we think he is. A few weeks ago, when he asked for the sample from the guck in which we found him, I took a few drops out and sent them to a biochemist friend of mine. He ran some tests and these are the results. They are very interesting, to say the least. Not to worry, my buddy has no idea where the sample came from.”
“Enough qualifications now, your beginning to sound like an academic,” Felicity cut in, recognizing her own professional habit of covering all her bases whenever she wrote up or spoke about her research. “What’s the verdict?”
“Well, excuse my clumsiness,” he said with feigned injury, “but that is what I’ve been trying to tell you, there is no verdict, just bits and pieces of information pointing to Abelard as more of a mystery than the amnesia with which we’ve all been getting comfortable. First of all, the easy part: most of the liquid is water, about 90%. Now the hard parts; some is human DNA, probably from Abelard’s saliva and a lot from the blood that must have seeped from what looked to be fresh wounds when we first found him; then there’s other DNA, the sort that’s found in some types of fish eggs and has something to do with Embryonic Diapause which, for all intents and purposes, arrests the aging process; and, finally, there are primitive cellular structures, which remain unidentifiable but resemble what biologists speculate may have developed spontaneously from material that could have been deposited on earth by comets about three billion years ago.”
“Are you saying that he may actually be from the middle ages?” Elizabetta asked, with the practiced serenity common to psychiatrists.
“I am saying nothing of the sort, although it sounds suspiciously like that. But, I did do a search on meteor, asteroid and comet impacts and there are no official records of any such events at that time.”
“That eliminates the unbelievable scenario, I guess,” Felicity said, relief in her voice.
“Not quite, I’m afraid; there are all sorts of unsubstantiated tales of sightings in the mythologies of most cultures. The extended daylight, for example, which Moses ordered during a crucial battle between the Israelites and the Amalekites, when they had the upper hand, is thought to have been a comet. And there is a tale of an impact at the place where we found Abelard that would coincide with the date he had given us of the fateful battle which put him into his presumed deep sleep.”
“So, is he the same person,” Felicity insisted?
“Inconclusive and still highly improbable,” Elizabetta answered. “He could have had all that knowledge he reveals to us, some myth, some real history, before he was walled into that cave. In there, being pitch dark, he may have simply fallen into the pool, which may have been created by a meteor impact 650 years earlier.”
“Then,” Oliver added, “there is the question as to why anyone would go to all the trouble of opening a hole, three meters above the path and then resealing it so well as to be unnoticeable. A sturdy body bag, which would not biodegrade for 25 thousand years, weighted with cheap rocks and dropped in a large deep body of water would have done just as well to permanently hide a corpse.”
“You seem to have forgotten,” Elizabetta raising one more obstacle, “the mystery of the key. Suppose the loot was to be shared by a criminal syndicate as we had already speculated, why would they bury him with the key?”
“The key, the cave and the authentic armour all point to a ritual burial as the best contender to explain our mystery, even if it is not fully satisfactory,” Felicity ventured, with little enthusiasm.
“You’re right,” Oliver said, with hopeful finality, “we would need more tests and even then we might never find a precise answer. In the mean time we should all be careful not to stare too hard each time Abelard tells us a tale from his imagined past. Talking in the third person as he did last night is fine with me. I’d feel a little creepy if it was in the first person. He’s just got too much detail. I really can’t explain how he so accurately pinpointed the treasure. It’s not like no one knew it existed. It’s just that he knew exactly where it was. That was eerie.”
“Well, I’ve heard enough, I’m going to break it off with him,” Felicity affirmed to her astonished friends.
“Why,” came the collective question?
“I’m not yet thirty. He might be much too old for me,” she said with a straight face. It took a moment for the others to laugh. There was, however, palpable nervousness to their merriment. They had taken Abelard at his word when he bared his soul and asked for a second chance to show his humanity at the rendezvous in Brittany. But, now, with these new possibilities they were troubled.
“His origins aside,” Elizabetta thought to add, sensing the unease in the others, “his mind has been parked in a very dangerous neighbourhood since you found him. Here is a man, evidently very skilled and equally uninhibited in the application of violence, telling us he has made a conscious decision to renounce his previous ideas and ways. Should we expect him to keep to his word?” She suddenly had everyone’s attention. “Both of you, and I as well, we are all mentally equipped to perpetrate the most abominable cruelties no less so than Abelard. There are, happily, other parts of our brains equally capable of suppressing our most murderous instincts and, best of all, wired even for the rare but apparently selfless act. Which parts dominate will depend entirely upon what the individual believes is necessary for survival. In a lawless, tribal society, it is most likely that those bits and pieces cobbled together for violence will dominate. In an ordered environment the opposite would be the case. We humans would prefer peace and security since it would seem to give us the best chance at survival so that if a society is properly organized, where trust between its members is not an issue, then harmony should definitely trump violence. Will Abelard be able to reshuffle his mental machinery so that it can adapt to a new reality? I think he can, but I also expect he will have relapses and that we will have to be there to help him stay the course, if he is serious in his intent.”
“Thank you Professor Trebella for an excellent presentation at this first ‘Abelard’ conference,” Oliver said with much gravitas, only to receive a vigorous shove from Elizabetta.
“I suppose you have a better assessment,” she asked?
“No, my dear, only a simpler one. Given the right circumstances we would each very quickly become what Abelard has been up to now. But, unlike Elizabetta’s weak endorsement, I firmly believe that the opposite is equally true and that Abelard will very quickly adapt to his changed circumstances and become just like us.”
“Or,” Felicity added, unhappily, “just like my uncle. We should stop now; I hear someone approaching.”
“Breakfast, anyone, I’m famished,” Abelard roared through the doorway with the great good humour of the well rested.
Chapter XXI
Aut inveniam viam aut faciam