"Well," said Carol, "I never had any experience of that sort when I tried it on. What was it and why did he?"
"It's a long story," said Alicia. "I'm not sure I know where to begin."
It was Manjy who began the story. "It seems as if all of those connected with the university part of this dig have lived past lives which involved the ring," she said. "When one of us puts the ring on, like Alan did, he or she experiences a past life involving the ring."
"And you all had experiences like that?"
"Yes," Alicia said. "Steve, Gill, Frank and Manjy all had stories. So did I."
"Well, not admitting that I believe any of it, what is the story of the ring?" asked Carol.
"It would probably be best if each person told their own story," said Alicia. "Steve, you start."
"I was the bloke whose bones you dug up over there," began Steve, and told a summary of his story.
"Whose story came next?"
"Mine," said Gill, "I was a priestess, possibly at Woodhenge from some of the events." She went on to give Carol the main points of her tale - Gaïn, Faya, and a passing mention of the ring and why she sent it north.
Each of the other three added a potted version of their own story, until the story of the ring was as complete as they knew it.
"Reincarnation is difficult philosophical concept for most Europeans," Alan remarked.
"And most Americans," added Frank. "Not to mention rocks from the sky, Atl-Andes, which sounds like Atlantis thinly disguised, metal rings in the stone age and so on."
"I don't have too much of a problem with reincarnation," said Alan, "and Alicia will vouch for some off beat ideas I have about the usually accepted timescale of prehistory."
Alicia nodded. "It was Alan that set me off thinking about the chronology of prehistory and where a copper age might fit in. Mind you," she added to Alan, "if you'd kept your ideas out of exam papers you might have done better."
"I'm not so steeped in traditional archaeological ideas as you," said Steve. "I don't find the concepts so hard to take. In fact, most of the ideas flow on from one another if you accept the first one."
"One thing strikes me about all your stories," observed Carol. "In each one somebody came close to getting the ring. I'd watch it if I were you."
"I intend to lock this ring away very carefully," said Alicia, getting up and putting the ring securely in a filing cabinet which she locked and checked before putting the keys into her jeans pocket.
"There's a bunch of things we haven't managed to figure out," said Frank, "Most of all we can't explain the coincidence of a group of people with past lives involving the ring - if that's what they are - being in one place at one time. For instance, why did I come on an exchange to this particular dig?"
"Even allowing for interests which would make the thing more likely, there seems to be more than coincidence at work," answered Alan. "I mean take Alicia. Her past life experiences might make her more interested in archaeology in this incarnation, but it would still need something more than coincidence to get together a team of people connected with the ring. It seems as if there is a plan or something."
"But what plan?" asked Frank, voicing the thoughts of all of them. "And, more to the point, whose plan?"
"Just maybe ..." said Alicia, and hesitated. "I'm not going to say anything yet, but I might know - not who is doing the planning or how it's being done or what he, she, it or they want us to do about it - but at least why."
She clearly wasn't going to say anything more that night, so the group broke up, Alicia locking the Portacabin firmly behind them.
"I'll leave the keys on the caravan table so you don't have to disturb everyone when you get things started tomorrow," Alicia told Steve as he went to turn the generator off. She glanced knowingly at Gill. "No sense in everybody waking at the crack of dawn."
Steve gave them all time to light the gas lamps before he turned off the generator, plunging the camp into darkness, and went to join Gill in her room.