Decipher by Stel Pavlou

would have to be thrown out the window.
    It would be earthshattering.
    All the note said was: Am in possession of pre-cuneiform text. Request your immediate assessment. Yours truly, Ralph Matheson.
    Â 
    Scott beckoned to November as he backed up across the lawn. “Still want that assistantship?”
    â€œYeah!” she replied enthusiastically. “Why?”
    Scott reached into the package and plucked out two airline tickets. “Pack your bags. We’re going to Geneva.”
    THE BERESOVKA RIVER FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF SIBERIA 7:32 A.M.
    It was still dark when she got the call. She swung herself out of bed about fifteen minutes later and had a piping hot shower. She downed a shot of kvass for breakfast and pulled on two layers of underwear. Her sweater was thick and heavy and her parka went taut when she zipped it up.

    She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Long dark hair. Dark eyes. Signs of a tan and a dimple in her chin. She felt drained; this assignment was killing her. “God, you look like shit, Sarah,” she spat at herself. “Why, thank you, Sarah,” she grumbled. She tried to make the coat look a little baggier. A little less full. It was stupid, she knew. Under all that there wasn’t a lot of her anyway. But it helped to show it off. “Come on, Sarah. Smile, you bitch.” She forced a grin. It hurt. How the hell had she wound up in Siberia? This hadn’t been in the grand plan of her youth.
    She slammed the drafty wooden hotel door shut as she went.
    The 4x4 they’d loaned her for the job had seen better days, but the lights were good and the suspension held up to the mud-track roads. It took forty minutes to get from the hotel and upriver out to the site. When she did get there she found a hive of inaction. Around the periphery, trucks were still being loaded up with rubble and hauling out. But in the center, work had stopped. The cranes were idle. Floodlights lit up the equipment but she couldn’t see any workers. As she climbed out of the 4×4 she could hear voices shouting instructions in Russian dialects and human whistles screeching out as the workforce tried to coordinate their efforts.
    She had to trudge on foot over the mud rise, past the Rola Corp . sign and down to the main construction site. More lights had hastily been erected. From a distance it looked like a UFO had landed—but Sarah hoped for the Martians’ sake that they hadn’t. This project was so far behind that she was liable to march straight up to them and smash in their little green faces. She did not want to hear about any more delays. She just wanted to get her job done and get back to the States.
    There was a bulldozer down in the pit, past steel and concrete foundations. It had stopped, but the engine was still ticking over. Slapping a plastic yellow hard hat on, she pushed past a couple of workmen and made her way to the front where all the attention had gathered. Her mouth hung open when she finally got there.
    â€œHey, Sarah. How ya doin’?” came the big, grinning welcome of Steve Lustgarten, the foreman. He was struggling to loop a steel cable around a thick trunk of frozen fur.

    The whole scene was starting to take on primordial qualities as the steam from everybody’s breath clung to the air. They were all gathered around a huge, magnificent creature that had walked the tundra long ago. At least fourteen feet high, it was staring straight at her, its eyes black and glassy, as though it was close to tears. The creature was in a sitting position, reared up on its front legs. It had an elegant, dignified expression on its face. Its matted fur was long and shaggy. It looked almost regal, frozen solid. Its ivory tusks extended out like the last vestiges of a cry for help. Its trunk was curled and it had decayed buttercups hanging from its mouth. It had been eating buttercups when it had died.
    â€œThat’s a mammoth,” Sarah announced,