"Tanya Huff - Victoria Nelson - 03 - Blood Lines" - читать интересную книгу автора (Huff Tanya)

"Maybe you're being possessed." She nodded at the crate.

He snorted again. "Maybe the Board of Directors has been trying to contact me." Glancing around, he
scowled at the rest of his staff. "Don't you lot have anything better to do than stand around watching a
wooden box come off a truck?"

Only the newest grad student looked nervous, the others merely grinned and collectively shook their
heads.

Dr. Rax grinned as well; he couldn't help himself. He was exhausted and badly in need of something
more sustaining than the coffee and fast food they'd consumed at every stop between Halifax and
Toronto, but he'd also never felt this elated. This artifact had the potential to put the Royal Ontario
Museum, already an internationally respected institution, on the scientific map and everyone in the room
knew it. "As much as I'd like to believe that all this excitement is directed at my return, I know damned
well it isn't." No one bothered to protest. "And as you can now see there's nothing to see, why don't the
lot of you head back up to the workroom where we can all jump about and enthuse in the privacy of our
own department?"

Behind him, Dr. Shane added her own silent but emphatic endorsement to that suggestion.

It took more than a few last, lingering looks at the crate, but, finally, Receiving emptied.

"I suppose the whole building knows what we've got?" Dr. Rax asked as he and Dr. Shane followed the
crate and the preparators onto the freight elevator.

Dr. Shane shook her head. "Surprisingly enough, considering the way gossip usually travels in this
rabbit warren, no. All of our people have been very closemouthed." Dark brows drew down. "Just in
case." Just in case it does turn out to be empty, the less people know, the less our professional
reputations will suffer. There hasn't been a new mummy uncovered in decades.

Dr. Rax chose to ignore the subtext. "So Von Thorne doesn't know?" While the Department of
Egyptology didn't really resent the Far East's beautiful new temple wing, they did resent its curator's
more-antiquarian-than-thou attitude concerning it.

file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruisw...20Victoria%20Nelson%20-%2003%20-%20Blood%20Lines.txt (6 of 224)23-2-2006 23:09:13
 file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruiswijk/Mijn%20d...%20Huff%20-%20Victoria%20Nelson%20-%2003%20-%20Blood%20Lines.txt



"If he does," Dr. Shane said emphatically, "he hasn't heard about it from us."

As one, the two Egyptologists turned to the preparators who worked, not just for them, but for the
museum at large.

One hand resting lightly on the top of the crate, Karen Lahey drew herself up to her full height. "Well he
hasn't heard about it from us. Not after accusing us of creating a nonexistent crack in that porcelain
Buddha."

Her companion grunted agreement.