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 Rumours of the bone's existence were spread via hints, speculation and questions in academic circles, and a few pieces of absolute certainty on the internet and social networking websites; pieces with the same level of absolute certainty as the material on UFOs and visiting aliens. Some self-styled experts argued that the bone was humanoid but not human, and proof that the Earth has, indeed, received visitors from beyond the stars. Others insisted, with equal vigour, that it was either a hoax or part of a previously unknown dinosaur.
Those academic experts who had received photographs of the object accepted that, subject to a personal examination of the actual artefact, the bone looked like the humerus of a large human being; someone who had grown to between 3.20 and 3.25 metres tall. Some Arab and Israeli osteologists, and a fair number of religious zealots, were prepared to go much further. In their opinion, the bone was part of the skeleton of the previously mythical Goliath.
They were unable to accept that the Bible is a collection of myths and fables, and that the David versus Goliath story is allegory. For the religious fanatics, the bone was a national treasure and something which belonged to them by right, and something which they enjoyed divine authority to take from wherever it was being kept.
The majority of osteologists saw a bone of the reported size of the one in the photograph as a means to the end of researching the phenomenon of acromegaly; the gigantism caused by the pituitary gland producing an excess of growth hormones. The publicity from studying a bone from someone who had grown to around ten and a half feet tall would also help to keep research grants flowing.
Goren Bitochs had the power to disappoint the genuine osteological researchers and do the zealots a big favour. He knew everything there was to know about the "Goliath" bone because he had grown it in his laboratory using a new technique, which had developed out of some private research conducted by himself and his colleague Daniel Jaxton.
They shared the day job of building, in the laboratories of a large medical-sector company, skeletons on to which human tissue could be grown to create heart valves, the external parts of the ear, replacement noses and other artificial structures for transplantation in to a human body which had been damaged through trauma or disease.
They had suggested a project in the field of bone generation to their department head, but she had focussed on the likely cost and their lack of academic credentials, and refused to initiate a limited research programme to study feasibility.
Bitochs and Jaxton had pursued their ideas in their own time in a room in the large house, which Bitochs had inherited from his parents. They had conducted their research with no sense of urgency; party because they had no clear path forward from success in their own laboratory, and partly because Jaxton had a very demanding social life; and they had been limited by the amount of "scrap" material which they could liberate from their workplace at HMMC Inc.
Their first success, the subject of photographs taken at a simulated archaeological dig in Bitochs' extensive back garden, had been followed by a string of failures. But the problems had been identified and solved over a period of three months, and the inventors were confident that they could make their process work perfectly most of the time.
As they toasted each other with cider bought on special offer from the supermarket near Jaxton's home, they were confronting the problem of whether to use their invention for the betterment of mankind, perhaps by creating replacement bones for people with cancers or other medical problems, or whether to build partial skeletons of novel types of dinosaur, which could be sold to collectors for millions of dollars.
"One small problem," Jaxton realized as he flipped the sealing cap from his next chilled bottle of cider, "dinosaur bones aren't regular bones, are they're . . ."
"No, they're fossilized and mineralized and petrified," said Bitochs, "and they have to be dug out of a matrix of sedimentary rock. . . "
"But if you're clever enough to make convincing dinosaur bones," his colleague decided, "you have to be clever enough to mineralize them and do whatever else you have to do to them?"
"In one," Bitochs said with a nod.
"But we'll make a lot more money from the medical application."
"But it will take bloody years to make any money, what with all the regulations and clinical trials and everything. It takes ten years to move a new drug from laboratory in to clinical use. It won't be any different for new bones. Maybe longer, remembering all the obstruction we've had from Milly, the human dinosaur in charge of our department."
"While you can make a really big score relatively quickly with a ‘new' type of dinosaur?"
"And how many millions does one person need anyway?" Bitochs said with a laugh. He glanced at the laptop, which was sitting on a cupboard to place it within plug-in range of the broadband modem. The inventors believed in direct connections, rather than wireless networks, as a security precaution. "Or we could go the Goliath route."
"Well, yes, it has technical advantages," Jaxton admitted. "A bone that's apparently just a few thousand years old doesn't need fossilizing, just mummifying, which is a hell of a lot easier."
"And look how many people on the web would kill for something they could believe was a part of the great Arab hero. Even if he is mythical."
"According to a book I'm reading, Cimon of Athens made himself very popular by bringing the bones of Theseus, the mythical hero who slew the Minotaur, back to Athens from the Island of Scyros. If he would do that with the bones of one mythical hero, why can't someone else do the same with the bones of another mythical hero?"
"Why not indeed?" Bitochs said with a laugh.
"I suppose it would be great for the Arabs or the Israelis to have actual evidence that David and Goliath really existed, and get away from the story just being a metaphor for how Israel oppresses Arabs and proof that the Israelis can't win in a fair fight of one individual against another . . ."
"Especially if one's a freakin' giant."
". . . they can only win if they use mass-kill technology, i.e. American weapons."
"And in cash terms, you could extract more from religious nutters than collectors or academics."
"But academics wouldn't be likely to kill you if they got it in for you for some crazy reason, like religious fanatics."
"True," Bitochs said with a nod.
"Because, while the bone, qua se, is an interesting biological specimen from the scientific point of view, it would become a whole different story from the religious point of view. It would be a totem, a symbol, a thing that one side has and the other doesn't. And so an excuse to unleash as much murder-kill-death as the fanatics can accomplish until the artefact changes hands or it's destroyed."
"Of course, if we go with the medical option, there's nothing to stop someone with access to the technology from building their own Goliath bonehead."
"Except that if the technology is known to exist and work, the impact won't be as great."
"Not necessarily. Fanatics cling to the slenderest threads. They'll blow themselves up if told to, or send children out to blow themselves up. Anything can be sacrificed for the cause: innocent lives, humanity, common decency – anything, as long as the THT control freak gets the headlines."
"THT?" Jaxton said with a frown.
"Towel-Head Tendency. You need to watch more American TV, mate."
"Yeah, like a hole in the head. But come to think of it, and misquoting your favourite US import, Life starring the all-English Damian Lewis as an American cop, it occurs to me that if there is one Goliath bone, there could, as easily, be two."
"Given that there are two-hundred-odd in the human body?"
"You wouldn't expect only one bone to survive intact, would you? If there's in intact human humerus floating around, there could be fingers, ribs . . ."
"Jawbone of an ass?"
"What?" Jaxton repeated his frown.
"I was just thinking at a tangent. There's a long tradition of using body parts as weapons and symbols in the Middle East. Samson slew Delilah with the jawbone of an ass; he didn't use his bare hands, as he easily could as the alleged world's strongest man of his day. Maybe we could make the actual jawbone. That should be worth a few bob."
"Or maybe we could just get a regular donkey's jawbone and age it a bit."
"Or we could make a super-size one, which the world's strongest man could have wielded. But returning to the original thought: one Goliath bone each for the Arabs and the Israelis. What about that?"
"And everyone says mine is bigger than yours?"
"The advantage is that it dilutes the whole business. There's no battle for possession of the Single Thing. Each side has their own Thing and they can spin that it's better than the other guy's."
"Or even, mine's real and yours is a fake?" Jaxton said with a smile.
"Goliath bone is fake, says an expert." Bitochs put a note of drama and urgency in to his voice. "Next thing you know, someone reveals that the expert was paid two million bucks for his opinion, so draw your own conclusions."
"I was not paid to call the bone a fake, says the expert."
"Well, he would say that, wouldn't he?"
"The possibilities for muddied waters do look endless."
"Of course, what we could always do is dust the bone with the Krank virus and let a pack of jihadis steal it."
"Biological warfare? Isn't that frowned on by right-thinking people?"
"So's strapping bombs to kids and the feeble-minded, but it still happens."
"Of course, we could always sell our rights for a big bag of cash and a percentage of future profits," Jaxton mentioned.
Bitochs put on a cynical smile. "And spend ages proving the method works, and have all sorts of worries about some sod stealing it and being ripped off by some mega-corporation which can have inconvenient inventors killed quietly."
"Sounds like someone's been watching too much American TV," Jaxton said with a laugh.
"But you could be right," Bitochs admitted. "Selling out to cut down the hassle would be a good idea, even if it helps all sorts of others people to get a slice of our pie along the way."
"Except that the pie is so big, our slice will make a EuroMillions rollover win look like small change."
"Am I being too careful with money we don't have and won't have for ages? Okay. I take your point. But at the same time, there's no reason why we can't have a bit of fun."
"How?"
"Make another Goliath bone and let someone steal the first one? Big sensation, a series on the Discovery Channel called something like: Ancient Myths Which Weren't, and proof that our method works because we have an identical bone in our lab."
"Another ‘one we made earlier', like in cookery programmes?"
"Right."
"I wonder if we could get it to the Baghdad museum, the bone that's going to be stolen? Or fake some records to make it look like it was there. That would be very convenient for all interested parties."
"Maybe we should get Bone 2 cooking then sit down with some of that special offer cider and have a strategy session," Bitochs decided. ■ |
