The knowledge that kills

The connector call came the next day, just when Narheda was inside the door after a nerve tiring working day. She kicked off her shoes, liberating her almost cramping feet with a sigh of relief, at the same times as she plugged the receiver to her ear and plumped down in the pea sack chair next to the equipment. The text on the screen showed 'hidden caller' which made her frown a bit, she was not amused by people calling her anonymously, but she figured it might possibly be one of her students.

It wasn't.

The man calling her introduced himself as Arlig, son of Derlor, and his sligh lilt revealed that he was originally from out of town, Edoras, Narheda guessed. Or perhaps Miraxelis.
"How may I be of help?" she asked tentatively, wishing for the umpteenth time that she could get a visual of the caller, actually see the other person the way those mythical palantirs were said to have provided their users with. But no, she had to be content with his raspy, accented voice on the other end of the line, however that wasn't all bad.

"I am the one who offer you aid, milady," this Arlig said, sounding like he was sitting on a crate of gold.
"In what way?" Narheda returned, feeling curiosity awake.
"I'm cutting the chit-chat because none of us have any use for it," Arlig went on. "I know about your dig and about the demise of it. I know what's going on up there in Rendell and the reactions around here when it comes to the discovery of the Elven city of Rivendell."

"The PRESUMED Elven city," Narheda felt herself forced to say and shifted in her seat, trying for a more comfortable position. Somehow she felt that this was going to be a lenghty conversation.
"Oh, come on, doc! You know as well as I that it's bullshit. The Elves were real, very real. And it's only the superstitious scare of the hot shots that puts a lid on that truth. They know it as well as you and I. Enough people have seen the skeletons you and your crew unearthed to put together two and two and begin asking questions and now certain people want to put a stop to the spreading of this information. So they deny the proofs of the existence of an Elven race and they want to fill that dig again, hide your discoveries."

"Now, look, Mr..."
"Let me finish, doctor! That resort they are talking about building in Rendell is only an excuse to get your people out of there, hindering you from unearthing more of the truth."
"But what do they have to fear? I mean the Elves've been gone for..."
"Do you want my help or not?"
"Yes, but..."
"I can give you the proof you need."

"In what way?"
"My name doesn't ring a bell?" he asked her back.
"Can't say it does. Neither your voice. Have we met?"
"I wouldn't think so; all together you're a historian and an archeologist while I am a biologist. And a very renowned one at that, if I might humbly say so myself, doc. I've written quite a few articles in the major magazines out there, mostly about hazardous mutagens. My team has been working on finding a cure for the crayfish anomaly for more than 12 years now, and we're getting there slowly but steadily. But I didn't call you about my medical research."
"I guessed not," Narheda said hesitantly. "So what's your point then?"

Dr. Arlig paused for a second, and she could hear people talking in the background on the other side of the receiver.
"You see, a while back I was contacted by an old friend of mine. Professor Traven of Gerentha, I imagine you are familiar with him."
"Yes," Narheda confirmed. "He's the one who's been doing research upon the Elven sub-specie, putting together those skeletons of the male and the female Elf out of the findings we did in Rendell."

"Traven and I are old friends from our sophomore years. We've been seeing each other over a goblet about twice a year ever since and I was a best man on his wedding a few years back. Now, almost a year ago he sent me information about his findings, and when I expressed my curiosity, he also sent me a part of a bone including some marrow."
"An Elven bone?"

"You got that right. I did some research myself. First I thought that Traven must've been mistaken, but when I examined the finding more thoroughly I discovered that enough DNA in this bone differs from the typical Human. That bone did not origin from an individual of our specie. But it was no ape either. That bone did come from something else. Something more similar to us than the apes. Traven had been right. Just to make sure, I in turn sent a sample to Professor Iusa Vinidad at the University of Tharbad in Cardolan. Professor Iusa is one of the best there is, one of the most renowned researchers and biologists in the world. She was the one together with Tiryn Audun who in the year of 4135 isolated the TLB retrovirus, which eventually led to a cure for the Charnil disease. I imagined that if she could confess my findings there would be proof that there had indeed been something called an Elven sub-specie once."

"What did she find?" Narheda had to brace herself for the answer and in turn Arlig made a dramatic pause.
"Professor Iusa confirmed my research. A week back she called me and told of her findings and yesterday the samples arrived to my lab together with her extensive writings. Right now, I'm preparing a thesis upon this and with Vinidad's name as a backup, I dare believe I will be published."
"So it is certain then, the truth will be out!" Narheda felt almost giddy, and she had to brace herself to not drop the receiver.

"Yes, out in the street! Can you imagine people's reactions, when they learn that the Elves are, well, were real? It's going to be the revelation of the century! It will throw over all and everything we know about the evolution of the Human specie. We are not unique! We were never unique. And – if there were Elves, perhaps the Dwarves were real too. And the Hobians."
"The legendary hairy feeted," Narheda felt a smile tug at the corner of her lips at the thought of it.
"The very ones!" she could almost imagine Arlig nodding his head on the other side of the line.

Then another notion crossed her mind. The orc question. And she knew that this was burning hot stuff.

"Arlig," she asked. "Where do you have this proof? The things Professor Iusa wrote?"

"It's safe in my labs," Arlig assured. "Now, what I wish for you to do is to come over here tomorrow and have a look at her writings. To receive a copy of them. Then I imagine you can flaunt it in the face of your superiors and get your job back."
"Let me just ask you one thing," Narheda said. "Why are you helping me?"
"Because we scientists have to stick together. And because we are all working towards the same goal. Discovering the truth. And not letting bigotry and prejudices rule."

*O*O*O*

When Arlig and she had finished their conversation and hung up, Narheda walked out in the kitchen and poured herself a large goblet of cider and then she opened up the door to the narrow balcony, pulled out a chair and sat down watching the sleepy suburban street and the park beyond that. A few pre-teens were playing stickball on the grass plain, and two chattering basilisks were building a nest in a tree, that was about the only thing happening. Closing her eyes, she faced the sun and let it caress her cheeks, as she tried to come to terms with what she just had learned.

They were real. The best scientists had had their say in the matter. Now she ought to get her dig back, there was no other development she could see as reasonable. She could hardly wait for Darik to come home in the night so that she might tell him the good news.

*O*O*O*

The maglev braked softly at the University station and Narheda readied herself to step off. She was far from the only one disembarking at the large station, not only did it serve the University campus, but it was the connection hub between the Lenea-Nakurn line and the Takirdion line, and many passengers were exchanging trains here as well.

Still Narheda couldn't shake the eerie sensation that there was someone having their eyes upon her. What in Middle Earth's name..? She turned her head as she stepped on the down going escalator, glancing quickly at the people behind her. Nothing special, just the ordinary motley crew of commuters. However, she reminded herself; she had no idea what to look for. Perhaps there was just someone checking her out for one reason or the other. She wasn't exactly infamous, not in the world of the scholars after all. Someone might have read her thesis, someone might have learned about her misfortune the other week...

Or someone might just be looking at girls...

Stepping off the escalator, she followed the crowd which was heading for the campus area, trying to get rid of the uncomfortable sensation she was experiencing. She was surely imaging it, and if she wasn't, was it really that bad being checked out? Proved that she wasn't insignificant after all. If it wasn't for the impression that the stare had been so hostile...

Outside of the campus entrance there was a large road construction going on, closing off more than half of the street, and huge, blinking orange boards were directing the traffic around as collared orc slave workers were digging in the ground. Their keepers, two sturdy thugs in the Municipal Street Office's green and yellow coloured coveralls were watching over the six orcs, their tazers dangling from their belts. Narheda swallowed at the sight of the matte black and conically shaped weapons, she had once been swatted by a tazer, back when she was young and thought she could still change the world and had partaken in a demonstration which had gone out of hand. It had hurt like hell and back and she still recalled that discomfort upon seeing those weapons. No wonder the orcs stayed in line, regardless of each them being able to break every bone in the bodies of those keepers. Truth was the orcs would never get near them.

The orc question, that was one of the thing she and Arlig had briefed over during their connector conversation yesterday. If it could be proven that the orcs were in fact their own sub specie and not some unfortunate mutation which had been bred upon by humans back in the 22th century, then the issue of keeping them enslaved would be worth a completely new debate.

But first thing first, she turned left on the other side of the Marble Arcs instead of walking straight ahead as she usually did when coming here. Then she started descending a shallow slope, skipping to the right at the urgent chimes of quickpede bells. Darn! Some people were apparently very much in a hurry today. And there were sirens as well, a piercingly ululating blare cutting through the general background noise of the campus. As Narheda lifted her head in the direction of the blaring noise, she saw black smoke bellowing up over the tree line. Something was apparently on fire over there.

Moving closer, she found that it was quite nearby the...

Yes... Oh no!

Picking up the piece of paper where she had scribbled down Dr. Arlig's address upon, she found that it was the very building being on fire. Pavilion 64 B, a dirt-pink sandstone cube with a slightly u-shaped gray bricked roof, just like so many other buildings here. Now what?

The area in front of the structure on fire was cordoned off with neon orange ropes and there were several crimson red vehicles of the fire brigade present as well as two yellow city guard cars and an ambulance, the latter was just pulling put, a duo of city guards moving the ropes to let it pass. The fire brigade was busy spraying water upon the structure on fire and outside the ropes were the mandatory crowds of curious onlookers.

Arlig! That was naturally the first thing Narheda thought as she tried to get as close as possible to the cordoned off area to see if she could spot the biologist. She hoped he was all right. And she wondered what could have happened. A persistent little inkling was picking at the back of her mind, drawing up a triangle between her and Arlig's connector conversation of yesterday, the stranger who had been regarding her upon the train and now this event. Could it be – arson? Could it be connected to Dr. Arlig's findings regarding the Elves somehow?

As she made it forward, she spotted a familiar profile to the left of her. A tall, comely woman in her mid thirties dressed in a wide and long, navy-blue leather cloak with a pelt-brimmed hood tilted back. Hikarete, daughter of Dinaka. Another historian of her own institution and another post-graduate of professor Sinadaris.

"Hikarete," she stopped and addressed the other woman. In response, Hikarete turned her dark head and faced Narheda, her yellowish green eyes sparkling with recognition – and some barely concealed pity as well, which Narheda felt she hated the very sight of.

"Nari!" Hikarete said. "Good to see you! I heard about..."
"Yes, everyone has, right," she replied, tried and failed to keep the resentment out of her voice. "But that's nothing like this! You know anything more than someone like I, who just arrived?"

Hikarete made a face. Narheda could tell that she was uncomfortable about it.
"They brought out a dead guy just before you came here. I supposed he had been in there, and that the smoke got him. You know it's most often the smoke that kills."
"Any idea who it was?" Narheda feared the worst.
"No clue, he was beneath a cover. But it sure was creepy the way they put him in the ambulance and it just drove away. No sirens at all, the sure sign of it carrying a dead body instead of a wounded someone."

Narheda swallowed against the discomposure. The smoke that kills? No, in this case, make that the knowledge that kills.

"I suppose," she began. She didn't get to say more before the deafening explosion made the roof of Pavilion 64 B to lift and the pressure wave threw them all backwards like so many pawns on a tipping game board. The next instance debris started to rain and Narheda covered her head against the hazard, feeling somewhere inside of her – knowing somewhere inside of her - that it had been Arlig of Derlor in that ambulance.