“They’re waiting for us to do something, Professor. And a typhoon is getting ready to make you a permanent resident of Ninh Phuoc.”

“I have my emotions,” answered Muir. “Respect that.”

Muir now obliged Condley by kneeling before the remains and starting to undo the torn and rotting poncho. “Did you know that eight hundred thousand years ago a meteor smashed into what is now Viet Nam, burning forests, throwing up fresh outcroppings of rock, and killing thousands of people? We can’t find their remains, but we have been able to find the axes made from those rocks by the people who moved onto the land just after the meteor crashed. As well as the tektites from the meteor itself. Think of that. We can find the tools from almost a million years ago. We know just where the meteor hit. And yet we strain with difficulty to positively identify a man who died only thirty years ago.”

It was raining harder. Condley was growing nervous. And, besides, after five years of “digs” he was used to Muir’s emotions. “Well, give it a go, Professor. We’ve got a boat to catch.”

Muir had calmed down. He was in his element now, all business as he carefully peeled back the old poncho and began to examine the stiff skeleton of a man dead nearly thirty years.

“It’s in remarkable shape,” mused the scientist as he considered the skeleton before him. “Definitely Caucasian—look here at the cheekbones and the structure of the teeth. I’m amazed we have a full skeleton instead of the isolated jaw here and femur there that we find in the crash sites. He’s lucky they took such good care of him.”

“He doesn’t look that lucky to me.”

Muir caught the irony of his comment. “Sorry, Brandon. It’s the wages of being an anthropologist. I tend to think of them as . . . well, still existing, but merely in an altered state.” He continued his intricate preliminary examination, leaning forward in the dark musty shed to get a closer look. “The cemetery must be mostly sand. That helped to preserve him. The jungle soil is so voracious that it even eats the teeth away in a remarkably short time. And look at this—”

Condley leaned forward also. Muir was holding a pair of dog tags that still remained on a chain. They had been around the dead man’s neck. Condley whistled, amazed. “Positive ID. What a find. What service is he, Professor?”

“Army,” answered Muir, squinting in the darkness. “Theodore Deville. Specialist, Fourth Class. Blood type, O negative. Religion, no preference.”

“Well, he’s a Buddhist now, isn’t he?”

“Show some respect, Condley. This is a comrade-in-arms.”