Shan's eyes fixed on the nearest envelope of fabric, a strip of vivid and jagged red, yellow, brown, and blue lines, like lightning bolts. It was frayed at the edges and had several small holes, but the colors were vibrant and the cloth looked strong. "You find cloth, Mrs. Deacon," he said uncertainly. "You make records about types of cloth."

"Warp," the woman said. She smiled when she saw Shan's confusion. "My husband is Deacon. I'm not Mrs. Deacon. Or Dr. Deacon. And not Abigail. Just Warp, like on a loom. Nickname from college." She made an up-and-down, swimming sort of motion with her hand, and Shan understood it to mean the motion of thread being woven through a loom.

"Warp," Shan said slowly, and the American smiled.

"Before we began paying attention to the Taklamakan," the American began, "there was only one place on the planet that gave us worthwhile samples of ancient textiles: Egypt. Always a problem for archaeologists, because it means a huge gap in understanding ancient cultures. Textiles played such an important role in life. Always a major industry. Typically textile production consumed more labor in ancient society than production of food, and always it reflected religion and culture. In Egypt we can use textiles to place a person's social status, his job, sometimes even his or her personal hygiene."

"But in Egypt," Shan said, "the fabric must be two, three thousand years old." He looked back at the sample. "This looks much more recent." As his gaze drifted across the laboratory, it paused on the top shelf of books. One end had been cleared away to make room for half a dozen cricket cages. He recognized them- Deacon's treasured cages from Karachuk. On another shelf were stacks of the wedge-shaped wooden tablets.

"We date with radiocarbon, using wooden artifacts found with the samples. Hairpins, utensils. Wooden jewelry. Wooden letters, sometimes," she said, nodding toward the stacked tablets. The American woman pointed toward the textile sample in the envelope by Shan. "That's about a thousand to twelve hundred."

"Sung dynasty," Shan said, wonder in his voice.

The American shook her head. "One thousand B.C. Your Shang dynasty."

Shan looked up in disbelief.

"The sands. The dryness. Exactly like in Egypt," she explained. She pushed another piece of fabric toward Shan, showing him its subtle design of sheep in several colors. The border of a robe, she explained.

"But this should be celebrated," Shan said. "I've never heard-" He broke off in confusion at the sad glance exchanged between Jakli and the American.

"These textiles and the others we have, they span over two thousand years," the American continued. "They share nothing with the lands east of here. Many designs coincide with Persia, even Macedonia. And this-" Warp pointed to a plaid with blue, yellow, and brown. "This twill is a direct match to shreds preserved in salt mines in what is now Austria, made by ancestors of the Celts."

"Dr. Najan," she said, nodding to the balding man at the microscope, "is retired from the museum in Urumqi. He has deconstructed the weaving of several pieces and can tell you exactly how the looms were built to produce such weaving. They were primitive looms of a kind still used today in Turkey and Afghanistan." There was a glimmer of challenge in the American's eyes now. "The evidence is irrefutable. When we publish we'll have enough to fill five volumes."

The People's Republic, Shan knew, was itself the oddest of fabrics, a patchwork of peoples and cultures and histories woven together and compelled to stay together by force and doctrine. History books were crafted in Party workshops to validate that patchwork, and the annexation of the vast lands of Xinjiang and Tibet had been politically justified by pronouncements that the native peoples had always been part of the Chinese people. Every few months headlines proclaimed more Party-sponsored research that proved the common roots of the Chinese and the Tibetans, or the Chinese and the nomads of Xinjiang. A favorite of Party bosses was a permanent Chinese chromosome project designed to prove scientifically that Tibetans and the other minorities all descended from Han Chinese stock. Shan knew about such studies, had even known some of the scientists involved in Beijing, for the same scientists sometimes worked on forensic teams. First came the doctrine, and the science was designed to accomodate the doctrine. It was not unlike his own work in Beijing, where in every investigation he had been assigned a political mentor and where it was even possible for investigators who defied doctrine to be accused of the crimes they were investigating.

Abigail Deacon seemed to be reading his mind, "Party scientists have announced with great fanfare that Tibetans and Han Chinese share 99.9 percent of the same DNA material," she said with a sour smile. "Likewise Kazakhs or Uighurs with the Han. What they don't tell anyone is that Han Chinese and Nigerians, or Amazon Indians, or Scottish Highlanders also share 99.9 percent of the same DNA. Because we all happen to be the same species."

Shan looked silently from Abigail Deacon to Jakli, to Dr. Najan, who was now looking at him with a defiant stare, then raised his teacup in salute. The painstaking research was for their science. The secrecy was for the independence movement.

"The woman," he said, remembering the square in Yoktian, "the woman on the posters. Niya."

"Niya Gazuli?" Jakli asked. "It means the Beauty of Niya, from the ruins of ancient Niya where she was found. In the desert, less than two hundred miles from here. They found her mummified remains after a storm uncovered a burial site. Dr. Najan was on the recovery team. She's at least twenty-five hundred years old. Red hair. A robe decorated with figures of horses and birds. And not a drop of Chinese blood in her. She's become a symbol, a rallying cry. Posters. Songs. Mother Niya, who taught us that the government lied. The government seized the research after word leaked out," she said with a meaningful glance at Dr. Najan. "Since then-" She shrugged.

"We know of at least one instance," Najan continued the story, "where the government confiscated mummies and destroyed them. They control research much more tightly now. Foreign involvement is suspect. Some scientists from Kazakhstan and Europe gave speeches and were condemned by Beijing as subversive agents, trying to meddle in the internal affairs of China." Bao had a term for such scientists, Shan recalled. The insects he intended to crush.

"But Beijing has no right to these treasures," the American interjected. "No one owns knowledge. It doesn't belong to Americans or Europeans or Chinese. We take small samples and return the specimens to the desert, to places only Kazakhs and Uighurs know."

"Are there others in Xinjiang?" Shan asked, remembering the steel ring in his pocket, where he had kept it since the night at Glory Camp. "Other American scientists?"

The American woman tightened her brow, as if uncertain how to reply. "Probably. We hear rumors of others. A German graduate student was discovered conducting an unauthorized excavation with Uighur students a few years ago. He disappeared, never heard of again, here or in Germany. Now everything is secret, compartmentalized for security. We only know about our project," she said.

Shan looked back around the lab, then at the two scientists, staggered by the size of the effort and the size of the risk. Bao had a scent. The Americans wouldn't be deported if found. They were illegals, invisible to officialdom. Bao would know that the best solution would be to make them disappear. Like another American who had been captured by the knobs and brought to Glory Camp.