Gladiatrix Read Free Page B

me. ‘So far you couldn’t get on a plane to go to Crete … Or to the Greek digs either. And you couldn’t use the scuba gear to complete your marine archaeology assignment off Sydney Heads.’
    â€˜But …’
    â€˜Yes, I know, Kannon. But if you can’t physically complete the fieldwork side of things, you can’t pass the subjects.’
    â€˜Look, I know all this, Professor Cockburn,’ I emphasised. ‘And it’s the fieldwork part I love the most. What about the research I did up in Cape York? At the Rifle Valley excavation.’
    â€˜Yes, yes, Kannon, that was excellent. I’ve read your report and the tools you found were invaluable. When the site is not enclosed, you’re fine. But if you can’t go into a cave, then Australian indigenous sites will also be beyond you.’
    He paused to say, far too kindly, ‘But you want to become a marine archaeologist, don’t you?’
    â€˜Yes.’ That was my ultimate goal. ‘But over time I’ll be able to move from using the snorkel to scuba gear. I’m fine in the water. I surf. I can dive, using the snorkel, to shipwrecks in twenty, or even thirty feet of water. It’s not the water. It’s the breathing apparatus, and the lack of light at depth. But I’m working on it.’
    Using the meditation techniques Yuki had taught me, I’d overcome most of the post-traumatic stress symptoms from my childhood. Nothing much scared me any more. Heights, snakes, speed, nothing but certain kinds of enclosed spaces.
    You could shoot me out of a cannon, but I couldn’t get on a plane, or enter a cave, or dive through shipwrecks at depth.
    â€˜I’m getting there, Professor Cockburn. I’ll overcome those last fears, like all the rest,’ I insisted. ‘This degree’s giving me the incentive to do it.’
    â€˜Yes I know, Kannon. And I hope you know that I was very reluctant to make this phone call. I think you’d be a fine archaeologist. But this has gone on for far too long.’ He was uncompromising. ‘You’ve done all the theoretical subjects you can at this stage, and completed none of the ones with fieldwork in them. You start them, but you don’t finish them.’ He stressed, ‘I’m sorry, but the Department has decided to terminate your enrolment.’
    â€˜What?’ A fierce pain jabbed through my chest.
    â€˜Until such time as you can complete the fieldwork requirements. I’m sorry, but that’s the bottom line.’
    I stared at the receiver. Why was everything happening today? I didn’t know whether I was going to become an archaeologist, or follow in Yuki’s footsteps, or whatever else lay ahead, but I sure as hell wanted to make the choice myself!
    Steam was practically rising off me now, but I kept my tone as polite as possible. ‘Well then, Professor Cockburn … re-enrol me! Which fieldwork assignment do you want me to do first?’
    â€˜I thought you might react this way,’ he said dryly. ‘Either the digs on Crete, or the dive off the Heads would do. As a start …’
    I growled, ‘I’ll do both.’
    â€˜Be sensible, Kannon.’ He ostentatiously waited for my sensible reply.
    I took a deep breath. Okay, think again … Both terrified me. A round trip on a plane? Or a series of dives? Both had their worse points.
    â€˜I’ll do the dive.’ At least I could get that over and done with quickly. The lead-up was almost as hard as actually doing it.
    â€˜All right, Kannon. Come and see me when the semester starts and we’ll set it up.’
    I wanted to howl ‘NO!’ down the phone, but instead said crisply, ‘I’ll see you then, Professor Cockburn.’ And hung up.
    I stared at the phone with venom.
    Then I realised the message light was blinking. I shook my head at it. I wasn’t picking that phone up again tonight, under any