Read The Vesuvius Isotope (The Katrina Stone Novels) for Free Online

has yet to be unrolled or has not been unearthed from the Villa dei Papiri. Unfortunately, it is also possible that the piece is lost forever.”
    I read the document translation once, and then again. As I processed the information, my initial enthusiasm gave way to absolute, debilitating despair. Before me was the text from an ancient papyrus that had somehow lured my husband to Italy behind my back. It might also have been what led to his demise.
    And it was nonsense.
    I blinked back frustrated tears as I stared at the page in my hand, still warm from the printer. Then I closed my eyes and sighed.
    “This is categorically impossible,” I said.
    “That’s what Jeff thought, at first. In fact, it’s also what I thought. But following several weeks of intensive research, your husband and I are both convinced that it is possible.”
    She looked into my eyes. “You know new chemical elements can be created,” she said. “Jeff won a Nobel Prize for exactly that. You and he have now co-founded a successful company based on the creation of new elements and the medicinal value of their isotopes. You already have four of them in clinical trials. Why do you think I picked him to consult about this?”
    “But… the creation of new elements requires modern technology!” I argued. “There is no way the ancient Greeks, or Egyptians, or whomever else you study, could have done this!”
    “You are assuming that modern technology is the only way,” Alyssa said. “But nature produces phenomena that no scientist in the world has ever managed to harness. Thanks to this document, I think that Jeff and I may be able to learn how to harness one of them. One that, if we are right, may revolutionize the field of medicine.”
     

    When the sky opened and the gods cast down their anger upon our enemies, the wine soured and the nardos by the bedsides turned from green to red.
     
    “The nardos have quickened!” said one of the women, and she reached forth a frail hand to touch one but then hastily withdrew as if stung by an insect. “It bit me!” she said, with the crazy eyes of the sickness.
     
    What part of humanity makes us need to see, to know for ourselves, even though the gods so frequently punish those whose vanity drives them to explore the forbidden? It is the greatest mystery I have known. But as the first withdrew, three other thin arms reached forward at once, the other women also seeking what their bedmate had experienced. All three retracted with haste.
     
    I, too, needed to know. When I touched one of the nardos, a gentle warmth ran from my fingertips to my heart, like a quiet flame in the blood of my arm. I feared the sickness that would soon follow! And then, the sensation was gone.
     
    “Agariste!” I shouted. “The nardos are aflame!” But by the time she entered the room and reached out to touch one, the effect was gone.
     
    The next morning, the four women reported an unusually peaceful sleep, and their tumors appeared smaller to my eye. After four more days, they were gone, yet the crabs continued to overtake the men. The sickness I had expected never came.
     
    Why did the gods spare the women through magic plants? Is it because women do not make war, as men do? It is not for us to know, but, in those four, it was as if the crabs never existed.
     

    “What is a nardo ?” I asked, my voice trembling slightly.
    “A medicinal plant,” Alyssa said. “I have come across the term in other ancient texts. It was apparently used to treat a number of ailments in those days. Unfortunately, today there are multiple possibilities for what a nardo could actually be, and I’m not sure which of today’s plants corresponds with the one in this document— if , of course, the plant in the document even still exists today.
    “Furthermore, none of the possibilities that I have investigated so far are poisonous or stinging, and certainly none of them bite, as all five of these women seemed to agree upon, including