Nina gave him a determined grin. ‘I dunno. I’m feeling pretty persuasive today.’
With very poor grace, even after the promise of another payment to cover the unplanned use of fuel, Captain Branch did eventually agree to move the Pianosa to the new site. It took a couple of hours to bring the pontoons back aboard and get the vessel under way, but after that it didn’t take long to reach its destination. Once anchored, the crew reassembled the floating dock while the IHA team prepared for the dive. Nina had used the transit time to explain why she had changed the mission so drastically; both Gozzi and Bobak were startled by what she thought she had discovered, but quickly became caught up in her enthusiasm.
Chase was more pragmatic. ‘We can’t stay down there too long,’ he said as the team went through the involved process of donning their deep suits. ‘There’s only a couple of hours before sunset. It’ll be darker anyway because we’re deeper, but any daylight’s still better than none.’
‘This’ll just be a preliminary dive,’ Nina assured him. ‘I just want to be sure there really is something down there. If there is, we’ll dive again tomorrow morning, and if there isn’t . . . well, we’ll go back to the original site.’
‘Bet you won’t find a bit of old net as interesting now, will you? Okay, arms out.’
Nina raised her arms. Like the other divers, she was wearing a modified drysuit, metal sealing rings encircling her shoulders and upper thighs. The ones round her legs had already been connected to the lower body of the deep suit, which Bejo was supporting from behind. She shifted uncomfortably as Chase mated the watertight rings on her arms to their companions in the heavy suit’s shoulder openings, then closed its polycarbonate front section around her and shut the latches one by one.
‘Oh, I hate this bit,’ she muttered as Chase picked up the helmet.
‘Be glad you never wore the old model,’ he said. ‘The helmet was even smaller.’ He had used the first version of the deep suit three years earlier; it had been designed as a way for divers to reach depths impractical for working in traditional scuba equipment, while hugely reducing the risk of the bends. The suit’s hard body let them breathe air at normal surface pressure, while still leaving their limbs relatively free to move. This updated design also allowed its wearer to turn and bend, if only slightly, at the waist, an improvement on the earlier rigid shell, but it was still a cumbersome piece of equipment, especially above the water.
‘I’m always worried about getting something in my eye while I’m underwater,’ said Nina, making sure her ponytail was safely clear of the suit’s neck. ‘Or sneezing inside the helmet. That’d be truly gross.’
‘Or if you fart in the suit.’
‘I don’t fart, Eddie,’ Nina insisted as he lowered the helmet over her head and locked it into place.
‘She does, she just never owns up to it,’ Chase said in a stage whisper to Bejo, who laughed.
‘What was that?’ Nina asked suspiciously, voice muffled and hollow through the helmet.
‘Nothing, dear. Okay, check your systems.’ Chase examined the gauges on the suit’s bulbous back, where the air tanks and recycling systems were contained, while Nina peered at the repeater display inside the helmet. ‘Seal is good, pressure is good, mix is normal, battery is at full. You’re all set.’
Nina waddled to the ladder on the dock’s edge. Gozzi stood beside it making the final check of his suit’s systems, while Bobak was already bobbing in the lapping waves. He waved at her, inviting her in. For a moment Nina considered jumping in, then took the more prudent course of climbing down the ladder, the fins on her feet flapping against each rung.
Chase donned his own deep suit with Bejo’s help, then fastened the belt holding his knife and other gear round his waist. ‘All set, Mr Nina,’ said the Indonesian. Chase gave him a look. ‘Mr Eddie,’ he quickly corrected.
By now, Gozzi had also entered the water. Chase dropped into the sea beside him with a huge splash. ‘Show-off,’ said Nina as Bejo tossed him the speargun.
Chase cocked the weapon, then looked at the others. ‘Everyone set?’
‘I certainly am,’ Nina replied. ‘Let’s see what’s down there.’
2
Though only fifty feet deeper than the original site, the new location was far darker, shrouded in perpetual dusk. All four divers had their suit lights on at full power, but even that failed to make much impact on the gloom.
Nina held a laminated sheet up to her lights - a printout of the sonar image of the area. ‘This is it. Anyone see anything?’
Gozzi swung one flippered foot at a rounded stone. ‘This might be another of those bricks.’
‘Eddie, give him a hand.’
Chase joined the Italian, and together they pulled it up. Beneath the sediment, protected from erosion, was indeed another of the crisply edged, slightly curved bricks. ‘Looks like the right place.’
‘We’ll do a survey,’ Nina decided. ‘We’ll each take a quadrant, starting from here, out to . . . fifty metres. Anyone finds anything promising, make a note and we’ll collate everything when we meet back up.’
‘Make sure we stay in sight of each other,’ Chase added.
They moved apart. Nina swam rather than using the thrusters, examining the sea floor as she moved slowly over it. A half-buried rock turned out to be another brick, larger than the others she’d seen. She made a note of the block’s position, then thought about the nature of the bricks as she moved on. The mere fact that they were curved would limit their utility; the earliest example of that kind of architectural thinking she knew of was that of the Atlanteans, whose empire had risen - and fallen - about eleven thousand years earlier.
Quite a gap between eleven thousand and a hundred and thirty-five thousand. Could there possibly have been a civilisation that pre-dated even Atlantis?
A change in the terrain: the ground ahead dropped away quite steeply. She was just able to make out where it rose again through the murk. If the rest of the area had once been a hilly coastline, this had perhaps been a small gully, marking the point where a stream or minor river reached the sea.
Which would make it a good place to search for more traces of the mysterious brick-builders. To any primitive society, a supply of fresh water was a key factor in the location of a settlement.
She swam into the gully. Chase would probably yell at her for going out of his sight, but she could handle that. Bringing up her torch, she shone its powerful beam over the sea floor.
There was something there, a row of stone stumps rising above the silt and gently swaying plants. A regular row - too much so to be natural. She looked at the laminated sheet again. A line of five similarly sized blobs there, matching the five real-life objects here . . .
And more, stronger, sonar reflections just a short distance further up the gully. Her heart jumped with the rush of discovery. Something more intact - a building that hadn’t been completely destroyed?
She swam towards the spot, aiming the light ahead. There was something there. As she got closer, she saw that while it wasn’t intact, the curving wall broken up into shark-tooth shapes, nor had it been reduced to scattered rubble. Somehow, it had survived whatever had laid waste to the settlement, the deluge as the seas rose, the ravages of time.
‘Guys,’ she said excitedly, ‘I think I’ve found something. It looks like the remains of a building.’
‘Where are you?’ Chase asked. ‘I don’t see your lights.’
‘I’m in a little dip.’
‘You are a little dip,’ he snapped. ‘I told you to stay in sight!’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ Now almost at the ruined wall, she slowed, tracing its shape with her flashlight beam. Whatever the structure had once been, it had apparently been circular.
The more she looked, the odder it became. Although the tallest remaining point was only a few feet above the sediment, it was enough to tell that it sloped inwards as it rose. It wasn’t a result of damage, either; the bricks had been crafted and ar
ranged quite deliberately to produce just such a shape. Extending the arc would produce . . .
A dome.
She tried to picture it. A brick igloo, fifteen feet high, maybe more. Domes weren’t unknown in ancient civilisations . . . but this ancient?
She swam over the top of the wall and looked down. Slightly off-centre of the circle was a pile of rubble, fronds of seaweed wafting languidly from it. A small shoal of fish glinted through her torch beam, edging closer to the plants before flitting away as one.
The fallen bricks were probably part of the collapsed roof. If so, then whatever the building had housed could still be beneath them. Nina dropped to the sea floor and squatted as best she could in the cumbersome deep suit to investigate. ‘We’re definitely going to need the pump,’ she said, brushing seaweed strands aside. ‘If we clear out the sediment, we might be able to find—’
Something erupted from a hole between the bricks.
Nina shrieked and jerked back reflexively, losing her balance and falling on to her butt. A hideous face lunged at her, a huge mottled moray eel with its spike-toothed mouth agape.
Its long body twisted, fangs snapping at her outstretched hand—
Something shot past Nina in a trail of bubbles. There was a deafening bang. The next thing she knew, a swirling pink-tinged cloud of froth and shredded flesh was spreading through the water. The front half of the moray, mouth still open in what now looked like frozen surprise, bumped lifelessly against her before sinking to the sea floor.
‘What did I bloody tell you?’ Chase’s voice said in her ringing ears. ‘Don’t go off on your own!’
‘Jesus, Eddie!’ said Nina, caught somewhere between fear, relief and anger. ‘Are you trying to kill me? You almost blew out my eardrums!’
‘You’d rather that thing’d bitten a hole in your suit?’ He swam past her, the speargun in one hand. ‘Big bugger, though. Must be twelve feet long, easily. Although a power-head was probably overkill.’ He loaded another explosive-tipped spear, then tugged the severed tail end of the eel from the hole.
Nina breathed deeply in an attempt to calm herself. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Getting rid of this thing. Don’t want floating shark-bait right where you’re working.’ He clipped the gun to his suit’s belt, then picked up the moray’s other half. ‘Seen this?’ he asked, waggling its head in Nina’s face. ‘It’s got two sets of jaws, one inside the other. Like the Alien.’
‘Just get rid of it!’ said Nina, cringing in revulsion.
‘So much for the search for knowledge,’ Chase said, turning the eel to face him and moving its mouth like some awful ventriloquist’s dummy as he spoke. ‘And she calls herself a scientist!’ The two pieces of the moray trailing from his hands, he swam off into the gloom.
‘Are you okay, Nina?’ asked Gozzi as he arrived, Bobak behind him.
‘Super fine,’ Nina growled.
‘At least it was not a shark, yes?’ Bobak said hopefully.
‘Yes, thank God. Although I have a horrible feeling I’m going to have to put up with a load of stupid eel jokes when we get back to the ship.’
‘I’d never do that,’ Chase said from somewhere out of sight. ‘Besides, I’ve got a DVD I want to watch tonight.’
‘What is it?’ Nina sighed, bracing herself for the punchline.
‘An Eel-ing comedy!’
If Nina could have put a hand to her forehead, she would have. Instead, she groaned, then composed herself before turning back to the job in hand.
After she photographed the ruin, the team carefully lifted the fallen bricks. It was a slow process, Chase offering increasingly frequent reminders about the dwindling amount of daylight remaining.
But it paid off.
‘Look at that!’ Nina exclaimed. The collapsed roof removed and some of the sediment cleared away with the small vacuum pump, new treasures were revealed. ‘We’ve definitely struck gold.’
‘That’s not gold,’ said Chase. ‘Looks like copper to me.’
‘Metaphorical gold, I mean.’ She lifted the first object. It was a sheet of copper about ten inches long, almost as wide at one end but much narrower at the other. It had obviously been crushed when the roof fell, but she guessed it had originally been conical in shape. She turned it over. ‘It looks like a funnel.’
‘Wow, kitchen utensils? That’s even more exciting than a net,’ said Chase.
Nina snorted and handed it to him to put into a sample bag, then looked at the item Bobak was holding. ‘What’s that?’
‘I don’t know.’ It was a clay cylinder - or rather part of one, one end roughly broken off. The other had a hole roughly the width of Nina’s little finger at its centre. The cylinder was marked with narrow, closely spaced grooves running round its length. Bobak poked at the little hole, tipping sand out of it. ‘To hold a candle?’
Gozzi guided the pump’s nozzle along what appeared to be a stout wooden pole. ‘Look here!’ he cried. More of the pole was exposed as he moved, revealing it to be six feet long, ten, twelve . . . ‘I think this is a mast!’
‘It can’t be,’ said Bobak. ‘The site is too old. Maybe the boat sank more recently.’
‘So how did it end up inside a building that’s been underwater for over a hundred thousand years?’ Nina asked. No suggestions were forthcoming. She ran her fingertips through the sediment, finding the flat face of a plank. Probing further, she felt its edge. She followed it, trying to work out the length of the buried vessel.
Something moved when she touched it.
‘Found something?’ Chase asked. ‘Not another eel, is it?’
‘I don’t think so.’ Nina pulled her new find free of the muck. It was a clay tablet, roughly the size of a slim hardback novel. One corner had been broken off, but apart from some chipping and blotches of microbial growths the rest of it was intact. Several lines of text had been inscribed into its surface, but the elegantly curved script was completely unknown to her. ‘Gregor, Marco, look at this. Do either of you recognise the language?’ Neither did.
‘Tick tock,’ said Chase, pointing towards the surface. The level of illumination had visibly fallen. ‘We need to get back upstairs.’
Reluctantly, Nina put the tablet into the sample bag. ‘Mark the spot,’ she told Gozzi. ‘We’re definitely coming back here tomorrow.’
Chase entered the lab. ‘You coming for dinner? It’s after eight, and I’m starving!’
‘Shush,’ said Nina, flapping a hand. ‘I’m on the phone.’
‘Is that Eddie?’ asked an Australian voice from the speakerphone on Nina’s workbench. ‘How are you, mate?’
‘Hey, Matt,’ Chase replied, recognising their friend and colleague Matt Trulli. ‘I’m fine. How about you? I thought you were going to the South Pole or something.’
‘Yeah, in a week. Just got a few last-minute glitches to fix on my new sub; I’m waiting for the spare parts to arrive. Good job I caught the problem now - it’d be a bugger to fix in the Antarctic!’
‘I thought I’d take advantage of our tame nautical expert,’ Nina explained to Chase. ‘I was just asking him about the boat we found.’
‘Well, I looked at that photo you sent, and it’s definitely a lateen rig,’ said Trulli. ‘Triangular sail, invented by the Arabs. Something like the sixth century.’
‘BC or AD?’ Nina asked.
‘AD. Why, how old’s the site where you found it?’
‘Older.’
Trulli made an appreciative noise. ‘Another world-shattering discovery by Dr Nina Wilde, is it?’
‘Could be,’ said Nina, smiling. ‘Thanks for your help, Matt - I appreciate it.’
‘No worries - I’ll look in on you in New York when I get back. Oh, and consider this my RSVP to the wedding, okay?’
‘Will do.’
‘See you,’ said Chase as Trulli disconnected. ‘So, dinner?’
‘In a minute,’ Nina said, returning to her work. She held the clay tablet under a large illuminated
magnifying lens, using a metal pick to remove the algae that a wash in distilled water had failed to shift. One particularly recalcitrant piece resisted even the pick; she used a spray can of compressed air to blast it with a fine astringent powder before switching back to her original tool. This time, the offending lump came free. ‘What’re they cooking?’
‘Eels.’ Nina shot him a dirty look. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Pretty well. I’ve almost got it cleaned up.’ She indicated the expensive digital SLR camera beside the waterproof camera she had used on the dive, a cable connecting it to her laptop. ‘I already sent some underwater pictures back to New York by satellite, but I thought it’d be easier for someone to identify the language if it wasn’t covered with crap.’
‘So you really don’t know? Guess you’d better withdraw that application to be the full-time boss of the IHA.’
‘It might be easier if I did.’
‘Really?’ Chase put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Hey, I was only joking. I thought you wanted the job.’
‘I do. But there’s just been so much bureaucratic and political garbage, especially over the last couple of months. It’s like everybody’s decided to gang up on me at once. Assholes.’ She let out a sigh.
‘I know what you mean. Every time I go through US customs now, I get the third degree from the immigration officers. Doesn’t matter that I’ve got a Green Card and a UN work permit - they treat me like the bloody shoe bomber!’
‘Yeah, you’d think they’d be more grateful, considering we saved the world.’ Nina took several photos of the tablet. ‘Maybe I should remind everyone of that, take up that offer to write my autobiography.’
‘You need to ask for more money,’ Chase told her. ‘Tell ’em you want one meellion dollars.’ He raised his little finger to the corner of his mouth.
‘It’s definitely tempting.’ She turned to him, then flinched as she put weight on her right leg. ‘Ow!’
‘I kept telling you not to push it, didn’t I? You never bloody listen.’
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