The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 2

by Christopher Cartwright

  Zara said, “The desert kingdom declined and fractured into small chiefdoms and was absorbed into the emerging Islamic world. Like its more famous Roman neighbor, the once-great Saharan kingdom became, little by little, simply a thing of myth and memory.”

  “Only their irrigation tunnels have remained.”

  They continued along their strange journey in silence for the next two days. Intermittently taking turns to rest and sleep. In an attempt to conserve the few hours of battery power remaining to each DARPA suit, both Sam and Tom switched their machines off. For the time being, there was nothing they could do to adjust the direction of their movement, so they may as well do so in the dark, only occasionally powering up to check on their surroundings.

  Sam drifted in that strange place, somewhere between conscious and unconscious. Comfortable and uncomfortable. He was close to sleep when the boat stopped its forward movement. There wasn’t much of a change. It must have been gradually slowing down.

  “Everyone all right?” he asked.

  Tom said, “Yeah, you?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Where are we?” Zara asked.

  Sam switched on his DARPA suit and the area glowed with the now familiar blue haze. He glanced in front of the boat. The tunnel appeared unchanged, but the shallow water was now missing. Behind, the water looked like it was flowing softly.

  Sam turned to face Zara and Tom. “There must be a crack in the tunnel, where the water’s now flowing into a lower tunnel.”

  Tom nodded. “I guess it’s time to walk.”

  Zara asked, “Do you think this is going to get us anywhere? We might just be going deeper into the ancient irrigation tunnels!”

  “We don’t know,” Sam said. “But there’s no way we’re going to swim all that way back to where we started, so all we can do is keep going forward.

  Zara nodded in silent protest.

  They walked along the dry aqueduct. A line, approximately three feet up along the bottom half of the tunnel, showed where the water once sat. Above it was approximately another four feet in height. If it was much lower, Tom would have struck his head on the ceiling.

  It was about an hour before they took a break. There wasn’t any change in the tunnel. The ancient Garamantes, if nothing else, knew how to build a perfectly symmetrical tunnel for hundreds of miles. The air was cool, and a slight draft flowed past them, in the same direction as they were heading. The breeze was new and refreshing, and it gave them the impetus to keep going with a renewed vigor.

  They continued again, walking faster. Ten minutes later, something changed. Sam hurried fifty feet ahead. The height of the tunnel lowered until it was obvious that all of them would need to bend to get through. It continued like that for about fifteen feet and then opened into a giant, vaulted room. The dry aqueduct ran through the center of the room like the rail platform of an old city, where a ghost train no longer delivered water to the entrance of a great city.

  Chapter Seventy-Seven – The Golden City

  Sam stared at the massive dome above. It made the Roman Pantheon look like a toy. It had a diameter of at least a hundred feet. The dry irrigation channel split straight down the middle of the room, before continuing on through a dark tunnel on the opposite end. Inside the massive structure were the remains of an amphitheater. It was formed out of limestone steps, and stretched at least eighty feet into the air in a semi-circle. On the same side there were at least twenty buildings, all in a classical style as if Greek or Roman temples. On the opposite side of the channel another thirty similar buildings of various sizes. At least a hundred and eighty feet above, a giant oculus that showed no light reminded him that he was still buried deep underground.

  Zara asked, “Where are we, Sam?”

  Sam said, “At a guess, I’d say we’re in the fabled Golden City of the Kingdom of the Sands – the treasure of the Garamante Empire.”

  “That’s great,” Tom said. “But where’s the gold?”

  “There was never really any gold! The term represented the wealth of knowledge found inside. This was where the great ones came to discuss the future. Think of a place filled with the great people of their time. Their versions of people like, Michelangelo, Plato, Da Vinci, and Einstein. This was a place for the greats to go. And Nostradamus! That was why it was called the Golden City!” Sam stepped toward the amphitheater. “What do you think this place was used for?”

  “It was a meeting place.” Zara spoke confidently. For a person who two days ago had shattered any belief that the Garamantes had ever made it this far south, inside the Sahara, she now possessed an extraordinary knowledge about the ancient civilization. “A symbol of their technological might. Think Rome in its heyday. Florence. Hell, it could be an older version of Washington D.C. when you look at it. Perhaps this is where their leaders came to debate important matters before government.”

  Tom laughed. “I would have loved to hear their views on climate change.”

  Zara smiled. “From what we know about the Garamantes, they didn’t care about their environment. Instead they utilized heavy slave labor to acquire water for irrigation and crop development. They made their environment what they needed it to be to survive. When the water ran out, they became extinct.”

  “Sound familiar?” Sam asked.

  She turned to face him. “What?”

  “You said Nostradamus told you the human race was about to become extinct and now you’re telling me these people became extinct due to climate change?”

  She shook her head. “No. The climate didn’t change. The Garamantians drew their water from ancient tables of fossil water, accumulated over approximately forty million years. It was only a matter of time before the water tables were exhausted and their civilization’s need exceeded their ability to produce water.”

  “Yeah – what I said. An economy based on technological changes that in turn changed the climate in an unsustainable way. Ecology 101. They failed – and we are following their example.”

  “Talking about tunnels. There’s a bunch of them heading off this way,” Tom said. “I’m going to check it out. We still need to find a way to the surface.”

  Sam nodded. They would need to split up and work quickly to find a way to the surface – if such a way still existed. He gazed around the vast chamber. It could have fit a football field inside. The place looked like the main meeting place on a bad Sci-Fi set. A city buried inside an asteroid or a moon. There were broken, and misshaped rooms throughout. Little remained to suggest the purpose of such rooms, but he imagined a thriving market place. Fresh food stalls, exotic food from places far away, brothels, carpenters, engineers, people who practiced medicine, they would have all been there.

  He stopped walking. Grinned. “This place wasn’t just a meeting place. This was their city. This was grand central station! Look. What if the reason archeologists have only discovered primitive villages on the surface was because those were the stragglers or even another race altogether. What if the Garamantians didn’t just build a three thousand mile network of irrigation channels – what if they built three thousand miles of networked transport?”

  Zara tilted her head to the left; her mind exploring the possibilities. “It would be much easier to send food, water, and people by boat beneath the harsh desert than above.”

  Sam nodded as he imagined a world where food and other supplies were transported along the ancient irrigation channels, along with fresh water. He walked through the small buildings – structures that once housed the city’s elite. They were simple by modern day standards of luxury, but at the time, would have been the height of decadence. Like the Romans, the Garamantians appeared to serve themselves the best.

  He said, “What if these people and the remains of the old Berber civilization located on the surface were the same?”

  “But you just said you thought they were different?”

  “What if they were once the same civilization, but as the water dried up things started to cha
nge.”

  Zara asked, “What sort of changes?”

  Sam said, “The same sort which always take place when food becomes scarce – the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.”

  “They abandoned their slaves, and general population, so their thinkers and movers could continue to live in decadence. While one part of their society died off nearly fourteen hundred years ago, the other one thrived for another thousand years!”

  Tom stepped into the room. Even in the dull blue light, his face appeared flushed. He was breathing hard as though he’d been running. His brown eyes were wide and filled with adrenaline.

  “What is it?” Sam asked.

  Tom paused. Swallowed hard. “I’ve found something. I think you’re both going to want to see.”

  Zara turned to face him. “What did you find?”

  “There’s a room here you’re both going to want to see, right now!”

  “Sure, what is it? What did you see?” Zara persisted.

  Tom looked at her. Shook his head, and said, “I believe it’s a message, for you.”

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  The entrance to the strange room stood out among the rest of the building structures beneath the dome for two reasons. The first one surprised Zara immensely, and the second sent chills down her spine.

  First, unlike every other structure they’d seen, this one had a door. It was made of solid brass, with intricate images of horse drawn chariots, etched into the metal. None of the other structures had doors, and she had seen no other sign of brass displayed throughout the dome. Secondly, and more disturbingly, were the words written on the door. She stared at them, willing them to spell another word or different name. There was nothing she could do about it though. The truth was uncompromising.

  The words spelled, Zara Delacroix.

  She tried to push the door open. It was heavy. The large hinges fought against the centuries without movement. Sam and Tom put all their weight into it and finally, the door creaked open.

  Inside was a discreet and unremarkable room, not too dissimilar to those they’d already seen, except that it had a sarcophagus in the center of the room. The walls were carved out of solid limestone, like the rest of the buildings. Nothing was written on the walls. A pedestal could be seen, stepped inside a small alcove. Water dripped from an opening in the ceiling and filled the pedestal. A hole in the floor, worn out through the ages, captured the overflow, and then drained into a hidden opening below. Otherwise, the room was empty.

  Zara's eyes returned to the sarcophagus. It was the centerpiece of the room and if someone wanted her to find something, she guessed it was most likely going to be inside. Zara walked around the sarcophagus. It was most likely the final resting place of one of the great kings of the sand. She stopped on the other side.

  Her mouth opened to speak, but words didn’t come out.

  “What is it?” Sam asked, his eyes glancing at the ancient script.

  Zara met his gaze. “I don’t know yet. There’s something about this that I recognize.”

  “I thought you’d never studied anything to do with the Garamantes?”

  “I didn’t.” She bit her lower lip. “This is all written in the language of modern Berber.”

  “That’s great,” Tom interrupted. “But if we don’t work out how to get out of here soon, we’re going to be sharing their tomb with them.”

  “This might be important,” she said.

  “So is staying alive,” Tom said, cheerfully.

  “Wait. I can read this.”

  “Well. Don’t keep us in suspense. What does it say?” Sam said.

  She swallowed hard. “Our problem just got a whole lot worse.”

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  Zara felt her entire world spin. She imagined it would have been a similar experience to the early navigators in the world who believed the world was flat, suddenly discovering it was spherical. Worse still, it might even be more like then discovering the world used satellites high up in the orbit of the earth to send messages, allowing computers to triangulate their exact position on earth using a GPS. Everything she believed had just turned in on itself.

  Sam asked, “What’s changed, Zara?”

  “Everything!”

  “What?” Tom said.

  “This place was visited by Nostradamus in 1557.” Zara waited for the thought to sink in.

  Sam and Tom stared at her, silently.

  She continued. “After the massive sand storm, which killed all of his party except for my great ancestor, Nostradamus must have entered one of the Garamante irrigation tunnels and made his way to this ancient city.”

  Sam asked, “Why? What did he come here to do?”

  Zara paused. “He came to bury the very last Garamante. A king without a people. And he came so that I could know what he’d learned.”

  “What did Nostradamus learn?” Sam looked at her. “Didn’t he leave everything you needed to know in his book?”

  “No. After he’d left his book buried in the sands of the Sahara, Nostradamus had changed the future. Consequently, his next visions had changed as a consequence.”

  Tom asked, “What did he write?”

  “It’s a story, of times to come.”

  Sam asked, “What does it say?”

  “It’s about the fall of man. About a great civilization. The Garamante Empire. About their successes, and their losses. About their riches and their greed. About their greatness and their fallibility. At the end of the story, it says that man is no better than the locusts who multiply into destructive plagues. If the human race is to survive, we must do so in smaller numbers. There is only so much the land will stretch and bend to meet our demands – and when that is all done, our time on earth shall end like so many other animals before us.”

  “Wow,” Sam said. “Seems pretty much on the mark of what Nostradamus was saying.”

  “Sure.” Tom shook his head. “Pity it didn’t really tell us what to do about it.”

  “Sure it did.”

  Tom smiled. “It did?”

  “Yeah,” Zara said. “Didn’t that letter to Mikhail say it wasn’t about a new diamond mine? It was about lithium. World War Three was going to be fought over lithium – and the world’s largest stores were in the Democratic Republic of Congo.”

  “Yeah,” Sam confirmed. “What are you suggesting, by backing our guy in there the human race is going to stop procreating?”

  “No. I’m suggesting Nostradamus meant us to let them fight a war.” Zara said. “I’m serious. Maybe Nostradamus knew I would run into you and stop you from supporting the good guys.”

  Sam shook his head. “Or maybe he wanted us to support the United Sovereign of Kongo so that the lithium could be mined and the world could live more economically.”

  “For how long, though?”

  “Until it’s no longer sustainable.”

  “But when will that be? When will there be too many human beings on this planet? Do you know at the turn of the eighteenth century what the best estimate of the total population of the planet was?”

  “I don’t know, a billion?” Tom asked.

  “A little above two hundred million,” Sam said. He spoke with the certainty of a man who knew the statistic and was as concerned as anyone should be. “It took us nearly fifty thousand years from the beginning of agriculture to reach two hundred million and it’s taken us only the two hundred years since to take that number up above seven billion. The United Nations currently predicts the population to reach eighteen billion by the end of this century alone. I know. It’s not scare tactics. It’s science.”

  Zara sighed. “No, that statistic’s wrong.”

  Sam shrugged. “It’s a prediction by the United Nations. It’s a ball park figure.”

  “According to Nostradamus, the population is going to reach thirty billion before the century is out. Do you know what the final population is going to be in the year 2100?”

  Sam and Tom both shook
their heads.

  Sam looked at her. “The woman Tom killed before we entered the well – she said you knew something terrible. You denied it at the time, but I thought I saw your eyes look away. It was subtle. For a second I doubted it. But now that I see it again, I know where I’ve seen that look. It’s the distinct image of a person trying to hide the painful truth. You were hiding something, weren’t you?”

  She nodded.

  “I see that same look in your face now,” Sam said. “What are you trying to hide?”

  “I found a second note addressed to me in the book of Nostradamus. The first one was explicit. Nostradamus said it was the first thing he wrote before he started his entire works. The second wasn’t even attached to the codex. Instead, he scribbled it on a piece of paper with a simple note. An addendum.”

  Sam asked, “What did it say?”

  Zara said, “I had a choice. He’d never seen it before. But now he knew that I had a choice to make. He couldn’t tell me what to do, because he hadn’t seen anything in my future.”

  “What was the choice?”

  “He said that I could do nothing and the human race would become extinct when my bloodline ceased in three hundred years.”

  “What alternative did he give you?”

  She remained silent. Her eyes avoiding his and staring at the sarcophagus.

  “Go on. You’ve gone this far now.”

  “He said I may attempt to change the future.”

  “And?”

  “And if I’m successful the human race will continue far into the future.”

  “But?”

  “If I fail that population number changes at the end of this century. Any child born today will have a high chance of being alive to see this date. We’re not talking about hundreds of years in the future. We’re talking about the end of this generation.”

  “All right,” Sam said. “I’m interested. What does Nostradamus predict the population to be on the first of January 2101?”