Diaz frowned; clambering through an Egyptian national treasure in the middle of the night was not exactly ideal. “All right. Huntington, pull up a map of the ruin and take point with Coogan. Deep as we can go.”
The young Marine tapped commands into her datapad, and a moment later, her own glass had lights flickering across its surface. With a few smooth hand motions, Huntington laid out their course across the plaza in front of the ruins. She stuck to the shadows, leading the team through a maze of outbuildings, souvenir stands, and interactive kiosks, until they arrived at the entrance itself and, with the help of Huntington’s laser cutter, made their way inside.
The temple complex was, at this point, a ruin sitting upon a plateau overlooking the trees and oasis. It was wide open to the night sky, with half-standing walls and cluttered pathways. Here and there, signs in Arabic, English and French pointed out a particularly interesting or important feature, but otherwise, they could have simply been in a construction site anywhere in the Middle East; it was easy to forget the stones were more than 2,500 years old.
Huntington quickly led them into the ruins, and took a series of turns, left and right, before reaching an opening in one of the more structurally sound parts of the ruins. There, a simple chain bearing the Arabic words for “Do Not Enter” stretched across what appeared to be the entrance to a tunnel. Nodding, Huntington waved everyone inside and, out of habit, replaced the chain behind her before taking point once more, leading the team down a sloping corridor that caused even Diaz, the shortest of the group, to hunch over.
“Getting closer to the power source,” Coogan whispered.
The group walked on in relative silence for about ten minutes, occasionally ducking low-hanging stones and, on one occasion, crawling about fifty meters before the corridor widened out again. Diaz looked for evidence of more recent stonework, but could see none. A few taps on her datapad confirmed it—the erosion patterns were consistent with stone cut in the time before Christ.
Huntington made a turn and came to a halt, just as her flashlight went out. Her left hand flew up to stop the others. She took a step forward . . .
. . . and was seemingly swallowed by the darkness. A moment later, Diaz heard a thump. Then silence.
“Huntington!” she whispered loudly. “Report!”
Then Diaz felt the blinding heat-pain of a zapper targeting her, and all else was forgotten before she herself blacked out.
CHAPTER 13
October 15, 1798
As it turned out, the best place for the French to make camp was within the very ruins of the temple itself. This suited the men quite well, as the palms surrounding the ancient rubble were filled with insects and snakes, and at least one man had to be treated for a poisonous sting that, if not for the rapidity and skill of Finch’s response, might have slain him.
But there were causes for concern as well with regard to these arrangements. For one, Finch worried that the French soldiers would carelessly damage some part of the ruins, and possibly something of immense historical import; he had pleaded with the French commander to allow for a complete survey before the men moved in, but was overruled by the commander’s insistence and Berthollet’s apathy.
That said, the commander had his own concerns. Yes, the ruin kept his men safe from the wild animals of the oasis. So too was the temple on high ground, and thus easily defensible. However, they were not only surrounded by dense foliage, but also by the Bedouins, who could easily surround the place, especially if reinforcements were nearby.
Finch, for his part, set up camp just outside the ruins, on a stony bluff overlooking the palm forest. He and Berthollet agreed that such a camp would serve nicely as an intermediary position between the French and Bedouins. Of course, if the two sides came to blows, Finch would be caught in the middle, so he took a very active role in ensuring there would be peace on both sides.
And that meant entertaining Sheikh Karim bin Abdullah al-Siwa. Far more than the French, the sheikh was a most jovial fellow, and fond of the wine the French had brought with them despite Islam’s prohibitions against alcohol. He was also insatiably curious in the way of those who know enough to know they know little indeed.
“I am trying to remember, murshid, but I do not think there are any other tunnels beneath,” Sheikh Karim said on this particular evening. “There are other openings into the ground, yes, but these are caved in. It is hard to say whether they would be passable.”
Finch nodded and translated for Berthollet and the others. It was as they feared, for they had spent the last four nights hoping that any of the existing passages in the ruin would lead down into the temple complex. But the most they found was an ancient larder, full of dust that may once have been grain. There was also a recipe for beer, written on a rotting papyrus in the Greek language, that Finch hoped he might someday try to recreate. But that was all.
“Very well, then,” Berthollet growled. The Frenchman had lost at least five pounds since arriving at Siwa, largely due to his insistence upon wearing the fine waistcoat and breeches of a gentleman, even in the heat of the day. Some of the other savants had traded their garb for those of the Bedouins, and were now attired as Finch—and more comfortable besides—but Berthollet would have none of it. “How are we coming along with cataloging the blocked passages?”
“There are eight we might explore, though carefully,” Finch replied. “There is no telling the state of these further inside, of course, but they seem to be the next logical venues.”
Thankfully, with the help of Sheikh Karim’s boyhood memories, three of these passages could be checked off the list, for the cave-ins were fresh—the Bedouin leader remembered exploring them as a child, and the chambers were shallow. Of the remaining five, teams of soldiers and savants simply got to work digging and reinforcing the walls and ceilings as best they could.
“Do we have any sense at all of what we’re looking for, murshid?” Jabir asked Finch in Arabic one evening as the French began to dig. “No old maps, no inscriptions, nothing?”
Finch smiled as they walked between excavation sites, ostensibly supervising. “Not a single thing, though it would not surprise me in the least if Berthollet knows more. Of course, knowing the stubbornness of the French, they will simply dig into every possible hole in the ground until they find something. Barring that, they will dismantle the ruins brick by brick.”
The boy scowled. “This cannot be good, then. What if they disturb the spirits below? Even the djinn can be shown the grace of Allah the just, the merciful, but I do not wish it to fall to me to show them.”
Finch regarded the boy carefully, and saw that beneath the joke, his eyes held genuine worry. “Leave them to me, Jabir. We already have avoided mischief with the Sheikh, have we not? I will keep these Franks out of trouble.”
Jabir nodded somewhat unconvincingly. Finch wasn’t entirely convinced, either, but what could he say?
“Dr. Finch!” came a voice from the other end of the ruins. “Dr. Finch! Venez vite, professeur!”
The Englishman sprinted across the encampment, Jabir in tow, and pinpointed the source of the shout to one of the caved-in tunnel areas. There, Dolomieu was clambering out of a sharply sloping tunnel. “Andrew! I think we have found something!”
“How long is it?” Dolomieu smiled. “It twists and turns and goes down quite a way. I thought it best to find you and Dr. Berthollet before continuing.”
“And most wise of you to do so,” Berthollet rumbled imperiously, having followed the commotion. “Are we sure of this, Deodat?”
The young geologist laughed. “Of course not, monsieur. But it is the best tunnel we have found here. Shall we find Sheikh Karim and ask his opinion?”
Finch and Berthollet both turned to look for the Bedouin leader, but he was nowhere to be found at the moment. “No need,” Berthollet said quickly. “Have ropes, lanterns and helmets brought to us. Dr. Finch and I shall go in together.”
While not about to argue, Finch was mildly s
urprised. He expected his role in this place to be more consultative—which he rather liked, as the French would be doing the bulk of mucking about in the ground, while he would simply review and comment upon their findings.
On the other hand, Finch figured, he was perhaps more expendable than a Frenchman in Berthollet’s eyes. Smirking slightly at the thought, Finch grabbed the lantern he was offered and secured a line around his waist.
“Do you wish me to go with you, murshid?” Jabir asked, more worry in his voice.
“No, Jabir,” Finch responded in Arabic. “I want you to go to Sheikh Karim and tell him of this. I also want you to ask him, on my behalf, to stay closer next time, so that his people may be properly compensated for what may be found here.”
At this, Jabir stared in disbelief. “If the Sheikh cannot be bothered, why do you wish him compensated?”
Finch grimaced. “Now is not the time for questions. Do as I say.”
Jabir nodded and jogged off, somewhat sullenly. The boy didn’t understand.
At the mouth of the tunnel, Berthollet stood waiting. He added a khaki frock coat to his attire, making him look like a rather preposterous amalgamation of gentlemen-scientist-explorer-professor who clearly had spent little time outside a classroom. “After you, Dr. Finch,” he said.
Expendable, Finch thought with a smile and nod to Berthollet. “Come along, Deodat. Please be sure I don’t get a headache from these rocks!”
Together, Finch and Dolomieu went down into the tunnel, with Finch in the lead. They were followed by Berthollet and three soldiers acting as . . . porters? Guards? It was difficult to say, and Finch was annoyed at the clamor they made.
Yet Dolomieu was right—this tunnel held promise. It sloped downward and doubled back upon itself in a very orderly manner, roughly fifty-five feet before each turn. It was delightfully systematic and, aside from a few crumbling areas here and there, surprisingly sound aside from the entrance, which could readily be blamed on the structures that, at one point, may have existed above it.
“This seems rather small for a temple entrance,” Dolomieu noted on the fifth turn.
“More likely a back entrance,” Finch replied, lantern in hand. “No carvings on the walls, just wide enough for one man to fit comfortably. Something for servants, perhaps, or a private route for the priests themselves.”
They continued down until they came to an unadorned arch, fitted with the lintel stones common in many, more recent Egyptian ruins. “Later dynasties, before the coming of Ptolemy,” Berthollet said. “This makes sense, given Alexander’s visit.”
“Well, I doubt he signed his name in the guest book,” Finch quipped, “so let us see whether this is really the place first.”
The archway opened into a small room fitted with rotting wooden shelves, coated in cobwebs and a thick layer of dust. Indeed, one of the soldiers reached out to touch one and saw nearly an entire eight-foot section of woodwork collapse, which earned him a stern rebuke from Berthollet in scathing French. Any goods here were likely taken long ago.
Finch cautiously went further into the room, looking around carefully. The walls had some carvings upon them, the first they had seen since entering the tunnel, and Finch slowly walked over to see if he might discern their meaning.
A crunch underfoot quickly drew his attention to the dusty floor.
Crouching down carefully, Finch saw that he had stepped upon . . . a bone. And from his lower vantage, he saw that the floor was littered with them. They looked quite human.
“Bloody hell,” Finch muttered, brushing away the dust that coated a nearby skull. The remains came from a person of small stature, though Finch knew the ancient Egyptians were generally smaller than modern men. As he turned the skull over in his hands, he saw there was a hole at the very top of it, roughly an inch wide, with a corresponding hole in the base under the palate.
His eyes grew wide, and he turned to see his compatriots spreading out further into the room. It was exactly the worst thing they could be doing. “Back to the door! Now!” Finch commanded. “Everyone, move!”
The scream from behind him, however, told him it was too late.
June 20, 2134
While Shaila wished the Chinese would land in a petrochemical morass, there was little anyone aboard Armstrong could do about the Tienlong’s foray onto the surface of Titan. Several hours had gone by, and there was no word, officially or otherwise, on their landing. Odd, given the Chinese propensity for trumpeting their space exploration efforts across every media imaginable.
Shaila sighed as she scanned through the latest data burst from Houston. She’d sent an e-mail to Diaz earlier, updating her on the Chinese movements and asking for some intel help, but the general was incommunicado. It was pretty early in the morning in the eastern United States, though, and she couldn’t begrudge Diaz some sleep. The rest of the data burst included private e-mails, which Shaila dutifully routed to their recipients; technically, she was authorized to read any of them she chose, as no doubt folks in Houston had already done, but after months in space together, it seemed an egregious violation of what little privacy they had.
Except . . . why was Stephane getting an e-mail from JSC’s chief medical officer?
Her finger hovered over her datapad. Did Conti ask for a second opinion? Did Stephane? Shaila checked the e-mail header and saw Conti wasn’t included on it. She knew he was growing increasingly grumpy at his confinement, but still, it would be a pretty little interpersonal clusterfuck if he’d gone over the head of the ship’s medical officer and captain. There were rules for that sort of thing, and if Stephane thought Conti was being unreasonable, he should’ve gone to Shaila first, or if he was understandably uncomfortable doing that, then Nilssen.
Shaila thought back to the crew’s occasional poker games; Conti was a horrible player, and Stephane—whose latent competitive streak came out at the card table—always threw a hand or two away so she could win something. Shaila thought it was gallant and charming. Hell, he was probably the friendliest, most forthright person she’d met in JSC.
By opening the e-mail, Shaila would be asserting her rank over Stephane—a first. She never thought she’d have to.
Grimacing, she stared at the datapad for several seconds longer. Finally, she forwarded the e-mail along, unopened. Then she left her quarters and headed ’round the ring toward medical.
“Commander.”
She turned to find Archie climbing up one of the access tubes into the common room, which she had just left. “What’s up, Archie?” She tried to keep annoyance out of her voice, but even to her ears, it didn’t sound entirely successful.
Thankfully, Archie didn’t notice, or just didn’t care. “We gotta work on that desalinization process we got going on down there on the surface,” he said. “Damn water’s still coming up with boatloads of crap in it.”
“Define crap.”
“About 50 percent more than I’m comfortable with,” he replied, holding out a datapad to her. She took it and saw that the mineral content was about 15 grams per liter—half that of Earth’s oceans, but a far cry from fresh water. It wouldn’t be an issue for drinking water, since the ship’s purification systems were already filtering grey water and waste, but the ship’s engines was another story.
“What do we need to get down to?” she asked.
The engineer smirked. “None would be great. I’d settle for a gram.”
Shaila handed the datapad back. “So how do we do that?”
Archie pulled up a schematic on his pad and held it up to her. “If we took all our spare filters from our crew filtration system, we might get enough decent water to get us to Titan. The depot ship has enough replacements for the rest of the mission.”
Shaila frowned. “How close are we cutting it if we do that?”
“Houston would probably know that down to the hour, but I figure we’d get by. Maybe we shave a week or two off the mission. Mimas is boring, anyway. Just a big Death Star crater.”
<
br /> “And if we burn the salty water?”
Archie threw up his hands and rolled his eyes dramatically. “Possibly nothing. Possibly we see some corrosion. Worst case? We lose an engine and have to do some serious jury-rig work. The depots have parts, but I’m too old for that shit.”
“Engineers,” Shaila muttered with a grin. “Tell you what. Rig me a small-scale version of this with a couple of filters. Run some tests on the water we have up here. If it works, we’ll go to Nilssen and make the case. I’ll take a look at the system we have in place down there on my next run to see if we can tweak it. Deal?”
“Sure. I’ll ask Houston to run some simulations, too. If their test engines crap out on them, you’ll have to tie me down before you pump that shit through my reactor,” he grumped.
“Don’t tempt me.”
Archie barked out a laugh and, with a wave, headed off down the ring toward the crew quarters. Shaila turned back toward medical, a slight sinking feeling beginning in her stomach. She really hoped she was wrong about it all.
She entered and walked over to quarantine, peering through the window.
Stephane wasn’t there.
Shaila glimpsed down at her chrono. Five minutes. Five goddamn minutes?
She walked over to Conti’s desk and called up the comm panel. “Jain to Durand, respond.”
Nothing.
“Jain to Durand, respond,” she repeated, sounding annoyed.
Still nothing.
Finally, the comm panel flickered to life. “Command to Jain, Hall here.”
Shaila stabbed at the holobutton. “Go ahead.”
“Heard your comm. Stephane’s not in medical anymore.”
“No kidding,” she replied. “Why wasn’t the door locked?”
“Does it even have a lock?” Hall replied.
The Enceladus Crisis Page 21