Artifact

by Gregory Benford

  They worked their way up without speaking, except for whispered warnings: “Hole up here.” George’s flashlight snapped on, only long enough to navigate. “Watch these rocks.” Their main fear was of starting a slide of the loose stones.

  They crouched at the brow of the hill and peered over. A few bare bulbs cast yellow shadows across the camp. Nothing moved.

  “Looks like they just left it,” George said.

  “Kontos hasn’t had time to get back and finish up,” Claire whispered.

  “Maybe,” John said. “I’ll bet his men are still here. The site’s not secured from vandalism.”

  Claire’s voice rose in pitch with alarm. “Do you think there’ll be a guard awake?”

  “Probably. They’re military men, not scientists.”

  “What’ll we do?” Plainly the thought of a guard hadn’t entered her calculations.

  John said, “Work our way along the back of the hill. Come over the crown, just above the dromos. But watch out, don’t kick rocks down.”

  The sea lay leaden below them as they picked their way across steep, eroded gullies. John glanced at his watch. Only fifteen minutes since they left the Skorpio. It seemed like an hour, easy.

  Going down was tedious. The dim glow from the camp helped, and from this fresh angle he was sure no one stood or walked among the tents.

  They reached the broad path and ducked eagerly into the dromos. The big wooden door was padlocked.

  “At least they thought to do that,” Claire said, producing her key.

  The bulky door creaked and popped, sounding impossibly loud. Inside, they pulled it to before clicking on the ship’s lamp George carried. He swung it around.

  “They haven’t touched a thing!” Claire said excitedly. The long blue shadows distorted John’s memory, but everything seemed in place, even George’s concealing sheets draped at the wall.

  She rushed over to the stacks of equipment and crates. “My notes and samples are in this one. Damn Kontos for not letting me back in here. Help me.”

  George pried open a small crate with a hammer and screwdriver. John threaded his way among the jumble. Somehow, things were changed. In the pale lamplight the inward-curving walls seemed menacing, like hands cupped to keep him prisoner. He thought again about being trapped in here, drugged or drunk, knowing there was a hopeless heavy bank of sand beyond the huge door even if you could cut through it, air getting stale and thick with oily smoke—

  “That’s them!” Claire said, pawing several notebooks free. “Here, let me take a few of those….”

  She bundled it all together and stood up. All three beamed at each other.

  Something jogged John’s memory. “The cube—it’s gone.”

  “What?” Claire spun around. The space where the crate had been was bare. “So he’s taken it back to Athens, first thing.”

  “Funny, only that one item,” George muttered reflectively. “You’d figure, put all the stuff on one truck, save extra trips.” He looked around the tomb.

  “Let’s go,” John said.

  “Sure, just a sec….” George walked over to the block and tackle rig. He fingered the sheets. “These don’t look the way I left them. I didn’t pin them back to the wood this way.” He jerked one edge loose. “Hey, bring that lamp closer, will you?”

  He peered through the open hole. “Hey! It’s inside here.”

  They crowded in. The cube’s crate sat beyond the wall, in the flat area.

  “Now why’d Kontos do that?” John asked.

  Claire pursed her lips. “To keep it out of the inventory for the expedition.”

  “So?”

  “That way he can come back here in a year or so, ‘find’ it and claim the discovery for himself.”

  “Use the fact that you kept quiet about it, you mean,” John said.

  Claire gave him a sharp look. “Yes, I suppose so. Kontos probably noticed that it was listed under ‘miscellaneous’ on the inventory.”

  George said, “Kontos hasn’t unpacked it. Prob’ly doesn’t know what it is.”

  John said, “I’ll bet he’s hijacked everything under ‘miscellaneous,’ come to that.”

  Claire put her hands on her hips and her eyes flashed over the tomb. “I don’t doubt it for a moment. Damn!”

  George said, “So Kontos sends out some men, they don’t know anything, he tells them to clear out everything on the floor of the tomb but not bother the draped stuff near the wall. Then next year…”

  “Smart man,” John said.

  Claire said savagely, “Not smart enough. If this crate turns up in Athens, he can’t hide it. His colleagues will see it.”

  George said, “So?”

  John saw what she meant. “We haven’t got the time.”

  She whirled to confront him. “Kontos obviously did it with George’s pulley system. It’ll take—what—ten minutes?”

  “Even if we moved it back among the other crates, there’s nothing to guarantee that Kontos wouldn’t intercept it, stop—”

  “Oh, crap! Come on, George.” She fumbled with the ropes, exasperated.

  George began, “Well, I don’t know if—”

  “Aren’t either of you going to help? Okay, I’ll do it myself. Just get out—”

  “Here now.” John, resigned, pulled a block and tackle into position. “Let’s make it quick.”

  George saw immediately how Kontos had suspended the crate—there were eyelit screw hooks mounted along four edges. “He must’ve swung it in through the hole, using one of the wooden ramps. There, that one’ll work. We’ll just reverse the process.”

  As they arranged the elaborate web of ropes John glanced at his watch. Another fifteen minutes gone. Plenty of time until dawn. The tide was still going out, so the boat wouldn’t be catching any wave action.

  “I’ll crawl through and thread the ropes through the hooks.” George said. John positioned the ramp and handed through the ropes. Despite the weight of the artifact, the time-honored mechanical principles should make it a fast job.

  “Okay!” George called. “Start lifting the front two hooks like I showed you.” Claire released the safeties and John steadied the ropes. The crate tilted back and up. John slid the ramp under it. By pulling forward they could drag it along the ramp. John took the command rope and pulled.

  “That’s it,” George called. “A little more.”

  John and Claire both strained at the main ropes. The crate wobbled slightly.

  “The rope’s snagging on something,” George said. “Keep the tension on, I’ll see what it is.”

  George kneeled beside the crate and fumbled with the rope. “Some rocks, must’ve been scraped up by—”

  Suddenly the crate shifted sideways. The taut ropes tilted it farther back. In an awful slow motion it rolled backwards, surprising George, coming down on his left leg, rocking brutally to the side. It crashed against the rock wall.

  George screamed. The crate lurched. Wood popped. It was still reared back, and now it rolled.

  The crate went end over end, backwards, and slid into the open hole beyond.

  John heard it smash once, twice, wood splintering. The lamp had sprawled aside and to John it seemed that light danced in a frenzy around the walls, raking across slick stone, seeming to come from everywhere. Loud boomings like cannon shots. A rattling, as though something fell far below. A humming, drawing down into nothing. A distant splash. Then silence.

  CHAPTER

  Five

  Claire turned the lamp fully on George’s bared right leg. “Look, it’s turning darker.” She gingerly ran fingers along the trembling calf muscle. Her heart thumped loudly in her ears. “I think perhaps it’s merely a sprain, but…”

  “Looks like…a break…to me,” George wheezed.

  Claire nodded. “Did you feel anything snap?”

  “I dunno…maybe. It was on me only a second but man it hurt.”

  John asked, “How bad is the pain now?”

  Geo
rge moved the leg experimentally. “Ah! H-hurts, but nothing…real sharp.”

  Claire took his ankle and gave it a slight pull. “How is that?”

  “Not bad. I mean, no change.”

  Claire said, “That could mean there’s no major fracture. Perhaps a hairline. And a massive amount of broken blood vessels and muscle damage.”

  “It was rolling when it came onto me.”

  “Lucky you didn’t get carried down with it,” John said.

  “Yeah…” George gazed forlornly up at them. “We really screwed this one, huh?”

  “I…” Claire hesitated. “I don’t know what went wrong. Perhaps I kept pulling on the rope too much or something.”

  “We both did,” John said.

  She went on, “Whatever, I don’t care. It was my idea and I take the responsibility.”

  “I…guess it’s down there, huh? Must be pretty smashed up.”

  “It sounded terrible,” Claire admitted. “I heard breaking wood.”

  “I’ll look.” John slowly, gingerly moved to the edge of the hole and shone the lamp down it. “There are some boards caught in a crevice far down. Some long scrape marks on the wall.”

  “I don’t think I want to see,” Claire said, feeling sick. A priceless piece of the past, ruined because of her own game-playing. It was like bitterly cold water dashed in her face, the realization that she had been self-centered, unprofessional, heedless, smug, careless—

  “Long gone now,” John said, and handed the lamp back to Claire. He started to turn around and then gazed down the dark tube, frowning. Then he shook his head. “It must be a hundred yards down to sea level, but—”

  “That’s not important now,” Claire said. “We have to get George to a hospital.”

  George blinked. “Hey, no. I mean, we’re nearly home free, right? I don’t want to go to any Greek hospital and have them throw my ass in jail.”

  John said firmly, “You need help.”

  “Look, I’m not that bad off. I say we get the hell out of here.”

  John said, “You can’t walk.”

  “Who says? Help me up.”

  Claire steadied George as John pulled him carefully up to lean on a shoulder. George turned ashen but held on.

  “See? I can take a step, even.”

  “Now, don’t—”

  George lurched forward and landed unsteadily on his left foot. “There. See?”

  “Is there very much pain?” Claire asked.

  “Not…not really. That calf muscle sure is sore, though.”

  “Maybe it’s only a muscle bruise and a minor fracture,” John said reluctantly. “That’s still nothing to be casual about.”

  Claire thought quickly. “Look,” she said, “we can take him to Nauplia. Once we’re back on the ship it’s a short trip. They can probably take care of him within an hour or two, if it’s nothing major. Then we can sail out again.”

  John said, “All right. We’ll have to be careful to—”

  “Listen!” Claire whispered.

  A distant creaking.

  “The door!” Claire abruptly stooped and clicked off the lamp. Total darkness descended.

  The sheets were pulled back from the opening, she remembered. Anyone could see directly in. She inched forward feeling for the edges of stone. There. Now, if she remembered correctly—

  A rough surface, then smooth, cold metal. Up above somewhere would be the cloth. She reached—

  A man’s voice. The door was swinging open. A faint glow from a flashlight showed her she was groping the wrong way. She snatched the nearest sheet and yanked it down, over the hole.

  She crouched, looking toward the sound of creaking and a swelling bass mutter of male voices.

  A thump. That would be the door banging fully open.

  Light playing on the sheets.

  A slurred voice said in Greek, “See? Nothing.”

  “Could have been.”

  A thud. “You forgot to lock it, I tell you.”

  “I remember right. I closed the door, didn’t I?”

  “Hurrying down to supper, soon as the Colonel went, you forgot.”

  The yellowish glow faded.

  “You heard that sound just now.”

  “The waves, a big one, that’s all.”

  Creaking, a bang—the door closing.

  A moment of complete silence. She listened intently. When John sighed behind her it seemed startlingly loud. “So much for cops and robbers.”

  She switched on the lamp. The cramped area leaped into vivid reality. “What?”

  “They heard the crate.”

  George said unsteadily, “Yeah, it sure was loud enough. Musta carried through that door. That boom, what was it?”

  “The artifact, turning into gravel,” John said sourly.

  Claire bit her lip. He was almost certainly right. All because she had wanted to play one last card, trump Kontos on the final move. John’s face held little sympathy.

  “That was fast, pulling down the sheet,” John said. “Not that it does any good. We’ll have to bang on the door now, try to attract their attention.”

  She blinked. “Why?”

  “Because they’ve locked us in.”

  He was right. Mortifyingly, infuriatingly right. She and John pressed against the bulky wooden slats. The door caught up against the Yale lock and hasp. She could feel it solidly take hold, letting the door move a mere centimeter.

  She sagged against the wall and sat down. So she was going to have to surrender to them, go through all the awful questions and sneers and accusations she had imagined and tortured herself with these last few days. Kontos, and probably men far worse than Kontos. The regime would play up the whole incident, getting mileage out of foreigners sneaking around, conniving, trying to steal the Greek birthright.

  She felt tired. The worst of it was, she was now responsible for George’s leg. It had been going so well, despite the awful three days on the Skorpio, and now suddenly this exciting maneuver had turned to injury and loss. If only, if only…

  “There’s got to be something we can do,” she said without real hope. “I have the key right here. If there’s some way to—”

  “I checked. The bolt and fittings are on the outside.”

  She sighed. “If we took some of the tools and worked around the frame…”

  “Without making enough noise to draw the guards back?”

  She thought, gazing up at the thick timbers, and finally nodded. “Probably you’re right. But it’s a chance. All we have.”

  John walked over to George, who sat holding the lamp for them. “Let me take it a minute.” He stepped through the hole. George lay staring at the ceiling, blinking, numbed.

  Claire struggled with her storm of emotions, at the same time feeling a chilling weakness seep through her. She could talk John into prying at the framing, but it would be slow and noisy. There was no way to extract the large nails without brute force. She shivered. Six days ago she had been working here, ready to go home, riding high, carrying a fat pouch of research results and looking forward to Boston again. Now look at her. She shivered again.

  John stepped back into the tomb. “Claire? Come help me with these ropes. There may be another way out.”

  CHAPTER

  Six

  He felt the first dizzying sensation as he gripped the rope. The workman’s gloves helped grasp it, and he had a loop-trap hold with his tennis shoes, but still he felt uneasy.

  It was not the descending bore of the eroded tube that bothered him, fitfully lit by the lamp Claire held beside him. Perspective narrowed the passageway, but he could see it neck and twist, getting tighter, about fifteen feet below.

  He grimaced and put the thoughts away. He wouldn’t do anything risky, just have a look. In that moment after he passed the lamp back, he had seen a blue glow far down the hole. It must be the glow of early dawn, filtered through sea water, refracted upward. Such dim rays would be absorbed easily, so seeing them fro
m the top of the hole must mean there was very little water at the bottom. When he had gone diving, the entrance seemed at least a dozen feet below the surface, probably more. Was there much variation with the tides? He seemed to remember that Mediterranean tides were small.

  Seemed. Might. Maybe.

  It was all guesswork. The only way to check it was to go and look, and if the required dive looked clear, he would do it.

  “If there’s any question, come right back up,” Claire said anxiously.

  “Yes ma’am,” John said with a lightness he did not feel.

  “Where are you carrying the key?”

  He patted his vest pocket, buttoned, and started downward again. He fished George’s pocket flashlight from the other vest pocket and switched it on. Its beam was feeble compared with the lamp.

  Claire read his thoughts. “You don’t suppose you could…?”

  “No, I can’t manage that lamp. I’d sure as hell like to.”

  He knew he was talking to delay going down there. Abruptly he realized that he had not decided whether he wanted to do this, not really. The idea had come to him and he had talked it over and then they were arranging the ropes and now here he was, without really thinking it through.

  At first Claire had said no, she didn’t want any more risks, not after what had happened. So he had persisted, partly because the idea intrigued him, but mostly because he could look daring even in the face of all that had happened. Like most men who live quiet, reflective lives, the tang of action carried an exotic zest they seldom knew.

  What had she called it? Yes, praxis. He had even mentioned his mountain climbing experience, though in fact he had only taken a weekend course, and done a little scrambling up the rough hills of Texas. So he had been taken aback when her face changed from a rigid, distant skepticism to a hedged curiosity, and then guarded acceptance. His own damned mouth had run away with him. And now the same impulse, to look good in her eyes, was making him cinch the rope around his waist again, checking it for the nth time, but unable to look at her and say he didn’t think this was such a great idea after all, ma’am.