by JC Ryan
When the shock had passed, Summers let out a whoop of triumph and grabbed Angela, twirling her above the ground as she laughed delightedly. When he put her down, she grabbed his hands and began jumping, until they were both cavorting like baby goats on a fine spring day.
“Do you know what this means, Ange, my dear? We’ll be famous! I theorized this city was here, and I came to find it, just like Columbus setting out for the new world! We have proof, now, that the 10th Cyclers were right about other cycles before them! It’s astounding!”
Angela rather thought Charles had made some huge assumptions, that the city wasn’t 10th Cycle in origin among them. But she was very happy for him. Clearly he felt he had reason to make these statements, and indeed, it wasn’t her specialty, so who was she to question? So, she smiled proudly, and agreed with everything he said.
The construction of the buildings before them was other-worldly, something out of a children’s book of fairy tales, perhaps. Closer inspection revealed that they were built of what Summers would have called bricks, except for the fact that they were shaped more like small stones, about the size perhaps of cobblestones in a medieval street. The rounded shapes, captured in a matrix of cement, could be any shape the builder desired. Therefore, it seemed that whimsy had taken over, creating a playful, cartoon-like architectural style that made the two researchers laugh. For a while, they wandered between the shapes that were no taller than he, pointing out new ones to each other.
The spell was broken finally, when Summers stopped to photograph the buildings. That’s when he noticed that they weren’t tiny at all; that what they were seeing was the protruding roofs of a buried city. This expedition had just turned into an archeological dig. Now, far from being unhappy that they’d be leaving in a few hours, Summers couldn’t wait to tell the others and give JR the go-ahead to call for the crews of experienced diggers that they’d put on standby. He was so gleeful that he practically skipped as he and Angela, now hand in hand, retraced their steps and hiked the four miles or so to the rendezvous point to meet the others.
Summers shuddered as Angela disappeared into the passage through which he, JR, Rebecca and three others had crawled to reach this valley last February. He had come a long way under Rebecca’s care to overcome the claustrophobia that paralyzed him on the first trip. He hardly batted an eye when they’d come through the larger tunnel three days before. But that squeeze, an area where you had to creep like an inchworm through a space that made an MRI device look like a cathedral…he wasn’t up for that again. Maybe never again. Fortunately, Angela didn’t mind, and she would soon be back through the other entrance. While she was on her way, the others hiked around the mile or so to the larger cave opening.
While they waited for the all-clear from the tunnel crew, Summers couldn’t keep the news to himself, even though he thought Angela would enjoy the celebration if he waited for her. He showed Rebecca and JR the pictures, and their expressions of surprise gave it away to the rest. Before he knew it, Summers was showing everyone. He felt remorse only when he saw Angela’s face, unable to hide her disappointment that she hadn’t shared in the fun. Still, she appeared to forgive him. He’d just have to be more careful in the future.
As soon as the crew was back at base camp, Cyndi copied the pictures from Summers’ phone and his professional-quality camera to his workstation hard drive, and backed it up. Only then would she okay using the images in a slide show presentation that Summers prepared to report to the world. Naturally, the first to view it were the support team at home at the Rossler Foundation headquarters. Daniel and Sarah, Nicholas and Sinclair, were all on hand to have a first glimpse of the greatest discovery since the 10th Cycle Library itself.
Press releases were prepared in Boulder, but before they were released, Daniel called his good friend President Nigel Harper with the news, having emailed him a copy of the presentation.
“Congratulations, Daniel. This must be the culmination you’ve been looking for, after all the trouble last year,” Harper said, after making the appropriate remarks about the interesting shapes in the photos.
“I can’t say it doesn’t help, Nigel, but I’m not sure it was worth all the lives we lost.”
“Nonsense. Any great endeavor costs lives. Climbing Mt. Everest, making the world safe for democracy. Finding the information that a civilization from the vast reaches of the past left for our benefit.”
Daniel knew Harper was trying to absolve him of the responsibility for lost lives, but it seemed to him that whenever he was involved in great discoveries, too many didn’t make it through. Nevertheless, this was Summers’ triumph, not his, and Summers deserved the accolades that would come his way because of it. To think, an impossibly old civilization, making their home within a hidden paradise in the middle of a frozen wasteland—humans living in Antarctica! It boggled the mind.
The full impact didn’t reach the Rossler Foundation or Summers either, until a day or two after the press release. Then the world exploded with excitement. After four years, the news of older civilizations was passé, even when a new technology came out of the Library. A few days of excitement, and then another news story knocked that one out of the limelight and the attention-deficit masses forgot about it. This, however, was glamorous, exotic, the stuff of science fiction. The extraordinary beauty of the surrounding jungle coupled with the strange architecture kept this story front and center for days.
Things moved fast after they reported what they’d found. The first group of diggers, all of Middle Eastern origin, arrived in just under twenty-four hours, dispatched from a staging area in Indonesia where they had been gathered for the last few days in anticipation of being needed. Within two weeks, a second crew, this one all Spanish-speaking, would arrive from the opposite direction, staged at the tip of Chile where the last jumping-off point toward New Zealand was located. The crews had been chosen from among experienced archeological diggers, fifty from each area. Rather than mixing them and creating language barrier, diet and religious issues, they would all work among people whose culture was similar to their own, two weeks for each crew, with two weeks off while the other crew took over.
El-Amin would serve as translator for the scientists when the Arab-speaking crew was on shift, and Rebecca, whose Spanish was adequate for the task, would serve for the South American crew. JR knew a handful of Arabic phrases from his stint in Afghanistan, and hoped to expand his fluency while working among the first crew.
Work on the rail line stepped up, some of the camp construction crew signing on to stay once the last of the prefab buildings went up. They had built enough of them so that when all one hundred diggers were in camp, some coming and some going, everyone would have a decent bed. The first crew went in through the newly expanded tunnel on foot, no longer forced to crawl. While they worked their twelve on, twelve off shifts, the rails were being laid as quickly as possible so that the trip by rail car would eat up less of the work shift.
~~~
With fifty men working for him, Summers was confident they could make good progress on the excavation. While he directed that effort, the other scientists were also busy on theirs. El-Amin and Dasgupta had established a working relationship that led to their decision to determine the cause of the constant light, and were combing the cliff sides for a light-emitting plant, microbe, or mineral. Robert took the time to examine each bit of dirt or rock they brought to him, but nothing he knew of would emit light without also being radioactive, a hazard he devoutly hoped was not plentiful in the valley.
Robert’s main goal was to confirm his theories about the valley. He wanted to first locate and test every thermal well, whether it be in the form of a hot spring, a fumarole or an open and oozing lava flow. He doubted the latter would be applicable, but the valley was large enough that no one had covered every foot of it yet. Fortunately, he now had an accurate map, on which he could mark the locations of any geothermal activity he found. To be methodical about it, he divided the valley into
a grid covering a quarter mile square in each area. With the first square he explored situated at the cave opening where the rail line was nearing completion, he would fan out from there, moving from side to side as well as forward in the grid. After he and his assistant went over the first three squares or so, he hoped to break up their efforts so they could cover twice as much area at a time. He’d know as soon as he’d seen his assistant work.
Work was proceeding apace when Summers’ attention was drawn to a commotion near the center of the square, perhaps one hundred yards from where he was working. JR was with him, consulting him about a detail in the rail line construction. When the shouting went up, both looked up, startled, but because of some of the building roofs in the way, they couldn’t see what was going on. By unspoken mutual consent, they rose and began trotting toward the commotion, weaving in and around the spires between them and where the cries were coming from.
The city had been carefully divided into a grid, with work teams of five men each, consisting of a lead or foreman and four other diggers. Whenever one of the diggers made a discovery, he was to report it to his foreman, who would then evaluate whether it was necessary to bring it to the immediate attention of Summers, or wait until the work ended for the day. Due to the language barrier, it had been determined that only the most unusual or startling discovery would warrant an immediate notification. When JR and Summers arrived on the scene, they found the foreman of this crew and one of his workers shouting at each other in Arabic. JR could catch only a word or two here and there, as the men were speaking rapidly and with great passion. He stepped between them, making a placatory gesture, and said, in Arabic, “What’s going on?”
Immediately, both men began rapidly entreating him to take their side of the argument, and his meager acquaintance with the language was again overcome. He pumped both hands, palm down, in the universal signal for ‘quiet’ and tried again. Addressing the foreman, JR repeated his question. This time he caught the gist of the argument. The other man had found something, but the word didn’t mean anything to JR.
“Show me,” he said to the worker. The man threw a triumphant look at his foreman and swaggered down the steps of the tiered excavation, leading JR with Summers following into the very center. Now that JR noticed, at the bottom was a partially-excavated monument of some kind, with the same or similar almost-familiar script that he and Cyndi had discovered in the cave so many months ago carved into it in bas-relief.
“Summers, look!” he exclaimed, but there was no need. Summers was already stumbling toward the monument with a look of awe on his face.
“A stele!” Summers breathed. “This could be the key to the city! Ask them if they can read it.”
Neither Summers nor JR expected that the workers would be able to read the script, but it did bear a passing resemblance to Arabic as far as they could tell. JR posed the question, and the foreman who had followed the others down stepped up to peruse the carvings. His hand lightly touched the carved symbols, so lightly that even Summers could not fault his handling of the artifact. But, he was shaking his head. Disappointment flooded Summers, irrationally, since he’d had no expectation that the man could actually read it. It would take a couple of days, at least, to get Sinclair O’Reilly here, but it seemed that would be the fastest way to discover what the monument had to say.
JR suggested that they wait and ask el-Amin to take a look at it before calling for Sinclair’s presence. After all, it would be most embarrassing if all the stele said was ‘You are here.’ Summers reluctantly agreed, and they went back to the spot where Summers had abandoned his walkie-talkie, a prosaic device that nevertheless was of great use inside the valley. El-Amin said that it would take him and Dasgupta about two hours to reach them from their current location, another delay that almost made Summers tear at his hair. When they arrived, el-Amin examined the stele with disdain.
“This is not Arabic,” he announced.
Gathering all his patience, Summers explained that they were aware it wasn’t Arabic, but that the 10th Cycle language had turned out to be very similar to ancient Sumerian, so he thought this script might be familiar enough to guess at. El-Amin made a sound of disgust and left, followed by Dasgupta, who had become his shadow. Nyree didn’t care for the way el-Amin disrespected her, but she did admire his focus on his field of study, which mirrored her own focus. They had become partners of a sort, although their different cultural biases could never allow them to be friends.
JR now conceded that there was nothing to do but call in Sinclair. Meanwhile, Summers requested that the crew working in the grid that contained the stele focus on completely uncovering it, so that when Sinclair arrived, nothing would hinder his translation of the entire monument. They tried to take pictures of it to email to the foundation, but the uniform light in the valley made it difficult to pick out the carved symbols in a two-dimensional representation. There wasn’t enough contrast. Nevertheless, they sent what they got to Sinclair, hoping he could get a head start.
Chapter 10 - That isn’t Arabic, it’s Aramaic!
The call from Daniel came shortly after dinner. Sinclair and Martha were relaxing with a second glass of wine each when the jarring notes of the phone made them both jump. Sinclair got up to answer the call.
“No, just relaxing, no worries,” he said, with Martha listening curiously to try to pick up who was calling and what it was all about.
“How fast? How quickly can you book a flight?” Martha sat up straighter at that and tried to catch Sinclair’s eye. When he glanced at her, she mouthed ‘where are you going?’ “Antarctica,” he said aloud.
“I’m coming with you,” she said.
“Daniel, hold on, I’m having two conversations at once. Let me deal with my bride.”
To Martha, he said, “Dearest, you can’t come to Antarctica. It’s cold, and dangerous, and this is work.”
Sinclair and Martha had married quietly, with only Daniel and Sarah as their witnesses and a few close friends, shortly after the drama of the previous March. Martha was in Boulder for the memorial service held for the members of the first expedition to Antarctica who were at the time missing and presumed dead. When the news came that six of them were alive, including young JR Rossler, the memorial service turned into a celebration except for one family, who didn’t receive the same good news. In the aftermath, Sinclair escorted Martha home to Providence, RI, to pack up her things and move her to Boulder. The small wedding took place shortly thereafter, followed by a reception dinner with Sarah’s family, Nick and Bess Rossler, Raj and his wife and of course Daniel and Sarah.
However, plans for another expedition immediately went into high gear, and Sinclair had, with Martha’s understanding, asked if they could delay their honeymoon until work settled down. She was looking forward to a couple of weeks in Cancun or somewhere now that the expedition was well under way. She hadn’t counted on Sinclair joining it, despite his telling her that he had volunteered.
As Sinclair finished his conversation with Daniel, which included a description of why his presence was requested, Martha thought fast. Why shouldn’t she go with him? She’d heard that the valley was a tropical paradise. She was as healthy as he, and he’d told her of his argument with Summers that people were now offering pleasure tours in Antarctica during its summer. When he hung up, her mind was made up. And when that happened, it wasn’t easy to budge her. Martha gave the impression of being a sweet, white-haired motherly type, though she had no children of her own. But under the soft, attractive exterior was a will of steel.
Once he was off the phone, Martha began ticking off her answers on the fingers of one hand, speaking firmly.
“Four reasons why I am going with you my dear. First, if it’s cold, you’ll need me there to keep you warm. Second, if it’s dangerous, I need to be there to protect you. Third, you know you can’t relax from work if I’m not with you to take your mind off it, and fourth and most important, you owe me a honeymoon, you old coot. Either
I’m going, or you’re not going,” she finished.
“Dearest,” Sinclair began. She held up her hand, palm toward him.
“Talk to the hand. I meant what I said.”
“But, they need me there. They’ve found a monument with script on it.”
“Then go. But I’m going with you, and that’s final.” Not for the first time, Sinclair wondered what bus had hit him when he met the redoubtable Martha Simms. Long widowed, he wasn’t prepared to fall in love again at his age, but fall he had, and hard. He could deny her nothing.
“Yes, dearest. Can you be ready to leave tomorrow?”
“We’d better get packing,” she said, all sweetness now that she had her way.
~~~
In what seemed like both no time and forever, Sinclair found himself face to face with the stele, presumably left by the 9th Cycle society that had inhabited this valley. No time because he could barely remember the whirlwind of activity that culminated in the two-day trip to Antarctica. He and Martha had barely time to pack a few necessities before the limo deposited them at DIA, from whence they embarked on an ultra-long-haul flight direct to Australia with only a refueling stop in Hawaii. From Australia, they’d hopped to Christchurch, thence to McMurdo and finally helicoptered to what the expedition members were calling Purgatory Canyon. The first night they were there, Sinclair felt as if he had walked the entire way, as he and Martha paced the aisles of the aircraft to avoid getting blood clots from sitting so long. The sense of forever came from the deja vu. Staring at the stele, he was thrown back to the time when the final key had unlocked the 10th Cycle syllabary for the first time.
This script on the surface looked more like Arabic than the other. However, none of the work crew, who spoke a variety of dialects of the language but all read Modern Standard Arabic, had been able to read it, so he knew that the resemblance was superficial. Still, with the clues and techniques that cracking the 10th Cycle code had provided him, he thought he could read this one with only a little study and experimentation. Because of the simplicity of the final clue that had to do with the direction of the script, Sinclair first began by attempting to make sense of the individual elements as if they were written from left to right, opposite the direction that modern Arabic used.
