Atlantis Endgame Part 3

He tumbled out of his hammock and ran up the short ladder to find Eveleen, Ashe, and Linnea gathered under the awning, eating some bread from the stores Stavros and Konstantin had stashed below. Stavros worked as helmsman with a great paddled tiller; Konstantin tended the sail.

The air was hot, still, and hazy with faint smoke. It made the brightness into a fierce glare. Ross squinted against the fierce light, shading his hand against the splashes of fiery sun on the harbor waters.

They had reached Akrotiri, he realized. They were in the midst of what seemed to be hundreds of craft, all more or less like theirs: high of prow, low aft, narrow, and built for speed over relatively mild waters. The main characteristic of one set of boats was the single square sail on a mast. Some of those sails were made of what looked like rough-woven linen, others of matting; the masts varied from single pieces rough-cawed from trees to poles lashed together. These little boats would never last an hour in an Atlantic storm, but they were fast to make and easy to sail in the Mediterranean and Aegean waters.

Most of those with the masts were hauling their wind, drifting southward and away.

Eveleen gasped. "Have we arrived just at the departure of the fleet?" she murmured, staring.

Ross heard Linnea respond in a low voice, "Departure of a a fleet, perhaps. I do not believe the entire island vacated overnight." fleet, perhaps. I do not believe the entire island vacated overnight."

The other boats, the ones remaining in the harbor, were an astonis.h.i.+ng variety. Some were long and narrow, with twenty and more rowers on each side. A few were so low that the rowers sat, visible, working with the sun broiling their dark heads and bronzed necks. Others had the galley slaves hidden below, in decks probably hot and noisome but at least out of the sun.

Most of the craft had no sails; they were local transportation. And a great many of them were spectacularly painted along the sides, with figures of birds, dolphins, even lions, and the awnings above the pa.s.sengers were decorated with crocuses and lilies.

At first no one from these bravely decorated boats gave their own plain, modest craft a second glance.

The crowd of voices resolved into individuals. Ross, listening closely, was somewhat relieved to hear a mix of languages: there was Ancient Egyptian and Ancient Greek as well as one that was incomprehensible. People seemed to switch back and forth between tongues, calling greetings, complaining about the heat, demanding s.p.a.ce to unload goods, starting in on trade negotiations. Requesting news of friends and relations since the "rock rain." Exchanging gossip. Human relations, in short, exactly like those of their unknown descendants thousands of years up the time-line.

"Rock rain," Linnea Edel repeated, staring out intently. Ross watched the woman continually turning her head, scanning, listening, and figured she probably would give an arm or a leg for a tape recorder, if not a video cam.

Rock rain: one of the falls of pumice that the scientists had talked about, resulting from a preliminary eruption. Ross felt a pang of trepidation inside. The science brains had guessed pretty close, then.

Eveleen sat on the railing, earrings swinging, as she watched a low-lying fis.h.i.+ng smack ease up to the beach. No one looked her way as she observed the crew splash overboard, anchoring the s.h.i.+p with net-bound rocks on either side and then beginning unloading.

Ross looked about. The crew of the fis.h.i.+ng boat seemed to be mostly comprised of men, but not completely. Lithe young girls in their teens and maybe a bit older scrambled about in some of the fis.h.i.+ng boats, obviously experienced at their work.

"Yah!" An insistent shout, followed by a quick stream of words, brought all their attention around.

Eveleen exchanged looks with Linnea Edel, who leaned forward, as if to take notes.

d.a.m.n it anyway, were they already to be exposed?

Ross turned, to see a man about his own age standing with one foot propped on the side of his boat, calling through cupped hands. An official of some sort, something they couldn't plan for?

But before Ross could say anything, the man switched to Ancient Egyptian of his own accord, and cried, "You there. What arc you carrying?" His accent was strange, not at all like that of Jonathan and his team. Slurry, too quick. But Ross had encountered that syndrome before: language was always slower and more tentative in the lab. Here, it was real, living communication.

He mentally framed his response, then said: "Marble and a few other items."

"Then why are you here, where the foods are landed and brought to market?"

"It is our first journey to Kalliste."

"Ah. I thought you were Kemtiu." Kemtiu Kemtiu-the word the Egyptians used for themselves.

"Yes."

"There is always place for Kemtiu," the man called, and he bent down to talk to someone below his deck, and then straightened up. "And marble. Just as long as you bear no fruits."

So this man was just nosing out the compet.i.tion.

"Our only food is for here," Ross said, striking his stomach.

The man laughed, and Ross laughed with him, then said, "Where is the best warehouse for us to unload our goods?"

"You'll want to sail down to that warehouse there with the dolphins painted on the side. We only have two left standing. Temo here is cousin to the owner and says he is honest enough, and speaks Kemt."

"We shall do so. Thank you, and may the G.o.ds smile on you."

"And on you." The two boats parted.

The setup made sense: perishables would be unloaded closest to Akrotiri and the market. Other things could be brought by cart.

Stav and Kosta expertly turned the boat, angling parallel to the coast. They made their way through the tangle of craft, sailing parallel to the sh.o.r.e.

Ross and the others studied the buildings dotting the mountainside. And it was a mountain, too, he realized, squinting against the bright haze. Present-day Thera had high cliffs, but here those cliffs were a small part of a sizable mountain, the top of which was obscured in a grayish-brown cloud of smoke. Much of the lower slopes looked adrift with something resembling dirty snow.

"Looks quite threatening, doesn't it?" Linnea Edel murmured, staring up.

"But no one else seems to notice." Eveleen replied.

"It's business as usual for these particular Kallistans," Ashe said. "And so should it be for us as well," he added with meaning.

The rest took the hint, and began to busy themselves about the little s.h.i.+p as Stavros and Konstantin, at yard and tiller, respectively, angled the boat toward a bare patch of beach near great buildings with tiled roofs. One had sun-faded dolphins painted on one wall. Konstantin lowered the sail and vanished below, and then the two men let out the heavy anchors with a splash.

The water was quite shallow, but so were the boats. Ross jumped overboard, turning to extend a hand to Linnea. They waited for the slight surge of water to diminish, and then she jumped in, her hem getting wet. The water was warm, though, Ross noted as they waded ash.o.r.e.

For a time they all remained busy, as Stav and Kosta negotiated with the warehouse owner for s.p.a.ce, and then hired harbor laborers to unload the pieces of pink and salmon and golden marble that the science techs back home had determined would be appropriate trade items from Egypt. They also unloaded the linen bolts that the women would use as trade samples in order to talk to any local merchants they might find.

Then they all oriented themselves, rioting where the boat was anch.o.r.ed with reference to the harbor. If necessary they had radio contact, but they wanted to use it as little as possible. The Kallistans would never notice, but what was sent out via EM might be intercepted by other high-tech listeners-like the Baldies.

Ashe was the last to step onto the pumice-spattered white sands. He opened his mouth to speak, but then paused, his brow puckered.

Ross realized the ground was still undulating beneath his feet. An effect of just getting off the water?

Before his mind could frame the question, other sensory details sparked his sense of danger: an explosion of swallows skyrocketing upward, scolding; the rumble of stone grating in walls and buildings of the city just half a mile away.

Earthquake!

The Time Agents all looked up, hands out. Ross realized he was safest right where he was, out in the open. Somewhere in the harbor city, just right of the great gates next to which sacred horns trembled, a sudden white cloud of dust shot upward: either a wall, or a building, had collapsed.

But the city did not change. Far too many of the great buildings, some three stories, had already fallen some time ago. The people who had not evacuated the city appeared to have moved into the smaller buildings, patching them in makes.h.i.+ft ways and carrying on with business as usual. The only damage that the Time Agents could see was bits of carvings falling to the streets below and smas.h.i.+ng a row of hanging plants that had been set along a roof edge.

Before anyone could speak, the quake's rolling diminished to a s.h.i.+ver and then stopped.

Ross met Eveleen's eyes. She glanced toward the city, and he knew what she was thinking: their first task lay there, in those narrow streets, under stone buildings.

Linnea Edel had turned her eyes upward toward the portion of the volcano visible here. She licked her lips, then said, "I guess I'd better get busy looking for signs of nasty bald bad guys. The first order of business would be the local gossip center: AKA the oracle." She spoke in English, but no one corrected her.

Ashe only extended a hand, and the two started toward the steep trail zigzagging up the great mountain around the back of the city. city.

Ross extended a hand, using the same gesture, and Eveleen smiled at his irony. She unpacked one of the sample bolts of the linen that would be her entry to talk to people in the market.

Together they started up the sh.o.r.e toward the city, to begin investigating there. As he walked, Ross wondered who was the greater enemy, the Baldies or Nature.

CHAPTER 6.

AS ALWAYS, THE Time Agents were to interact on a personal level as little as possible. Gordon Ashe had kept himself alive by learning to blend in, and to keep his own counsel. His partners, on most runs, had been men; in most parts of die world during prehistory, women had not had the freedom of movement that the Time Agents required.

Of course there were female agents as well, and they'd been successfully deployed in places where they were needed. All those women, like Eveleen, had gone through training, and they, too, had learned to blend in, and to keep their own counsel.

So he watched, uncomfortable, when Linnea held out a hand to stop an older woman. She gestured, then said the ancient Hitt.i.te word that Jonathan's team had decided meant "oracle."

The older woman shook her head, looking puzzled. So Linnea repeated the word, only in Ancient Greek.

The woman's face cleared, and she let out a voluble stream, her hands swooping up the path behind her and gesturing to indicate what Ashe thought meant a cave.

"Please! More slow," Linnea said.

"We have only the one oracle who speaks to us from the Earth G.o.ddess, through the Priestesses of the Serpent," the woman replied, enunciating very clearly and slowly. 'Where are you from?"

"I come with traders, from Kemt." She gave the correct form for "the Black Land," the Nile Valley, which Egyptians differentiated from "the Red Land," the desert.

"Ah! Well, then. That explains it." The woman adjusted her robe, and wiped her forehead. "I have heard that you have many great oracles over the sea. Well, but here we have the one, and even the islanders come to our mountain to consult." She pointed up the steep cliffs behind Akrotiri.

"Has the oracle told people to go away from the island?" Linnea asked in a careful voice.

"Our G.o.ddess foretold the battle of the Great Snakes the season my daughter bore her first son, and many have gone to the far islands, including my daughter." The woman opened her hands, an age-old gesture of acceptance. "Me? It is my home here, for too many seasons to change, just because the earth spirits cannot rest, and the snake clouds form. They are distant, not here in our city."

"Many thanks, and blessings." Linnea's language was correct, but her body language was self-conscious, unnatural, as if she were very much aware of playing a part-as if she felt silly.

Ashe was relieved when the woman smiled sympathetically, repeated in a slow voice her directions, and added a wish for blessings in a soft voice. Sympathy, not suspicion.

His relief was short-lived.

They started at once up the path. Linnea seemed to relax now that they were alone. So did Ashe, but when his old and admired friend looked around and smiled and made exclamations from time to time in English, at first Ashe did not know what to do.

They began trudging up the sharply angled path that zig-zagged up the side of the great mountain. Their going was slow, partly because it would not do to go jogging straight up the mountain in what was going to be a very hot, humid day, partly because just ahead of them on the trail was a woman leading a laden donkey, and also because Linnea kept stopping in order to gaze at the half-ruined city of Akrotiri, which spread grandly along the base of the mountain.

"Oh, to explore every building!" she murmured softly.

Ashe did not answer. He kept moving.

Linnea turned her head, saw him a ways along the trail, and bustled to catch up.

Again they walked in silence, Ashe from time to time glancing up the mountain. From this angle he could see at least one great vent, from which smoke rose in lazy curls to join the thick haze higher up. He was not sure if there were others within his view, or if what seemed to be smoke was just air currents moving what had already risen.

"Oh! Here comes someone," Linnea whispered-again in English.

Ashe said nothing. He increased his pace slightly, to narrow the gap between them and the woman with the donkey.

An older man escorting two young girls came round the trail, the girls' earrings and skirts swinging. The younger one was chattering, apparently not noticing the looks of concern on the older girl's and the man's faces.

As they neared the woman on the donkey, they pressed into single file.

The woman looked up at the sky, as if noting the time, then said-in Ancient Greek-what sounded like, "You are today's first seeker, no? Did the G.o.ddess speak?"

"Not in a way I understand," the man said slowly, sighing. "And the priestesses only shake their heads and repeat what I was told by the G.o.ddess: that a shadow flies across the sun, and another shadow flies beyond that, silencing the earth spirits. She can hear nothing."

The younger girl looked up at the bright blue sky sky with a fearful glance and then they pa.s.sed. with a fearful glance and then they pa.s.sed.

Ashe glanced once at Linnea. She had slipped behind him, her lips compressed, her eyes excited.

When the people were safely around the curve below, she murmured in a voice of delight, "Did you hear them? Just like that old lady. I understood! I comprehended! The accent we have learned for the Ancient Greek is not so very far off, no more than, say, BBC English is from a Texas accent." She smiled at Ashe, the old smile of discovery.

But mostly he was annoyed. So much so that he hesitated to speak.

Now the trail leveled out for a time, and even widened for what had to be a little rest stop under the shade of three scrabbled, pumice-dusted olive trees. Just behind them was a cracked basin, carved from the same lovely marblelike rock that most of the city was built of, with dolphins carved above it. They paused to look at it, saw the reddish marks of oxidation, realized it was there to catch runoff during the rainy season.

Ashe glanced down into the bottom of it, saw a wet layer of sediment mixed with the gray pebbly pumice they had seen everywhere else. It had rained, and fairly recently.

A shudder underfoot, and a low rumble, so low it was almost off the scale of human perception, startled them both. Tiny rocks came clattering down from above. One stung Ashe's cheek, and he saw Linnea bat at something and then turn her back.

The quake subsided, though the noise didn't. More people came down the trail, this time two older women.

And again the woman with the laden donkey said, "The G.o.ddess, did she speak to you?"

"Only of silence, a silence of shadows," one of the women said, and the other pursed her lips, looking out at the sea. "The same we have been hearing this three moons and past."

Twice more they encountered people coining down the trail, one of them riding a donkey, and with each the woman ahead asked her question, though with those she spoke a language that Ashe couldn't comprehend. But to her questions the people responded with headshakes and shrugs, age-old gestures.

Finally, just after the last one had vanished on the trail below, Linnea said-in English-"The 'oracle' seems to have nothing to say."

And Ashe said, in Ancient Greek, emulating the accent they had been hearing, "I do not understand you."

Linnea looked up with a brief smile that faded when she saw his expression. Her eyes narrowed, her expression now reflective.

She looked down at her sandals winking in and out below the hem of her bravely colored garment, and at last she said, in Greek this time, "I was wrong. It is not real to me."

To which Ashe replied, "It must become real. There is no record of a woman speaking a foreign tongue, surprising people with things that never have been."

Linnea's cheeks reddened. Again she ducked her head, and Ashe's irritation vanished. It wasn't as if she were the first to think of their guises as mere playacting.