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gaze, and smiled.
Suddenly Don regretted his silent objects. She wanted to be with him! Had she brought her pills? But he
couldn't say that. "How did your visit go? W-with the writer?"
"Oh, it was nothing, really. That's why I used it as an example. He'd come out with opinions that's
what writers do, you know and I'd be silent. You know."
"Yes." Good. He was still jealous of that writer, and wished the man ill. Yet he remained quite curious
about the event.
"I talked with his wife, too. And I played with his little girl. She was about four. She liked to climb. On
people. I thought he might invite me to stay to supper, but he didn't. He was locked up in his family. So I
took some pictures and went home. It was raining."
So the writer had been married, with a child. Don had visualized a lecherous bachelor. Now he felt
ashamed. "I see," he said, because he had to say something. A silence at this point could give him away.
"So that's what I mean," Melanie said. "Really, that writer was just another person, in person. I wouldn't
have known he had written those novels, just by meeting him. I can't say it was a disappointment. I
mean, people are what they are. But it wasn't exactly a revelation, either."
"So you think that if I traveled into the archaeological past, it might be like that," Don said musingly.
"Mundane. I wonder."
Melanie nodded. Then she rummaged in her pack and pulled out her wig. She put it on, working it
carefully into place and pressing it down so that it stayed. "You look strange," Don said.
"Thank you." Apparently she had made her point, and now was satisfied to resume the illusion. They
settled into sleep.
"I'm no historian or archaeologist," Eleph said as he walked his bicycle through the waist-deep silt of
what Don hoped was a temple storeroom. "But I seem to remember something about a unique Indian
tribe in North America, racially and linguistically distinct from the norm, with a legend of arrival from
the east. Do you suppose they could have ?"
"Oh, yes," Don said, sweeping his hand through the slight resistance of the mud. "I remember now. The
Yuchis. They wound up in Oklahoma, I think. From Georgia. But we can hardly rely on such scant
evidence as legends. We'd have to believe that some peoples descended from the sun, and others from
human miscegenation with animals."
"Well, the sun is the ultimate source of our life," Pacifa said. "A legend could reflect this. And man,
paleontologically, does derive from the animal."
"That's still a long way from making sense of our expedition," Don said, and they laughed.
Eleph had wandered into another chamber. "Don, would you check this? Possibly a blade."
Don got over there, wading through waist-deep stonework, and Melanie followed him. She still looked
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odd in her hair, as if it were a pointless affectation. There was no question now: he could take it or leave
it. It was Melanie herself he cared about.
There was a blade: large and curved. It tapered into a narrow stem, then expanded again. There was a
swelling in the middle. "That's a double axe!" Don exclaimed, hardly believing it. "A golden decorated
double axe!"
Eleph looked pleased. "That is significant, archaeologically?"
Don kept running his fingers through the hidden pattern, his arms elbow-deep in the visible muck. "It's
the labrys, the double axe of Minoan Crete. Our word labyrinth derives from it. It's one of the religious
symbols."
"So this is a Minoan city," Caspar said.
Don shook his head. "I told you, the first typical Minoan palace was built after 2000 B.C. This predates
it by two millennia."
"But that architectural ability had to come from somewhere," Caspar said. "It didn't slowly evolve on
Crete, you said."
"Yes, it seems to have emerged full-blown on Crete," Don agreed. "But two thousand years !"
"Perfectly mundane, I'm sure," Melanie murmured.
"Is this city really that old?" Eleph inquired. "Isn't this one of the fracture zones? It could have
subsided."
"Not really," Caspar said. "Continental drift seems to be occurring in six major plates and a few minor
ones, with the midoceanic ridges and trenches marking the fringes. The Puerto Rico and Cayman
trenches represent one such fringe, but it's relatively inactive now. That's several hundred miles from
here, anyway."
"But that's not far at all, geologically, is it?" Eleph persisted.
"Far enough." It was a matter of opinion, and Caspar was not about to give way. But Don recognized it
as a reasonable alternative: if subsidence rather than a rising ocean level had submerged this city, the
date of its demise could be much more recent. That made a great deal more sense, archaeologically.
Don and Eleph and Melanie spent some time searching the storeroom for more objects of gold, but
found only three small cups. Only? They were fabulous too. They were very thin, but had pictures on the
sides in high relief. Don licked his fingers repeatedly to make them tender, trying to pick up every detail
by touch. If only he were able to see! He was tempted to ask for Eleph's threads and balloons, to haul
this up out of the muck and into view. But he didn't want to disturb it; that could ruin its seeming
authenticity when a real archaeological crew came here.
The first cup had people marching in a procession around the sides. One figure seemed to be carrying a
lute, another a small calf, and the others unidentifiable objects. The second cup had the figure of a man
and a tree and some animals, perhaps cattle. The man seemed to be holding one of the cattle by a rope
tied to its back leg.
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But it was the third cup that astonished Don. It had two men performing acrobatics with bulls. Could
Don's imagination be leading his fingers?
"Melanie, I want you to feel this," he said. He guided her hand to the hidden cup. "Can you make out the
embossed picture?"
She concentrated. "One animal, a cow no, bull. A man being thrown from its back. Another man
holding on to the bull's horns. Something like that."
Confirmation! Their readings of the illustrations on the cups could be grossly mistaken, but even so,
they represented stronger evidence of the city's association with the Minoan culture. The ancient traders
of Crete, or of the culture preceding it, had crossed the Atlantic!
CHAPTER 9 GLOWCLOUD
Proxy 5-12-5-16-8: Attention.
Acknowledging.
Status?
The group has encountered the evidence of the lost city, and begun to appreciate its nature. This has
taken the members a significant step toward melding, though they are not aware of it.
What evidence is there for this?
They elected to delay two days to provide time to explore it, though this exploration benefits only one of
their specialties. They worked together in harmony, making discoveries cooperatively and discussing
them. And they are starting to care for each other on a personal basis. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]