Temple of the Gods

  ‘Oh.’ His shoulders slumped. ‘I feel like a bit of an arse now.’

  She smiled and briefly kissed him. ‘I’ll let you feel the whole of one when we go to bed. But no, I don’t trust Warden or this Group of his any more than you do.’

  ‘So you wanted to buy more time, okay. But for what? Warden’s going to want an answer pretty soon – and there’s still Glas to worry about.’

  Nina paced across the room. ‘We need to find out the truth about the statues – and, more important, the meteorite. What it can really do, how it does it – and how dangerous it might be. Not second-hand, like the Kallikrates text, or whatever Warden says about it. I’m sure Glas would have his own opinion too. No, we need to go to the source.’

  ‘Where’s that?’ Eddie asked.

  She stopped and faced him. ‘Atlantis.’

  22

  The Gulf of Cadiz

  The North Atlantic in November is an inhospitable place. Even though the weather on this day was not particularly bad, there was still enough of a swell to cause the research vessel Gant to pitch unsettlingly beneath the wet-slate sky. The helicopter’s landing on the pad at the ship’s stern was bumpy, to say the least.

  ‘Welcome aboard!’ called Matt Trulli, waving as Nina and Eddie hurried through the drizzle to meet him. ‘Great to see you both. Been up to anything exciting?’

  ‘You could say that,’ Nina replied with a pained smile. ‘You know, the usual.’

  ‘Ah, right,’ Matt said knowingly. ‘So what got destroyed this time?’

  Eddie started to count items on his fingers. ‘A skyscraper, a helicopter, a secret US base . . .’

  ‘Jesus, mate, I was kidding!’ He shook Eddie’s hand firmly. ‘Seriously, though, I’m glad to see you again. I knew you were innocent.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Eddie, smiling. ‘Would be nice if that were the end of it, but nope, we’ve still got problems.’

  ‘Which is why we’re here,’ said Nina. ‘Can we go inside?’

  ‘Sure.’ Matt brought them through a hatch into the ship’s interior, then headed down a passage. ‘Should warn you, Hayter’s about as happy as you’d expect that you were coming.’

  ‘How’s progress been on the excavations?’

  ‘Pretty good, I’d say. He can give you the details, but the biggest problem’s been that there’s a fairly huge piece of wreckage from the Evenor right on top of where you want to look. Too big to lift, even for Sharkdozer; we’ve had to cut it up. Most of it’s been moved now, though.’

  ‘Good. I saw when we came in to land that the subs are on the ship – why aren’t they working?’

  The Australian grinned. ‘’Cause I knew you were coming! Figured you’d want to work the arses off them, so I brought them back up top to recharge.’

  ‘You know me so well,’ Nina replied with a grin of her own.

  They went into a large compartment overlooking the foredeck, where the archaeological expedition’s two submersibles were suspended from their cranes. Waiting for them was Lewis Hayter. As Matt had implied, his thin face was not exactly brimming with joy at his boss’s arrival. ‘Oh, Nina,’ he said sullenly. ‘You’re here.’

  She decided to try to make the best of the situation. ‘Hello, Lewis. I caught up with the daily reports on the flight over – it looks like you’ve made excellent progress. Thank you.’

  He nodded, a little wrong-footed by the praise. ‘We’re doing the best we can. It’s cutting things fine, though – even if the weather holds, the Gant will still have to return to port in five days at the most. I don’t think we’ll be able to do any further work until the spring.’

  ‘Think of it as a positive,’ she said. ‘It means you definitely will be back in the spring! The entire excavation can be extended, and you’ll still be in charge. If that’s what you want, of course . . .’

  It was a transparent attempt at manipulation, and they both knew it, but Hayter had little choice except to go along with it. ‘I think that would tie in with my plans,’ he said eventually.

  ‘Great. So, what’s the situation with the Temple of Poseidon?’

  Hayter, with occasional interjections from Matt, gave a report on the state of the dig that Nina had ordered. With both submersibles, the heavy-duty underwater excavation machine Sharkdozer II and the more exploratory-purposed but still capable Gypsy, working to clear the rubble from the altar room, progress had been relatively swift – by archaeological standards. ‘If you just wanted the stones moved, we could have done it in half the time, but you lot get so shirty about breaking the stuff underneath them,’ said Matt jokingly, making Eddie laugh and temporarily uniting both archaeologists in humourless disapproval.

  ‘What about any finds?’ Nina asked Hayter.

  ‘We uncovered more of the texts on the walls,’ he told her, bringing up a collection of images on a laptop. ‘Still nothing from the very end of the chronology, but we must be close now. The new translation software has given us a fairly good idea of what it all says; the team back at the IHA are working out the subtleties.’

  ‘Nothing new about the statues?’

  ‘Not so far. Nantalas was mentioned once, but only in reference to what we’d already found – her so-called visions. She was trying to persuade the king to let her use the sky stone’s powers for war again.’

  ‘She’s a nice lass, this Nantalas,’ said Eddie.

  ‘How close are we to the last section of text?’ Nina asked. ‘Eddie, you saw it in person when we first discovered the place; can you remember exactly where it was?’

  ‘Show me that computer graphic thing,’ he told Hayter, who brought up a program on the laptop. The numerous photographs taken in the ruins had been mapped on to the walls of a 3D model of the altar room, producing a patchwork wallpaper effect that could be viewed from any angle. ‘That’s the shaft that we first came though?’ He indicated a particular feature, and Hayter nodded. ‘Okay, I remember that there was a pillar about there,’ he pointed at another part of the virtual chamber, ‘so the writing ended . . . somewhere round here.’

  The closest photograph was just a few feet from the spot. Matt compared the graphic to a wider shot taken inside the actual room. ‘We’re pretty near. Once we shift that last piece of wreckage, we should be able to clear these stones in . . . I dunno, not long. A few hours.’

  ‘And how long to move the wreckage?’ Nina asked.

  ‘It’ll be a bit of a long stint, but I reckon we could do it all in a single dive.’

  ‘How quickly can you have the sub ready?’

  ‘It’s already prepped – we still have to go through the safety checks and lower it into the water, but about an hour.’

  ‘Great! Let’s get going, then.’

  ‘Might have known you’d be in a rush! No worries – we’ll have pictures for you before the day’s out.’

  ‘I don’t just want pictures,’ she replied. ‘I want to see it for myself. I’m going with you.’

  Hayter looked startled at the suggestion, Matt less so. ‘You want to come along?’ the archaeologist asked. ‘In the subs?’

  ‘No, I thought I’d put on goggles and flippers and use a very long snorkel. Yes, in the subs.’

  ‘Sarcasm isn’t really necessary,’ he said sourly. ‘It’s just that Gypsy only has room for two people in addition to the pilot. As expedition leader I’ll be one of them, and I’ll need Lydia in support, as she knows the site first-hand.’

  ‘Not a problem,’ said Nina. ‘Eddie and I can go in Matt’s sub.’

  ‘We can, can we?’ Eddie grumbled.

  ‘Oh, you knew it was going to happen. You got to go down to the Temple of Poseidon last time – there’s no way I’m going to miss the chance now. Anyway, Sharkdozer has room for three people, doesn’t it, Matt?’

  ‘Four if you don’t mind being up in each other’s armpits,’ the Australian told her jovially.

  ‘We’ll keep it to three, then. The only person who should put up with Eddie’s armpits is
his wife. And even then . . .’

  ‘Oi!’ protested her husband.

  Hayter was still displeased with the prospect. ‘Are you sure this is a good idea, Nina?’

  ‘This won’t be my first time underwater, Lewis. And if you’re worried about having your boss looking over your shoulder, don’t be. Until we uncover the last of the Atlantean text I’ll only be there as an observer, and even then it’s still your dig.’

  That mollified him, however slightly. ‘Well, I suppose that if Matt’s happy to have you as passengers . . .’

  Matt shrugged. ‘No problem for me.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Nina. She got to her feet. ‘In that case, let’s go and find out the fate of Atlantis.’

  It took more than the predicted hour, the safety procedures being slowed by the Gant’s wallowing, but eventually both submersibles were descending towards the ruins of Atlantis.

  Even though she knew there would be nothing to see until they reached the ocean floor eight hundred feet below, Nina nevertheless leaned round Matt in the central pilot’s position to watch their descent through the large acrylic bubble window. The light from the surface faded surprisingly quickly, the cold blue of the ocean outside becoming darker and more ominous before ultimately turning to darkness.

  Matt switched on the sub’s spotlights. Nina experienced an oddly vertiginous feeling; the intense beams picked out particles in the water as the submersible dropped past them, the effect making it seem as though they were plunging like a falling elevator.

  But she knew they were perfectly safe. Nothing might be visible through the viewport, but Matt’s sub was equipped with a LIDAR laser scanning system that swept the ocean around them far beyond the range of the human eye. The engineer had used similar systems in his previous craft, but this went a step further by covering a full three hundred and sixty degrees. Sharkdozer II was an odd-looking vessel: its main hull was a fairly standard cigar shape, but protruding from each side like the steroidal limbs of a bodybuilder were huge mechanical arms, almost comically out of proportion to the rest of the sub. Making them even stranger were the tool-equipped secondary arms sprouting from behind their wrists, designed for more delicate work than the brute-force claws of their parents. The whole submersible was mounted upon four helicopter-like skids, each of which could be independently adjusted hydraulically to give it as much lifting leverage as possible against the ocean floor. The LIDAR scanner, allied with the cameras on each of the four ‘hands’, meant the arms could be operated even if they were out of direct sight of a viewport.

  The only thing currently on the LIDAR display was the expedition’s other sub. Gypsy was some thirty metres to their right, the spears of its own spotlights visible through a small secondary porthole. It was a much more conventional vessel, equipped with a single, far smaller manipulator arm and numerous camera mounts and sample racks. Hayter’s voice crackled over the radio. ‘Passing three hundred feet, confirm.’

  ‘Confirm,’ Matt replied. Radio communications were possible underwater, but only at very limited ranges, and the message was already distorted.

  Eddie examined the controls for the arms. Rather than being simple joysticks, they were also able to bend and twist. ‘How much can these things lift?’

  ‘If the sub’s properly braced on the seabed, up to three metric tons,’ Matt told him. ‘If I’m free-floating and holding it on the thrusters, about half that.’ He activated the autopilot to hold Sharkdozer on its descent and took one of the arm controls. ‘Here, check this out.’

  The submersible tipped slightly on its port side as he moved the left stick to swing the corresponding arm outwards. A turn and twist, and its claw came into view through the forward viewport, steel glinting in the spotlights. He worked a smaller videogame-like thumbstick. ‘Wave hello to Nina and Eddie!’ The claw obediently waggled up and down.

  ‘Cute,’ said Nina.

  ‘Wait till you see this.’ A flick of a switch, and he worked the smaller control again. The secondary arm unfolded and reached out to tap gently on the thick bubble with a rubber-tipped ‘finger’. A computer graphic superimposed over the LIDAR display showed exactly where both arms were positioned relative to the sub. ‘That’s some real precision engineering there. I could sign my name at a thousand feet down with that.’

  ‘I think it’d ruin your pen, though,’ said Eddie. The Australian grinned and returned the arms to their original places.

  ‘Typical guys,’ Nina scoffed. ‘We’re on our way to one of the most important archaeological sites in the world, and all you care about are your big boys’ toys.’

  Matt laughed, then took back the main controls. Both submersibles continued their long fall into the cold, dark void.

  After some time, an electronic chirp from the instruments told the trio that something had changed. ‘What is it?’ Nina asked. ‘Are we there?’

  ‘Nearly,’ said Matt. ‘Look at that.’

  He pointed at the LIDAR display. Something had appeared at the bottom of the screen, a tangled, twisted mass that at first glance resembled some sort of seaweed. But it was no plant. A grid overlaid on the image showed the scale: it was hundreds of feet across, and growing larger as the sub’s descent brought more of it into LIDAR range. ‘What is it? It can’t be the wreck of the Evenor, it’s too big.’

  ‘No, but it is a wreck, though,’ Matt told her. ‘It’s the SBX.’

  Nina felt a chill at the realisation that she was looking at a mass grave. Before Atlantis’s existence had been officially revealed to the world, the IHA had been secretly exploring the ruins under the cover of SBX-2, a giant American floating radar platform ostensibly deployed to monitor the threat of missiles being fired into Europe from North Africa. It had been sabotaged and sunk, with the loss of over seventy lives. The mangled state of the wreckage meant that some of the bodies had still not been recovered.

  ‘Jesus, look at that,’ Eddie said quietly as more of the sunken station was revealed. SBX-2 had capsized, landing on the sea floor with its six great pontoon supports sticking up like the legs of a dead insect. The superstructure had been crushed beneath them by their weight, girders jabbing outwards from the rusting ruins.

  ‘We’re about four hundred metres from the main dig site,’ Matt announced solemnly, making a course adjustment. The ghostly wreckage on the display slowly disappeared behind them. It was replaced by the contours of the seabed as Sharkdozer neared the end of its journey.

  Other shapes appeared, not the smooth curves of current-swept silt but the angular outlines of human constructions, standing out where the sediment of millennia had been cleared from around them. Nina couldn’t help but draw in an astounded breath.

  Atlantis.

  She had discovered its location, overseen its exploration by the IHA. But this was the first time she had ever visited the ruins in person. She leaned forward again, shoulder to shoulder with Matt. ‘How long before we can see it for real?’ she asked, excited.

  ‘A little room, please?’ the Australian asked, nudging her with his elbow as he tweaked the controls. She reluctantly retreated – about three inches. ‘Give us thirty seconds, and the first thing we’ll see will be the Temple of the Gods.’ He pointed it out on the LIDAR screen. ‘Then after that, we’ll be at the Temple of Poseidon.’

  The wait was almost intolerable. Nina moved forward again, not even another nudge from Matt sufficient to move her back. She stared intently into the darkness outside. Then . . .

  ‘There!’ she cried. ‘There it is!’

  Her first true sight of the ruins of Atlantis hazed into view through the murk. It didn’t appear particularly impressive, just the collapsed remains of a building – but to her it was utterly breathtaking. A civilisation lost for eleven thousand years, discovered through the work and dedication of first her parents and then herself . . . and now she was finally seeing it first-hand. ‘Oh, my God. That is incredible . . .’ She felt as though she were about to cry.

  Eddie puncture
d her bubble. ‘Great. We’ve come to the bottom of the Atlantic to look at a building site.’

  ‘Shut. Up!’

  They approached what was left of the Temple of the Gods. Compared to some of the other majestic structures the expedition had unearthed it was not particularly big, an oval perhaps seventy feet across at its longest. Large sections of its walls had toppled outwards, giving the impression that it had exploded from within.

  ‘So that’s where they kept this sky stone?’ Eddie asked.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Nina. ‘It’s quite an unusual place, actually. Atlantean temples are usually devoted to a single god, but this was dedicated to . . . well, dozens of them, as far as we can tell. Although now that we know about the sky stone from the rest of the Kallikrates text, there might be an explanation. Nantalas said that it contained the power of the gods – plural. So the Atlanteans made sure to honour them all.’

  ‘If they knew there was something special about the meteor, enough for ’em to build a temple to put it in, why didn’t they use its power right away?’

  Nina looked out at the broken building as they glided past. ‘There could be any number of reasons. They might have been afraid of it; the text said that some of the royal court were opposed to using its power. Or maybe they didn’t originally have all three statues – or anyone who could use them. It was obviously a big thing for Nantalas to be able to channel earth energy, so it could have been as rare an ability then as it is now, even amongst Atlanteans.’

  ‘Maybe you’re her great-great-great-great-et cetera grand-daughter,’ Eddie suggested.

  Nina treated the jokey comment with more seriousness. ‘Maybe. I’m descended from someone from Atlantis, so who knows?’

  The collapsed temple disappeared from view. Beyond it, something far larger came into sight.

  The Temple of Poseidon.

  Even after the destruction wrought upon it by the impact of the sunken Evenor, it was still an imposing structure. The submersible was approaching its northern end, where Eddie had first entered the temple five years earlier. An enormous wall of dark stone rose out of the sediment, stepped in tiers like a ziggurat near its base before curving smoothly inwards to form a great arched roof.