The Last Odyssey (Sigma Force #15) - James Rollins Page 0,10
had a vague oily smell, like mineral spirits or gasoline. To either side, giant earthenware jars stood shoulder-high, lining the curve of the walls. One had shattered long ago, looking as if it had exploded from the inside. She caught a stronger whiff of wet asphalt as she passed it, but any evaluation of the contents would have to wait.
Clearly her guide had a goal in mind.
Mac led them toward the boat’s bow, where steps led up to a door in a wooden wall. “We guessed this was the captain’s quarters.”
He climbed and entered first, bowing low to pass through. Once inside, he stepped aside and offered his hand to help her up. She took it, already feeling weak-kneed by the breathless excitement of it all. Along with a measure of terror.
She joined Mac in the windowless quarters. Shelves lined either side, where books and scrolls had long decayed into moldering ruins. A desk filled the forward part of the tiny cabin, abutting the arch of the ship’s wooden prow.
“Might want to brace yourself for this,” Mac warned.
He shifted his large bulk so she would approach the desk. She took a step forward, then back again. A chair stood before the desk. But it was not empty. A figure sat there, nestled in a fur cloak made from the hide of a polar bear. His upper body lay collapsed across the desktop, his cheek resting against the surface.
She took a deep steadying breath. She had examined mummies during her time in Egypt, even dissected a few. But the body here was far more disturbing. The skin had turned to blackened leather, nearly the same hue as the ancient desktop. It looked as if body and desk were one. Yet, at the same time, the body appeared perfectly preserved, down to the eyelashes framing the white globes. She almost expected him to blink.
“It seems the captain went down with the ship,” Nelson said distractedly, his focus on his handheld device.
“Maybe he wanted to protect this.” Mac shifted his beam to follow the corpse’s arms draped atop the desk. Skeletal hands framed a large square metal box, easily two feet wide on each side and half a foot thick. Its surface was stained as black as everything else and looked to be hinged on the far side.
“What is it?” Elena drew alongside Mac, taking some comfort from the solidness of his presence.
“You tell me.”
He reached across the body and lifted the lid. Light blazed forth from within—but as she blinked away the glare, she realized the brightness was only the flashlight’s beam reflecting off the golden inner surface.
Shocked at what was revealed, she leaned closer. “It’s a map.” She studied the three-dimensional rendering of seas and oceans, of continents and islands. She traced the main body of water in the center, which was rendered in priceless blue lapis lazuli. “That has to be the Mediterranean.”
The revealed map encompassed not only the breadth of the sea but all of Northern Africa, the Middle East, and the full measure of the European continent and surrounding oceans. The map extended out into the Atlantic, but not as far as Iceland or Greenland.
These sailors traveled beyond the edge of their map.
But why? Were they explorers searching for new lands? Had they been blown off course? Were they fleeing a threat? A hundred other questions filled her head.
At the top of the gold map, an elaborate silver device was imbedded there. It was spherical, six inches in diameter, half buried in the gold map. Its surface was divided by curved clockwork arms and encircled by longitudinal and latitudinal bands, all inscribed with Arabic symbols and numbers.
“What is it?” Mac asked, having noted her attention.
“It’s an astrolabe. A device used by navigators and astronomers to help determine both a ship’s time and position, even identify stars and planets.” She glanced back to Mac. “Most of the earliest astrolabes were simple in design, just flat discs. This spherical design . . . it’s centuries ahead of its time.”
“And that’s not all,” Mac said. “Watch this.”
He reached to where the dead captain’s hand rested near the flank of the box. He flicked a lever there, and a ticking arose from inside. The astrolabe began to slowly turn on its own, driven by a hidden mechanism. Movement drew her eyes to the gemstone rendering of the Mediterranean. A tiny silver ship began to glide away from what was modern-day Turkey and across the blue sea.