coming,” said Dr. Lewis Hayter with barely restrained sarcasm as Nina took her seat. “So, if we’re all ready?”
“Go ahead,” said Nina. “Anything to do with these excavations always gets my full attention. Once I’ve dealt with my other IHA responsibilities,” she added, a little poke to remind the thin-faced archaeologist that she was his boss. “So, you’ve found something exciting?”
“We’ve found something very exciting.” Hayter picked up a remote control and switched on a projector. A screen displayed a map of a number of buildings. Even in simplified cartographic form it was clear that they were ruins, the illustration showing where parts of the structures had collapsed and strewn debris nearby.
These were no ordinary ruins, though. Even through her gloom, Nina felt her heart quicken with a thrill of expectation. The map was of the very heart of the lost civilization of Atlantis—the sunken capital she had discovered five years before.
Her work at the IHA had since taken her down other historical roads, leading to more incredible archaeological discoveries. But there was something special about Atlantis. It had vindicated her theories, catapulted her to international fame … and allowed her to finish the journey her late parents had begun.
Simply locating the city was far from the end of the work, though. Atlantis had more secrets yet to be uncovered—even if she now had to rely on others to discover them vicariously. Hayter indicated one of the ruined buildings with a laser pointer. “We used the new high-resolution sonar to look through the sediment at the palace’s western wing. We found the entrance to what we think is a royal burial chamber. My recommendation is that this be our next primary objective.”
Nina checked her notes. “What about the Temple of the Gods? I thought you were planning a full excavation of that.” The small ruin, close to the palace, had so far been explored only to a limited extent.
“It was an option,” Hayter said sniffily, “but to be honest, I doubt it’ll be worth the effort. It’s much more badly damaged than most of the other buildings, and the initial survey didn’t turn up anything particularly unusual.”
“You don’t consider a single structure dedicated to every single god in the pantheon, even the ones who already have temples of their own, unusual?”
“I’d call it a minor mystery, nothing more. The burial chamber is a much bigger prize, certainly for this leg of the expedition.”
Nina considered his words, then reluctantly nodded. “I’ll want to see the list of alternatives, but okay, yes, the burial chamber it is.” With the archaeological dig taking place eight hundred feet beneath the surface of the Atlantic, most of the work had to be done from submersibles; ensuring that the expensive-to-run machines made the best possible use of their time was crucial. “Matt, will your subs need any extra equipment to get in there?”
“Nah, we’ll be able to handle it,” said the maritime engineer. “Sharkdozer Two should be able to clear most of the rubble, and even if it’s too tight for divers in deep suits, Gypsy’s still got the two ROVs. We’ll find your crowns and scepters, or whatever they hid down there.”
“Great. What timescale are we looking at?”
“I think we’ll have got as much as is practical from the Temple of Poseidon in another few days,” said Hayter. The red dot of his pointer moved to another, larger structure, one with something considerably younger than the eleven-thousand-year-old ruins overlaid upon it: the wreck of a ship. “Which brings me to this.”
A click of the remote and the map vanished, replaced by an underwater photograph. A stone chamber, badly damaged, huge slabs from the semi-collapsed ceiling jutting down into the space. Nina knew it immediately: the altar room within the enormous Temple of Poseidon. She had never been inside it personally, something that still bugged her, but she had seen live video footage of it shot by Eddie before its partial destruction. The ship that had crashed onto the structure was the research vessel Evenor, from which the first underwater expedition had been launched. It had taken over four years before other explorers managed to clear away enough of the wreckage to find that some sections of the smashed temple had survived.
Atlantean artifacts and treasures had been recovered from the altar room by the IHA, but by far the most valuable of its contents was still in place. Parts of the walls gleamed in divers’ spotlights. The chamber had been lined with sheets of precious metal,