The Prophesy: Book 3 - The Hammer of Atlantis

 

The boys moved their stuff back to the Florida Keys and began their tests underwater. Their first explosion, using about the same quantity of explosive, generated a geyser of a hundred feet, and killed every fish within a quarter of a mile radius, including a nosy megalodon.

"I see, I think we need to do two things: first, get out of here before getting caught an a shark picnic, and second, reduce the size of the charge. Dad's right, half a pound is a bit much, especially underwater."

"Sitar's right. I think we need to move back to the islands."

"There, I don't agree, Harp. See, if these explosions start attracting every predator around, we might get in trouble. I remember reading about marine battles of the Ancients, and the sharks congregated toward battle zones."

"Where do you want us to go, then?"

"Let's go to the beach along the coast of what used to be Texas. It would be far enough from our real point of operation, and the bottom seems similar to the shelves of the island, which will help us calibrate things," replied Paschal.

"That seems reasonable, Harp, Sitar. And I think the next batch of Spiders are in the area waiting for deployment."

"Ok, Thorsten. Let's go there."

***

The next few tests created geysers of water over a hundred feet high, even if they had reduced the charge by half.

"Tough luck, brothers, the explosion created an underwater landslide which compounded the effect of the explosive. We need to be more careful. Did we lose any spiders?"

"No, the closest one just got ejected and landed right back on its legs. It's ok."

"Thanks, Paschal. Let's reduce it to one ounce. Apparently eight ounce of that crap is a lot more powerful underwater than on land."

"We should have known, Thorsten. Water is incompressible."

The one-ounce package proved proper and less disturbing. The next step was creating a line of explosives and understanding the results recorded by the spiders. After spending a full day doing tests, and noticing that barracudas and sharks were congregating toward their current position, the boys decided to retire to the beach for the night, putting up a magic shield in case some predator might have the idea of lunching on them.

The night went without a hitch, except for a six-foot crab, which promptly got converted into seafood by the boys.

"That's the first time I see one of those," commented Sitar, as he was eating his crab sandwich.

"Me too, but remember we do most if not all our specimen collecting during the day."

"You have a point, Sitar. I'll inform the others of the issue. It wouldn't do to forget half the animals because we are diurnal."

"Right, Paschal. Are we ready to begin the use of sound for real tomorrow?"

"Yes we are. I'm expecting Ian tomorrow, as well as Samson. Enron has a bench sitting tomorrow and if his temper is an indication of his judgement in the case, the faulty party will regret being arrogant during the proceedings."

"Some people will never learn."

"Especially lawyers! They haven't figured out that Enron is not a pushover. I wonder what he'll do."

"We'll know when he joins us."

"I have a pretty good idea..."

"What do you mean, Sitar?"

"He borrowed Excalibur. He says it's thirsty for asshole blood!"

"I wonder who will taste steel tomorrow?"

"The guilty party, at the minimum. But it may extend further."

"Have you noticed how refreshed Samson looks lately? It's as if someone shaved a thousand years off his body!"

"Do you need to remind me, Harp?"

"What do you mean, Thorsten?"

"He doesn't carry the weight of the crown anymore. It's enough to pepper up a dead mummy!"

"Oh! Sorry, King Thorsten!" replied Harp with a smirk.

"Wait until I tickle you tonight! Then you will really be sorry!"

"Just make sure you two have drained before bed! I don't mind hearing you two laugh like mad hyenas in the middle of the nest, but I'd like to sleep dry tonight!" replied Paschal.

"Let's finish calibrating the Spiders, brothers. I wonder if the effect changes with depth," Sitar commented.

The results were clear as clean water: the deeper the charge, the more impact it had with a reduction of the pressure wave proportional to distance from the explosion.

"If I get this, by putting our spiders along a line five hundred feet away from our explosives, they should survive the sixty thousand PSI wave we will generate at the depth of six hundred feet. Let's get the charges in place, put the Spiders in position, and tomorrow we ring the bell!"

"What do you mean, Paschal?"

"Well, by blowing that line of explosives, the sea bottom will resonate much like a bell hit by a hammer."

The boys quickly moved to their target area off East Caicos. They rejoined the legionnaires that had withstood the hurricane, and, as the weather was clear and the tide was idle, they rapidly positioned their line of explosives. They then returned to the camp to wait until the morning's flat tide to do their measurements.

***

Early the next morning, very early indeed since it was only an hour and a quarter past lauds, the boys flew over the sea and dove to take their position inside the Spiders. Everything was rechecked, and the Spiders' anchors and sensors calibrated one last time.

«Is everyone ready?»

Each boy reported to Paschal, as Samson kept watch by patrolling the perimeter with his bonded.

«Three minutes to idle!» commented Harp, charged with the countdown. «The flow is easing!»

«Shark activity at the far south end!»

«Too bad for them, but thank you Samson!»

«A barracuda school is nearing northern end. They will be in the zone after detonation.»

«Thank you, Norbert. Clear the line! One minute to detonation!»

Typhoon, Jormungandr, and Apalapa took to the high seas, moving quickly east, while Uwibami and Anbraxias split up to navigate the passes around the island and Brinsop took to the air to join Samson and his bonded.

«Ten seconds to detonation! Is it all clear?»

Everyone reported the all clear to Harp, as everyone heard the countdown transmitted by telepathy. At zero, the first detonation resonated deep below the sea, followed by a series of regularly spaced detonations, barely a quarter of a second apart. The water pressure rose along the line of Spiders to about thirty thousand PSI, and gradually diminished.

«Report!» thundered Paschal, as he was collecting the data streams from the Spiders.

Each boy reported that his Spider had held position, and that there was no damage. The dragons had moved far enough not to be bothered in any way by the commotion.

«The shark activity is high on the south end. It seems the explosion killed a few dozen of them, and the mess is like a magnet.»

«Stay high, Samson. These beasts can jump!»

«Oh, I know, I'm a thousand feet up and they seem to attack my shadow, jumping off the water!»

«A shadow at that ungodly hour?»

«Hey, it's the full moon! And the sky is so clear and bright I project a shadow.»

«Let's move back inland. I have the data set, and everything seems to have gone without a hitch. Now is the difficult part, the analysis of that data."

«Ok Paschal! Everyone move to camp,» ordered Ian.

***

The analysis of the flux of data began in earnest. The boys merged and called on all their resources, including their bonded. Additionally, the Spiders' limited capacity was put to use as well. Samson was included as well as his bonded, if only because he knew of the expected layout of the viceroy's palace.

The first thing the boys noticed was a change in density at approximately the expected depth of the orichalque dome.

"Well, according to this, the dome is intact, which is surprising. If you look at the echo from the primary explosion, it delimits cone of reflection that would be consistent with a hemisphere," commented Thorsten, the resident expert on sonar. "I have sent that to dad, and he agrees."

"That's nice, but what do you make of that secondary echo we see there?" asked Paschal.

"How thick is the orichalque dome, Samson?"

"Fifty feet, totally transparent, Thorsten."

"It is fifty feet thick? And what is the density of the orichalque?"

"Yes, fifty feet, and the density is similar to the carbon sixty molecule, but with the resistance to pressure and tear that ranged in the 1059 tons per square inch. The Atlanteans of origin built it. The dome encloses the entire palace, from top to bottom, in a sphere, much like Atlantis II. I read somewhere it could resist beyond the measurement capacity of our best machines."

"What is the crystal form?"

"Let me see... hendeca-dodecadronic, if my memory is correct. It has eleven layers of magic wrapped in a twenty-sided decagon fold."

"Ok, that explains the strange pattern of the second echo. Apparently, according to this, the orichalque is structured like a three-dimensional honeycomb."

"What about the ternary echo?" Sitar wondered.

"Let me remove the two overlying signals and we will get a clearer view of what it is."

Thorsten set about filtering the data stream in three new streams. After an hour of arduous mathematics that implied repeated use of Fourier transforms to extract the waves components and remove them from the composite signal, he obtained a residual that could be analysed in turn.

"Ok, this is odd. The density is very low; the sound pattern travelled a lot slower once it had passed the rock and orichalque. If I read this right, the dome has a gaseous contents, at, hold your pants, atmospheric pressure or slightly lower!"

"Are you telling me we could port in there?"

"Port yes, but survive? That's another matter, Samson. There are many gases, methane, carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, and nitrogen, that we cannot breath. We need oxygen, and there is no guarantee that this gas is oxygen-rich."

"Well, we could port a Spider. It doesn't breath. I can arrange so it samples the atmosphere, and we can analyse it from here."

"That's a good idea, Paschal. How long would it take to do that?"

"A few days. I can port one of the Spiders from the beach along the Florida Keys to here, and we can work on it to act as a remote atmospheric sensor."

"Ok, that's a good plan," commented Ian. "However, I suggest Thorsten filters out the atmosphere and see if we can find anything about what lies under?"

"To do that, I need to know exactly the atmospheric pressure. As a gas gains pressure, the sound wave travels faster. That's why I'd like Paschal to include a barometer and a thermometer to his modification. I expect it to be slightly below current sea level pressure, but until we are sure, I cannot effectively filter that component out. We are nearing the end of the data filtering and the more we progress in that direction, the more likely the data will bring into light spurious artefacts."

"Ok, Thorsten. Thanks for the explanation. Apart from that, what else have we learned?" asked Harp.

"The data isn't focussed solely on the palace. We have the result from further out. The interesting thing is that we can see some change in density around the edge of the abyssal cliff, which would match ship cargo. As for the ships themselves, they are long gone."

"Can we extract the cargo? It might be vital," Paschal wondered.

"I don't see why not, but I suggest we first figure out the palace."

"You have a point, Thorsten."

"I'm looking at the possibility of using a characteristic of magic that resonates according the atomic mass of atoms. Each atom has its specific signature. If I can get the Spiders to filter out useless stuff by layer, we may be able to map the area in three dimension, without having to dig everything out."

"That would be a bonus, Harp. I'll get you a couple of Spiders to work on. Would that be enough?"

"I'd like to have eleven, if possible, one for each dimension, and we then can combine their stream into a cohesive map."

"Consider it done, brother."

"Good. Let's rest and go surfing for the rest of the day, guys. I feel like I need a vacation after all those mathematics."

"Ok, boys. I'll go back to Thebes and inform everyone of our progress," replied Samson

"Send us Enron. I'm sure he needs to cool off after the day on the Royal Bench."

"Given his current mood, that matches the temper of a High Elf, are you sure you are ready to see the Atlantic boil?"

"Well, fried fish would be good!" commented Anbraxias.

"You are always hungry!"

"Aren't we all?"

***

Harp took over the control of eleven spiders and began directing the others as to what changes he wanted done to their sensory system. Meanwhile, Paschal and Enron decided to begin modifying another so it could be used as atmospheric sensor. The two groups worked diligently, and after a week, all was ready.

"What can the remote sensor tell us?" asked Sitar, that evening.

"Well, we have temperature, humidity, nature of gases, including concentrations of each type. I added a biosensor, capable of detecting things such as bacteria, viruses, spores, and other airborne biohazards. These were the most difficult to set up."

"How so?" Thorsten asked.

"Well gases can be detected by chemical reactions. The more a reaction occurs, the higher the concentration. With the barometric pressure, we can estimate the quantity of each gas within the dome. When it comes to life, it's another story. Yes, life gives off gases, but their signature is a lot more complicated to detect. I had to use things such as culture media, and radioactive differentials of carbon fourteen and carbon twelve. As we learned during our rather intense hypnotic lessons in the pyramids, life reacts differently to carbon twelve and carbon fourteen, changing its ratio. My idea is to set up different bio culture medias, let them get contaminated for twenty-four hours, seal them, and wait a week. By monitoring the relative change in concentration of carbon twelve versus carbon fourteen, I would get a signature of life or no life sensitive to a specific culture medium. The first step is to check the current concentration of these two gases within the dome so I have a base value to compare."

"Aren't you afraid to contaminate your experiments with sea water?"

"That had me worried. So guess what? I sent a series of freshly built Spiders off on a vacation, on the Moon. They have been holding station, sunbathing for the last twenty-four hours. By now, I think they have roasted just about every side of their metallic carcass to a very neat two hundred and fifty Fahrenheit. Oh, I know, it's not enough to kill everything, but that's the first step."

"What do you plan to do?"

"Well, Mercury is available to further cook the Spiders. Its surface temperature is around eight hundred Fahrenheit at the end of the day and drops to minus one hundred and thirty seven at night."

"Is that why Enron is said to have a mercurial temper?" sniggered Typhoon.

"Another comment like that, buddy, and you end up in a lava bath!"

"You are so easy to tease!"

"He's right Enron. I wonder if you aren't entering the roaring fourteens! You blow up way too easily, brother."

"What's the roaring fourteens, Paschal?"

"Well, according to some books written by the Ancients, a teen undergoes a lot of mood swings as his hormones undergo considerable changes. You have entered puberty, and it's like everything good and bad got packed in a short period of time. I've noticed your gonads grew considerably over the last few months, and you have added five inches to your height. You are clumsy, like you legs and arms are too long for you. And every time something scratches your nerves, you go off the handle. To be honest, Enron, I am not only worried about you, but also about all of us. We have magic, very powerful magic, and that requires we learn to control our temper even better than a standard human. Neither you nor we want to do something we would regret later."

Enron sat down and looked at his brothers and their bonded, worried.

"Have I been that bad? I know I feel funny, like everything is out of whack. Even my flying as a dragon or a Pegasus has suffered."

"Enron, we noticed, believe me, we noticed!" said Harp, hugging his brother.

"What I suggest is we spend at least three hours daily in martial arts, all of us. Yoga, Judo, Karate, everything we can find. There are two reasons for that: first, we will burn off some frustrations by demolishing some dummies, and we will learn to master our temper and focus. We cannot let go of the berserker and lose control of our magic. It could have devastating consequences."

"That's a good idea, Sitar. When should we start?"

"Harp, I say as soon as possible. If we all go through puberty at short interval we must control ourselves or else there won't be any future."

"Ok. Paschal, do you need help porting the Spider to Mercury?"

"Yes, in fact we should all join together. Mercury is on the far side of the Sun, and we will need to do the porting in stages."

"Won't the wall that prevents the escape of the Soul Eaters block the port?" asked Thorsten.

"I don't think so," replied Sitar, "the wall was designed to hold in the Soul Eaters, not the Spiders. And the fact that the Ancients managed to walk on the moon, which is beyond the wall, clearly indicates that it was species-specific."

"Add to this the fact that the Spider is already on the surface of the Moon, beyond the wall," completed Paschal.

"Well then, let us proceed. Guys, bind. We have a long haul port to do."

Harp directed the bind and the port of the Spider from the Moon began. The first step was to bring it to the orbit of Venus, and then to the perihelion of Mercury, located somewhat to the left of the Sun. The boys then used the Spider's eyes to track Mercury, and caught up with it progressively, until the eyes began to show the rather flat surface of Mercury in rather fine detail. The last steps were beginning to be tricky as the perspective was a bit off, so the boys decided to port first by steps of a thousand miles, then by steps of a hundred miles, to finally do the last port from about ten miles above the surface.

"How long do you plan to leave the Spider there?" asked Harp.

"About twenty-four hours. By then everything will be well-cocked!" replied Paschal.

"OK, we can begin the nuclear scan, setting the eleven Spiders on automatic. By the time the other is ready to be brought back here, we should have all the requisite data for a full three-dimensional map of the port and what is under that shit load of mud."

"How long will it take to set the search pattern?"

"It's set already, Sitar. Paschal, set the other Spiders in the area to protect mode. I don't want anything to bother those doing the scan."

"I figured as much, and took that initiative already."

"We do a nice team, guys. We can anticipate each other's needs," commented Typhoon.

"Then let's go practice some martial arts. I, for one, need to demolish some logs," commented Sitar.

The boys ported to the legionnaires' camp on Caicos island and began to do some well-needed relaxation exercises under the guidance of Sitar as the Spiders began their scan, and another one was slowly being cooked on Mercury.

***

After four hours of intensive martial arts exercise, and considerable expenditure in magic, the boys and their bonded were mightily hungry, and began hunting for food.

"Now I know why the Ancients said scouts were always hungry!" exclaimed Paschal, as he flew over some deserted area of the east coast in his dragon form.

"I think we will have to fish, brothers. I can't wait much longer before I start trying to eat rocks," added Typhoon.

"That would be a heavy meal!" noted Sitar.

The boys found a school of rather small fishes, which seemed to be herring, and began gorging themselves. After a couple of hours, they turned toward a new school of fish, mackerel, and resumed their hunt.

«I'm full, I'm going to nap on the beach.»

«I'm going with you, Sitar,» replied Apalapa, his bonded.

«Wait for us! I'm ready for a nap too!» Enron told them.

«What? You didn't boil the Atlantic off?»

«Buzz off, Harp!»

Harp obliged, converting into a huge wasp.

«Why is it he takes everything literally lately?»

«Enron, you aren't the only one suffering from premature puberty, that's why,» replied Sitar.

The boys landed on the beach, converted to their human form, frolicked in the waves, captured and boiled some crabs for finger food, reaped some coconut for their water and meat, and roasted small bananas for dessert.

"Should we go back to the camp for the night?"

"I think so, Paschal. For one, the legionnaires would be worried if we didn't show up. Second, I noticed there are quite a few mosquitoes around. They ignore us for now, but I somehow do not want to find myself in a cloud of malaria-bearing anopheles."

"You have a point, Harp. I noticed some of the legionnaires were showing signs of malaria anyway. We need to cure them of the plasmodium," added Sitar.

The boys quickly flew off to the camp, set a force field around it blocking all life forms from entering the safe area, and began examining everyone present for traces of malaria or other tropical diseases. It became rapidly apparent that everyone was infected with malaria, and Harp decided to use a rather radical method to clear the blood stream of the infection. He had his brothers and every legionnaire stand over a water basin, and suddenly ported them ten feet off leaving behind the plasmodium infected red blood cells that flopped into the water previously laced with a high concentration of chlorine. Immediately after the port, Paschal took over and ported directly into the heart cavity a volume of O negative blood plasma to replace the lost blood. Everyone was ordered to rest.

"Harp, Paschal, we'll do you in an hour. I feel suddenly very tired," said Sitar.

"That's fine. We won't die in the next minute!" replied Harp.

"And since there is no mosquito under the force field, you guys can't infect us," added Enron, which was looking like a ghost.

The boys took a nap, which lasted well beyond the expected hour, and it was late evening before Harp and Paschal underwent the removal of the plasmodium from their blood. The next morning, everyone was still way off, so any activity was curtailed.

"How long before we recover, Harp?"

"We aren't in a rush. Let's just take a few days off, limiting our use of magic to the bare essentials, namely the force field and feeding. I think two days off isn't a bad idea. We have been working our butts off lately."

"You have a point. It's nap time for me," added Enron, as he set up a nice hammock between two coconut trees wide enough for him and his bonded. The two boys quietly wrapped in each other's arms and fell asleep, snoring gently.

"If Enron keeps mooning the sun, he'll have a golden bum!" noted Sitar, laughing.

"You are simply jealous, Sitar. You turn into a lobster the moment you expose your bum to the sun!" replied Apalapa, as she prepared another hammock for her and Sitar. "Come hide that sausage in a safe cave before it cooks!"

"I just hope your hammock is strong enough for your planned activity, Apalapa!" snorted Harp, as Sitar rushed to jump into the newly created hammock. "Your bonded has a lot of enthusiasm!"

"And is noisier than the crashing waves!" commented Jormungandr.

"As if you and Harp are quiet when you go at it? I think you boys drive nails into each other when you do it!" commented Sitar from the swinging hammock. "I think you guys will scare the coconut trees with your nailing shortly!"

The others exploded in laughter as they watched Harp and Jormungandr jump into an instant hammock and go at each other's body like there was no tomorrow.

"If someone tells me that activity keeps Harp quiet, I'll feed them that image!" Sitar added, creating a roar of laughter from the others.

"Thorsten, let's have some fun too," suggested Anbraxias, as he quietly created a hammock, ported his bonded in it and assailed the dwarf's hot body. Thorsten wasn't about to say no to the invitation.

***

The next morning, everyone woke up at dawn, fully relaxed, and after spending some time doing martial arts, the Spider on Mercury was recovered and put into Earth orbit to cool off for an hour before porting inside the dome.

"Are we ready?" asked Paschal.

All the boys and dragons reported positive for the port.

"Samson, if the sonar is right the dome is six hundred feet high?"

"Yes, Paschal, six hundred and twenty to be exact."

"We'll port the Spider at three hundred feet. It should have no issue with that."

"You're the architect, Paschal, not me!"

"Ok. Stop the Spider's linear movement!"

"Motion stopped, gravity well is nullified, the Spider is immobile!" reported Harp.

"Port!"

"Port successful, Spider still immobile. Initial visual scans coming in!"

The boys began visual inspection of the dome as the Spider emitted a powerful beam of light. Nothing much could be seen except the far end of the dome above the Spider.

"Drop the Spider one hundred feet!"

"The drop is successful, and it's already immobilised," Harp reported.

"We are seeing more of the floor. It seems to be covered in a layer of dust," commented Sitar.

"The first atmospheric analysis is coming in. Its composition is nitrogen, carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, and traces of oxygen. The atmosphere is not breathable."

"Thank you, Enron. Drop another one hundred feet."

"The Spider is now at one hundred feet above the floor."

"The atmospheric pressure is slightly below sea level."

"The visual inspection reveals what seems to be skeletons spread everywhere. I figure they died of asphyxiation."

"That would fit the current composition of the atmosphere, Samson. What I don't get is where the heat comes from? It's very hot down there, around two hundred Fahrenheit."

"We'll find out later, Sitar. I can suggest a few hypothesises, but why bother for now," replied Harp.

"Drop to fifty!" ordered Paschal.

"We are now at fifty off the floor!" reported Harp.

"Visual?"

"Nothing new to report, Paschal."

"Ok, Sitar. Let's do a slow drop to the floor. I do not want to raise a cloud of dust!"

"Drop rate, a foot a second. Touchdown in fifty... forty... thirty... twenty... ten... nine... eight... seven... six... five... four... three... two... one... touchdown! The Spider is settling! The dust layer is a foot thick."

"Thank you, Harp. I'm opening the bio samplers."

"There is no leak inside the Spider, Paschal," reported Thorsten.

After an hour, Paschal closed the bio samplers and let them simmer.

"Ok, we leave the Spider alone for a week and monitor the change of atmosphere within the samplers. If there is life down there, it is anoxic in nature."

***

"While we wait on the results of the bio tests, we could analyse the result from the eleven other Spiders," Harp began.

"What have you found so far?"

"The port was rather busy when the catastrophe hit. There are over five hundred ships spread around the bottom, crushed by the mudslides or by the tsunami. Their cargo varied from some minerals to what looks like oblong containers. The minerals are of rather low interest. I did find a Spanish man-of-war carrying gold and silver, probably one of the ships that brought the New World gold back to Spain. It is lying on the sea bottom, sunk into mud by twenty feet."

"What do you plan to do about the cargo?"

"Well, I want to recover it, but it will have to stay in a concentration of disinfectant for a month after recovery. The Spaniards had serious health issues, including smallpox, a sickness the Ancients eradicated. I do not want to bring that back to life, and smallpox survives in spore form for hundreds if not thousands of years, much like anthrax. I also have to keep an eye out for cholera, typhus, and the plague."

"Do you think that these sicknesses survived in the dome also?"

"I hope not."

"What's the size of the containers?"

"According to the scans, Sitar, they are forty feet long, by twelve feet wide by eight feet high. That's twice the size of the containers we found under the Sphinx. I suspect these were marine containers, while the ones we found earlier are for road transport. If their design is like the ones we already recovered, they are airtight."

"Will they be intact?"

"According to the scans, they are. The material is a special type of steel that does not oxidize, and they have been in an anoxic environment since they got buried."

"Will we recover the bulk cargo?"

"Some of it is raw mithril, so, yes, we will recover part of the bulk. But most will be left in-situ."

"How much raw mithril did you detect?"

"About a million tons, spread over ten ships, or, to be more honest, ten heaps."

"Ten heaps?"

"Yes, the ships themselves did not survive except as rust."

"I see. I thought ancient ships were made of wood?"

"The Atlanteans were well past the wooden hull ships. It did give our ancestors a certain advantage when we were cornered in naval battles with some primitive tribes. Ramming their canoes was an effective way to send them to the bottom, Harp. Oh, don't cry on the lost lives; the canoes were vastly more manoeuvrable, and out-numbered us one hundred to one. The odds were equalled out!"

"I have a solution concerning the safety measures."

"What is it, Thorsten?"

"Can we port the stuff on the Moon? I'm sure a sunbath would kill most of the life forms? An intense exposure to the sun's gamma rays should put them out of commission."

"That's an idea, but where?"

"I want it to be easy to locate, so why not Mare Imbrium¹³¹³ ("Ti: Corpus Christi, Texas."), due north of Copernicus crater? The crater is hard to miss!"

"You have a point. Let's prepare the area first. Paschal, let's port an army of Spiders on Mare Imbrium, and get them to work to flatten out the area. I am sure the apparent flatness of Mare Imbrium is but an illusion. It's probably cratered like some cheese mom did a few years ago."

"You are probably right, Sitar. Mom called it Swiss cheese, and it was good too. I wonder where she found the recipe?"

"That's easy, there was a book on cheese-making in the library, along with a whole lot of cooking books. The Ancients seemed to love fattening themselves up!" replied Harp.

The next week was spent preparing Mare Imbrium to receive the potentially contaminated goods from the Spanish ship, and other Ancient ships that might pop up from the undersea exploration.

"Hey, we don't need it polished, guys. Just fill in the craters with rocks reduced to medium-sized gravel!" exclaimed Paschal as he supervised the work area.

"That place seems to have suffered from smallpox!"

"Given four billion years of meteorite bombardment with next to nothing wiping the craters, what do you expect?"

***

"Ok. Let's port the contents of the Spanish man-of-war. Unfortunately, I doubt we will be able to identify it. The bronze cannons are mush by now. Port things one by one, and map their current location on this three-dimensional archaeological grid. We need to make sure we can reconstruct as much of the site as possible."

The boys ported each element quickly, logging each object's position on a three-dimensional grid, and logging their 'dry-freeze' position in the grid they had built on the surface of Mare Imbrium. The entire process took them another week. By then, the first reports from the biosensors of the Spider under the dome were coming in.

"From what I get, there is no life contained in the atmosphere of the dome. The Spider's legs, which sank into the dust, also report nothing. I have been zooming on the skeletons near the Spider's head in an effort to see if they had any identification markers. Some do, some don't. One of them has a pectoral dog tag of sorts. Since it's platinum, it's still readable. I discerned the hieroglyph that would translate to Olibrius."

"Olibrius? Olibrius Canker! That was the dumb ass that claimed the fall of the Baby Moon would not affect us!" exclaimed Samson. "He was an astrologer, and believed numbers proved that the Baby Moon would survive and recompose itself. If there is one person I want to leave behind, it's that carcass!"

"Don't worry, I do not plan to rescue dried out bones. I'm sure the moment the Spider touches them, they will turn to dust!"

"Paschal's right, Samson. The air is so dry everything will turn to dust the moment they get moved. In fact, I suggest we port everything on the floor of the dome to the middle of the Atlantic. At least they will sink to the bottom without contributing to the already dusty environment we are in."

"How do you plan to do this?"

"I had an inkling we might need to vacuum-clean the dome, so I have about forty Spiders equipped with suction hoses waiting in Thebes. They will fill in their insides with the dust, and once filled up, we will port them to the abyss, where they will dump their load of dust out to sea, flush their insides, and then be available for another cycle."

"Forty? You went overboard!"

"Not really. I do not plan to use all of them. Most will be kept on standby for other cleanup tasks."

The cleanup involved four Spiders, as the biosensor-equipped Spider stayed out of the way while continuing to monitor for unexpected hazards. It took two days for the Spiders to remove everything from the level they were in.

"Ok, Samson, now that this layer has been cleansed, how do we get to the lower levels?"

"The next level is accessible via a trap door. Do you see a six-sided star?"

"Yes, there is a mosaic matching two triangles which could be perceived as a star."

"That is the trap door. It should still be functional."

"How do we activate it?"

"By mind control. Is the atmosphere within the Spiders breathable?"

"Within the biosensor one, yes. The others are not designed to carry passengers."

"The only issue is that the Spiders are too big to enter the elevator shaft," commented Harp. "The intersection of the two triangles is half the size of a Spider."

"That's a big problem."

"Not as big as one might think, Samson," said Harp. "Let's move the Spider near the trap, and trigger the opening. We need to check the atmosphere found in the first and second levels. Paschal, will you port with me inside the biohazard Spider? Once the trap is open, I'll create a shield and fill in the sphere circumscribed by the force field with oxygen. That should let me explore the first level easily, then, once it's deemed big enough to port the Spider in, we'll do just that."

Harp and Paschal ported within the control cockpit of the Spider, and moved it to within three feet of the shaft. Harp then began entering the code Samson had given him, watching the lights on the floor turn from red to yellow to green as the numeric sequence was entered: 6511610897110116105115. The last number barely entered, the centre of the star began descending below at a slow and majestic rate.

The Spider was moved closer to the dark and foreboding hole, and it shone a powerful searchlight below. What was revealed was a poignant scene. Skeletons were sat around a table of onyx, still wearing their clothes, and totally. It was apparent that the people had decided to die in dignity, tied to their seats, as manacles were holding their legs and wrists to the chairs' legs and armrests. As if to defy death, the table itself was covered with what was left of a meal. The crystallised residue visible at the bottom of the copper cups revealed the nature of the last drink: wine laced with a high concentration of arsenic.

«Who are these people, Samson?» as the Spider fed everyone the scene.

«They were my family at the time, Harp. I can recognize my two sons, my daughter, my wife, and the members of the Privy Council of the Viceroy and their family. The little ones are my grandchildren, and the children and grandchildren of the members of the Privy Council. I figure they decided they could not escape the dome and preferred a speedy death to a long and painful one. It makes sense, even if it is sad."

«We will move them to the Viceroy's Crypt, as soon as we deem it safe to do so.»

«Thank you my lord. It may be seventeen thousand years ago, but it still hurts.»

«It's the minimum we can do for your loved ones, King Samson,» replied Harp.

«I'm no longer king, prince Harp.»

«You will always be king in my heart, and that's where it matters.»

"Harp, let's port the Spider down fifty feet. We will be clear of the ceiling and still be above the level of the floor."

"Ok, Paschal."

The Spider was ported at the first level, and slowly brought down to the floor.

"The atmosphere is barely less dry than above. I would say the water vapour I detect is due to the desiccation of the bodies. We need to clean things up without disturbing the Last Meal. Let's use the vacuum Spiders with extreme care."

The cleanup process was even slower than on the plaza above, and it became apparent that there were a lot of strategic scrolls and maps lying around. Each map was sealed between two plates of glass after being slowly brushed clean of the accumulated dust, and the scrolls unrolled and flattened between thin plates of unbreakable glass to allow their study both from the front and the back.

***

Figure 4: The World of Atlantis

After a week, they began dealing with a giant map of the world, which looked pretty strange to them.

"Hey, Harp, that map looks familiar. Remember that huge map we transported from the Sphinx? The one we couldn't actually understand at the time?"

"Yes. Did you finally make sense of it?"

"Well, the Ancients called it an equatorial Mercator projection. I found that in a book talking about different projections of a sphere on a flat surface. The next tip was an altimetry map that covered the sea bottom to the highest ranges made by the Ancients. They coded altitude with colour. I figured it might well be that which was represented in that map. Naturally the altitudes and depths do not match, given the impact the Baby moon had on the sea levels."

"Get on with it?"

"Aren't you growing impatient, little brother! Puberty is hitting you early too!"

"Piss off and get to the point!"

"Ok, Harp, ok! Well, I think these maps represent the altitude and depths of the land during Atlantis II, before the fall of the Baby Moon."

"That's interesting, but how does it help us?"

"Notice these little ships on the seas of the time? I think they represent the last reported positions of the ships crossing both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. These positions may be vital in locating the last Crystal!"

"Holy shit! That's a major discovery! But how come they weren't reported on the map we found in Egypt?"

"Simply because that map was itself in displacement, moving from Atlantis II to Kantar when the moon fell. There was no way the convoy would have had time to worry about these ships."

"Do you think it would be safe to port the map directly to your drawing room, Paschal?"

"Yes, we can port everything that makes up the tables and the models without changing their relative position, leaving the dust and any contaminant behind for now."

"Let's do that right away. We still have two more levels to explore below this one."

The table, composed of different crystalline forms of orichalque, and supporting tiny gold ships, was rapidly ported to Thebes, directly into Paschal's study.

«Warning! Do not touch the newly ported map! I need to study its contents carefully!» thundered Paschal, on a broadband telepathic transmission.

"Let's port the scrolls and other military documents as well, Paschal. We might get updated feeds that have not been put on the map."

"Sure. Just make sure we port only what we need to port: the support, the ink, and the protective glass. Leave the dust behind!"

"That might prove difficult, since some of the dust is scroll."

"I know, but I doubt we can paste back dust!"

Again, the boys engaged in careful porting of the contents of the Strategy Room, minus the Last Meal scene that was left intact still.

«Ok, Samson?»

«Yes, Harp?»

«What is the code to go one level lower?»

«Repeat it but add forty-nine. To reach the second level you need to add fifty instead.»

«Are there many more levels?»

«There are nine levels below the Strategic Room. To bring the elevator back to the level of the plaza you must enter the same sequence followed by forty-eight.»

«If I remember, the next level is the Library?»

«Yes. And the Crypt is at the lowest level.»

"Let's go down to the library, Paschal."

The boys quickly brought the elevator down to the second level, and found that they had an unexpected problem. The second level was filled from top to bottom with unending lines of shelves, and there was no place for the Spider.

"Ok, let's go down the next level then, and port the Spider just over the hole below."

The boys had to repeat the same process over and over, as each level was found to be way too packed to move the Spider away from the area reserved for the Star. They finally reached the Crypt, and settled the Spider, legs tightly folded, on the bottom star.

"Well, it's still as dry as ever, and whatever traces of oxygen we might have had just isn't present, Harp."

"Why not port the entire orichalque sphere to Thebes? I'm sure there must be a place for it in the overall plan. That thing is just too big to have been missed by the Seers."

"Let me access the current map of Thebes."

Paschal ported to his map room, and studied a three-dimensional projection of the gigantic city. He did find an unexplained hole, right in the middle, that fitted the orichalque globe like a glove, or is it the other way around?

«Harp, you were right. Do you need me to go back to help you port the sphere?»

«No. I need you, Ian, Sitar, Thorsten and our bonded to act as beacons. Space yourselves perfectly evenly around the volume, so I have a precise X, Y, and Z grid to move this to.»

«Ok.»

«We heard, and ported to Paschal's map room to get our position assignment, Harp,» replied Sitar. «Give us ten minutes to reach our assigned places.»

«We are ready to anchor the port, Harp,» Paschal informed the boy still in the Spider.

«Porting in three, two, one, now! I am now above the area, some one thousand feet offset on the vertical axis. I'm currently adjusting the X and Z axis.»

«We see you. Harp. The area is clear!»

«Touchdown at my mark!» commented Paschal. «Mark!"

«The displacement of the lava floor is in progress, Harp. You are sinking at the rate of one foot per second."

«One minute to half-mark, Harp. You have now three hundred feet of the sphere imbedded in the rock," commented Paschal, as he monitored the progress.

«Thirty seconds to completion, and three hundred and thirty feet down! Twenty, ten, stop!» ordered Paschal. «Let this rest and let's move things out of the port. That kind of change will have consequences on the stability of the area around the islands.»