'How can NUMA help?' Gamay said.
'Another Lost City expedition is under way. The Oceanographic research vessel Atlantis will be on site this week with the Alvin. They will attempt to explore the area of the sea where the weed appears to have mutated. Once we determine the conditions that led to this aberration, we can work to defeat it. I've been trying to figure out how I can finish my work here and go on the expedition. When I heard you two were in town, I took it as a sign from the gods. You bring the perfect blend of expertise. Would you consider joining the expedition in my stead? It would only be a few days.'
'Of course. We'd have to get permission from our superiors at NUMA, but that will present no problem.'
'I can trust you to be discreet. Once we have samples in hand, I will release my report simultaneously with my colleagues worldwide.'
'Where is the Atlantis now?' Paul said.
'Returning from an unrelated mission. It is stopping in the Azores tomorrow to refuel. You can join the ship there.'
'It's doable,' Paul said. 'We can be back in Washington tonight and on our way in the morning.' He glanced at the phial. 'We're going to have a real problem if that thing in there gets out of the bottle.'
Gamay had been staring at the greenish blob. 'The genie is already out of the bottle, I'm afraid. We're going to have to figure out how to get it back in.'
GORGON WEED?' Austin said. 'That's a new one. Is this stuff as bad as your friend says it is?'
'It could be,' Gamay said. 'Dr. Osborne is quite concerned. I respect his judgment.'
'What do you think?'
'It's cause for worry, but I can't say definitively until we have more evidence from the Lost City.'
Gamay had called Austin aboard the Mummichug. She apologized for getting him out of bed, but said she and Paul were en route to the Lost City and wanted to make sure that he knew what they were up to.
'Thanks for filling me in. We'd better alert Dirk and Rudi,' he said, referring to Dirk Pitt, who had succeeded Admiral Sandecker as head of NUMA, and Rudi Gunn, who was in charge of the agency's day-to-day operations.
'Paul has talked to both of them. NUMA already had some biologists working on the Caulerpa problem.'
Austin smiled. 'Why am I not surprised that Dirk is one step ahead of us?'
'Only half a step. He was unaware of the Lost City connection. He'll be waiting for a report on our dive.'
'Me, too. Good luck. Keep in touch.'
As Austin hung up, the words of T. S. Eliot came to mind. 'This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper.'
A soggy whimper at that.
Paul and Gamay could handle the situation and there was nothing he could do in the meantime, so he busied himself with a stem-to-stern inspection of the SEA mobile Aside from a few dents and scrapes, the vehicle was in better shape than he was, Austin concluded. He sat in the bubble cabin and went through a checklist. Satisfied all systems were working, he picked up two mugs of coffee from the galley, went below and knocked softly on the door to Skye's stateroom.
Recognizing that the Mummichug was a relatively small vessel, the boat's designers had factored in small individual cabins where crew members could enjoy their privacy. Skye was up and dressed. She opened the door immediately and smiled when she saw Austin.
'Good morning,' he said. As he handed Skye a steaming mug, he noticed the dark circles under her eyes. 'Did you sleep well?'
'Not very. I kept dreaming I was being smothered under tons of ice.'
'I have a proven cure for nightmares. How would you like to explore an underwater tomb?'
Her face lit up. 'How could any woman in her right mind refuse such an enticing offer?'
'Follow me then. Our chariot waits without.'
With Austin and Skye on board, the submersible was lowered into the water between the catamaran's twin hulls. Once free of the
support vessel, the sub cruised along the surface to a position whose coordinates had been recorded into the navigation system, and Austin put the SEA mobile into a dive.
The clear lake waters enveloped the cockpit bubble as the submersible sank into the lake, and within minutes they were following the line of megaliths to the tomb. Austin stopped the submersible at the entrance, made sure the vehicle's cameras were operating, and then goosed the horizontal thrusters. A second later, the vehicle slipped through the opening into the ancient sepulchre.
The powerful lights failed to reach the far wall of the chamber, indicating that it was huge, with ceilings so high they couldn't be seen. As the SEA mobile slowly made its way into the chamber, Austin panned the sub's movable light along the right wall, and saw that it was decorated with a carved has-relief.
The skillfully executed and detailed renderings showed sailboats, houses, pastoral scenes with palm trees and flowers, dancers and musicians. There were flying fish and frolicking dolphins. The boats looked quite ancient. The people depicted were well dressed and seemed to be enjoying a prosperous life.
Skye leaned forward in her seat, her face pressed against the plastic bubble like a child at Christmas.
'I see wonderful things,' she said, quoting Howard Carter's first words at the discovery of King Tut's tomb.
Austin had been thinking that there was something hauntingly familiar about the scenes. 'I've been here before,' he said. 'Here, in this tomb?'
'No. But I've seen drawings similar to these carvings in a cave in the Faroe Islands, in the North Atlantic. The style and subject was very much the same. What do you make of them?'
'I'm probably foolish for guessing, but they look Minoan, similar to the drawings excavated at Akrotiri, on the island of Santorini, or in Crete. The Minoan civilization flourished around 1500 B.C.' The significance of what she was saying dawned on her. 'Do you know what this means?' she said with excitement. 'These drawings and the ones you saw would indicate that the Minoans went much farther afield than most people suspect.'
'Which makes them the missing link in your international trade theory?'
'That's right,' she said. 'This confirms that east-west trade is far older and more extensive than anyone thought it was.' She clapped her hands. 'I can't wait to show this video to my smug-faced colleagues back in Paris.'
The submersible came to the end of the wall, turned a corner and started down another side of the rectangular chamber. The scenes were of Lac du Dormeur and the glacier. But instead of barren shore, there were buildings, even what appeared to be a rendering of the tomb, complete with arches, and the glacier, as silent and implacable as ever.
'It appears you were right about settlements around the lakeshore and the mouth of the river.'
'This is marvelous! We can use these carvings to make site maps of ruin locations.'
In the sculpted scene, the ice field had covered even more of the valley centuries before when it was carved by some unknown artist. The sculptor had managed to imbue his work with a majesty and power that went beyond a mere objective rendering of what he saw. They made several sweeps of the chamber and found no markers or a sarcophagus.
'I was all wrong about this place,' she said. 'It's not a tomb. It's a temple.'
'A reasonable assumption given the lack of bodies. If we're done here, I'd like to unravel another lake mystery.' He unfolded the side-scan sonar printout he'd brought with him and pointed at the anomaly on the lake's bottom.
'It looks like a plane,' Skye said. 'What's a plane doing down here? Wait. The man in the ice?'
Austin answered with an enigmatic smile, the sub's horizontal thrusters whirred, and they whisked through the temple door back out into the lake. He slowed the sub when they neared the position designated on the printout and kept his eyes peeled. Before long, a cigar-shaped object came into view.
As they drew closer, Austin saw that the cylindrical wood framework was partially covered with tattered and faded red fabric. The conical engine housing had been torn off and lay on the bottom and the engine gleamed in the sub's lights. The cold lake temperatures had kept the fuselage clear of marine vegetation that would have covered it in warmer climes. The propeller was gone, probably snapped off in the crash. He circled around the fuselage and found what was left of the missing wing several yards away. Then he brought the sub back to the plane.
