1. Just One Damned Thing After Another (24 page)

And then to one side, I saw Jenny Fields. Her lips were moving, but she was such a quiet thing I couldn’t make it out. ‘Shut up, you lot,’ I shouted. ‘What is it, Jenny?’

‘Dodos. We could bring back dodos.’

And that was the moment. That was the moment when the true potential of all we could achieve became apparent. That was the moment when everyone’s imagination took flight and we became unstoppable.

Chapter Sixteen

Dieter frowned. ‘If we did go to Alexandria then we’d need something bigger than a normal pod. Something that could sleep up to say, ten people and provide a practical working space.’

‘And carry equipment,’ added someone.

‘And storage,’ said someone else from R & D. ‘Suitable containers for storing scrolls long term. And either some sort of resin or gum to seal them, or the wherewithal to make some.’

‘Tar. How about tar? The Dead Sea Scrolls were sealed in earth jars with tar.’

‘But it can’t be too large. It still has to be relatively inconspicuous. We don’t want something the size of the Town Hall. We’re not talking Thunderbird 2 here.’

The Chief joined in. ‘We could still have something larger, but it could be serviced by normal pods bringing supplies, equipment and relief personnel in and out; like a shuttle service.’

‘It would have to be big enough for fire-fighting equipment,’ contributed Guthrie.

‘We could have various containers with the right equipment for fire fighting, or underwater salvage or excavating and just load whichever one is required and go.’

‘How would we know what to take?’

Kal and Peterson jumped in. ‘We would need to set up reconnaissance jumps. Survey the library. Find out what’s where. What the building’s made of. Where’s the nearest source of water. The Pathfinders could do that.’

‘I think my team can help here,’ offered Guthrie. ‘I’ve got two ex-firemen on my strength.’ He walked off, shouting for Weller and Evans and a small crowd began to gather around them.

Peterson forged on. ‘We also need a team to suss out appropriate storage methods and containers. Everything will have to be obtained on site. It must all be contemporary. Anything anomalous will be a disaster.’

‘Dr Dowson is the best person for that,’ said Professor Rapson. ‘He should also supply us with a list of desirable scrolls, just in case we have time to pick and choose, rather than the approved St Mary’s method of just grabbing anything and running like hell.’

Dieter had his scratchpad out and was tapping away for dear life. ‘Say ten people aboard, food and water for ten days – Mrs Mack, how many …?’ He plunged off towards the kitchen staff.

Everywhere I looked, people were dragging tables together. Scratchpads were produced. Knots of people began to form. People rushed from one group to another, dragging long printouts behind them. Data stacks began to appear, glistening and ghostly.

‘Good God, we’ve created a monster,’ said the Boss, calmly, appearing behind me. ‘Peterson, stop writing on the walls. Don’t you know this is a listed building?’

Whiteboards were dragged in and set up. The noise level was enormous. It was all out of my hands. I turned to the Boss and he shrugged. ‘Welcome to my world.’

I wandered over to the Chief and his crew who were hunched over a table-top holo. A voice was saying, ‘And if we put doors at each end then the plant, equipment, whatever, rolls on and then rolls off. No reversing. We get the equipment out and the empty space doubles as a working area. Then we can put living quarters on a second floor, or a mezzanine, out of the way. That way, the tanks can go over here …’ There was a storm of protest.

I left them arguing and went over to Guthrie.

‘I’m saying we can’t use foam – too modern. We can’t use water, either – there’s no point in saving the books from burning by drowning them. We need fire mats – get Professor Rapson to see what they should be made from. And poles with hooks on. And wooden ladders, but we should be able to treat those with some sort of flame retardant …’

‘But what about protective gear? What do we wear? Do we have to fight the fire in sandals and tunics? Will there be contemporaries there? How authentic will we need to be? Professor …?’

‘And Field Medics. Everyone will need burns and crush-injuries training. Maybe at least one doctor should be part of the team. Dr Foster …?’

I left them arguing and made my way over to Mrs Mack.

‘Ten people, say three meals a day for ten days. That’s thirty times ten … Will they have any sort of cooking facilities? Or will they be entirely dependent on supplies shuttled in? And water? They’re going to be hot and thirsty. What’s the weight of a cubic foot of water? ‘

She looked up and saw me. ‘Well, Miss Maxwell, you’ve put the cat amongst the pigeons and no mistake. And to think two days ago we were nearly at meltdown.’

I smiled. ‘I don’t want to interrupt you, but I want to keep this going as long as possible. There’s some good stuff happening. Can you feed and water us in here?’

‘Already taken care of. Soup and sandwiches in ten minutes.’

‘I should have guessed. And what about you and your team, Mrs Mack? Can I tempt you to step outside St Mary’s?’

She grinned at me and I caught a glimpse of the girl who’d stood back to back with her husband the night they threw the Fascists out of Cardiff. She’d be there.

Lunch didn’t even slow us down. Two hours later the Hall looked like a war zone. Discarded printouts littered the floor, along with plastic cups and plates. Practically every surface was covered in scratchpads, disks, sticks, cubes, papers, file covers, and assorted debris. Three or four half-finished data stacks rotated slowly in unfinished limbo. Whiteboards were full. The noise had died down considerably. People were now grappling with the details.

I sat on the stairs with Kal and Peterson. Together we’d knocked out a tentative schedule and a pile of enquiries for other crews.

A shout went up. ‘Max! Over here a minute!’ I heaved myself up and trudged over to Dieter’s table. Hundreds of pieces of paper littered the surface. Equations, diagrams, sketches, scribbled lists – they’d really been going at it here.

‘Look,’ said Dieter, spreading out a large sheet of paper on top of everything. ‘This is a sketch of how we think it could look from the outside.’ He anchored the corners with a mug of cold coffee, two cubes and someone’s scratchpad. We crowded round.

It was rectangular and flat roofed. ‘We can use the roof as another working area. We have a door at each end of the pod. Here and here. The doors let down to be ramps,’ he said, ‘and here we have …’

The Boss gently touched my shoulder. ‘Start putting it together, Miss Maxwell. You have one month.’

And just like that, we were off to Alexandria.

I paused outside the door, striving for calm. I had worked really hard on this. Actually, we’d all worked really hard on this, but mine was the final voice. And I was the one presenting. My month was up. It was time to deliver.

Sticking my chin in the air, I pushed open the door. Mrs Partridge looked up. ‘Go on in, Miss Maxwell; they’re all waiting for you.’

I clutched my briefing notes even more tightly and walked in. She was right; they were all waiting for me. The Boss sat in his usual position at the head of his briefing table, Chief Farrell at his right hand, Major Guthrie on his left. Next to him sat Helen Foster, then Mrs Mack and Mrs Enderby from Wardrobe. On the other side, Professor Rapson and Doctor Dowson should probably not have been allowed to sit together.

They were all here. I’d argued that all departments should be represented, but at the time, I never thought it would be me taking the briefing.

Mrs Partridge joined Kal, Peterson, Dieter, and Jamie Cameron from R & D, all of whom were sitting along one wall. Everyone had their scratchpads open and everyone stared at me with bright anticipation. The Boss nodded for me to start. I very nearly turned and ran.

‘Good afternoon, everyone. This is a three-part briefing: a quick background, an update from all the teams and a provisional schedule.

‘We’ll start with the background briefing.

Ptolemy II of Egypt founded the Library at Alexandria at the beginning of the third-century BC. Estimates of the contents vary between 400,000 and 700,000 scrolls although the actual total may have been very much more or very much less. We just don’t know. Don’t look so dismayed; we won’t be in any position to save even a fraction of that number.

‘Because there are some doubts about the content of the main Library by this date, we’re going for the well-documented destruction of the Serapeum – the daughter library.

‘In 391 AD, Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria, instigates an anti-paganism campaign in the city. He incites the Christians, urging them to destroy the Serapeum and other pagan sites. The mob, doing what mobs do, is very happy to comply. So, when the library is burning around us and fighting breaking out everywhere, that’s when we move in.

‘Thanks to the Pathfinders we now know the exact location of the Serapeum. We also know the internal layout. There are a number of areas, each devoted to a single subject – mathematics, astronomy, natural sciences, anatomy, early history, scientific discourse, and so on.

‘Detailed layouts are in your folders. You’ll see the landing points marked in yellow with the pod number alongside. It’s a big place, but not that big. We don’t want anyone landing inside a wall, so Chief Farrell will personally lay in all co-ordinates.

‘What we do need to worry about, however, is the wholesale destruction occurring around us. But, if we take reasonable precautions we’ll all be fine.’

Someone snorted.

‘Are there any questions so far?’

Apparently not.

‘Chief Farrell, if you could update us on the progress with our new pod, please.’

He looked up. ‘Everything is on schedule. There are some logistical difficulties with the internal layout, but nothing that can’t be resolved. We won’t have time for the outside shell, but we can fix that later. No one will see it but us. I’d like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that Hawking will be out of bounds to all personnel except Mr Dieter and me for three days, starting the day after tomorrow. Please make it clear to your teams that there will be no access for any reason whatsoever during this period until we give the all clear.’

God knows what they were doing in there. There was no point in asking. I’d tried and he’d just grinned at me. So irritating.

I continued. ‘Dr Foster, you’re responsible for all things medical. How is the training going?’

‘We’ve worked our way through first, second, third, and fourth degree burns and the effects of smoke inhalation. We’ve now moved on to the treatment of crush injuries. Everyone going on the assignment has to re-take their Field Medic exam. But, we’re all on schedule.’

I nodded. ‘Dr Dowson?’

‘I’ve located a suitable site where we can hide whatever we do manage to salvage. It’s reasonably near Alexandria and yet should remain completely undisturbed for nearly 2,000 years. You do understand that I can give no guarantees?’

‘We understand, Doctor. And this site is in Egypt, obviously. An unbreakable rule for the future, everyone. Whatever we rescue remains in that country. This is an Egyptian treasure. It stays in Egypt.

‘Professor Rapson, I believe you’ve been to Alexandria.’

He had too, cunningly disguised as an absent-minded academic. Not much disguise needed really. We’d just wrapped him in a sheet, wound him up, and pointed him at Alexandria.

‘I’ve managed to locate a source of earthenware jars I think will be appropriate, Max. I can nip back and conclude the deal whenever you’re ready.’

‘How are you paying?’ Payment had to be with contemporary material.

‘We have … induced … the Egyptology department at Thirsk to part with one or two small treasures.’

‘Excellent. Mrs Mack.’

‘Yes, Max.’ She sat with her scratchpad, all attention.

‘We need you to keep us fed and watered. Dr Dowson tells me Site B has no water supply of any kind. Because we don’t know how much material we’re going to be able to save, or how long it will take us to pack it all away in the desert heat, we have no idea for how long we need to be provisioned.’

The Chief said, ‘This shouldn’t be a problem. We can run a shuttle-pod service ferrying supplies and people as required.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘Please can you two work out the details and let me know.’

I was being really unkind here. She was bouncing with excitement beside me. I put her out of her misery and grinned at her. ‘Mrs Enderby.’

She glowed.

‘We’ll need Wardrobe to provide fireproof clothing, canvas shelters to keep the sun off, and something appropriately sterile to wear when we work.

‘This is most important. Any archaeological find is subject to rigorous scrutiny. This goes double for what we’re about to do. People are going to be screaming, “fake,” if even the slightest detail is wrong. And if we screw this up then we’ll never be trusted again. It will finish us. We have to get this exactly right. So, it’s important to minimise contact with the scrolls as much as possible. All heads must be covered. Nothing to do with religion – or sun, come to that – we can’t afford to have people shedding hair all over these scrolls. Especially if that hair is covered in modern hair product. I don’t know what would survive over two millennia but I’m not taking the risk. We don’t need scientists wondering if the ancients really did use anti-dandruff shampoo. So, Mrs Enderby, Wardrobe’s most rigorous checks please. And no sun cream when handling the scrolls. Cotton gloves. We don’t know how the chemicals will react with the papyrus over such a long time.

‘Any questions before we move on to the schedule?’

They shook their heads, shifted their papers, cleared their scratchpads, and we moved on.

‘Professor Rapson, you and your team jump to Alexandria, Site A, to acquire the pots, tar-making materials, provisions, etc., taking them on to Doctor Dowson at Site B. You and your team are in Number Three. Mr Dieter will accompany you.

‘Dr Dowson, your team is in TB2 and you jump straight to Site B, the re-burial site, to set things up and wait for the Professor. Chief Farrell will accompany you.

‘The scroll-retrieval team, that’s my gang, are in Number One because it’s small. There are three teams – mine, with Markham and Van Owen; Mr Peterson’s with Schiller and Evans; and Miss Black’s, with Weller and Clarke. One historian, one Pathfinder, and one security guard to each team.

‘The medical team are in Number Two and the fire-fighting and security teams are in Numbers Five and Six. We all jump to Site A together and get cracking inside the library.