Timeless (26 page)

“Is there a problem?” Dr. Fraser asked.

“No, sir. Not at all. I was just concerned about leaving my workmates behind.”

“Perhaps we can arrange a rotation for them. You have all done a fine job on the monoliths but I thought your time would be better spent either joining the dig out here” He gestured to the area of the site where a grid had been set up around two of the monoliths. “or below, inside the chamber, once we’ve established the structure is truly safe.”

“I’m sure they’ll all be thrilled.” To wallow in the mud establishing a grid. She bit back a laugh, part amusement, part excitement. “Thank you, Dr. Fraser. I appreciate this opportunity.”

“Come sit at the table and have a look at what we’ve discovered.”

Gordon Murdock and Ronald Mc Fie exited their seats to allow her to look at the computer screen. The two moved to lift Noggie from the water with a basket attached to a pulley and swing him onto a metal cart.

Regan focused on the video the RV had shot. The narrow stone stairs had an eerie quality as they disappeared into the darkness beyond the RV’s lights. The camera panned from side to side taking in the low-slung passage. The roof came into sight. It too appeared to be stone.

“Is it a cave?”

“Partly. One side of the chamber seems to be constructed of stones held together by some kind of mortar.” He pointed at the section the camera had picked up. “So it may be there to section off the chamber, or a wall created to strengthen the side not made of natural stone. We won’t know until you get a first-hand view of it and document it.”

“I’ll take some pictures first thing before the silt gets kicked up.”

“That’s what we were hoping. But should it appear unstable, you must keep your distance. We’ve looked it over thoroughly with the RV, but the camera can’t capture as much detail as we’d like.”

Regan nodded. “If possible, I’d like a copy of the video to study before going down tomorrow.”

“You and Dr. Arturo will be going down together. Though he’s seen it all from the platform, ‘twill be wise for you both to look it over together to plot a strategy for the dive.”

Regan nodded. She sat down at the monitor. The gray-brown color of a stone wall passed slowly before the screen. The surface appeared smooth, as though naturally formed, not carved, as were the stairs. The unexpected appearance of a trout swimming by had her looking up.

“’Twould seem we left some fish behind inside the chamber when we pumped the water away,” Dr. Fraser said. “I’m surprised they’re still alive.” He turned aside to say something to one of the men loading the RV onto a wheeled cart.

Regan returned to the video. Debris came into view. A pulpy mush filled the screen. Wood? She leaned forward and studied the deteriorated substance more closely. Something shiny poked from beneath it.

What was that? She froze the image to study it further. Using the zoom capabilities of the software, she homed in on the object.  It looked like volcanic glass beneath a thin layer of sand colored slime. Beside it, the lip of a clay pot protruded.

Dr. Fraser stopped behind her. He leaned forward to look at the object. “What do you think it might be, Regan?”

“I don’t know. I’ll try and find out what it is tomorrow. It’s just before the constructed wall. It doesn’t appear to be clay.”

He nodded. “I don’t have to tell you to document as much as possible.”

She was silent for a moment, studying his features. Was he being pressured to rush things? The artifacts hidden beneath a layer of silt, artifacts that had remained preserved beneath the water for years, would disintegrate in a matter of days. “I’ll do my best.”

*****

Quinn paced the length of the decompression chamber. Never before had he had a problem with claustrophobia. Though the walls of the pot seemed to close in on him, he refused to acknowledge that he was having one now. He focused instead on controlling the tightness in his chest and slowing the heavy beat of his heart. A cold sweat beaded his forehead. Why was this happening?

He strode to the COM phone on the wall and picked it up. “How much longer, Logan?” His tone sounded abrupt, his breathing heavy.

“Two hours at least.”

He hung up the phone with more force than necessary. “God damn it.” He threw himself into the bunk and rested his wrist over his eyes. His hand throbbed dully despite the pain medication he’d taken, the heavy beat of his heart keeping time with it.

He opened his eyes to darkness. He jerked startled. The bed beneath him felt spongy and damp. The sound of water trickled close by. Had the lights gone off? Had the flushing mechanism on the toilet malfunctioned?

He started to sit up and bumped his head on something solid and swore. A woman’s voice whispering in Gaelic collided with his. He stilled, going silent. His mind registered that he was alone within the pot and the only communication was the COM phone, yet the sound of her voice was real. Her dull murmurings sounded hollow contained within the bunk compartment as though the walls had closed in around him and she was lying right beside him. A labored, syrupy breathing, not his own, filled the space.

Quinn’s pulse thundered and the hairs on his arms rose. He reached out to touch the mattress next to him with his hurt hand. Bone chilling air touched his skin. The cadence of the voice changed and her words became clear.

“With my blood open the way for strength,

With my body open the way to peace,

With my blood open the way to unity,

With my body protect my people from the harm he would do them, now and forever more.”

The abrupt change from darkness to light, from the stuffy feeling of entombment to having air circulating around him, had him blinking and drawing in a deep breath. Sunlight cast a small spotlight on the floor through the porthole positioned at the front of the pot. His muscles, tense with reaction, quivered as he sat up on the edge of the bunk. With a hand that shook, he rubbed the side of his face. Had he fallen asleep? He didn’t feel groggy from slumber, but fully alert. Did one go from sleep to wakefulness without any transition from one to the other?

The chant she had whispered went through his head. What had she meant by with her body and her blood? “Jesus.” Realization punched through him. She sacrificed herself to protect
her people
.
Sacrificed herself— “Regan.” His stomach clenched. Every time he’d had a vision it had worked as a kind of warning concerning her.

Quinn found himself on his feet without having any recollection of rising. He went to the porthole and looked toward the cofferdam.

CHAPTER 24

Regan looked down at the water-filled opening to the underground chamber. Quinn wouldn’t like this. But would he expect her to tell Dr. Fraser no and pass up the opportunity to dive? She’d only be in three or four meters of water. She was careful, competent. Nothing would happen.

Guilt cramped her stomach. She should have told him. She’d wanted to tell him. But he’d been in pain with his hand and anxious to get out of the pot. He’d have argued with her about it.

She thrust aside her worry and guilt with an effort and focused on the excitement thrumming along her nerve endings like the hum of a tuning fork. She was going to be the first to breach the chamber! Had the water been deeper, they’d have been required to dive it hardhat instead of scuba, and she wouldn’t have had the opportunity.

“Since we aren’t going to put in lines along the walls to follow, we’ll have to use the walls themselves as guides to get around once the water gets hazy,” Dr. Arturo said. His lilting Italian accent was pleasing to the ear, but the intensity he projected had Regan looking up. “Remember we’re just checking out the walls this trip, and taking a few samples.”

Regan drew a deep breath. She found Dr. Arturo’s insistent repetitiveness—suspicious. She glanced first at Dr. Fraser, then in Henry’s direction. A niggling hurt nipped at her. Had one of them said something to Dr. Arturo about her work? She looked up into the professor’s wide square-jawed face. “I don’t take unnecessary risks, Doctor. We’ve been over and over the plan. I won’t deviate from it.”

His frown cleared, and he offered her a brief smile. “Good.

“Since we’ll be giving the constructed wall a good look over, I’ll wait until we’ve finished taking our samples there before I try to locate the artifact Dr. Fraser’s interested in.”

“Good. That is wise.” He pulled the hood of his dry suit up over his abundance of curly, dark hair and gave a nod. “We are ready.” 

Wasting no time, Regan pulled her full-face mask into place. She’d been plagued with the idea that at the last moment she’d be pulled from the dive and replaced by someone with more seniority and more experience.

“Let’s try your com system, Regan,” Gordon Murdock said through her headphones.

“Regan here, over.”

“You’re coming in loud and clear. There may be some interference once you’re submerged. We’ve not tried the systems inside a structure yet.”

“I’m glad to help you break new ground.” Did her voice sound as nervous to him as it did to her? Shutting her eyes for a moment, she consciously sought to slow her breathing.

She braced her hand on the wall that angled down into the opening and stepped into the water. The double eighty scuba tanks threw off her balance. Her fingers gripped a small handhold keeping her from pitching backward. The dive light looped around her wrist struck the stone and skittered along it. Damn!

Bracing her feet, she stabilized her position. She adjusted the pony bottle of emergency gas against her chest and took another step down. The bag of tools hanging at her waist swung against her thigh. Her flippers slid on the silt-covered stairs.

So as not to stir the debris, she bent her knees and fell face down into the opening. Gray-green water covered her facemask and, for a moment, she experienced the sensation of swimming inside a glass bottle.

Projecting the dive light’s illumination onto the stone stairs, she adopted the frog-like kick utilized by cave divers to keep from stirring up the muck and followed the steps downward.

Her gear, weighing nearly fifty pounds, hung buoyant in the water. The sound of her respiration whispered past her ear.

She was where she needed to be, in this time and place. She swam where Coira had stood, and worshipped. Would she offer up her secrets or would she make her dig for them? For the first time since she’d begun diving, calm descended over her.

Regan released air from the bladder-like buoyancy compensators so she could hover over the bottom with less effort. She shined the light as far as its glow could reach. Rubble lay against the base of the walls. A déjà vu moment struck, and she captured an image of a table set against one wall. Shelves rested against two walls, layered with herbs, dried plants, and pottery sealed with bits of cloth. Was she projecting what she wanted to find? Or was she truly experiencing some ancient memory imprinted in her DNA?

The sunlight penetrating from the opening above shone down on the stairs. Regan studied their structure. The gray-black color of the stone set them apart. They weren’t hewn from the same igneous rock as the cave. She itched to explore them further, but forced her attention back to the task at hand. “I’m at the bottom of the stairs. The room appears empty except for a small amount of debris close to each wall.”

Dr. Arturo swam to her side, touched her shoulder, and pointed upward. “They’re going to launch the RV.”

Regan signaled thumbs up, and they swam out of Noggie’s dive path. The ROV hit the water with a splash as they launched him into the chamber.

“We’ll record the dimensions of the room first.” Arturo handed Regan the end of a tape measure and motioned her to the south side of the room while he took the north. Recording the dimensions of the chamber on a wrist tablet with a grease pencil took her only a few moments. The room appeared to be a little less than eight meters long and nearly seven meters wide. The ceiling hung three meters above them. Dr. Arturo read the dimensions into the recorded record.

With Dr. Arturo’s warnings fresh in her mind, Regan quelled the urge to go directly to the shiny object captured on the Noggie’s video. Was it a shard of glass deposited there somehow from more recent times? Or had she truly seen a crystal? Dr. Fraser had given her permission to search for it if they had time. She’d get to it soon enough.

“I’m taking the pictures of the wall now,” she announced.

“Roger, Regan.”

She retrieved an underwater camera from Noggie’s storage compartment and approached the wall. Dr. Arturo began taking samples from the debris against the west wall.

Taking the pictures took only a few moments. “I’m finished with the pictures and will be taking samples now.” She removed some specimen jars from the RV’s storage compartment. She took random samples from the upper layer of some of the refuse deposited against two walls. She measured from the corner of the room to each area and recorded the reference point on each bottle with her grease pencil. She filled two plastic containers with water and gently scooped two of the clay pots, stuffed with debris, into them. After sealing them, she wrote their location on the exterior of the container.

Twenty sample containers lined Noggie’s interior before she and Dr. Arturo moved to the east wall. The stone and mortar structure looked solid, but Regan avoided touching it. Arturo swam to the ceiling at one end, while she kicked toward the other. Noggie focused his lights on the surface. “We will be taking specimens from the wall,” Arturo announced.

She aimed her dive light at one small section at a time to study the strength of the mortar. The material looked dark, waterlogged. She withdrew a dentist pick from the bag hanging from her waist and scraped at a small section at the top. A thick paste the consistency of butter came away in a strip. Poking it in a small sample jar with the surrounding water, she sealed it and placed it in Noggie’s storage compartment. She continued the study, taking random samples of the mortar. The water grew increasingly milky with silt stirred up by their movements.