Lost Empire

Like a geologist examining an exposed cliff face, Sam felt as though he were descending through history. The first layer of material was regular soil, but passing two more feet the color changed, first to light brown, then a muddy gray.“I’m into the ash layer,” he called.

Clumps and veins of what appeared to be petrified wood and vegetation began appearing in the ash.

His feet touched the bottom of the shaft he’d excavated from above. He kicked toeholds into the sides of the shaft and slowly transferred his weight to his legs until he was certain he was steady. Jutting from the side of the shaft was what they’d thought was a skeletal foot.“It’s a tree root,” he called.

“Thank God.”

“Next one will probably be the real thing.”

“I know.”

“Stick, please.”

Remi lowered it down to him. Using both hands, he worked the stick first like a posthole digger, then like a pot stirrer, knocking and scraping at the shaft until he was satisfied with the width. Plumes of ash swirled around him. He waited for the cloud to settle, then squatted on his haunches and repeated the process until he’d opened four more feet of shaft.“How deep so far?” Remi called.

“Eight feet, give or take.” Sam lifted the stick up and slid it into his belt. “We’re going to have to evacuate this debris.”

“Hold on.”

A moment later, Remi called, “Bag coming down.”

One of their nylon stuff sacks landed on his head; knotted to the drawstring was some paracord. Sam squatted down, filled the bag with the debris, and Remi hauled it up. Two more times cleared the shaft.

Sam began lowering himself again. Under the weight of the layers above, the mixture here had become more and more compressed until finally, at the ten-foot mark, the color morphed again, from gray to brown to black.

Sam stopped suddenly. He felt his heart lurch. He turned his head sideways, trying to aim the headlamp’s beam at what had caught his eye. He found it again, then braced his feet against the shaft’s sides to steady himself.“I’ve got timber!” he called.

There were several seconds of silence, then Remi’s faint voice: “I’m dumbfounded, Sam. Describe it.”

“It’s a horizontal piece about three inches thick. I can see eight to ten inches of it.”

“Three inches thick is too thin to be the spar deck. Could it be the deckhouse roof? The only other raised structures were the stack, the engine-room skylight, the wardroom skylight, and the wheelhouse. Do you see any traces of glass?”“No. I’m moving on.”

Again he reached the bottom of his excavation. They evacuated more debris, then he kicked out his toeholds and went to work with the stick. On his first strike, he heard the solid thunk of wood on wood. He did it again with the same result. He dug out the remainder of the shaft, then craned his neck downward, illuminating the bottom with his headlamp.“I’ve got decking,” he shouted.

HE LOWERED HIMSELF until his feet touched the deck. The wood creaked and bowed under his weight. After shoving debris to one side with his boot, he slammed his heel down and got a satisfying crack in reply. A dozen more stomps opened a ragged two-foot hole. The rest of the detritus plunged through the opening.“I’m going through.”

Hand over hand, he lowered himself through the deck. The light from the surface receded and faded, leaving him suspended in the glow of his headlamp. His feet touched a hard surface. He tested his weight on it. It was solid. Cautiously, he released the rope.“I’m down,” he called. “Looks okay.” “I’m on my way,” Remi replied.

Two minutes later she was beside him. She clicked on her headlamp and illuminated the hole above their heads. “That has to be the deckhouse roof.”

“Which would make this the berth deck,” said Sam.

And a tomb, they quickly realized, pa

“That’s probably accurate,” Sam replied. “Once the ship was buried, they had three choices: suffocation, starvation, or suicide. Let’s move on. You choose.”

The only blueprints they’d seen for the ship had come from the original shipbuilder; they had no idea what, if any, changes either the Sultan of Zanzibar or Blaylock might have made to the interior layout. This berth deck seemed close to the original, but what about the rest of the ship?

Remi chose forward and started walking. The deck was almost pristine. Had they not come in the way they had, it would’ve been impossible to tell they were under fourteen feet of earth.“Has to be the lack of oxygen,” Remi said. “It’s been hermetically sealed for a hundred thirty years.”

Their beams swept over a wooden column blocking their path.

“The foremast?” Remi asked.

“Yes.”

On the other side of this they found a bulkhead and two steps leading up into what had once been the petty officers’ quarters; it had since been turned into a storage compartment for timber and sailcloth.“Let’s head aft,” Sam said. “Providing Blaylock wasn’t on deck when they got hit, I’m guessing he’d be in either the wardroom or his quarters.”

“I agree.”

“As much as I’d love to explore, I think this is one of those ‘discretion equals valor’ moments.”

Remi nodded. “This will take a full archaeological team and years of work.”

They walked aft, their footfalls clicking dully on the deck and their murmured voices echoing off the bulkheads. They stepped through the berth-deck hatch and found themselves facing another mast, this one the main; on the other side of this were a bulkhead and a ladder leading up to the main deck.“Dead end,” Remi said. “Unless we want to push through to the main deck and tu

“Let’s call that Plan B. According to the blueprints, on the other side of this bulkhead are the coal bunkers, the upper level of the engine room, then the aft hold. The Sultan was known to deal in illicit cargo from time to time. Let’s see if he made any covert adjustments to the layout.”

The bulkhead was six feet high and ran the width of the thirty-foot deck. Using their headlamps, Sam and Remi sca

“It’s heading in the right direction.”

Sam boosted Remi through the hatch, then chi

“We’re over the coal bunkers, I think,” Sam said.

Ten more feet, and Remi said, “Bulkhead coming up.”

They stopped. The sound of Remi’s fingers tapping and probing the bulkhead filled the crawl space.

Snick .

“Eureka,” she said. “Another hatch.”

She crawled through this opening and disappeared. Sam heard the clang of her feet hitting grated steel. He crawled to the hatch. Directly ahead was a stanchion; he grabbed it and used it to ease himself out.They were standing on a railed catwalk. They walked to the edge and shined their headlamps down, illuminating shadowed shapes of machinery, girders, and piping.

They walked along the catwalk to the aft bulkhead, where they found a short ladder leading upward to yet another hatch; once through this hatch, they found themselves hunched over in the four-foot-tall aft hold.Sam pa