Lost City

"Good enough for me."

"You're far too trusting. I'll elaborate. The caravans that plied the Amber Route needed places to stop for the night. I'm looking for the ruins of hospices, or settlements that may have grown up around a stopping place. Then I hope to find weapons that would flesh out the full trade story."

They washed their lunch down with Evian water, and Austin's fingers played over the controls. The battery-powered electrical motors hummed, activating the twin lateral thrusters that the sphere rested on, and the submersible continued its exploration.

The SEAmagine SEA mobile was fifteen feet long, about the length of a mid sized Boston whaler, and only seven feet wide, but it was capable of carrying two people in one-atmosphere comfort to a depth of fifteen hundred feet for hours at a time. The vehicle had a range of twelve nautical miles and a maximum speed of 2.5 knots. Unlike most submersibles, which bobbed like a cork when they surfaced, the SEA mobile could be operated like a boat. It sat high in the water when it wasn't submerged, giving the pilot clear visibility, and could cruise to a dive site or edge up to a dive platform.

The SEA mobile looked as if it had been assembled from spare parts cast off from a deep submergence lab. The crystal ball cockpit was fifty-four inches in diameter and it was perched on two flotation cylinders the size of water mains. Two protective metal frames shaped like the letter D flanked the sphere.

The vehicle was built to maintain positive buoyancy at all times and the tendency to float to the surface was countered by a midship-mounted vertical thruster. Because the SEA mobile was balanced to remain level constantly, at the surface or under it, the pilot didn't have to fiddle around with pitch controls to keep it at a horizontal attitude.

Using a navigational acoustic Doppler instrument to keep track of their position, Austin guided the vehicle along the underwater escarpment, a broad shelf that gradually sloped down into the deeper water. Following a basic search pattern, Austin ran a series of parallel lines like someone mowing a lawn. The sub's four halogen lights illuminated the bottom, whose contours had been shaped by the advance and retreat of glaciers.

The sub tracked back and forth for two hours and Austin's eyes were starting to glaze from staring at the monotonous gray seascape. Skye was still entranced by the uniqueness of her surroundings. She leaned forward, chin on her hands, studying every square foot of lake bottom. In time, her persistence paid off.

"There!" She jabbed the air with her forefinger.

Austin slowed the vehicle to a crawl and squinted at a vague shape just beyond the range of the lights, then moved the submersible in for a closer look. The object lying on its side was a massive stone slab about twelve feet long and half as wide. The chisel marks visible along its edges suggested that it was not a natural rock formation.

Other monoliths could be seen nearby, some standing upright; others topped with similar slabs like the Greek letter.

"Seems we took a wrong turn and ended up at Stonehenge," Austin said.

"They're burial monuments," Skye said. "The arches mark the way to a tomb for funeral processions."

Austin increased the power to the thrusters and the vehicle glided over six identical archways spaced thirty feet or so apart. Then the ground on either side of the archways began to rise, creating a shallow valley. The natural hillsides morphed into high cyclopean walls constructed with massive hand-hewn blocks.

The narrow canyon ended abruptly in a sheer vertical wall. Cut into the wall was a rectangular opening that looked like the door on an elephant house. A lintel about thirty feet wide topped the door opening and above the huge slab was a smaller, triangular hole.

"Incredible," Skye said in hushed tones. "It's a tho los

"You've seen this before?" ~~

"It's a beehive tomb. There's one in Mycenae called the "Treasury of Atreus

"Mycenae. That's Greek."

"Yes, but the design is even older. The tombs go back to 2200 B.C. They were used for communal burials in Crete and other parts of the Aegean. Kurt, do you know what this means?" Her voice quivered with excitement. "We could establish trade links between the Aegean and Europe far earlier than anyone has dared to suggest. I'd give anything to get a close look at the tomb."

"My standard price for an underwater tomb tour is an invitation to di

"You can get us inside?"

"Why not? We've got plenty of clearance on either side and above. If we go slowly "

"The hell with slow! Depeche-toi. Vite, vitel" Austin laughed, and moved the submersible forward toward the dark opening. He was as eager as Skye, but he advanced with caution. The lights were begi

"Kurt, this is support. Come in, please."

The words being transmitted through the water had a metallic vibrato, but Austin recognized the voice of the NUMA boat's captain.

He brought the submersible to a hovering stop and picked up the microphone. "This is the SEA mobile Do you read me?"

"Your voice is a little faint and scratchy, but I can hear you. Please tell Ms. Labelle that Francois wants to talk to her."

Francois Balduc was the French observer NUMA had invited aboard as a courtesy to the French government. He was a pleasant, middle-aged bureaucrat who stayed out of the way except at di

There was a heated discussion in French, which ended when Skye passed the microphone back.

"Merde!" she said with a frown. "We've got to go up."

"Why? We still have plenty of air and power."

"Francois got a call from a big shot in the French government. I'm needed immediately to identify some sort of artifact."

"That doesn't sound very urgent. Can it wait?"

"As far as I'm concerned it can until Napoleon returns from exile," she said with a sigh, "but the government is subsidizing part of my research here, so I'm on call, so to speak. I'm sorry."

Austin stared with narrowed eyes at the opening. "This tomb has been hidden from human view possibly for thousands of years. It's not going anywhere."

Skye nodded in agreement, although her heart clearly wasn't in it.

They looked longingly at the mysterious doorway, and then

Austin put the submersible in a U-turn. Once they were clear of the canyon, he reached for the vertical thruster control, and the submersible began its ascent.

Moments later, the bubble cockpit popped out at the surface near the NUMA catamaran. He maneuvered the craft around behind the boat and drove it over a submerged platform between the twin hulls. The gate was raised and a winch hoisted the platform carrying the submersible up onto the deck.

Francois was awaiting their arrival, an anxious expression on his usually bland face. "I'm so sorry to interrupt your work, Mademoiselle Skye. The co chon who called me was most insistent."

She pecked him lightly on the cheek. "Don't worry, Francois; it's not your fault. Tell me what they want."

He gestured toward the mountains. "They want you over there." "The glacier. Are you sure?"

He nodded his head vigorously. "Yes, yes, I asked the same thing. They were very clear that they needed your expertise. They found something in the ice. That's all I know. The boat is waiting."

Skye turned to Austin, an anxious look on her face. He anticipated her words. "Don't worry. I'll wait until you get back before I dive on the tomb."