Clive Cussler - Atlantis Found

Hatfield shook his head in wonder. "I've seen ancient burials where the bodies were wrapped tightly in gauze in coffins, in fetal positions inside clay pots, lying facedown or faceup, and in standing positions. Never have I heard of mummies sitting exposed."

"I've set up lights inside so you can examine them and the other artifacts."

During the hours Giordino was waiting for Pitt and Pat O'Connell to appear, he had enlisted the SEALs to help clear the rockfall, carry the rocks outside, and dump them down the mountain. The tunnel to the inner crypt was now open, and they could walk straight through without climbing over fallen debris. Floodlights lit the crypt even brighter than sunlight, revealing the mummies and their garments in colorful detail.

Hatfield rushed forward and began examining the first mummy's face almost nose to nose. He looked like a man lost in paradise. He went from figure to figure, examining the skin, the ears, noses, and lips. He opened a large leather folding case and removed a surgeon's metal headband that mounted a light and magnifying lens in front of the eyes. After slipping it over his head, turning on the light, and focusing the lenses, he lightly brushed the dust away from a mummy's eyelids with a soft-bristled artist's brush. The others watched in silence until he turned, lifted the headband, and spoke.

His words came as if he were giving a sermon in church. "In all my years of studying ancient cadavers," he said softly, "I have never seen bodies so well preserved. Even the eyeballs appear to be intact enough to tell the color of their irises."

"Perhaps they're only a hundred years old or less," said Giordino.

"I don't believe so. The fabric of their robes, the style of their boots, the cut and style of their head coverings and clothing is unlike any I've ever seen, certainly unlike those in historical records. Whatever their embalming methods, these people's techniques were far superior to that found in mummies I've studied in Egypt. The Egyptians mutilated the bodies to remove the internal organs of their dead, extracting the brain through the nose and removing the lungs and abdominal organs. These bodies are not disfigured inside or out. They appear virtually untouched by embalmers."

"The inscriptions we found in the mountains of Colorado were dated at nine thousand B.C.," said Pat. "Is it possible these people and their artifacts are from the same millennium?"

"Without dating technology, I can't say," replied Hatfield. "I'm out of my depth at drawing time conclusions. But I'm willing to stake my reputation that these people came from an ancient culture that is historically unknown."

"They must have been first-rate seafarers to have found this island and used it to inter their leaders," observed Pitt.

"Why here?" inquired Giordino. "Why didn't they bury their dead in a more convenient place along a continental shoreline?"

"The best guess is that they didn't want them found," answered Pat.

Pitt stared at the mummies pensively. "I'm not so sure. I think they eventually wanted them to be discovered. They left descriptive communications in other underground chambers thousands of miles apart. From what I understand, you and Hiram Yaeger have established that the inscriptions in Colorado are not messages to gods governing the land of the dead."

"That's true as far as it goes. But we have a long way to go in deciphering all the symbols and their meanings. What little we've learned until now is that the inscriptions are not of a funerary nature, but rather a warning of a future catastrophe."

"Whose future?" asked Giordino. "Maybe in the last nine thousand years, it already happened."

"We haven't determined any time projections yet," answered Pat. "Hiram and Max are still working on it." She walked over to one wall and wiped away the dust covering what looked like figures carved in the rock. Her eyes widened with excitement. "These are not the same style of symbols we found in Colorado. These are glyphs portraying human figures and animals."

Soon they were all working to remove the dust and grime of centuries from the polished rock. Beginning in the four corners of the wall, they worked toward the middle until the inscriptions were revealed in distinct detail under the bright floodlights.

"What do you make of it?" Giordino asked no one in particular.

"Definitely a harbor or a seaport," Pitt said quietly. "You can make out a fleet of ancient ships with sails and oars, surrounded by a breakwater whose ends support high towers, probably some kind of beacons or lighthouses."

"Yes," agreed Hatfield. "I can easily discern buildings around the docks where several ships are moored."

"They seem to be in the act of loading and unloading cargo," said Pat, peering through her ever-present magnifying glass. "The people are carved in meticulous detail and are wearing the same type of clothing as the mummies. One ship looks like it's unloading a herd of animals."

Giordino moved in close to Pat and squinted at the glyphs. "Unicorns," he announced. "They're unicorns. See, they only have one horn coming from the top of their heads."

"Fanciful," muttered Hatfield skeptically. "As fanciful as sculptures of nonexistent Greek gods."

"How do you know?" Pitt challenged him. "Perhaps unicorns actually existed nine thousand years ago, before they became extinct along with woolly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers."

"Yes, along with Medusas with snakes for hair and Cyclops with only one eye in their forehead."

"Don't forget gargoyles and dragons," added Giordino.

"Until bones or fossils are found that prove they existed," said Hatfield, "they'll have to remain a myth from the past."

Pitt didn't debate further with Hatfield. He turned and walked behind the stone chairs still holding the mummies and stared at a large curtain of sewn animal hides that covered the far wall. Very gently, he lifted one corner of the curtain and looked under it. His face took on a mystified expression.

"Careful," warned Hatfield. "That's very fragile."

Pitt ignored him and raised the curtain in both hands until it had curled above his head.

"You shouldn't touch that," Hatfield cautioned irritably. "It's a priceless relic and might crumble to pieces. It must be handled delicately until it can be preserved."

"What's under it is even more priceless," Pitt said in a impassive voice. He nodded at Giordino. "Grab a couple of those spears and use them to prop up the curtain."

Hatfield, his face flushed crimson, tried to stop Giordino, but he might as well have tried to halt a farm tractor. Giordino brushed him aside without so much as a sideways glance, snatched two of the ancient obsidian spears, planted their tips on the floor of the chamber, and used their butt ends to hold up the curtain. Then Pitt adjusted a pair of floodlights until their beams were concentrated on the wall.

Pat held her breath and stared at the four large circles carved into the polished wall, with strange diagrams cut within their circumferences. "They're glyphs of some kind," she said solemnly.

"They look like maps," spoke up Giordino.

"Maps of what?"

A bemused smile spread Pitt's lips. "Four different projections of the earth."

Hatfield peered through his glasses over Pat's shoulder. "Ridiculous. These glyphs don't look like any ancient maps I've ever seen. They're too detailed, and they certainly bear no resemblance to geography as I know it."

"That's because your shallow mind cannot visualize the continents and shorelines as they were nine thousand years ago."

"I must agree with Dr. Hatfield," said Pat. "All I see is a series of what might be large and small islands with jagged coastlines surrounded by wavy images suggesting a vast sea."

"My vote goes for a butterfly damaged by antiaircraft fire on a Rorschach inkblot test," Giordino muttered cynically.