Andy McDermott - The Hunt For Atlantis

“Where it says to go right,” Nina said.

“So it’s working so far, then.” They followed the directions farther upriver until their course finally branched off the Amazon itself, onto a tributary over a thousand miles inland. The thin blue line on the page of the atlas continued westward for another hundred miles before stopping. There were still several more direction markings left to follow on the artifact.

“We need a better map,” said Kari. “Satellite imagery too.”

“But at least we know the general area,” Nina said excitedly. “Somewhere along the Tefé river. Right in the middle of the rain forest!”

“A proto-Olmec civilization, that far inland?” wondered Philby. “That doesn’t fit with any of the current theories about their origins and population distribution.”

“Nor does Atlantis, but things seem to be holding up so far,” said Nina, slightly caustically.

Philby huffed. “And how exactly would the Atlanteans be able to sail from the Gulf of Cádiz, according to your theory, all the way across the Atlantic? Even if we accept that the Sea People of ancient legend were in fact the Atlanteans, a journey of a few hundred miles in a trireme is rather different from a journey of several thousand. Especially when they had no way to navigate!”

“Actually,” Nina said, “they did have a way to navigate.”

“What do you mean?” Kari asked.

“I just realized it before you called me.” Nina picked up the artifact. “There was something about this that felt familiar, but I couldn’t work out what until now. Look.” She held the piece by the circular protrusion, letting it swing gently from her fingers like a pendulum. “It’s meant to hang down, like this. And then…” She held her pendant beneath the curved end of the artifact. “They match up exactly. My pendant has a few numbers marked on it, and if you extend it along the same curve and also continue the sequence of numbers… Well, with a sighting system of some kind, like a mirror that fits in the little slot, then you’ve got a way to measure the angle of inclination of an object relative to the horizon!”

“An object like a star?” asked Kari, caught up in Nina’s rising excitement. “Or the sun?”

“Exactly! It’s a sextant! The Atlanteans had a navigational instrument in 10,000 BC that wasn’t reinvented until the sixteenth century!”

“Imagine the military advantage that would give them over any other nation of the time…” Kari said thoughtfully.

Chase looked doubtful. “It’s not exactly like they had GPS.”

“Well no, because to work out longitude you need a very accurate chronometer, and it’s a stretch to think the Atlanteans were that advanced,” Nina said. “But a sextant lets you calculate latitude , how far north or south you are, with reasonable accuracy by using the sun or a star as a guide, as long as you adjust your calculations for the time of year. Which every ancient civilization with knowledge of astronomy was able to do.” She held up the two orichalcum pieces and pretended to take a sighting on Chase’s forehead, swinging her pendant back and forth as if it were part of a larger arc centered on the bar’s pivot. “Without something like this, the only way to navigate at sea is to either follow the coastline looking for landmarks, or use dead reckoning-just head in a particular direction and hope you don’t go off course.”

“But being able to calculate latitude makes longer voyages possible,” added Kari.

“Yeah. In fact…” Nina showed Chase the markings on the bar again. “The number here, seven, then south and west-the seven could be a latitude using whatever scale the Atlanteans worked in, and the compass directions…” The thought that had been taking form in her mind finally solidified. “It’s telling the user how to get to the river on the map from Atlantis! Go south to what they called latitude seven, then turn west. As long as you’re at the right latitude, then all you need to do is keep going west and you’ll eventually reach your destination. Since we know where their latitude seven is , that means…”

Kari completed her thought. “That means, if we can determine exactly how many degrees are in an Atlantean unit of latitude, we can backtrack and work out the exact location of Atlantis!”

“Okay, so,” said Chase, “all we need to do to find Atlantis is mount an expedition into the middle of the Amazon jungle, find a lost city and see if it’s got any old maps still knocking around?”

Nina nodded. “More or less.”

“Yeah, I’m up for that,” he said with a mock casual shrug.

Philby stood up. “Ms. Frost?”

“Yes?”

“This may be completely out of line, but… if your initial surveys show that there may indeed be a lost city somewhere along the Tefé, would it be possible for me to accompany your expedition?”

“Wait, Jonathan, let me get this straight,” said Nina, scenting victory. “Are you saying that now you do believe I was right all along and that Atlantis really existed?”

“Actually,” Philby sniffed, “I was thinking more about the importance of discovering evidence of a pre-Olmec civilization and the chance to study its language firsthand. It would be an incredible find. Any connection to Atlantis would be… well, a bonus.”

Kari was slightly thrown by Philby’s request. “I’ll check with my father, Professor, but… Are you sure that would be practical? We will be going deep into the jungle-and what about your commitments to the university?”

“I think I can arrange the time off-I am the head of the department, after all!” Philby laughed. “Besides, if Dr. Wilde can take off at a moment’s notice on an expedition around the world…” He gave Nina a pointed look. “It’s been several years since I went properly out into the field, but I’ve been to worse places than the jungle, believe me.”

“Then as I said, I’ll check with my father. But for now…” They shook hands. “Welcome aboard, Professor.”

“Thank you,” Philby replied.

Nina put her pendant back around her neck and placed the artifact on the map of Brazil. She gazed at the blank swath of green surrounding the Tefé river, trying to imagine what she would find there. “So,” she whispered, “that’s where you went…”

Brazil

Welcome to the jungle!” Chase sang as he exited the plane.

Despite having traveled all around the world, Nina always found arriving in the tropics an unwelcome shock. While she didn’t mind a hot environment per se, it was far easier to adjust to the dry heat of a desert than it was to emerge from an air-conditioned aircraft cabin into the sticky, humid heat of a tropical jungle.

And it was hard to get much deeper into a tropical jungle. Tefé was in the heart of the Amazon basin, the temperature over eighty degrees Fahrenheit and the humidity sticking her clothes to her skin.

But they would be going farther still into the rain forest. Examination of maps, satellite photos and aerial surveys of the region had narrowed down the possible location of the lost city to an area roughly eight miles in diameter, over a hundred miles upriver from Tefé. The nearest permanent settlement was more than thirty miles from the target area, and even that was just a small village. Nina had seen the aerial photographs; they showed nothing but a solid carpet of verdant green, the only thing breaking the monotony being the snakelike twists of rivers.

That same unbroken canopy of jungle had dictated the group’s mode of transport. A helicopter could have reached the area from Tefé in less than ninety minutes-and Kristian Frost had indeed arranged for one to be standing by in case of any emergency requiring a rapid evacuation-but it would have found nowhere to land. People and equipment would need to be winched into the jungle, and Chase, overseeing the logistics of the operation, had decided it was too risky-much to Castille’s relief.