“If you’re right,” Mac said, “which I don’t doubt, then this discovery could prove it was Arabs, not Vikings, who first set foot here.”
She wasn’t ready to assert that. Not until she could carbon-date the vessel. Still, her friend—the colleague who had urged her to come here—had been right. This discovery had the potential to rewrite history.
Nelson followed her, waving his handheld device. “Unfortunately, these poor sailors never made it back home to tell their story.”
“Or at least, one didn’t,” Mac added. “We found only a single body aboard the ship. No telling what happened to the rest.”
Elena turned sharply back, nearly blinded as Mac flicked on a flashlight. “So, you’ve been inside?”
Mac pointed toward where a boulder had cracked open the side of the hull. “It’s the other reason you were recommended. This isn’t all we discovered. Follow me.”
He led the way to the trapped ship and twisted sideways to fold his large form through the crack in the hull. “Careful where you step and try not to brush against any supports. We’re lucky this boat wasn’t crushed flat by the ice. The roof of this cave must have protected it all this time.”
Elena climbed in after Mac, with Nelson trailing. John stayed with the boat, still smoking his pipe. With the motor switched off, the place was now deathly quiet, as if the world were holding its breath. As her ears adjusted, though, she could still hear the ice. The walls moaned and sighed. A low grinding echoed throughout the tunnels as if some massive beast were gnashing its teeth.
The reminder of the danger tempered her excitement—but not enough to stop her from exploring the ancient ship.
Mac’s flashlight illuminated the main hold, which was supported by ice-blackened timbers. They crossed quickly through this dead forest. The air had a vague oily smell, like mineral spirits or gasoline. To either side, giant earthenware jars stood shoulder-high, lining the curve of the walls. One had shattered long ago, looking as if it had exploded from the inside. She caught a stronger whiff of wet asphalt as she passed it, but any evaluation of the contents would have to wait.
Clearly her guide had a goal in mind.
Mac led them toward the boat’s bow, where steps led up to a door in a wooden wall. “We guessed this was the captain’s quarters.”
He climbed and entered first, bowing low to pass through. Once inside, he stepped aside and offered his hand to help her up. She took it, already feeling weak-kneed by the breathless excitement of it all. Along with a measure of terror.
She joined Mac in the windowless quarters. Shelves lined either side, where books and scrolls had long decayed into moldering ruins. A desk filled the forward part of the tiny cabin, abutting the arch of the ship’s wooden prow.
“Might want to brace yourself for this,” Mac warned.
He shifted his large bulk so she would approach the desk. She took a step forward, then back again. A chair stood before the desk. But it was not empty. A figure sat there, nestled in a fur cloak made from the hide of a polar bear. His upper body lay collapsed across the desktop, his cheek resting against the surface.
She took a deep steadying breath. She had examined mummies during her time in Egypt, even dissected a few. But the body here was far more disturbing. The skin had turned to blackened leather, nearly the same hue as the ancient desktop. It looked as if body and desk were one. Yet, at the same time, the body appeared perfectly preserved, down to the eyelashes framing the white globes. She almost expected him to blink.
“It seems the captain went down with the ship,” Nelson said distractedly, his focus on his handheld device.
“Maybe he wanted to protect this.” Mac shifted his beam to follow the corpse’s arms draped atop the desk. Skeletal hands framed a large square metal box, easily two feet wide on each side and half a foot thick. Its surface was stained as black as everything else and looked to be hinged on the far side.
“What is it?” Elena drew alongside Mac, taking some comfort from the solidness of his presence.
“You tell me.”
He reached across the body and lifted the lid. Light blazed forth from within—but as she blinked away the glare, she realized the brightness was only the flashlight’s beam reflecting off the golden inner surface.
Shocked at what was revealed, she leaned closer. “It’s a map.” She studied the three-dimensional rendering of seas and oceans, of continents and islands. She traced the main body of water in the center, which was rendered in priceless blue lapis lazuli. “That has to be the Mediterranean.”
The revealed map encompassed not only the breadth of the sea but all of Northern Africa, the Middle East, and the full measure of the European continent and surrounding oceans. The map extended out into the Atlantic, but not as far as Iceland or Greenland.
These sailors traveled beyond the edge of their map.
But why? Were they explorers searching for new lands? Had they been blown off course? Were they fleeing a threat? A hundred other questions filled her head.
At the top of the gold map, an elaborate silver device was imbedded there. It was spherical, six inches in diameter, half buried in the gold map. Its surface was divided by curved clockwork arms and encircled by longitudinal and latitudinal bands, all inscribed with Arabic symbols and numbers.
“What is it?” Mac asked, having noted her attention.
“It’s an astrolabe. A device used by navigators and astronomers to help determine both a ship’s time and position, even identify stars and planets.” She glanced back to Mac. “Most of the earliest astrolabes were simple in design, just flat discs. This spherical design . . . it’s centuries ahead of its time.”
“And that’s not all,” Mac said. “Watch this.”
He reached to where the dead captain’s hand rested near the flank of the box. He flicked a lever there, and a ticking arose from inside. The astrolabe began to slowly turn on its own, driven by a hidden mechanism. Movement drew her eyes to the gemstone rendering of the Mediterranean. A tiny silver ship began to glide away from what was modern-day Turkey and across the blue sea.
“What do you make of that?” he asked.
She shook her head, as mystified as Mac.
Nelson cleared his throat. “Guys. Maybe we’d better leave that be.”
They both turned to him. His gaze was fixed on the screen of his handheld device. He thumbed a dial, and a quiet clicking rose from it.
“What’s wrong?” Mac asked.
“I mentioned all the resources buried here in Greenland, waiting to be extracted. I failed to mention one. Uranium.” He lifted his device higher. “I forgot to bring a Geiger counter the first time we came down here and thought I’d use this opportunity to correct that mistake.”
Elena stared upward, trying to peer through the deck to the rock and ice beyond. “Are you saying we’re standing in the middle of a uranium deposit?”
“No. This is the first time I got a reading. After Mac opened the box.” He reached down and held the Geiger counter closer to the map. The clicking became more rapid and louder. “That device is radioactive.”
Mac swore and quickly slammed the box closed.
They all retreated.
“How hot is it?” Mac asked.
“About the equivalent of a chest X-ray for every minute you’re exposed.”