Seven Ancient Wonders - Matthew Reilly [41]
Interestingly, like the Colossus of Rhodes a few years later, it was built at the request of Ptolemy I of Egypt—Alexander the Great’s close friend and general.
AIRSPACE OVER AFRICA
15 MARCH, 2006, 0200 HOURS
5 DAYS BEFORE THE ARRIVAL OF TARTARUS
The Halicarnassus roared toward Kenya.
The huge black 747, with its bristling array of missiles and gun turrets, cut a mean figure in the sky. It looked like a gigantic bird of prey—death on wings.
Inside it, West’s multinational team was still recovering from their disastrous mission in the Sudan.
In the main cabin of the jumbo, West, Wizard, Lily and Pooh Bear all sat in contemplative silence. The cabin was fitted with couches, some tables, and wall-consoles for radio and communications gear.
Wizard stood. ‘I’d better call the Spanish Army attaché. Tell them about Noddy . . .’
He went to a nearby wall-console, grabbed the secure sat-phone there, started dialling.
West just stared into space, replaying in his mind everything that had gone wrong in the Sudan.
Lily sat with Pooh Bear, gazing at the team’s original copy of the Callimachus Text.
As for the others, Fuzzy and Big Ears were in the infirmary in the rear of the plane, being treated by Zoe; and Sky Monster was up in the cockpit, flying the plane, with Stretch keeping him company.
In the main cabin, Lily scanned another entry of the Callimachus Text. The symbols on the page were ancient, alien.
Then suddenly she squealed, ‘Hey!’
West snapped up. Wizard also spun.
‘This entry here. I couldn’t understand it before, but for some reason, I can now. It’s more complex than the last one. Uses new symbols. But I can read it now.’
‘What’s it say?’ West leapt to her side.
Lily read it aloud:
‘The Pharos.
Look for the base that was once the peak of the Great Tower
In the deepest crypt of Iskender’s Highest Temple,
Soter’s illustrious House to the Muses,
Among the works of Eratosthenes the measurer, Hipparchus the stargazer,
And Archimedes and Heron the machine makers,
There you will find it EUCLID’S INSTRUCTIONS
Surrounded by Death.’
Lily frowned. ‘The word “it” has been crossed out and replaced with “Euclid’s instructions”. I don’t know what they are.’
‘I do,’ Wizard said, reaching for a high-tech stainless-steel trunk behind him. It opened with a vacuum-sealed hiss. The trunk was fitted with many pigeonholes, each pigeonhole containing an ancient scroll. Wizard’s collection was huge—there were at least 200 tightly rolled scrolls.
‘Now where is that index? Ah, here it is.’ Wizard pulled a computer printout from a sleeve in the trunk’s lid. On it was a very long typewritten list. ‘Now, Euclid’s Instructions . . . Euclid’s Instructions. I’m sure I saw that title once before. Ah, good, there we are. Just a moment.’
Wizard proceeded to rummage through his scrolls. As he did so, West typed out Lily’s translation of the Text.
Stretch entered the main cabin, noticed the activity immediately. ‘What’s going on?’
‘We may have had a development,’ West said. He read one line from the translation. ‘“Soter’s illustrious House to the Muses”. A House to the Muses is a “museion” or “museum”. Soter was Ptolemy I. Soter’s House to the Muses is the Library at Alexandria, otherwise known as the Museion.’
‘So,’ Pooh Bear said, ‘in the deepest crypt of the Alexandria Library, among those works mentioned, we’ll find “the base that was once the peak of the Lighthouse”, whatever that is. I thought the Library was destroyed in antiquity.’
‘It was,’ Zoe said, coming into the main cabin. ‘By the Romans in 48 BC. The Biblioteca Alexandrina was the centre of all learning in the ancient world, possessed of over 700,000 scrolls and the writings of some of the greatest thinkers in human history, and the Romans razed it to the ground.’
She saw West’s translation. ‘God. Look at those names. It’s like a Who’s Who of history’s greatest minds. Eratosthenes: he calculated the circumference of the Earth. Hipparchus mapped the constellations. Archimedes figured out volume and was a prolific inventor. And Heron. Well. Heron invented