Timeline - Michael Crichton [17]
As they passed over one farm, the geese in the barnyard flapped, and a woman in an apron shook her fist at them.
“She’s not happy about us,” Marek said, pointing with his massive muscular arm.
Sitting in the seat behind him, Kramer put on her sunglasses and said, “Well, it is six o’clock in the morning. Why did we go so early?”
“For the light,” Marek said. “Early shadows reveal contours, crop marks, all that.” He pointed down past his feet. Three heavy yellow housings were clamped to the front struts of the helicopter. “Right now we’re carrying stereo terrain mappers, infrared, UV, and side-scan radar.”
Kramer pointed out the rear window, toward a six-foot-long silver tube that dangled beneath the helicopter at the rear. “And what’s that?”
“Proton magnetometer.”
“Uh-huh. And it does what?”
“Looks for magnetic anomalies in the ground below us that could indicate buried walls, or ceramics, or metal.”
“Any equipment you’d like that you don’t have?”
Marek smiled. “No, Ms. Kramer. We’ve gotten everything we asked for, thank you.”
The helicopter had been skimming over the rolling contours of dense forest. But now she saw outcrops of gray rock, cliff faces that cut across the landscape. Marek was giving what struck her as a practiced guided tour, talking almost continuously.
“Those limestone cliffs are the remains of an ancient beach,” he said. “Millions of years ago, this part of France was covered by a sea. When the sea receded, it left behind a beach. Compressed over eons, the beach became limestone. It’s very soft stone. The cliffs are honeycombed with caves.”
Kramer could indeed see many caves, dark openings in the rock. “There’re a lot of them,” she said.
Marek nodded. “This part of southern France is one of the most continuously inhabited places on the planet. Human beings have lived here for at least four hundred thousand years. There is a continuous record from Neanderthal man right up to the present.”
Kramer nodded impatiently. “And where is the project?” she said.
“Coming up.”
The forest ended in scattered farms, open fields. Now they were heading toward a village atop a hill; she saw a cluster of stone houses, narrow roads, and the stone tower of a castle rising into the sky.
“That’s Beynac,” Marek said, his back to her. “And here comes our Doppler signal.” Kramer heard electronic beeps in her headphones, coming faster and faster.
“Stand by,” the pilot said.
Marek flicked on his equipment. A half dozen lights glowed green.
“Okay,” the pilot said. “Starting first transect. Three . . . two . . . one.”
The rolling forested hills fell away in a sheer cliff, and Diane Kramer saw the valley of the Dordogne spread out beneath them.
:
The Dordogne River twisted in loops like a brown snake in the valley it had cut hundreds of thousands of years before. Even at this early hour, there were kayakers paddling along it.
“In medieval times the Dordogne was the military frontier,” Marek said. “This side of the river was French and the other side was English. Fighting went back and forth. Directly beneath us is Beynac, a French stronghold.”
Kramer looked down on a picturesque tourist town with quaint stone buildings and dark stone roofs. The narrow, twisting streets were empty of tourists. The town of Beynac was built against the cliff face, rising from the river up to the walls of an old castle.
“And over there,” Marek said, pointing across the river, “you see the opposing town of Castelnaud. An English stronghold.”
High on a far hill, Kramer saw a second castle, this one built entirely of yellow stone. The castle was small but beautifully restored, its three circular towers rising gracefully into the air, connected by high walls. It, too, had a quaint tourist town built around its base.
She said, “But this isn’t our project. . ..”
“No,” Marek said. “I’m just showing you the general layout in this region. All along the Dordogne, you find these paired, opposing castles. Our project also involves a pair of opposing castles, but it’s a few miles