Katie Comely did not have a degree in geology, like Professor Raynes did, but she had spent enough weeks down in the crypt where she had been working to know exactly what noise the floor made when you dropped something on it.
It was solid. Like a chunk. Like there was nothing but a few hundred feet of sand under it, and then bedrock under that, and then the Earth’s crust — all firm substances, all the way down to the molten core of the planet.
But that was not the timbre of the clanging that resulted when she dropped her hammer. It was more of a thwok. Like there was a pocket of air behind it; a small chamber, perhaps, or some kind of opening that echoed.
The first time she heard it, she almost didn’t believe it. She assumed she had been underground too long and it was starting to play with her senses. So she picked up the hammer and dropped it again. Sure enough: thwok. She moved to another spot. Chunk. Back to the first spot. Thwok.
There was no doubt. Katie had been closing up a crate containing a set of common artifacts — some urns that would not generate much interest, tools employed by ancient construction workers, a chunk of wall with hieroglyphs proclaiming the greatness of a pharaoh who ruled Lower Egypt before it merged with Upper Egypt five thousand years ago. Outside the crypt, up on the surface, some of the dayworkers who were hired to take care of the heavy lifting were struggling with another crate at the direction of some of the graduate students.
She had the crypt to herself. She shoved a wisp of blond hair that had escaped her ponytail away from her face. Maybe she should go fetch the others before proceeding, except…
Well, maybe it was nothing, right?
Or maybe it was the greatest find since Tutankhamen.
Only one way to find out. She went to the corner where she kept a crowbar, and brought it over to the piece of marble in question. There were narrow slits around the sides of it where it met up with other pieces of marble. She worked the crowbar under gently, being careful not to damage the stone. She pulled.
The crowbar was long enough that it had leverage to lift the heavy piece, but only barely. She peered underneath, hopeful.
And, yes, there was an opening where the floor should have been. No question. But unless she got the stone moved out of the way, she wouldn’t be able to see how deep it was. Her angle was wrong.
Her heart had started pumping double-time. Every archaeologist knew the story of Howard Carter, the man credited with finding Tutankhamen, the man who refused to believe that every tomb had been discovered and plundered. He spent years searching before going down what appeared to be a stairway to nowhere, finding a sealed door that led to the final resting spot of a little-known boy king who had been undisturbed for millennia.
Was this a similar situation? Would she long tell the story of dropping the hammer, hearing the hollow report of the stone, and having the hunch to investigate? Or would Raynes take all the credit, downplaying her role to the point where she would end up a mere footnote? Who was that postdoc anyway?
There would be more danger of that if she went up to the surface and asked for help to move the marble slab. Raynes might insist on being the first one in — him or one of the pushier male graduate students, who would argue his physicality was needed.
But if she got it shoved aside by herself and then made the find, there would be no danger of that.
She looked around the space where she had been working. Off in another corner there was a rolling jack the dayworkers used to help get the crates out. She retrieved it, wheeled it next to the slab, then crow barred the marble up again with one hand. When it was just high enough, she used her other hand to slide the jack underneath.
Then she began pumping it upward, slowly raising the marble until there was enough space for her to crawl under. She was breathing heavily now. She wiped her brow and turned her flashlight on the hole. The beam disappeared into the darkness without reaching an end.
It was a passageway, for sure. But to what?
She went over to her backpack and grabbed her headlamp, securing it to her forehead and switching it on. This way, she could keep her hands free. She lowered herself on her belly and slid toward it, preparing to crawl down the hole. She took one last nervous look at her jack. If it faltered — if the marble slipped away or some other unseen calamity hit it — she would be trapped underneath. There was no way she’d be able to lift so large a stone by herself. It might be a long, lonely time before someone found her.
If they found her. The thought occurred that she ought to tell someone what she was doing.
But then they might try to talk her out of it, or go in themselves, or…
Taking one last deep breath, she slunk under the slab, down through the opening headfirst. It was only slightly wider than she was — and Katie was slender — but that made it easier to hold on to the sides as she descended. After perhaps ten feet, she felt it beginning to turn, gradually flattening out. There was just enough room for Katie to slink forward on her belly.
The passageway — yes, it was a passageway — had been lined with clay, which had long ago hardened, forming an effective barrier against a cave-in. Katie kept her eyes on the tunnel ahead of her. The flashlight beam only went so far, and she found herself straining to see beyond it in the distance.
She was concentrating so hard on peering into the darkness that, at first, it didn’t register that something was coming toward her. Her ears told her first. It sounded like snapping.
Then her light fell on an emperor scorpion. Katie shrieked. It was coming toward her. Fast. It had to be at least eight inches long. Its stinger was arched up behind it.
Raynes had warned all his students — in particular, the Americans who had no experience with the poisonous arthropods — to check their shoes and beds before sliding their feet or bodies inside. Scorpions loved to rest in dark, enclosed places, he said.
He had not given any instructions on what to do if one was shuffling toward you in a tunnel. One of the dayworkers had been stung on the forearm a few weeks earlier. The administering of the antidote had not prevented it from swelling up like a football, nor had it stopped the pain. The man’s moaning could be heard all over camp. Last she heard, it had gotten infected, and the man was in danger of losing his arm.
The scorpion advanced. She screamed again, like it would do her any good. Could scorpions even hear?
She tried sliding backward, but the creature was coming at her faster than she could back up in such an enclosed space. She was probably disturbing its nest. It was clearly determined to fight.
Well, in that case, so was Katie. She had not come this far — to this country, to this crypt, to this hole — to be cowed by a bug. She balled up her hand and let the scorpion scuttle closer. Closer. Closer still.
Then, just as it was about to strike, Katie pounded it with her fist. She felt and heard the crunch of exoskeleton. She drew her fist back and mashed a second time, then a third, not waiting to see if its body was still moving. She was taking no chances.
When she was thoroughly satisfied that her hand felt too moist with scorpion guts for the thing to possibly still be alive, she allowed herself to look. Sure enough, the thing was flattened. A greenish-yellowish ooze leaked from one side. The stinger, still curled above it, twitched for a few seconds before it finally stilled.
She shuddered, then exhaled heavily. It took considerable will to make herself move forward again, and the only thing that did it was the thought that now took hold: the scorpion had to be coming from somewhere.
Three turns later, Katie discovered where. Her headlamp illuminated a large opening of some sort. She could make out the far wall, but nothing underneath. Not until she was out of the tunnel. All she could tell was that the cavern was lined with clay, just like the tunnel had been, suggesting that whoever dug it had done so a long time ago. The more modern Egyptians lined interior chambers such as this with stone.