RAIDERS of the LOST BOOK
OPERATION: BIBLIOPHILE
LOCATION: Ashkelon, Judea, Dimension 257P
RotLB
As they reached the waterfront, Sandy turned the holocam off. He hoped he hadn’t used too much recording time: Alexandria was the real prize. No, he corrected himself, one specific book was the real prize. Anything he managed to learn otherwise was gravy. But such rich gravy! The hour or so of holo-movie he’d just shot was the best documentation in existence about Ashkelon. What could he learn from the holos of people buying and selling in a major trade port? What could other historians tease out? What would be important two thousand years from now?
Sandy froze in place, struck by the immensity of the situation. Neil Armstrong had stuffed the first moon rock he saw into his spacesuit pocket in case he had to leave immediately; Sandy now had his own first moon rock. He’d better keep it safe. But how? He was struck by conflicting impulses. Part of him wanted to find a place to hide for a moment, to switch the camera’s memory stick for another and hide the current one with the smoke wards. Another wanted to return to Galli to drop it off. Both were impractical, but still overwhelming.
<Sandy! Sandy, are you ok - oh!> Understanding and excitement. Nick nudged a tiny stone which had been poking him between two toes.
Sandy blinked rapidly and shook himself, returning to the present-- past. There were a number of ships in the harbor, of equally many designs. His shoulders sagged: all the large ones -- the ones that might have private cabins -- were Roman-built, and the largest was anchored off-shore, too big for the dock. His eyes traced the line between it and the dock; a small boat was being rowed in from the ship. Sandy turned to the Baron. “We’ll want a cabin for the journey, for privacy to talk.” He nodded in the direction of the approaching boat. “Romans. Try them first; I don’t speak Latin.”
The Baron nodded and smiled warmly as he moved down the dock. His entire manner was radically different from that he normally displayed when around the residents. It was almost sociable and friendly, Sandy and Nick could easily tell it was a mask of normalcy given how long they had known the Luxan but it was strange to see him display it.
“Hail,” Primordial called out to the approaching boat. “I’m looking for a vessel with a reputable crew that can sail a friend, myself and some very minor cargo to Alexandria. Can you point me towards such a boat?” For how little Primordial got to use the language it flowed off his tongue naturally, and even the inflections and tones sounded like a native speaker.
The boat was practically to the dock by the time Primordial finished. While a sailor in the prow was clearly listening to him, he waited until the boat was made fast before replying. “We are such a crew, and Alexandria is our next port of call. How much cargo do you have? We’re practically full up, we came back only to load the last few amphorae before setting sail.” He and the rowers disembarked. The rowers seemed intent on the neatly stacked containers nearby.
“Nothing we can’t carry in a private cabin,” he said. “An animal we shall ensure stays out of your holds and minds itself. Other than that just what me and my friend is carrying.” The Baron motioned towards Sandy indicating his companion and tried to come up with a good explanation for Nick's presence. But he didn’t over explain anything either.
He looked over the goods Primordial and Sandy were carrying. “Luggage isn’t cargo.” He looked to see what sort of ‘animal’ Primordial meant, thinking he meant something more exotic. “And your pet cat will be fine aboard. We have one cabin open, but it’s not the largest.” The sailor named a price, a little more than a stater, the value of a typical gem that Sandy had sold. “If that’s acceptable, we can leave without delay.”
The Baron nods and heads back over to Nick and Sandy filling them in on the situation and explains that they should have transport straight to Alexandria very shortly. “Anything else we should consider before leaving?”
Sandy ran his fingers along his jaw as he considered that. “I can’t think of anything. It should be a short voyage, and there’s an even larger market at the other end, so if we’ve forgotten anything, it shouldn’t be too bad.”
The Baron smiled and began climbing onto the boat along with the others.
The sailor the Baron had been talking to asked the group to wait for the amphorae to be loaded, and introduced himself as Lucius Claudius, the cargomaster for this voyage. “The boat is steadier with everything else aboard first, so you’ll find it easier to get on if you wait.” In truth, passengers would get in the way of loading, but he wasn’t going to say that to a pair of rich men.
Getting everybody and everything on the boat didn’t take long, and being rowed out to the ship took only a few minutes. To say the ship was “practically full up” was something of an understatement. The deck was packed with people and goods, most of the people having little more space than the deck they were standing or sitting on. Some were already sitting or lying on bundles stowed on deck. All of that was packed even more tightly by the last of the cargo, and the Baron and Sandy had to force their way through the crowd as they followed Lucius aboard. Lucius had the group pay the captain, Tullus Fabius, who showed them to their cabin.
“Not the largest” was also an understatement: Primordial’s head brushed the ceiling, and both he and Sandy would have to duck a beam that supported it. The cabin was narrow enough that either one could almost touch both sides with their outstretched fingers, and the narrow bunks -- one above another -- might not let them stretch out all the way. But despite that, the cabin was intended for people used to some luxury. The mattresses were soft, and an upholstered bench ran along the other side of the cabin. One hull plank was hinged at the top between two ribs and propped up to form a simple window. Below it was a fold-down desk or table. At the other end of the bench was a smaller, triangular fold-down table as well. The walls and ceiling were painted in a set of pastoral scenes.
Freed of the constant need to act like a normal cat, Nick was just about bouncing as the door swung shut. "We're in ancient Egypt - okay, okay, not Egypt yet - and everything's so cool and unusual!" The little cat, of course, didn't mind the small space. In fact, it reminded him of his apartment's many nooks somewhat - which was good, as he'd started to feel rather homesick. Those feelings didn't pester him for long, however, and he settled in on the surprisingly comfortable bench… His companions soon heard an inquiry over their communicators. “What's this?” The cat, they found, had lowered the smaller of the tables.
Sandy had returned to his awed reverie. Yes, this is the ancient world. He reached up and touched the ceiling, feeling texture of the painted scene: heavy paint, plaster, and in places where it had worn, the ceiling planks themselves. A paint flake would be worth millions to a scholar of Rome or of the history of art. Strange, then, that he should be the one to touch it. Nick’s question brought him back to practical matters, and he raised and lowered the table, examining the construction.. “It looks like a small desk or table, so somebody could, um… eat or work at this end of the bench. Or… maybe… Maybe it’s just more storage space.”
The Baron took a moment to set his things down and sat on the bed. He took a moment to meditate on the current situation and center himself before opening his eyes and smiling. “That all seemed to go much more easily than I expected. Reminds me of old times.”
“This was the easy part: just a little shopping and um, making sure we arrive in Alexandria in style.” He flashed a grin at the Baron. “Nobody expects much of transients along a trade route; Alexandria will-- No... since we want to get into the Library and stay there, we’ll have to be more on our toes.”
