Chapter 5

Sal and Sam had cleared the tables of food and empty mugs and had pressed a button on the side of the table. A light source opened up in the centre of the table that lit up the space above the table turning it into a cool 3d projector of some kind. Maps and numbers and pages of writing all floated in mid air. Sal leant forward and sort of “grabbed” at a projection of a map, which they then dragged to the central viewing point and expanded so it was clearly visible.

”Cool” said Mo, nodding his head in appreciation, then seemed to remember that he was trying to play it cool, and leant back in his chair again, focus returning to the ceiling. 

“How come we can understand all of this” said Tom. “For that matter, how come we can understand you? I can’t image you speak English in Karoopa?”

Sam spoke up, keen to explain.”Those of us in the TPF are provided with linguistic chips that allow us to integrate to new languages quickly. Once we arrive on a new planet we spend some time gathering linguistic knowledge. Your internet has been a really useful source of knowledge for us here! Although I do have some questions to ask about all these internet Memes - what is the significance of a Cat that expels rainbows from it’s bottom? Does it have important cultural importance?”

Sal coughed and tried to draw attention back to the task at hand . “This information here is everything that was available at the briefing meeting. The plan was for the de-coding experts to work on certain problems, the historians to work out the exact period of time we need to get to, and the map experts to work out where exactly we needed to jump to. I’m sorry to say that work never happened, so we’re going to need to try and work it all out ourselves.”

Everyone started experimenting with “Grabbing” segments of information and discussing things with the person sitting next to them. It quickly became a jumbled mess of projected images, chat, suggestions, and confusion, with no one listening to anyone else and the volume of the room getting louder and louder. 

“Guys, we need to be a bit more organised here!” Shouted Tom realising that they were getting no where. Can we at least decide what we need to work out first. It seem like we need everyone’s skills together to work this out.”

Cai said “I think Tom’s right. Maybe we should start with WHERE we need to try and get to?”

Tom looked gratefully at Cai and gave him a smile, glad to have an ally. 

“Great. Let’s focus on location. What information do we have on that so far?”

Mali grabbed at an illustration that appeared to be a map of sorts. “I suspect this is showing the location somewhere, but i don’t know where the map is of. There don’t seem to be any labels to say where it is, or what scale it is” 

“Well it’s a start” said Tom, studying the drawing that seemed to be a scan of a faded pencil drawing showing hills and valleys.  

Delyth leaned over Tom’s shoulder, and then moved to make the picture bigger. 

I’ve seen this before she said, before running to the back of the room where all the big leather books were stored. She grabbed a big dusty books and brought it back to the table. She sat down, flicked through pages with dust motes rising up around her. 

“Here!” She exclaimed with excitement. “I knew I’d seen it. It’s the topographical survey of Thebes by Wilkinson”. 

“The what of what now?” Said Mali, leaning over. 

“The map of Thebes. I was reading about it earlier. Back in 1830 a man called John Gardener Wilkinson produced a map that shows the hills and valleys around the valley of the kings!”

“What’s the valley of the kings?” Asked Mo.

”Well, it’s the name that was given to the area where lots of the Pharaoh's tombs were found. On the map drawn by Wilkinson he labelled the location of the tombs with a number.”

“There’s no numbers or markings on this map though” said Tom, looking between the projection and the map in the book. “I’m not sure it’s giving us any extra information at the moment”. 

Cai moved closer to the table, a thoughtful look on his face. “I’ve seen something….” He said, grabbing at projections, and discarding them. He stopped when he came across a series of numbers and a cross on an otherwise blank projection. The numbers seemed to be randomly scattered across the page. 

“How does that help?” Said mo a little impatiently. 

“Wait” said Cai, not looking up from what he was doing. He grabbed the map drawing projection and changed it’s size to match that of the projection with numbers. He then moved them so they were overlapping with both images visible at the same time. With some adjustments Cai was able to recreate the map in the book. 

“There!” Cai said proudly. 

“Well done” said Tom, looking intently at the picture. There was a clear “X” marked, but it didn’t seem to match the number of any tomb.

“I don’t get it” said Cai. Surely the “X” must be the place we’re looked for? But it’s not linked to a tomb. It can’t just be stuck in the hillside. 

“Let me see please” said Delyth, moving to look closer. 

The X was marked close to tomb 9. 

A smile spread over Delyth’s face. “No, surely not? King Tut…. The boy king…”

She looked up at all the faces staring at her in anticipation. 

“It’s King Tutankhamen’s tomb!” She said. 

“But that’s the most famous tomb of all, isn’t it? Why hasn’t it got it’s own mark on this map?” Asked Tom.

“Because King Tut’s tomb hadn’t been discovered when this map was drawn! Howard Carter only discovered it in 1922!”

”Good knowledge girl” said Mali to Delyth. Delyth blushed, looking very un-used to be being praised. 

“Well done everyone” said Sal. “I think we’ve found our location. Now, we need to work out WHEN we need to go there.”