"We'll stay," said Pitt resolutely. "Nothing we can do until Yaeger gets lucky." Pitt rose from his chair. "And speaking of Yaeger, I'd better give him a call."
He found a public telephone in the hotel lobby and made a call on his credit card. After four rings a voice answered in what sounded like the middle of a yawn.
"Yaeger here."
"Hiram, this is Dirk. How's your search going?"
"It's going."
"Run onto anything?"
"My babies sifted through every piece of geological data in their little banks from Casablanca around the horn to Zanzibar. They failed to find a hot spot along the coast of Africa that matched your drawing. There were three vague possibilities.
But when I programmed profiles on land-mass transformations that might have occurred over the past sixteen hundred years, none proved encouraging. Sorry."
"What's your next step?"
"I'm. already in the process of heading north. This will take more time because of the extensive shoreline encompassing the British Isles, the Baltic Sea and the Scandinavian countries as far as Siberia."
"Can you cover it in four days?"
"Only if you insist I put the hired help on a twenty-four-hour schedule."
"I insist," said Pitt sternly. "Word has just come down that the project has become an urgent priority."
"We'll hit it hard," Yaeger said, his voice more jovial than serious.
"I'M in Breckenridge, Colorado. if you strike on something, call me at the Breckenridge Hotel." Pitt gave Yaeger the hotel phone and his room number.
Yaeger dutifully repeated the digits. "Okay, got it."
"You sound like you're in a good mood," said Pitt.
"Why not? We accomplished quite a lot."
"Like what? You still don't know where our river lies."
"True," replied Yaeger cheerfully. "But we sure as hell know where it ain't."
Snowflakes the size of cornflakes were falling as the three trudged across the street from the hotel to a two-story cedarsided condominium.
A floodlighted sign read SKIQUEEN. They climbed a stairway and knocked on the door to unit 22B.
Bertram Rothberg greeted them with a jolly smile beneath a splendid gray beard and sparkling blue eyes. His ears rose in full sail through a swirling sea of gray hair. A red plaid shirt and corduroy trousers clad his beefy body. Put an ax in one hand -and a crosscut saw in the other, and he could have reported for duty as a lumberjack.
He shook hands warmly and without introductions as if he'd known everyone for years. He led them up a narrow stairwell to a combination living-dining room beneath a high-peaked ceiling with skylights.
"How does a gallon bottle of cheap burgundy sound before dinner," he asked with a sly grin.
Lily laughed. "I'm game."
Giordino shrugged. "Makes no difference as long as it's wet."
"And you, Dirk?"
"Sounds good."
Pitt didn't bother asking Rothberg how he recognized each of them. His father would have provided descriptions. The performance was nearly flawless. Pitt suspected the historian had worked for one of the government's many intelligence agencies at some time in the past.
Rothberg retired to the kitchen to pour the wine. Lily followed.
"Can I help you with anything-?" She suddenly stopped and peered at the empty counters and the cold stove.
Rothberg caught her curious look. "I'm a lousy cook so our dinner will be catered. It should show up around eight." He pointed at the sectional couch in the living room. "Please get comfortable around the fire."
He passed the glasses and then lowered his rotund figure into a leather easy chair. He raised his glass.
"Here's to a successful search."
"Hear, hear," said Lily.
Pitt got off the mark. "Dad tells me you've made the Alexandria Library a life study."
"Thirty-two years. Probably been better off to have taken a wife all that time instead of rummaging around dusty bookshelves and straining my eyes over old manuscripts. The subject has been like a mistress to me.
Never asking, only giving. I've never fallen out of love with her."
Lily said, "I can understand your attraction."
Rothberg smiled at her. "As an archaeologist, you would."
He rose and jabbed in the fireplace with a poker. Satisfied that the logs were burning evenly, he sat down again and continued.
"Yes, the Library was not only a glorious edifice of learning, but it was the chief wonder of the ancient world, containing vast accumulations of entire civilizations." Rothberg spoke almost as if he was in a trance, his mind seeing shadows from the past. "The great art and literature of the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Romans, the sacred writings of the Jews, the wisdom and knowledge of the most gifted men the world has ever known, the divine works of philosophy, music of incredible beauty, the ancient best-sellers, the masterworks of medicine and science, it was the finest storehouse of materials and knowledge ever assembled in antiquity."
"Was it open to the public?" asked Giordino.
"Certainly not to every beggar off the street," answered Rothberg. "But researchers and scholars pretty much had the run of the place to examine, catalog, translate and edit, and to publish their findings. You see, the Library and its adjoining museum went far beyond being mere depositories. Their halls launched the true science of creative scholarship. The Library became the first true reference library, as we think of today, where books were systematically catalogued. In fact the complex was known as the Place of the Muses."
Rothberg paused and checked his guests' glasses. "You look like you can use another shot of wine, Al."
Giordino smiled. "I never Turn down a free drink."
"Lily, Dirk?"
"I've hardly touched mine," said Lily.
Pitt shook his head. "I'm fine."
Rothberg refilled Giordino's glass and poured his own before continuing.
"Later empires and nations owe a staggering debt to the Alexandria Library. Few institutions of knowledge have produced so much. Pliny, a celebrated Roman of the first century A.D., invented and wrote the world's first encyclopedia. Aristophanes, head of the Library two hundred years before Christ, was the father of the dictionary.
Callimachus, a famous writer and authority on Greek tragedy, compiled the earliest Who's Who. The great mathematician Euclid devised the first known textbook on geometry. Dionysius organized grammar into a coherent system and published his 'Art of Grammar,' which became the model text for all languages, written and spoken. These men, and thousands of others, labored tutu piuduced their epoch achievements while working at the Library.
"You're describing a university," said Pitt.
"Quite right. Together the library and museum were considered the university of the Hellenistic world. The immense structures of white marble contained picwm galleries, statuary halls, theaters for poetry reading and lectures on everything from astronomy to geology. There were also dormitories, a dining hall, cloisters along colonnades for contemplation, and an animal park and botanical garden. Ten great halls housed different categories of manuscripts and books. Hundreds of thousands of them were handwritten on either papyrus or parchment, and then rolled into scrolls and stored in bronze tubes. "
"What's the difference between the two?" asked Giordino.
"Papyrus is a tropical plant. The Egyptians made a paperlike writing material out of its stems. Parchment, also called vellum, was produced from the skins of animals, especially young calves, kids or lambs."
"Is it possible they could have survived the centuries?" Pitt asked.
"Parchment should last longer than papyrus," answered Rothberg. Then he looked at Pitt. "Their condition after sixteen hundred years would depend on where they've been stored. Papyrus scrolls from Egyptian tombs are still readable after three thousand years."
"A hot and dry atmosphere."
"Yes. "