So I started a new novel, set in the Aegean during the Bronze Age Collapse. Which means even less time to write fanfic.

On the good side, that means I've pretty much stopped researching weird trivia to put in this.

(As if!)

BA714, LHR to DEN: 51.707°N 8.530°W

Sam clung onto the narrow ledge of rock with white knuckles. Her boots swung on air. She could feel the fresh sweat cold on her body. I can not believe I'm doing this, she thought.

The torches set high overhead (torches?) flickered in a draft that somehow was making it down into the depths of the ancient temple. Which was under hundreds of meters and billions of tons of rock. Mount Shasta, right. She was in a prehistoric alien temple deep inside a freaking volcano.

A gasp was wrenched from her as she did a kind of half-pull-up and threw herself towards the safety of the floor on the other side of the spike-lined pit. She staggered upright, panting. She pressed a finger to her headset. "I'm through, I guess."

"Great!" Zip's voice was cheerful as ever.

Sam checked the twin automatics that were strapped to her thighs, then started down the long passage at a trot. There was more structural damage ahead. Several large blocks of stone had toppled, blocking the way. She ran at the face of one slab, kicked off in mid-air, and her hands slapped the top edge. She pulled up smoothly, then, showing off, did a walk-over to reach the top surface. I'm getting better at this, she thought. I don't remember being able to do this kind of move when I was back in Fairfield High gym class.

She turned to her left. A protruding rail of stone was marked out with a slight dusting of white. She confidently launched at it, and a little more hand-over-hand work and she was past the obstruction.

And…oops. "Guys?" She keyed the headset again. "There's a big hole here. I think it's a sheer zone, like the one that's right in the middle of our mountain back home. I don't see an easy way around it."

"No problem," Zip said confidently. "You can swing over it."

"What, with a bullwhip?"

"Ha! No, your rope arrows."

"What is a…" Sam realized she had a bow in her hands. I was carrying a bow all this time? Why?

"Just shoot a rope arrow into the ceiling," Zip's voice came over the headset. "Then swing across."

"An…arrow," Sam said. "With a rope tied to it. Which I'll hold on to like a rope swing. Do you even physics?"

"Aw, come on," Zip said. "Lara does this all the time."

This was all way out of her comfort zone. You could even say she was out of her depth. Deep underground, swinging in thin air over deep crevasses, hanging by her hands in the darkness…it was all, frankly, terrifying. And being scared made her angry. "I don't know how the hell I let you guys talk me into this!"

This isn't how the Air Force does things. I shouldn't be down here, she thought to herself. Dammit; I'm not Lara Croft!

Despite…err…the headset, the guns, the…

"Zip!" she shouted into the headset, agonized. "What the hell am I wearing?"

FT Wainwright, Alaska: 64.827°N 147.642°W

SFC Elias White walked into the Brigade Colonel's office with the easy confidence of a senior NCO. Colonel Cross raised his head at the sound. A grin came slowly, grew broad. "We get to play," he said.

"In sunny California," his S3 met the grin.

"What, you don't care for our glacier?" The Colonel raised his eyebrows.

"Capture mountains and conquer cold!" the SFC quoted back, dead-pan. Cross was one of the good ones. He'd come up Navy, sure, but he'd done it the right way. As an NCO. In the SEALs. Two terms before he changed branches and went mustang. He'd earned that full bird — and the full support of his men.

The unofficial motto of the Winter Warfare Training Center, and by extension some of the cadre of the 172d at Fort Went-wrong — deep in the heart of Alaska and practically on top of a glacier — was "Conquer mountains and catch cold."

"The original request was for the 9th Engineers," the Colonel detailed the new windfall. "Air Force wanted to cut an expedient landing field for them. We've got some training budget left over this year and it only took a few strings to expand it into a brigade field exercise."

"General Shinseki's blessings continue to pour upon us," the NCO grinned. "Have to find some way to shake out those Strykers!"

"Better yet, we're going airmobile. So the Air Force picks up the tab on transportation."

The US Army was re-organizing once again. At least, this time, it recognized the more grandiose plans would take time to implement. Several new highly-flexible, self-supporting "Brigade Combat Teams" were being formed out of existing units like the 172d (itself a long, long way from its old home of Hawaii.) For the interim, a Canadian-made light armored vehicle had been ordered in large numbers for them. Operational doctrine for the things was still in the process of being worked out. It was proving to be a long teething process.

And that meant a whole lot of pressure, including political and business interests, that could be leveraged to set up a full-up large-scale exercise on the slopes of Mount Shasta.

"What's our timeline, Sir?" Elias was willing to shift gears to the practical details.

"Short," was all the commander could say. "The situation is, as they like to say, developing quickly. However," he held up a hand. "We're authorized for a full recon of the training area."

"Soon?"

The grin was back. "Get Top in here. The answer is; how quick can you pack?"

I-5 North out of Redding, CA: 40°35′N 122°22′W

Baker missed the pony cars. All the way through Desert Storm, the one thing that kept him sane was anticipating the day he'd be back in the world, with enough cash to throw down for a Mustang. And he had one. Parked in a garage. What he drove for his day job was…less inspiring.

Sure, the Crown Vic had it over the old muscle cars in power and pickup and sheer authority (at least on paper) but the Mustang was an elegant weapon from a more civilized age.

Well, it beat riding a motorcycle. That might be okay for SoCal, but up here in the Northern Division the CHP was happy to stay in the warmth and comfort of…

Wait, what? He reached between the seats and thumbed a button on the MBT, calling in for clarification.

"It's not complicated, Jon," Dispatch was being chatty again. "Don't stop, don't pursue. If you see it, call it in. It shouldn't be hard to miss!"

She was right about that. A giant white futuristic looking truck leading a convoy of hummers? It sounded like something out of a television show. Yeah, even in California a thing like that would stand out.

The Jotunn Flagship Surtur: hyperspace

He had waited too long.

Well, at least the Tears of Horus — that is, the original strain, the one he'd designed around Asgard physiology — worked. The Jotuun were stronger than their cousins. Tall, hearty, and organized.

Oh, so very organized.

He supposed he should have predicted this. He'd doped Asgard. Asgard biochemists, the best in their field. Top men. Top. Men. (To borrow a quote.) They'd figured out the hidden package in the Tears years ago, and they'd incorporated it into their society.

It had become the most hierarchal thing every dreamed of by man or ant hill. Every Jotuun stood balanced between the geas laid on them from above, and the absolute power they exerted in turn on those below.

Of course, being an advanced technological society they had to add Matrix Management into the mix. Running scientists and engineers wasn't quite the same as managing peasant farmers. So every order had to be tagged with the appropriate permissions from the applicable chain of command.

No wonder his first overtures had confused them so.

They of course saw their ways as being vastly superior to the untainted Asgard. Their way was so obviously true and right it was only through exceptional will and insight that they could grasp the idea that it had to be gently broached to those not yet within the fold. That there might be, in short, some objection among the greater society of the Asgard.

Which they had decided meant the myth of friendly Hodr must continue. Which meant they were — well, driven would be exactly the right word — to ensure there weren't any untidy loose ends left from his long career on Earth.

Even if that ended up cleansing the planet down to the mantle.

SGC, Cheyenne Mountain: 38°44′32″N 104°50′54″W

General Hammond was wearing fatigues. That's the first thing Jack noticed as he approached the Gate Room. "Going camping, Sir?" he asked lightly.

"Not now, Jack," Hammond said with a distracted air. "Wait," he held out a palm before Jack could go in. "There are a couple of things you need to know."

"Hornet's nest, Sir?"

Hammond snorted. "You could say that, yes. After your talk with Doctor Jackson I made enquiries. Word came down to leave it alone."

"Word, Sir? From where?"

"I don't know," Hammond shook his head unhappily. "But I can tell you one thing. The air is mighty thin up there."

"From that high, eh?" Jack wasn't asking. Then he grinned. "You know you've got the perfect solution right here, right? I've been relieved of duty. Just point and I'll be on my way."

"Not going to happen," Hammond said shortly. "We're going to put boots on the ground and it is going to be done in full view. I'm making our interest official, and if someone wants to complain about that they are going to have to make their complaint official. Oh and by the way. You are returned to full duty as of now."

"Sir," Jack made a gesture that he was choosing to call a salute. "You know half of SG1 is overseas, right?"

"Carter and Teal'c are on a red-eye out of Heathrow as we speak. But you won't be alone, Colonel." Hammond smiled thinly. "I think it is time we got a little training in for the SG teams. Combined arms training; I've made a few calls to some old friends. Colonel, we are going to recon that mountain like it has never been reconned before."

"Which SG teams?"

Hammond didn't answer immediately. He turned from Jack, pushed open the heavy door to the Gate Room. It was the largest assembly space they had on the base and it was already packed. Hammond paused at the door, turning just enough to make his reply.

"All of them, Colonel. All of them."

"If you know what a decade volcano is, raise your hand." Bill Lee had begun the presentation. Janet Frasier had to wonder how that kept happening.

"I know!" Jack, of course. Janet sniffed. He just couldn't resist. "A really old volcano, right?"

Bill Lee stood there and blinked. Time passed. Janet sighed in impatience. "Decade, not decayed," she said. Someone had to do it.

"The decade volcanoes is a list of sixteen candidates for future large-scale disasters," a new voice said. Janet turned. The speaker was huge and hirsute. Carter's geologist friend? "The name comes from the United Nations IDNDR; similar to IGY — the International Geophysical Year — but harder to pronounce. Vesuvius and Etna are on the list. Shasta, sadly, is not."

Bill had his moments. They didn't come often enough, in Janet's opinion, but he had one now. He gestured for the geologist to take over.

"Doyle, Remote Sensing Group," the big man introduced himself. "Mount Shasta is a stratovolcano, meaning a long history of eruptions. Last notable one was 1786. For public usage the terms 'dormant' and 'potentially active' get thrown around but as it seems to go off every 600 years or so the USGS lists it as a very-high threat."

He looked around the packed Gate Room. "We're talking a potential Mount St. Helens. Four towns are in direct danger, with a total population of some 10,000."

"We don't know we are facing a volcanic event," Hammond said evenly. "Our target is potential Ancient technology."

"That's the part I have trouble with," the geologist said genially. "If you'll permit me." Hammond said nothing, merely gave him a nod to continue. "Pacific Coast is a subduction zone; that's the driver for the Ring of Fire," the geologist explained succintly. "The current Shasta is young, formed a mere 500,000 years or so. For geologists, that's practically last week."

He grinned at this, then continued. "Half the mountain collapsed in a landslide about 300,000 years ago. The magma channels keep shifting as is usual with this sort of volcano; the latest cone, Hotlum Cone, formed most recently and is currently the tallest part of the mountain. This isn't like the Antarctic Ice Sheet, which started forming in the Eocene. This is not stable geology. Anything the Ancients built when they were first on this planet was either destroyed or is so deep we'll never unbury it."

"Fortunately the Atlantis refugees were recent," Hammond pointed out. Janet noticed he could now say "Atlantis" without wincing. "Only ten thousand years ago."

Bill Lee snickered loudly. Hammond had the grace to make a small grin at that. "As geologists say," he said with a straight face.

Janet joined the general chuckling that broke through the tension in the room. Most of the people here had bemusedly discovered it came with the job; thinking in terms of thousands of years, or for that matter thinking in the unimaginable number of kilometers that fit within a single one of the light-years they crossed so readily these days.

Understanding just what might be waiting for them under that mountain, though, hadn't reached general circulation. Janet didn't think even the still-mysteriously-absent Daniel understood at a gut level just how different the Atlantean refugees were. They'd come to think of the Ancients as remote, wise, and benevolent. The Atlanteans struck her more like Roman gods, capricious and cruel. Whatever distant war they'd been through, it had changed them.

If, indeed, the Ancients had ever been as peaceful and trustworthy as people seemed to think them.

US Route 50, Nevada: 39°15′12″N 114°52′38″W

"So….what town was that?" Wentworth asked. He was concentrating on the road, and keeping the right tailing distance behind the behemoth of Ark III.

"Ely," Lara told him. She'd made a point of studying the map. "Home of the Ghost Train, copper mines, and one-time stop on the Pony Express."

"Huh," Wentworth said. "The Pony Express."

"The Persians had the idea first," Lara said, amused. "About 500 BCE." She wasn't avoiding Newbery. His brother was back on driving duties anyhow.

"Didn't they have copper, too?" Wentworth joshed back.

"The Achaemenids, sure. Fragments of bronze scale armor worn by the Immortals have been found at Persepolis. Second century and later, though, the cool kids are all getting Damascus Steel."

"So. They still mine copper here?"

"Probably," Lara told him. "According to Newbery, copper prices collapsed in the 70's. A decade later cyanide leaching became the rage, so much so that previously discarded tailings became valuable. And now the stuff's so valuable scavengers are crawling through abandoned buildings after the wiring in them." She sighed. "Boom and bust seems to be the curse of any town — or civilization — dependent on its mines."

"Copper goes way back, doesn't it."

"Copper tools built the Pyramids. The whole history of the Bronze Age can be charted from the availability of copper and tin. See, they are rarely found in the same place. Cyprus might have native copper, but they had to trade from Iberia or further for tin. It's one of the factors that caused the development of a dangerously fragile network of trade."

"Dangerously fragile?"

"That's the big theory these days behind the Bronze Age Collapse. Not volcanic eruptions, not the mysterious Sea Peoples, but a systems collapse." Lara half-closed her eyes. She almost stopped there, but didn't. "Elongated routes of trade, over-extended systems of rule, oversized populations dependent on continuation of good harvests. It was a network of interdependent cultures that wasn't flexible enough to absorb the shocks that that came along."

"Just-in-time manufacturing, continuously flowing oil pipelines, cities that can live only a week on the food and water stored locally," Wentworth said slowly. "You're saying what I think you're saying, aren't you."

"We are the greatest city, the greatest nation," Lara recited softly. "Nothing like us ever was."

They rode in silence for a time, only interrupted when the signal lights on Ark III began to flash. Newbery was pulling the convoy in for lunch.

This would be Eureka. Lara rarely had to look at a map more than once. Besides, a beige-colored sign just inside the city limits had announced it; "The Friendliest town on the Loneliest road in America." Which, Lara reflected, was not a bad name for this section of the Lincoln Highway. As with their passage through the San Raphael Swell, the previous town was over a hundred kilometers behind them. And the next was almost as far.

If the NID sent anyone after her, they would definitely see them coming. Although she'd prefer not to try to re-enact the police chase from The Blues Brothers in a three-axle truck dressed up like a science fiction prop. Road blocks were ever so much more effective in the real world.

They parked on gravel by a ice box, under a Budweiser sign hanging all by itself off a metal lamp post, and walked across what was now Main Street to DJ's Diner. The sign hadn't lied; the staff was friendly. The food was simple but good.

Lara was thinking about her brief sojourn at Out of This World Cafe. Her purpose there had only been to get close to Newbery. But at the back of her mind a little fantasy had been playing out. She had seen herself fitting in, learning the stories and sharing the secrets of the others as part of the staff. Learning the faces of the regulars and becoming a familiar face in turn. Not being a tourist or an actor but living in their world as one of them.

It hadn't worked any better than it had at The 9 Bells.

NGI Offices, Houston, TX: 29.757°N 95.362°W

"That's funny."

Mark Johnson looked across the bare, windowless office at the voice of his assistant, Isaac. He was feeling harried. Overwhelmed even. The company he had stepped up to pilot was the most confusing irregular multinational he'd ever had the dubious privilege of opening the books on.

He knew the stories had already started. That he didn't take the lavish penthouse office suite because the aura of command of the former CEO was strong enough to reach from beyond the grave. Or because he knew Natla was coming back, and was humbly aware he was only keeping the seat warm for her. Others said NGI had so many secrets he was forced to hold meetings in the depths of the building, away from windows and inside a Faraday Cage.

The truth was, he was so snowed under he couldn't afford to be distracted staring out over the Houston skyline. Sure, there was a time and place to impress, and he'd be in that place when that time came. For now, he just needed to get a handle on what the actual funding streams were and what the hell was going on with the IP their profits rested on.

"What now?" he asked of the one man who was making it possible to keep his sanity. Like his boss, Isaac knew there was a time and place for fancy titles and an inked-in box on the org charts, but for now the power lay in knowledge. At this time, his place was being the only other man in the company with full access to everything.

"It's an enquiry from a Liz Shaw at DOE, and it's forwarded by Director Stahlman himself. They want everything we have on Pramantha.

"What's…Pramantha?" Whatever else you might say about the former CEO, she certainly had a taste in obscure mythologies.

"Siskiyou County, California. It was a very experimental, very secret energy project started back in the sixties. Only a couple of top DOE people even knew about it." Isaac had been reading quickly. He was just that good. "Abandoned decades ago. Even the trouble with OPEC in '73 didn't save it."

"Siskiyou? I don't have anything in Siskiyou."

"Not on any public paper, sir. Looks like whatever it was, it was too hot for even Natla to keep her hand in. Sir, you know about Shaw. She's in the pocket of the Trust."

Mark was decisive. "Tell her everything. And make it clear to her that it is everything. Whatever was happening back then, the NGI of today has nothing to do with it."

Reno, Nevada: 39°31′38″N 119°49′19″W

It was the next day before she had a chance to go back to that thought. They had passed more strange things in the desert, places where a new tribalism met for a yearly ritual of high-tech gadgetry and naked flame, a hilltop where futurists tinkered on a clock that would tick for ten thousand years, ghost towns and abandoned mines and strange secretive industrial parks crammed into towns seemingly too small to hold them.

They were making excellent time indeed. She needed to complete this, this thing that had begun as wool-gathering but had turned into an epic reflection on where she had come from and who she was now.

Sixteen, then. Sixteen and her last year at Gordonstoun.

The von Croy misadventure had shaken her. She returned to her studies determined to avoid any more adventures until she was at least a little more mature.

Late in that final year she met with the family solicitor who had been advising her in her father's extended absences. Errol Taffe was a kindly man so studiously old-fashioned in manners and appearance Lara was certain it was an act. He had been expert and expedient at arranging for everything from financial transfers to visa applications, and had always been available to talk with her about her future plans.

"I would not wish to see you bury yourself in books again so quickly," he had remarked when she had broached college plans. "Take some time to enjoy fleeting youth. See the world. There will always be time for more dry study."

"Been there," Lara said, but her laugh was forced. She'd risked her life so many times in that crumbling structure in Cambodia. And for what? She had seen a darker side of the treasure hunt in the man she had thought she admired. She did not want to discover within herself that same lust for the secrets hidden under the jungle. She did not want to risk others, harm others, in that quest. She did not want to be driven as mad as had Werner.

"Oh, I wasn't suggesting anything so adventurous!" the solicitor quickly corrected. "What about, say, the Alps, skiing in the white snow, chocolate on the terraces of the chalet, the company of people your age?"

It turned out he was suggesting finishing school. Lara almost laughed it off. The Swiss Finishing Schools, once so common, seemed a quaint artifact in this day and age. But the materials he produced were attractive. She did need a vacation, she decided. Not so much from studies, though.

From the life she was no longer sure of.

She began to flower at the Institut Alpin Videmanette. It wasn't the clean mountain air. It wasn't the lessons in deportment, literature, and of course more French. It was, perhaps, just delayed adolescence; her mind finally catching up to the changes in her body. She moved in a social circle now. A small one, perhaps. She still valued her privacy and treasured the silences but she was increasingly comfortable being with people as well.

All kinds of people. The male kind of people, even; boys who were of the right circumstances and upbringing, who were easy on the eyes, but boys who most importantly knew how to dance.

She had never forgotten her life's goal but it was somehow not quite as urgent. The Proustian memories triggered by madeline and a fresh-brewed café reversé were now as likely of another chalet, another dance, another lesson. Not of ice and stone and loss. Not of the rumbling of cunning stone traps and the dead dust of deep underground.

She made sure to winter with her father back at the rambling rooms of Abbingdon she'd grown up in. Her father was more haggard by the year, but at the same time they were growing closer. They shared, now, some of the wealth of the classics, and of the world's long and fascinating history. The child was growing into an adult that could be friend and academic equal and it could only strengthen the bond between them.

When she was seventeen Richard Croft mounted an expedition into the Krâvanh Mountains of Cambodia. He never returned.

Lara flew back to Abbingdon numb, in a kind of shock. She almost failed to notice — she paid almost no attention to — changes in her financial status until she found herself unable to fund the kind of search she meant to launch.

According to Errol, Richard Croft's will was contested; as the Cambodian authorities had yet to turn up a body the estate fell into the trusteeship of Amelia's brother, Uncle Atlas. On the solicitor's strong advisement she met with him.

Atlas de Mornay was charming enough and softly cajoling and some part of her actually agreed with him. Risking her life in the wilds of Cambodia was foolish, it made sense to complete her time in Rougemont while they waited for word, there was nothing wrong with being ladylike, and wouldn't it be fun to do the social whirl for a little instead of heading off to some stuffy college right away? Why, he happened to know a few young men who were both eligible and of sufficient pedigree to be worthy of a Croft/Mornay…

She should have attempted that expedition anyhow. For all of its excellence Gordonstoun had entirely neglected the Lonely Planet Guide school of overseas travel, but she could have tried. She was too numb. She'd known, from the first moment, that it was too late. Her father was gone. She didn't need to hold the skull from which had hung those lips — as the Bard so vividly described it — to know.

But…to party with nobility, debut as the young and eligible Croft daughter, to (when the social whirl began to pall) marry and settle in to manage a household? To make of the tantalizing past a merely academic game to pursue from the comforts of home?

She had moved into a strange and hybrid world. She found a flat in Soho, for London was where the lawyers were. She found work there; although it hardly came close to paying the bills it at least gave her the illusion that she could manage without her family's wealth. And on weekends she'd retreat to Surrey and board the pumpkin coach.

Saturday, then, she'd be dancing — more and more often, with the decently attractive but interestingly clever Earl of Farringdon. Those tight-closed pockets of the estate Uncle Atlas managed opened wide when it came to paying out to the tailors and milliners, and Winston was in his element making sure every detail of her social life was handled impeccably.

Weekday nights she'd be carrying a tray and the dance she danced on aching feet was around the crowded tables and chairs — and around, too, the occasional intrusive hand.

It came to a head all too suddenly in June. First it was a costume ball at Hatfield House. And she had been spectacular in pearl-white crinoline. She had never felt stronger, more poised, more in tune with the movement of the crowd and the steps of the dance.

Or more conscious of the warmth and the smell of the subtle and tasteful cologne and the look in the eyes of the man who was more often than not her dance partner as well as her dinner companion and sporting pal. A man with velvety warm laugh and a delicious sense of life's ironies and who could shoot and ride almost as well as she.

The Earl proposed that evening.

All week she was almost sick with indecision. Each day as she awoke in her bare flat and pondered stains as ancient (but less informative) as might be found in a rock-cut tomb, she wondered what she was playing at. She was caught between two worlds and she didn't feel she belonged in either. Each night was worse, as she struggled home far too late, often as not sodden from one of those half-hearted drizzles the London weather seemed to delight in.

Friday The 9 Bells was packed and loud and stunk of stale sweat and beer. She avoided far too many pinches and even a lunge or two. The television blared, verse and chorus with the roaring footballers. That night, the National team tied with Ireland in Cagliari and all hell broke loose.

She went to break up the first two wrestling hooligans and almost didn't see the elbow flying towards her face. Surprisingly, all that time spent at Gordonstoun had given her the skills to dodge this. Or maybe it was all the time spent at the pub balancing a tray whilst evading hands. She put the over-avid sports fan face down to calm him down. Unfortunately that riled a buddy, and that in turn annoyed a samaritan, and it escalated for a bit.

It was a broken bottle that finally calmed things down. Unfortunately it did so by taking a slice across her arm. She had to work faster and be more diplomatic than she ever had in her life to stand between the angry staff charging out in support of their "Princess," and the suddenly-abashed footballers who realized they had just injured an innocent girl.

It was while Daisy was applying a bandage with gentleness and skill that she realized this was the closest she'd ever come to those who shared the job with her. To the fry cook, the glowering manager, but even more the pale tall Daisy with her shyness and her prominent Adam's Apple, and the sharp-tongued Abbie with her dangerously dark eyes and the silver stud in her cheek.

She'd been blooded. She'd shared their life in a deep way Homer (or, at least, Hemingway) would have recognized. But Lara also realized this was as close as she would ever be. As much as she pretended to live their life, they could sense the distance. It wasn't just the book-on-the-head poise that had earned her the nickname "Princess." It was the unsaid truth that she could leave any time. They couldn't.

The masks were all slipping. It was time to figure out who she really was.

The British Museum had not lost it's charm. She didn't care what Frank had said.

She'd called Winston and had him clear her social calendar. Now it was Saturday and she had nowhere to be. No-one to be. So where else would she be but the British Museum?

There was so much within the museum. But, as ever, Egypt called to her most strongly. Since she had been little it had been Egypt more than anything else that had fired her imagination. The first writing system she'd attempted that wasn't her letters was the Egyptian Hieroglyphs.

The mummies were in the Northern Upper Egyptian Galleries in a display that hadn't been renovated since the turn of the century. She moved slowly through the narrow passages between monumental slabs of stone (so much stone they'd had to reinforce the floors) and at last parked herself on a bench near the leathery-brown body curled as if sleeping softly on the ground.

This was "Gingerella." Pre-dynastic, naturally mummified in the dry alkaline pit grave the museum had reproduced around her. She had brown hair; she'd inherited the nickname from a different mummy of the Gebelein excavation who did sport the henna'd ginger locks. He in turn was at hospital, getting a full spectrum of CT scans and every other non-invasive test. Wallis Budge had been many things as a collector, but at least he'd prevented his mummies from being subjected to the unwrapping parties that were once so popular.

Lara gazed steadily at the nameless woman from nearly five thousand years past. Who she had been, what she had done, who she had loved was not recorded. A fate shared by most of the mummies on this floor.

Wallis Budge had been a tireless collector but his great dream was taxonomic. He acquired on innumerable trips to Cairo, some from back-door sales out of the Cairo Museum itself, others from Qurna on the Theban west bank; a town that had become practically a mini-factory for digging up, sprucing up, and re-selling mummies to the trade.

Qurna operated on a Chinese Menu scheme, putting together which elements looked best together without much care for their original associations. And in that they were not alone; museums across the Western World did the same, mummies moved from coffin to coffin more frequently than a grad student changing lodgings, all to make the best presentation for the paying visitors. Up to Gingerella, house-sitting the mock-up pit grave constructed for her brother-in-death.

Petrie took over from Budge and, slowly, the record-keeping improved. But even when the names on the grave goods actually belonged to the body beneath, those names were rarely recorded by history. History was, after all, written by the victors. Written, that is, by those who led the armies and who thus had the means to have their names and exploits carved in meter-high letters into a cliff face.

Even the Fayum mummy portraits of the Coptic period were misleading. The paintings were so lively and naturalistic they gave the illusion of being able to grasp what kind of person they had been in life. But Lara had read a study that suggested the portraits were the product of a mass production system, which painted them to a stock pattern and added a few personalizing dabs of paint post-mortem.

For all the effort the ancient Egyptians put into their afterlife, for most this was all that remained.

Seventeen was far too young to be contemplating mortality. The young were supposed to be immortal. At that moment Lara didn't feel particularly young.

She'd nearly died a dozen times during that crazy adventure with Werner. But then, she could have died from that bottle last night. There were no guarantees. Everyone dies eventually. And everyone is, eventually, forgotten. Was a pair of colossal feet standing broken in the desert of history worth it? Was it worth more than playing it safe but dying in a random airplane accident?

In the end, you had only one life to live and you were the one that had to live it. Pursuing the secrets of the past looked plausible to be a short life indeed. But it would be a life worth living.

She said goodbye to Gingerella, walked out into the London drizzle, and set off towards Chancery Lane. If she was to do this, she meant to do it right. She needed, she wanted, all the assets her father had left to her. The books, the capital, the rambling estate that for all of its echoing emptiness came the closest to being the place she could call home.

The first hint of an old friend came to her lips then. It was the dangerous smile she'd made when Werner challenged her deep under Angkor Wat. The smile the child had first smiled facing the freezing wind and hard-driven snow that thought to take her life from her on that high mountain in Tibet.

Errol Taffe didn't have a conflict of interest. He was the family solicitor. Not her advocate, but that of what was now de Mornay. What she needed was a new lawyer.

A hungry one, as hungry as herself. And while that lawyer worked, she would be looking for her father.