Read Rusch, Kristine Kathryn - Diving Universe SS3 for Free Online Page B

jewelry, were not. Even that marvelous inlaid floor he had walked across that morning didn't belong to the city. Because if the floor were removed, the city would remain.
    He needed a definition because he needed to know what could remain in this part of Amnthra and what could be removed. He documented everything—his assumptions, his ideas, and his worries—in case Dr. Reese or, worse, the Scholars disagreed with him. If they disagreed with him, it would probably mean that he had let someone walk off with a part of the city proper.
    At least he hoped that was what it would mean. Because the other option was that he had to protect the City from the academics themselves.
    Dr. Reese had finally conceded that some of the academics couldn't be trusted. The interns, the post-docs, the guest experts—anyone who wasn't part of her initial team—had to be searched coming in and going out of the area.
    As for her initial team, she'd said she would consider searching them as well, but that sounded dismissive, as if she hoped Meklos would forget he had asked.
    He wouldn't forget.
    Dr. Reese would soon learn that Meklos rarely forgot anything.
    * * * *

9
    Gabrielle had finally finished laying out the temple. She had marked off areas, and set up shifts so that the interns (at least the well-trained ones) could begin cleaning off artifacts.
    She knew which artifacts she wanted out of the City first. Not the most valuable ones—she would save those until later. First, she wanted some tiny but valuable objects to go to the Scholars, with the message that yes, there was more, and no, she really didn't care which institutions got what pieces.
    In truth, she did care, which was why she was sending the less valuable items. However, most of her team did not know which items were extremely valuable and which weren't. Certain items, like statues in one of the houses not far from here, were too big to carry out, at least at the moment.
    She was sitting on the temple steps, drinking purified water. The water had a chalky taste that no amount of filtering could get rid of. The water had come from the caverns below. She had known that the ground water was safe to drink since they'd discovered a small spring not far from the city itself.
    But the discovery of the larger caverns made her feel even better about drinking the water. Now she knew there was enough to support her people for a long time to come, she had no qualms about using the recycled water for showers and artifact cleansing.
    The sun had reached its zenith. She'd learned to recognize it by the way the light fell around the temple. Actually, the light didn't fall as much as it blazed. The entire area became so bright that she wore extra eye protection out here.
    Even then the brightness was the most amazing thing she'd ever seen. The Spires reflected the sun in all directions, acting like some kind of beacon, sending light cascading down the white part of the mountainside. Then the light hit the white buildings, which reflected it all back to the Spires.
    She'd first experienced the blazing whiteness after the tops of the first buildings were uncovered. She had cleaned the tops, just to see what the original buildings looked like. Then the sun reached its zenith, the Spires flared and the light cascaded down. She felt as if she were inside a sunlight machine. Her skin—her assistants’ skin, everyone's skin—burned. They'd had to put the dirt back on the buildings until they'd figured out how to deal with the flare of whiteness.
    Now, years later, she was no longer frightened of the light and its power. Now, she sat outside and ate her mid-afternoon snack, watching the light reflect, bounce, and reflect again.
    The light was her favorite part of this dig—indeed, her favorite part of any dig—and ironically enough (at least to her) she couldn't take it with her. This light phenomenon would remain part of Amnthra forever.
    She sighed and turned her face upward. She had skin