But it was no time for doubt. Switching on the power, Burke carefully set about adjusting the control dials.
Latitude and longitude came first, down to minutes and then seconds. A moment's tuning, and Crete and then the Great Palace of Knossos lay before him on the scanner screen.
Falling back a step, Burke rubbed the nape of his neck where it ached from strain.
Time adjustment, now. A new set of dials.
The screen changed before his eyes. The work of excavation and reconstruction vanished. Off to one side, olive groves appeared. Then a building with unmistakably Byzantine architecture flashed on.
Again Burke twisted the dial. Again.
Now whole towns came and went. One moment, the screen showed neat huts and cultivated fields; the next, ruins or no buildings at all.
But never a trace of people. People moved too quickly for even the finest settings of the time-spindles to show them.
Farther back ... farther ... farther....
And now there was only a great, dark ring on the hillside to mark the palace. Wall-blocks and pillars lay strewn like scorched blocks in all directions. It was as if lightning had blasted the very earth. The few huts to be seen stood far off, as if the site of Knossos were a place accursed, to be avoided under pain of death.