"Travel books that you could sell to any university on earth for their next year's budget," I said, shuffling pages. "Take a look at this one."
Foster looked across at the panoramic shot of a procession of shaven-headed men in white sarongs, carrying a miniature golden boat on their shoulders, descending a long flight of white stone steps leading from a colonnade of heroic human figures with folded arms and painted faces. In the background, brick-red cliffs loomed up, baked in desert heat.
"That's the temple of Hat-Shepsut in its prime," I said. "Which makes this print close to four thousand years old. Here's another I recognize." I turned to a smaller, aerial view, showing a gigantic pyramid, its polished stone facing chipped in places and with a few panels missing from the lower levels, revealing the cruder structure of massive blocks beneath.
"That's one of the major pyramids, maybe Khufu's," I said. "It was already a couple thousand years old, and falling into disrepair. And look at this——" I opened another volume, showed Foster a vivid photograph of a great shaggy elephant with a pinkish trunk upraised between wide-curving yellow tusks.
"A mastodon," I said. "And there's a woolly rhino, and an ugly-looking critter that must be a sabre-tooth. This book is old...."
"A lifetime of rummaging wouldn't exhaust the treasures aboard this ship," said Foster.
"How about bones? Did you find any more?"
Foster nodded. "There was a disaster of some sort. Perhaps disease. None of the bones was broken."
"I can't figure the one in the lifeboat," I said. "Why was he wearing a necklace of bear's teeth?" I sat down across from Foster. "We've got plenty of mysteries to solve, all right, but there are some other items we'd better talk about. For instance: where's the kitchen? I'm getting hungry."
Foster handed me a black rod from among several that lay on the table. "I think this may be important," he said.