Below them, within the chest and under a sheet of the transparent stuff they had seen in other parts of the cave, lay a man. He was young-looking, though if Revel understood the words on the chest, he had been sixty-four when he was hidden away here. His skin was brown, smooth, and his closed eyes were unwrinkled. A short oddly-cut beard of brindled gray and black fringed his chin. His hands, folded on the chest, were big and sinewy, fighter's hands.
"What now?" panted Revel.
"Provided that the atmosphere is still a mixture of 21 parts oxygen to 78 parts nitrogen, with 1% made of small amounts of the gases neon, helium, krypton—none of these words make sense."
"Skip them, then. Find something that does."
"Let's see ... swing the front of the casket up, and unhinge it so that it comes off." They figured out what was meant, and did it. The front of the metal case, very light compared with the top, fell with a clang. "Insert a crowbar under the glass that covers the man and lift it carefully away."
"Crowbar? Glass?"
"This almost invisible stuff covers him, it must be the 'glass'," said Jerran. "Let's try to lift it off."
It took Revel and Rack and two miners, but in a matter of five minutes, they had removed the plate of glass, the thin curved sheet that had protected this man of the Ancient Kingdom. "Next?"
"Provided that it is no later than the year 3284, Doctor Klapham should revive within an hour. If not, take the hypodermic from the white case below him and inject 2cc.... Do you understand this at all?" she asked.