Omar had reasoned, accurately, that after their journey they would return to Abu Qir, for news of their son and friends, possible passage to Italy themselves, and lack of anywhere else safe to go.

He had been more than surprised, shocked in fact, to learn of the Xynutians. And while at first he had been sceptical, he had to concede that there was no real reason for Gail to lie to him.

What had been most difficult for him to accept was the fact that his god had created the Xynutians. He had then wiped the slate clean and created modern humans.

It was a hard concept to grasp.

“The Great Flood,” Gail had explained, “is a legend that is present in nearly all cultures in one form or another. God was unhappy with his creation, and so decided to start again.”

“Of course, as is the case with the Qur’an with the story of Nuh.”

“Noah,” Gail agreed. Indeed the story of Noah, present in the book of Genesis in the Bible, was also told twice in the Qur’an, with striking similarities to the Old Testament text. “In China, India, Australia, Finland, Greece, the list goes on: dozens of accounts of epic floods that threatened civilisation.”

 “You could argue that most civilisations are built near rivers and the sea, and that floods are bound to happen at some stage,” George had suggested.

“Or,” Omar had said in wonder. “You could argue that all the legends have the same root: Man emerged from a cataclysm so great that its memory survived thousands of years until the emergence of written language in the Middle East six thousand years ago.”

“And that,” Gail added with a smile, “instead of this flood being a recent event it was a much more ancient apocalypse that had been passed on in stories for hundreds of thousands of years.”

After a short pause, Omar arrived at the same conclusion Gail had, years earlier, when confronted with the book of Xynutians by Professor Henry Patterson.

“I see a flaw,” he started. “In the Qur’an, and also in the Bible, Nuh, or Noah, his family and fellow believers were spared. And yet these Xynutians disappear completely, no record of them in archaeology. Where are they? Why didn’t they rebuild?”

“I thought the same thing. It’s possible that they, like us, had become over-reliant on technology, and those who were left descended into barbarity quickly, forgetting everything.” She paused, and looked him in the eyes. “But since then, I found out what really happened to the last of the Xynutians.

“For a start, the Xynutians and modern man evolved separately. We know that the Xynutians, before their demise, were already fighting with early hominids who to them must have seemed like advanced chimpanzees to us. It’s possible that after Aniquilus, there was interbreeding of early hominids and Xynutians.

“Not all Xynutians perished here though, as we’ve seen with the findings on Mars. Some left Earth behind and fled not just to the red planet, but also to the stars. God only knows how many are left roaming the planets of nearby solar systems, or whether the last of their kind died out hundreds of thousands of years ago, exhausted. It’s a fascinating thought that there may be millions of them living out there somewhere; maybe like us they themselves have no memory of where they came from, save for legends and religion.

“Of those who remained on Earth, most were wiped out. Despite their technology, which was far more advanced than our own, whatever rained down on them wasn’t simply a flood made of water. They were, effectively, annihilated.”

“You say most,” Omar enquired. “What remained?”

“The Xynutians left their people to die or fight for their survival on the surface, exposed to the elements, they had no choice. But a select few could be guaranteed safety. An army, their scientists, leaders, workers and farmers were saved. They built an ark deep underground, with animals, seeds, technology; everything needed to rebuild their civilisation from the ground up was stored, ready for a time when they could rise again. This was something the ancient Egyptians discovered, and tried to emulate in their own way.”

“Where is this ark?”

“Underneath Tell el-Amarna.”

Chapter 100

Gail, George, Zahra and Ben reached Amarna less than a week later, to the surprise of the old couple who lived there. They were more than happy to share their house one more time, but Gail insisted that they camp on the banks of the Nile.

As they sat around the campfire that night, George laughed.

“Omar was itching to come with us; that would have been interesting!”

“I don’t care how much he’s helped us,” Zahra sneered. “I would not have held back from saying what I think about him and his men.”

Ben grinned and drew her head to the warmth of his chest. “Always fire in your heart, isn’t there, my dear?”

“He is an extremist, and extremists want to control things,” Zahra said bitterly. “We will see how accommodating our host is when your archaeological stories start to wear thin.”

They watched the fire crackling lazily at the remnants of a thick log that Ben had dragged up from the banks of the Nile; sparks rose on the hot air into the darkness, like crazed fireflies disappearing into the night.

“I understand why Omar was so interested,” Ben said pensively. “I know we’ve discussed this, and I know you’ve told us that this is something you have to do, but now that we’re here, Gail,” he hesitated, trying to find the right words, before settling with the simplest he could think of. “What now?”

She looked across the fire at him and Zahra. Through thick and thin they had followed her; from saving her life before the war, to helping her, George and their new-born child make it through the early years. Now they had sacrificed the option of going with their people to Europe just to be with her.

Gail rose, rounded the campfire and crouched before them.

“Thank you Ben, Zahra, for always being there, and for always believing in me. You have been my dearest friends.”

She embraced and hugged them both for what seemed an age, before getting to her feet and going to her tent. She said over her shoulder, “I have to sleep now, as do you George, but in the morning, I hope, you will have all the answers you could possibly want.”

And with that she was gone, leaving them with the embers of a dying fire.

Chapter 101

Gail woke before dawn and dressed as quietly as possible so as not to wake the others. When she was ready, she woke George, and they tiptoed out of camp and down to the Nile, just as the first light of day started to paint the morning sky.

During their nightly pillow-talk, they had agreed that they would go to the Library alone that morning. Gail still wasn’t sure what it was she was going to find, and with that uncertainty had decided Ben and Zahra should be kept out of the way at first, just in case.

“It looks like the clouds may clear a bit today,” George commented as they found the group of small rowing boats the old couple had told them about under some overgrown, thorny bushes. They dragged one down the concrete slip to the water’s edge.

It was, as usual from George, pointless optimism, designed as much to spark up a topic of conversation as to lighten the mood.

Gail jumped from the boat knee-high into the water on the east bank and George followed gingerly.

“I feel bad leaving without saying goodbye,” Gail said as they hiked along the road to the hills.

George had only a minor grasp on what was going on at the best of times, but saw in his wife a trembling sense of excitement and restlessness. Deep inside he sensed that something monumental was about to happen. Good or bad, he didn’t know what to expect.

And so they walked on in silence, save for the sound of their footsteps on the ground, as the once tarmacked road gave way to what had always been a rough dirt track that led to the Amarna Library.