Chapter 16: Birth of Atlantis

Five weeks later.

Time: Sunday, August 24, 2053 5:20 AM

The buzzing of the intercom by his bed woke Hannibal from a deep sleep. He sat up and yawned and pushed the green icon by the speaker. "Yes?"

"Hannibal, it's Edom. Time for breakfast."

Another yawn, and a quick look at both the clock on the intercom and the pre-dawn light through the eastern window. It looked like a fine summer day coming up. "Right. Thanks. Be there soon." Hannibal pushed the red icon after hearing an affirmative grunt from Edom. He then turned on an electric light and got up to wash and dress.

"How easy it is to live like a god," thought Hannibal as he washed his hair in the hot shower and sweet soaps. "And how easy it is to get used to their magical arts." His eyes blinked at an unsettling thought. Today was the last day of their gentle captivity. How difficult would it be to go back to his non-magical world?

Hannibal and his crews had spent the last thirty-five days living in complete isolation at the end of a great stone pier more than three hundred cubits from shore. Along much of the pier's length was a great lodge that was housing his men. The building had ten sleeping areas each holding a separate bath area and five beds. Hannibal and his two cousins were sharing one room, and the rest of the crew filled the other nine.

The strange goddess Megan Lopes seemed almost apologetic when she showed the men their temporary home, saying it would be tight living for a while. But to the seamen, the quarters were fabulous. The men were used to sleeping by their positions in their boats. Now each man had his own fine bed and linens and each room had a magical shower and toilet. And there were the magical common areas, two kitchens where an invisible fire made cooking irons glow red hot at the turn of a dial, sweet hot and cold water delivered to magical sinks and baths, a magical place to wash clothes, and of all things, a room filled with puzzles and amusements. The goddess had called it a game room. Imagine! A room reserved for play! What a concept!

And except for the slaves, they were all fabulously wealthy, provided one day they made it back to Sidon. Hannibal could even make his slaves wealthy if he wished it. The gods had bought all their trade goods, absolutely everything, and had paid him and his cousins a king's ransom for it, a full kikkar of gold, 3000 shekel weights of pure gold in sixty-eight weighty bars that the goddess Megan Lopes called half-kilo ingots. With such treasure, Hannibal could easily double the fleet to six ships complete with slave crews.

Their first day had been so bewildering. Their three boats had been towed and guided into the long U-shaped portion of the pier, and then a great metal door to the sea had closed. Hannibal thought it was a perfect slip for his boats. Tied securely to both sides of the U-shaped pier by both the stem and stern posts, the boats had weathered a major storm their first afternoon here in very easy fashion.

Ah, the first morning. The novelty had been overwhelming. The goddess Megan Lopes had shown up as promised but dressed more tightly sealed than a mummy, completely encased in shimmering magical green clothing the goddess called a biohazard garment. Hannibal grinned at the memory of Megan putting root words together in such novel ways as she tried to explain what she was doing. She had not lied about the needles either. Hannibal was a bit fearful of the concept, but the goddess was infinitely gentle with her magic needles, washing the area of the men's arms with a cool liquid that had a sharp, volatile sweet smell. Hannibal thought a mere mosquito bite hurt more.

There were two rows of fencing near where their pier met the shore, wondrous cross-linked wires that rose high into the sky. After they had all been injected, the goddess took Hannibal and his two cousins to the small area in between the two fences and showed them that she had brought more than just her needles. There was gold there in four small bronze chests, each one holding seventeen of the precious ingots.

It was more gold than Hannibal and his cousins thought they would ever see in their lifetimes, let alone own. They instantly agreed to the bargain the goddess offered, and it took their crews only an hour to unload their trade goods and place them in the area between the two fences. Then the gates on their side of the area were closed, and other men and women came and took their goods away to the magical city called Funchal.

The city was great for its size alone. Hannibal estimated over forty thousand people, not quite as big as the great Egyptian cites of Thebes or Memphis before the plague, but not far from it. But the density here! Fantastic! So many people in such a small area, made possible by the gods' fantastic ability to build up in addition to the horizontal directions. In the last four weeks, all the crew including Hannibal had spent many hours enjoying the show of lights and magical boats and horseless carriages of the divine city. They had not seen any of the fishing boats with lateen sails. Madeira had made no decision yet about introducing technology into the world at large. Although the effort was proving somewhat onerous, Madeira's sailing boats were being kept carefully out of sight.

It had been a defining transformation over the last five weeks, watching the city and its people-like gods. Surely so many pure gods could not live together in peace. Hannibal was one of the first of his party to decide that what Megan Lopes said was true, that these gods were also people, gods with godlike powers to be sure but somehow living like people. There were even groups of child gods brought by adults to see the Phoenician boats. The adults and children would invariably wave friendly greetings to them during their visits. Such a friendly race of gods.

And their generosity did not stop with the gold. The Phoenicians' diet of fish caught off the pier was being kindly supplemented by fresh fruits and vegetables, and once last week with enough lamb meat for all, even the slaves. And they were being given ample materials to repair and maintain their ships. Hannibal had never seen his boats and sails looking this good. Their hosts had given Hannibal superb wood oils that made his ships gleam, and the pitch the Madeirans gave to seal a worrisome crack in Toil's hull was fabulous. The goddess Megan Lopes even taught Hannibal a new phrase for what to call it, marine-grade epoxy.

Hannibal smiled at their first weeks here and his crews' struggle to learn the intercom system. It seemed simple enough now, but back then the thought of talking to the wall after entering two-digit codes seemed outlandish. But it all seemed so familiar now, and Hannibal and Edom and sometimes Devarim would have long daily conversations with the goddess Megan through the system. Edom was the one to see the potential and ask Megan if the ships of Madeira could talk to each other through these magical devices, and she replied yes. Hannibal and Edom had stared at each other with wide eyes. The implication for what an incredible boost this could be to a military navy struck them immediately.

And Megan Lopes was due here again today at 11 AM, and this fourth time she said she would come without her strange green mummy suit. Hannibal glanced at the clock above the intercom. Such a revelation, how easy it was to order the day around the tiny display of numbers once you understood how to read them. So amazing, to divide the day into so many tiny slices of time. A completely different life, thought Hannibal, and he thought again with a shudder of what a struggle it might be to return to the old ways of his own world.

"Ah, no matter," he thought. "The sea calls to us and we must go. And Megan Lopes promised to bring a surprise with her today. I wonder what it will be..." In a cheerful mood, Hannibal headed downstairs to breakfast.

Five hours later.

Time: 10:45 PM

Alvaro stood with Megan and Kelsey in an observation area just beyond the double row of fences separating the Phoenician's pier from the rest of Madeira. He sighed and kissed his wife one last time. "You sure you're completely comfortable with this?"

Megan nodded. "Oh yes. We couldn't have asked for a better leader for our first contact, and Hannibal runs a very tight crew. Even his cousins obey him without question. Relax Alvaro, we'll be fine."

"Yeah, okay... It's just that..."

"Alvaro, think of these people as people because that's what they are, just as smart and just as emotionally capable as you or I. We've gone back three thousand years, not three million. These people are our equals."

Alvaro paused for a short moment. "Well, they don't have the same worldview as we do, but I agree with what you're saying. Okay, I'll stop worrying."

Megan smiled and kissed his cheeks. "Thanks!" She looked out to the pier. "Perfect day for Kelsey's idea. I heard on the weather report we should reach 29C in downtown Funchal this afternoon. It'll be the warmest August day yet on the new records."

Alvaro nodded and smiled. Even without the super clean air, he thought the climate of Madeira was now even more perfect than it was before the temporal jump. Winters were about the same. It hadn't gotten below 4C yet at sea level anywhere on the islands, but the peak summer days had definitely lost their occasional spikes of heat. He wondered briefly if it were due to so much of Morocco being covered by grasslands at this point in history.

After another moment, Alvaro picked up a large basket and walked with his wife and daughter to the perimeter fence of the pier.

Twenty minutes later...

Hannibal took a bite of the strange concoction in his hand, his eyes blinking in delight. "This is so delicious!" he blurted out. He took another bite, and then watched the little girl goddess teach his men how to eat their ice cream cones. He began to lick his cone too.

Megan smiled. Getting the cocoa beans for the chocolate ice cream had not been easy. It had been Kelsey's idea, and it took an interesting experiment in remote harvesting to make to happen. Alvaro and some of his research staff wrote new bluebird control code, and then Coke had flown four flocks inside a large airtight transport container to a remote area at the source of the Amazon in the Andean foothills. There the forty-eight bluebirds spent the day harvesting the lime-green and yellow pods of the stubby wild cocoa trees.

The mechanical birds would open the pods and fill the transport container with the fatty seeds. Coke was producing hydrogen from a small stream and refueling the birds as needed. By the end of the day, almost three hundred kilos of pure cocoa was harvested, and everything was back home less than twelve hours after leaving Madeira. It was a very successful experiment and the processed cocoa had been eagerly snatched up by the Madeiran citizens.

Megan took a moment to admire the round boats as Hannibal ate. "Such beautiful cedar wood," she thought, "Cedrus Libani in the old timeline. I wonder if the Roman nomenclature will ever catch on here?" Her eyes traveled up to the mast and sail. "Tell me Hannibal," asked Megan out loud as she pointed with her hand. "You have your sail stitched with thin leather straps." She was referring to the quilted pattern of his large square sail.