Chapter 2

You all get a relatively decent sleep and the sun in well over the horizon when you wake up. The air is filled with the sounds of people talking and day to day village life. The scent of fresh cooked bread of some kind is in the air, Hector is asleep next to the door and the native woman is hard at work in the kitchen area preparing something to eat in a large decorated earthen ware pot. The interior walls are whitewashed adobe mud with a geometric ocher pattern painted at on the lower half of the walls.

It's warm in the room but not uncomfortably so and though you slept on the floor most of you feel fairly well rested.

Helen is looking out the window chatting with the native woman and Ruby is very carefully stitching back up Mariette's corset. Buford is sitting outside the door on a rock looking over the village and Donovan is sitting next to him. The professors bag is sitting just inside the door.

No one has seen Mariette today and "Mother" is no where to be seen. Hector hasn't heard anything bad so he says not to be overly concerned, Mother is a good healer.

The first thing that comes out of the bag is a carefully organized stack of newspaper clippings, they're from all over the world and some of them are in languages you do not understand.

The first 1/4 appear to be crossword puzzles, some are partially solved, many are blank waiting to be solved. The next 1/4 seem to be about this German expedition to Venus that was exploring some ruins in the Ishtar highlands a half dozen years ago. A number of these are in languages you can't read but many of the pictures are the same so you can guess the subject. There's a series of follow up articles chronicling the fates of these explorers which has led to the commonly held belief that either the expedition or something they found in the temple was cursed as well over half of the men and woman who went to Venus with the expedition are already dead. There's also a surprising number of articles about a European Anarchist named Rasmussen.

There's a knife and a short barrel pocket revolver (loaded) in a pair of custom made attachments inside the valise. As well as a box containing 23 spare rounds of ammunition. (It's small compared to a Colt Navy, but it's not a Derringer)

The next thing to come out of the Valise is a small (palm sized) box filled with some kind of white powder and a number of capsules, it is most definitely NOT snuff.

There's a pamphlet about an exposition in San Francisco dealing with the wonders of the solar system and featuring a variety of artifacts brought back from Mars, Venus, and Mercury.

After that you find a carefully tied stack of letters, wrapped in brown paper and tied up with string. Much of it appears to be correspondence with a number of academics from around the world, the bulk of what you can make out from a quick skim seems to be focused on the German expedition to Venus. What happened, what they found, who was in the expedition and answers about the fates. About 1/3 of these letters are more personal, letters from his parents, aunts and uncles, and there's even a couple pretty racy ones from a woman named Eleanor.

Below that you find another carefully wrapped rectangular bundle about the size of the palm of your hand that when you open it is filled with French Postcards... Some pretty racy one too.

There's a small toiletry bag, nothing fancy, toothbrush, comb, toothpaste, and a small metal container of cologne.

Last there's the irregularly shaped object wrapped in cloth and tied up carefully. This proves to be something neither of you have ever seen. It's a 1/4 of a circle (pizza wedge) with flat diamond shaped tab at the pointy end the sides are irregular but very carefully shaped so it's not broken. The object appears to be made of gold but it weighs practically nothing and there's not a scratch on it. There's writing around the outer edge the likes of which you've never seen and there's a series of incomplete geometric designs that appear to run off the sides.

Though Nathaniel has never seen the professor he notices when looking at the list of names one of the survivors is a man with a decidedly un-German name, Professor William Preston.

The script is unlike anything you've ever seen, it's very strange, almost alien.

Nathaniel notices that the metal is untarnished and undamaged, normally you'd expect to see a nick or a dent in something this size where someone at one time or another during it's life had dropped the thing by accident but there's isn't even a makers tool mark on it.

The exhibition is still to come, it starts in a week.

The expedition members died in a variety of ways, although there does seem to be an inordinate number of "unknown" cause deaths where seemingly healthy people simply passed away in the middle of the night.

Buford and Donovan look up at Napoleon as he approaches, it's chilly outside and Napoleon can see his breath in the air.

"Mornin'," Buford says in his low drawl, "gonna be a nice one from the look of it."

Donovan nods, "I hope you had a good sleep my friend. I spoke with Hector before he fell asleep, the village scouts say there's no sign of the air ship or the men in uniform."

Helen comes out with three bowls of what looks like porridge, "Here you go boys, eat up."

"Thank you ma'am," Buford says politely.

"Thank you ever so much," Donovan says with a smile accepting the bowl.

She hands the third bowl to Napoleon, "Mister Napoleon, you need to eat up as well."

There's a bit of a commotion the far side of the village as two older native men come in through the hidden canyon with a man in a tattered dark suit holding a medium side black Doctors bag.

Dr. Thaddeus looks about at the village and the natives nervously, he's read enough Penny Dreadful's in London to know what's likely to happen to him in this native village and it won't be pleasant. Then he notices a hulking white man in a battered bowler, next to a rugged looking chap in a dark suit and a swarthy young lad in dusty clothes. They're all armed so this village can't be one of the one's he's read about. All the same he looks about making sure there's not an over-sized stew pot anywhere close.

"We found him sneaking around the Western edge of the wreck," The older native man says.

"He was alone but he could be one of them," The younger man adds, we thought we should bring him here.

The older man nods, "There's smoke to the West, I think there's another train making its way this way from Boulder City."

"No doubt the army will be here soon as well," Hector says stepping out of the house you all spent the night in, "they will not find us here if we are careful. You may remain for the time being or we can help you get back to the wreck and await rescue if you wish."

A young attractive blonde woman in a dirty yellow dress steps out from behind the mountain of a man and looks at Dr. Thaddeus, she raises an eyebrow. "He's not one of them," she says quietly, "he was in the back right corner of the second passenger car across from that awful Irish woman and her brood."

The giant of a man with the salt an pepper beard sticks a massive hand out towards Dr. Long, "Buford Callahan, the little lady in the yellow is Miss Helen Kovalsic." He looks at her and she smiles.

"Excellent pronunciation Buford," she also puts her hand out towards Dr. Long. "Charmed."

"The other lady," Buford continues nodding towards a young woman in a black maids uniform, her white apron is stained with dried blood, "is Miss Ruby."

The man in the crumpled bowler stands up, "Donovan Pearson." His accent is British, somewhere up towards York you'd guess.

Hector raises an eyebrow at the talk of savages, though he's not near Dr. Long his hearing is apparently quiet good.

Nathaniel notices a figure moving slowly down the path towards the hut supported by another young native woman, it's clearly Mariette.

Buford looks at Dr. Long, "We were just tryin' to figure that out ourselves when you showed up."

"They're not Teutons," Helen says bitterly, Dr. Long notices a hint of an accent in her voice possibly Hungarian, "Mr. Napoleon figures they're from the South, the Alps somewhere perhaps Bavarian's, the Teutonic knights typically held territories along the Baltic coast."