This is a very long story, which I have started writing in 2009 and worked on since. As it is, it is unfinished and currently has 92 pages. I am working on finishing it. It has Three parts. This is chapter 1 of Part I. English mistakes are completely mine as I am writing in my second language. The story involves OC, dark and angsty material, some violence and sexual abuse. Special trigger warnings will be mentioned for each chapter if they apply. Being a scientist, as best of my abilities, all scientific material presented here is correct. The story is mine only. I avoided reading stories with similar premises to prevent myself from inadvertently getting influenced.
Sadly I do not own the characters of BSG. OC characters are mine only.
PART ONE: The discovery
Chapter 1
It was cold and humid, when Helena arrived at the camp after a long walk up the ridge. The top of the mountain was on a sharp western ridge, easing out as a plateau sloping gently on the east. Now with the archeological dig and tents, most of the land was covered. They had called Helena from the USA to Africa under the most ultimate secrecy. Helena barely could understand why they summoned her. The regions had ancient geological layers which were interesting from an archeological point of view and this part of the world was famous for the discovery of the most prehistoric remains of humans ancestors, but Helena's competency in historical linguistics were needed in studies of much less ancient times. She would generally go to Asia or the Middle East to decipher old parchments and texts. She had worked on the Coptic manuscripts and some of the Dead Sea Scrolls and was a kind of celebrity in the field for her competency in early linguistics. She participated in translating Sutras from India from fragments of old Sanskrit texts. Pali, Urdu, Sanskrit held no mysteries from her and she had studied extensively ancient middle eastern languages, Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Aramaic, Cannanite, Phonecian, Samarian, Ugaritic, Syriac, Mandean, Hattic, Elamite, Hurrian, Hittite, Urartian, Lydian, Luwian, Lycian, Palaic. From Asia to Europe, Helena had traveled and studied remnants of parchment, carvings in stone tablets and on tombs, engravings in pottery. She was an expert and often called on the most difficult studies. There was nobody more knowledgeable that her in early languages and civilizations.
A couple of weeks ago, she received a phone call. The message left on her voice mail at the university was cryptic. She was called in to help with the study of a most ancient manuscript, which was eluding other researchers. Her immediate presence was required. Helena could not wait to see what this was about, tempted by the aura of mystery surrounding this message. She was stunned to receive plane tickets for Tanzania, instead of the predicted Middle East for such a discovery. All expenses were paid by the United Nations and the world heritage research foundation affiliated to the UNESCO. She had landed to Dar es Salaam and taken a small plane to Morogoro at the edge of the Eastern Arc Mountains spanning the most oriental region of Tanzania. The contrast from the lower dry plains to the high rise mountains was stunning. Morogoro was a small town with a small airfield and dusty red ground roads, but it was an attractive site of the region as it was the gate way to the mountains nearby, where several research centers were doing biodiversity research, cataloging bird species and establishing records of the many endangered species, unique to the region. At her arrival she was greeted by a guide, who said he would take her to the site of the discovery. The town, he explained, was an ancient colony town where a large German population used to live and develop farms in the rich soil surrounding the area, hence the remaining German names on houses and of villages. But the local populations, oppressed by the colonists, rebelled and during the First World War the British took the colony away from the Germans.
The geography of the region was complicated. North and west laid the volcanic chain of mountains, born from the tectonic fault running north, and included the famous Mount Kilimanjaro, culminating close to 5900 meters high. West of the volcanoes, the rift region harbored deep ravines where the first fossils of the earliest humans had been discovered in the Olduvai Gorge. The "cradle of mankind", it was called, as prehistoric remnants of past civilizations had been found in the desert landscape of the gorge. East, however, laid the Eastern Arc Mountains, a chain of ancient mounts, some of them quite elevated, which bordered Tanzania and sloped down towards the Indian Ocean. The climate was interesting, oscillating between hot and dry and cold and humid, with the east slopes of the Eastern Arc Mountains receiving heavy precipitations from the Indian Ocean, and thus harboring a wild rain forest, and the western slopes harboring a very dry micro climate with wind from the dry savanna. The trip in the truck had been slow and long. It took hours to reach the base of the Uluguru Mountains and go up along dirt roads bordering lush forests and cultivated land. There were several farms, and as they started up in the mountains, the landscape became less tropical and more alpine, with green hills and lower bushes. Then Helena, her guide and porters started a long hike along the Western ridge. The summits were lost in the clouds and by the time they reached the top, the weather had changed from hot to cold. The vegetation had morphed from forest to a high mountain sparse landscape of bushes and bare rock, beaten by the winds. This landscape seemed out of place in Africa and certainly it was not the Africa Helena has imagined or even ever visited. She was more accustomed to Middle Eastern deserts. It was distinctively different with characteristic vegetation, not tropical, yet still African in a way she could not put in words. This is where the camp had been set.
The air became suddenly breathable, cooler, with hint of flowery fragrance released from nearby bushes beaten by the breeze and clumps of African violets native of this region. The night was settling in and the wind picked up carrying fog and clouds from the eastern side of the mountain. Helena, fascinated by the change of landscape and climate, noticed how the wind carried a distinctive ocean smell.
She shook her head: "I could swear I can smell the ocean, but we must be a few hundred kilometers from it"
Her guide laughed: "About 200 kilometers actually and you are not imagining things. The Easterlies are carrying moisture from the Indian Ocean all the way up here. We are quite high up, about 1800 m high. It is one of the highest points of this chain of mountains."
The security was tight around the camp, which surprised Helena greatly as she realized that this was more than a mere archeological mission. The camp was a small fortress of tents and inflatable structures surrounded by fences, security cameras and barbed wire.
Her guide and a few porters were greeted by a Japanese researcher, who directed them to bring their bags and load of supplies to a nearby tent.
"Welcome Prof. Harper. I hope your trip was not too unpleasant" He smiled.
With a hint of sarcasm, Helena tilted her head to the barbed wire. "Afraid of something?"
"Helena, you will understand why soon enough. How have you been?"
"I am well, thanks" She chuckled "I should have known such an expedition could be only arranged by you, Dr. Inoue."
Both old friends embraced.
"It is good to see you, Helena. It has been far too long. Come on inside. But before we talk, you have to sign the paperwork"
She followed him into the nearest tent.
"You always had a sense of theatrics, Takashi."
He smiled and grabbed a brief case that he opened on the nearby table.
"Trust me, you will not be disappointed. We are dealing with quite a discovery. You are the only person I knew could help us with this. Official mission, from the UNESCO. It is quite a big thing. We have the best research facilities of the world, right here, and the best researchers"
"When can I see the dig?" Helena asked, suddenly serious, and burning with curiosity.
"We have been working around the clock. These generators, you have seen outside, are providing us with power so that we can have a number of tents with controlled atmosphere and study the remains. We have a chemistry and biology lab, with the most up-to-date equipment."
"But how?" she started.
"Helicopter"
Helena started to realize that she was not on an usual archeological dig. There was quite something stunning about the site and the amount of resources allocated to this discovery.
"Before I show you around, you have to sign the confidentiality papers and then the team will debrief you."
"Confidentiality papers?"
"You will understand why, when you see the artifacts. We do not want information to leak to the public until due time."
Helena sat at the table and read the papers carefully before signing. The legal documents swore her to complete secrecy. She signed with a growing wonder of what this was about and Dr. Inoue signed as well as a witness. Then he gave her an ID with a bar code and magnetic stripe 'to wear at all times'. She had noticed the name of the site on the paper work as written "Our Lady's Ridge".
"Is this the name of this place? A Christian reference? It seems odd"
"No actually, apparently a lot more ancient than Christianity. There is a local ethnic group living in these mountains, which is studied a lot. They have a different dialect, different religion, polytheistic, different culture, than the tribes living at the base of these mountains."
"Different? In which way?" Helena asked surprised.
"Well, they are a matriarchal society, where women own the land and pass it to their daughters. It is a very equalitarian society, which is unusual for this part of the world. Their language is also completely different than other tribes, I was hoping you would be able to help us with this as well, as it is possibly related to the discovery we have made. Their physical features are different as well, their skin is lighter and they look more Asian than African; we think they probably came from migrations from the middle east or from the south east, maybe even from Madagascar. We are still waiting on the genetic study. Also they almost exclusively carry the blood type O."
He continued.
"This mountain is called the Lady's Ridge, or the Queen's ridge, or the Grand Lady's Ridge. It depends on how you translate it. There are legends of a woman dying here, a queen of some sort, a powerful woman, and a man mourning her until the end of time. For this reason, they also called it 'The Lovers' Mountain'. Their legends talk of Gods and Goddesses coming from the skies and ruling the earth and settling down on earth to marry earth men and women. These Gods carried magic with them and they could fly. Maybe you will be able to tell us if these stories are true."
Helena looked at him, surprised.
"You can't be serious; this region of the world has a very strong oral history, but not many written documents. There are no manuscripts. Ancient texts are found way more north, they are Sumerian, for instance… what on earth have you found?"
He looked at her:
"We have found her grave, her body and a number of surprising artifacts"
She nodded, understanding suddenly why she had been summoned here.
"Of course, I will probably have to interview some individuals of this tribe. Do you think that can be arranged?"
He looked at her "Certainly. You will find their stories most interesting. Their Gods have names. She has a name."
"You know her name?"
"Yes" he replied. "Her name was Laura."
To be continued, please review...