Nikko lay on his stomach and stretched forward to push away a heavy stone blocking the narrow passage, grunting with effort it took. Once he'd moved it far enough aside he was able to pull himself through the constricted space. Behind him he could hear Vincent moving over the uneven surface. Clearing the tunnel had been hard work but at least the effort and danger of working in the semi-collapsed tunnel had distracted him from his worries about his father.

After nearly an hour of difficult inch by inch progress the teenager reached the end of the narrow section and hauled himself out onto a relatively open area. Rolling his body away from the mouth to give Vincent room to get free, Nikko lay on his back for a moment and tried to catch his breath. Above him, extending for nearly three hundred meters the vertical shaft leading to the surface still waited to be climbed. Where he lay Nikko could see a narrow slice of crystal-clear blue sky far above. Vincent pushed the equipment bag through the mouth of the tunnel and Nikko scrambled to his feet to take from him.

While Vincent pulled himself through the opening, the teenager unzipped the bag and took out the radio and checked for a signal. As he had expected there was no reception. The debris and rocks had made passage difficult but there hadn't been enough fallen material to interfere with their state of the art communications equipment, it had to be a problem at the top. The sooner they could contact Maggie the better it would be for his father and Juliet.

"Looks like we're climbing," Vincent said.

Both Nikko and Vincent looked up the rock wall. It was hard to tell from the ground what, if anything, the tremor had done to the climb conditions. Going to the base of the wall the older man tugged hard on each of the rappelling ropes left in place from their earlier decent. The ropes all held fast, and Vincent nodded. "They appear secure, but we should not trust these lines. The earthquake may have changed conditions, so check your anchors on each pitch."

The teenager nodded and went to where their climbing gear had been stacked and sorted though it for his and Vincent's harnesses. He handed the other man the equipment and quickly pulled on his own. After checking each other's rigging was securely in place, the pair each selected a rope and hooked on to begin the ascent. Even if it went perfectly they were in for a long hard climb.

Calvin shook his head at the computer screen, the translation algorithm he'd been trying wasn't working. In fact nothing he'd tried so far had produced a result that made sense but at least attempting to translate the writing kept his mind from his injured friends, and his worry about Nikko and Vincent's safety.

Juliet mumbled and moved her head. The girl seemed to be in the grip of a very unpleasant dream, and Calvin was tempted to try and wake her but he wasn't sure if that was medically the right thing to do. Solomon had also shown a few signs of movement over the last few minutes and Calvin took as an indication the older man was trying to wake.

The young archaeologist took a break from working and watched his mentor, Zond moaned softly and his brow creased in pain. Putting aside his laptop, Calvin concentrated on the injured man; this was the most animated the other had been since he'd been injured.

"Dr. Zond? Can you hear me?" Calvin lightly tapped the older man's cheek, trying to get him to wake. He was rewarded with another low moan.

"Come on, Dr. Zond, time to wake up. We've got lots of work to do," Calvin encouraged.

Eventually Solomon began to come around, first moving his undamaged arm, then turning his head from side to side before finally opening his eyes. Calvin looked carefully into the other's hazel eyes, checking to see if both eyes tracked together and that the dilation of the pupils was normal. His knowledge of first aid and general medicine was limited but experience working on dangerous assignments with Dr. Zond over the years had taught him enough to recognise a concussion when he saw one. From what he could see Dr. Zond had a first class case, and now that the older man was awake Calvin knew he would have to keep him conscious, or risk even more serious problems.

"Hey, you're awake. How do you feel?" Calvin asked, trying to bring the injured man's attention to full focus, he had no doubt the answer to his question would be a variation of lousy.

Solomon didn't answer, instead his eyes began to drift closed again.

"Oh, no you don't. You gotta stay with me here… what would I tell Nikko if I let you just go to sleep on us, huh?"

Mentioning his son's name had the desired positive effect and brought Zond fully awake.

"Nikko, where is he? The cave-in… is he hurt?"

"No, Nikko's fine, he wasn't hurt at all. He's with Vincent; they've gone back through the tunnel to get help."

Dr. Zond gasped as he tried to sit up and Calvin put a hand against his chest to hold him down. "No, Dr. Zond, you're hurt. You've got to lay still."

The older man looked annoyed but at least he stopped trying to rise. "The tunnel… no, it's too dangerous, we need to call Maggie for help."

"No, we can't, we've lost the signal."

"Oh… how long have they been gone?"

Calvin didn't want to answer that question; he'd begun to worry about the length of time the pair had been away too. "Around an hour," he answered. In truth Vincent and Nikko had been gone closer to two hours, but didn't want to worry Zond. It didn't work.

"An hour! We have to go after them; they could be in trouble…"

"Dr. Zond, we can't. Neither one of us is in any shape to help them."

Calvin tried to hold the anxious man still with his uninjured hand but despite Zond's own injuries, he was still strong enough to make holding him down difficult. From her position across the floor, Juliet cried out inarticulately in her sleep. The sound distracted the older man, obviously reminding him of his responsibilities to the whole team, and Calvin pressed the point.

"Nikko is fine, Vincent will take care of him, and they know what they are doing. We would only be getting in the way, besides we would have to leave Juliet here alone."

Solomon nodded and relented. He closed his eyes for a moment but opened them before Calvin began to be concerned he'd fallen asleep. Zond nodded toward Juliet. "How's she doing?"

"Physically she seems fine, but she's still out. That box really did a number on her."

"Where is the box?"

Calvin pointed to an equipment pack leaning against one of the undamaged pillars. "I put it in an artefact case, don't worry, I didn't touch it, but I assumed we were still taking it with us."

"Absolutely, we need to find out what happened, what it did to Juliet."

The young archaeologist nodded, falling into his role as a researcher, and it was the best way he could think of to get Zond to stay awake. "I've been looking over the box's inscriptions. There seems to be multiple embedded codes layered together in the writings. I've only been able to translate the surface and simplest layer so far."

Solomon looked at him suspiciously, "That's a lot of work for an hour."

Calvin coloured, "Ah, well it's been a little more than an hour."

"How long… exactly?"

The young man looked at his watch then back at Zond. "Two hours and seven minutes," he admitted.

The older man smiled and slowly shook his head. "You've been spending too much time with Nikko, you're learning his bad habit of economising the truth. So tell me what you've found so far."

"Okay, well the first layer is a fable. A story about a girl who was given a gift, it doesn't say what, but she used it selfishly and brought about a great death…"