Chapter 2 Chapter two

On the other half of the world, another colleague of Schelling 501 at Salo University was also watching the sky.But all she felt was fear. This person is Sifna 89 from the Department of Archeology.For the past year and a half, she has been excavating artifacts at the Bekerimot archaeological site on the remote Sajikan Peninsula.Now, terrified, she stands numb at the excavation site, helpless as a catastrophe of colossal proportions hits her. The sky is shrouded in ominous.In this corner of the world, at this moment, there is only the cold, harsh light of Tano and Cesar.The light disgusted and oppressed her.In this dark sky where there are only two suns left, countless shadows of different shades are cast, making people feel that disaster is about to come.Dovim was rising over the horizon...barely visible...just peeking out over Mount Hawken in the distance, but the gleam of the little red sun was anything but cheery.

Sifna knew that the warm, golden light of Onas would soon shower down from the east, reviving all things.But what is she afraid of?She had far greater fears than the temporary absence of the sun in the sky. A deadly dust storm is heading towards Berkelimot.In a short time, the entire archaeological site will be swept away, and the consequences will be disastrous.Tents will be destroyed; shallow trays of carefully sorted artefacts will be blown over and scattered all over the floor; cameras, plotters, those stratigraphic maps that have taken so much effort to draw... everything that has been acquired by long hours of hard work , will be destroyed.

To make matters worse, all of them will die.The ancient ruins of Bekelimot...the cradle of human civilization, the ancient and famous city of Kalgesh...will also be in danger. Sifna's exploratory excavation trenches dug in the sedimentary soil of the nearby steppe, all exposed to broad daylight.The head-on wind, if it is strong, will roll up more dust and hit the fragile ruins of Berkelimot hard... destroying and burying the entire foundation, and even blowing off the surface, scattering it on the dry ground. grassland. Beckery Moat is a treasure trove of history, it belongs to the whole world.Although Sifna's excavation work was intentionally sabotaged, the extent of the damage was limited after all.Any archaeological work has the potential to cause damage: it is by its very nature.But to turn the entire grassland into a desert, and then suffer from sandstorms for a long time...

No, that's enough!If Bekrimot were to be destroyed by a sandstorm due to her actions, she would be a sinner for all ages. Perhaps, as superstitious people say, there are inescapable disasters in this area.Sifna89 never allowed herself to think so wildly.However, what promises to be the pinnacle of her career has been nerve-wracking from the start and now threatens to destroy her career...if her life isn't ended by a sandstorm. One of her assistants, Alice 18, ran towards her.Alice's thin frame made her look particularly diminutive next to Sifna, who was tall and athletic. "We've fixed everything that can be fixed!" he exclaimed, out of breath, "and now it's all up to God."

Sifna said sullenly, "God? Where is God? Do you see God here? Ellis?" "I just……" "I know what you mean, just forget about it." Overseer Suvik 443 also ran towards her from the other side, his eyes wide open with a terrifying expression. "Ma'am," he said, "ma'am, where shall we hide? There is nowhere to hide!" "Suweik, didn't I tell you that I want you to go down the cliff." "We'll be buried! We'll be suffocated!" "Don't worry, the cliff will protect you." Sifna said insincerely, "Go, call everyone there!"

"And you, ma'am? Why don't you go?" She gave him a sudden surprised look.How could he think that I had a safer hiding place in private? "I'm going there too, Suvik, go! Leave me alone!" Sifna discovered that there was a six-sided brick house on the opposite side of the road... near the temple called the Temple of the Sun God by the early explorers, a chunky figure of Barrick 338 appeared.He stood there, facing the cold light from Tano and Sisar, covering his squinted eyes with his hands, looking up to the north.From there, this sandstorm is rolling in.An extremely painful expression appeared on Barik's face.

Balik, the stratigrapher, was their guide.In a way, he was also the expedition's weather expert.Part of his job is to record weather data and predict possible anomalies. Climate anomalies are rare in the meteorological record of the Sajikan Peninsula.Usually: the whole area is arid, and the degree of drought is unimaginable.Measurable rainfall occurs only once every ten or twenty years.The change in air flow is the only climate anomaly that has ever been seen.The movement of air creates cyclones, which then create sandstorms.Even so, such a climate does not appear a few times in a century.

Does Balik's dejected expression indicate that he is guilty of failing to predict the sandstorm?Or did you predict the severity of the impending disaster and panic? Sifuna thought to herself that if she had had a little more time to prepare for this sudden disaster, things might have been different.At this time, he woke up and should have discovered all kinds of omens. Anyone who is good at observing will find these omens... The sudden violent heat and the sudden rise in temperature greatly exceeded the normal temperature of the Sajikan Peninsula; the warm north wind stopped quietly, and suddenly an unusually humid south wind blew; When the south wind blows, the skinny vultures all spread their wings and disappear over the vast sand dunes of the western plain as if being chased by a demon.

What a clear sign!Especially those hara birds, Sifna thought, as they soared into the air and sang to the dunes. But they were only busy with the excavation of cultural relics, and all their attention was focused on the excavation, and they almost didn't know it at all.Now how to do?Just let it go, let fate arrange it, and hope it will change its direction. Soon, the distant sky in the north was covered with light gray clouds.The sky above the desert, which was usually as clear as a mirror, turned into a suffocating dome covered with dark clouds. cloud?Did you see the cloud?I didn't see any clouds.

Or pretend not to know. In an instant, the dark cloud turned into a huge black monster, covering half of the sky.The south wind was still blowing, and there was no humidity at all... no difference from the hot air blowing from the blast furnace.Now, another gust of wind blows head-on, even more violently.When two winds meet, the strong will be stronger... "Sifna!" Balik yelled, "The wind is coming, quickly hide!" "I will, I will!" She doesn't want to hide.She wanted to run back and forth across the excavation site, quickly inspect everything on the site, pull down the bottom edge of the tent, open her arms to embrace the rolls of precious photosensitive film, and cover the site with her body that was excavated only a month ago. The skin of the octagonal house to protect that beautiful mosaic.But it turns out Barrick was right.All through the frantic morning, Sifna had done her best to protect the excavation site.The only thing to do now is to go to the shelter under the cliff and shrink into a ball to hide.It is hoped that this shelter can become a natural barrier to help them survive this catastrophe.

She ran towards the cliff.The two strong and powerful legs ran with great ease, making a crackling sound on the roasting gravel.Sifna was not yet forty years old, and for this tall and healthy woman, she was in a period of vigorous energy.She has always been optimistic about life.But in an instant, everything was in jeopardy: her career, her health, and even her life. Everyone crowded into the bottom of the cliff shelter.At the mouth of the cliff, they temporarily erected a few wooden pillars and stretched the canvas to make a barrier against wind and sand. "Please move." Sifna said and squeezed in. "Ma'am," Suvik whimpered, "Ma'am, let the wind blow back!" It was as if she was a goddess with incomparable power. Sifna couldn't help letting out a piercing laugh.Overseer Suvik made a gesture to her... a religious gesture, it seemed to her. The rest of the workers...all from the small villages to the east...also made the same gesture to her, muttering incessantly.Is it prayer?Pray to her?It's really incredible at this time.These men, like their parents and grandparents, were employed by an archaeologist and dedicated their lives to the excavations at Bekerimot.They were extremely patient, allowing the ancient buildings to be exposed to the ground, and cleaning out every tiny cultural relic in the sand.They must have experienced terrible sandstorms before, right?Are they always this scared?Maybe this sandstorm is the biggest? "It's coming, it's blowing over." Balik said, covering his face tightly with his hands. A violent sandstorm swooped down on them. At first, Sifna maintained a standing posture facing outwards, watching the majestic and huge city wall in the distance through the gap between the canvases.It seemed to her that if she kept her eyes on the excavation site, it would be spared.But after a while, she couldn't stand it anymore.The unbelievable heat kept hitting her, so hot that she felt dizzy and her eyebrows were burning.She was forced to turn around and put one arm over her face. Then, the sand and dust swooped in, blocking her entire vision. It was like a torrential rain, a downpour of many gravels.There was a loud thunderclap.This is not thunder, it is clearly the sound of hundreds of millions of sand hitting the ground.Along with this sound there are other sounds: gravel falling, grinding and slapping.These voices intertwined and turned into roars.At this moment, Sifna felt countless tons of sand pouring in like a waterfall, burying the city walls, covering the temple, and submerging the foundations of houses distributed over a large area, and their camp would not be spared. Everything will be buried. She turned, face inward, and waited for death to come.A wave of utter sorrow came over her, and she found herself weeping hysterically, shaking and remorseful.She doesn't want to die.Why do you want to die?Of course not.It wasn't until then that she realized that what was about to happen was far more serious than death. Bekrimot, the most famous archaeological site in the world, the oldest town of mankind, and the birthplace of civilization, is about to be destroyed... This is entirely caused by her negligence.Generations of eminent Kargesh archaeologists have excavated here in the century and a half since Bekerimot was discovered.The most outstanding of them is Galdo 221, followed by Maping, Stin Newpart, Shelbyk, Newmorn and a large number of outstanding figures... However, now, Sifna is foolishly exposing the entire venue Outside, waiting for the sandstorm to strike. The site has slumbered underground for thousands of years since Bekerimot was buried under gravel, as it was when its inhabitants succumbed to the abrupt climate change and abandoned it.Starting from Galdo, every archaeologist working there has been very careful to only expose a small part of the site, and to set up barriers and windshields to prevent it from happening, but it will be very serious if it happens. sandstorm.This practice has persisted until now. Of course, she also erected barriers and windbreaks as usual, but not at the new excavation site and the temple site she focused on research, where the oldest and most classic buildings in Berkelimot were located.She was eager to dig, and her mind was only thinking of digging, and constantly digging, and she forgot the most fundamental precautions.What precautionary measures, she completely forgot.It didn't look abnormal at the time, but now, what she heard was the devilish roar of the sandstorm, and what she saw was the dark sky that destroyed everything... It might be better to die, Sifna thought now.In this way, you will not be able to read the evaluation of her in the archaeological books published in the next fifty years: the archaeological site of Bekrimot, which has rich materials and records the development history of early civilization in Kargash, was discovered by a professor named Xi The negligent excavation of Verna's ambitious youth, all destroyed in an unfortunate disaster...   "I think it's almost over," Barik said softly. "What's over?" she asked. "Sandstorm, listen, the sound has quieted down." "We must have been submerged in the sand so we couldn't hear anything from outside." "No, Sifna, we're not submerged." Barik tugged at the canvas in front of him. Sifna peered through the gaps in the canvas into the open space between the cliff and the city wall. She couldn't believe her eyes! What she saw was a clear blue sky and a bright sun.The light from Tano and Xisa was dim and cold just now, but now it is the most beautiful sunshine she has ever seen. The sandstorm passed, and everything returned to calm. Where did the sand go?Why is everything not buried? Everything in the city is still visible: the huge stone blocks on the walls, the gleaming mosaics, the stone spire of the Temple of the Sun.Even most of the tents are still upright, and the important ones are almost unharmed.Only the tents where the workers lived were more damaged, but they could be repaired in a few hours. Surprised and uneasy, Sifna came out from the shelter and looked around.The floating sand on the ground has been blown away, but the dried and compacted black surface of the excavated zone can still be seen clearly.It's just that now it's different from before, its surface has been scratched in some strange way, and the ground is clean, without any sediment from the storm. Balik was very surprised and said: "The sand came first, followed by the wind. The wind rolled up the sand and hit us, and the sand was picked up by the wind almost as soon as it hit the ground, and it flew south with it." .Look... the ground was scratched with scars, and the thin layer of floating sand on the surface was blown away by the wind, and the weathering process of fifty years was completed in five minutes. However..." Sifna barely caught a word.She grabbed Barrick's arm and pulled him around, with his back to the main site of the excavation. "Look there," she said. "Where? What's going on?" "Mount Tombo," she said, pointing. The broad-shouldered stratigrapher's eyes widened suddenly. "My God! The mountain has been split down the middle!" Tombo Hill is a strangely shaped mound, which is located south of the main city and takes about a quarter of an hour to walk.No one has excavated it for more than a hundred years. Since the second exploration of the great pioneer Galdo 221, no one has been interested in it, and Galdo himself thinks it is insignificant.It is generally believed to be just a dumping ground for the residents of old Berkelimot to dump their kitchen waste... Indeed, it is interesting enough in its own right, but it pales in comparison to the rest of the marvel at the excavation site up. Evidently, Mount Tombo was hit by the storm's worst: what generations of archaeologists would have refrained from doing was accomplished in a matter of seconds by the force of the sandstorm.The windward side of the mound was cut open in a series of crooked and irregular openings, like a series of terrible scars, exposing all the inner layers at the top of the slope.Experienced archaeologists like Sifna and Balik will understand its importance just by taking a look at it. "Under the garbage dump is the ruins of a city," Balik said in a low voice. "I see more than one, maybe several," Sifna said. "You think so?" "Look, look over there, to the left." Balik hissed, "Under that wide foundation, isn't that a horizontal wall?" "you are right." Sifna was shocked suddenly, and a warm current flowed through her body.She turned to Balik and found him surprised too.His eyes were wide open and his face was pale. "Thanks for the storm!" he croaked with courage. "What do we get out of it, Sifna?" "I don't know, but I will start looking for it immediately." She turned her head and looked at the shelter under the cliff, where the supervisor Suweik and the workers were still huddled in fear, making a pious look, trembling voices murmured prayers, not seeming to comprehend that they were safe from the dreadful sandstorm. "Suvik!" Sifna yelled, gesturing to him forcefully.Its force is almost to the point of anger, "Come out, and your workers! We have something to do!"