The computer beeped. When Paul didn’t raise his head, it beeped again. He groaned, reaching over to fumble at the keyboard, knocking progress reports off the desk. He had gotten less than four hours of sleep a night for weeks on the dig.

“Crap,” he muttered, combing pieces of dried instant noodles from his matted beard. He blinked at the clock on his desk, rubbing sleep from his eyes with his knuckles. “Three in the morning. Can’t it wait?”

He batted weakly at the mouse, clearing the bouncing cartoon King Tut from the screen.

TRANSLATION COMPLETE

Paul felt his stomach clench. The program was a success. The oldest piece of writing that had ever been found, a scrawl of jumbled letters found on a broken gold idol that had lain at the bottom of the ocean until it drained, had been translated.

He clicked OK. The text scrolled slowly across the screen.

“Curse my choice of being a poet. Everything that can be written has been written.”