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“Were you planning on letting them kill me?” Ni yelled at Pau

“Every trap needs bait, Minister”

He was furious and raised his weapon, but Pau sinored him and motioned The two other athered the fish fro back into the house

“I raised those goldfish since birth,” Pau said “I hope the shock will not kill them”

He could not care less “Do you realize what just happened? Those men came to kill me”

“Which was the possibility Iapparently sent them to eliminate us both”

He tasted the acrid flavor of adrenaline in his mouth His heart pounded “I must return home”

“What of the laht you wanted it”

“It’s not as important as what awaits there”

“Don’t be so sure I think the answers you seek are here, and I know exactly how to obtain them”

TWENTY-ONE

GANSU PROVINCE, CHINA

3:20 AM

TANG SAT ALONE HIS HELICOPTER HAD LEFT TO REFUEL AT AN airport fifty kilometers to the south He’d need full tanks, ready to fly, in four hours That’s when he’d deal with Lev Sokolov

The portable buildings used by the drilling crew as sleeping quarters were located a quarter of a kilometer from the derrick, and the superintendent had offered his trailer The rooerator clean, a few plastic dishes stacked beside a microwave oven Not his usual accommodations, but perfect for the next few hours He wasn’t sleepy, as the short nap on the flight from the museum had been adequate He welco around hi part of Qin Shi’s First Empire

Incredible what they had achieved so long ago

His ancestors had invented the u wheel, porcelain, the stea reels, even whiskey

But salt

That was theleap of all

Five thousand years ago coastal dwellers boiled seawater to produce salt But as they settled farther and farther inland, salt, critical as a food supplement and preservative, essential to their survival, beca it hundreds or thousands of kilo Another source would have to be found, and the discovery of brine aquifers—places where groundwater seeped from below, loaded with salinity—solved the problem

The first recorded discovery ca the ti now sat At first wells were shallow, dug by hand, but deeper exploration led to the invention of drilling

The first bits were forged of heavy iron, the pipe and rig froned like a seesahich lifted the bit a round rock Centimeter by centimeter, that process would be repeated Historians later theorized that the idea had co rice into flour

The technique eventually beca solutions to —cave-ins, lost tools, deviated wells, the removal of debris—were perfected Wells to 100 meters becay existed anywhere else in the world until more than 2,000 years later By 1100 CE, wells to 400 ed 500 meters in the 19th century, Chinese drillers explored below 1,000 meters

Those first innovators, who sank wells searching for salt brine, also discovered so else

An odorless ehly combustible

Natural gas

They learned that it could be burned, producing a clean, hot energy source that dissolved the brine and revealed the salt

And they also found oil

A sludgy material—fatty and sticky, like the juice of meat, one observer noted—that bubbled up froreenish black ooze was a mystery, but they soon learned that it, too, could be burned, producing a long-lasting, bright flaons turn faster Oil beca the la their to a fiery weapon used to devastate an enemy

Tang marveled at the accomplishments

In the process of inventing the , he knew they also had discovered the best places to bore, creating the science of geology They becas on surface rocks and detecting the pungent smell of hidden brine They learned that yellow sandstone would yield brine high in ferric chloride, while black sandstone led to wells loaded with hydrogen sulfide Of course, they were ignorant as to the chemical conize and use those compounds

His ministry had studied in detail the history of Chinese brine drilling There was even athat told the story to the masses Incredibly, over the past two millennia, nearly 130,000 wells had been drilled, a few hundred of those during the time of the First Emperor

One in particular had been sunk about a quarter kilometer away

“How do you know this?” he demanded of Jin Zhao

The irritating geochemist had refused to cooperate, so he’d finally ordered Zhao’s arrest

“Minister, I know nothing It’s all theory”

He’d heard that explanation before “It’s more than theory Tell me”

But his prisoner refused

Hea few feet away advanced on Zhao, yanking hi him twice in the stomach He heard the breath leave the older ut

A slight nod froh

Zhao struggled to breathe

“It will only get worse,” he said “Tell me”

Zhao calmed himself “Don’t hit me anymore Please No more”