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Dirk gazed at her cynically "Then why does your coffee taste like battery acid?"

Panfried in butter, the lobster and creamed spinach ashed doith the bottle of Ja adventures Summer made a nasty face at her brother as she presented theue pie she had baked in the our and microwave ovens were not suited to one another

Barnum stood to take his leave, when Suma for you"

Barnuma?"

She handed him the object she'd found in the cavern

"What is it?"

"I think it's some kind of pot or urn We won't know until we clean off the encrustation I was hoping you'd take it back to the ship and have so"

"I'm sure someone will volunteer for the job" He hoisted it in both hands as if weighing it "Feels too heavy for terra-cotta"

Dirk pointed to the base of the object "There's an open space free of grohere you can see that it's formed out of metal"

"Strange, there doesn't appear to be any rust"

"Don't hold uess is it's bronze"

"The configuration is too graceful for native h it's badly encrusted, it appears to have figures molded around the middle"

Barnuination than I do Maybe an archaeologist can solve the riddle after we return to port, if they don't go into hysterics because you removed it from the site"

"You won't have to wait that long," said Dirk "Why not transer in NUMA's coton? He should be able to come up with a date and where it was produced Chances are it fell off a passing ship or came from a shipwreck"

"The Vandalia lies nearby," offered Summer