"She says it's not real."

My jaw dropped. "It's not real?"

"That's what she says," my colleague confirmed.

"But—I don't—how do you—" My hands were wringing. I stilled them, trying my best to manage coherence. "The references!"

"It was a popular subject of discourse. But it wasn't real."

"The signs!"

"Just traffic signs. The author got the name by reversing the letters of a real place." My colleague shrugged. " 'Noger' isn't some kind of sacred entry or exit word, it's just...well. She says there was no ritual significance to backwards writing, either."

I sat down, hard, and put my head in my hands. The woman from the stasis pod looked at me sympathetically, and asked my colleague something in her strange language. He replied, and they exchanged a few more words.

"My life's work," I groaned. "Wasted. My god, I'll have to become an Atlantis hunter now."

The woman from the stasis pod's head jerked up, and she asked my colleague another question. I caught only one word—a repetition of the name "Atlantis" in her out-of-time accent, right at the end.

When my colleague replied, the woman burst into laughter. I looked at my colleague questioningly.

"There was," he began helplessly, "a philosopher—he came well before the author, he was long dead in this gentlewoman's time, but nevertheless famous—"

"Oh god damn it," I said.