The Pillars of Abraham

by Ian Young

  ‘You think it might be some kind of egg?’ Howie glanced around as though trying to make sense of the conversation.

  ‘Come on, Howard,’ said Finch. You should know animal shells aren’t round, and for good reason.’

  ‘Why not?’ I asked. Fuck! Why did I say that?

  ‘Are you serious?’ asked Finch, his face screwing up.

  ‘Just forget it,’ I said. I felt my cheeks beginning to steam.

  Howie coughed. ‘Come on, guys, let’s concentrate here.’

  ‘Eggs are oval because ovals have more structural strength than balls.’ Finch grinned at me as though he waited for his next cue.

  ‘Well, obviously,’ I said, tensing my fists.

  ‘And the word oval comes from the Latin for egg … ovum. Ovary? Ya get it? Come on, Dyer, I thought she was supposed to be smart.’

  ‘OK, fellas, the show’s over,’ said Howie. He clasped both my arms and stood me next to the table. It was as though he couldn’t trust me not to slap Finch. And he was right.

  ‘What do you make of it, Andi?’ asked Howie. ‘You saw it buzzing away like a child’s toy, didn’t you? I can’t get it to do it again.’

  ‘It only vibrates when pointing in one direction,’ I said, looking up at Finch, my cheeks reddening again. ‘Haven’t you worked that out yet?’

  Finch scoffed. ‘Shit. What are you talking about, babe?’

  ‘It was when the sub rotated through two-seven-three degrees, but I don’t know which way the ball was pointing.’

  ‘It’s a ball,’ said Finch, rolling his eyes, ‘it doesn’t point any way.’

  ‘Yes, but it can … never mind. Has anyone got a compass?’ I said, glancing around, trying to avoid Finch’s glare.

  ‘A compass on a ship? Very funny, Dr Menendes.’ Captain Ortiz stood at the door, a half-smile just visible behind his silver beard.

  ‘Do you have one you could bring here?’ I said wearily, acknowledging that I had to wade through sarcasm just to get sense out of anyone.

  ‘Two-seven-three degrees is about that way,’ he said. ‘North is that way.’ Captain Ortiz pointed to the wall behind me. I exchanged glances with Howie, who shrugged.

  ‘He ought to know, honey – Andi – Andreia.’ Howie stuttered his way through the sentence like an actor who’d forgotten his lines. ‘Uh, Captain Ortiz probably spends all day looking at a compass.’

  ‘Not quite, Professor,’ said Captain Ortiz, ‘but I’ve seen a few in my time.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Howie. He reached out to pick up the ball.

  ‘Howie, no!’ I said, pushing his hand away.

  ‘Howie?’ Finch leered at me like I was the entertainment at a bachelor party.

  ‘Professor,’ I tried again. ‘At least put gloves on.’

  ‘Alright, alright.’ Howie slipped a glove on that Cooper handed him and he picked up the ball. ‘It’s round,’ he said, as though just noticing the shape for the first time. We stared at each other. I wondered if he’d been bamboozled by some debilitating power held within the ball, something that could sap all mental capability.

  ‘It’s round,’ he repeated. ‘How can I point it any particular way?’

  Finch tutted. ‘Like I said.’ He glared at me as though to prove his point. ‘Just turn the damn thing round until it sets off again.’

  ‘Look,’ I said, peering closer to the ball. ‘There’s a thin seam, thin as a hair. You see it?’

  Howie turned the ball around in his hand then dropped it as though it had bitten him. ‘Jeez! The damned thing scared the shit out of me.’

  I moved away from the table as the ball rolled toward me. Captain Ortiz reached out and held it still on the table.

  ‘You OK, Professor?’ he asked.

  ‘Sure, it just took me by surprise.’ Howie bent lower and looked at the ball. ‘Ah, there it is. You were right … Andi, thin as a hair.’

  He picked up the ball and turned it until it vibrated. The seam faced along the north-south axis that Captain Ortiz had indicated. I could see Howie’s arm shaking like he’d got hold of a nest of bees. He lasted only seconds before he dropped the ball again and clutched his arm into his body.

  ‘Jesus H— sorry, Captain, didn’t mean to offend.’ Howie held his other arm up in a gesture of apology to the God-fearing captain. ‘This thing is beginning to scare the hell out of me.’

  I nodded. ‘Perhaps we should throw it back.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ Howie glared at me as though I’d suggested throwing him overboard. It wasn’t such a bad idea.

  Everyone suddenly looked beyond me to the door. I turned to see what had grabbed their attention. Mason. Jeez, this guy was everywhere.

  ‘How’s the egg shell?’ asked Mason, grinning. ‘Hatched yet?’

  His accent was beginning to sound more sinister each time I heard it. It sounded too perfect, too precise, as though he thought carefully about every word he uttered. I wasn’t used to that.

  ‘Relax, Mr Mason,’ I said. ‘We’re not in a Hollywood movie, there’s no alien in there ready to burst out and attack the crew.’

  ‘Oh shame,’ he said. ‘I had my extra large bazooka ready to save you.’

  ‘I can look after myself.’ I turned away to find the other scientists glaring at me. ‘What?’

  ‘Honey,’ began Howie, looking around and shrugging. ‘Honey, Mason’s just curious, don’t burn him up like that.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Howie, you’re not my father!’ And then I realised why I was dating him. I pushed past Mason and went back to my bunk before anyone could say anything more to me.

  Chapter 4

  I fell on to my bed and curled up like a baby. When I get back to LA I’d find a new job. My work was hardly rewarding: filing papers, proofreading Dyer’s notes – me, a foreigner, proofreading a native English speaker’s work. Of course, it was all a ruse to keep me close to him, and I’d been happy to accept a job at the university. But Howie didn’t need a PhD scientist for the menial work he offered; he needed an undergrad. I’d once been that undergrad, only he’d kept me on.

  I loved California. I loved the ocean, the beach, the mountains. I also loved my country – we had the ocean, the beaches, the mountains. We had it all, and more. But I really didn’t see myself going home, not with things as they were with my father. He told me he ‘can’t live with the enemy’. If only he would open his eyes. I thought of him now, preaching to all those lonely old souls clinging to the idea of heaven, the promise of eternal life in paradise. It’s a lovely thought, but to me it would give me a reason to die, not a reason to live. Wouldn’t it be like promising to take your daughter to the funfair for her birthday? If I were that daughter I’d be willing my birthday to come as soon as possible. Wouldn’t a Christian, then, look forward to their death? I just didn’t get it.

  My father was a good man, but I wished he were more open to ideas. He actually believed that God made the universe and everything in it, that he made the Earth in six days, man, woman, and all the rest of it. How could my father ignore the evidence, the science that contradicted almost everything he read in his Bible?

  But I conceded, as much as his belief was alien to me, my belief was just as alien to him. He used to say science couldn’t prove everything; just because your science (like all science was mine, and mine alone) can’t explain the existence of God, it doesn’t mean he’s not real. I told him he could say the same about magic. Surely magic, then, is just science we can’t explain, so it must be real.

  I never got anywhere arguing with my father, or my mother for that matter. Only my brother Lucas showed any support for my beliefs (or lack of). He’d just graduated as a primary school teacher in São Paulo. I cried when my mother said it would be better if I stayed away from his graduation. Sadly, going home
was probably not an option right now.

  I could get a job anywhere – a PhD from UCLA, four languages and a willingness to sleep with my boss. I gave myself a grim smile, a smile that was cut short by a tap at the cabin door.

  ‘Who is it?’ I said, creeping towards the door.

  ‘Hey, Andi, open up, will you?’ It was Howie.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Come on, don’t be like this. I’ve got the ball, come over to mine, we’ll take another look away from all those goons. Just you and me. What d’ya say?’

  ‘I’m tired, Howard, it’s almost midnight. I’m going to try and get some sleep.’

  ‘Sure. Well, come over if you like.’

  I listened at the door for a moment then opened it a fraction, keeping my foot against the bottom in case … well, just in case. Howie had gone. The scientist in me was desperate to know more about the ball, but the human in me was desperate for sleep. Surely it was just some highly magnetic material that resonated in the Earth’s magnetic field. What material would do that?

  ‘Shit.’ I put my shoes on and went down to Howie’s cabin.

  ‘It’s open,’ shouted Howie when I knocked. He sat with his head over a steam bowl, straining air through his congested nostrils. He sounded like he was in a vacuum, desperately trying to breathe – like he’d stepped out on to the surface of Mars without a space suit.

  ‘You’ve got to be the only chemist who uses natural medicines,’ I said. ‘They don’t work.’

  ‘You’re forgetting,’ he said, lifting his head up and removing the towel, ‘I know what goes into drugs. Trust me, natural’s way better.’

  His face was flushed, and two streams of mucus trailed from his nostrils and sat on the curl of his upper lip. I had to look away.

  ‘But it’s not natural, is it?’ I turned back, unable to stop myself looking at him again, as though I needed confirmation of what I’d just seen.

  Howie’s face sagged like an old man hearing hip-hop for the first time. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Plants don’t produce chemicals to cure your sickness,’ I said. ‘Drug companies do. So which is more natural?’

  ‘I’m not getting into all that again.’ He gave an exaggerated sniff and wiped his face with the towel, examining the residue like people do when they’ve blown their nose. Presumably satisfied with his remedy to the mess on his face, he flung the towel on to the bunk and picked up the ball. ‘Now. It vibrates when aligned with magnetic north.’

  It was my turn to feel sick, but I managed to suppress the urge. ‘Every time the sub turned through the same compass point, the ball set off vibrating. It’s just some material that resonates with the Earth’s magnetic field.’ As I repeated my own theory, I reminded myself there was no such material on … on Earth. No way was that thing alien. Just the idea was ridiculous.

  ‘Ah, jeez, Andi, you’re probably right.’ Howie turned the ball in his hand until it vibrated and immediately he jerked his whole body as though spooked in the night. He placed the ball on the table and turned it around to make it stop. Satisfied his little artefact was dormant again, he let go and looked up.

  ‘I’m sorry about before, the other guys have kind of a bad influence, and I’m not feeling myself right now.’

  I wasn’t ready to forgive him this quickly— a knock at the door.

  ‘Professor, are you in there?’ It was Mason. Howie opened the door and the Englishman stepped inside without being invited.

  ‘Ah, so sorry,’ said Mason. ‘Didn’t realise you had company.’ He nodded at me. ‘I won’t keep you. Would you be kind enough to hand me the thing that Andi … that Dr Menendes brought back today?’

  ‘What for?’ Howie moved quickly to block Mason’s access to the table.

  ‘My employers believe the artefact to be of some interest and, perhaps, some value.’

  ‘It’s ours,’ I said. ‘I found it, I dug it from the earth, I brought it back.’

  ‘Quite, Andreia, however, it doesn’t fall into any category … plant, mineral or life form, that this expedition has been tasked with. Therefore, your sponsors have a valid claim.’

  Howie stepped forward as though he was about to challenge Mason. There was only one way that would go: Mason, way over six foot, built for trouble; Dyer, way under six foot, built for academia.

  ‘Now you listen to me, Mason,’ said Howie, not quite sounding confident. ‘Whatever this …’ he waved his hand around, ‘… artefact is, it’s still a scientific discovery.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Mason, barely ruffled by Howie’s posturing. ‘Everything you drag up from the deep belongs to your sponsors. And they would like me to take this particular find for safekeeping.’

  Mason used the back of his arm to push Howie aside but my boss recovered quickly and managed to grab the ball first. The Englishman grabbed Howie’s arm, pulling it towards him until it was within his reach. As Mason brought his other arm across to pluck the ball from Howie’s hand, the damn thing fell and splashed into the steam bowl. I dashed forward to grab the ball but as I peered over the lip of the bowl, I reeled back and tripped, scrabbling across the floor in panic. The ball had slid open as I watched.

  I was embarrassed at how easily spooked I’d been. Both Mason and Howie stared at me like I was some overacting extra in one of those sci-fi channel movies. Mason reached out with his hand but I got to my feet without his assistance and straightened my top. As I peered into the bowl again, I almost heaved. My hand slapped my face in its haste to cover my mouth before the contents of my stomach ended up floating in the bowl with Howie’s ball.

  ‘What the—’ Howie reached towards the ball, flashing me a horrified glance as he did.

  ‘Don’t touch it,’ I said, without conviction.

  The black sphere had slewed apart along the seam. A cross-section of each half lay exposed at the bottom of the bowl, its contents obscured by the haze of whatever plant resin Howie had dripped into the hot water. I thought I saw a glint of light through the haze, but then both halves slid back together, hiding completely whatever lay inside.

  Mason had taken a step forward. Perhaps he was about to take out a pistol of some kind and start firing at it – shooting eels in a bucket, as Howie might say.

  And then Mason reached into the water and picked the damn thing up. ‘Curious,’ he said in that perfect diction.

  Curious? Freaking understatement. Mason rolled the ball around between his fingers, eyeing it as though inspecting an apple for bruises before taking a bite.

  ‘Interesting,’ he said.

  I looked at Howie, whose face was glazed over with his middle-aged frown. Mason placed the ball back into the bowl and held it under for a few seconds. Slowly, he released his grip and withdrew his hand, wiping the water away on his pants. If he says ‘curious’ again—

  ‘Well, that’s very … curious.’

  —I’ll scream. ‘For God’s sake,’ I said, my breath hissing across forked tongue.

  Mason turned to me and spread his lips wide. He was like the villain in a Bruce Willis movie. ‘I thought you’d want to see inside again,’ he said. ‘Only the little fella isn’t playing, well, ball.’ As he delivered the punchline he smiled and raised his eyebrows. He’d morphed into a Bond villain.

  ‘Take it out,’ I said, my voice hurried. I didn’t want to see inside anymore; I wanted to throw it overboard and go home.

  Mason reached into the bowl and rolled the ball around in the water. ‘Oh well,’ he said. ‘Not to worry.’

  I tensed my fists and gnashed my hind teeth together. Howie’s middle-aged gawp relaxed into a bewildered look and he shook his head.

  ‘Drop it in,’ said Howie, nodding his head as though indicating the ball dropping. ‘That’s what happened before.’

  ‘H
ow’s that?’ Mason stopped rolling the ball around and held it in a full-fingered grip. ‘Drop it in? He made a short humming sound. ‘I don’t think that would make any difference.’

  Mason retrieved the ball and backed away toward the door. ‘Perhaps I’ll look after this for safekeeping. I think it’s proved itself a security issue, Professor.’

  Before Howie could rattle himself into a reply, Mason had left, closing the cabin door softly behind him.

  ‘Howie? Are you just going to let him walk off with it?’

  ‘What do you want me to do, Andi? Kick his butt?’ Howie clenched his fists and jabbed at the air.

  He had a point. The Englishman was like a twelfth-grader taking candy from a freshman. I could imagine Mason strolling down the gangway tossing Howie’s little bag of sugar in his hand, grinning like the school bully.

  ‘Catch you later, Howie,’ I said, giving him one of those grim smiles that you save for the time you finally realise things aren’t quite working out.

  ‘Sure, honey.’ Howie didn’t turn to see my face, instead he dismissed me with a wave of his hand.

  Was that it, the end of our time together? I slunk from the room and made my way back to my cabin, hoping I wouldn’t bump into Mason or Finch. It was times like this when I wanted to talk to my brother. He might be five years younger than me, but he’d always been a good listener. By that, I mean he didn’t lecture me. Had I not been in the middle of the South Pacific I might have dug my phone out and given him a call. There was no way I would tell him about Howie – obviously – but, you know, we could just chat. Well, I would.

  As I stared once more at the ceiling above my bunk, listening to the engines droning away like tinnitus, I thought about the sacrifices I’d made for Howie. My friends in LA had drifted away and I still saw them, occasionally, but there wasn’t the closeness I’d once enjoyed. When I wasn’t working or spending time with Howie, I was mostly alone in my apartment, just me and my tequila. Recently, I signed up to ASPET, the American Society for Pharmacological and Experimental Therapeutics, as a resource for broadening my scientific exposure. I’d even applied for a job advertised on the website, but didn’t go for the interview. It was just another menial research position, and I realised it wasn’t the job itself that had triggered my application. I had to start using my education for what it was worth.