by Edward Marin
Aware that the way in which he handled what he was about to do would be the most important thing he did in his life, he took a moment to organize his thoughts. When he was ready to speak, he felt a huge level of anxiety.
“I have an idea that will work for all of us,” he said. “If you agree with it, I’ll voluntarily return to Chicago.”
“Too late for negotiation,” Robertson said. “You had your chance, but you blew it when you chose to escape.”
“You need to know that it’s a matter of life and death that you let me go,” Tonemcadu said.“At least listen to me. Then you can do what you want. What do you have to lose?”
Holcomb and Robertson stared at him, and from their expressions they saw the urgency in his face. They looked at each other. Then Holcomb shrugged.
“Okay,” he said, “but this better be good.”
Tonemcadu wiped his forehead, which was damp with sweat.
“First let me give you some background about myself. You’re going to find it almost impossible to believe, but you can telephone Dan and Linda, who’ll back me up.”
“Go ahead,” Holcomb said.
“I was born thirty-three hundred years ago in ancient Egypt--”
“Stop right there,” Robertson said. “I’m not going to waste my time listening to pure bullshit.”
“Call Dan and Linda. They’ll tell you--”
“Let him go on,” Holcomb said. “This could be entertaining.”
“A few months ago,” Tonemcadu said, “I awoke from a special mummification in order to complete a mission that had been assigned to me by the pharaoh Akhenaton. To my surprise, I awoke at the museum where your employers Dan and Linda work, instead of in the pyramid where I was supposed to be. When they saw me come out of the sarcophagus, they decided to take me to their home, where they gave me food and shelter. After a while, we learned how to communicate with each other, and we agreed they’d help me travel to the Great Pyramid for my mission. But I realized my presence in their home was causing them problems, so I decided to leave. After some ups and downs, I was able to get on the cruise you know about.”
Tonemcadu was surprised at how attentive the men were. Even Robertson seemed curious about where he was going with his story.
“At the same time I was being mummified, our scientists built a large capsule so a few people selected by the pharaoh could travel to the Orion Constellation, which is about eight light-years away. The entire trip was to take about twenty years if you include the time needed to go there, to explore it, and to return.
“As you may know, Albert Einstein proved in 1905, in his Special Relativity Theory, that the faster one travels through space, the slower time goes by. This was illustrated a few years later by another great physicist, the Frenchman Paul Langevin, explained in his Twin Paradox that if a twin made a journey into space at a speed close to the speed of light, he would return home to find he had aged less than his identical twin who had stayed on Earth.
“The same phenomenon is about to happen with the passengers of the capsule who traveled to Orion: when they return, they’ll be only twenty years older although thirty-three hundred years will have gone by on earth.
“You may have guessed that both my awakening and their return were coordinated so that they’d take place around the same time.
“My mission is to assist them in their return to earth by activating an anti-gravity machine that’s located in the Great Pyramid. This machine will control the gravitational pull of the planet on their capsule in order to slow it down for a safe landing. This is all scheduled to take place two days from now.
“If I don’t make it in time, the capsule won’t slow down and will pulverize part of the earth by crashing at close to the speed of light. The explosion could be so devastating that it would not only kill my friends, but also millions of people on earth. It could cause as much destruction as the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. That’s why it’s critical that I make it to the pyramid on time. If you give me two days to complete my mission, I’ll return to Chicago with you immediately afterwards.”
When Tonemcadu stopped talking, he was amazed at how liberating it felt to have revealed his secret. It was like a confession he’d been subconsciously scripting since he’d awakened from his mummification. He couldn’t recall ever before having spoken with so much passion, which could be why the two men had listened so attentively.
But then Robertson started laughing, and Holcomb said, “At least your story was entertaining. So, in other words, you want us to let you save the world from destruction? Oh, excuse me, not the whole world, just part of it.”
“Two days,” Tonemcadu said. “Then I promise to return.”
“Nice try,” Robertson said “You’ve got some imagination.”
“Everything I told you is true,” Tonemcadu said. “You can verify at least one part of it. Call Dan and Linda and ask them how old I am.”
Holcomb stood and rubbed his hands.
“Let’s have a little fun with this,” he said. “Let’s see how your story holds up under some cross-examination. Why don’t you tell us why they wanted to go into space?”
“According to our beliefs, after the death of the pharaohs, their souls journeyed to the Orion constellation to join the god Osiris. Pharaoh Akhenaton wanted to find out if that process could one day take place before the pharaohs died. So, he instructed our scientists to determine if any part of the constellation could support human life. To do that, they devised a plan to send a group of people to try to live there for a few years.”
“I never heard that ancient Egyptians had the knowledge to travel in space,” Holcomb said. He glanced at Robertson, who by his blank look seemed to be doing his best to detach himself from the conversation.
“A major discovery of our ancient Egypt’s civilization was a method to manipulate the force of gravity by turning it into anti-gravity,” Tonemcadu said. “That knowledge was used to launch the capsule. By the way, anti-gravity was also used to lift the thousand-pound blocks that were used to build the pyramids.”
Holcomb said, “I read somewhere that nobody’s ever been able to figure out how they were built.”
“Don’t tell me you buy this guy’s story,” Robertson said.
“Not really, but I like to keep an open mind. In this business you have to. Asking questions never hurts. Shows whether something can withstand scrutiny.”
“I’ve been in this business twenty years,” Robertson said. “I don’t need any lessons about how to tell truth from bullshit.”
“Let’s talk about this outside,” Holcomb said.
As the two men walked out of the room, Holcomb pulled a cell phone from his pocket.
Tonemcadu listened, but couldn’t overhear anything. Apparently Dan and Linda weren’t answering. After a few minutes, Holcomb and Robertson walked back into the room.
“We’ll be leaving for Chicago in the morning,” Robertson said. “Keep in mind that it’ll be in your interest to cooperate and not make things more difficult than they need to be.”
Tonemcadu had another idea.
“I can prove to you that I’m telling the truth by showing you how the force of anti-gravity can be activated,” he said.
“Don’t waste our time,” Robertson said.
Tonemcadu looked at Holcomb. “What if I’m telling the truth? You said you believed in keeping an open mind. I can show you how anti-gravity works. And you don’t even have to untie me for the demonstration.”
Both men looked at him for a few seconds. Then Holcomb said, “How long would this take?”
“A couple of minutes at the most.”
“Okay, let’s see it.”
“We need to go outside,” Tonemcadu said.
Holcomb grabbed him under the armpits and pulled Tonemcadu into the desert sand.
Tonemcadu searched his memory for as many details about the anti-gravity activating process as he could remember. He knew the outcome of his demonstra
tion wasn’t certain. He also knew he couldn’t afford to fail.
He looked at Holcomb.
“Take out of my pocket both parts of the sculpture and hold them close together, in the same position as they were before it was broken. That’s right. Now lift the whole thing up to about five feet above the ground with the ivory part pointing toward the sky. Good. Pull as fast as possible on the gold handle, but make sure you don’t separate the two parts.” Holcomb executed each directive with precision.
But after he’d completed the final step, nothing happened. Tonemcadu assumed it was because the sculpture had been broken.
“Try again,” he said. “But hold the pieces closer together... That’s it.”
This time several grains started to move on the ground, and they heard a sucking sound. Suddenly heaps of sand began rising toward the elliptical ivory top, creating a structure that looked a lot like a small pyramid. Then the sand in a broader and broader area started to rise.
“We have to stop the anti-gravity effect or we could all end up buried in the desert!” Tonemcadu yelled over the noise from the moving sand. “Push on the gold handle in the opposite direction!”
By the time he’d completed his sentence, the sand had covered Holcomb’s hands, and he was having trouble holding both parts of the sculpture in position. Tonemcadu was tied up and unable to help. Robertson, who was buried in sand up to his knees, seemed paralyzed with fear. Then, suddenly the sand, on the verge of drowning all three of them, stopped shifting.
“What the hell just happened?” Robertson said.
“Sand,” Tonemcadu said. “My guess is, at first we couldn’t get the anti-gravity effect to stop because the sculpture was covered in sand. What saved us is that the sand eventually interfered with the internal mechanism.”
“How does this thing work?” Robertson said as he extricated himself from under the sand.
“Overcoming the force of gravity isn’t as mysterious as it seems,” Tonemcadu said. “We do it all the time when we lift an object with the use of our muscles despite the entire earth pulling it down. The same is true when we use a magnet to move something. Anti-gravity works by causing an object to be impacted more by the pull of an astral body, such as the moon or one of the other planets, than by the earth.”
Looking at both men’s expressions, Tonemcadu could tell that he no longer needed to convince them he was telling the truth.
“If your goal is to control the gravitational pull of the planet on your friends’ capsule,” Robertson said as he wiped the sand off his clothes, “couldn’t you just use your device instead of the one inside the pyramid?”
“It’s not powerful enough. The one in the pyramid is much bigger and stronger.”
“Okay,” Robertson said. “We take you to the pyramid, you give us your word that you’ll then go to Chicago with us without making trouble.”
“Agreed,” Tonemcadu said, looking at Holcomb. Would he now contradict his colleague just because he’d made the decision without consulting him? Instead, Holcomb got up, pulled out a knife, and cut the restraints holding Tonemcadu’s feet and hands.
“Let’s go,” he said.
Tonemcadu put both parts of the sculpture in his pocket and all three men headed toward the pickup truck.
CHAPTER 31
The three men stood silent a few hundred yards from the Great Pyramid. For Tonemcadu, being this close to the place where he’d spent so much time so long ago confirmed what his memory had faithfully preserved. It was still the most beautiful structure he’d ever seen. Despite the fact that it had lost the white alabaster cover that had given it a breathtaking glow and, despite the proximity to the overcrowded, polluted city of Cairo. In fact, the contrast with the city made it look even more imposing.
A guide was lecturing a group of tourists.
“At four hundred and fifty feet, the pyramid was the tallest man-made structure in the world until the twentieth century. Although our best cranes today would be able to lift its two-and-a-half-ton blocks, they wouldn’t be able to transport them. We don’t know how the ancient Egyptians set the blocks in place.
“The pyramid includes a coded representation of the solar system and, along with the two other pyramids at Giza, it’s aligned like the stars of the Orion constellation. The joints between its blocks are less than one fiftieth of an inch in thickness and are held by a material modern science hasn’t been able to identify. The total length of its base sides has the same relationship to its height as the circumference of a circle has to its radius. Its alignment is more precise than what can be achieved with laser technology, and to this day it’s considered the best aligned structure in the world.
“It would take high-speed diamond-tipped drills five hundred times more efficient than what exists today to do some of its stonework. The pyramid is located at the point where the longitude and latitude of land masses is the longest. As such, it can be considered the center of gravity of the earth...”
The area where Tonemcadu, Holcomb, and Robertson were standing was full of camel drivers, peddlers, tour guides, and soft-drink vendors, each soliciting business in their own way. One of the most vocal of them kept repeating in heavily accented English, “Guided tour for only one hundred Egyptian pounds. Starts in five minutes.”
“Sounds like a good way to get closer to wherever you need to go,” Holcomb said.
“Actually, it would make it harder for me to move around,” Tonemcadu said. “The fewer people, the better.”
“Okay, let’s go,” Holcomb said.
They made their way toward the area where Tonemcadu remembered seeing the workers move a block to gain direct access to the chamber with the anti-gravity machine. All he remembered was that it was behind a slightly pear-shaped block somewhere in the middle of the northernmost face.
“Stay here while I go in,” he said when the three reached a souvenir stand close to the pyramid. “If all goes well, I should be back in about half an hour.”
“That’s not going to work. We have to go with you,” Robertson said.
“It won’t take long. I’ll be right back.”
“How do we know you won’t just disappear?” Holcomb said.
“You have my word. Besides, you can watch where I go so you can see me when I come out.”
“Okay, but if you’re not back in half an hour, we’ll alert the authorities, and they’ll find you and arrest you as a pyramid robber. Believe me when I tell you, this is not a place where you want to go to jail.”
Tonemcadu walked up to the area of the pyramid he’d identified and examined each block as carefully as he could without drawing attention to himself.Finally he stopped. Apparently the special entrance was no longer there.
He evaluated the situation. The only thing he could come up with was that a restoration crew had replaced the block because its unusual shape had made it look time-eroded. If that was the case, not only would he not be able to get in, but the entrance leading to the chamber with the anti-gravity machine could have already been discovered and all the equipment removed or damaged.
He looked back at Holcomb and Robertson, who were staring at him. They looked worried. He gave them a thumbs-up sign. The last thing he needed was for them to come inquire about his progress. He walked up and down the wall purposefully, hoping to give the impression that things were under control.
What to do next? Might as well attempt to open every block in his targeted area. He remembered how the workers used to apply pressure on the top of the special entrance to make it rotate on its axis. He tried in vain to do the same on several blocks and when he reached the seventh he noticed that it had a different feel. He thought he’d found the special entrance, but the block didn’t budge. He swore and kicked it hard, causing intense pain to his left foot, which began to swell. He might as well go admit to Holcomb and Robertson that he’d failed.
Instead, he bent over the block to apply pressure one last time. To his surprise, the block started to move.
It soon exposed an opening that grew to about two feet wide. When it stopped shifting, he crawled on his stomach into a narrow tunnel. Hoping no one other than Holcomb and Robertson had seen him go in, he looked back and noticed some inscriptions on the inside of the block. After reading them, he guessed it now looked different from the outside because it had been patched up by a restoration crew so as to be undistinguishable from all the others.
Then, just as suddenly as it had opened, the opening closed up. Tonemcadu started advancing in the dark. The passage had a slight upward slope, then spiraled downward. It was covered with tiny debris as if millennia had deposited little obstacles to impair his progress. After about ten minutes of careful movement, he reached a dead end, above which was a wooden board. When he removed it, he noticed that it separated the makeshift passage from the regular shaft structure. He was able to stand up and walk through an open area made of smooth stone, which seemed to be part of the vast web of corridors within the pyramid.
Moments later, he saw the fluorescent rocks that had been placed to illuminate the chamber with the anti-gravity machine. Finally, he’d reached his destination.
From the arched gold-plated ceiling to the alabaster floor, everything had been designed to create a peaceful, serene atmosphere. In the middle of the room were two carved columns connected by an ivory shelf, on top of which were perfectly aligned baskets and jars. He reached inside the first jar and pulled out a stone tablet on which were carved his instructions. As he started to review them, he realized that the procedure was indelibly etched into his memory.