Looking closely, he saw that there was a seam running up the wall.
“I think you’ve found the answer yourself,” said Matthews.
Reynolds traced the seam — a fine crack, really — to the floor, and then back up and down again. It was in the shape of a fat triangle with curved sides, with the sides loosely echoing the angle of the walls to the left and right, ending in a point perhaps eight feet off the ground.
“It’s a doorway!” Reynolds exclaimed.
“Yeah, that’s what we thought, too,” said Matthews. “But so far we haven’t found a keyhole, much less a knob.”
Reynolds scanned the triangular area with the light, looking for any sign of a button or opening or control. The writing on the walls to either side stopped at the “door,” if indeed that’s what it was, and the door itself was smooth, save for the fine granularity found on all surfaces of the Town. He took his pick from his belt and tapped the door. Then he tapped the wall next to the door. If there was any difference in the sound, he couldn’t detect it.
Just looking at the door, it was hard to imagine how it might open. The crack between its sides and the walls wasn’t wide enough to be able to insert the blade of a pen knife, and there was no sign of hinges. The floor in front of the door showed no evidence of tracks or scrapes, so it would appear that it had to move into the pyramid in order to open.
“What would it take to drill through this,” he asked, turning to Matthews.
“Hell, we have no idea how thick it is.”
“Still,” Reynolds replied, turning back to the pyramid, “how would you tackle the job?”
“Well, we’d bring in an oversized freestanding drill press and use a cylindrical diamond blade — blades, more likely — to drill in at a perpendicular to the face of the wall. With what we have, we could put a six-inch hole in the door, assuming that it’s not more than about a foot thick.”
“OK,” said Reynolds, “I want to hold that open as a possibility. First, let’s see if we can get this thing to open on its own.”
“Hal,” said Sinclair, “if that is a door, and if it ever opened on its own, it took some kind of power to open it. It’s gotta be one heavy sucker. And whatever power source was used to open it has to be long dead.”
Reynolds looked at him, but said nothing.
“I mean, even a nuclear power plant would be dead after tens of millions of years.”
Reynolds considered this for a few moments. Sinclair was probably right, but he saw no need to rush.
The ancient Incas, he thought, had built incredibly massive structures with tolerances between their building blocks every bit as tight as these, and had moved massive blocks over long distances using techniques that no anthropologist or archaeologist has ever discovered. If relatively primitive humans could do that more than 1,000 years ago, what might advanced beings from somewhere else be able to accomplish?
“Bob, for all we know, nuclear power was something these people used for their children’s toys. We can drill into this thing any time we want, but I’d like to take some time to see what we can discover before we apply a brute force approach.
Stephanie Mitchell, who’d been walking along the side of the pyramid examining the writing, couldn’t stop from turning and looking at Reynolds with a certain amount of admiration. Here was a guy who was a geologist, whose profession at times entailed blowing up natural formations to see what they were made of, and his first instincts were more like those of an archaeologist. She’d always rather admired Reynolds, but this reaction drove his stock up a couple of points in her eyes.
Reynolds decided to try to apply logic to the situation. So… Let’s say you’re a bug-eyed monster from an advanced civilization, and you’ve come to Earth for who knows what purpose, and you’ve built an outpost. Your buildings have doors. You need to get in and out through these doors. Here on Earth — make that, in human cultures, we use doors too. We put knobs and keyholes in them so that we can open them and close them, and lock and unlock them. How complicated can a door get, he wondered.
Knob, key. These seem pretty universal.
“Not if you’re talking about, say, an elevator door,” said Lightfoot. Reynolds realized with a slight start that he’d been unconsciously muttering to himself out loud.
“That’s right,” he replied, “an elevator door opens with a button next to it.”
“Or how about a garage door,” Sinclair piped in. “It opens with a remote control. These folks could have had clickers around their necks, or on their belts, or whatever.”
“Yeah, but the problem with remotes is that they can get lost. A garage door has to open with a remote in order to make any sense, and you can clip the remote to your sun visor, but a door in a building should have a way in permanently attached.” Reynolds started examining the writing directly to the sides of the door, and saw there was something he hadn’t noticed before.
To either side, the band of writing, again nine characters high, stopped abruptly. In between the ends of the band and the sides of the door were symbols that appeared to stand alone. At each side, there were nine characters arranged in a square shape, with three on each of three rows.
“Steph,” he called out to Mitchell, who had turned the corner to his left. “Yeah,” came her reply.
“Would you come look at this?”
Mitchell came back around the corner and joined him at the left side of the door.
“You’ve spent a fair amount of time studying the symbols. Do these match what we’ve seen so far?”
“Let me check,” she answered. From a pocket of her parka she pulled out an ePad and called up the database of symbols, scanning through them as they were displayed six at a time on the small screen.
“Well, I’m not sure about this one,” she said, indicating one in the second row, “but the rest don’t appear to match any of the other characters we’ve seen.
They had now uncovered and analyzed at total of 23,886 characters, all of which were part of the basic set of 81 characters. Apparently, they’d just discovered an additional nine characters.
“What does this remind you of?” he asked.
“Um…” she thought for a moment, before suddenly brightening. She nodded. “How about a numeric keypad?”
“Just what I was thinking,” said Reynolds.
Reynolds moved to the right side of the door, where there was another set of nine symbols. Comparing the two, he found that they consisted of all but two of the characters at the left, and with two of the characters repeated. He also noticed a subtle difference from the ones to the left of the door.
“Does anybody have a magnifying glass?” he hollered. “I’ve got a loop,” Jill Hodge yelled from the other side. Hodge took the shot she’d been framing, and then grabbed her loop from her camera bag and came around to where Reynolds — and now the rest as well — were standing.
Taking care not to let his chin touch the surface, Reynolds leaned forward until he was lying against the pyramid wall. He put the loop on the wall at the edge of one of the left side symbols, and examined it through the lens. At the edges of the characters there was a very fine gap between them and the wall itself.
“These are buttons!” he half-whispered, half-shouted.
He scrambled over to the right side, and repeated his examination of the characters there. No gaps. These were just like all the other samples of the writing they’d found.
“My god, those are buttons on the left side! It’s a combination lock!”
“Jeez, do you suppose these characters on the right might be the combination?” Sinclair wondered.
“Why install a combination lock, and then plaster the combination right next to it?” asked Matthews. “What would be the point of that?”
“It’d make perfect sense if you wanted to keep out people — or creatures, more to the point — who couldn’t read,” said Mitchell.
“Right,” said Reynolds. “You’re building a city in what was probably th
e middle of a jungle. There are lots of big, hungry but incredibly dumb critters all around you. You want to keep them out, but let your own kind in.”
“So why not use a universal key code?” asked Sinclair. “Why have a different combination for different buildings?”
“I don’t know, but I’d be willing to bet that that’s what we’ve got here.”
“So why not try it?” asked Matthews.
“Right, like it’s just going to open up,” said Sinclair.
“You never know till you try.”
“Rank’s right,” said Reynolds, “although you probably are too, Bob. I mean, we’ve got nothing to lose.”
Lightfoot had remained silent so far, but it was now his turn to enter the discussion.
“I’m all for seeing what happens, but on the slim chance that the door would open, we need to take some serious precautions here.”
Reynolds stepped back. He hated to admit it, but Lightfoot was right. They’d agreed on full Level 3 containment before opening any of the pyramids.
“Dan’s right,” he said. “We need to establish our protocol. OK. I’d like to call a meeting of the science team along with you, Dan, and the guy from CDC.” Lightfoot nodded.
“Rank, we’re gonna have to open up some more work space in front of the door for the airlock.”
“I’ll get my guys on it right now.”
“OK, folks, let’s go back uptown.”
The group made their way back through the tunnel. The main chamber now measured nearly 80 feet along the side of Town Hall by from 40 feet at its widest down to less than ten feet at the far end. The shaft to the ice surface had been enlarged, and there was now a construction-style elevator that could carry up to six people at a time. The cavern was crowded with equipment, storage crates and even a miniature forklift and two front loaders, all electric. The team now included 18 people from an assortment of schools and government organizations, with even more expected.
As the elevator rose, carrying Reynolds and the others, he looked at all the equipment and people and activity and found himself thinking, “Damn! All we did was take some simple echo soundings…”
Chapter 12
The White House
Gordon Winston walked down the hallway unescorted. He’d been to the White House on several occasions, and had met the President twice at social functions, but this would be his first meeting in the Oval Office.
As he entered the antechamber, the President’s secretary got up from her chair immediately, and with a polite smile said, “You can go right in. They’re expecting you.” She opened the door for him.
President Carl Dellinger was sitting on one of two facing love seats on either side of a small coffee table at the opposite end of the office from his desk. Next to the President was General Vincent Hammond, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Across from him was Larry Chapin, Director of the National Security Agency, Winston’s boss.
“Ah, Gordon, good to see you,” said the President. “Please be seated,” he said, indicating the place next to Chapin.
“Good morning, Mr. President,” said Winston, “General Hammond, Director Chapin,” he said, nodding to the two men.
“Gordon, we were just discussing the situation down in Antarctica, and since you’ve been in direct contact with your man down there, it seemed most appropriate to have you participate in this meeting.”
“It’s my pleasure, sir,” Winston replied.
“I understand they’re planning on trying to open one of the smaller structures.”
“That’s correct, sir. They’re hoping to be able to make an attempt within a few days.”
“And your man is on the scene?”
“Yes sir. Dan Lightfoot, one of our best and most experienced field agents. If they manage to open the door to the structure — the small pyramid — he’ll be one of the first two men inside, along with Dr. Arnold Greissman of the CDC.”
“And I understand that he’s equipped with everything he might need in the event things were to get out of hand?”
Winston glanced at Chapin, who gave the slightest of nods. “Yes, Mr. President. He has with him a 50 kiloton tactical device that can be detonated within less than 30 seconds if necessary.” When the other three men continued to look at him without saying anything, Winston added, “He’s been fully briefed on the circumstances that would require such action.” Winston looked at the three others in turn. “And he’s prepared to do what’s necessary,” he added.
“It’s the circumstances under which the device would be used that we’re here to discuss, Gordon,” said Chapin. “Would you mind summarizing for us the orders under which Agent Lightfoot is currently operating?”
“Well…” said Winston, “Since we really don’t know what we’re dealing with, his orders have been necessarily broad. The device would only be used if he were to determine that whatever they find is without question a threat to the security of the United States or the world population in general.” He paused for a moment. “Frankly Mr. President, we feel that if something down there were to be a threat to U. S. security, almost by definition it would also be a threat to the entire planet.”
“Can you give me an example of what Agent Lightfoot would consider to be without question a threat?” asked the President.
“Our greatest fear is of biological contamination. Since it appears that we’re dealing with a city built by… well… extraterrestrials, there could be some form of biological material that’s survived even after tens of millions of years that could be extremely dangerous. Beyond that, the simple fact is that in trying to anticipate what they might find, we simply have no idea what the possible hazards are. Opening the structures could trigger the release of gases, radiation — possibly of a type about which we know nothing — or any other of about a dozen scenarios that were brought out in brainstorming sessions. For all we know, the structures could be booby trapped in some way.”
Dellinger leaned back on the seat. He knew that this latter possibility had been discussed, and it had caused him great concern. He had considered ordering the entire site shut down and sealed off, and it had only been when Dan Lightfoot had found no traces of radiation or electromagnetic energy that he’d somewhat reluctantly allowed the project to continue.
“This is why we took the rather unusual step of arming our man with the device, and in essence leaving its use to his discretion. Agent Lightfoot has degrees in both chemistry and physics, and he’s also been one of our unofficial exobiologists. He’s a former Naval officer, and his record as a field agent is superb. But he’s also a family man, and his personality profile rates him as one of the most stable and well-adjusted people we have.”
The President leaned forward. “Gordon, I don’t mind telling you that I’m very uncomfortable with having a tactical nuclear device in the hands of a single individual. I reviewed Agent Lightfoot’s record before approving him for the job, so what you’re telling me is familiar ground. What I’d like to know is your personal take on him.”
“I’ve worked with Dan for nearly 13 years, Mr. President, and I’d trust him with my life. Come to think of it, I — we — may possibly be doing just that. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have in that position.”
“I’m pleased to hear you say that, Gordon,” said the President. “At the same time, I’d like to see if there’s any way we can tighten up the rules of, shall we say, engagement. Do we know anything now that we didn’t know when Agent Lightfoot left for Antarctica?”
“Not a significant amount, really,” replied Gordon. “We’ve had our own people along with platoons of specialists at schools around the country — around the world, for that matter — studying the writing that’s been found on the walls of the two pyramids. There seems to be no question that it is indeed writing, but so far no one appears to be even close to cracking it.
“The biggest change in plans since Lightfoot left was the decision to open the small pyramid first, which was a decision w
e applauded. We feel the threat may be smaller going into what we assume is a structure of lesser importance, and that what we learn may help better prepare us for the main structure.
“On the other hand, it also changed the implications of using the device.”
“How so?” asked the President.
“We assumed that if necessary, the device would be detonated inside the main pyramid. If set off inside the upper section, this would most likely vaporize the upper part, and presumably most if not all of the lower part, along with anything contained within it. Now that the smaller pyramid is being opened first, the problem becomes a bit more complex.
“Setting the device off inside the smaller pyramid would almost certainly vaporize it, but there’s a good chance that the main structure would survive with little or even no damage.”
“Even with 50 kilotons?” the President asked. “Good God, that’s more than twice the Hiroshima yield.”
“Our testing of the material used to construct these pyramids shows that it would hold up better than almost anything we have at our disposal. If the device were to be detonated inside the smaller pyramid, then — depending on the thickness of its walls, which is information we don’t yet have — a fair amount of the energy would be absorbed just turning it into vapor. In effect, it, along with nearly 75 feet of ice, would act to shield the main pyramid.”
The President considered this for a moment, and then shifted gears. “How many people are currently at the site?”
“Eighteen presently, with another half dozen in transit and due to arrive within a few days,” Winston replied.
“And what’s our worst-case scenario?”
“The worst case would be for Lightfoot to find something that presents a clear and immediate danger. And by immediate, I mean right then. As I mentioned, he can arm and detonate the device in less than 30 seconds. This would of course mean the loss of all personnel.”
“What the best-case scenario that would include the use of the device?”
“He finds something that presents a clear danger, but determines that there’s time to evacuate before the device detonates.”
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