“The absolute first priority is to photograph and video every square inch of the Penthouse exactly as it is. Jill, I’d like you to help me give a little seminar to everyone on archeological photo techniques so that we can do it properly.” Hodge nodded.
“Once we’ve done that, we catalog everything. It’s essentially an inventory to go along with the photos. The archeology students will act as team leaders.”
She paused, and scanned the faces of the group. “Folks, I have to tell you that archeology can be exciting, but it can also be dreadfully meticulous work.” There were a number of nods around the room.
“On most digs, we have a pretty good idea of what items we find are. In the Penthouse, the normal rules don’t apply. We’ve seen hundreds, if not thousands of objects that appear to be containers, and if they are, we have no idea what’s inside. Anything we open could be deadly.”
She paused again, for dramatic effect. The room was still.
“We desperately need to build up some knowledge of this culture so that we can proceed with our exploration safely — safely both for ourselves, and for the artifacts. So I think it’s obvious that the library should receive the most attention to begin with. I’d like Sandy and Barry to see if they can figure out how to get the computers up and running,” she said.
“Next, we need some real help with linguistics. For the time being, we’re going to have to rely on satellite links, but I’d sure like to get someone down here to help.”
“Steph,” said Lightfoot, “if you’ll forgive my presumption, I’ve already made a phone call. Dr. Florence Hummford is the NSA’s head of cryptology, and an expert linguist. We can get her down here in three days, weather permitting. She’s been working on this back in Virginia since the first writing was uncovered, along with members of her team around the country.”
“Jeez, talk about our government in action!” Mitchell replied.
“We’re here to serve,” smiled Lightfoot.
“And just where am I supposed to put another body?” asked Reynolds.
“Actually,” said Matthews, “I can help you out. One of my guys’ wife is getting ready to have a baby. If we can send him out on whatever brings your cryptologist in, he’d love to get out of here.”
“Can you spare him?” Reynolds asked.
“Most of the heavy work’s done already. Besides, we’ve got a bunch of strapping students we can draft for the next set of tunnels and excavations.”
“OK. Works for me,” said Reynolds. He turned back to Mitchell, to let her continue.
“One of the really big questions we face is why Town Hall was built in the first place. We’re assuming for now that the sarcophagi in the main chamber contain bodies, which suggests that it’s a tomb. But there are number of logical holes in that assumption. One is the purpose of all the other stuff that’s stored down there. Storing stuff in a tomb isn’t unusual at all in early human cultures; the Egyptians did it all the time, and so did a lot of other cultures. But in nearly all such cases, the items stored were there for the use of the deceased in the afterlife, which is a concept common to relatively unsophisticated cultures.”
Eugene Northrup squirmed slightly in his chair at that statement.
“The problem is that this culture was very advanced, at least technically, and such behavior isn’t typical of an advanced culture.
“Another problem is that some of the things inside just don’t make sense in terms of an afterlife. For example, what would they need an infirmary for? Or the room with those 108… things? Or a workshop?”
“Maybe it’s a time capsule,” said Hanrahan. “Maybe they wanted to preserve a record of their culture for posterity.”
Mitchell opened her mouth to speak, and then stopped, staring at Hanrahan. After a few seconds, Reynolds asked, “You OK?”
“Oh my god!” she replied. Her mind was racing. “What if they knew that they were going to be wiped out by an asteroid? What if it wasn’t a record of their culture they wanted to preserve, but their culture itself?”
The room was still for a full half minute before Reynolds broke the silence.
“You mean the sarcophagi might actually be some sort of…” he tried to think of the right word.
“Suspended animation capsules?” Hanrahan finished for him.
“Could that be possible?” Mitchell asked no one in particular. Again the room was silent for a moment.
“We’ve successfully frozen high-order animals like dogs and revived them later,” said Deirdre McCollum. “In theory, once you can suspend life for a hour, you can suspend it for a day, or a week, or even a year.”
“But how about 65 million years?” asked Reynolds.
There was no answer.
Chapter 20
Reactions
Are you telling me they’re sayin’ there might be frozen dinosaurs inside that pyramid?” asked Billy Joe Wilder.
“Yes sir, that’s what they’re saying,” Eugene Northrup replied.
“Blasphemy!” Wilder thundered. “There can’t be any such thing as an intelligent dinosaur, because the Bible clearly states that God made man in his own image and gave him dominion over every beast. And the dinosaurs were beasts.”
“I know that, sir.”
“What are they fixin’ to do now?”
“The first thing they’re going to do is try to get the computers working.”
“Computers? What computers?”
“One of the rooms inside the Penthouse looks to be a library, with computers for viewing information.”
“Have you seen this place yourself?”
“No sir, but I’ve seen photographs of it.”
“Photographs can be faked. Is there any chance these are faked photographs?”
“No sir, I don’t think so. Everybody here watched them enter the Penthouse on video monitors, and the cameras on their helmets showed some of what they saw inside the rooms.”
“What else did they find?”
Northrup went on to brief Wilder in detail. When he finished, Wilder was silent for a moment as he considered the situation.
“These frozen dinosaurs — are they planning to try and thaw them out?”
“I’m not sure,” Northrup replied. “I don’t think they’ve planned things out that far.”
“Hmm,” said Wilder.
“But sir, there’s a lady doctor here from Stanford who said that in theory, at least, if a living creature could be frozen and revived after a day, it could be revived after a month or a year, or maybe even longer.”
“Let me get this straight.” Wilder spoke in slow, measured tones. “Are you saying that they think these things might still be alive?”
“Well, nobody came right out and said that, but that’s the impression I got.”
“Son, you know that that would be an abomination, don’t you? If there are actual dinosaurs in that pyramid — and I don’t believe for a minute that they were intelligent or that they built that place or any of the other blasphemy that’s bein’ spread — but if those are dinosaurs, then they were beasts that were supposed to have been wiped out in the Flood.
“Now I also don’t believe that anything frozen for thousands of years could possibly be brought back to life, since there’s only been one documented resurrection in history — that of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. But if there’s even the slightest chance that they could use some scientific voodoo to animate those creatures, you know that we can’t allow them to succeed, don’t you?”
“I think so…”
“Son, let me make myself clear. We must do whatever’s necessary to defend what’s righteous and smite the sinners who do Lucifer’s work! If they try to reanimate those creatures whom God Himself condemned, and if it looks like there’s any chance of them actually doin’ it, that would call for drastic action.”
“You mean…”
“I mean blow that place back to where it belongs.”
“Yes sir.”
“Y
ou said the Navy placed mines in the shaft down through the ice?”
“Actually, charges, to be precise, sir. But yes, there’s more than enough explosive power to rebury the entire site.”
“Would that kill these creatures?”
“Well, I don’t know, sir. If they were in the Penthouse… uh… the upper pyramid, most likely not. It’d seal them off, though.”
“That’s not good enough,” said Wilder. “Their cohorts could tunnel back down and rescue them and the beasts.” Wilder thought for a moment.
“You have your own explosives with you, don’t you?”
“Yes sir. I’ve got four pounds of C-4.”
“Would that be enough to kill them?”
“Sir, if properly placed, that would be enough to kill any living thing inside the pyramid when it went off.”
“Can you get it inside, and set it up right?”
“Well, so far I haven’t had access, but I think that will change. If it does, then yes, I’m certain I could get it placed properly.”
“Excellent, my boy. I knew I could count on you.”
“Yes sir.”
“Now I know this is a mighty task that’s bein’ set before you, son. And I know the thought of killing may be difficult to contemplate. But I know that if you pray for the Lord’s guidance, He’ll give you the courage and the strength to do His work.”
“I will, sir.”
“Alright, you keep up the excellent job you’re doing, and I’ll talk to you again tomorrow.”
“Good night, sir.”
“Good night? Oh, yes, of course. Good night, my boy.”
Northrup hit the “End” button on his phone and put it on the desk. There was a knot in his stomach, and he felt a bit queasy. He had no problem with the idea of killing the dinosaurs, if it were to become necessary. But he knew that in order to do so, he’d probably have to kill members of the research team as well.
A sudden thought made him gasp: what if Sandy Ruggiero was in the Penthouse when the explosives went off? He had an involuntary vision of her and her breasts being blown up. The thought made him even more upset, and he knelt by his cot and began to pray. He prayed for the courage to do his duty if and when the time came. He prayed that the time would never come. And he prayed that if it did come, Sandy Ruggiero would be somewhere else.
•
Gordon Winston entered the Oval Office for the second time to find a larger group than on his first visit just over a week before. In addition to General Hammond and Gordon’s boss, Larry Chapin, he recognized Vice President Roger Mohr, Senate Majority Leader Brice Hall, House Speaker Elissa Lindskog, Arthur Maxwell, the President’s science advisor, and Sara Henderson, the Chief of Staff. Chairs had been placed around the room to accommodate the expanded group, several of whom were already seated.
“Ah, Gordon, good to see you again,” said Carl Dellinger. “Please, sit over here,” he said, indicating a chair near his desk.
“Good morning, Mr. President,” Winston replied. The others began to seat themselves.
“We’re all very anxious to hear what you have to report,” said Dellinger. “As soon as…” At that, the door opened, and Frank Simmons, Director of the CIA, entered the room.
“Ah, good,” said Dellinger, “Everyone’s here. Let’s get started.”
The President waited until everyone was seated, and then moved to a chair at the other end of his desk, opposite Winston.
“I’ve asked Gordon to bring us up to date on the extraordinary events transpiring in Antarctica even as we meet here,” he said, taking his seat. “Gordon?”
“Thank you Mr. President,” he began. “Yesterday, the research team entered the upper part of the main pyramid for the first time.” He proceeded to summarize the findings of the initial survey, including the main chamber and the various rooms and their contents. He then outlined the essentials of the meeting that had been held at the site, finishing with the suggestion that the pyramid might not be a tomb, but rather, some type of cryogenic storage facility. When he finished, the room was silent.
It was Dellinger who broke the silence. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve heard some fantastic things in my life, but this tops anything and everything that’s come before.”
“Is it possible?” asked Brice Hall.
“Well, we couldn’t do it,” answered Arthur Maxwell, “but the evidence points to a civilization considerably more advanced technologically than our own. In theory, I suppose it might be possible to revive living beings even after so long a time. It would depend on what kind of technology they used, and whether their system was designed to maintain them even without power.”
“That’s incredible,” said Elissa Lindskog.
“Having said that,” Maxwell continued, “I think it’s highly unlikely that anything could have survived for 65 million years, regardless of the state of their technology. On the assumption that they constructed this pyramid as some sort of ‘Noah’s Ark,’ in order to survive destruction by an asteroid, I would assume that they expected it to keep them safe for a few years, or decades, or perhaps even a couple of hundred years, before they’d emerge and begin repopulating the planet.”
“A dinosaur Adam and Eve,” mused Roger Mohr.
“But obviously something went wrong, and they ended up buried under the ice of Antarctica for millions of years,” said Maxwell. “I strongly suspect that what they’re going to find in those sarcophagi are two possibly very well preserved corpses.”
“That may be,” said Dellinger, “which in itself would be a monumental find. But I think we should prepare for any contingency, which is why I called this briefing. If there are creatures contained in the pyramid, and if they could be revived, what would the implications be? How about if we start with national security,” he said, looking at Chapin.
“Please keep in mind,” said Chapin, “that we’ve only had a few hours to digest this new information, and that my comments are necessarily somewhat extemporaneous.” Winston smiled inwardly at his boss’s instinctive need to start by covering his ass.
“Based on the ages of the various levels of the core samples that have been extracted from the site, it would appear that the civilization we’ve uncovered was very old when it came to its unfortunate end. The oldest layers date to roughly 75 million years, and the top layer dates to around 65 million years, which coincides with the point at which current theory holds that the Earth was struck by an asteroid.
“This gives us a span of ten million years during which their civilization developed.” Chapin paused to look around the room. “The first human construction on any large scale of which we’re aware took place around eight to ten thousand years ago, and it was primitive compared to even their earliest technology. Our own technology remained essentially unchanged until the late 18th century, when scientific and engineering advances began to build momentum.
“At the start of the 20th century, our rate of technological advancement began to accelerate, and in just that one century we developed from horses and buggies to supersonic transports and space stations; from quill pens to computers.
“One can only imagine what our own technology might be like ten million years from now.
“Our main concern would be the possible threat their weaponry might present. We know nothing about the temperament of these creatures, nor their capabilities. If they were to be revived, they might decide that this planet rightfully belongs to them, and view us as inferior animals to be exterminated. And for all we know, they have the capability of doing just that.”
The ambient noise level in the room rose as nearly everyone present shifted in their seats.
Winston was mildly surprised. For a political appointee, Chapin’s assessment was remarkably astute, and hardly extemporaneous.
“Folks,” said Dellinger, “before you become alarmed, let me assure you that we have already put in place several levels of precautionary measures. Though they were based on the earlier assumption that we migh
t be dealing with an alien artifact, our precautions would be equally effective in the existing situation.”
“What kind of precautions are we talking about?” asked Brice Hall.
The President looked at Winston.
“Well, to begin with,” Winston replied, “we have the ability to completely seal off the site at a moment’s notice. The Navy has placed explosive charges along the full depth of the shaft leading down to the pyramid, and a Naval officer is on site, fully briefed on contingencies, and ready to do the job.”
Dellinger interrupted before Winston could continue.
“There are additional precautions we’ve taken in the event things were to get seriously out of hand,” he said.
“Are you talking about a nuclear device?” asked Hall.
Dellinger smiled. “Brice, let’s just say that we’re equipped to deal with any situation that might arise.
“I’d like to shift our focus to the societal implications of a possible revival. The mere fact that an ancient dinosaur civilization existed has captured the public’s imagination, but it’s also caused considerable discomfort for the belief systems of many people. I understand that some fundamentalist groups — Christian, Jewish and Moslem — have been rather vehemently denying that any such civilization could possibly have existed. I’d like to hear any thoughts on the subject.”
“Mr. President,” said Hall, “A good number of my constituents are members of fundamentalist or evangelical denominations. I have to tell you that the phone calls and mail we’ve been receiving show that a great many of these people are very upset. They view this as a challenge to their faith, and many of them believe that the discoveries in Antarctica represent the work of the Devil.”
“And what do you tell these people?” asked Dellinger.
“Well, of course, officially, we can’t comment on matters of faith. We simply tell them that we’re monitoring the situation closely. I think that if the finding had been made here in the U. S., we’d have protesters at the gates, possibly even riots or attempts to destroy the site. Its isolation in Antarctica, fortunately, makes that impossible.”
Sapiosaurus | Out Of Time Page 18