The 6th Plague

by Darren Hale

  Miguel reached down and offered him a hand up. ‘I am pleased to see you make it okay.’

  ‘Not as pleased as I am…’

  Rufus collapsed onto the ground, taking a moment to regain his breath.

  ‘So, what do you think you’ve found?’

  ‘Over here… I’ll show you.’

  Miguel led the way towards a dome-shaped mass of bushes crowning their section of the plaza, and pointed to an opening at its base, obscured behind a mess of roots.

  Rufus removed a pencil-torch from his belt and shone it into the hole. The tiny finger of a beam was swallowed by blackness. ‘Okay, give me a hand with these, will you?’ he said, raising his machete to the curtain of roots, and within minutes they’d cleared an opening big enough to crawl through.

  ‘I come with you?’ Miguel offered.

  Rufus shook his head. ‘No, I’m afraid not. I’m going to need you to stay out here – just in case I run into any trouble – okay?’

  Miguel looked disappointed, but nodded anyway.

  ‘Well then – here goes nothing…’

  The opening was, it seemed, not unlike the mouth of some giant, subterranean beast. Its fetid breath brushed lightly against his cheeks and rankled in his nostrils, while viscid smears of moisture dribbled down its walls like saliva. Rufus kept his torch angled towards the ground, so as to avoid slipping on the thin layer of mud that squelched beneath his feet, and after a short distance, the corridor doubled back on itself, rising a few short steps into the base of a large, domed chamber.

  ‘What have you found?’

  Miguel’s voice was muffled and indistinct.

  ‘I don’t know yet – some kind of room…’

  Rufus flashed the jaundiced beam of his flashlight about the space in which he now found himself. Somewhere on the fringe of its illumination, something scuttled beneath a crack in the wall. His light then wandered across the remains of a skeleton lying slumped in the mud. ‘My God!’

  ‘Are you in need of help?’ Miguel enquired. He sounded almost hopeful.

  ‘No… no… I’m fine. Just a little startled. There appears to be another skeleton down here. I’m just going to try and get a few pictures.’ He produced a tiny digital camera from his pocket and started photographing the remains with the meticulous attention of a police photographer documenting a crime scene:

  One victim – adult – male… judging by the length of the long bones and the narrow aperture of the pelvis. No obvious injuries, or evidence of a weapon that might have indicated a violent death. A man of some distinction, judging by the tiny jade studs embedded in his teeth and necklace of blue jade and gold wires buried in the mud nearby.

  Having documented everything, he turned and left.

  ‘Well, look at you’ said the professor, noting that his shirt was now stained with muck and residues of every colour and description. ‘So what did that idiot have to say for himself?’ he asked, ignoring Miguel, who was now loitering just a few steps back, anxiously trying not to draw too much attention to himself.

  Rufus handed him the tiny camera. ‘Here, let me show you…’

  ‘And just what am I supposed to do with this?’ said the professor haughtily.

  Rufus switched the camera on. A miniature screen illuminated on the back of it, displaying the last picture he’d taken. ‘This is the best shot I could get of the whole room, and I’m afraid it doesn’t do it much justice. It was actually quite magnificent: an almost perfectly circular room that was maybe twenty feet in diameter and had the most incredible domed ceiling.’

  ‘Domed you say?’

  ‘Yes… And constructed with stone-working skills that would have shamed the Incas. Blocks fitting so perfectly you couldn’t slip a sheet of paper between the cracks.’

  ‘What else do you have?’ The professor’s voice was subdued, almost melancholic. If Rufus had doubts about the age of the site, he hadn’t needed to voice them. It was clear from the professor’s tone that he’d already reached the same conclusion. There was no way that any South American civilisation as old as he’d hoped, would have had the engineering skills to produce such a building.

  ‘The room had four oblong holes equally spaced around its circumference – a bit like windows, though too narrow to have been of much use.’ Rufus flicked backwards through the photos until he reached the image of a warrior skilfully carved in bas-relief from the underlying stone. ‘And beneath each of them, were carvings of warriors like this…’

  The professor squinted at the picture. The bright glare of the flash had effaced many of the finer details. ‘And what’s this he’s got in his hand?’ he asked. ‘It looks like he’s holding an upside-down snake – doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yes – I’m afraid my camera’s not the greatest,’ Rufus admitted. ‘But I’m hoping the images will look a bit better once I’ve downloaded them onto the laptop. Anyway, I think the next picture might be a bit clearer.’ He flashed up another image.

  The professor studied it as closely as his old eyes would allow. ‘And what are the green bits here?’

  ‘Jade, I think… Some of the engravings appeared to be decorated with it.’

  ‘Seems a bit odd – doesn’t it? That they would take the care to decorate the snake but not the warrior?’

  ‘You know, I hadn’t thought about that... But now that you mention it – it does seem a bit strange…’

  ******

  ‘Ouch – damn it!’ Angus swore as the mallet he’d been wielding came down on his finger, rather than the end of the stake he’d been hammering into the ground.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Juliet asked.

  Angus waived a bruised finger in the air. ‘Bloody finger keeps getting in the way. Anyway… What can I do for you?’

  ‘What makes you think I want anything?’

  ‘Oh… I’m just assuming you didn’t come here in search of scintillating conversation.’

  Juliet could have sworn the lack of nicotine was making him grouchier by the day. He’d been cigarette-free since their arrival and had already consumed almost every cocktail stick in their inventory. ‘You’ve got a point there. I was getting bored, so I thought I’d come and see what you were up to.’

  Angus tossed her the rucksack that had been lying on the ground next to him. ‘Alright… But if you want to watch… you might as well make yourself useful and hold onto these for me.’

  ‘What are you trying to do?’ Juliet asked, having captured the rucksack in both hands.

  ‘I’m trying to make a hole to bury this…’ He patted the dumpy firecracker lying next to him.

  ‘I thought your seismic study was supposed to wait until you’d completed the GPR survey.’

  ‘It was…’

  ‘And…’

  Angus pounded the stake a few more times then threw the mallet to the ground next to it. ‘The ground here is covered with so many weeds and broken pieces of crap, it takes me all day to cover an area a couple of metres square. It was beginning to look as if there may be an opening near the base of the mound, but the signal’s so distorted I just can’t tell for sure. So, I thought it was time I narrowed the search area a bit.’ He removed the stake and tested the firecracker in the hole, making sure it was a snug fit. ‘Okay, that should do it. Now give me a hand laying out the wiring, will you?’

  The rucksack contained a confusion of coloured wires all bundled together like the weavings of a rainbow-coloured spider, each strand terminating in a three-inch metal prong. With Juliet’s help, he untangled them, then spiked them out across the clearing, each one trailing back to a central hub plugged into the back of his laptop computer.

  Angus tapped a few keys, opening the file “Seismap”.

  Then, with a few more keystrokes, he superimposed a grid of crosshatched lines over a map of the area, dividing it into one metre squares, upon which he meticulously plotted the locations of each of the spikes.

  ‘Alright – that’s the last of them,’ he said with a smile on his f
ace.

  ‘So, what happens now?’ Juliet asked.

  Angus examined the side of the firecracker. ‘We light the fuse and stand well back…’

  ******

  The loud crack of an explosion echoed through the jungle, startling man and beast alike. A bush rustled and a pair of macaws, liveried in turquoise and gold feathers, darted towards the sky like brilliant flashes of sunlight.

  Juliet stared at the screen. ‘Any luck?’

  ‘Hold on a second, it’s just processing the data…’

  After a few seconds, a dozen jagged lines appeared, that, to her eyes, resembled the deranged ramblings of a heart monitor during a cardiac arrest. ‘What are those supposed to be?’ she asked.

  ‘Each line represents one of the twelve seismic sensors. The line is an amplitude/time graph of the signal received by each sensor, corrected for distance from the explosion.’

  Juliet did not feel any the wiser. ‘And what does it tell you?’

  ‘Very little at the moment,’ replied Angus pointedly. A moment later, the computer displayed a summary of its readings. ‘It’s hard to tell from just one set of data, but it looks as if the signal is markedly attenuated in probes seven and eight, possibly indicating some kind of obstacle or void. I could try superimposing what limited data we have from the GPR survey, but I still won’t know anything for certain. Not until I’ve repeated the test a few times, with the explosives in different places.’

  ‘And how long is that going to take?’

  ‘We may have an idea by sunset – if we’re lucky.’

  As it happened, his estimate was not far wrong, and the sun had become like the dying embers of a fire by the time he’d finished.

  ‘And there we have it,’ he declared proudly.

  Juliet peered at the lines zigzagging across his laptop’s screen, then shook her head in bewilderment. ‘I have no idea what you are talking about,’ she admitted.

  ‘Here – look now…’

  Angus punched a button, and the screen of wavy lines was replaced with a false-colour representation of the dig site. ‘See here… this patch of red extending through the pyramid,’ he said, pointing to the screen. ‘This represents an area of attenuated signal that coincides with the suspicious GPR readings.’

  Somehow, his explanation was not making things any clearer. ‘Yes…’

  ‘I’m telling you… I think there’s something hidden under the pyramid… Some sort of chamber.’

  ‘Well I hope you’re right – for your sake...’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because, I don’t think the professor’s going to be happy that you disregarded his instructions about the surveying,’ she said with an impish smile.

  ‘You mean that we disregarded his instructions,’ Angus corrected her.

  ‘What do you mean we?’

  ‘Well I distinctly remember you helping me…’

  Juliet curled her hands into balls and rested them firmly against her hips. ‘That’s not fair,’ she pouted.

  Angus smiled. ‘Then may I suggest that we consider not telling him, until we’ve got some kind of proof that I’m right.’

  ‘Don’t you think he’s going to figure out what we’ve been up to, after that twelve-gun salute you just fired? Your surveying technique isn’t exactly subtle you know.’

  ‘Well, I guess we’re just going to have to hope he’s in a good mood then.’

  ‘Because the professor has a reputation for being warm-hearted and accommodating?’ said Juliet sarcastically.

  Angus did not feel as if he was winning. ‘Looks like it’s beginning to get dark,’ he observed. ‘So I guess we’d better head back and face the music… Give me a hand with some of this equipment, will you?’

  ‘Are you joking? Don’t you remember the trouble I got into the last time I gave you a hand!’ said Juliet with a smile.

  ‘I’m sorry – I didn’t mean it…’

  ‘Of course not,’ she said amiably. Then, turning her back on him, she ambled back towards the camp.

  14

  Thursday 12th October:

  ‘Are you all right?’

  Having been startled by the sudden interruption, Juliet almost dropped the little computer lying across her lap. She’d been peering into the heavens at the time, appraising the stars sparkling like glitter on a carpet of black velvet. ‘Jesus!’ she exclaimed. ‘Don’t creep up on me like that. You nearly gave me a heart attack!’

  ‘I’m sorry… Is everything okay?’ Catherine asked. She’d been watching from the mouth of their tent and felt that it was time to make her presence known.

  ‘Yes – I’m fine thank you. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because I don’t often find you hiding out here at three o’clock in the morning I guess.’

  ‘Oh my God, is that the time! I’m sorry, I was finding it difficult to sleep.’

  ‘I know what you mean. I don’t think I’ve got used to all this noise yet either.’

  ‘No… no… it’s not that...’ said Juliet wistfully. ‘It’s the stars…’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Catherine was tired and the conversation was losing her.

  ‘I remember sitting on the patio as a child, shortly after my grandmother passed away,’ Juliet reflected. ‘My mother told me that the stars were Angels holding candles to light her way to heaven. So, every time I look at them, I wonder if my Grandmother is still up there, looking down on me. There’s something strangely comforting in knowing that, wherever you are in the world, you can always see the stars.’

  Catherine did not know quite what to think, so she settled for the obvious. ‘So, what’s the laptop for?’

  ‘You know those pictures Rufus took from the chamber Miguel discovered? There’s something about them that’s been bugging me.’

  ‘Like what?’

  Juliet pressed a button and the familiar image of a warrior holding a snake by its tail appeared on the screen. ‘Here are the photos they took. I scanned them into the computer this afternoon…’

  She hesitated.

  ‘Yesterday afternoon…’ she said sheepishly, then continued. ‘You remember the professor’s comment as to the fact the snake had been decorated but the rest of the figure wasn’t?’

  ‘Yes,’ Catherine agreed. ‘I remember.’

  ‘Okay – now look at this.’ Juliet pressed another key and a pattern of stars appeared on the screen. ‘Look familiar?’

  ‘It looks like the same pattern as the jade pieces, except that it’s all upside down. What is it?’

  ‘This is a picture of the constellation Ursa Minor. The tail of the constellation is Polaris, better known as the Pole Star. I think the jade pieces represent stars.’

  Another key press and a photo of another Deity appeared – this time with a flaming disc above his head and a bird rising from his hand.

  ‘And now… Look at the pattern of jade pieces on the bird. They’re identical to the pattern of stars in the constellation Cancer,’ said Juliet, displaying a map of the constellation next to it.

  Catherine appeared pensive. ‘I thought Cancer was supposed to be a crab?’

  ‘To us it is… But these people will have mapped the stars with images more familiar to them – like the snake or the Quetzal.’

  ‘So, do you have a theory as to what this all means?’

  In better light, Catherine might have seen Juliet’s face flushing with pride as she answered. ‘Look at the figure holding the bird. The disc around his head is suggestive of some kind of sun god… And that started me thinking… What if this image represents the sun rising in Cancer? So I checked the alignment of the window this picture came from, and low and behold, it faces directly towards the east. And the other image lies above the north window.’

  ‘Pointing towards the North Star?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘So, I take it the constellation Cancer lies to the east then?’ said Catherine, making an unremarkable leap of intuition.

  ‘Onl
y at certain times of the year,’ Juliet affirmed. ‘The only constant point in the northern sky is the Pole Star. The other constellations rotate around it, such that the sun will rise in different constellations at different times of the year.’

  ‘So how does this help?’

  ‘Because the same constellation will be in the same part of the sky at the same time each year.’

  ‘So this tells us about a particular time of year then?’

  ‘I think it tells us a lot more than that...’ Juliet paused, wondering how best to explain herself. ‘Have you ever heard the term “precession”?’

  ‘I take it you don’t mean as in marching band…’ said Catherine with a smile.

  Juliet laughed. ‘No… you’re right, I don’t.’

  ‘Then I’m afraid I’ll have to say no.’

  ‘You know that the Earth rotates around an axis?’

  Catherine smirked. ‘I think I’m with you so far.’

  ‘Well, that axis points towards the North Star, Polaris, which is why its position is always constant in the heavens.’

  Catherine nodded.

  ‘But what you probably don’t know, is that the Earth has a wobble – a bit like your average spinning top – and as a consequence, its axis moves in a circle that, over thousands of years, points at different stars. In the present day, it points towards Polaris, in the tail of Ursa Minor. But before that, it pointed at stars in the tail of Draco instead.’

  ‘So how does that help? I thought you said the picture on the North window was of Ursa Minor, our current Pole Star.’

  ‘I did… Which is exactly what got me thinking. I assumed the ancients drew what they could see in the sky at the time, and that they probably did so just before sunrise when the Sun God appears as he does in the picture. And if that’s the case, and Ursa Minor rotates around the Pole Star at the tip of its tail as it does today, then it would be impossible for them to have seen the constellation upside down.’ Juliet smiled smugly. ‘But fortunately for me, I’ve got this neat piece of software that allows me to look back in time, so I can see what the night sky looked like in the past.’ She pressed a few buttons. The dots went whirling across the screen. ‘And, as you can see, as we go further back in time, Ursa Minor rotates until it can be seen upside down.’