"Imagine no more country-versus-country nonsense. Only one system to govern, a new reich that the people can call whatever they choose, and everyone working together to fulfill a destiny that was cut short fifteen thousand years ago." He handed Caretaker his drink.
"To Atlantis," they toasted.
13
EVENT GROUP CENTER
NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, NEVADA
Ryan had pulled the shift security from the complex and ordered a full detail to meet Jack and Carl at the airfield. Twenty heavily armed men accompanied the two men and their very valuable cargo. The large group took no chances as they entered the massive, dilapidated hangar of the main gate for the complex.
Ryan and Mendenhall met the colonel and captain at the elevator. The two men and their security looked small in the cavernous lift used for the transport of large artifacts into the underground facility.
"Lieutenant," Jack said as he stepped from the lift.
"Colonel, Captain, exciting trip, I understand?"
"It seems it was mission standard for us anymore," Everett said as he spied Virginia Pollock exiting the elevator from the complex below.
"Glad to have you two back in one piece. You had us worried, as usual," she said, approaching the men.
"Well, here's what the hubbub was about." Carl handed her a large case.
She accepted the case and then looked at the two officers. "All those deaths for this ..." She handed the case to Mendenhall. "Will, make sure Pete Golding gets this right away down on level eighteen, lab six; he's waiting on it."
Mendenhall took the case and Ryan made his exit with him.
"The president has placed a lot of emphasis on making sure the Coalition doesn't get their hands on the diamond. Niles wants us to get it and has promised you all the support you need."
Jack nodded and started for the elevator. "So the president has bought in fully to the theory of the quakes?"
Virginia pushed the Down button on the pneumatic elevator for level seven. She then related the horrid facts of the Tomlinson raid.
Jack and Carl were silent as they stepped into the elevator. Virginia followed and the doors closed.
"The Russians downed what they believe is a U.S. Air Force aircraft carrying strange equipment. They say it was transmitting the same type of audio signal as the tape in the Sea of Japan."
"These people are still a step ahead of us, maybe even two or three," Everett said as the elevator arrived at level seven.
"Mr. Everett, get with Ryan and give me a duty roster and pick a strike team ready to leave as soon as the science teams get this plate thing figured out. Virginia, what archaeologist and experienced dig people can you afford to part with?"
"Well, I think we'll send the same people that were just there, Sandra Leekie and her team."
"That's fine, but cut it to bare bones, Doctor. I don't want any kids on this trip."
"Do you expect the Coalition to find you, Jack?"
Collins had started to turn and leave for the security offices but stopped short.
"Ask the FBI if these unconscionable bastards do the unexpected. Yes, Virginia, they will be there waiting for us. They failed once getting access to that diamond; I don't think they will stop now."
The fifteen-thousand-year-old bronze plate, centered on the lab table in the middle of the room, was a mystery to the brilliant minds studying it. Several technicians from the Archaeological Studies, Forensics, and Mathematical Engineering departments surrounded the amazing find, mystified by its workings.
The plate itself was unremarkable in its design. It was comprised of two sheets of thinly plated bronze sandwiching a thinly shaved quartz crystal. A 3-D image supplied by Europa was projected onto a wall screen, and all the other departments, including Mechanical Engineering and Nuclear Sciences, were studying the strange plate from their own labs.
Linguistics experts were poring over the symbols etched into the bronze facing of the plate, while engineers examined a small clamshell-like protuberance in the exact center of the object. The clamshell bulge was on both sides of the plate and was three inches in diameter.
Pete Golding and Sarah McIntire had stopped by the lab to see the amazing find brought back by Jack and Carl. They were taking a break from leading the scroll search with one hundred others. They stayed back and out of the way as the other qualified scientists assigned to the plate map studied it and spoke quietly among themselves.
Pete stepped back farther to get a look at the strange design. What little hair he had was askew and he was chewing on a pencil. He was just getting ready to turn away and retrieve Sarah when a thought struck him out of nowhere. He turned slowly and looked closer at the clamshell centerpiece. He cleared his throat.
Martha and Carmichael were there, too. They were studying a linguistics report of the strange symbols when they heard Pete trying to get everyone's attention.
"The centerpiece of the object--have you, ladies and gentlemen, formed an opinion on this?"
Virginia Pollock, who was sitting next to the two Ancients, turned toward the director of the computer center.
"As with the other symbols on the facing of the object, the conclusion is it's a three-D symbol for the sun. If you look closely at the etched portions of the plate, the exact match is the sun, which is clearly next to that of the quarter moon. The lines at the center of the sun may just be artwork placed there by the whoever etched the symbols."
"Clamshell," Pete mumbled, still chewing on his pencil.
"Excuse me?" one of the design engineers asked from his spot next to the map.
Not all those in attendance inside the lab understood what Pete had said.
Sarah tapped Pete on the shoulder and pointed to the pencil in his mouth.
Pete slowly understood and removed the pencil. "The sun, as you've deemed it, in the center of the plate--it resembles a clamshell aperture."
Martha glanced at the strange-looking director of the computer center and then tapped Carmichael on the arm to get his attention.
"Professor Golding, your science is an exact one, but sometimes ancient technologies are not. If you would step closer to the plate, you will see that the etched lines on the depiction of the sun are perfectly matched. No one in antiquity could get separate sections of metal to match so perfectly that there is no discernible separation between the two. Believe me, Professor: the lines are etched into the bronze."
Pete looked at the scientist from the Mechanical Engineering Department and then stepped closer to the plate. Sarah bit her lip, knowing that the Golding was overstepping his territory. She looked at Virginia and gave her an uneasy smile.
Pete looked very closely at the bulge and then at the symbol for the sun at the bottom of the large plate. He stepped to the opposite side of the lab table and looked at the bulge from that side and then at the bottom of the plate. There were no symbols there. There were, however, two small points of bronze protruding from each of the plate's lower corners.
"Lens cap," he mumbled.
"Pete, don't you and Sarah have a team on level fifteen you are supervising?" Virginia asked.
"Wait, please." Carmichael Rothman was looking at Pete intently. "Young man, did you say 'lens cap'?"
Pete looked up from the plate and pushed his glasses back up his nose. "Yes," he said, trying to focus on the older man.
"Pete, I appreciate you help here, but this is not a clamshell aperture," said an exasperated engineer. "The edges fit too perfectly. Look." He produced a small jeweler's screwdriver, placed the tip on one of the eight line etchings, and probed around it. He tried to push in and lift, but the small screwdriver could find no place to wedge against for advantage in prying the section apart. "You see, it would have to have been engineered on a modern CNC machinist tool."
Pete looked from the engineer to Sarah, who was just getting ready to pull the tired computer man from the lab. She did not try, though, as Pete shook his head.
"The symbols on the front are not duplicated on the b
ack. The only things on the reverse side are the clamshell--or sun, if you prefer--and the two small points sticking out of the lower corners of the plate."
"We noticed the points of bronze. They are possibly casting marks from when the plate was forged," the same engineer said as he looked at the others for support. He received nods of agreement from everyone.
"I'm sorry, I don't believe those two points are casting marks from a mold. They do resemble something I work with quite often, though."
"What is that, young man?" Martha asked.
Pete looked around the lab until he found what he was looking for. He smiled uneasily as he unplugged a handheld buffer and then looked at the electrical cord. Then he cut the three-pronged plug off with an exacto knife. Then he split the black cord in two, one positive and one negative. Then he attached one end to the lower-left piece of bronze and then repeated the process on the right. He wrapped the wire around them several times.
"I cut the plug off because I don't want to fry what's inside ... if anything. So ..." Pete looked around and saw what he wanted. "Young lady, can you pass me the battery from that digital recorder, please?"
The technician removed the back of the recorder and handed Pete a double-A battery.
"Most kind, thank you. This may be enough, but I'm not sure." Pete placed one end of the wire on the positive side of the battery. Then he looked up at the men and women around him. "Okay, here we go," he said, as he placed the other end of the split wire onto the negative post.
As all eyes focused on the plate, nothing happened. Pete adjusted the wires on the battery for a better connection and ... still nothing.
The man from mechanical engineering who was closest to the plate smiled. "It's all right, Pete; at least you eliminated the idea from future consideration. The lines are just lines and not separate sections." He tapped the bulge in the plate. "They are too precise to--"
A small swish came from the plate and several people actually gasped in surprise. The small clamshell spun in a circle from right to left and opened, revealing a crystal protuberance front and back.
"Well, in a way you were right--the engineering did not allow for the sections to separate, but it did allow for them to expand and open. Huh!" Pete said as he stepped closer to the plate and looked.
"I'll be damned," the engineer said.
"Don't feel bad--your tapping the aperture may have freed it. After all, it has probably been fifteen thousand years since it was last opened."
Sarah looked from Pete to Virginia. They both smiled as they realized that sometimes experts could be too close to the objects they studied, while an outsider could come in and see something they could not. Pete Golding, though, was not an outsider; he was a man who had a brain that could think far faster than most. He was almost on a level with Niles Compton.
Pete released the electrical cord and the clamshell remained open. Then he stepped to the front of the plate and examined it again.
"These symbols don't match any other in the history archives and not even those hieroglyphs we studied direct from the scrolls we uncovered?" He turned to face the two Atlanteans. "And these symbols mean nothing to either of you?"
"We are not familiar with them, no."
The professor of ancient languages, who had spent several hours with Carmichael and Martha learning the basics of the dead tongue of Atlantis and who had used a combination of written words and hieroglyphs to make it easier to study the written language of the scrolls, turned back to the plate and pushed his hand through his hair.
"We're stumped, Pete."
Pete walked up to the plate and ran his fingers first over the symbols and then slowly over the center hole, where the sandwiched crystal protruded. The other technicians looked at him and shook their heads, thinking that the computer wiz was only in the way. His fingers slowly felt the deep lines of the symbols and then he stepped back and looked at them.
"Okay, Virginia has explained we're extremely short on time. Therefore, we must find the closest examples of what they are through other means. First, let us concentrate our ... excuse me ... you must concentrate your efforts on the crystal inside. The bulge at the center, front and back, is key. We now know that, since the clamshell aperture was there for protecting. My guess is that it is a lens of some sort." He looked around, hoping that the other scientists were not taking offense.
"Keep going, Pete, you seem to be on a roll," Virginia said from her seat.
"Europa, query," he said as he straightened up and examined the 3-D virtual reality projected on the screen. "Analysis of x-ray of crystal between the two bronze halves, please."
"Exact number of crystal flaws found in five separate depths of crystal is seven billion fifty-two thousand."
"Explain depths analysis, please."
"Flaws found at 1.7, 1.8, 2.7, 2.9, and 3.1 centimeters of plate crystal depth and 1.9, 2.1, 2.5, 2.8, and 3.2 centimeters in width."
"This can't be," Sarah said from her position in front of the projection. "If the crystal is flawed with natural fractures or formation abnormalities, they wouldn't be located at exact depths and would be far more random in the width; they would be throughout the crystal and certainly not at certain depths only."
Pete Golding listened to Sarah's expert geological explanation but did not comment. Instead, he examined the flaws as seen from the front and the side projections as sent through Europa from an electron microscope and x-ray imager.
"Gentlemen and ladies, let's return our efforts now to the symbols one last time. As I said before, we will find their closest relations in the linguistics family from other languages and symbols from the ancient world."
Several members of Ancient Languages Department looked from one to another, but they stepped aside in deference to Pete's genius for thinking beyond the norm.
"Europa, query: the three symbols arrayed at the bottom of the plate below the exposed crystal at the center." Pete removed a small penlight from his many pens and pencils in their plastic holder in his shirt and clicked it on and shone the bright beam through the center hole, producing nothing but regular light on the other side. "You stated in your report earlier that there is no reference in the linguistics historical record for any word, symbol, or hieroglyphs known, is that correct?"
"Correct, Dr. Golding."
"Query: what are the closest hieroglyph or symbol matches to the three symbols as taken from all known civilizations throughout history, preferably the earliest examples?"
"Formulating," answered the womanly voice of Europa.
Sarah walked over to stand next to Martha and Carmichael and looked at them with a questioning glance. They both shrugged, but were also curious as to where Pete was going with this.
"There is only one familiar symbol recognizable in the historical-linguistic record. The centerline symbol designated number two bears resemblance to ancient Sumerian symbol for 'storm,' as taken from hieroglyph discovered outside presentday Iraq in 1971."
Pete ran the word repeatedly in his mind as he paced in front of the image on the screen. Then he walked over and shone his penlight through the hole once more. Then he smiled and stood straight and looked at Sarah.
"There's no way those flaws could have been a fluke of nature and just happened to be formed naturally?"
"Impossible. I couldn't even begin to calculate the odds of their being at five exact depths."
"This is impossible," Pete said, smiling. "Europa, query: at current magnification level of electron microscope, is there any indication of any other flaws in the sandwiched crystal?"
"None, Dr. Golding."
"Please order the electron microscope to repeat the side scan of the interior crystal and raise the magnification power on each pass and continue side scan until a flaw in its thickness is detected. Continue until magnification power hits its limit."
"Pete, you're losing me and everyone else here," Sarah said, but as she looked from Pete to the smiling couple next to her, she became aware that all three
were thinking the same thing.
"Microscopic scan complete. Five distinct engineered sections found at setting one million times power."
"What?" one of the engineers exclaimed. "That's impossible. We're not even capable of this today!"
Sarah and most of the others were confused by all this.
"Europa, enlighten our audience as to the sections mentioned."
"Five sections, engineered as separate crystal shavings, placed together as one flat surface, indicating that earlier flaws are not flaws as previously reported, but surface symbols etched onto the five separate crystal plates."
The projection changed and Europa produced an animated image showing the sides of five separate crystal surfaces being placed together to form one flat, almost-solid crystal plate. The image rotated and they saw what they had once thought were flaws inside the sandwiched crystal plates at the depths had Europa reported.
"That is impossible. Even today, we cannot get two surfaces that flush without major separation throughout each of the joining surfaces. The engineering is impossible!"
Pete was looking at the rotating image and smiling. "Nonetheless, there it is." He turned and looked at Martha and Carmichael. "An amazing race of people, to be sure."
"But why do this? What in the hell is this thing?" the head of Linguistics asked.
"I believe what we're looking at is an ancient visual disk. Just like what we use today in the computer center," Pete said. "Can we get some electrical leads and attach them to the bronze connection at the back of the plate, please."
As the engineers rolled over a large box that supplied twenty-five thousand volts of mobile electricity, Pete tried his best to explain his theory.
"The middle symbol that Europa said has a resemblance to an ancient Sumerian hieroglyph for 'storm' ... Well, if you see what I see, it becomes apparent. The rounded objects that look like hills or mountains are actually clouds; thus, Europa saw the "storm' of Sumerian origin. However, the zigzagging line beneath is a stumper. I believe that it's not just any storm, but an electrical storm. Lightning, if you will. And this line here," he pointed to the thin line with two dots on the front and the back, "we didn't recognize it because it's a view from the side of this very bronze plate before us. See here, in the center of the plate are the two crystal protuberances. Ladies and gentlemen, what those are is a lens, pure and simple."
Ancients (event group thriller) Page 29