Earth Before Man

by Allan E Petersen

  Santo was quick to notice the abruptness and touch of disrespect for his rank as Head of Security for the House of the Nazarene. He wondered if perhaps he too yelled at him once or twice like Maria, he would get a touch of respect as well.

  Letting it go for now, he listened as the Doctor continued.

  “Because the on-board computer operates most of it, our D-wings are equally simplistic. The complicated control panel on contemporary jet fighters is an indication of all the things our computers cannot control or at least are done better by the pilot.”

  Santo understood that he was talking about oil pressure gauges, fuel consumption as well as electric systems, hydraulics, weapons control, navigation and countless other necessary operations and safety guards the pilot must be aware of. By comparison, a D-wing was a toy made for a child to operate.

  Maria asked a hopeful question,

  “Is it functional? Can it be flown to your lab in Switzerland?”

  “No. The power source is not anti-matter containment like our D-wings. I also suspect that it does not control and use directional gravity either. It will take some time to figure out what is clearly technology well beyond our current understanding.”

  Although disappointed, as she started to climb down from the platform, Maria said,

  “Well, we are not going anywhere, so take all the time you need.”

  How was she to know that they had run out of time?

  Maria went over to the refreshment table and poured a cup of coffee. It was lukewarm and the sandwich was stale but she did not really care. When caffeine was craved, hot or cold, it served its purpose, as did a stale sandwich to a grumbling stomach. After a few bites and reviving gulps of coffee, she noticed that Santo had wandered over to a far wall of the cave and inspecting something. With coffee in one hand, and half-eaten sandwich in the other she walked up to him and asked,

  “What are you looking at?”

  Still held captive by what he reasoned was an anomaly, he replied,

  “I just think this steel plate hanging here is strange that’s all.”

  With a mouth full of sandwich, she swung her arm around, pointed to the whole cave and mumbled,

  “What, you don’t think all of this is strange?”

  “Yes, it’s just that everything else here seems to have a purpose. This seems to be just a piece of flat metal attached to a wall with no function.”

  He turned to her and asked,

  “Have you inspected it? Do you know what is behind the plate?”

  After a quick swallow of both bread and coffee she replied,

  “Jez, give it a rest. We haven’t even figured out the air supply system yet. There is still a lot to do and a steel plate hanging on a wall isn’t really priority number one around here.”

  Not letting it go, he looked around and found something adequate for what he had in mind. It was the same steel rod Pia had used as a lance to reach over and move the lever Jessika had inadvertently somehow triggered some kind of dimensional rift almost encompassing the whole cave, not to mention all of them as well. Returning with it in hand, Maria saw a brave knight with a lance riding up to save her. He never understood what she said but then again, that was not unusual.

  “Are you going to save your maiden in distress?”

  It was a bland reply, certainly lacking her romantic intention.

  “No, I’m going to scratch this wall with it.”

  He stood a foot away from the plate and with the metal rod in both hands, scratched it. It was as he expected. He said,

  “It’s not metal.”

  He then turned to her and asked,

  “Have you seen anything like this elsewhere in the cave?”

  Astonished, she replied,

  “No, but it’s certainly something to put on the priority list.”

  Just to confirm his suspicion that it was not metal, he once again scraped his steel rod over the surface scratching it from top to bottom.

  Letting it go for now, both returned to the refreshment table and waited for Kirk to arrive with the explosives. A short while later, a great wave of water erupted from the entry tunnel and splashed into the holding reservoir. A D-wing touched down near Santo’s feet and out popped Kirk. Jessika was in the passenger seat. In his usual bravado Kirk asked,

  “Who ordered Pizza?”

  Under normal circumstances, Maria might have at least smiled but all he got this time was a slightly suppressed grin. Recovering fast he added,

  “It comes with enough free D-7 explosives to blow us all to kingdom come?”

  Santo approached and said,

  “Okay funny man, let’s get it unloaded.”

  As both started to unload the small packets of explosives, Maria noticed that Jessika jumped out and walked over to the computer control panel with a small instrument in her hand. She waved it around the control panel, looked at the reading, and waved it again. She then came back to the D-wing and jumped into the pilot seat. Maria asked,

  “Are you not staying?”

  “No, I just came to get some readings that Zak wanted. I’m going back to argue some more with him over what he thinks that panel does.”

  Maria then yelled over to the two scientists standing by the control panel and asked,

  “Are you two ready to go back to your labs?”

  When both nodded, Maria looked to Jessika and said,

  “Bring these two back with you.”

  “Okay,” she said, “but it will be a tight fit. One will have to cram in the little space behind both seats.”

  “I don’t think they will mind. They just want to go home.”

  To make room, Jessika reached back and pulled out the two pogo sticks Maria and Kirk had used when first entering the cave through the vertical shaft. As Maria reached for them, Jessika announced,

  “There is room for one of them back there now.”

  When the explosives were unloaded, one scientist sat comfortably in the passenger seat and the other was crammed as tight as a sardine in the small space behind the seats. He was still trying to figure out how he had lost a game he never heard of, ‘rock, scissors, paper’. Jessika closed the canopy and maneuvered the D-wing into the exit tube. As Maria turned around and saw what was happening with the explosives, she tripped over the two pogo sticks. Not politely, she kicked them off to the side.

  While Henrik and Pia sat on the cot nibbling on sandwiches, Maria marched over to see what Santo and Kirk were doing. She knew what the regional impact explosives were. She had sanctioned and financed their development in the London laboratory. In fact, they were technically not explosives at all but rather limited fission disrupters. Once ignited, all atoms in the material that they were attached to simply lost cohesion and fell apart. There was heat dispersal from the energy released but as their name implied, the heat was limited to the impact area.

  Maria watched as both men placed the small packets to the stone in a large circular configuration. Because they were attaching all of the packets, she thought it was too much. She was afraid the whole cave would blow up. Oblivious to the term ‘regional impact’ she thought she was stating the obvious,

  “That new technology hasn’t been tested yet. Are you sure it isn’t too many. I want to leave the cave but not because of a massive explosion.”

  As Santo placed the last one, he put her concerns to rest, saying,

  “Han Lee tested them on an obelisk back at the estate. They work just fine.”

  Still, she was correct. It was enough and there was one packet left. Without giving it any thought, he slipped it into the side pocket of his cargo pants. Both men stepped back and Kirk pressed the detonation button. All Maria saw was a ring of powder and great plumes of smoke silently burst forth. She felt the heat but it was not drastic.

  Henrik and Pia were attentively sitting on the cot watching the strange goings on. A second after Kirk pressed the detonation button and smoke covered the wall, Henrik suddenly jumped up and pointed to the smo
ke. He looked down at the quizzical Pia and asked,

  “Did you see that?”

  “What, the smoke, yeah, it was mostly just dust and debris though.”

  “No, I mean the man running out of the smoke.”

  Because Pia was neither cursed nor blessed with an ability to see ghosts, she only saw bellows of smoke. The look he got from her was reminiscent of the looks he got in school before learning to keep his mouth shut. It was not the first time he heard what she said,

  “There is a lot of crazy in that little head of yours isn’t there.”

  Feeling defensive, for he really did see something, he rebuked,

  “Yea but it’s a smart crazy.”

  Chapter 47

  After two hours of watching the Professor aimlessly rummaging through the hillside and pretending to inspect a stone, it quickly became a tedious chore for Yesin. However, orders were orders, “Keep an eye on him.” He could not help but notice that as he baked in the sweltering afternoon sun, laying on his stomach with binoculars glues to his eyes, Inspector Buruk was sitting in the shade of the tent flap over at the knoll. He knew it was not water he was drinking either. As the sun blasted down on him, the more he blinked the more he did not want to open his eyes again. As sweat dripped down his brow, the heavier the binoculars got.

  To rest tired eyes, Yesin lowered the binoculars and once again looked back over his shoulder and saw Inspector Buruk enjoying the comfort of shade. Due to the combination of heat and bad Russian vodka, he saw the Inspector had slouched in the canvas chair sound asleep or as suspected, soundly passed out. When seeing that somebody was sleeping,Yesin’s eyes grew heavier. When turning back to his duty of watching the Professor, he saw that he had wandered over to the steeper slope of barren rocks and was chipping away at stones. Yesin did not care. The sun was so hot that sluggishness triumphed. The binoculars slowly slipped away from closed eyes.

  Above the shore of the lake, Professor Asker saw in the distance a rock big enough to sit on. If the truth were known, that is what he was really looking for, a place to sit down and rest tired feet. Getting to that rock was a difficult task, one needing the agility of a much younger man. While struggling to it, often what he thought was a secure footing turned out to be unstable and his foot slipped sending the rock tumbling downward creating a mini avalanche.

  After sitting, the more he looked at the inviting lake the more he wanted to untie his hiking boots and wade burning feet through the cool water. However, heat and tired feet demanded that he sit here for a little while longer and eat. He pulled the sandwich from his backpack and settled in for a leisurely snack. While he was sitting, he had trouble supporting his feet on the smaller stones and so kicked at them sending one tumbling downward. He watched it bounce and careen off the others and that is when he heard it.

  Aside from months bent over ancient maps and scrolls, as a recognized archeologist, he had spent most of his life out in the field digging and brushing dirt off suspected ancient discoveries. His eyes were trained to look for structures that thousands of years ago might have been seven foot high fortified walls surrounding a city but now, thanks to time and weathering were nothing more than a line of eroded stone barely visible and indistinguishable from others placed there by nature. Although not trained for it, mostly just a side effect of years in the field, most outdoorsmen develop an ear for nature. They know what something is supposed to sound like and easily recognized when that sound was not right. What he just heard was not right.

  The large rock he had kicked out of the way sounded like it was supposed to sound when careening off the others and bouncing its way down toward the lake. It all sounded just right until he heard the subtle sound of rock bouncing off metal. Perhaps many ears would not have heard it or if they did, would not have put much weight on it. However, Professor Bartow Asker was an experienced archeologist and as sure as when expecting to hear a piano recital and instead hearing a car crash, he perked alert.

  One does not become a famed archeologist without a great sense of curiosity. Throughout his life, the Professor’s curiosity had governed his fate. It led him to a Professorship at a prestigious University and funding for whatever digs he had deemed worthwhile. However, his choice of profession drove him away from people that once meant something to him. Before his career blossomed, there was a woman in his life and thoughts of a family loomed on the horizon. When his career took off and foreshadowed all else, his whole life flipped upside-down. He was now a confirmed bachelor with a different love. Although often thinking about it, he never missed what could have been.

  Despite being hot and tired, there was not a second thought to what he had to do. Curiosity took hold and forced him to his feet to investigate the mysterious and subtle ‘clang’. Getting up and struggling down to the mystery, his boots loosened more rocks sending them cascading toward the mystery. More bounced off the mystery and more metallic sounds were heard. Now at the source, he saw what on the surface appeared to be a large flat rock. He picked up a small rock and dropped it onto the mystery. ‘Clang’.

  Perplexed, he stared at what had led him to this point in his life, to investigate mysteries. He did not think it was a metal plate but rather some sort of hard plastic. On preliminary inspection, what was exposed to the elements was about the size of a manhole cover. After he removed rocks that had not bounced off the mystery and swept off eons of dust, he discovered that the mysterious lid was about the size of a door positioned flat and at the same angle as the rocky slope. Not thick, he pried fingers under the top edge and with all his might heaved but the great effort was not rewarded. It would not budge. Not giving up, he did the same at the bottom edge of the supposed door. With wedged fingers secured under the edge, he gathered all of his strength for a mighty heave.

  The so-called door lifted so easily that his steel grip slipped off the edge causing him to lose balance and clumsily slip backwards a few steps. He almost fell over. While it had lifted easily, he saw that it slowly slipped back down into the original position. This time, bracing and with only one hand under the lip, he gently pulled up. It lifted as easily as opening a door. It was hinged at the top, explaining why he could not budge it on the upper side.

  The lid was well balanced. To look into the tunnel, he had to hold it open with one hand or it would slowly close again. It was a struggle but with one hand, he reached into his backpack and pulled out a flashlight. With the looming darkness pushed aside by a bright beam of light, he peered inside. This was the second time he had seen a wall of vitrified stone as smooth as glass. The angle of this tunnel led straight into the mountainside. To his way of thinking, if curiosity killed the cat, the cat was not doing it right. His curiosity had led him to this mystery and he was going to investigate, hopefully with a different result.

  Holding the lid open, he slipped into the tunnel and then let go of it. It gently drifted down and closed. He was shocked at the sudden darkness and silence that encompassed him. It suddenly got as dark and quiet as a closed coffin. He did not like that comparison at all. He was fifty-five years old and only now discovered that he had an over active imagination. This was not the first tunnel he had ventured into but it was the darkest and most mysterious. The difference was that in the other tunnels it was under controlled situations. He knew what he was getting into. Hopefully at the end of those tunnels were relics of a lost civilization and maybe even a lost city glittering in gold. He entered those tunnels with some hope and a lot of expectation. This tunnel was different. It was dark and filled with unknown. Because of the vitrified rocky edges, it was extremely mysterious. He forgave himself for being frightened.

  Thank goodness the flashlight worked. There was not much room, only a little space on each shoulder but the rock was like glass so there was no penalty for scraping against it. A slight benefit of the smooth walls was that the beam of the flashlight reflected off the walls and illuminated a lot more of the tunnel. The height was good. He could easily reach up and touch the ceiling.
One of his fears was coming across a vicious animal that wanted to get past him and out the door. The other great fear, aside from the unknown, was bumping into a black spirit.

  Only a few minutes later, bravely pushing at his hesitancy to continue, he came to a dead end. Strangely, the end of the tunnel was not like the glass on the edges. The end of the tunnel looked like the same material as the lid now far behind him. Thinking that it too might be a hinged door he pushed but with no result. He thought it strange that a tunnel would not have a purpose.

  At a dead end in both distance and purpose, he turned around and shone the light back the way he came. It seemed a much longer way back. After a deep breath, he took his first step in that direction. Suddenly he heard voices. Because it was a muffled sound, he could not make out what was said or even what language it was. Couple that with not being able to pinpoint the source, sounding as if coming from the stone itself, another burst of creepy imagination charged to the forefront of his already overworked imagination.

  Quick beams of the flashlight scanned everywhere, up, down and all sides. He was aware that a beam of light could not locate a sound. What he was looking for was a hole in the wall, anything that a voice could come from. He put his ear to the metallic plate and heard a different sound. His sanity thought it might be nails scratching on the other side but his overworked imagination heard the sound of slithering snakes slinking toward his pressed ear.