Conrad rode the platform up to the top level. His light scanned the chamber, revealing a large high-backed seat that lay horizontally on a kind of altar and pointed to the apex of the cathedral ceiling overhead.
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Eureka, Conrad thought. The Seat of Osiris.
“Yes!” Conrad exclaimed out loud. He fumbled anxiously for his radio. “Yeats, I found it.”
But there was no response. Where the hell was he?
“Yeats.” The silence was eerie, unsettling.
He cranked his ear full of static until it hurt and still he heard nothing. So he switched it off. He wondered what Yeats could be up to, if he was OK. He felt a sick knot forming in his stomach. Well, he couldn’t wait.
Slowly he circled the empty chair and surveyed the scene. His flashlight showed nothing else in the chamber. No artifacts, markings, or any evidence this room had ever been used before. But it all felt very familiar.
It was as if he had stepped into an ancient hieroglyph come to life. Ancient Egyptian reliefs of Osiris often showed the Lord of Eternity sitting in his chair and wearing his Atef crown, like the one inside the Seti I Temple at Abydos. Conrad also recalled the Man in the Serpent sculpture from the ancient Olmec site of La Venta, Mexico, which depicted a man seated inside a mechanical-looking device much like the chair before him. Then there was the sarcophagus lid inside the Temple of the Inscriptions at the Mayan site of Palenque in Chiapas, Mexico.
That, too, revealed a mechanical design involving a man who appeared to be seated inside some kind of device.
Yes, he had been here before, he thought, feeling sweat begin to bead on his forehead. His hands felt heavy and clammy. Only this time the chair was real, the very Seat of Osiris. And so was the small altarlike base next to it, clearly the receptacle for the Scepter of Osiris. The only thing left to the imagination was for him to take the scepter, sit in that seat, and behold the Secret of First Time.
Conrad ran his hand over the smooth contours of the chair. It was like an empty eggshell. Conrad pressed the surface, felt it bend to his touch. He wanted to sit in it. But he remembered what had happened with the scepter in P4 and paused.
This time was different, he rationalized. The first time was a mistake. He knew that all too well. This time he was trying to correct that mistake, and if he didn’t try, billions of lives could perish. Yes, he concluded, whatever his own shortcomings, however unworthy, he had to sit in the chair, if not for himself, then for humanity.
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Conrad slipped into the Seat of Osiris, inserted the Scepter of Osiris into its receptacle, and looked straight up at the pyramidlike ceiling. This is interesting, he thought, feeling like one of his students on the Nazca Lines tour, waiting for some great revelation to materialize that never does.
“Sure, Conrad,” he said out loud, just to hear the sound of his voice. “You’ve finally made something of yourself. You’ve self-actualized yourself and become your astral projection. You are the Sun King.” He laughed nervously. If Mercedes could see him now, she’d be taping everything. He could picture the ads on TV: “Live from the Shrine of the First Sun! The Secrets of Atlantis Revealed! Witness the End of the World!” The way things were going, unfortunately, he soon would.
A wave of depression suddenly washed over Conrad as he sat in the Seat of Osiris. Had he traveled so far, and would humanity have to suffer so much, only to discover this was all some cosmic joke? What if the Secret of First Time was that there was no secret?
No, Conrad decided. Somebody went to too much trouble to build all this. And there were clearly some astronomical correlations he was missing. There must be a way to stop the earth-crust displacement. Perhaps he was simply the wrong man to find that way. He felt overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness. He had failed Serena. He had failed humanity. He had failed himself, period. What more could he do? This was indeed the end of the line.
Conrad leaned back in the seat, closed his eyes, and prayed: God of Noah, Moses, Jesus, and Serena. If you’re there, if you care at all for Serena and all she cares for, then help me figure this thing out before Osiris and his kind screw your kind over for good.
Conrad opened his eyes. Nothing happened.
Again Conrad leaned back in the seat, and as soon as he did, he realized it had settled into a pocket and locked in with a click. Conrad tried to lean forward to look. But the egglike capsule, while comfortable, held him back.
He felt a sequence of vibrations shoot up his spine.
The chair was squeezing him, tightening around his waist and pushing down on his shoulders, devouring him. A metallic console telescoped itself beyond his forehead.
“Yeats!”
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Suddenly the console overhead came to life with a beep. It glowed an eerie blue and a panel of instruments lit up. A tremendous shudder reverberated throughout the obelisk and Conrad could feel vibrations building in the back of his chair.
“Yeats!”
A single shaft of intense white light from above blinded him.
“Yeats!”
Then another flash shot up from below, imbuing the entire chamber in light.
Conrad realized it was sunlight through two shafts above and below his reclined seat. Just like the star shaft in P4. Sunlight? Where did that come from?
Conrad managed to put on his sunglasses and gaze out the shafts. They were windows and framed a lightening sky. He had opened the doors of the silo.
Another shudder, and suddenly all became clear.
This obelisk isn’t a shrine, he thought. It’s a ship. A starship.
“Dad!”
Conrad tried to pull himself out of the seat. It wouldn’t give. He tried twisting to the right. No. To the left. Yes. Now he hurled himself forward with everything he had and came out with a spark like an electrical cord from a socket. The console went dead and disappeared into the chair, the vibrations stopped, and the chair snapped forward and released its grip on him. Conrad, breathing heavily, collected himself.
For several moments he sat there on the floor, numb. But his mind was racing.
He had no references for this experience in his past. Or did he? Ancient Egyptian funeral texts referred to a number of cosmic vessels intended to take the dead on celestial voyages to heaven. There was the “bark of Osiris,” for example, and the “boat of millions of years.” Egyptologists dubbed them “solar boats.” There was also Kamal el-Mallakh’s 1954 discovery of a 143-foot cedarwood boat buried in a pit on the south side of the Great Pyramid. Subsequent digging turned up similar boats in the same area—symbolic of the solar boats in which the souls of deceased kings could sail into the afterlife.
This silo, he realized, was on the south face of P4.
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He remembered the markings of the three zodiac signs on the obelisk. He recalled the pyramid texts in Giza said the Sun King would ride his “Solar Bark” across the Milky Way toward First Time. To astro-archaeologists such as Conrad, the “solar bark” was a metaphor for the sun, specifically its ecliptic path through the twelve constellations of the zodiac in the course of a year. But what if it was more than a metaphor?
This is the actual Solar Bark, Conrad thought, the celestial ship built to take the would-be Sun King across the stars to First Time. He felt a shock wave of euphoria exploding within him.
But then the stark reality of his discovery suddenly sapped his hope: the Secret of First Time lay waiting at the end of the Solar Bark’s intended destination. Yet the earth-crust displacement was only hours if not minutes away. There was no way to reset the star chamber in P4 to the date of First Time without completing the journey. The best he could do was guess the date of First Time based on the estimated light-years it would take to get to the Solar Bark’s destination. And that information was beyond his grasp.
His radio headset squawked. Conrad said, “Yeats. Where the hell have you been?”
The voice that came over was Serena’s. “Conrad.”
“Sere
na?” he said. “Where are you?”
“Look out your cockpit window.”
Conrad looked up and saw the silhouettes of Egyptian soldiers circled along the rim of the silo, guns and SAMs pointed in his direction. But what caught his eye was the outstretched arm of Zawas holding a gun to Serena’s head.
Serena said, “Colonel Zawas wants you to know that unless you meet us at the base of the shrine in ten minutes and hand over the scepter, he’s going to kill me. I told him you wouldn’t do it. I’m not worth it and you’re not that stupid.” Conrad spoke into the radio. “Tell Zawas I’m coming down.” 32
Dawn Minus
Twenty-Five Minutes
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CONRAD HEADED DOWN THROUGHthe vast ship to the rotunda base. Along the way, it all made sense—the crypts were some sort of cryogenic chambers for the long interstellar flight, the towers of light some sort of propulsion system.
Conrad emerged from the Solar Bark to find the entire silo imbued with the first rays of dawn. Then he looked up and noted that the dome had split open. He shaded his eyes and felt a sharp poke at his back.
“Move it,” said a voice from behind with an Arab accent.
Conrad, still blinking in the brightness, craned his neck to take a look. His curiosity was rewarded by a knock on the side of his head with the butt of an AK-47.
“Idiot!”
His head throbbing, Conrad stumbled forward beyond the rotunda.
Serena and Zawas were waiting for him. As Zawas took the scepter from his hands, Conrad looked over at Serena and swallowed hard. There was sadness in her eyes, but everything else about her was cool as ice.
“Tell me what these bastards did to you,” Conrad said.
Serena said, “Not much compared to what the world is going to suffer, thanks to you.”
“Doctor Yeats.” Zawas studied him carefully. “Your reputation is well deserved.
You’ve led us to the Shrine of the First Sun.”
“A lot of good it will do you.”
“I will be the judge of that.” Zawas then held up the Scepter of Osiris before his men like some idol. There were no oohs and aahhs. These were professional soldiers Zawas had brought along for backup, Conrad thought, not mere fanatics. To them the obelisk might as well have been the head of an assassinated enemy, or a torched American flag, or a nuclear warhead. Their possession of such a symbol only confirmed their power in their own eyes.
Zawas then looked at him and said, “Now you will tell me the Secret of First Time, Doctor Yeats.”
“I don’t know. It’s not there. And it may be impossible for us to discover.” 185
Zawas narrowed his eyes. “Why is that?”
“The shrine, as you call it, is really a starship, intended to take the seeker to the place of First Time—the actual First Sun, as far as the Atlanteans are concerned.”
“A starship?” Zawas repeated.
“Which is why we’ll probably never know the Secret of First Time.” He stole a glance at Serena, whose sad eyes told him she had concluded as much. “The existence of the Solar Bark implies the secret is not of this earth but at its intended destination, which from what I’ve gathered is somewhere beyond the constellation of Orion.”
Serena’s voice was scarcely stronger than a whisper. “So there’s no way to stop the earth-crust displacement.”
Conrad shook his head but fixed his eyes on hers. “Nothing I can come up with.”
Zawas stepped up to Conrad and put his face within an inch of his. “You say this shrine is a starship, Doctor Yeats. You say there is no hope for the world. Then why didn’t you take off?”
Conrad looked over Zawas’s shoulder at Serena.
Serena could only shake her head in disbelief. “You’re such a fool, Conrad.” A voice said, “Well, we finally agree on something, Sister.” Conrad turned around as Yeats emerged from behind a pillar in the rotunda, as grim as Conrad had ever seen him.
“Give me the obelisk, and the girl, Zawas,” Yeats demanded. “And we’ll be on our way.”
Conrad, dumbfounded, stared at Yeats. “On our way where? You’re just going to hop on a spaceship and go?”
“Damn straight I am.”
Conrad realized that Yeats didn’t necessarily care where he was going so long as he went somewhere. He was hellbent on completing the space mission he had been denied in his youth.
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“Look, if we don’t go, son, then we’ll just perish with the rest of them,” Yeats said.
“You can rationalize it all you want, but I’m not biting.” Zawas tightened his grip on the scepter and gave a cool nod to his men, who circled Yeats with their AK-47s.
“You destroyed much of my base and cost me many good men,” Zawas said.
“Now you insult my intelligence.”
Conrad shifted his gaze back and forth between Yeats and Zawas, their eyes locked on each other.
“You were never interested in finding a weapon or disabling some alien booby trap, Yeats, were you?” Conrad said, incensed at Yeats’s desertion. “And you weren’t interested in helping me find my destiny. You pulled that Captain Ahab routine all these years because you knew this thing was down here.”
“I suspected it, son,” Yeats said. “Now we know. This is the happy ending we’ve been working for ever since I found you. You’re going home.” Home? Conrad thought. It was the first time in years he had ever even considered that he had a real home anywhere, much less not of this Earth.
Zawas cut in, “Surely you don’t expect me to let you take off with the Solar Bark, do you?”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” Yeats said.
Yeats’s left arm swung up, holding a small remote control. He looked at Zawas with the coldest pair of pale blue eyes Conrad had ever seen. “I go or we all go,” Yeats said. “I’ve got enough C-4 in here to blow us all to First Time without any starship.”
Zawas’s eyes darkened. “You’re bluffing.”
“Oh?” Yeats flicked one of the buttons, and a stereophonic beeping filled the silo as a circle of red lights in the shadows began to blink. “Go ahead, take a closer look.”
Conrad watched as Zawas walked over to the nearest blinking box, bent over, and froze. Slowly he straightened and returned to his men. “Let Doctor Serghetti go.”
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“And the scepter, Colonel. Give it to her.”
Conrad watched Zawas hand her the Scepter of Osiris and nudge her toward Yeats. “I’m sorry, my flower,” Zawas said.
Yeats immediately grabbed her and pulled her toward the rotunda at the base of the Solar Bark. “Come on, Conrad.”
But Conrad didn’t move. He looked at Yeats and Serena and said, “I think I’ve just figured out the way to stop the earth-crust displacement. But the answer is back at the star chamber. Not there.” He was pointing at the Solar Bark.
A bewildered look crossed Yeats’s face. “It’s too late. Let’s go.”
“No. I’m staying.” He looked at Serena. “But I need the scepter and Serena.” Yeats shook his head. “I’m sorry, son. We need the scepter to take off.” Conrad could feel the fury building inside. “And what the hell do you want Serena for?”
“An incentive for you to reconsider,” Yeats said, dragging her away toward the Solar Bark. “You want her, then come get her.” Conrad, desperate to run after her, looked on as she shot a quick glance back at him, her eyes filled with uncertainty. Then she disappeared inside the giant starship.
A moment later the ground started to rumble as the launch sequence began.
Zawas could only watch in furious admiration at his former teacher before shouting to his soldiers to evacuate the silo.
“What about you?” Conrad shouted to Zawas. “Where are you going?”
“For cover,” Zawas said. “If this alleged disaster should strike the planet, we are in the safest place of all. We can find survivors and rule a new world. If nothing happens, we have captured an unlimited energy source and will rule
the world anyway.”
“What about me?” Conrad asked.
“You can go to hell, Doctor Yeats,” Zawas told him as two Egyptians tied Conrad to a pillar near the Solar Bark base. “Either the prospect of your death will force 188
your father to abort his plans, or you’ll depart this life in a blaze of glory when this Solar Bark of yours lifts off and its fires consume you.” Conrad watched as Zawas led his men out of the silo, leaving him alone. He strained at the ties that bound his hands. And he burned with desperation as he watched the Solar Bark rumble to life and prepare to lift off with Serena and the obelisk.
Inside the Solar Bark, Serena found herself with Yeats on a circular platform surrounded by four magnificent golden columns of light. Each column throbbed with energy. Yeats, still holding the remote to the C-4 in one hand, set the scepter down with the other. Suddenly the platform began to take them up.
“Yeats, if we don’t reset the star chamber the whole earth will shift,” she said, her voice spiked with anger and desperation. “Billions will die. You can’t just take off.”
“It’s futile to go back,” he said dismissively. His gaze was locked on the chamber above them. “You heard Conrad. Whatever the Secret of First Time is, it sure as hell ain’t on earth. The survival of the human race dictates that we launch.” She looked at him. He wore the expression of a cocky warrior, pleased with himself and sure that nobody could stop him. His jaw was set and his eyes glinted in the dim glow of four light-filled columns. It made her furious—his complete unconcern for people who were about to lose their lives.
She said, “How do you know we’ll even get off the ground?”
“What you see all around you is some kind of heliogyro system,” Yeats said.
“Those massive columns are an array of four unbelievably long heliogyro blades, like a helicopter’s but on a massive scale. As soon as we leave Earth’s orbit on an escape trajectory into space, they’ll fan out and unfurl the solar sail.” Clearly she was in Yeats’s world now, and however crazy the former astronaut was, he was the native in the terrain and she was the alien.
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