THE MAYAN GLYPH

by Larry Baxter

  He carefully decanted the solution onto the stationary plate. Perhaps ten minutes would be needed to precipitate the crystals that he needed. He asked Xcatca to replenish the supply of Zbltbl powder and sat back to wait, rubbing his eyes. He had been driven for many days and nights, excited that the solution lay nearly within his grasp, but unable to close his fingers on the slippery core of the thing that he needed.

  The cave was his masterpiece, carved from the limestone by two dozen of the city's finest stonemasons, faced with obsidian tiles which had been polished to a mirror finish, and kept dry with the accurate construction of the tiles which allowed no air infiltration and by the exposed trays of fire treated Shotjtl. The walls were already half filled with the records, the testimony to the pinnacle of excellence that his university had achieved. Another few years would fill the walls with glyphs; he would need to start another cave soon to have space. But perhaps if the killer black tongue could not be stopped, there would be no need for another cave.

  The far wall was arrayed with the equipment that would make the chemical—waiting for him—if he could just dissect the secrets of the disease. But his attempts to crystallize the enemy had not succeeded. He checked the plate in the dim light from the oil lamps: at last. The breath escaped from his lungs in a long shuddering gasp. Good crystals, lovely rainbows of peacock iridescence. He lowered the brass counterplate with his hand shaking and rubbed the shiny cloth on the globe. He raised the counterelectrode and dusted the white Zbltbl powder.

  He was instantly filled with a quiet peace, an easing of the tension that had gripped his body for months. It was there, sketched in white—so simple, so serene, so lovely. He easily visualized the structure of the antidote: the molecule which would mate passionately with the disease molecule, draw it tightly in, neuter it with affection. He saw too that the antidote would not even need his waiting equipment, if he remembered correctly. He looked on his wall for the record—yes, the Ctlactan flower had exactly the pattern he needed.

  "Xcatca!" he called. There was much work to do. And he had not slept in a week. He would not get to sleep again tonight.

  Chapter 24

  * * *

  Tulum, November 5, present day

  Teresa shifted her weight so the ties on her wrists didn't cut into her skin. How about Robert's wrists? He was hanging awkwardly from his hands, head slumped, mouth hanging open. But he was still alive, he had groaned a little. His hands looked OK; good circulation.

  What to do? She had never felt so helpless. Robert. He came at you from a strange direction, that man. He didn't seem to think like normal people did. He walked like he was on springs, like he had infinite reserves of strength. She felt that he could make this nightmare go away as soon as he woke up, even though her logical mind did not agree.

  She yanked at her bindings in frustration, banging the pipes together. No one came. She turned back to Robert and watched his inert face with concern. He groaned again, spat blood on the floor and opened his eyes. He looked terrible. She could see the consciousness returning, the eyes focusing as he scanned the room. He pulled strongly on the pipe for a minute and stopped.

  "Robert, are you OK?" she asked in a low voice.

  "Nhhhh," he answered, waggled his head back and forth and seemed to be listening for something. Then, "Jeez. Well. Maybe."

  "Do something before they come back."

  Robert pulled hard on his ties, and sagged back. Then he turned his head to study the pipes and she saw a shift in his expression, something like amused happiness, unless she misread it completely. He looked over at her and smiled. "What?" she asked.

  He didn't answer for a minute, concentrating still on the pipes. Then he said, speaking slowly and quietly, "I took sixth grade in the Calvin Coolidge Elementary School in Newton Upper Falls. Mr. Finney handed out puzzles with loops and bent nails and wire rings. The last one, the tough one, had two rings on a bent wire and nobody could get it apart."

  That's it, thought Teresa. He's reliving his childhood. Christ.

  "I kept fiddling with it, though, until it came apart. Mr. Finney said I was the first person to figure it out. Funny how that sort of thing sticks in your head, isn't it? I can still remember the shape of that puzzle."

  She whispered. "So, how does that become relevant to our current dilemma? I don't like it here."

  "I've been figuring it out. Imagine these pipes are bent wires and we're rings."

  Robert grabbed the pipe in both hands and levered his body up to a horizontal position, swung through one of the curves of the pipe and dropped to his feet behind her in the loop of her arms.

  "This might be a little close for a second, but I think it'll work out," he said. "OK now, straighten up," he grunted, as he lifted her over his body.

  "Free at last!" he announced quietly, passing his still-cuffed hands under his feet and in front of him and then holding his hands in the air like a victorious prizefighter, free of the pipe.

  "Lord God Almighty! How the hell did you do that? And how about me?"

  "Mr. Finney. Wait here a second."

  Robert rummaged around the junk pile, emerged with a pair of cutting pliers, and worked behind Teresa for a minute.

  "Any luck?" she asked.

  "Nope, that's pretty tough wire. But that looks like an oxyacetylene rig over there."

  Robert detoured to look at the big green-colored tubes. One was open, and he pulled out a clear plastic bag containing a white powder and caught Teresa's eye with a frown.

  She heard a noise from the corridor and hissed at Robert. He jumped over his manacled hands so they were behind him, and he was back against the pipes in two fast strides with his bloody head lolling sideways and his eyes half closed. Quite convincing, even his breathing seemed slow and painful. But the cutting pliers were visible on the floor, out of her reach.

  "Pliers!" she whispered, looking at them. He caught the direction of her gaze and tucked the pliers into his waistband as José walked in, talking on the radio.

  José moved behind her and grabbed her hands, then dropped them and reached around Robert to yank a college ring from his finger. "Sí, nothing for the girl, the man had one. Sí, it says Boston University with some little animal or something. U.S.? Sí, I think so." He walked out, still talking, tossing the ring in the air. The double door slammed closed and a latch was drawn.

  "He didn't see you were untied," she said.

  "I certainly wasn't going to tell him."

  "Robert? No, don't look at me, I'm a little undressed. I just wanted to say you're awfully good at a lot of things. Possibly you might not be quite as crazy as I thought."

  He grinned up at her with his eyes shut tight. The cheery lopsided smile contrasted with the wreckage of his face. He listened carefully for a minute before he pulled his hands back to the front and moved to the oxyacetylene machine.

  Then he rolled the welding rig over to Teresa, opened the acetylene valve and sparked it to a yellow flame with the ignition tool. He fiddled with the valves till he had a tiny hot flame, then handed her the handle and quickly melted through his ties. Then he moved behind her. She felt a pinch and was free.

  "Good one." She adjusted her suit and licked a burned spot on her wrist where a spark had landed. "Now what? There's at least five of those guys, all armed."

  Robert opened the metal door and they looked into a small closet with oilcans on the floor. Open electrical wiring was stapled to the walls. "Do you suppose that guy with the cigar smokes all the time?" he asked, "Or, actually, that cigar was just freshly lit when he came in here, right?"

  "Yes. Why?"

  "There's enough oxygen in the welding rig to do the old exploding cigar trick, I think. It's worth a shot, anyway." He opened the valve on the oxygen tank fully. Then he grabbed the welding helmet and pushed Teresa into the closet.

  She watched, fascinated, trying to understand the concept as he dug the cutting pliers out of his pocket, traced the wiring, and cut one strand of the white wire.
The lights went out. A second later they came back on as he stripped the wire and bent the wire ends loosely together.

  "Here's the plan," he said. He put on the helmet and flipped the dark glass window down. "I'll get my eyes dark-adapted with the helmet. You scream and the bad guys show up, all excited. The oxygen atmosphere blows up the cigar. You move this white wire and the lights go out. I run into the room and clobber them. Then you turn the lights back on."

  "You'll get shot."

  "I hope they won't be able to see me. But there may be shooting, stay behind the wall in here. Don't worry if you get a little light-headed, it's just an oxygen high."

  "This is crazy."

  "Got any better ideas?"

  She thought it over, feeling a little light-headed. "I guess not. Should I scream now?"

  "Not yet, let's get all the oxygen we can." After a few minutes the hissing from the oxygen tank quieted and Teresa noticed her breathing had slowed almost to a stop in the oxygen-rich atmosphere.

  "I think the scream now, please."

  She thought her scream was nice, very theatrical. Robert, in the helmet, looked through the crack in the door as two men ran in. Carlito's cigar exploded like a grenade in a shower of sparks. He fell to the floor. The tall man frantically beat out multiple fires burning fiercely in his pants, then gave up the effort and yanked his pants down around his ankles.

  "Lights!" said Robert, and Teresa pulled on the wire and watched by the flickering illumination of the burning pants as he ran into the room in the near darkness, but the tall man moved quickly, shaking his feet loose and bringing up the pistol.

  Teresa held her breath as Robert dove, tucked and somersaulted with the helmet crashing on the hard floor. She heard the sound of the gunfire but he somersaulted again, planted his feet and drove his helmet into the tall man.

  "Lights!" he said, pulling off the helmet, and Teresa worked the improvised switch. The tall man was on his side, holding his crotch and groaning through clenched teeth. The pistol was nowhere to be seen. The other man had moved to his hands and knees and was shaking his head back and forth.

  Robert kicked the tall man in the head, grabbed a length of electrical wire and tied him to the same pipes they had been handcuffed to. Teresa moved into the room and they started to tie up the cigar smoker, with his eyes still tightly closed and his face blackened. They were interrupted by the sound of footsteps running down the corridor.

  Robert dragged her through the big door and into a dimly lit corridor and they ran towards the darker end. A voice screamed behind them, and then another voice and a door slammed.

  In a moment they came to a dimly lit, wide platform with a lift truck and stacked burlap bags. Beyond that the walkway ended abruptly. Teresa looked back. She saw no motion, but she could hear a group of men, sure of their quarry, getting closer but still out of sight. They were finally out of options.

  She heard a motor cough to life behind her and spun around to see Robert fiddling with the controls of the forklift. It moved forward and the tines rammed into a stack of bags. Something like beach sand spilled out as he raised the pile and turned the machine towards the attackers.

  "Get on, behind me," he said as the machine crept back up the corridor. She squeezed in, holding him between her thighs as the vehicle accelerated. Gunshots. Bullets thudded into the bags and ricocheted screaming off the walls, whipping past her ears like angry wasps.

  Then something heavier thudded into the bags and a face appeared over the top, followed by a gun. She screamed. Robert slammed on the brakes and the gunman fell backwards, buried under a pile of sandbags. Robert jumped sideways as automatic weapons chattered, dragging her with him into the darkness of the stream.

  Teresa heard slugs slap into Robert, behind her, and she was gripped again by fear. She fell into blackness as she heard him yell out in pain and she tumbled into cold running water.

  Teresa struggled to the surface and gasped for air. She spun around in the current, looking back at the rapidly diminishing patch of light and the flashes from the rifles; no Robert, and he had definitely been hit at least twice. She twisted around until she could see the shape of the tunnel in the rapidly diminishing light. The rough ceiling sprouted stalactites, lowering down to the water level in places. She crashed into a little forest of stalactites and was pinned there by the current.

  She caught her breath and tried to push off the rock but the water was too fast, she was trapped there, one leg caught painfully, her mouth barely above water. Blood dripped down her nose and into her mouth.

  Think. Don't panic, think. This passage must be new, the stalactites must have been created when the sea level was much lower, but the rapid flow should have eroded the channel smooth like the others. Unless the flow here was new, diverted by the new construction in the caves. That might explain the high flow rate, also, if several old channels had been blocked. So, good, now do something.

  A body crashed into her back. Better be Robert. He better be all right. She shouted over the current, but she got no response. She was unable to move against the pressure to see if he was unconscious or dead. God damn, this wasn't what her mother had in mind for her, nice little Catholic girl. They'd find two skeletons right here on this stupid limestone spear, all tangled up, maybe a hundred years from now. She felt her heart hammering at some impossible rate and saw tiny bright flashes of light in her peripheral vision, in sync with each heartbeat.

  She thought she saw a dark swirl in the water and she smelled the coppery sweetness of fresh blood. Is that mine or his? Dammit, dammit, dammit. She squeezed her eyes tight together. Make it go away. Please.

  It was weirdly pleasant, though, in some twisted way, nice fresh cool water to sip if you were thirsty, Robert's warmth protecting her from hypothermia. At least he was still warm. She felt her mind drifting downstream without her body. He seemed to shift against her and she felt an unexpected pleasurable response, felt her hips arch back against him. Where did that come from? Holy Christ, get it under control, think of something besides sex, we're about to die here. Unprofessional. Stay under control, you sex-crazed fool.

  Anyway, he's probably dead, just sloshing around in the current. Then he moved again, more strongly this time, and after a minute two hands came around her abdomen. She felt a wave of relief, he was definitely conscious. This was not a good place for romance, though. We really should be figuring out how to get out of this before the Colombians find a sub or something. Robert coughed, his mouth just behind her ear, and grunted with effort and she was levered slowly back off the rock like an abalone peeled off its coral reef by a diver's pry bar. They fought through the tangle of stalactites and were again spinning downstream.

  Then it was complete blackness, twisting, tumbling, no way to breathe. She felt for what she thought was up, but there was no air, just smooth stone. She was about to give up the hopeless fight and inhale the dark water when his strong hands held her up and she felt her face burst through into an air pocket and she breathed miraculous fresh cool air and got swept away again, and then everything seemed to speed up, the walls of the passage slammed into her, one side then the other, and the breath she thought would be her last was knocked from her lungs. She knew from the burning and the fierce clutching of her plexus that she had reached the end. But again the hands, weaker now, held her up and there was briefly air and she inhaled a huge shuddering breath and a stronger current spun her down and a gigantic blow struck her head and she seemed to spiral softly down as blackness rose and enveloped her.

  Chapter 25

  * * *

  Tulum, August 2, 823

  "No, no no," said Peloc, jumping up and down with frustration. "Ktalban! It is the ktalban flower, look, look, is it not obvious?" He gestured towards the swirling images on the obsidian plates. "Never mind, follow me, we have little time."

  He led three assistants, four students, and a clerk out of the darkness of the cave into the bright sunlight where he stood helpless for a minute with his e
yes shut. He had been in the cave for three weeks straight—sleeping for an hour or two on a reed bed, testing, evaluating, synthesizing. Now finally the answer was clear. He managed to open his eyes finally. The sun was directly overhead and the day was completely windless, the sky clear of clouds, and the temperature so hot that the ground seemed to be hissing like the jaguar.

  The colorful buildings of Tulum were arrayed to the north, and west of the rise of land where the cave entrance was hidden, the huts of the people were scattered to the horizon. Thin streams of smoke drifted into the blue sky, and the villagers were bringing in the crops, harvesting the shoblt and tsa-tsa as if the Maya in the West were not falling like the shoblt stalks before the blade.

  The people saw Peloc had come back to life again, risen from the Lords of the Dead, and they ran to the hill where they knelt and touched their foreheads to the stony ground.

  "Arise!" said Peloc. "Runners! We need one hundred runners who will carry the honor of Tulum and the trust of Chac! Runners whose names will be carved into the largest stela! Runners who will live forever with the gods!"

  All the young men stepped eagerly forward, at least a hundred.

  "People! We have our runners. Bring them food and water for six days. Bring them containers, jars. Hurry."

  Peloc motioned for Bird Eater Xcatca and sketched the plan. The ktalban flower would be found after a three day run. Bird Eater would run with the group, half of the runners carrying all the supplies. Then when the bearers dropped from exhaustion, fresh runners would carry the supplies. The ktalban flower would be found in the tall tree, harvested, crushed to a liquid that would cure the disease. The runners were to fan out with the liquid to Chichén Itzá, Cobá, Uxmal—all of the cities—and mix the liquid with water. Then all of the people were to drink, starting with the sickest.