Keystone (21 page)

The double-doors of the lecture
theatre suddenly burst open. She jumped as she was torn from her reminiscing
and three hundred students poured inside.

 
The noise was incredible. There was shouting,
laughing, jeering, talking, banging of chair seats as they were flipped down,
shuffling of feet, somebody tripping on the stairs and dropping their bag and a
particularly deep laugh somewhere near the back which she could only describe
as a ‘guffaw’.

After about
five minutes, Gail looked at her watch and decided it was time to close the
doors. As she returned to the podium, she could see students pointing to her
slide and whispering comments to their neighbours.
This lot are lively,
she thought to herself with a smile as she
prepared to start her lecture.

She dimmed the
lights and checked attendance on the podium’s console: a better turnout than
usual, there were three hundred and fifty-two people seated in the theatre;
eighty-six more than the previous year.

Walking out
from behind the podium – she briefly thought of the first lecture she had
given, when she had literally hidden behind it - she introduced herself and
welcomed them to the course,
Introduction
to Egyptology
.

Looking around
the room, she noted with a certain degree of pride that practically everyone
was transfixed by either her or the projection on the wall behind. She had
never seen such an eager group.

“Egyptology is
the study of Egypt and its antiquities,” she began. “It has been practiced in
its present form for over two hundred years, and is closely linked both to
archaeology
and
history. How many of
you here are taking Archaeology and History?”

Approximately
half the theatre raised their hands. Some said yes, one person near the back
said he wasn’t sure, to which everyone laughed.

“Until the
turn of the twenty-first century,” she continued, “the last royal tomb to be
excavated in Egypt was that of Tutankhamen, in 1922.
 
For decades, many people believed that the
last tomb in the Valley of the Kings had been discovered. They were very wrong.
Since 2006, three more tombs have been discovered and excavated there, two in
the last decade alone.” She looked around the theatre at her wide-eyed
audience.
I must be getting good at this
,
she thought to herself. “Over the past fifteen years, Egypt’s
Supreme Council of Antiquities
has seen
major investment and modernisation; it now has the capability to regulate and
oversee three times the number of simultaneous archaeological excavations
compared to fifty years ago, particularly in the pharaonic sector. In other
words, the Egyptian government, aided by UNESCO, has invested millions in making
it easier to go to Egypt and
do
archaeology.” She paused and looked behind her at her introduction slide. “And
believe me, if you thought two hundred years was enough to find out everything
there is to know about Egypt, think again. Egypt is throwing up unexpected find
after unexpected find, every day.”

She stopped
talking and walked back to the podium. Hitting the screen once with her index
finger, the slide changed to a photograph of the book that had been on the
plinth in the Library at Amarna, with the Stickman carved into its cover.

“Has anyone
seen this
Stickman
symbol before?” she
asked confidently. She always liked to follow this up with ‘
don’t worry, until about ten years ago,
neither had anyone else
’.

Except that
this time, not one hand stayed down.
 

She was used
to the normal group, usually near the front, who would raise their hands,
sometimes smugly. But since she had started giving the same lecture two years
earlier, nothing had come close to this. She was amazed, and was about to say ‘
Wow!
’, when Professor David Hunt burst
through the door at the back of the lecture theatre.

He stumbled
down the steps, mumbling apologies to the students, most of whom still had
their hands held high. He didn’t even say hello to Gail as he rushed over to the
podium and closed her presentation. Bringing up an Internet browser, he found
the BBC website and expanded the ‘
Breaking
News
’ of the day.

“Look!” he
said, out of breath, pointing up at the projection on the wall.

Gail turned
round, still in shock. She read the words, her eyes widening.

‘Evidence of Intelligent Life Revealed on
Mars,’
the headline claimed, boldly.

“Wow!” she
finally said, as if her brain had queued the word she had been about to say
before David’s entrance, and had to make her say it before more words could be
used.

“No,” David
said with a grin like a Cheshire cat. “
This
is wow!” He scrolled down to the bottom of the page, and clicked on a picture. She
saw two people in space suits standing on some sort of platform on the side of
a cliff. He clicked to show the next picture: a close up of the platform, which
she now saw was like a small stone jetty coming out of the cliff wall. He
clicked to show the last picture. It was another close up of the stone, clearly
showing the engraving on its surface.

“Is this some
kind of joke?” she said, walking towards the screen. She was oblivious to the
excited talking going on in the theatre behind her. “Is that
really
Mars?”

“Yes!” he
almost shouted.

Gail needed to
sit down. She pulled a stool out from under the podium and perched herself on
top of it. “How?”

“I have no
idea, but I’m going to love finding out,” he replied. He was even more
enthusiastic than usual, like a small child at a birthday party after too many
sweets. “You’ve got to agree with some of my ideas now, Gail, haven’t you? You
might even have to revisit some of your Amarna dating,” he jabbed.

She was
absolutely stunned. “I don’t know,” was all she could say. “I don’t know.”

That the news
showed proof of extra-terrestrial life was amazing.

That it had
been
intelligent
extra-terrestrial
life was barely credible.

But that such
intelligent life had managed to carve the very same
Amarna Stickman
, in all of its glory, into the surface of a rock a
hundred million miles away on Mars left Dr Gail Turner utterly speechless.

Larue’s English was certainly
good enough to get the general idea of the book Martín had given him, and he
had now read enough of it to know what to do next. Nevertheless, he continued
to flick through it with increasing interest, dwelling on a series of photos of
the archaeological excavation. In one shot, an attractive young lady and a much
older, bearded man stood proudly beside a large rectangular stone in the
desert.
 
Another picture showed a row of
bookshelves covered in scrolls and clay tablets of varying sizes. The picture
he was most interested in, however, was of a large engraving on a wall showing
the symbol from Mars next to a bunch of hieroglyphs.

He called
Martín back in to his office, and when the Spaniard entered he snapped the book
shut. He opened his desk drawer and took out a large wallet. “So, you’ve met Dr
Turner before?”

Martín smiled
proudly and nodded. “Yes, in London. I was visiting some friends and we went to
one of her lectures.”

“Why?” Larue
was intrigued as to why a young man with a master’s degree in physics would be
interested in archaeology.

“A friend of
mine was studying history, and recommended that we all go to the lecture with
him, because we were doing nothing else that afternoon.” He looked at the
signed copy of the book. “He was also too shy to ask her to sign his copy of
the book, so I did it for him. I got confused and she signed it for me instead.
My friend was quite upset and told me to keep the book.”

Larue smiled
at his little story.

“Martin, I
think that this cover-up is not over. I don’t believe for a second that whoever
is behind it will simply turn over and admit defeat. We will be accused of the
same fakery as we are accusing them of.”

He opened his drawer
and withdrew a credit card. He placed it on the desk in front of him. “This
book is very interesting, but from what I can see it doesn’t make any reference
to Mars. And yet here we are. Dr Gail Turner will no doubt have made progress
in her research in the last few years. Maybe she knows something she wasn’t
able to publish at the time. While we are unable to get close to the findings
on Mars, we should look to this site in Egypt to help explain what is going on.

“Your
encounter with her, no matter how brief, does give you an icebreaker of sorts,
and she may help us find out more. I want you to find her and get more
information.” He pulled a piece of paper from the drawer and, along with the
credit card, pushed it across the desk. “This is the pin number for the
business card, which you may use as required.”

“But
Monsieur
, I am not a detective!” he
complained.

“You are a
researcher in my department. This is your research.” Larue closed the drawer
and gestured for him to leave.

As the door
closed behind him, Martín looked down at the handful of items he was carrying.
His assignment was certainly outside the normal remit of the ESA, he thought to
himself, shaking his head. But although he was initially apprehensive, he
quickly realised he’d just been given a golden opportunity to satisfy his own
curiosity, as well as that of his boss.

He strode to
his desk and opened up a browser window on his laptop, and started tracking Dr
Gail Turner down.

Seth Mallus shut the door and
took his seat opposite Dr Patterson at the imposing desk. Bright sunlight
poured through the window of the meeting room. Outside, an old man cycled past
whistling and in the distance a group of children could be seen playing with a
football on the sandy beach. Palm trees swayed gently as seagulls drifted on
the warm breeze.

Dr Patterson
was looking out of the window with interest.

“It’s amazing
what can be achieved with modern technology, Doctor,” Mallus told him. “When my
father was a boy, the most impressive computers could barely play chess. Now,
in simulator windows like this they can make us think that we are enjoying a
summer’s day in California, while in the distance, sitting at a small table,
two men who don’t even exist are themselves playing chess to the level of the
Grandmasters.”

One of the
boys playing football on the beach was arguing with the others. He was holding
the football close to his chest, and shouting at the top of his voice. Dr
Patterson could not make out what he was saying, but the outcome was clear.
Three of the other boys suddenly jumped on him, trying to wrestle the ball away
from his grip. Within a minute, they had seized it and were triumphantly
marching off to their friends, where they quickly resumed their game.
 
The first boy picked himself up from the
sand, nursing his jaw. Blood was dripping from his nose. He stole a glance at
the other boys as he retreated to the promenade by the beach. The three
dimensional effect was staggering, to the extent that had he not been assured
it was a computer simulation the thought would never have crossed his mind.

“Man will
never change, Dr Patterson. Our playground simply gets larger, the footballs
more expensive, and the games more deadly.” He swung his chair round to look at
the scientist. “The strong and powerful continue to make the rules, and there
is one absolute certainty: the longer you play, the more likely you are to get
hurt.”

Patterson
wasn’t sure what Mallus was alluding to, but his threatening tone was making
him nervous. “I see,” he lied.

Mallus leant
forward and pointed to the scientist’s folder, which he had placed on the desk
in front of him. “Tell, me; since we last saw each other, has anything
enlightening sprung to mind?” he asked.

“I’ve made
some progress, but nothing noteworthy. I was very surprised when -”

“You turned
the news on this morning?” Mallus finished the sentence for him.

“I didn’t
expect them to find it so soon. And I certainly didn’t expect to see it on TV.”

Mallus looked
at him closely then shook his head. “The leaks to the press have caused us to
accelerate our project somewhat, but there is still too much that we do not
understand regarding
Aniquilus
, too
much that you have not been able to tell us, despite your best attempts. This
is why, if all goes well, Dr Gail Turner will be joining you tomorrow to start
helping.”

Patterson
looked at him in disbelief. That he was assigned some help from one of the
other research teams was one thing, but
Dr
Gail Turner
...

“She can read
the text, from what the reports say, largely without the aid of a translating
device like you, Doctor. And you know everything about Mars and a great deal
about
Aniquilus
. Of all the people in
the list you provided me with, I believe the two of you will make the best
pairing.”

There was a
shout from the virtual world outside the window, barely audible through the
‘glass’, and Patterson looked up to see the same fight over the football
happening all over again. Following his gaze, Mallus shook his head and snapped
a command at the screen, which promptly changed to a sprawling cityscape;
Mallus’ office had gone from a beach to the topmost floor of a virtual
skyscraper.

After a short
pause to take the view in, Mallus looked at him intently. “Something has to be
done to stop it, Doctor. The book is the key, I’m certain of that. I’m also
certain that we don’t have much time left.”