Time Trial td-53

by Warren Murphy

  Lizzie jumped out of her reverie. "I'll come with you." She stepped awkwardly out of the pod, following Remo down the smooth aisle.

  "Get back," Remo said. His voice was quiet, imperative.

  "Don't bully me," she said. "I'm the archaeologist. I have every right—"

  "Get back!" He shoved her toward the pod. She fell, landing on her rump outside the open door.

  "How dare you," she seethed. But the floor was moving beneath her, and she recognized the tremors. "Earthquake!"

  "Get in there," Remo shouted, picking her up bodily and tossing her into the padded ball. "You'll be safer in there."

  The floor heaved crazily. The shock propelled Remo backward, sending him crashing against the fragile, cobwebby hangings. His back struck something hard and plastic. A knob. No, a switch, Remo thought. A plastic switch imbedded into some material that shattered like glass from the weight of his body.

  The cloth in front of it exploded into dust. Outside, in the main chambers of the temple, more rocks were falling, crashing thunderously to earth.

  "Hurry," Chiun said. He had picked the screaming woman off the floor and buckled her into one of the safety belts. The boy Po strapped himself in wordlessly.

  A good kid, Remo thought, pulling himself with small, rapid steps toward the padded pod. He's keeping his head. Chiun was right about him. He'd been right about the girl, too. Pain in the ass from the word go. Without her, the two of them would have been able to get out into the open with the boy. He was small and kept himself still. But they'd never make it with a hysterical, screaming adult hampering every movement.

  Another wave hit. Just outside the door, Remo flew off his feet again. Chiun's arm swept out to take hold of Remo's and pulled him inside the pod. He slammed the door closed.

  The old man was standing in the center of the padded chamber, his minute movements keeping him in perfect balance as the woman and the boy jolted wildly beneath their belts.

  Remo breathed deeply. The shaking was a lot less pronounced in the pod.

  "What did I tell you?" Lizzie shrieked. "We're trapped. Just as I said."

  "Score one for you," Remo said nastily.

  "We're all going to die here," she moaned.

  "For once, just shut up, okay? You're safer in here than anywhere else. We couldn't get outside now if... if..."

  He glanced around the pod. Lizzie had stopped making noise and was staring at him in alarm. The boy, too, was looking up at him, open-mouthed. Remo heard himself speaking, but the voice was not his own. It was deep, dragging, hollow sounding. Slow, growing slower, like an old phonograph record winding down.

  He looked to Chiun. The movement of turning his head seemed to take minutes. Chiun blinked, a long, lazy motion. Remo walked toward the door. He felt as if he were treading through molasses.

  "Hold," came Chiun's voice, distorted and languid. "Do... not... open... it..."

  Lizzie screamed. The sound filled the pod like a balloon, encapsulated and faraway. Her face was contorted, the mouth twisting slowly, the planes of her flesh seeming to wave like a mirage.

  Po, in slow motion, reached his thin arm out toward Chiun. The old Oriental clasped the child's hand and squeezed it.

  Remo pressed his back against the padded wall. His vision was fading, the colors in front of him dissolving to gray, then black, until there was no light, nothing but the sound of breathing in the small room: Lizzie's loud and gasping, amplified and slow. The boy's panting, sounding like a rhythmic hiss. Remo's own deep, soft intake, ringing through his ears like wind. And Chiun the Master's, barely audible.

  ?Chapter Six

  When Remo came to, the earthquake had stopped and Chiun was standing in front of the pod's open door, his hand lightly touching its handle. The old man's face showed concern. "Come here, Remo," he said softly.

  "What is it?" Lizzie groaned, unfastening the seat belt around her waist. The boy blinked sleepily, as if he had just awakened from a nap.

  "What the hell," Remo whispered as he stepped from the pod. The cobwebby gray hangings draped on either side of the aisle were replaced by bright woven cloth, stiff with gold and red paint, depicting primitive scenes of animals and children at play.

  "These are new," Lizzie said, peering at the hangings.

  Remo shook his head, bewildered. "But I wrecked two of them. They fell apart like they were made of powder. I saw it myself." He moved forward down the white plastic aisle of the craft, through the vehicle's airlock door, past a new wall recently erected around the sides of the door.

  Beyond the wall was a chamber, intact, filled with extravagant artworks: Vases encrusted with turquoise and shell, gold ornaments in shapes of fanciful animals, boxes of jade and silver, filled with pearls and precious stones.

  "It's magnificent," Lizzie whispered from behind him. "Perfect. The most perfect examples of Mayan art I've ever seen."

  "Stay back," Remo said.

  "What for? I'm as puzzled by this as you are. Why shouldn't I look?" she said petulantly, moving through the fabulous chamber. She stopped, frowning, near an eight-foot-high statue of a man, sculpted in the classic Mayan block manner except for the head, which had no features at all. Instead, sitting atop the figure's shoulders was a blank stone sphere.

  "That's odd," she said. "There's no face." She turned from the statue and picked up an oval vase sitting on a pedestal near a doorway. "Absolutely priceless," she said, turning the vase in her hands.

  A piercing scream broke the silence. Lizzie's vase dropped from her hands and shattered on the floor.

  Remo and Chiun looked at one another. The sound was one they knew, because only one creature could produce it, and in only one circumstance: it was the scream of a man succumbing to violent death.

  They searched the walls for an entrance. Remo found it, a short maze leading from the room of treasures into a third chamber. What lay inside it made his stomach churn.

  A group of men, tall and slender and dark-haired, attired in fine robes woven with intricate patterns and gold thread, were clustered silently around a four-foot-high altar where a youth— a boy of sixteen or younger— lay. His arms and legs were bound with rope. His chest was laid open, its torn flesh still bright with new blood.

  Behind the youth stood the most gloriously garbed personage of all, a man of aristocratic features and deep blue eyes that shone with the passion of a hunter after the kill. He was dressed in a gown of purest silver, and he wore a thick silver ornament on his head like a crown. His arms were heavy with bangles of jade and carved bone, and on his chest dangled a giant topaz on a silver chain.

  In one upraised hand was a dagger, large and slick with dripping blood. In the other was the still-beating heart of the youth.

  At the sight of the intruders, the finely robed men gasped and murmured among themselves. Only the one in the middle, the one holding the dying heart, remained silent. His eyes narrowed as he muttered something low and menacing in a language half fluid, half guttural, a language Remo had never heard before.

  "What'd he say?" he asked Chiun, who knew the speech of most of the world.

  The old man frowned. "I do not know," he said. "I have not heard this language before."

  "I thought I picked out certain derivatives of local Mayan speech," Lizzie said excitedly. "Maybe it's some kind of cult, or—"

  "It is the Old Tongue," the boy said softly.

  They all turned to look at him. "The Old Tongue?" Remo asked.

  "The language of my ancestors," Po said, his eyes fixed on the tall man covered with blood. "He told us to leave."

  "Gladly," Chiun said.

  The man spoke again, pointing at Remo and Chiun. His voice was deep and resonant, his face cruel.

  "What was that?" Remo asked. But the boy didn't answer. Instead, he stepped forward, his chin jutting, his face flushed, and shouted something at the man.

  As he spoke, the other members of the group around the bloody table looked uncertainly at one another, then fixedly at R
emo and Chiun. At one point, the leader of the group opened his mouth to speak, but the boy silenced him with a fresh torrent of the strange-sounding words, gesturing to the sky, then pointing again at Remo and Chiun. His childish voice took on a peculiar air of command as he spoke, standing still, his posture erect, his voice clear. When he was finished, the men standing around the table lowered their eyes. The boy snapped out another command, and they sank to their knees, chanting something in unison.

  Only the central figure remained standing, the man in the splendid robes whose topaz amulet glinted with reflected blood. He stared at Po, his eyes as cold as the dagger still in his hand.

  Po did not speak again, and his eyes never left the man's. Then, after what seemed like hours, the tall man laid down the stilled heart and the dagger, nodded once curtly, and strode out.

  "Come," the boy said. "He is taking us to his king."

  "That was some showdown," Remo said, following him through the temple toward the entrance. "What was going on back there? Should we have done something?"

  "No," Po said. "It was a sacrifice. That is their way. The man is a priest." He added, "But I do not trust him.

  "He didn't look like he was crazy about you, either," Remo said. "How'd you talk him into taking us out of here?"

  "I told him the truth," Po said.

  "Oh? You mean that we got stuck in an earthquake and somehow ended up in the wrong temple? He bought that?"

  "Well, not exactly the truth," the boy said. "I told him that we fell to earth in a flaming chariot."

  "Oh, good," Remo said. "Something believable."

  "And that he should be prepared to deal with the great god Kukulcan and his son."

  Chiun beamed. "I knew there was something I liked about this boy," he said.

  Outside the temple, the view that greeted them was a shock. The jungle brush that had all but obliterated the sunlight had been cleared. In its place was a thriving city of baked clay and cement and stone buildings, some of which were of immense proportions.

  A row of merchants in cloth covered stalls shouted to passersby, displaying a wide variety of wares: obsidian blades; tobacco in large, dried leaves; blocks of white rock salt; dried fish; stacks of dishes and pottery; masks decorated with fine colored feathers and bright paint; metal incense burners; flint; canes and staves; jade and jewelry.

  Dazed, Lizzie exlained some of the more unusual items in the stalls as they passed by. A shop displaying nothing but white spikes was, she said, the place to buy stingray spines.

  "They used to be used for bloodletting," she said, adding lamely, "Maybe they still do. Somewhere..."

  She was beginning to shake. "Calm down," Remo said. "We'll find out where we are soon enough."

  "But we didn't move!" she protested.

  "We don't know that," Remo said reasonably. "Everything went crazy once the earthquake hit. We might have moved." He corrected himself. "We had to have moved. We wouldn't be here if we hadn't."

  "But the temple—"

  "Save the questions for when we get where we're going," Remo snapped. He knew it didn't make sense that they had left in a vehicle that was buried inside a temple of rock and emerged inside another man-made structure, but Lizzie's whining complaints didn't help make things any clearer. He needed time to think.

  First, he would see whoever was in charge of the murderous strangers whose city he was in. He would ask questions; he would think. And then he might be able to piece things together.

  They passed a stall filled with small clay animal figurines. The merchant picked up a small, brightly colored clay bird and demonstrated its use by blowing into its tail. As the air rushed through, he worked his fingers over a series of holes on the bird's back. A pretty melody came out.

  "Toys," Lizzie said distractedly, plucking at her trousers. The women who walked curiously past them were dressed in bright cotton togas, the folds of the garments flowing from clasps at one shoulder. The men wore little more than strips of cloth wound between their legs. Both sexes sported elaborate hairstyles, their long black hair twisted on top of their heads and studded with ornaments. No one seemed particularly surprised at the attire of the little group.

  "This is some kind of trade center," Lizzie said.

  "Yeah. They must be used to tourists," Remo said.

  He wasn't going to waste time wondering what had happened. Somehow, the spherical pod they had been in had transported them to another place. Where was anybody's guess. But they were alive, and they were unharmed, and in the teachings of Sinanju, that was the whole game.

  A pretty woman walking a spider monkey on a leash sauntered in front of him, clacking something in her palm. She smiled. Remo smiled back. Well, that's a good sign, he thought. At least the natives are friendly.

  She walked along beside him for a while. Then, with a sly look, she opened her hand. In it were a half-dozen hard, brown beans.

  "Beans?" Remo asked.

  The girl smiled.

  "Strange customs," Remo mumbled, nodding and smiling.

  She held the beans in front of him, jerking her head upward in a question.

  "Uh— no thanks, I've just had lunch," Remo said gallantly.

  The woman frowned, looking hurt. She thrust out her breasts to him.

  "Hey, it's nothing personal," he said. "It's just that beans don't agree with me. Especially raw ones. Give me gas pockets. You know how rough those can be."

  She blinked, uncomprehending.

  "Oh, all right," Remo said, popping one of the beans into his mouth. "There. Thanks. Nothing hits the spot like a good bean or two, I always say."

  The woman stepped back a pace, looking at the remaining beans in her hand, and then at Remo. Her face carried an expression of utter astonishment. Then she drew back her hand and slapped Remo roundly across the face, propelling the monkey forward. The monkey bit him in the leg.

  "Hey, what was that for?" Remo shouted after the woman, who pranced away indignantly. "All I did was eat one of her stupid beans."

  Lizzie pulled her gaze away from the amazing sights of the town and stared at Remo. "Beans?" she asked.

  "Yeah, beans. The bean lady of the Twilight Zone," Remo said crankily.

  "What did they taste like?"

  Remo thought a moment. "Chocolate," he said finally. "It was a chocolate bean. What difference does that make?"

  "Chocolate," Lizzie whispered, her face ashen. "A cacao bean."

  "Listen, if you're hungry, go find your own bean. I'm not getting slugged again."

  "That woman was a prostitute. She wanted you to pay her in beans."

  Remo's eyebrows rose. "Sounds like pretty cheap rates," he said.

  "For now. Not for five thousand years ago."

  "Again with the museum lectures," Remo said despairingly.

  Lizzie continued, undaunted. "During the third millennium B. C., cacao beans were used as currency. They were the medium of exchange. There's even evidence that there were counterfeiters who filled bean skins with dirt."

  "Okay, Lizzie," Remo said wearily. "I promise you that while I'm here I won't go into the funny bean business."

  "Don't you know what I'm saying?" she shrieked. "The clothes here. The buildings. Sting ray spines, for God's sake. Everything points to it. Even the temple."

  Feeling a shiver run down the back of his neck, Remo turned to look at the building where they had left the curious round plastic pod. In the place of the moss-covered ruin was a magnificent pyramidal edifice, six stories tall, tiered and decorated in bright colors.

  "Everything points to what?" Remo said cautiously.

  "You know perfectly well," she said softly. "This is not another place. It's another time."

  Stunned, Remo walked quickly to the boy and took him by the shoulders. "Po, I want you to ask that priest where we are," he said. "And when."

  Po spoke to the priest. After a haughty silence, the tall man answered.

  "The name of the place is Yaxbenhaltun," the boy reported.
/>   "And the date?"

  "He says it is nine tun, eighteen uinal."

  "What?"

  The boy shrugged.

  "The time measurement the ancient Mayans used," Lizzie said. "A tun is a year. A uinal is a period of twenty days. This present moment is roughly ten years after the event of 3114 B. C.," she said, her voice hushed with excitement.

  "Are you crazy?" Remo shouted, appalled. "You're saying that we've gone back in time. Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? How impossible?"

  Chiun, who had kept silent since their confrontation with the priest, spoke. "Nothing is impossible," he said softly.

  For a moment, all four of them stood staring at the sparkling new temple in the middle of a thriving city.

  A city that had been dead since the time of the Pharaohs.

  ?Chapter Seven

  They were led to a huge low building near the great wall separating the city from the farmland outside on the outskirts of the endless jungle. Like the temple, the wall was constructed of stones cemented by mortar and rubble and coated with bright white stucco. Orange tiles covered the vast roof, and a lush garden of tropical flowers outlined the fanciful walkways leading into the building's canopied entrances.

  In the stone foyer was a statue like the one in the temple, depicting the figure of a man topped by a blank sphere in place of a head. The priest led them silently past the bronze-colored guards dressed in white loincloths, their heads and spears festooned with ornamental quetzal feathers, up an elegant curving staircase of stone. They walked through a long hallway whose walls were brightly painted with scenes of men playing ball. Finally they entered a large airy room filled with priceless pottery encrusted with gems. Its high ceiling was decorated with painted moldings and rounded archways leading to adjacent rooms.

  In the center of the main room where they stood were three statues. Two smaller plaster figures, around six feet tall, flanked a larger central statue. The central figure was, again, the ever-present man whose head was a blank sphere.

  "I recognize the two smaller ones," Lizzie said. "The one on the left is Ah Kin, the Mayan God of Light, and that's Ah Chac, the Rain God, on the right. But I still can't figure out the one in the middle. That statue seems to be everywhere, and yet I've never seen one unearthed."