The Cydonia Objective mi-3

by David Sakmyster

“Nope. Listen, the word used for God is Elohim, which is plural—gods, or more precisely, ‘beings from the sky’. And get this, the Hebrew word for ‘in the beginning’ can have two meanings. Either the literal ‘in the beginning’, or it could mean with the beginning. Or put another way: ‘with what remained of the past.’”

  He let that digest. “So what Genesis could be saying is the same as what a lot of other creation myths the world over speak of: Advanced beings—or planets representing gods, or both—battled in the heavens, and their warfare resulted in massive cosmic destruction, reordered the heavens and created new worlds, our own included.”

  Diana cleared her throat. “With what remained, the gods created the sky and the earth.” She took a sip of water. “So many creation myths the world over. And so many similar beliefs about a savior as well—one who dies violently and is reborn. And whose blood and body are then consumed by the survivors to either sustain life or to grant eternal life. The Mali tribe has Nommo, who is continually crucified to a tree, his body and blood taken into the earth, creating seeds that feed the people the next spring. There are so many more—Tammuz, Odin, Mithras, Quetzalcoatl, and of course, the original savior-god, Osiris, who was murdered, cut into pieces and sent to the underworld before he rose up and is now situated in heaven—not coincidentally at the destination point for the worthy in the afterlife.”

  Temple nodded, but saw that his guests’ eyes were glazing over. “Okay, flash forward a couple billion years—or a half million, depending on how radical you want to take all this. In the more distant history, a huge planet—we’ll call it Tiamat—collided with another body out beyond Mars, and the collision created the Earth and also the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The moon—one of Tiamat’s satellites, remained with the Earth, basically forming a dual planetary system. Tell them Diana, about the moon.”

  She stood up, took a deep breath.

  But Orlando cut her off. “You’re not going to tell us that we never went there, are you? All that Hanger 18 crap? Because, I’ll tell you—I RV’d a lunar mission once. And it was real, not filmed on any stage.”

  “Oh, we went there all right,” Diana said. “But I’m guessing you didn’t see much more than that—a visit and a landing, or you wouldn’t be talking so calmly about this.”

  “Maybe…” Orlando said, glancing at Phoebe. “I didn’t ask the right questions, those kinds of questions.”

  “It’s okay,” Temple said. “If you had, you would have either gotten the shield or some unwanted visions, things that have made other psychics give up ever working for us again.”

  “Okay… I’m not sure if you’re joking or not, but sorry, continue. What’s wrong with our moon?”

  Diana took a breath, then started. “Our moon, by all theories, shouldn’t be there. It’s a celestial freak of nature. It’s too large—the ratio between satellite and master the largest in the system, and dynamically impossible to explain. It’s one-quarter the diameter of Earth. The next largest satellite circling a planet is Titan, but it’s only one-eightieth of Jupiter’s diameter.” Diana took a breath. “No theory explains how it could have been ‘captured’. Also its orbit should be elliptical like most captured satellites, not perfectly circular. And for that matter, it shouldn’t be in a perfectly synchronous rotation.”

  “A what?” Phoebe asked.

  “Our moon is at the perfect distance and rotational speed so that it always shows us the same face. That’s a near impossibility to achieve through chance.”

  “So…” Orlando left the question out there. But Diana ignored it.

  “For centuries astronomers and stargazers have been reporting unusual things up there—just on the side that we can see. Strange lights, pulses. Objects that seem… geometrical and show up where nothing existed before, like a twelve-mile ‘bridge’ over the Sea of Crisis viewed in 1958. Other strange anomalies include seven obelisk-shaped spires six-hundred feet tall near a gigantic rectangular depression in the Sea of Tranquility.” She took a sip of water. “The seas themselves, the enormous dark areas you can see with the naked eye, are plains of fused soil requiring temperatures greater than forty-five hundred degrees to produce. NASA speculated that ancient cosmic bombardment must have occurred, the equivalent of billions of H bombs.” She rubbed her hands together, continuing without focusing on anything but the table top.

  “There have been unusual radio signals coming from the moon, reported early on by Marconi. Nicolas Tesla—more on him later—speculated that someone was up there, and we should be prepared. And the craters themselves—they often defy theoretical models.”

  “Like how?” Orlando asked. “I’ve seen pics, they seem normal to me.”

  “From down here, maybe. But their depth is wrong. For example, a one-hundred-fifty mile wide crater was found to be only three miles deep. Something that huge, causing such an impact, would have gone much deeper, unless the mantle was some kind of tougher material than anything we could expect. And… the bottom of the crater was found to be convex, instead of the other way around.” Diana shook her head. “So many anomalies, and I’ve barely started.”

  Temple refilled her water. “Go on, quickly. Get to the good stuff.”

  She stared at her glass, the swirling liquid. “Since the beginning of the lunar program, there have been miscalculations, problems and… unusual missteps. The first few missions overshot the moon as mission control discovered to their surprise that they had miscalculated the moon’s gravitational pull, expecting a much greater mass, given the moon’s size. After adjusting again, early landings struck harder and faster than planned—and created a metallic ringing upon impact. And speaking of landing, the original craft and crew were prepared to be caught in a deep sea of dust, as should have been the case, given the moon’s extreme age, its lack of atmosphere and its direct exposure to dust-producing solar rays. But there was relatively little dust, less than an inch.”

  Diana pushed a button and all the main screens went black, then started up with a presentation. “What I’m about to show you,” she said, “are photographs captured by the early Apollo missions. There are a lot of these pictures, and they tend to be overwhelming after a while. None of these have been seen before by anyone outside of NASA—and only there to a select few.” She tapped a key on her laptop and the screens went black as she talked. “From the beginning,” she said, “there have always existed two space programs.”

  10.

  Liberty Island

  After breezing through the shortened security checkpoint, where the crowd impatiently waited out the rain, Caleb bypassed the museum entrance and opted for the stairs up to the top of the fort section and base. He ran through puddles, his face turned against the driving rain. Before the entrance, he glanced up at the dizzying height of the pedestal, and again had a flashback to Alexandria, a vision two thousand years old, with Roman galleys assailing the structure’s base under churning storm clouds, a brazier of fire lit high above, and the huge mirror blasting a light through the gloom.

  Inside, he emerged directly into the center of the structure, with metal mesh floors and a steep staircase bending around the central shaft supporting Liberty’s frame. He had a moment of vertigo and had to grab a railing.

  “Tough climb,” said one of the park attendants, sitting at this ground level station and working on the newspaper’s crossword section. He was in his sixties with a gray mustache and spindly fingers. “Take the elevator if you like, gets you to her feet at least. Then you still gotta climb. You have crown access?”

  Caleb flashed him his pass. “Yeah, I think I will travel in style as long as I can. But first, tell me. What do you know about the cornerstone?”

  “Masonic dedication, all that Dan Brown stuff? Why, you think there’s some secret treasure stashed inside there?”

  Caleb choked on a laugh. “Um, actually I’m a professor at Columbia. Just thought I’d do some research for a history class.”

  “Yeah, it’s down there a
t the base. Hard to get to, especially in a storm.”

  “And the box?”

  “Sealed up good, from what I heard. But I’m sure there’s a way into it. I’d have to check with the director. Don’t get much questions about it, actually.”

  “Is he here? The director?”

  “At the administration office you passed on the way off the ferry. You should’ve probably set up an appointment.”

  “Yeah, this was kind of last minute.” Caleb stood there, dripping, trying to decide what to do.

  “So, you wanna go up, get your money’s worth? Least it’s not too stifling hot up there like normally. Usually a couple people fainting every day. Keeps me busy.”

  Caleb started for the elevator, deciding to at least check out the crown while he had the chance. And he didn’t know how close Nina was. She might not have recognized him in his tourist disguise, but she would know where he was going. “Oh,” he called back. “One more thing. What’s below the base?”

  “Under the old fort, you mean?”

  “Yeah, ever been down there? I’m wondering about how far down it goes.”

  “Just a storage level. Nothing else I’ve seen anyways or heard about. Why, you think maybe there’s some Nazi base down there or a secret government lab?”

  “No, sorry.”

  “Maybe the lair for the true shadow government!” The attendant was really playing it up, and becoming annoying.

  Caleb wiped the rainwater from his face. “You really need to get out more.”

  The guard shrugged. “A lot of time for thought in here. Time to wonder about all sorts of things.”

  “Wondering’s not a bad pastime.” Caleb entered the elevator and let the attendant send it on its way.

  “See you on the way down,” the guard called. “Unless the government assassins get you first and make it look like an accident!”

  During the ascent, as Caleb marveled at the precision of the supporting interior structure of Batholdi’s design, he had a moment to think. He tried to find a way to refine the search, but kept coming back to the one thing that had stifled him before.

  Find out what Patton had done with it.

  He knew the general had secured it from among the treasures found defended by the Nazis in Nuremburg, knew that he had recognized it as something special, something powerful. And after researching it, he’d petitioned Eisenhower to keep it as a tool for America, but had his request denied. It was ordered back to Vienna to be displayed at its national museum. That was a request Patton refused, and secretly had a replica made of the lance, and that copy substituted in its place while the original found its way here. Somewhere…

  Where? That’s when the visions broke down and he couldn’t find the right questions to probe. He had been asking what Patton had done with it, and that only led to visions of a ferry not unlike the one he had just taken, to Liberty Island where Patton remained on the boat, just nodding confidently at the results of his efforts.

  Where was it? Caleb probed again, thinking. It had to have been handed off to someone he trusted. Someone who had access to the Statue. An administrator, an attendant, a worker… An engineer? Caleb thought again of the men he had seen working on the torch. Still, it seemed more likely that the cornerstone and secret box contained the prize, but not only was that too obvious, but discovery was too likely. If anyone decided to open it up for study, the anomalous weapon would cry out for explanation.

  That tended to rule out the cornerstone, which left the crown or the torch, or some secret passageway to an underground complex, something unknown to the conspiracy-minded security guard downstairs.

  The elevator finally slowed, then the doors opened and he emerged at the top of the monument’s base. Looking up at the winding staircase shaped like a double helix, he got dizzy all over again. Now comes the hard part. He really wished he knew if it was up there, or if this was all a waste of time. Time he didn’t have.

  He looked down. People were starting to climb, a few who had braved the drenching rain. He lingered for a moment, and was about to turn away when he saw a flash of red, way down there.

  She’s coming.

  #

  Before taking the stairs, Caleb glanced out the side exit to the viewing balcony. The day had turned a dismal shade of gray, with sheets of silvery rain pelting the platform, dripping down the exit’s frame and flooding in rivulets to overflowing drainage vents.

  Up the stairs now. Ascending through the skeleton with its crisscrossing metal beams, Caleb marveled at the interior of the garment, the incredibly thin copper sheets joined by iron bars. Two stairs at a time he climbed, while he heard others coming down the other side of the helix, seemingly less taxed with the descent. Caleb ran, pulling himself along using the railing. He slipped as his sloshing sneakers lost traction at one point, painfully banged his right shin, then got up and kept moving.

  Come on, he urged, trying to stimulate his powers during the physical exertion, and he was again reminded of that night in Alexandria when Nina had taxed him fully, exhausting his body to the point his mind broke free and soared.

  Gasping for oxygen now, feeling the air thinning, his temperature rising, the muscles in his legs and arms taxed to the extreme. He dared to look up and saw he was only halfway to the top.

  He tripped again, hammering his elbow on the cool metal and nearly banging his head against the side railing. And then he lay there, heart thundering and the back of his neck pulsing.

  Groaning, he opened his eyes…

  And looked down at himself… wearing dark blue coveralls. A tool belt… and holding a leather satchel, with something inside wrapped in several layers of leather padding. Ascending these very stairs. Nervously gripping the satchel tight.

  A flash and a rumble of thunder. Caleb felt the statue sway in the storm winds. He held both railings to steady himself, then pushed himself upward. One glance down sent him to hugging the far side of the stairwell, and for a second he again felt like Demetrius, the first librarian of Alexandria, during his tour of the Pharos. Keep going, almost there. He thought about his other boys, the twins he’d never seen. They were up here just a day ago. Searching for the same thing. Searching for the spear, to keep it out of his hands.

  So they knew, or at least had the same sense that it wasn’t in the cornerstone or somewhere underground.

  It had to be up there. The certainty fueled his muscles and he climbed again. Rounding another bend, then another. One more tentative glance down, and his heart leapt. Nina emerged from the pedestal entrance, flanked by three men in dark suits. All of them looked up at once.

  And Caleb’s breath fled in a rush. This was it. He could still make it, assuming he could find and extract the spear quickly, then make it back to the descending staircase when it split at the crown and then get back down before they saw him. He rushed up the remaining flights, calling on every ounce of energy. Finally, he reached the last bend and then he was into another separate staircase leading up to the crown.

  Now completely gassed, he joined a half-dozen people under the white ridged interior of her skull. Several viewers had climbed to the walkway and were gazing out the windows over the harbor and looking up to the torch. The temperature up here was twenty degrees hotter even than the interior at the base. Sweltering and oppressive, the sweat was dripping off him. He flung off the hat, figuring it was useless now. And he turned his attention to the crown, the spikes especially–

  -and had a glimpse of men standing outside in bowler hats, wresting a new spike in place, replacing a damaged section.

  Too early, he thought. But it showed him that they could be hollow, and easily contain something. Where did that worker hide it? Come on, show me!

  A few other people were looking at him funny. Someone asked if he was okay, another told him to sit and rest. But their voices had faded, along with their images, and he had shifted back, back… almost seventy years.

  The man in coveralls…

  Heading up a la
dder, with the heavy satchel over his shoulder. Climbing the narrow, tight rungs, climbing…

  Into the arm!

  Caleb pushed away from the concerned person bending over him. “It’s in the torch,” he muttered. “I’m in the wrong place. Damn it!”

  “This is the crown,” said the man, and Caleb focused and was surprised to see it was the Asian tourist from the ferry. “Hi there, you bought that extra ticket. Sorry it was such a bad climb, but you’re here. You made it!”

  “No,” Caleb whispered, trying to stand. “Have to get to the torch.”

  “The torch? No way, wish we could, the view would be sweet, but it’s been closed to the public since 1916. Some kind of attack on munitions plant nearby. The explosion damaged the arm and the torch, and no one’s been allowed in since.”

  Caleb shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Where’s the ladder?”

  “Back down a bit, I guess. I saw it and took some neat pictures. You have to cross over a narrow walkway, then climb up through the arm. It looks really tight. And dangerous.”

  Nodding, Caleb patted the man’s shoulder. “Wouldn’t expect otherwise. Thanks.” He stumbled for the descending stairs.

  “But there’s no way you’ll get in,” called the tourist. “If you need to see the torch so bad, why not just go to the museum lobby? The original one’s down there…”

  Caleb froze. The pounding of steps below, on the ascending stairs, was getting louder. Nina was closing in. His head snapped back. “The original? How long ago was it moved?” He cursed himself for being so careless. A quick review of the history on the statue’s website might have told him all this.

  The man scratched his head and looked at his wife, who had just now come down from the observation area. She met his questioning eyes. “The original torch? I remember—the changes made to it by that sculptor—the one who designed Mount Rushmore…”

  “Gutzman,” Caleb said, recalling the man working on the torch, retrofitting the windows with amber.