by Paul G White
He sighed, revealing in his eyes a hint of the strain of the past couple of days. “When the first influx of scientists is on site, then anyone who wishes to leave will be permitted to do so. But, they should think very carefully before making such a decision, because a great number of reputations are certain to be made in this little corner of Central America.”
Makeman stared hard at Hendriksson for a few moments, then grinned. “OK, I’m convinced. I’ll stay.”
Helen Wightman said, “But I won’t, unless someone tells me what the hell it is we’ve discovered that is so important. All I’ve seen is the trench, but that in itself isn’t enough. There must be something else that you haven’t told the rest of us.”
Makeman glanced at the director and Hendriksson nodded. He slid over an A3 printout which had been computer-enhanced, for Helena to examine. She traced the shape of what everyone was calling ‘the artefact’, judging its size against the part of the temple lying over one of its edges. Finally she whistled. “I see what you mean. If this is what I think it is, count me in.”
“What do you think it is?”
The student gave a nervous laugh. Now that she had been asked for her opinion, she realised she had no wish to appear ridiculous in the eyes of the experienced archaeologists. She hesitated for a few moments before blurting out, “It looks like a flying saucer to me.”
Now that she had said it, she was even more certain that the artefact resembled a huge, ovoid spaceship that would not be out of place in any number of science fiction movies.
Hendriksson said quietly, and without the slightest hint of sarcasm, “Exactly, Helena. A spaceship that is at least sixty-five million years old . . . and that has remained active, despite being buried under several metres of rock and debris throughout that immense period of time.”
*
Palo Lopez leaned out of the excavator’s cab, listening intently to Hendriksson’s instructions. The huge, yellow machine had remained silent since moments after the floor of the trench had broken up into a chaos of flying debris. Now digging was to recommence, but this time there would be no spoil heap beside the trench. All the spoil from the excavation would be transferred to a huge truck and dumped further along the site.
“You want me to load all that?” He waved an arm in the direction of the existing spoil heap that lay alongside the trench. “You want all that in the truck first, Señor?”
“Yes, Palo. It’s imperative that we remove the burden from the artefact in a fairly precise manner, so that there is no danger of the sides of the trench collapsing. That means we must work all around the excavation, keeping it reasonably symmetrical. The overlying strata are deeper further out, but it is important that we excavate a substantial area of the artefact instead of the small amount we have uncovered so far.”
Lopez grinned and his teeth flashed white in the sunlight. “Si, Señor. Right away.” He fired up the diesel engine of the excavator and slipped it into forward gear. The engine growled and he manoeuvred around to the far side of the spoil heap. The dumper truck rumbled up and eased into position. The bucket dipped into the mound of rock and dirt, then rose and swivelled to release its load into the dumper. It fell into the empty vehicle with a thunderous roar, and as the sound fled away through the jungle treetops, putting birds and monkeys to flight, another bucketload hit the floor of the truck. Soon, a little over half of the spoil heap remained, and the truck was almost full.
The driver waited patiently for instructions as Lopez dug the bucket into the spoil heap and transferred another tonne of soil and rock into his truck. Major Heathcote stepped up to the dumper and hauled himself up to the cab’s window.
“Reverse down there,” he told the driver, “and I’ll tell you where to unload.”
With a shrug, Rico Chavez gave the Major the opportunity to jump to the ground, then swung the heavily laden vehicle around and reversed in the direction Heathcote had indicated. This was the strangest site he’d worked on and he had a notion it was unlikely to improve. They reached the edge of the cleared area and the tailgate encountered saplings and underbrush. Chavez looked questioningly at the major, and Heathcote grunted, “A few more metres, and that should do it.”
Accompanied by the crackling of shattered wood the massive vehicle edged backwards another five metres until the major said, “OK, that’s far enough. Now tip the lot here, please.”
With a hiss of hydraulics and a groan from the tortured saplings, the bed of the mighty dumper began to rise towards the vertical. When the load of rock and soil reached its sheer point, its mass overcame the friction holding it in place on the metal bed of the dumper and it began to slide. From that point nothing could stop it, and in a few seconds, accompanied by a cloud of choking dust, a minor hill appeared in the jungle.
Major Heathcote stepped up the metal rungs onto the dumper’s running board and peered through the open window of the cab. “I want you to build a dam from this point, in a crescent, all the way up to that outcrop.” He waved his hand in the direction of a rocky spur a few metres high, some three hundred metres away. “When you’ve done that, add more loads evenly along its length until it forms a barrier along this side of the site. Someone will let you know when it’s high enough.”
“This will be slow work, Major with just one excavator and one dumper,” Chavez commented.
“Don’t worry about that,” Heathcote replied, “more heavy machinery is on its way,” thinking to himself that it had better be, because there was a hell of a job to be done.
He jumped down from his perch and strode off up the incline to where the JCB was scooping out bucket-loads of material from the edges of the trench and piling it up, ready to load into the dumper. Too slow, he thought, and headed for Hendriksson’s tent. The director raised his eyebrows as Heathcote strode into the tent.
“Are you here to requisition reinforcements for the excavators?” he enquired, his eyes twinkling.
Heathcote nodded. “It’s a hell of a job with such limited capacity.”
The director smiled. “Two more JCBs and another dumper are on the way, courtesy of the Minister of Antiquities. If we need any more than that, Mr Hernandez assures me that he will personally see that we get them, even if he has to second them from building sites.” Since the early minutes of their first meeting with him the minister of antiquities, Juan Hernandez had undergone a sea change in his opinion of the value of the site. Now that the prime minister was involved, no reasonable request was likely to meet with even the slightest bureaucratic barrier.
Major Heathcote offered the suggestion of a salute and ducked out of the tent. It was time to check the deployment of troops with Colonel Suarez.
CHAPTER FOUR
Joseph Montàn sat uneasily on a hard wooden chair facing the local policeman, Eduardo Ortiz over a cluttered desk. He was uncomfortably aware that his story sounded like the ravings of a drunkard who was unable to leave the tequila alone. The only reason he was currently sitting here in the tiny police station in Salpet and not on his backside amongst the dust of the roadway, was that he hadn’t touched a single drop of alcohol for more than seven days. The first action of the police officer had been to smell his breath.
The policeman wiped the sweat from his brow with a sleeve of his shabby uniform, and settled his squat, overweight frame into his battered swivel chair. He absently picked at a tuft of discoloured foam protruding from a rent in the arm of the chair to give himself time to think. Nothing much ever happened in his jurisdiction but he was thinking that this was no longer the case.
To the accompaniment of a groan from his overladen chair, he said, “As you must know, Señor Montàn, Salpet is a small town of very little consequence, with a very small police presence.”
This statement had brought the art of irony to a new level: Salpet was little more than a ragged scattering of farmsteads, situated around the junction of two unimportant dirt roads, and Joseph Montàn was staring at the full complement of the only police statio
n within an area of more than a thousand square kilometres.
“Now, Señor Montàn, please go over your story once again so that I can get it straight in my mind. If I am to repeat this incredible tale to my superiors, you realise that I must have it correct in every detail.”
Montàn nodded.
“From the beginning, then . . . and not too quickly, because I will be taking notes.”
Montàn nodded once again and began to narrate his tale for the second time. “I am employed . . . sorry, Señor, was employed as a carpenter at the site of a newly-discovered Mayan temple. The archaeologists were very excited because the temple was from an early period, and at first, apart from the age of the temple, there was nothing unusual.” A tiny rivulet of perspiration trickled down his upper lip and he nervously licked his lips. “But, three days ago word spread around the site that something strange had been discovered underground, below the temple foundations.”
“Did anyone say what it was?”
“No, Señor, but the excavator operator was ordered to dig a trench ten metres from the nearest part of the temple foundations.”
“Can you guess why they would do that . . . so far away from the Mayan ruins?”
“No, Señor.”
“Carry on.”
Montàn resumed his account. “The trench grew deeper and deeper until it reached four metres and then—”
“What happened?”
“After I had fixed wooden shuttering to make it safe, two archaeologists climbed down into the trench with radar equipment, and a little while later the excavation was halted. People said that what they were looking for was too deep underground there, but it was only rumour, because none of the archaeologists were saying anything. Then another trench was opened up more than fifty metres away.”
“What did they discover there?”
“I don’t know, Señor. No one seemed certain what happened in the new trench. When the depth reached four metres the site director went in to take samples. But then soil and rocks flew into the air above the excavation as if there had been an explosion, and Doctor Hendriksson and the other archaeologist just managed to climb out in time. But—”
“But what?”
“There was no sound of an explosion, Señor, and the rocks and soil were still moving around in the trench yesterday morning when I left. And there was rumour of a smooth black object at the bottom of the trench. I heard someone use the word ‘artefact’, which means that someone must have made it.”
“I know what artefact means, Señor Montàn. And how large was this so-called ‘artefact’?”
“The rumours said that it covered most of the cleared area alongside the temple, but I don’t believe—”
“I am not asking for your opinion, Señor Montàn, I am asking what you know and what was rumoured. How big was this area?”
Montàn lowered his eyes. “Bigger than a football pitch, Señor.” He hesitated, uncertain whether to proceed. Then he seemed to find courage to continue. “People were saying that because the object was deeply buried, it must be very old . . . much older than the Mayan temple.”
“Did anyone say how old?”
“No Señor . . . just older than the temple.”
Eduardo Ortiz dropped his pencil onto the desk top and it clicked and whirred as it settled, setting Montàn’s nerves on edge. “Thank you, Señor Montàn, you may go. But, before you do, I need to know where I can find you in the event that my superiors need more information.” He slid a sheet of paper across the desk and nodded in the direction of the pencil.
Montàn duly obliged, taking great care to print out the details as clearly as possible, and then stood up to leave. Ortiz glanced at the rough scrawl and nodded. “Thank you, Señor Montàn, you have been very public spirited.
As Montàn stepped out of the police station and into the hot, dusty roadway, Ortiz began the long process of transcribing his notes into a cogent report for his superiors. Absently he picked up the receiver on his ancient telephone and listened to the dial tone for a second or so; at least the phone line was working today. Satisfied, he dropped the instrument into its cradle and began to write. Half an hour later, he picked up the phone and dialled his superior officer in Flores, sixty-five kilometres away. As he waited for the circuit to complete, he reflected that it was time to hand over the burning brand to someone with connections in high places. All in all, Eduardo Ortiz felt he was too old to be involved with ‘artefacts’ as large as football pitches.
CHAPTER FIVE
The attack came three days later at five-thirty on a clear, sunny morning. Fortunately, due to the short period of time since the discovery of the artefact, a bare handful of the foreign scientists had made it to the camp, although two bus-loads were expected from Belize City around noon that day.
The unmistakeable whump-whump of a couple of Huey gunships broke the early morning silence, the minor sonic booms of their rotor tips echoing over the hillside until the sound was swallowed by the low-growing jungle vegetation. Sergeant Jim Scott spoke quietly into his radio, “They’re here, Sir. Two Hueys and at least a hundred ground troops spread over a four-hundred metre front.”
“Are your men ready, Scotty?”
“Yes, Sir. They’re all dug in and camouflaged. I’m not sure I’d be able to spot them all if I had to.” His voice held a hint of pride in this achievement of the raw Belizean troops.
Major Heathcote raised his eyebrows in query and Colonel Suarez gave a slight wave of his hand.
“You take it, Major. All the preparations were yours and my troops will follow your NCOs’ orders in the field.”
“Heathcote grinned. “Thank you, Sir.” To Sergeant Scott he said, “Wait until the last incoming troops are past your positions, then take them. Use whatever force is necessary to subdue the enemy, but let’s not get itchy trigger fingers. It will do nothing to calm the Guatemalan military if we slaughter their troops without reason.”
“Yes, Sir!”
The first part of the strategy to deal with a small scale invasion was under way. Now it was time for the helicopters. Heathcote had set up two stone-lined bunkers for hand-held anti-aircraft missiles. If the Hueys were armed with heavy machine guns and air-to-ground missiles, his troops may be faced with little alternative but to shoot them out of the sky. The last thing that could be allowed to happen was for the artefact to sustain damage from enemy fire.
Through their earpieces Major Heathcote and Colonel Suarez could hear the whispered commands of their NCOs as the heavily armed Guatemalans picked their way upslope towards the crescent shaped barrier protecting one third of the clearing’s perimeter. Heathcote had sited the barrier well; the only natural pathway to the temple area was up the slope and all other approaches to the clearing were protected by a steep ridge.
The drumming of the helicopter engines and the whump-whump of the rotor blades drew nearer and a few of the invading troops glanced upwards as their support aircraft passed overhead. The troops were nervous. So far they had met no opposition; in fact they had seen not even the smallest sign of human activity in the low jungle. Steadily they edged up the incline, until they could see a rubble barrier several metres high, spreading through the vegetation as far as they could see to both right and left. The Hueys hovered a couple of hundred metres beyond the rubble barrier and opened fire with their 7.62 millimetre multi-barrel miniguns.
The Guatemalan troops looked on as a couple of ground-to-air missiles targeted the Hueys. The pilots skilfully carried out evasive manoeuvres and the missiles sped harmlessly past and into the blue sky. Smoke and fire bloomed behind one of the Hueys as the gunner released his own missiles. Seconds later, the troops felt a dull vibration in the air and watched open-mouthed as the Huey vanished. They saw no explosion or smoke and heard no sound, yet all that remained of almost four and a half tonnes of helicopter gunship was the tips of its rotors, which arced across the treetops in opposite directions at almost the speed of sound. The second helicopter instantly
veered to the right and set off just above treetop level at the best pace it could muster. At that point the ground troops realised that they were on their own.
*
Throughout the aeons the Comora’s shield had successfully prevented the vast mass of rubble and debris deposited by the tsunami from crushing the ship’s hull, and over the past few days the AI had watched the rectangle of blue sky grow steadily larger and more irregular in shape. And now, displaying a strange quirk of her personality, the AI, after sixty-five million years of keeping the ship and its Sha’lee crewmembers alive, was experiencing an overwhelming impatience. Why was it taking so long to disinter the ship? The Sha’lee would, after such a vast period of time, have advanced well beyond the technology of the Comora. So why was it taking so long?
The AI gave the conundrum some consideration. Her thought processes were slowly returning to the levels of long, long ago, and she felt that complete clarity was not too far away. If, she reasoned, the Sha’lee should have advanced far beyond her knowledge, and the Comora was being excavated in a slow and primitive manner, then logically those excavating the ship could not possibly be Sha’lee. She ran through her chain of logic several more times and concluded that the rescuers were almost certainly not Sha’lee. That must mean something significant, but the AI was unable, in her present state, to consider every eventuality, every nuance of the circumstances of rescue by non-Sha’lee. She decided to wait.
