Trifariam, The Lost Codex (2012)

by Diego Rodriguez

  These lines that scientists call hieroglyphs were created by the Nazca people, who started to inhabit this region of Peru in the year 200 BC. In recent years, hundreds of drawings covering all kinds of designs have been unearthed. They range from the most simple of geometric shapes to intricate representations of animals, all of them etched into the desert surface and spanning an area of hundreds of square miles. The figures can be as long as over eight hundred feet and, in the majority of cases, are usually made up of lines less than a foot deep.

  “Do you know how they made those figures?” Judging by the intonation of the question, Mary already knew the answer.

  Before Richard had time to suggest a plausible theory, James began to speak. He was passionate about this subject. “I’ve read all kinds of absurd ideas. They were originally thought to be markings from where extraterrestrial spacecraft had landed. This idea was ruled out pretty quickly, and it was instead suggested that the ancient inhabitants might have been aware of modern methods of transport such as the hot air balloon, overseeing construction from the highest land.” James paused, saw the looks of expectation on his friends’ faces and continued speaking. “Think about how unbelievable it is that they were able to create such perfect figures in such a way that they can only be seen clearly and completely from the sky. Others believe that they ingested hallucinogenic substances which allowed them to separate their bodies and minds. It is currently thought that those responsible worked with a small model and went about expanding it with painstaking measurements on the ground. In fact, you can see how the curves are all similar. The basic idea was to design an initial curve and then create the others using the first as a base.

  Richard smiled. “They were created over two thousand years ago, so how come they can still be seen?”

  “The cold currents from the south Pacific arrive here creating a narrow band of desert. Trapped between the ocean and the Andes, the mists come inland but don’t produce rain, thus creating one of the most arid places on Earth, on par with the Sahara Desert. Even though really strong gusts of wind blow across the plateau, they lose most of their power when they reach the ground, which prevents the lines from being erased.”

  The loudspeaker of the aircraft had been activated. The pilot advised his passengers that they were over the Nazca Desert, between the towns of Nazca and Palpa. “The fuel is running low, so I’ll only be able to fly round once,” he announced before signing off.

  Hundreds of gigantic figures appeared scrawled on the ground as if some eccentric artist had tried to convey his most extravagant thoughts, the earth itself his huge canvas. The trio surveyed the beautiful scene from different windows in the plane, letting out small sighs as they gazed in admiration.

  Close up, these lines are simple furrows in the ground. However, although they may at first seem like a conglomerate of trails when they are observed from the sky, if the whole picture is studied rather than the individual tracks, then the reward is an image which is hard to forget.

  “Look! It’s a spider!” exclaimed Richard, pointing to a magnificent figure created with undeniable perfection.

  In spite of it not being the ideal time to see them, given that the sun wasn’t low enough and the relief wasn’t accentuated, with a little squinting they could make out the numerous figures below. They included geometric shapes, labyrinths and curves, as well as various representations of animals, plants and people.

  In the distance, Mary made out several figures resembling birds that were over eight hundred and twenty feet long, among which were the outlines of giant hummingbirds, condors, pelicans, parrots, herons and cranes.

  “Come here!” shouted James as he looked through one of the windows on the other side of the airplane.

  The image of a gigantic monkey with a coiled tail was etched at the foot of the shadow projected onto the plain by the aircraft. Curiously, its hands had been drawn with different numbers of digits, and it was possibly one of the most stunning images on the plateau.

  “Even today, it’s still not known exactly what their purpose was,” said Mary, continuing the previous conversation. “A close relationship has recently been discovered between the different images and the constellation Orion, given that its stars are reflected in some of the figures. It is believed that the ancient inhabitants used the ground to mark out the position of the stars at the precise moment in which water filled the thirsty valleys. Given that the constellation of Orion moves through the year, they had to create new figures on the ground which represented that apparent shift of the stars.”

  “In other words, they dug a calendar into the ground and they knew what time of year it was from the way in which Orion was pointing.”

  “Exactly! However, other hypotheses attribute the carvings to old rituals. It is a very arid and dry area in which water is very scarce. The periods of drought must have been extremely harsh in this region. It is thought that people walked along the routes making offerings of agricultural produce and livestock to their gods. Their only aim was to invoke water.”

  “Do you know how much importance ancient cultures gave to astronomy?” asked James.

  “I was just thinking that,” said Richard. “Nazca and Egyptian cultures seemed to be very knowledgeable about the constellation of Orion. There must be common link between all those cultures which made them focus on that one constellation.”

  “Not only that,” said Mary. “I think they may even have had similar gods. Look at that figure!”

  The aircraft was flying skillfully over the area but at great height, which made it difficult to look at the smaller-sized figures. Despite this, the men immediately knew which figure the woman was referring to; a sinister-looking snake with aggressive features stood out in the direction in which she was pointing.

  “The Egyptians used a serpent to represent the evil god of the Underworld. His name is Apep, the ‘Destroyer’. According to them, he lived in the Underworld, and, every night, he would try to destroy the god Ra, or the Sun. You might have already heard of him by his Greek name, Apophis.”

  “What did you say?” asked James, pale-faced.

  “I said that the serpent - “

  “No! What’s the name of the deity?!”

  “… Apophis.”

  A cold silence washed over the whole aircraft.

  James sat down as he rubbed his scalp with his fingertips. His friends kept asking him what the matter was. Eventually, he looked up and faced them with an anguished expression. “I think I know what’s going to happen on Earth.”

  Chapter 39

  James burst into the flight deck. The captain had communicated with air traffic control at the Mexican airport just a few minutes before, informing them of his intention to touch down as soon as possible. The air stewardess looked at James’ terrified face with concern. Mary and Richard followed him into the cabin, firing a load of questions that James hardly answered.

  “Have you got any means of contacting somebody on the ground?”

  The question took the pilot by surprise. He slowly removed the headphones from his head and looked thoughtful for a few seconds. Finally, he shook his head.

  “The airplane doesn’t have any communication system?” James asked again, both incredulous and upset at the same time.

  “Yes, but on the last flight with Mr. Williams, a lightning bolt destroyed the telephone system. Nowadays very few airlines allow telephone conversations with the ground and they usually make passengers switch off their cellphones when the plane is taking off, in order to ensure they don’t interfere with the aircraft’s navigation system. This means they avoid having to spend large sums of money on equipping the planes with these systems. That day, the lightning bolt destroyed the aircraft’s OnAir antenna, which is where the user would connect their handset and it would provide satellite connection to the cellphone networks on the ground.”

  “And it hasn’t been fixed?”

  “They’ve sent us a new one, but it doesn’t work properly bec
ause it only allows data to be exchanged via the internet and not - “

  “So… does the plane have internet access?”

  “Yes,” stated the pilot without understanding his intentions. “But you said - “

  “Never mind about that. Could we get connected to the internet?”

  It seemed like the captain was going to refuse his request, since the only place they could connect securely to the internet was in Mr. Williams’ office, through his personal computer. Albert had always been a very unsociable person when it came to his privacy and possessions. He had strictly prohibited any member of crew who traveled with them from entering the office. It was like a sacred temple which nobody could enter unless they were invited to do so. However, the words of the old man had been very clear: “Do everything they ask, that’s an order.”

  After carefully mulling it over, he nodded at the air stewardess who, without missing a beat, stood up and went to the old man’s office.

  She stopped when she reached the door. It was as if she wasn’t sure about what she was about to do, nor the repercussions that might follow. She took a deep breath, turned the key, courageously gripped the doorknob and opened it. Albert’s personal computer was situated on the middle of the only desk in the room, next to a forty-two-inch plasma screen with webcam.

  Anybody who knew the least bit about Albert’s character would immediately know that that office could not have belonged to anybody else. He must have been a real art fanatic.

  The parquet floor covered with beautiful Persian carpets made them forget that they were inside an airplane. The walls were decorated with genuine canvases which would be the envy of any museum of contemporary art. Suddenly classical music began to play; perhaps it had programed to start right at the very moment that somebody came in through the door. It was the famous Masonic composition “Adagio for wind instruments - K411”, by Mozart.

  Richard immediately noticed the fantastic coincidence of how Albert had chosen that piece to go along with his stepping inside the room. Ever since it had been first written, that composition was designed to accompany the solemn entrance procession of lodge members at their meetings. The parallel with current circumstances was even more curious.

  While the three of them were looking around the room puzzled, the air stewardess had turned on the old man’s computer and after she had checked that it was working correctly, she left the room and closed the door, still unsure about what she was doing.

  “What’s going on, James?” asked Mary, confused.

  “You’re about to find out. It’s best that a real expert in the subject explains it to you.”

  The professor firstly checked that the computer had internet connection and was even more shocked to learn that Albert had installed a program to communicate with each other easily. The person he was looking for must have been working in his office around that time, so with a little luck he would be connected to the internet.

  After logging in with his username and password, a drop-down menu appeared before him. He started to search through his available contacts until he found a message that made his eyes light up.

  ROBERT (ONLINE): “DO YOU EVER FEEL LIKE A STAR IS GUIDING YOUR WAY?”

  He quickly double-clicked on his name and a new window opened. He clicked on the video call button without hesitation.

  Richard, who was leaning on the upper right corner of the television with his elbow, jumped when it suddenly switched itself on. The webcam on top of the plasma screen began to turn around, configuring itself and recognizing all the space around it. It seemed that the laptop was connected to the television and that it was used for videoconferences.

  After a few minutes’ wait, a short beep was heard in the office. In the emerging window appeared the following message:

  VIDEO CALL ACCEPTED. PLEASE WAIT…

  The professor was overcome with nerves once again. He was anxious to have his ideas confirmed, although he already feared that he was right. The gray image on the screen gave way to the face of man who was younger than them, around thirty years old, with a clean-shaven face and gelled hair. His glasses seemed to be the latest Dolce & Gabbana model, giving him an even more sophisticated air.

  Richard recognized him at once. It was James’ younger brother.

  Chapter 40

  “How are you James? You’ve caught me at a bad time, they’re waiting for me to join them for coffee.”

  “Wait!” exclaimed the professor, getting out of his chair and stretching out his right arm. “We have a problem and we need your help.”

  Robert remained frozen in front of the monitor for a few seconds. Although they had a cordial relationship, he considered his brother to be a very arrogant person who found it enormously difficult to ask for help. As children they would compete to solve different mathematical problems they found in old books abandoned in the attic. James would always solve them before his brother. However, on one occasion Robert found the solution much quicker than he did, breaking the usual cycle. This made James so nervous that he couldn’t think straight for hours, leaving him unable to solve the problem. At no point did he accept his brother’s multiple offers of help and he spent almost a whole day trying to solve it.

  In light of all these memories, it was extremely difficult for him to believe that his older brother was now asking him for help. The great James Oldrich has finally pulled down his pants and asked for help. It can’t possibly be true. It must have been something of huge importance because he hadn’t even told him about his recent separation from his wife. “How can I help you?” he finally asked as he sat down.

  “First of all, let me introduce you to Mary. I met her in Florence and she’s been involved in this matter since the very beginning. She’s been a great help over the last few days.” Robert raised his eyebrows in surprise, since he hadn’t even noticed that she was there. “This is my brother - a renowned astronomer who will be able to shed some light on this matter,” he whispered into Mary’s ear. “Could you tell us something about the meteorite ‘Apophis’?”

  At the mention of the word meteorite, both Richard and Mary turned to look at James, speechless.

  “Yes, of course,” replied Robert politely. “Apophis is the name given to the asteroid which was discovered to be orbiting the Sun in June 2004, and whose trajectory is close to that of our planet. According to data disclosed by NASA, the asteroid will pass very close to the Earth in the years 2029 and 2036. However, any slight collision with another asteroid could knock it off course and towards our planet, producing an effect which would be more devastating than that of forty thousand atomic bombs.”

  Richard had turned considerably pale and begun to stammer. “That asteroid… is it big?”

  Robert replied laughing. “It depends what you mean by ‘big’. It belongs to the Aten group of asteroids, which include all those whose orbit around the Sun is smaller to that of the Earth. The orbital period of Apophis is 323 days to be precise, crossing the Earth’s orbit twice every time it goes around the Sun. At first it was thought to be larger than four hundred yards in size, but a deeper study eventually gave us a measurement of two hundred and fifty yards, its mass being 2.1 x 1010kg.”

  Mary, who had until then remained silent, asked a question nervously. “Is there any possibility of the asteroid crashing into Earth?”

  “Yes,” replied Robert in a melodramatic voice. “After carefully analyzing its trajectory, it became apparent that on 13 April 2029, the asteroid will be so close to Earth that it will be visible to the naked eye. It will come so close to our satellites that it will most probably destroy them all, causing tremendous damage to the telecommunications network. However, recent studies have completely rules out the possibility of a collision that year, but there’s a high chance that the asteroid will visit Earth in 2036. In fact, they’ve already mapped out the route it will take and where it will land.”

  “What?!” Mary was completely outraged. “They know that an asteroid is going to collid
e with Earth and they still haven’t done anything about it?!”

  “It has only been classified for the time being. It has been graded as a Level 4 on the Torino Scale and a 1.10 on the Palermo Scale, the highest an asteroid has ever registered. So, it does have astronomers worried to some degree because any collision with another asteroid could dramatically alter its path and make it crash into Earth much sooner.”

  Just then, the aircraft turned sharply to the left as it gradually began its descent. The roar of the landing gear as it opened out went unheard by the trio. It seemed that they would at last be touching down in Mexico after countless hours traveling.

  “Where do they think it will land?” asked Richard in a panic.

  “The first hypotheses claim that it will cross the Pacific Ocean hundreds of miles from the coast of California and Mexico, it will continue between Nicaragua and Costa Rica and over the Caribbean Sea, crossing Colombia and Venezuela, ending its journey in the Atlantic just before reaching Africa.”

  “Robert, do you know if any procedure is currently being followed to destroy or divert it?”

  “Are you familiar with the comet Tempel 1?”

  “Yes, I think I’ve heard about it at some point.”

  Robert raised his eyebrows in surprise and continued to speak. “Tempel 1 is a comet of considerable size, around nine by two miles. In 2004, NASA created a mission under the name ‘Deep Impact’. Their intention was for the space probe of the same name to launch a projectile which would crash into the comet’s surface at around twenty three thousand miles per hour, causing a giant crater. The mission was a complete success. The collision caused a gas and dust cloud which spread for around 1100 miles, even affecting the communication system of the probe which was only three hundred miles away. And although the projectile hardly altered the course of the comet, it is thought that it will provide enlightening data on the origins of the universe, extremely important information about their composition, as well as facilitating the study of alternative methods for diverting them with a greater likelihood of success.”