George was the first to speak. “¡Hola! Ha sido un largo tiempo.” He stepped around the table to shake Yaxche’s hand, and continued speaking in Spanish: “Unfortunately, I don’t know where my funny hat is, but I wish I had it right now.”
Without the benefit of a translation program in his portable computer, Michael struggled to keep up with the conversation. His Spanish was very rusty, but he knew Yaxche didn’t speak English, so he let George do most of the talking. Whenever he could, he translated for Michael.
“We came down to Honduras to find you,” George said to Yaxche. He took a seat at the table when Oscar, with a gracious smile, motioned to two chairs and then snapped his finger for a servant to pour two cups of coffee.
“I am right here,” Yaxche said, as if that had been an obvious fact all along. There was a slight crack in his smiling façade that Michael noticed. The old man was just as much a prisoner as they were.
“Are you all right?” Michael asked. One thing he realized quickly was that Yaxche’s grandson was not present. Was he someplace else? Was he ill? Dead?
“Yes.” Yaxche nodded. “Oscar has been very kind.”
“The only thing that separates us from the beasts is manners,” Oscar said. “Please, fill your plates. Eat.”
They didn’t need any more prompting. Michael’s stomach rumbled as he loaded his dish with half a dozen strips of bacon, two hardboiled eggs, and spread jam on a hot piece of toast. He dug into his breakfast with gusto. It was a feast fit for a king, as far as Michael was concerned, especially after having had nothing to eat since the previous morning.
He wanted to grill Yaxche, but without knowing more about the situation and getting all the facts, Michael decided to hold off on his questions for the time being.
Between mouthfuls of food, George nodded to Señor Ruiz. “Perhaps we can impose on your generosity with a question?”
“Of course,” Oscar said, with a flourish of his hand.
“What is to become of us?”
“For now, the three of you will remain here as guests, so long as I have your word that you will not abuse my hospitality.” He looked into Michael’s eyes for a moment, and then George’s to ensure both men understood and agreed to the condition. “As for the future, I cannot say; though it is my understanding that you will not be ransomed.”
So they were to be held as hostages, Michael concluded. A second thought occurred to him. If they didn’t need to ransom them, then the Cruzados already had enough money to fund their operation. It was a little scary to think this organization had grown so quickly without the notice of the international security agencies.
There was still the question about where Oscar’s loyalties lay, but Michael had to assume their host would report every word of their conversation to whoever gave him orders. The entire hacienda could be bugged, for all he knew.
Although his mind screamed for answers about the events surrounding Yaxche’s kidnapping—and their own—Michael instead took a long drink of his coffee. “You are right. This is the best cup of coffee I’ve ever tasted.”
Oscar beamed with pride. “Thank you. It is from my personal stock. Only the best for my guests.”
George, picking up on Michael’s lead, asked, “Perhaps you could give us a tour of your operation sometime.”
“Of course,” their host said. He looked up as a younger man dressed in a light grey suit appeared in a doorway and nodded to him. Absently, Oscar said to George, “It would be my pleasure, but we will have to do this at some other time. Right now, I have some business matters to attend.” He stood up and bowed to his guests. “Please, finish your breakfast. Help yourselves to as much as you want. You may, if you wish, stretch your legs with a walk around our grounds. I’m sure Humberto, as always, will escort you.”
With that, Oscar took one last sip of his coffee and left the room.
Michael was chomping at the bit to grill Yaxche, but he wanted to find a place where they could have at least some semblance of privacy. Waiting until George had cleared his second helping of breakfast, he looked back and forth between his friend and Yaxche, and said, “Perhaps we could take our coffee outside, and sit for a while?”
One of the servants, picking up on Michael’s suggestion, immediately loaded a serving cart with the coffee urn, a dish of sugar and a small pitcher of cream, and led them outside to a veranda.
Half a dozen palm tree saplings had been planted in large ceramic pots and placed strategically around the veranda to provide as much shade as possible. It was still early morning, but the tropical sun was already beating down. A few dribbles of sweat began to form on Michael’s forehead and neck.
They sat in wicker chairs around a patio table, the base of which was made of carved wood, and the round top was a mosaic of various pieces of hand-cut stone.
Humberto took up a position at the edge of a set of stairs, putting himself between the hostages and the field—and possible escape. He was far enough away that, if the three of them talked in low voices, they wouldn’t be overheard. There was no way to guarantee there wasn’t a hidden microphone in their vicinity, but Michael had to assume they had enough privacy to discuss the events that had led the three of them to their present circumstances.
As they conversed in Spanish, Michael interrupted only occasionally when he didn’t understand a word or phrase. Again, he let George do most of the talking.
George started off by telling Yaxche what they knew; which wasn’t very much.
“When we arrived at your village, we were told your grandson was also abducted. Did they take him someplace else? Is he all right?”
Yaxche’s face fell at the mention of his grandson. “He was not taken,” he said. “It is my great shame to say he was the one who took me.”
Michael and George shared a surprised look. “What do you mean by that?”
“He is not the boy he used to be. He has changed. His heart, I believe, has seen too much pain.”
Concern in his voice, Michael said, “We spoke to your daughter. She told us about his fiancée.”
“Itzel,” Yaxche said in a whisper. “She was an angel, but her time was short. Te’irjiil could not forgive himself, or us.”
“You?”
“He blamed all of us—me, the village council, even our country—for not saving her. He always thought we should have sold the ancient scroll to NASA for medicine and machines.”
“But,” George said slowly, casting his eyes back and forth between Michael and Yaxche, “your daughter said he came back from a long trip with medicine and technology. If he blamed the people from your village, why would he help them?”
Yaxche stared out into the field. “It may be darkened, but I believe it is still a good heart that beats in his chest.”
Michael asked in broken Spanish, “I understand he told everyone he made the money gambling. Do you think he may have sold the scroll instead?”
“Not the scroll,” Yaxche said. “Its secret.”
Michael immediately glanced up to see if Humberto was listening in. The Cruzado was busy looking bored and chewing a dirty fingernail.
“We’ve had hundreds of cryptologists, translators and decoding computers working on that document for over a dozen years,” Michael said. “NASA has all but given up on it providing them with any significant meaning, and I believe Quantum Resources has mothballed the project.” Michael gave George a glance for confirmation of that last point. “And all this time, Alex was right; you had the secret?”
Yaxche looked down at his hands, folded on his lap. “No. I do not know the secret. I have failed my ancestors. I was entrusted with the story, but I now realize I have never understood its true meaning. I had hoped to pass the scroll on to my grandson, that he might protect it through the next generation, but his eagerness to learn the story was a trick. I saw in his eye that he discovered the truth that been hidden from me all along.” The old man fell silent while Michael’s mind raced.
What was the secret that had eluded so
many scientists and educated minds? How had a simple villager figured it out? Was it something so obvious and plain that seasoned professionals had dismissed it? Or was it a genetic puzzle that only a descendant of the first transcribers could comprehend?
George lightly touched Yaxche’s wrist with his fingers. “No one blames you. But perhaps if you could tell us exactly what happened, what sparked the Cruzados to kidnap you, we might be able to help you understand.”
Yaxche said, “For a year, Te’irjiil had sat with me every evening, reading the story with me. Talking about its meaning. He would hold up a small box—one of your computer machines—and tell me it agreed with some of the story, but not with other parts. At times he would get angry and say the scroll told nothing more than a bedtime story, and there was no meaning. That we wasted our time.
“I thought, the last night I saw him, he would once again leave our village and not return. But he asked me to tell him the story again. I do not know how he came to understand the secret of the scroll, but I saw it in his eyes. And then came his betrayal.”
Once again, Yaxche fell silent, and Michael could tell it was difficult for him to tell the tale. It was obviously very personal and very painful.
Over the past decade, Michael had read and re-read the translation of the scroll, telling the story of how the Mayan people—one of the most advanced civilizations of the pre-Columbian world—had come to the brink of extinction over a thousand years before, after a failed civil war caused their gods to abandon them. Like Yaxche’s grandson, Michael had always thought it more of a parable than fact.
Yaxche had always claimed that the story had been transcribed from the words of their ancient gods before they left Earth to return to the stars. The scrolls themselves were of human manufacture, and of biological origin, as was the ink with which the story was written. The only fact that lent credence to the scroll’s ancient link was the Mayan inscription on Dis Pater.
Goozal Kinich Ahua; Inti ba Rahn; Goozal Kukulcan.
“Beware the Mighty Door of Kinich Ahua; Eternity is now Before You; Beware the Power of Kukulcan.”
Both the scroll and the inscription on the monument on Pluto mentioned Kinich Ahua—the Mayan god of the sun—and Kukulcan—the feathered god of war who could affect the elements and cause earthquakes.
Historians had struggled to comprehend the symbology behind these ancient deities and what the scroll was trying to tell the descendants of the Mayan people. At one point, a group of physicists from Arizona had assigned each of the gods mentioned to various elements from the periodic table. They tried combining these elements with Kinemet in various formulations to no discernible results. For years, the ‘secret’ of how to effectively use Kinemet for effective interstellar travel had eluded the best minds on the planet.
But for some unknown reason, Te’irjiil—the son of a plantation worker without the benefit of a formal education—had solved the puzzle.
“Yaxche,” George said, “I hope you know that we are here to help you. Do you remember Alex Manez?”
“Yes, Colop is always in my thoughts, though I have not spoken with him in many years.”
Uncertain that what he had to say would come across correctly in Spanish, Michael asked George to translate: “Alex sent us a message from one of our space stations to find you. He said that you have the secret, even if you don’t know it. He couldn’t tell me anything more, because he fell into a fugue state.”
“Ahyah. He has had a vision, then.”
Michael understood the reply, but continued speaking in English: “I don’t know that. I haven’t had the opportunity to talk to him since then, though I received word that he had recovered. But before he went unconscious, he said I needed to hear the story. Wait—”
Eyes widening, Michael glanced up at George and said, “You know, after all this time, I just realized: I’ve read the translations and interpretations, and I listened to the recording you made when you first interviewed Yaxche, but I’ve never actually heard the story itself.”
“What do you mean? You heard Yaxche telling us the story on my recording.”
“In Spanish. And then translated into English. I haven’t actually heard it in Mayan.”
George blinked at Michael. “I’m sure we have the Mayan version on record somewhere. We had a few linguists on retainer who could interpret the Mayan glyphs, and I recall several of them reading the scroll out loud. Are you sure you didn’t access one of those recordings?”
“I don’t think so, but I also don’t think it matters. Alex said, specifically, ‘You have to hear him tell you the story.’ Not one of our linguists, but Yaxche himself.”
Shaking his head, George said, “What good will that do? Without a computer to translate, it will all just sound like jumbled words to us.”
Michael opened his hands. “At this point, what harm can it do?”
George shrugged and turned to Yaxche. “Are you able to tell us the story on the ancient scroll from memory?”
“Ahyah,” the old man said, as if the question had stung his pride. And then he closed his eyes and began to recount the tale of the end of the Fourth World in his native language.
At first, Michael strained to listen to the words and phrases, trying to find anything familiar in the lyrical sound of the story. He hoped his brain could make any kind of connection, that some kind of revelation was forthcoming.
Soon, however, he realized George was correct. It was just a big jumble of incomprehensible sounds. Out of politeness, he waited until Yaxche finished reciting the complete tale, and then turned to George to acknowledge the researcher had been right all along.
But when he looked at George, he saw in his eyes what Yaxche must have seen in his grandson’s eyes. A quick glance at Yaxche confirmed it.
Somehow, George had figured it out, too.
“What?” Michael demanded. His voice was a little too loud, and Humberto jerked his head and took a step toward them.
Raising his hands in a pacifying gesture, Michael said to the Cruzado, “Sorry. Everything is all right. We’re just debating something. A scientific point.”
With a grunt, Humberto eased himself back into his post, but he kept suspicious eyes fixed on the three of them.
Yaxche took a deep breath in anticipation of what George would say next. There was a pained look in the old man’s expression, and Michael guessed that having not one, but two people understand something he did not, something that he was entrusted with, was difficult to accept.
“What is it?” Michael pressed.
“I wish I had a computer right now,” George replied in a growl. He licked his lips. “I can’t be a hundred percent, but I think I know the key to the secret, at least.”
His eyes moved back and forth, as if scanning his own memory. “You know how, in grade school, when you wanted to remember something for a test, there were a number of mnemonic techniques you could use?”
“You mean like acronyms or acrostics?”
“Or rhymes or songs,” George said. “In this case, I think the tale itself is a way to get the teller to remember the song itself.”
Michael made a connection. “When Yaxche was telling us the tale, it did have a lyrical quality to it.” He tried to quell his excitement, in case it drew Humberto to investigate. “You think we need to analyse the story as if it were a song?”
“Not for the lyrics, but for the melody. I think the story is just that: a story. It could probably be of any subject. It’s simply there to help the keepers of the scroll remember the melody. There were certain parts of the tale where Yaxche’s voice hit a certain note and used a particular inflection. I think that’s important.”
George turned to Yaxche and spoke very quickly in Spanish, summarizing his theory.
“Yes,” Yaxche said in Spanish. “That is how I was taught the Song of the Stars. It is very important to sing those parts in the correct manner; to honor the gods.”
“The Song of the Stars?” Michael ask
ed. “That’s the title of the story? I’ve never heard mention of this in any of the translations. It’s not written on the scroll. Is it?”
“No,” George said, “but then again, no one ever asked what the name of the story was.” He let out a breathless laugh. “It’s more than a lack of translation, it’s about a lack of a common frame of reference.”
“What do you mean?” Michael felt his face flush as he couldn’t put the pieces together in his own mind.
“From Yaxche’s cultural point of view, he must have assumed we would already know that the tale was in the form of a song. After all, that’s how stories have been passed down from generation to generation. We have ballads that date back centuries.
“On the flip side, from our scientific point of view, we were so busy looking for measureable evidence in this document that we didn’t take into account the one fact that was obvious from the start.”
Michael still didn’t make the connection. “And that is?”
“The song itself is a translation from another language. Not in the literal sense of the words on a page, but as a means of passing down the melody itself.”
“Sonics,” Michael said in a gasp. “When Macklin’s Rock first reacted, the Dis Pater gave off cyclic wave emissions which corresponded with the changes in its light spectrum.”
“Different notes on the musical scale can be charted by their compression waves,” George said. “And although the difference between the wave-particles of light and the frequency in sound would be in the factor of, I don’t know, a billion hertz or so, I think there is a solid correlation, and I think this is something a suitably advanced civilization—one that used computers—could program and calculate.”
“We need to get you to a computer,” Michael said in conclusion.
“And we need to record Yaxche’s song in a sound room.”
All the while the two of them talked, Yaxche looked back and forth between them. The look on his face was a mix of consternation and panic. He had no idea what they were talking about.
George, flicking his eyes up to make sure Humberto wasn’t listening, said to the old Indian, “We need to get you out of here and to safety.”
Music of the Spheres (The Interstellar Age Book 2) Page 14
