Two thousand feet down and we haven’t even touched solid ground yet.
Lex rose and drew a flare from her belt. A moment later a cool, flickering blue glow illuminated a scene of ethereal beauty. They were not in a cave, but in a grotto. The vast chamber was lined with stalactites and stalagmites, like crystal fangs in a sparkling glass jaw. In this light, everything shimmered and pulsed. The ancient ice was translucent, and like the heart of a diamond it seemed to radiate with an inner brilliance.
Sebastian gasped. “It’s… beautiful.”
“Quite the way you have with words,” Lex said, approaching him.
Ahead, the grotto opened into a much larger space roofed by a vast ceiling vaulting into the darkness.
“No telling how large this cavern is,” Sebastian said.
Lex touched his arm. “By the way, thanks for the heads-up back there.”
Sebastian grinned. “Well, seeing as Antarctica is the most hostile environment on God’s Earth, I just figured we should be looking out for each other.”
Lex laughed. “Nice to know someone was paying attention to my lecture.”
Maxwell Stafford stared apprehensively into the darkness beyond the grotto. “Let’s get those lights up.”
“Any second now, boss,” Connors replied.
“How do those cables look?”
Dane grinned. “Nobody’s talking to us from up there, but the generator’s still humming.” He touched the wires together, and a spark leaped between them. “These cables are hot.”
“Good,” said Max. “Let’s start hooking them up.”
Charles Weyland rose and crossed the grotto. The descent had taken its toll on the man’s weakened constitution—his shoulders slumped, and he seemed more haggard and drawn than Max had ever seen him, even during the worst of the chemotherapy.
“I don’t understand,” Weyland said, breathless. “No equipment. No sign of another team—”
“Well, this tunnel didn’t dig itself.”
“We have power!” cried Connors.
Max nodded. “Let’s light her up.”
All at once, multiple banks of halogen floodlights blinked to life. For a few seconds the sudden brilliance and the twinkling reflections off the ice blinded them all. Squinting against the glare, it was Lex who slowly lowered the hand shielding her eyes.
“OhmyGod.”
Sebastian, who had turned his back on the intense light, spun around at Lex’s gasp—and was instantly transfixed.
“It’s awesome,” Miller cried. “Awesome…”
A massive pyramid towered over them, its top brushing the roof of the cavern. The structure had smooth sides and a narrow stairway comprised of hundreds of steps running up one side. It was obvious to Sebastian that this structure was the largest pyramid ever discovered, dwarfing the Great Pyramid of Giza by half.
Sebastian lurched forward, eyes devouring every inch. The pyramid’s surface seemed intact and unblemished, though the icicles that hung from the stone blocks partially obscured the details beneath. The smoothly carved steps—each one shimmering with ice—led to a flattened pinnacle at the top. Along those stairs pictographs were visible, even from this distance—and Sebastian immediately deduced that the characters were neither Egyptian nor pre-Colombian yet seemed vaguely reminiscent of both.
“This is…” Thomas’s voice died.
“Impossible?”
“Amazing, Sebastian,” Thomas said softly. “Simply amazing.”
Lex rested a hand on Weyland’s shoulder. “Congratulations. Looks like you’ll be leaving your mark after all.”
Weyland nodded, and despite his suffering, he managed to offer Lex a broad smile.
“Look! Farther in the ice,” Sebastian called. “A whole temple complex! Connected with a ceremonial road. The overall design looks like an amalgam of Aztec, Egyptian and Cambodian… but those hieroglyphics… I think they reflect all three languages.”
Thomas lifted his eyebrow. “Is that possible?”
“If it’s here.” Then Sebastian pointed. “It looks like an entrance down there, at the base of the pyramid.”
Weyland stepped forward to face the explorers. “Thank you all for this,” he said in a voice that sounded surprisingly vigorous. “Let’s make history.”
While Max gave orders for Connors and Dane to secure the base camp, the others gathered equipment—flashlights, lanterns and flares, mostly, but also cameras, chronometers and compasses, Miller’s chemical and spectrum analysis kits, extra oxygen tanks for Weyland, a first-aid kit, plenty of canteens and even a few provisions.
After departing the grotto, the group crossed the broad, broken ice plain stretching right up to the base of the pyramid. Along the way, their footsteps echoed hollowly, a dull and insignificant sound, swallowed up by the enormity of the ice cavern.
On the trek it became clear to Lex that Weyland was getting weaker. Max carried extra oxygen tanks, which Weyland hit on intermittently. Most of the time, the industrialist relied on his ice pole to walk, but as they crossed especially treacherous patches, he was compelled to lean on Stafford for support.
A short, ceremonial stairway—with thirteen steps, Sebastian noted—led to the pyramid’s yawning entrance. The door was somewhat narrow but very high. Through it, the pyramid opened into a long hallway lined with many more hieroglyphics than were etched on the exterior of the structure.
Thomas and Sebastian traced the ancient writing with their flashlights and pointed out various characters, pictographs, or cartouches, speculating on possible translations.
“I recognize the Egyptian, but not the other two,” said Thomas, pointing to three sets of inscriptions carved into the floor in front of the door.
“The second line is Aztec, pre-conquest era,” Sebastian explained. “Third is Cambodian. Looks like a mixture of Bantu and Sanskrit.”
Sebastian looked up to find Lex watching him. “Impressed?”
A smile tugged at the corners of her full lips. “Maybe.”
“Then you were right,” Weyland said. “The pyramid does contain all three cultures.”
“That’s what it looks like,” Sebastian said. “This goes against every history book that’s ever been written.”
Thomas got down on one knee and traced his fingers along the carved pictographs.
“ ‘You may… choose… to enter’?” He paused in his translation and rubbed his neck. “Or maybe it’s ‘Those who choose may enter…’ ”
“It’s like an ancient welcome mat,” said Miller.
Sebastian stepped forward and gazed at the inscription. “Who is the incompetent who taught you to translate?”
Thomas grinned. “Funny, he looks just like you.”
“It’s not ‘choose,’ partner… it’s ‘chosen,’ ” Sebastian declared. “ ‘Only the chosen ones may enter.’ ”
While they theorized, Verheiden pushed Thomas aside and moved forward, into the pyramid. The first step he took through the door landed his booted foot on an ornate stone tile, activating a hidden trigger. No one noticed as the team moved across the threshold into the entranceway.
CHAPTER 15
Inside the darkest heart of the great pyramid, where none of the Weyland explorers had yet ventured, infernal machines awoke with a throaty rumble. Within a vast stone chamber dominated by a central pool of swirling, ice-cold vapor, clanging reverberations erupted from deep beneath the surface mist.
Barbed, razor-sharp chains dangled down from narrow slits in the high vaulted ceiling and extended deep into the pool’s billowing, spectral haze. The chains stirred and clanked, then were suddenly pulled taut as invisible pulleys hauled a massive object out of the simmering pool.
First to emerge was a long, curved bone crest patterned with wavy, rippling contours resembling coral. The bony crest was etched with fine cracks, like ancient ivory. Its hard, horned borders were pierced by spiked hooks welded to the chains. An eyeless, elongated head jutted out from just beneath the crest.
With each rotation of the invisible pulleys, more of the creature was revealed. The elaborately shaped head rested on a long, segmented neck swathed in an osseous shell and corded with machinelike tubes. The creature’s knobby backbone was roughly the length of a blue whale, and it was traced by sharp, curved spikes. The torso was protected by a thick protuberance, which tapered down to an impossibly thin, almost skeletal waist and pelvis.
Long black pipes splayed out from both sides of the creature’s back, and thin, wiry-tendoned, insectlike arms were fronted by hands that looked eerily human. The overall contours were graceful, feral, and lean. Though impossibly huge—larger, even, than the legendary Tyrannosaurus rex—the imposing creature appeared to possess strength, speed, and agility.
Apparently, it was also quite dangerous. In addition to the cruel-looking restraints piercing its hooded crest, the monster’s arm joints and wrists were bound by barbed chain, as were its rib bones, collar bones, and shoulder plates—all in an effort to immobilize the creature.
And there was more.
Visible through the mist was an immense machine with a grotesque, almost organic appearance. Hoses filled with frozen liquid, twisted wires and tubes that resembled chicken gizzards emerged from this machine and penetrated the creature’s body in a hundred different places, like some savage, medieval torture device. Many of the thickest tubes clustered around the monster’s lower abdomen, where, directly below the tapered pelvis, a bulging, segmented, near translucent tail merged completely with the machine in a bizarre, biotechnological symbiosis.
As more of the creature was raised above the shifting vapor, additional shackles were revealed—restraints were bound to every extremity. As the chains drew tighter, the alien’s arms were forcibly outstretched until the elongated head lifted into a strangely regal pose and the creature’s bony crest radiated outward like an obscene halo.
With a final clank, the chains locked. Splayed in midair over the pool like a great dragon caught in flight, the Alien Queen floated, motionless. Icicles of frozen drool hung from her toothy jaws, and a sheen of frost covered her black hide, making it difficult to discern where inhuman flesh ended and biomechanical device began.
With a sudden, sharp crack the ice around the creature’s muzzle shattered. Spears of ice fell away, then huge chunks followed as the crack widened into a rift, dropping more and more ice into the swirling vapors below.
With a bestial hiss, the Queen’s great jaws opened wide to reveal a secondary mouth inside the first. Gnashing its teeth, the Alien’s fangs chewed empty air. Almost immediately, the Queen launched into a paroxysm of rage, struggling against the unbreakable chains that held it captive. Limbs were thrashing, teeth were grinding, and chains were clanking as the creature tossed her head from side to side in a futile effort to escape.
The struggles continued for long minutes, sending ice and hot spittle splashing in every direction. But soon the creature surrendered, sagging limply on her own chains. The Alien Queen discovered that despite her immense size and preternatural strength, inside of this chamber she was nothing more than a prisoner and a slave, serving a cruel, as of yet unnamed master.
Inside of the biomechanical contrivance, energies were generated and pumps began to churn. Electrical and chemical impulses were transmitted through the myriad tubes and wires buried deep in the Alien Queen’s body, to activate specific portions of the monster’s anatomy.
The Queen’s lower abdomen began to quiver. Red ooze churned and bubbled beneath the surface of the tail’s clear skin. The armored flesh above the pelvis convulsed, and gouts of clotted bile gushed onto a long metal slide that connected the mechanism to a long conveyor belt.
The first birth was painful.
The Queen thrashed, rattling her chains. Then, with tremendous effort, she lifted her head, strained against the hooks that grasped her crown, and emitted a high-pitched screech as she opened the fleshy flap on the underside of her tail and released a leathery sack. Coated with ooze, the egg literally slid down the incline, coming to a rest in a shallow stone cavity.
The block of stone carrying the egg slid along a recessed track cut into a ledge that ran along the wall until it reached another machine. Here robotic arms looking more like an abstract sculpture than functioning machinery emerged from a crevice in the wall.
A powerful laser light bathed the egg to reveal its contents—a motionless malformation. With a metallic hum, the machine rejected the egg, and it continued its journey along the ledge until it approached a stone door that slid open with a grating sound.
Beyond that door a furnace roared, its burning light filling the chamber with a hellish, unnatural glow. The stone carried the egg to the threshold of the furnace, then dumped it in.
When the Alien Queen saw her egg being destroyed, she again exploded into action—straining against the chains in an effort to rescue her doomed progeny. Minutes later, another egg rolled down the conveyor, to be rejected and immolated too, as was a third egg.
But when the fourth egg was scanned, the form floating inside reacted by thrashing its whiplike tail about. Another pair of robotic arms emerged from a trapdoor in the wall, seized the fertile egg and carried it off.
The Alien Queen strained once more against the chains and let out her anger and frustration by howling loud enough for her cries to reverberate throughout the massive pyramid.
CHAPTER 16
Lex paused in the pyramid’s entranceway, listening. She could swear she’d heard something—a disturbing howl like the shriek of a wild beast. She looked around at her companions, but no one else seemed to have noticed.
After a moment, Lex shrugged, deciding it was her imagination.
“It’s perfectly preserved,” Thomas marveled. “These carvings are as pristine as they were the day they were etched into the stone.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Sebastian murmured. “The hieroglyphics look to be some kind of hybrid language containing both Aztec and Egyptian characteristics. Perhaps an Ur-language—a lost and forgotten tongue that was the mother to all human languages.”
Miller had his spectral analysis kit out and was already working. He blinked at the digital readout that appeared on his tablet PC.
“This reading says these stones are at least ten thousand years old.”
Sebastian shook his head. “That’s impossible. Check it again.”
“I already did.”
“Amazing,” said Weyland.
“If you like that, you’re going to love this,” Lex called, waving her flashlight to get their attention. She was standing on the threshold of a pitch-black corridor that led even deeper into the massive pyramid.
Weyland hobbled forward, his pole clicking on the tiled floor. Sebastian and Thomas raced up to Lex, their expressions eager. But before they could enter the tunnel, she waved them back. The rest watched as Lex placed a small strobe light on the floor behind her and another on top of a carved stone shelf.
“They’ll burn for six hours. We’ll be able to find our way back.”
Then she led them forward, into a short passage ornamented with carved stone lintels and lined with elaborate pictographs. At the end of the passage, there was another door—more impressive than even the entranceway. The doorjambs were engraved with thousands of hieroglyphic characters and framed by stout bas-relief columns.
“This is obviously the central ritual chamber,” Sebastian whispered, his tone reverential. “The reason this structure was built.”
Probing the darkness, their flashlights illuminated a mammoth circular stone chamber with a high ceiling that arched into the shadows. The walls were covered with terra-cotta columns etched with the same hieroglyphics, the floor dominated by seven raised stone slabs, each the size of a large man and each occupied by a mummified corpse. The slabs were arranged head to head in a circular shape like the petals of a flower. In the center of the circle was a carved stone grille. Beneath that grille, all was dark.
Weyland tou
ched a cold stone slab. “These are…?”
“Sacrificial slabs,” said Sebastian.
“Just like the Aztecs and the ancient Egyptians. Whoever built this pyramid believed in ritual sacrifice,” Thomas explained.
Lex directed her flashlight beam toward the far wall, at a mound of human skulls six feet high. “You can say that again.”
“My God,” Max Stafford whispered softly.
Miller leaned over a cadaver. “It’s almost perfectly preserved.”
Like the others, this corpse had been freeze-dried by the harsh environment. Flesh and tendons still clung to the bones. The dead man wore a ritual headpiece and a jeweled necklace, its stones and precious metal gleaming dully under the dust of millennia. Though there were no injuries beyond a hole below the rib cage, the face on each mummy was contorted, jaws gaping as if frozen in agony.
“This is where they offered the chosen ones to the gods,” said Thomas.
Miller gingerly touched the remains. The flesh was leathery, the bones calcified to roughly the texture of stone.
Meanwhile, Sebastian played his flashlight across one of the slabs. Darkened spots stained the surface—mute testament to the ritual slaughter this chamber had witnessed.
“Those that were chosen would lie here,” he told the others. “They weren’t bound or tied in any way. They went to their deaths willingly… men and women. It was considered an honor.”
“Lucky them,” said Lex. She ran her fingers around a circular, bowl-like indentation at the base of the slab. “What’s this bowl for?”
Sebastian shrugged. “Opinions vary. Some archaeologists think it’s where the heart was placed after it was torn from the body… the living body.”
Weyland shone his flashlight through the stone grate in the center of the floor. “Look at this!”
Max struck a flare and dropped it through the grate. Crouching over the hole, he watched while it fell. Everyone heard it strike something.
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