"Sorry, Max," said Yaeger, without a deep sense of regret. "We were busy."
"You didn't spend but a few hours on the project," said Pat naively. "Did you strike out?"
"Strike out, hell," Max snapped. "I can tell you exactly what you want to know."
"Start with how you came to your conclusions," Yaeger commanded.
"You didn't think I was going to calculate movement of the stars myself, did you?"
"It was your project."
"Why should I strain my chips when I can get another computer to do it?"
"Please, Max, tell us what you discovered."
"Well, first of all, finding the coordinates of celestial objects in the sky takes a complicated geometric process. I won't get into boring detail on how to determine the altitude, azimuth, right ascension, and declination. My problem was to determine the sites where the coordinates engraved in the rock of the chamber were measured. I managed to calculate the original sites where the observers took their sightings within a few miles. Also the stars they used to measure deviations over many, many years. The three stars in the belt of the constellation of Orion, the hunter, all move. Sirius, the dog star, who sits near the heel of Orion, is fixed. With these numbers in hand, I tapped into the astrometry computer over at the National Science Center."
"Shame on you, Max," admonished Yaeger. "You could get me into big trouble raiding another computer network."
"I think the computer over at NSC likes me. He promised to erase my inquiry.
"I hope you can take him at his word," grunted Yaeger. It was an act. Yaeger had tapped into outside computer networks for unauthorized data hundreds of times.
"Astrometry," Max continued unperturbed, "in case you don't know, is one of the oldest branches of astronomy, and deals with determining the movements of stars." Max paused. "Follow me?"
"Go on," Pat urged.
"The guy in the computer over at NSC isn't up to my standards, of course, but since this was an elementary program for him, I sweet talked him into working out the deviation between positions of Sirius and Orion when the chamber was built with their present coordinates in the sky."
"You dated the chamber?" Pat murmured, holding her breath.
"I did."
"Is the chamber a hoax?" Yaeger asked, as if afraid of the answer.
"Not unless those old hardrock Colorado miners you're worried about were first-class astronomers."
"Please, Max," Pat begged. "When was the chamber built and the inscriptions engraved on its walls?"
"You must remember, my time estimate is give or take a hundred years."
"It's older than a hundred years?"
"Would you believe," Max said slowly, dragging out the suspense, "a figure of nine thousand."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying your chamber was chiseled out of the Colorado rock sometime around 7100 B.C."
<<15>>
Giordino lifted the Bell-Boeing 609 executive tilt-rotor aircraft straight up into a Persian blue sky outside Cape Town, South Africa, just after four in the morning. Taking off like a helicopter, its twin prop-rotor engines tilted at ninety degrees, the huge propellers beating the tropical air, the aircraft rose vertically, until the tilt-rotor was five hundred feet off the ground. Then Giordino shifted the controls of the mechanical linkage that enabled both prop rotors to swing horizontal and send the aircraft into level flight.
The 609 seated up to nine passengers, but for this trip she was empty except for a bundle of survival gear strapped to the floor. Giordino had chartered the plane in Cape Town because the nearest NUMA research ship was more than one thousand miles away from the Crozet Islands.
A helicopter could not have made the 2,400-mile round trip without refueling at least four times, and a normal mold-engine aircraft that could go the distance would have had no place to land once it reached the volcanic island. The Model 609 tilt-rotor could land any place a helicopter could and seemed the ideal craft for the job. Depending on the freakish whims of the winds, the flight should average four hours each way. The fuel would have to be monitored closely. Even with modified wing tanks, Giordino calculated that he would only have an extra hour and a half of flying time for the journey back to Cape Town. It wasn't enough to ensure a mentally soothing flight, but Giordino was never one to play a safe game.
Thirty minutes later, as he reached 12,000 feet and banked southeast over the Indian Ocean, he set the throttles at the most fuel-efficient cruise setting, watching the airspeed indicator hover at slightly under three hundred miles per hour. Then he turned to the small man sitting in the copilot's seat.
"If you have any regrets about joining this madcap venture, please be advised that it's too late to change your mind."
Rudi Gunn smiled. "I'll be in enough hot water for sneaking off with you when the admiral finds out Fm not sitting behind my desk in Washington."
"What excuse did you give for disappearing for six days?"
"I told my office to say I flew to the Baltic Sea to check on an underwater shipwreck project NUMA is surveying with Danish archaeologists."
"Is there such a project?"
"You bet your life," replied Gunn. "A fleet of Viking ships that a fisherman snagged."
Giordino passed Gunn a pair of charts. "Here, you can navigate."
"How big is St. Paul Island?"
"About two and a half square miles."
Gunn peered at Giordino through his thick glasses. "I do pray," he said placidly, "that we're not following in the footsteps of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan."
Three hours into the flight, they were in good shape fuel-wise after picking up a tailwind of five knots.
The Indian Ocean slowly vanished as they entered overcast skies that came from the east, bringing rain squalls and turbulence. Giordino climbed to find smooth air and blue skies again, rising above white puffy clouds that rolled beneath them like a stormy sea.
Giordino had the uncanny ability to sleep for ten minutes, then pop awake to check his instruments and make any course alteration suggested by Gunn before dozing off again. He repeated the process more times than Gunn bothered to count, never varying the routine by more or less than a minute.
Actually, there was no fear of becoming lost and missing the island. The tilt-rotor carried the latest Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation equipment. With the GPS receiver measuring the distance to a string of satellites, the precise latitude, longitude, and altitude were calculated, and the data programmed into the aircraft computer so Gunn could determine course, speed, time, and distance to their destination.
Unlike Giordino, he was an insomniac. He was also what Giordino often called him-- a worrywart.
Gunn couldn't have relaxed if he was lying under a palm tree on a Tahitian beach. He constantly read his watch and checked their position in between studying an aerial photo of the island.
When Giordino came awake and scanned the instrument panel, Gunn tapped him on the arm. "Don't drift off again. You should begin your descent. I make the island forty miles dead ahead."
Giordino rubbed water from a canteen on his face and eased the control column a slight inch forward.
Slowly, the executive tilt-rotor began to descend, thrown about as it dropped through the turbulence from inside the clouds. With nothing to see, Giordino could have simply watched the altimeter needle swing counterclockwise, but he kept his eyes fixed on the white mist swirling past the windshield. Then, suddenly, at 5,000 feet they emerged from under the overcast and saw the ocean again for the first time in three hours.
"Nice work, Rudi," Giordino praised him. "St. Paul looks to be about five miles ahead, less than two degrees off to starboard. You as good as hit her right on the nose."
"Two degrees," Gunn said. "I really must do better next time."
With the turbulence behind them, the wingtips stopped fluttering. Giordino eased the throttles back, the roar of the engines falling to a muffled hum. The heavy rain had subsided, but rivulets of
water still streaked across the windshield. Only now did he turn on the wipers, as he aimed the bow of the plane over the high cliffs that shielded the island from the relentless onslaught of the sea.
"Have you picked out a spot to set down?" asked Giordino, staring at the little island and its single mountain that seemed to rise up out of the sea like a giant cone. There was no obvious sign of a beach or open field. He saw only 360 degrees of steep rock-covered slopes.
Gunn held up a magnifying glass in front of his eyes. "I've gone over every inch of this thing, and have come to the conclusion that it's the worst piece of real estate I've ever seen. It's nothing but a rock pile, good only for supporting a gravel company."
"Don't tell me we've come all this way only to turn back," Giordino said sourly.
"I didn't say we couldn't land. The only flat area on the whole island is near the base of the mountain on the west side. Looks like little more than a ledge, maybe fifty by a hundred feet."
Giordino looked downright horrified. "Not even in the movies do they land helicopters on the sides of mountains."
Gunn pointed through the windshield. "There, on your left. It doesn't look as bad as I thought."
From Giordino's angle, the only level site to be found against the mountain looked no larger than the bed of a pickup truck. His feet finessed the rudder pedals as his hands stroked the wheel on the control column, correcting his angle and rate of descent with the elevators and ailerons. He thanked heaven that he had a head wind, even if it was only four knots. He could see the rocks scattered across his tiny landing site, but none looked large enough to cause damage to the aircraft's undercarriage. One hand came off the column and began manipulating the levers operating the prop rotors, tilting them from horizontal to vertical until the aircraft was hovering like a helicopter. The large-diameter propellers began sending small stones and dust swirling in damp clouds below the landing wheels.
Giordino was flying by feel now, head turned downward, one eye on the approaching ground, the other on the sheer side of the mountain not more than ten feet beyond the starboard wingtip. And then there was a slight bump as the tires struck the loose rock, and the tilt-rotor settled like a fat goose over her unhatched eggs. He let out a great sigh and pulled back on the throttles before shutting down the engines.
"We're home," he said thankfully.
Gunn's owlish face crinkled into a smile. "Was there ever a doubt?"
"I've got the mountain on my side. What's on yours?"
During the landing, Gunn's attention had been focused on the side of the mountain, and only now did he look out the starboard window. Not more than four feet from his exit door, the ledge dropped off at a steep angle for nearly eight hundred feet. The wingtip hung far out over empty air. The smile was gone and his face pale when he turned back to Giordino.
"It wasn't as expansive as I thought," he murmured sheepishly.
Giordino threw off his safety harness. "Do you have a route to the chamber figured out?"
Gunn held up the aerial photo and pointed to a small canyon leading up from the shore. "This is the only way a hunting party could have penetrated the island and made their way up the mountain. Pitt said that according to the ship's log, the colonel and his party climbed halfway up the mountain. We're about at that level now."
"What direction is the ravine?"
"South. And to answer your next question, we're on the west side of the mountain. With a little luck, we won't have to hike more than three-quarters of a mile, provided we can stumble onto the ancient walkway the colonel mentioned."
"Thank God for small islands," Giordino murmured. "Can you detect the old road on your photo?"
"No, I can't see any sign of it."
They proceeded to untie the straps containing the survival gear and donned their backpacks. The rain returned in sheets, so they slipped foul-weather gear on over their clothes and boots. When ready, they threw open the passenger door and stepped to the rocky ground. Beyond the ledge was the sheer drop, and beyond the drop, nothing but the Indian Ocean and gray pewter waves. As a safety precaution, they tied down the aircraft to several huge boulders.
The threatening sky made the island seem all the more drab and desolate. Gunn squinted through the rain and motioned for Giordino to lead, pointing in the direction he wanted to follow. They set off diagonally across the slope of the mountain, staying inside the larger rocks where the ground was flatter and firm beneath their feet.
They struggled across small ledges and narrow crevices, trying to walk upright without resorting to mountain-climbing gear, a skill in which neither was proficient. Giordino seemed impervious to fatigue.
His thick, powerful body took the climb over the rocks in stride. Gunn had no problems, either. He was wiry and far tougher than he looked. He began to fall back from the unyielding Giordino, not from weariness but because he had to stop every twenty yards to wipe the moisture from his glasses.
About midway across the west side of the mountain, Giordino came to a halt. "If your reckoning is right, the stone walkway should be a short distance above or below us."
Gunn sat down with his back to a smooth lava rock and peered at his photo, which had become dog-eared and soggy from the damp. "Assuming the colonel took the path of least resistance from the ravine, he should have worked his way across the mountain about a hundred feet below us."
Giordino crouched, placed his hands on slightly bent knees, and stared down the slope. He seemed entranced for several moments before he turned back and looked Gunn full in the face. "I swear to God, I don't know how you do it."
"What do you mean?"
"Not thirty feet below where we sit is a narrow road paved with smooth rocks."
Gunn peered over the edge. Almost within spitting distance, he saw a road, a path really, four feet wide, laid with stones long aged by the weather. The path traveled in both directions, but landslides had carried much of it down the slope. In the cracks between the stones, a strange looking plant was sprouting. It had lettuce-like heads and grew close to the ground. '
"It must be the road described by the British colonel," said Gunn.
"What's that weird stuff growing in it?" asked Giordino.
"Kerguelen cabbage. It produces a pungent oil and can be eaten as a cooked vegetable."
"Now you know why the road was indistinguishable on the photo. It was hidden by cabbages."
"Yes, I can see that now," said Gunn.
"How did it get established on such a godforsaken island?"
"Probably by its pollen that was carried across the water by the wind."
"Which direction do you want to follow the road?"
Gunn's eyes scanned the flat-laid stones as far as he could in both directions until they were lost to view. "The colonel must have stumbled onto the road down to our right. Below that point it must have been destroyed by erosion and slides. Since it makes no sense to start at the top of the mountain and work down, the chamber must be hidden farther up the slope. So we go to the left and climb."
Stepping cautiously on the loose lava rock, they quickly reached the neatly laid stones and began ascending the road. The flat passage was a welcome relief, but landslides were another matter. They had to cross two of them, each nearly thirty or more yards wide. It was slow going. The lava rock was jagged and knifelike. One slip and their bodies would tumble down the slope, gathering momentum until they bounced over the cliffs far below into the sea.
After negotiating the last hurdle, they sat and rested. Giordino idly picked a cabbage and flipped it down the hill, watching it bounce and shred on its erratic journey. He lost sight of it and did not see the splash as it shot into the water like a cannonball. Instead of lessening, the atmosphere chilled and thickened. The wind gusts strengthened and whipped the rain against their faces. Though they were protected by foul-weather gear, the water found ways of seeping in and around their collars, soaking their inner clothing.
Gunn passed him a thermos of coffee that had go
ne from steaming hot to lukewarm. Their lunch consisted of four granola bars. They weren't quite in the realm of miserable just yet, but they would soon enter it.
"We must be close," said Gunn, gazing through binoculars. "There is no hint of a long scar continuing across the mountain beyond that big rock just ahead."
Giordino stared at the massive boulder that protruded from the side of the slope. "The chamber better be on the other side," he grunted. "I'm not keen to be caught up here when it gets dark."
"Not to worry. We've got almost twelve hours of daylight left in this hemisphere."
"I just thought of something."
"What's that?" asked Gunn.
"We're the only two humans within two thousand miles."
"That's a cheery thought."
"What if we have an accident and injure ourselves and can't fly out of here? Even if we wanted to, I wouldn't dare take off in this wind."
"Sandecker will mount a rescue mission as soon as we notify him of our status." Gunn reached into his pocket and pulled out a Globalstar satellite phone. "He's as close as a dial tone."
"In the meantime, we'd have to subsist on these stupid cabbages. No, thank you."
Gunn shook his head in resignation. Giordino was a chronic complainer, and yet there was no better man to be with in a bad situation. Neither man had a sense of fear. Their only concern was the possibility of failure.
"Once we enter the chamber," Gunn said loudly, his voice carrying above the wind, "we'll be out of the storm and can dry out."
Giordino needed no coaxing. "Then let's move on," he said, rising to his feet. "I'm beginning to feel like a mop in a pail of dirty water."
Without waiting for Gunn, he pushed off toward the rock about fifty yards up the ancient road. The slope steepened and became a cliff towering above them. Part of the road had fallen away, and they were forced to pick their way carefully past the rock. Once around, they encountered the entrance to the chamber under a man-made archway. The opening was smaller than they thought-- about six feet high by four feet wide-- the same width as the road. It yawned black and portentous from inside.
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