The Third Gate Part 18

Another swipe of the handkerchief. "The first time was--let me see--almost two weeks ago. I'd forgotten something in the communications room and I came back here to get it just before going to bed. There was a beeping, then a bunch of electronic noise from the LEO."

"What time was this?"

"One thirty in the morning."

Logan made a notation. "Go on."

"The second time was the night before last. With Perlmutter in Medical, I had to do everything myself. There was a backlog of jobs, so I came here after dinner to finish up. It took me longer than I expected. I was just doing the final log entries when there was that beeping again, and the LEO woke up. Scared the d.i.c.kens out of me, I can tell you."

"And what time was this?"

Fontaine thought a moment. "One thirty. Like the first time."

Awfully punctual for a mechanical gremlin, Logan thought. "How does the phone work, exactly?"

"Pretty straightforward. You establish the satellite link, check the upstream and downstream numbers. From there, it depends on what you're transmitting. You know, a.n.a.logue or digital, voice, URL page, e-mail, and so forth."

"And I a.s.sume, from what you're telling me, the phone has no built-in timer--it can't wake itself to send or receive a message."

Fontaine nodded.

"Do you maintain a log of all sat phone use?"

"Sure do. Dr. Stone insists on logs of everything--who made the request, where the transmission was sent, what was included." He patted a row of thick black binders that resided on a shelf behind him.

"Does the phone maintain an internal log as well?"

"Yes. In flash RAM. You have to manually erase it from the front panel."

"When was the log last erased?"

"It hasn't been. Not since the site's been live. To do so requires a pa.s.sword." Fontaine frowned. "You don't think ..." His voice trailed off.

"I think," Logan said quietly, "that we should take a look at that internal log. Right now."

37.

When Logan was called to a meeting in Conference Room A to review the previous day's initial penetration of the tomb, he a.s.sumed the group would be as large as the first conference he'd attended, when they'd a.s.sembled to discuss the generator accident. Instead, he found the big room to be relatively empty. There were Fenwick March with one of his a.s.sistants, Tina Romero, Ethan Rush, Valentino, one or two others he didn't recognize.

Looking around at the small group, Logan decided that perhaps he could bring up his discovery, after all.

Stone entered, his personal secretary following in his wake. Closing the door, he walked past the two circles of chairs to the front of the room and took up position before the whiteboard.

"Let's begin," he said briskly. "Please keep your reports brief and to the point. Fenwick, I'll start with you."

The archaeologist shuffled some papers, cleared his throat. "We've already begun to put together an inventory, based on the video a.n.a.lysis of chamber one. Our epigrapher has begun recording the inscriptions. And once Dr. Rush has given the okay, we'll send the surveyor down to begin making a detailed survey of the room's dimensions and contents."

Stone nodded.

"Our art historian has been a.n.a.lyzing the paintings. Her opinion--based for now only on the video evidence, of course--is that they are among the oldest known of Egyptian tomb paintings, almost as old as those at Painted Tomb One Hundred at Hierakonpolis."

"Very good," said Stone.

"While on visual inspection the artifacts appear to be in excellent shape, considering their age, there were several that could clearly benefit from careful stabilization and restoration. The black-topped jars and some of the beaded amulets, for example. When can we begin the process of tagging and removal?"

This prompted an angry chirrup from Romero.

"First things first, Fenwick," Stone told him. "The chamber needs to be gridded, mapped, and p.r.o.nounced safe. Then we can proceed to the actual artifacts."

"I don't need to remind you that our time is growing short," March said.

"No, you don't. That's why we're going to press on with all speed. But we are not going to rush things, risk either the tomb or ourselves with undue haste." Stone turned to Romero. "Tina?"

Romero stirred. "It's a little early to get into specifics. And of course I still need to examine the tablets and papyri more closely. But what I've found so far is somewhat confusing."

Stone frowned. "Explain."

"Well ..." Romero hesitated. "Some of the inscriptions seem to have been carved and painted a little crudely--as if they were rushed."

"You forget we're dealing with the archaic period," March sniffed. "The First Dynasty. Egypt's skill with the decorative arts was still in its infancy."

Romero shrugged, clearly unconvinced. "In any case, many of the items and inscriptions are unique to Egyptian history. They speak of G.o.ds, practices, rituals, and even beliefs that are at odds with the conventional wisdom; with what followed in later periods--the Intermediate Periods, the New Kingdom."

"I don't follow," Stone said.

"It's difficult to describe, because everything's so new and unfamiliar, and I've just begun to a.n.a.lyze it. But it's almost as if ..." She paused again. "When I first looked at the inscriptions, at the names of the G.o.ds evoked, gender, sequence of ritual, that sort of thing, it almost seemed as if ... Narmer got it wrong. But then of course I realized that was impossible. Narmer was the first: this is clearly the oldest tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh ever found. So I can only a.s.sume that, well, the transfer of Narmer's beliefs and practices to future generations was faulty. It's as if his descendants didn't understand what Narmer was trying to do, and so they aped it, ritually, without fully fathoming it. See, there are certain things about ancient Egyptian ritual that we still don't comprehend, that seem self-contradictory. It's entirely possible that--if we reexamine these now, in light of the Narmer 'original'--we'll be able to pinpoint the differences and articulate them. I'll know more once I've a.n.a.lyzed things further. Any way you look at it, though, this is going to turn Egyptology on its head."

Stone rubbed his jaw. "Fascinating. Any thoughts as to the--the tomb guardian?"

"At first I thought it was a representation of Ammut--the Swallowing Monster--who--in later Egyptian belief systems, anyway--sends unworthy souls to the Devourer of the Dead. But then I realized the morphology was wrong. It's only conjecture, but I think it may be a very rough and primitive rendering of the G.o.d that, in the Middle Kingdom, would come to be known as Aapep. In later years he would be depicted as a crocodile, or a serpent. This is in keeping with the figure we saw. Aapep was the G.o.d of darkness, chaos, the eater of souls, the personification of everything evil. Interesting choice of babysitter." She paused. "We may be seeing an extremely early version of this G.o.d, before Amemit and Aapep developed fully individual ident.i.ties."

Logan saw Rush catch his gaze. The eater of souls, Logan thought. This was the G.o.d Jennifer had referred to, as well. How could she have known that, he wondered, unless a voice from the ancient past told her? The doctor looked tired--and Logan wasn't surprised. It had taken Jennifer almost two hours to revive from the previous day's crossing.

"Of course," Romero went on, "we don't yet know exactly how this G.o.d figures in Narmer's theogony--or what he represented at such an early period."

"What about the primary tomb painting?" Stone asked. "The one that appears to represent a punishment of some sort?"

"I don't know any more than I did yesterday. Sorry. It's completely foreign to my experience."

"And the second gate?"

"From what I can tell by visual inspection, the royal seal appears to be similar to the first."

"Thank you." Stone turned to Dr. Rush. "And you, Ethan?"

Rush s.h.i.+fted in his seat, cleared his throat. "My a.n.a.lysis of the atmosphere, dust from tomb surfaces, and grit from the plaster is complete. Everything appears to be inert. There's a relatively high concentration of mold spores and pollen, but nothing to be alarmed about if exposure times are kept limited. A careful cleaning, of course, will take care of that. I found no evidence of harmful bacteria, viruses, or fungi. Until the decontamination process is complete, I'd recommend N-ninety-five facepiece respirators be worn for particulate filtering, along with latex gloves, but you would mandate that as standard procedure, anyway."

"Poison?" Stone asked.

"Nothing came up on my tests."

Stone nodded his satisfaction, then turned to one of the others. "GPR report?"

A thin, nervous-looking young man sat forward and pushed his gla.s.ses up the bridge of his nose. "Ground-penetrating radar, targeting the second chamber, shows a very large ma.s.s--apparently a single object--approximate dimensions four meters in length and two in height. Arranged before it are four smaller, identical objects."

There was a brief silence.

"A sarcophagus," March murmured.

"And its four canopic jars," Romero added.

"Perhaps." Stone frowned. "But in the second chamber--not the third?"

"There appear to be several other objects," the young man said, "but the back-scatter makes them difficult to distinguish effectively."

"Very well." Stone thought for a moment. "We'll spend the rest of the day securing, stabilizing, and decontaminating chamber one. Then, first thing tomorrow, we'll proceed to the second gate. Meanwhile, if in your a.n.a.lysis any of you discover anything particularly unusual, let me know at once."

He turned to Logan. "Speaking of that, is there anything you'd like to add, Jeremy?"

"Yes. Last evening, I spoke with Fontaine. He'd reported that one of the electronic devices under his care had been acting strangely--turning on at unexpected times, working when it wasn't supposed to, operating by itself."

Very softly, Romero whistled the Twilight Zone theme.

"The machine in question was one of the satellite phones. When I learned that both these incidents had occurred at one thirty a.m., I asked Fontaine to check the flash memory of the sat phone."

"And?" Stone said.

"Its internal log showed a total of four unauthorized satellite uplinks, each made at precisely 1:34 a.m. local time. The uplinks were encrypted e-mails, each sent to an Internet remailing service, rendering them untraceable."

The room fell into a shocked silence.

Stone had gone ashen. "How is that possible? n.o.body has access to the sat phones; they can only be used by the communications officers."

"Further examination of the phone showed it had been tricked out with a hand-built internal circuit board. Fontaine is examining the board with an oscilloscope and signal generator, but its function appears to be to receive wireless text messages from the Station's WAN, encrypt them, and send them out to the satellite at a very late hour when the communications room would be unoccupied. The satellite then forwards the messages to their destination."

Another, longer silence. Logan noticed the a.s.sembled group glancing around at one another uncomfortably.

"Who knows about this?" Stone asked.

"Fontaine, myself, and--now--those in this room."

Stone licked his lips. "This is to go no farther. Understood? n.o.body else is to know." He shook his head. "Good Christ. A spy."

"Or a saboteur," said Romero.

"Or both," Logan added.

38.

Tina Romero made her way down the Umbilicus, hand under hand, following Porter Stone. She wore no respirator on this descent, just an N-95 mask, and the air both smelled and tasted faintly of vegetative rot. As she descended, it grew cooler, until by the time she had reached the air lock platform there were goose pimples on her arms.

A guard on the platform greeted them with a nod. Since Logan's discovery of the unauthorized transmissions, Stone--obsessive about secrecy at the best of times--had doubled the usual security. In addition to a twenty-four-hour guard stationed at the Maw, there was also the guard here on the platform. In addition, video cameras had been installed, monitored by Corey Landau and the other tech weenies in the Operations Center.

Tina smiled a little grimly to herself. Despite Stone's imprecations, threats, and demands for absolute silence, word of the saboteur--or corporate spy--had leaked out to the Station at large. It was a little ironic: while there was of course consternation, there was also a guarded sense of relief. She herself had wondered: If there was a saboteur in their midst, might that not account for the inexplicable happenings?

There was a clatter overhead, and then Fenwick March joined them on the platform. He was followed by two of Valentino's roustabouts. Each man carried pieces of a stainless-steel hoist under their arms.

Stone glanced around at the group. "Right," he said through his mask. "Let's get started."

The security guard picked up a battery-powered winch from the metal grating, and the group of six approached the tomb interface. Tina noted that the rest of the granite facing had been carefully removed, and the first gate was now completely open. She hoisted the video camera she carried. This was only her second trip down. March had already been down several times; Stone had been down twice more, to supervise the unsealing of the second gate.

As she stepped into chamber one, she noticed that supportive bracing had been placed longitudinally from one wall of the tomb to the other, as a precaution. The guardian statue of Aapep had been covered by a tarp, and Tina found herself glad of it: the figure had been so lifelike, so violent in appearance, that--despite its incalculable importance--she hadn't been looking forward to seeing it again.

The chamber that before had been so dim was now brightly lit by high-pressure sodium vapor lights, and she was surprised afresh by the beauty and remarkable condition of the artifacts. She also noticed--to her irritation--that many of the most interesting and important had already been removed, archival labels put temporarily in their place. No doubt that was the work of March, she thought: the b.a.s.t.a.r.d could never wait to get his grubby hands all over the antiquities. If he had his way, every dig site would be completely gutted, with nothing left in situ to show how it had once looked. Her own philosophy was the polar opposite: examine, stabilize, a.n.a.lyze, describe, doc.u.ment--and then, once curated, leave everything exactly where it had been found.

The rear wall of chamber one had been obscured by plastic sheeting. Beyond it, the darkness was complete. The second gate, she knew, had already been fully removed, but chamber two had not yet been entered. They would be the first to do so.

Wordlessly, Stone nodded to the two roustabouts. They came forward and--with great care--removed the plastic sheeting, folded it, and placed it to one side. A rectangle of black s.p.a.ce lay beyond.

Stone stepped up to the second gate. Tina followed, with March right behind. Here, at the very entrance to chamber two, Tina could make out vague shapes within. Her mouth went dry.

"Bring one of those lights over here," Stone said.

One of the roustabouts wheeled the powerful light up to the group. As he did so, the room beyond burst into sudden brilliance.

It was as if somebody had just turned on the sun. The gleam of the chamber beyond was so bright, Tina had to turn away.

"G.o.d," Stone muttered in a strangled voice. Once again, his veneer of detached reserve had fallen away under the spell of Narmer's tomb.

As her eyes adjusted, Tina was able to make out the details of chamber two. She raised the video camera and began recording. Every surface--walls, floor, ceiling--had been covered in what appeared to be solid gold. This accounted for the incredibly bright sheen. Although the room was just slightly smaller than chamber one, it held far fewer objects. There were indeed four canopic jars, made of calcite, to hold the viscera of the mummified king. Before each jar was a small box, apparently also of solid gold. On one wall was a large painting, depicting what looked like Narmer's victory over the king of upper Egypt. Another painting showed Narmer, lying on a dais, seemingly already in his tomb, being attended to by a mortuary priest. There were two shrines, set against the opposing walls of chamber two. Each bore a serekh, in sunk relief, of Narmer, using his coronation name, niswt-biti, king of upper and lower Egypt. It was funny, she thought--while Egyptologists could read the language, its p.r.o.nunciation remained a mystery. Although most uses of this phrase, she knew, were the phonetic spelling nzw, as found in the Pyramid Texts, here the feminine ending t remained. Odd. But then, so much of what she had observed about Narmer and his tomb was odd. There was so much here that was surprisingly modern--in ancient Egyptian terms. The tomb burial, the royal seals, the grave goods, the hieroglyphic messages so reminiscent of the Book of the Dead--they were of the Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom, not the Archaic Period, the First Dynasty of the earliest pharaohs. It was as if Narmer had been many centuries ahead of his time, and his knowledge, practices, discoveries, and epiphanies had died with him, not to be resurrected until the pyramid builders of a thousand years later....

She shook these thoughts away and busied herself with the video camera. Atop the two shrines were various offerings: amulets, beautifully knapped flint knives, figures of alabaster, ivory, ebony. But the most remarkable object of all lay in the center of the room. It was a huge sarcophagus, of a most unusual pale blue granite, unpainted--also most unusual--and in absolutely perfect shape; far better, for example, than that of the cracked outer sh.e.l.l of King Tutankhamen's coffin. The granite had been worked into tracery relief of the most detailed and painstaking kind. At the head of the sarcophagus stood the figure of a giant falcon, its wings spread wide, the stylized feet thrust out like the hands of a clock at five and seven, ceremonially standing watch over the body of the king.

The others had been silent, seemingly struck dumb by the splendor of the sight. Now Stone stepped forward. He walked a little stiffly, as if on wooden legs. He made a brief inspection of the chamber, and then he approached the row of four small gold chests.

"These chests, arranged before the canopic jars," he said, absently, more to himself than to the others. "That's something I've never heard of." He knelt before the closest, examining it carefully, touching it gently here and there with a latex-gloved hand. Then, ever so carefully, he lifted its lid. Tina caught her breath. Sparkling back at them from inside the box was an overflowing abundance of gemstones: opals, jade, diamonds, emeralds, pearls, rubies, sapphires, cat's eyes--an almost obscene riot of treasure.