The Unearthing Read online

  “It won’t be well defined,” James said, “But there’s enough seismic activity for the Doppler imager to compile an image another ten K out, with about fifty to sixty per cent accuracy.”

  “Do it,”

  “I have the three-D Prof!” Peter called. Echohawk leaned over Peter’s workstation and stared in disbelief.

  “The view is along the Y axis,” Peter said, “We’re looking at it from the horizontal now.” The pyramid appeared onscreen with scale measurements below the image. The Laguna Pyramid was almost twenty meters tall and nearly twenty-five meters wide at the base. Hardly a large pyramid by any standards, but it crested the ridge of a massive dome. At its summit the bowl of the dome was six kilometres wide and stretched down beyond the scope of the initial Doppler image. About two kilometres down along the surface of the dome was a ring of pyramids spaced evenly one every half-kilometre around.

  “I’m recompiling all images now,” James called from his workstation, “You aren’t going to believe this.” The image onscreen shrank to accommodate its full scope. The dome was not a complete sphere but part of a mountainous arch that curved down, down, into a massive disk. They were looking at the upper half of a colossal structure; one whose presence they could not even begin to understand. Their compiled image was twenty kilometres in diameter, a circular disk with an arching dome. Said dome was seven kilometres high and fifteen kilometres at its base. Most incomprehensible was that the gargantuan object was right now buried beneath their feet.

  “I think we need to call somebody,” Echohawk said, stunned.

  TWO

  EXCAVATION

  “I won’t believe it until we’ve had the seismography equipment checked out and another set of scans done,” Echohawk said during the next morning’s meeting, “In fact I wouldn’t object to replacing the Doppler equipment altogether. Is it possible that something in the local geology is setting up some weird harmonic that’s messing with the equipment?”

  “Not likely,” James said, “Prof, Peter looked at the Doppler equipment while I went over the geosurvey again, last night: the equipment checks out fine and the only anomaly in the soil is that the area has significantly lower fallout levels than most of the rest of New Mexico. White Sands was a nuclear target during War Three and most of New Mexico has measurable fallout. There’s almost none in the area surrounding the Laguna Pyramid.”

  “Then there’s the iridium in the soil from around the Pyramid?” Peter added.

  “That’s the other problem with the dig,” Echohawk replied, “If the artifact was deliberately buried then the spread of iridium through the soil would not be consistent from one sample to the next. There is a very distinct spread to the iridium layer we have, and from what we can see it’s in the right place to mark the KT Boundary. So according to the current evidence not only was the object buried naturally, it was here well before the end of the Cretaceous.”

  “That would mean the object was built more than sixty million years ago.” Peter insisted.

  “I know,” Echohawk said, dryly.

  “But that would be impossible,” James said, “Unless there was an advanced civilization here on Earth sixty million years ago. No evidence has ever been found to even suggest that.”

  “James until a few years ago there wasn’t any evidence to suggest there was life beyond Earth,” Peter said, “Then the Clarke probe brought back those water samples from Europa.”

  “The point is we don’t know what it is we’re dealing with,” Echohawk said emphatically, “And the only way to find out is to dig. We’ll start a full excavation today. I’ve asked the Society to book us some time with the orbital labs so we can get a deep radar probe of the area and find out for sure if that thing’s really as big as the Doppler seismology says.”

  “When do we expect the sweep?” Peter asked.

  “There’s no telling,” Echohawk replied, “The labs aboard Concord 3 are very busy right now; even with the Society’s dedicated time slots for lab use on-station, there’s so many other projects ahead of us it’s doubtful how soon we can get access.”

  “Well between now and then we have some earth and stone to start moving,” Peter said, “We should use MRIs and PET scanners to make sure we can dig through quickly. Anything of significant interest between us and the Pyramid will show up on a scan.”

  “I agree,” Echohawk said, “And this dig will be slow enough as it is. The real question is whether or not we go public with what we have so far and if not, just how long we can expect to keep it a secret.”

  ♦♦♦

  A limited press release was issued by the WAAS. It said in part that a structure of unknown origin had been found on land belonging to the Laguna Band and that a team of researchers was currently undertaking its unearthing. Aside from a few details about the size and composition of the structure, little else was added. Some people were curious and came to see but no more so than would be expected on most digs. Only Santino, Echohawk and Echohawk’s senior assistants knew the truth.

  The dig was progressing well enough; the PET and MRI scanners allowed them to dig more quickly and less gingerly. They had excavated much of the Pyramid in a widening circle. Laser cutters on loan from the Society allowed them to clear away the heavy stone deposits, but the job was nonetheless becoming more difficult. During extensive excavations, it was often possible to “level” a dig laterally so the maximum width of a work pit could be maintained. But with a pyramid, the deeper one dug the wider one had to make their pit. The wider they had to make their work area the more soil they had to move from the surrounding land. Consequently the dig was starting to slow down. Where they had taken a week to reach their current depth, it would take them twice as long to expose the rest of the buried pyramid. And that was without considering what lay beneath that. If anything of significance presented itself in the soil between them and the base of the pyramid, they would have to excavate that object before continuing.

  Echohawk’s team first exposed all four sides of the Pyramid and from there dug down another four meters. The Pyramid was now peeking out of a pit eight meters deep, itself nearly ten meters wide to a side at that level. Their work pit was a further twenty meters wide at current depth. Actual digging had stopped while James and Peter began another round of tests on the ground, using the PET and MRI scanners to ensure there was nothing archaeologically significant between them and the base of the Pyramid.

  “How’s it looking?” Echohawk asked, as he approached his two assistants.

  “If the Doppler seismology reading was right,” James said as he and Peter calibrated the MRI scanner, “We’re about nine, maybe ten meters from the base of the Pyramid. The ground is starting to become solid rock at this point, so we might consider precision blasting to widen the pit and bringing in more laser cutters to get past the rock deposits.”

  “I’m not crazy about using explosives,” Peter advised Echohawk.

  “Neither am I,” the elder archaeologist concurred, “But I’m inclined to agree with James. I’ll call the Society and have them send us an explosives engineer. We need to uncover the Pyramid, at least.”

  “Yeah, but then what?” James asked, “Prof…this thing isn’t some Mayan ruin. The Pyramid is metal. And if it really is sitting on a structure twenty kilometres wide, what the hell is it and what do we do with it once we have access?”

  Echohawk shrugged. “We go inside and have a look around.” He said.

  ♦♦♦

  Nightfall brought the day’s work to a close, the pit a little wider, a little deeper. The last of the work crew left the dig site behind and only James, Peter and Echohawk remained, staring at the Pyramid under floodlights. James and Peter were sore, sweaty and filthy from their day in the work pit. Echohawk had done his share, but had to balance his time in the work pit with his time coordinating the other tasks involved in the dig: analysis of recovered soil and stone, coordinating the expansion of the dig site, the logistics of hauling away the earth b
urying the pyramid and keeping the World Aboriginal Archaeological Society abreast of the ongoing efforts. Experts from around the globe were already beginning to weigh in on the artifact and its origins. Echohawk had to sift through their reports to find nuggets of use to the dig.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this,” Peter said, tiredly.

  “Neither have I,” Echohawk replied, “Although I’ve had worse digs. Try cutting through stone like what we’re chopping up with jackhammers and weak explosives. We didn’t always have laser cutters and sonic pulverisers, you know.”

  “I keep hearing that with Doppler seismology, MRI, PET scanners and deep probe radar that the days of digging are over,” Peter said, “And it’s all bullshit. We’ll never stop digging in the dirt to find things.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Echohawk said with a smile. They turned and began making their way from the site. Echohawk stopped and clasped his left ear as it suddenly started to vibrate. He’d been wearing a communications headset so long that day that he’d forgotten he still had it on. He toggled a small switch on the earpiece and began speaking.

  “Mark Echohawk,” He said, “What? Really? That’s excellent. We’re on our way to the lab now. We’ll linx in directly from our main computer console. Thanks!” Echohawk ended the linx and began pacing from the work pit a little faster.

  “What’s up?” Peter asked, jogging up beside his mentor.

  “That was Professor Todds,” Echohawk said. “We got our operation time with Concord 3. The orbital scan of the area is going to begin in a few minutes.”

  ♦♦♦

  Early in the twenty-first century Space Station Unity, the International Space Agency’s crown jewel, went into operation. The costly venture helped open the door for other international efforts in space, including the Bova Manned Mars Mission, the Clarke series of robot probes to Jupiter and its moons and an international commercial venture by the Netter Consortium to build an orbital hotel. The privatization of civilian space ventures paved the way for cooperative international scientific missions. After long decades of use, Unity Station was retired. But by then the fledgling World Space Agency was already planning the second generation of International Space Stations. This time four stations were to be established around the globe. Later, two more would be added to the planned project. Six Concord stations were commissioned: five in geostationary orbits: Concord 1 hung in the sky over Europe; Concord 2 over Asia and Eastern Europe; Concord 3 over North America and Concord 4 and 5 over the North and south Poles, respectively. When Concord 6 was completed it would follow an orbital flight path between the Equator and the Antarctic Circle, covering the needs of the Southern Hemisphere. At the present time only three of the six stations were operational; the other three in various stages of construction. Concord 2, 3 and 5 were fully staffed, while work continued on Concords 1, 4 and 6. The first five stations would have been up and running had a major electrical fire aboard Concord 1 and a near space collision aboard a fortunately empty Concord 4 not set back the schedule.

  Like all operational Concord space stations, Concord 3 was staffed by members of the World Space Agency. Following regional preference guidelines, the cosmonauts aboard Concord 3 came primarily from the North American Union; American, Canadian, Mexican and Cuban cosmonauts handled all aspects of the day-to-day running of the station, including a constant stream of research projects from both military and civilian interests. The station’s command module was large but cramped; every available surface used as a workstation, including a spherical island moored to the inner bulkhead by a large support column through the center of the room. A half-dozen officers occupied the module at any given time, everyone there running or monitoring part of the station’s vital functions. The science system module was directly below the command module and looked much the same, though it was devoted to running the two arrays of scientific equipment at either end of the station; one array faced the earth, the other the stars. Between the command and science modules was the command office for Concord 3. The command office consisted of three separate suites: One for the station’s chief clerk; one for the officer of the watch and one for the station commander. At this time, only one office was occupied: that of the station commander, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Margaret Bloom.

  Lt. Colonel Bloom’s office boasted a large blister window of a transparent metallic alloy. The view from her office was across the breadth of the space station to the Earth orbiting beyond. In the three months she had been skyside at C-3 Bloom had grown used to the view and then become tired of it. She had three months more to go before returning to Earth and her true love: flying. At fifty-five, Bloom only had ten years left before her flight status was permanently revoked. She had crystal blue eyes and short, blonde hair. She had strong Germanic features and her active lifestyle had kept the age from her features. She could pass for thirty and give women even younger a run for their money with men their own age. A former fighter jock and now an Air Force test pilot, she loathed the idea of giving up the stick. The hazardous nature of her work necessitated that every 18 months she take a six-month ground or non-flight assignment and each time she spent six months grounded it was to her six more months that she wasnnthst in the cockpit. The last thing she’d piloted had been the shuttle that had brought her up here. The next would be the shuttle home. The ten years she had left to fly seemed painfully short after almost four times as many years of flying behind her.

  Bloom studied the watch report on the electronic notepad before her. All the standard statistics about what was just another day at the cracker factory. She signed off on it, planning to take a break from the monotony long enough to have a coffee and a cigarette. Not that there were any places aboard a space station that one could legally smoke. Bloom wondered how the tobacco companies were still staying afloat. For a change of pace she put down the watch report and began going over the requests for access to the station’s scientific equipment and arrays. Normally Bloom didn’t pay much attention to the scientific research being done; if it was civilian it only concerned her if it was a potential threat to the station. If it was military Bloom was required as station commander to supervise. Most of the time the requests for authorization crossed her desk, she signed off on them and they were forgotten. However when the requisition from the World Aboriginal Anthropological Society crossed her desk Margaret Bloom became personally involved.

  Bloom finished up on some unrelated paperwork and made her way from the office module into the command module. The communications hub dominated the lower hemisphere of the workstation island in the center of the module. She pushed and floated her way to the com operator’s station.

  “Colonel?” the communications officer asked, as Bloom drifted to his station.

  “Lieutenant I need a direct linx to the communications spar for the ongoing deep scan in New Mexico.” The lieutenant worked his console’s controls and a few seconds later the linx was established. Bloom slipped on a headset and oriented herself to face the two-way screen in the center of the operator’s station.

  ♦♦♦

  In Laguna, Echohawk James and Peter took their seats around the main computer station in the lab. The computer was linked in to the World Grid and would shortly be receiving preliminary data from the deep scan being done aboard Concord 3. The actual full compilation of the data would be done on the station and then transmitted down to the Laguna site for analysis. The data being transmitted now to Laguna would be basic, but would be enough to form preliminary images of the object buried beneath them and confirm its size and age, if not its composition.

  “We have an incoming linx from Concord 3,” James reported, “It isn’t the data dump, though. It’s a communication linx…for you, Prof; from the station commander.” Peter and James both looked questioningly at Echohawk, who shrugged and arched an eyebrow. Echohawk slipped on a headset with a video boom and lowered the mini screen over his eye. He toggled a switch on the side of the earpiece and
nodded to James.

  “Put it through to my spar,” He said, “I’m online.” James focused a minicam onto Echohawk and then transferred the signal over. Instantly the viewer over Echohawk’s eye filled with the image of Lieutenant Colonel Margaret Bloom.

  “Hello Meg,” Echohawk said, “What a pleasant surprise!” Bloom smiled.

  “Hello Mark,” She said, “How have you been?”

  “I’m fine. How about you? Finally get tired of test-piloting orbital relay fighters? I’m surprised to see you at a desk even if it is in orbit.”

  “I’ve been good,” Bloom replied, “And no, I’m on a six-month ground-time rotation. They wanted me back at Engineering and Design but I was so fucking sick of E&D I’d put myself on the candidate list for a command rotation skyside.” Bloom was happy to speak with Mark again. It had been too long, she reflected, since she’d last seen him. But they both lived their own lives and they both knew it was best that way. But seeing his face onscreen Bloom knew she wanted to get together with him again as soon as she could.