The Reply

CHAPTER 24

“Can you figure it out?” Turcotte asked Nabinger.

They were in the control room, along with Kostanov and his men and Che Lu and her students.

“My God, there’s never been a find like this,” Nabinger said, looking at the various consoles and panels. “Even the room on Easter Island was nothing compared to this.”

“No guardian computer, though,” Turcotte noted.

“Not here,” Nabinger agreed. He pointed to the far wall. “But who knows what’s in there? Plus there’s the central passageway, which no one has gone down yet.” “Yeah, because you’ll get cut in half if you try,” Turcotte noted.

“Can you get us in there, Professor?” Kostanov asked, nodding his head toward the far wall. “We do not have much time.”

“What is the rush?” Che Lu asked.

“The PLA is going to be knocking on the door soon,” Turcotte said, “and they’re not going to be happy.”

“Plus, as you told us,” Kostanov noted, “Aspasia will be on Earth in less than forty-two hours.”

“And?” Turcotte prompted. “What does this have to do with that? Isn’t this Aspasia’s equipment?”

“It’s Airlia equipment,” Kostanov said, “but I don’t think it’s Aspasia’s.” “The rebels?” Nabinger asked.

“We believe so,” Kostanov said.

“Who’s we?” Turcotte demanded.

“Section Four has been tracking all of this for a very long time,” Kostanov said.

“If you’ve been tracking this for so long, why is it so important that you uncover this base now?” Turcotte said.

“Because the Airlia are coming.” He turned to Nabinger. “Professor, what can you tell us about this room?”

“It’s a control center,” Nabinger said. He was looking at the console. “Controlling what?” Che Lu asked.

“This.” Nabinger waved a hand absently around his head. “This entire complex. From what I can gather, this entire mountain was built to house”—he paused, his eyes running over high rune symbols—“to house the equipment in the other room that we passed getting in here — and…”

“And?” Kostanov prompted.

In reply Nabinger pushed his right hand down onto the panel. A red glow suffused the black top, outlining more high rune symbols.

“What are you doing?” Turcotte asked.

Nabinger ignored those around him, concentrating on what was before him. His hands hovered over the top of the console for a long minute. A group of hexagons, fitted tightly together, appeared. Nabinger pressed his hand down on the hexagon field in a certain sequence. Everyone in the control room took a step back as there was a loud humming noise. A crack appeared along the edges of the door in the far wall as it began to slide upward. Turcotte and the other Green Berets instinctively swung up the muzzles of their guns to cover the door, as did Kostanov and his men.

Nabinger walked through their line of fire and disappeared into the room. Turcotte was next through and he was half expecting what he saw as he stepped through. Sitting in the center of a small room hewn out of the rock was a six-foot-high pyramid, the surface glowing with a golden haze that extended out a few inches from the material that it was made of.

Turcotte also wasn’t surprised when Nabinger walked right up to the pyramid and put his hands on the surface, the golden glow extending around the archaeologist as if he had become part of the machine.