25

Dawn Minus Thirteen Hours

From his perch near the summit of P4, Conrad had a bird’s-eye view of the lost city in the late afternoon. If only Dad could see this, he thought, gazing out from the mouth of the exterior shaft.

The city was comprised of concentric waterways laid over a grid. Wide avenues flanked by temples and pavilions radiated outward from the central P4 compound. This layout reminded him of the Avenue of the Dead in Teotihuacon, Mexico, and even the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

About a mile long, the necropolis was anchored by P4 in the center, a Sphinx-like structure at the east end, and at the west end a step-pyramid with working waterfalls that churned brightly in the sunlight. The dimensions were spectacular.

Most astounding of all, Conrad could see the various rings of pavilions slowly shifting and locking into place. Or was it P4 that was slowly rotating? He couldn’t tell. At any rate, the builders did more than construct a city aligned to the stars before an ancient earth-crust displacement shifted the continent. They constructed a city in which the monuments could somehow realign themselves, perhaps through the hydraulic pressure of the water that coursed through its very veins.

Conrad tried to let this otherworldly landscape sink in, to burn this image into his memory so he’d never forget it. The magnitude of its scale, however, defied comprehension. There were probably ten square miles of city to explore inside a crater of ice whose walls rose two miles into the sky along the city outskirts. And that was only the part of the city that was visible. Conrad could only assume what he saw was part of a bigger metropolis.

He was tempted to slide back down the shaft that instant to tell Serena what he had found, if only to convince himself. But he knew he must first capture a picture. He pulled out his pocket digital camera and panned the valley below. Whatever else he took away from this city, he could at least have this, proof that he was the first person in twelve thousand years to glimpse humanity’s earliest epoch. Perhaps he was the first human to glimpse an entirely alien civilization. Maybe even his own, if Yeats was to be believed.

Yeats’s revelation raised more questions than it answered. It certainly raised a wall between him and Serena. He had seen the uncertainty in her eyes as she studied him back in the star chamber. He couldn’t tell if it was for who he was or what he had done. But the pangs of guilt for an obsession that cost the life of the only man who might have answers for them-Yeats-refused to subside.

The reality was that the only father he had ever known was dead.

He loved me, Conrad thought. He did the best he could. He even tried to tell me that in his own way. Now Yeats was gone, and they’d never have the father-son reconciliation Yeats deserved.

Conrad suddenly felt nauseated. But he took a deep breath of fresh Antarctic air and asked himself what Yeats would say. And the answer that came to mind was clear.

Yeats would no doubt quote some military figure like Admiral Mahan of the American Navy during the Revolution and say: “Whenever you set out to accomplish anything, make up your mind at the outset about your ultimate objective. Once you have decided on it, take care never to lose sight of it.”

For Conrad, the objective was clear: he had to map the city and find its Shrine of the First Sun, which was clearly a memorial to the epoch of First Time. Inside the shrine would be the Seat of Osiris, just like the one on the royal seal he had seen. If he could bring the scepter from the star chamber into the shrine and sit in the Seat of Osiris he would unlock the Secret of First Time-surely the “time and place of the most worthy.”

Holding his camera up, Conrad panned to his right and to his left, up to the sky and down to the ground. Then he zoomed in on various structures, starting with the Sphinx-like landmark in the east and working his way toward the step-pyramid with the waterfalls in the west.

Satisfied he had captured everything he could, he replayed some of the images on the viewfinder screen to make sure once again that he wasn’t dreaming. As he did, however, he saw a dot moving across the ground. It was over by the great waterway that cut through the heart of the city.

Heart surging with fear and excitement, Conrad pointed the camera in the dot’s direction, slowly boosting the magnification. There it was, a blurry image, definitely moving. No, there were two blurry figures. He focused further. Suddenly the first one jumped into view.

It was Nimrod, the husky from Ice Base Orion. And walking beside him was Serena. A few moments later the dog dropped in his tracks and a dozen figures surrounded Serena before a chopper landed next to the group. The encounter did not look friendly.

Conrad lowered his camera only to see a swarm of military choppers buzz overhead. Before he could wave, a burst of machine gun fire came his way, raking the side of the pyramid.

He slid down the shaft as fast as he could to the star chamber, which was completely empty. Serena was gone, Yeats’s pack was gone, and the sequence of doors leading out to the gallery was wide open.

Something rattled overhead, and as Conrad looked up the shaft he had just slid down, a smoking canister dropped to the floor. Conrad’s eyes started to burn and he realized it was tear gas. He ran out of the chamber.

Once at the fork at the bottom of the gallery, he looked down the tunnel Serena must have taken to P4’s entrance. A dozen pairs of glowing green eyes were coming his way. His only choice was to drop down the shaft toward the boiler room. He landed in a torrent of water washing down the subterranean channel away from P4.

He was racing down the channel now, caught in a current of such power that there was nothing he could do except keep his head above water. What the hell had he gotten himself into now? he wondered. Then he saw the mouth of a tunnel closing in on him, and a second later he was swallowed up by the darkness.

Deep beneath the ancient city, Conrad splashed in the darkness, gasping for air as he was swept through the underground canals. The freezing water disoriented him, and all he could hear were furious sucking sounds all around.

He bounced off a wall and spun in circles as the canal merged with another, larger tunnel. The overwhelming push of the new stream churned the raging river into a whirlpool. He glanced over his shoulder as a white curl of foam bore down on him in the darkness. He thought it would kill him, but instead the wave lifted him over a stone bank to a walkway.

Out of the water, he paused to catch his breath when another wave flooded in, the water grasping at his knees, trying to suck him back in. But it receded quickly and he was up on his feet, moving down the walkway. A cursory glance told him this tunnel was at least twice as high as those inside P4.

As he made his way through the labyrinth that crisscrossed beneath the city, Conrad was both awed and angered by the extent of the builders’ subterranean infrastructure. He could spend an eternity studying this city, he thought, and if he didn’t find a way out of here very soon he just might.

He also was angry at Serena, another one of life’s mysteries he’d felt he would never understand. She obviously didn’t trust him. Why else would she have left him back at P4 to venture off on her own? She had gone into her survivor mode and for all he knew considered him the enemy. And yet he was anxious about her safety after witnessing her capture.

A few minutes later he came to a fork in the tunnel and stopped. Two smaller aqueducts, each about forty feet high and twenty feet wide, presented themselves. Then he heard a faint rumble coming from the right aqueduct. He stared into the darkness and saw a glimmer of light. It was growing larger as the rumble grew louder. It was another surge of water coming down the pike, and in a few seconds the force would slam him against the tunnel walls and kill him.

His only way out, he realized, was to run into the left aqueduct. He dove in before a wall of water from the right pipe flooded the larger tunnel. From inside the left aqueduct, knee-deep in water, he watched the deluge roar for a full three minutes before it emptied itself out.

When it was over, he realized he was shaking. Too close, he thought as he rose to his feet. He took his first step down the aqueduct when he heard a distant splash. For a second he expected another torrent of water to wipe him out. But none came. He cocked his ear. This splashing had a rhythm to it.

He peered into the darkness. Someone in the distance was walking toward him. More than one, actually, because now he could hear the coarse murmur of conversation growing louder. They were speaking Arabic.

Conrad took a step back toward the large tunnel. The splash of his boot was louder than he intended. He froze. For a second he heard nothing. Then the sound of splashing footsteps picked up its pace.

“Stop!” called one of the figures in English.

Conrad glanced over his shoulder to see two pairs of glowing green eyes bobbing in the blackness. He ran back into the large tunnel. Then a shot rang out and he ducked as a bullet ricocheted off a wall. He froze at the fork before the two aqueducts. Slowly he turned around and saw the red dot on his chest. No, two dots.

Conrad grew very still as the pair emerged from the left aqueduct in night-vision goggles. They were wearing UNACOM uniforms, their AK-47s still trained on his chest. But these didn’t look like U.N. weapons inspectors to him.

“Radio Zawas, Abdul,” said the one on the right.

The one called Abdul tried to make the call but only got static. “We have to surface,” he said, sounding frustrated. “These walls are blocking the signal.”

Abdul’s partner started toward Conrad when another rumble began in the distance. Conrad edged toward the right aqueduct.

“Stop!” Abdul demanded. “Where do you think you are going?”

“To the surface like you said,” Conrad replied without looking back. As he approached the mouth of the right aqueduct he could feel a cool wet breeze on his face. The distant roar grew louder. Then a bullet whizzed past his ear and he stopped and turned around.

Abdul and his companion were almost twenty yards away in the large tunnel, staring beyond him with growing curiosity. They were saying something, but the rumble from behind was too loud for Conrad to hear them. Then, just as Conrad could feel the first drops of water spraying his back, he saw them lower their weapons and start running away.

Conrad dove into the left tunnel as a wall of water blasted out of the aqueduct behind him and flushed the soldiers away. And then the mighty flow thinned into a tiny stream, as if some automatic timer had turned off the faucet. They were gone.

Conrad stood still, listening to the trickle of water and his heavy breathing, when he heard a splash from behind. He spun around and saw a hulking figure walking toward him in the dark, growing larger and more menacing until he emerged from the shadows and ripped off his night goggles.

“I’ve been looking for you,” said Yeats.

“Dad!” Conrad wanted to throw his arms around his father.

But Yeats instead bent down and picked up something shiny floating in the water. Conrad could see it was an Egyptian ankh from the neck of one of the soldiers. The cross like necklace with a circle at the top was a symbol of life, but it meant little to the dead soldier now. Yeats held the ankh up to the light of his head torch.

“At least you’re starting to screw things up for somebody else now, Conrad,” he said.

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