The Reply

CHAPTER 12

“Help?” Lisa Duncan had Nabinger’s notebook in her hand. “I don’t get it.” Everyone looked up as a distant peal of thunder rumbled through the tent. The storm wasn’t showing any signs of abating soon.

“I don’t either,” Nabinger said, “but that’s what it says. It makes sense that the Airlia would use the Wall if they were in China. They did the same thing in Egypt with the Sphinx and the pyramids.”

“Wait a second,” Turcotte said. “What are you talking about there? I didn’t know there was any message in the way the pyramids were built. You told me that the flat surface of the pyramids, when they were covered with their original layer of white limestone, could send out an immense radar image to outer space, but not that there was a message in that image.”

Nabinger shook his head. “No, not in the radar image, it’s in the ground image when you’re near them. Maybe it was sort of like a secret symbol, known only to the Airlia. But archaeologists have long known, even before we knew about the lower chamber and the high runes, that the way the two largest pyramids are positioned, if you stand to the right of the Sphinx and line all three objects up, you get a hieroglyphic symbol with the Sphinx’s head between the two pyramids.” He sketched on his pad, drawing two pyramids and a rough outline of the Sphinx’s head between them, with the ground a flat line at the bottom.

Turcotte was more interested in the map of China and getting the big picture before he tried to figure out pieces and parts. “Jesus, look at this thing. How long did it take to build this Wall?”

Kelly had her laptop open and was accessing a CD-ROM she had put in. “I’ve got it here. Let’s see. The Great Wall is over twenty-four hundred kilometers long. That’s about fifteen hundred miles. It officially became the Great Wall in the third century B.C. when Emperor Shi Huangdi of the Ch’in dynasty linked together separate walls that had been built earlier. Shi was the first emperor to unite China.”

Kelly looked from the computer to the map. “This section that makes the symbol, it’s mostly part of those first walls, so it was built at a much earlier time.”

“So it could have been done back when the rebels and Aspasia’s people were fighting?” Turcotte asked.

“Yes.”

“But such a thing would take hundreds of years to build, wouldn’t it?” Turcotte asked.

Kelly shook her head. “No. According to what I have here, the greater part of the Wall was built in less than ten years. Millions of peasants were used to build it and the bodies of those who died in the labor were made part of the Wall. So based on that, this section could have been built in a relatively short period of time if there was a strong leader who wanted it done. Remember, China has never lacked for bodies to do manual labor such as this.”

Turcotte leaned forward to look at the map more closely, and in doing so brushed against Lisa Duncan. She didn’t move away, but leaned forward with him to check the map.

“You know,” Turcotte said, “this part of the Wall doesn’t really seem to follow a natural defensive line. You have this river here, which would have supplemented the Wall’s defenses, yet the Wall doesn’t follow it. You’re right. This was built to make that high rune symbol visible from space, not to form the best defensive perimeter possible given the terrain. How the hell did the rebel Airlia get the Chinese to build it?”

“How’d they get the Egyptians to build the pyramids?” Nabinger asked in turn. “Aspasia can give us the answers,” Kelly Reynolds said from her location on the other side of the tent, seated on the edge of a cot.

“You know,” Turcotte said, “for all his great effort to keep our development from being influenced by their presence, Aspasia did a pretty crappy job.”

Something occurred to him. “Maybe they got those people to build those things the same way they got General Gullick and Majestic-12 to attempt to fly the mothership. By taking over their minds using guardians!”

Turcotte tapped his finger on the map. “That would mean there’s another guardian here in Qian-Ling.”

There was a momentary silence in the tent.

“What I want to know,” Lisa Duncan finally said, “is why the rebels would want to transmit HELP in such a manner to someone coming in from space.”

“That goes with something that’s been bugging me for a while,” Nabinger said. “We determined after learning that the Airlia had hidden the nuclear weapon in the Great Pyramid that the Pyramid itself must have been built as a space beacon. The thing that bothered me about that was why would the rebels want to signal into space? Who were they signaling to with the Great Pyramid?”

“And who,” Duncan said, “were they asking for help from with the Great Wall?” She walked over to the coffeepot set on a field table and poured herself a cup. She held up an empty cup to Turcotte and he nodded.

“Let’s take it logically,” Turcotte said. “The Pyramid was to get attention. The symbol in the Great Wall was to send a message after they got attention. That’s the way I would have done it,” he said.

“Done what?” Duncan asked as she handed him the coffee.

“Sent a message to outer space with the technology and manpower present on the Earth at the time if I’d lost my primary means of communication,” Turcotte said. “In Special Forces one of the first things we learn in training is that you always have to have a way to communicate back to home base. A primary, a backup, an emergency, and a pull-it-out-your-ass way. I think this symbol built into the Great Wall was a pull-it-out-your-ass.”

“Hold on here,” Duncan said. “These aliens were rebels, outlaws. Aspasia defeated them, destroyed their base at Atlantis, and scattered them across the face of the planet. I get back to my question of who were they trying to signal to? You’d think rebels would want to lay low.”

“The Kortad?” Nabinger suggested. “Maybe they just weren’t rebels. Maybe they were traitors too.”

“And were the people who built this part of the Great Wall the same ones who put the Ruby Sphere in the Great Rift Valley?” Turcotte asked. “Is that the China connection?”

“I’d say so,” Duncan said. “It makes sense.”

“You people are shooting in the dark,” Reynolds called out, but the others ignored her.

“You know,” Nabinger said hesitatingly, “I got some confusing stuff out of the guardian just before it cut contact. I didn’t tell UNAOC because I didn’t know if what I saw was a recording of reality or something the computer was making up.”

“What did you see?” Turcotte asked.

Nabinger rubbed his temples. “I think it might have been the destruction of Atlantis by the mothership. It was very confusing.”

“Aspasia can clear all this up when he wakes up and comes back to Earth,” Kelly said. “We’ll just have to wait.”

“Waiting gives away initiative,” Turcotte said in a low voice.

“What?” Kelly snapped at him.

“I said waiting gives away the initiative,” Turcotte said so that everyone in the tent could hear. “It’s a maxim of combat. Victory usually goes to the side that maintains the initiative.”

“Oh, God!” Kelly exclaimed. “We’re not at war.”

“I don’t know what the situation is,” Turcotte said. “I don’t know what’s going on. All I know is we’ve gotten two messages from some damn machine on Mars and everyone’s getting ready like it’s the second coming of Christ. Well, I for one would like to find out a bit more about what the truth is while we’re waiting for Aspasia to awaken or thaw out or whatever the hell he’s doing up there.”

“I would too,” Lisa Duncan said. She held up her hands as Reynolds angrily stood up. “Let’s slow down a second here. What else did you see about Atlantis, Professor?”

Nabinger grimaced. “People dying. Ships sailing away, trying to escape. That’s why I think the diffusionist theory is…” He paused as he suddenly remembered. “Ships. Spaceships. Seven of them. Not bouncers, but bigger. They flew away just before the mothership arrived.”

“Flew where?” Turcotte asked.

“Straight up.”

“The rebels escaping,” Duncan summarized.

“Yes. That must be so,” Nabinger agreed.

“So they did get away!” Turcotte was looking at the map of China again. He stabbed his finger down on the map. “I bet they went here.” He looked up. “And if Aspasia and his people are awakening, who’s to say the rebels aren’t also?

“And,” Turcotte continued, “I think the only way we’re gonna find out more is to go to China, get inside this damn tomb, and take a look at what’s written there. Find the guardian computer, if there is one there. If it was the rebels who did this part of the Wall, then maybe we need to know about it as soon as possible and not wait on Aspasia. After all, his guardian computer here on Earth seemed concerned enough about this to send out a foo fighter recon.”

“Going there is easier said than done,” Duncan replied. “China’s in a lot of turmoil right now. From what I understand, Taiwan is doing considerable covert pushing in the midst of all this to try and overthrow the regime in Beijing.

“China has pulled out of the UN to protest UNAOC’s actions. I think the leadership in Beijing is at a complete loss as to how to deal with this situation of alien contact, and they’re doing what China has done repeatedly over the years: retreat inside of itself. All borders have been closed and communication cut off with the outside world.

“Not only that,” she continued, “but I don’t think UNAOC is going to be too thrilled about throwing any sort of monkey wrench into the anticipation of Aspasia’s return.”

Turcotte crossed his arms and stared at Lisa Duncan. “You’re the ranking person here. It’s your call. Remember, you work for the U.S. Government also. I say let’s skip UNAOC and bounce this up our chain of command.”

“I’ve already decided to do that,” Duncan said.