TEP ZEPI


THE FIRST TIME


AVESTIC ARYANS - PRE-ISLAMIC IRAN -- MIDDLE EAST


Ahura Mazda created Airyana Vaejo, the original paradise
and birthplace of the Aryan race. There were seven
months of summer and five of winter. But after Angra
Mainyu, the Evil One, was finished, there were only
two months of summer and ten of winter. A mighty serpent,
intense cold, thick ice and snow is all that haunts
the land now. It is so cold that nothing can survive there.
Yima, instead of building an Ark, was ordered to make
a Var, an underground place linking the four corners
so that specimens of every living thing could be brought
there and saved.


Excerpt from: Tales of the Deluge: A Global

Report on Cultural Self-Replicating Genesis

Myths Dr Richard Scott, 2008

EVIDENCE BEFORE THE

UNITED STATES SENATE

WASHINGTON D.C.


June 14, 1960


(Based on actual transcripts)


iI f this agreement is approved,' Senator Aiken said as

| he tapped out his ash from behind a thick veil of
blue cigarette smoke, 'Antarctica becomes a country
without a government. Of course, it doesn't have too
much government now, but no government is provided
for Antarctica under any conditions in the future?'

Herman Phleger shuffled through his papers and
coughed, hoping to cash in on some spit. He failed. It
was a hot, humid day. The brass and maple ceiling fans
worked overtime. A whiff of fleshly cut grass wafted in
from the lawn outside. Manicured, the way mankind
intended. And Herman Phleger was forced to cough
again.

'Is there a problem, Mr Phleger?

'Uh, yes, sir--' Phleger croaked. He looked around
for a clerk. Stood.

'Please use the microphone in front of you, Mr
Phleger. I think we're all agreed we can't quite hear


4 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

you.' The Senator's smile to his colleagues was a craggy
one. There was a ripple of humorless laughter from the
rest of the committee. It echoed off the wood paneling
and around the sparsely populated Congressional hearing
room.
Phleger leaned down close to the gadget. The squeal
of feedback was painful. 'Uh, I could use some more
water, Senator.' He straightened his tie and re-took his
seat.
Aiken waved at a clerk to take some water over to the
State Department's legal advisor. After all, Herman
Phleger was the man who had headed the US delegation
at the Conference on Antarctica. He at least deserved
a glass of water.
Phleger leaned in close to the microphone again as
he adiusted his chair and thanked the Senator. He could
almost hear the old bastard's cogs whirring from across
the room. The Red scare. Grab some territory now while
we still can. What with Khrushchev still fuming over
that U-2 spyplane business back in May and Eisenhower
on the defensive, sending 120 planes out to South-East
Asia last Thursday. Yeah, okay, so China and Russia
aren't exactly on speaking terms but that's playing with
fire. Of course Francis Gary Powers was working for the
military: everyone in the State Department knew that.
Although it wasn't exactly a lie when the government
had tried to say he was flying a 'weather' plane. They
simply wanted to know 'whether' or not the Russians
had any missiles in the area.
The clerk set a pitcher of ice water down on the desk.
The legal advisor ignored the hissing and popping of
exploding ice cubes as he poured himself a glass and
gulped down a mouthful

....................................... DECIPHER 	5

'Senator,' he said, sighing with relief and mopping at his brow, 'the Treaty specifically provides that no one
surrenders its claim. There are seven claims which cover
eighty percent of Antarctica: the United Kingdom,
France, Argentina, Chile, New Zealand, Australia, and
South Africa. You take. the sector Argentina and Chile
have - they've incorporated it into their metropolitan
territories and have criminal codes which they claim
apply to them, and the same is true with respect to New
Zealand. So they do have government in those territories.' So tough shit, Senator, we just weren't quick enough
when it was time to stake a claim, lust be glad the Russkies
don't have a plot either. Phleger coughed again. 'So,
Senator, there may only be fifty people in the area but
they do have governments.'
Aiken was clearly uncomfortable with that thought.
He shifted in his chair, like his ass spoke his mind for
him. 'But after the adoption of this Treaty, would the
laws of a dozen countries apply?'
Phleger didn't need to check his notes. He shook his
head. 'The Treaty says that the signatories do not give
up their claims, but the other signatories like the United
States that do not recognize their claims do not by the
Treaty recognize the claims and their position of nonrecognition.'
There, that ought to confuse the old buzzard.
It did. He watched him shift on his ass again.
Phleger pretended to be impatient. 'For instance,'
he added, 'if there was a commercial man - the Treaty
deals with scientists and it deals with military matters
. .' It was clear Aiken wanted a re-cap on that area.
Phleger took another breath.
'Okay,' he said, 'if we send a scientist or an inspector
into the section claimed by Chile, he can't be



6 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

arrested by Chile. Our jurisdiction applies to him no
matter where he is in Antarctica - because we made
the decision not to recognize other claims to the territory,
and because those other claimants made the concession
that they would allow our scientists and
unarmed military personnel to work within their territory
on Antarctica. But, if there should be a mining
engineer who went down into the sector claimed by
Chile and he got into some trouble, Chile would claim
that its laws governed.'
Aiken frowned.
Phleger shifted this time. Was Aiken really that low
on short-term memory? 'And in that case, Senator,' he
explained, 'we would claim that Chile's law did not
govern because we do not recognize Chile's claim, and
there would then be an international controversy as to
who had jurisdiction over the individual.'
It was double-Dutch. Phleger knew it was double
Dutch. Aiken didn't appear to know it was double-Dutch,
but he didn't appear not to know either. Which was fine.
So long as they were all in agreement. Since, in essence,
they were merely playing out what the Antarctic Treaty
stated, which was: no matter what the claims of a single
country over the region known as Antarctica, those
claims could be freely ignored by everyone else. Except,
and this was an important proviso, except in the ease
of a military build-up, which, it was agreed, was to be
banned by everyone. Totally. Unless, of course, someone
infringed upon the rights of the others as set out
by the Treaty, in which case-
'We don't even recognize any claim of our own, do
we?' Aiken reiterated.
Phleger almost nodded. He rubbed his chin. This
....................................... DECIPHER 	7

was their 'legal' reasoning. 'By recognizing that there is
no sovereignty over Antarctica we retain jurisdiction
over our citizens who go down there and we would deny
the right of the other claimants to try that citizen. Yes.'
Aiken sat back in his chair, a crooked grin on his
craggy face. That pleased him enormously. He stubbed
out his cigarette and immediately reached for another.
'Boys, I think we just found one more virtue of the
bomb!' There was another ripple of laughter. He was
right. Aside from the Soviet Union, who the hell was
going to argue with them? You didn't need to be the
first. You needed to be the toughest.
Aiken lit the flesh cigarette and inhaled. He had a
curious look on his face. Somber. 'Suppose, Mr
Phleger,' he pondered, 'that there was a sudden and
tremendous demand for emperor penguins?'
'Sir? I'm not sure I'm follow'
'Penguins, Mr Phleger. There are serious conservation
issues here. What if people went down there and
started killing all the emperor penguins. Who could
prevent that?'
'The people in each of the geographical areas covered
by the seven claimant nations would claim they
had a right to protect those penguins.'
'Then suppose one of our boys went into the Chilean
area and stole a snow cat. What law would he violate?'
A snow cat?! What on earth was this old buzzard talking
about? Snow cats didn't come from Antarctica.
Phleger bit the bullet. 'The Chileans apply Chilean
law,' he said.
'And we would deny it?'
'We would apply US law and we would have an international
controversy.'


8 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


'I see.'

'Senator, it doesn't matter, the reason for the crime.
Yes, the environment down there is an issue in the
Treaty, but the situations you describe just aren't covered.
We would have to go to mediation over the issue,
if it ever arose. We are dealing with an area where we
have no territorial claims and this Treaty deals with matters
in the international field exclusively. That's why it's
important that Antarctica remain demilitarized.'

Aiken's face adopted another grimace. 'That's all well
and good, Mr Phleger, but supposing natural resources
of great value were discovered in Antarctica, of value
enough so that it would justify an immense cost to
exploit them. It might be a vein of diamonds a foot
thick.'

Phleger let a sneer cross his face. He was no fan of
Aiken, but he was a patriot. 'There is no provision in
this Treaty which would deal with that situation,
Senator. If there was a discovery of value in a sector
which was claimed by one of the claimant nations it
would naturally claim sovereignty and the right to dictate
the manner of exploitation. The United States on
the other hand, never having recognized the validity of
that claim, is in a position to assert that it has rights in
respect thereto. And of course, should someone break
the Treaty on demilitarization to protect its claim, the
United States may use whatever force is necessary in
order to protect the Treaty.'

Aiken smiled. 'At least, that's what we can say.'
'Yes, Senator. We can.'


The Antarctic Treaty was ratified by the US Senate by
66 votes to 21 on August 10, 1960. And that was how

....................................... DECIPHER 	9


the world left it until 1993, when it was agreed that
everyone should plow through this shoddy mess one
more time. And again it was agreed that apart from the
banning of the military and banning the exploitation of
mineral wealth in respect to the environment, no country
could lay claim to Antarctica.

Which was a dangerous conclusion to reach for a
number of reasons, one of which had yet even to be
addressed. For it proved that the Antarctic Treaty's vague
double-talk had achieved exactly what it had set out to
do: that should it stand as law in the face of overwhelming
social change, its basic tenet would remain:
that if anything of value were discovered in Antarctica,
anarchy would reign supreme.

The Antarctic Treaty guaranteed that even if
mankind had any desire to rid itself of the Seven Deadly
Sins, Greed had been assured of a place in our hearts
by virtue of time. By writing it down on a piece of paper
and parading it as law and belief, Greed could be resurrected
at a moment's notice.

That was the beauty of the written word. It was invariably
taken at face value and granted permit to be spoken
as the truth. It lived longer than the man.

And wreaked havgc in the process.


ANTARCTICA


The sacred symbols of the cosmic elements, the secrets
of Osiris, had been hidden carefully. Hermes, before
his return to the heavens, invoked a spell on them and
said, '0 holy books which have been made by my
immortal hands, by incorruption's magic spell, reaain
free from decay throughout eternity and incorrupt by
time. Become unseeable, undefinable, from everyone
whose foot shall tread the plains of this land, until old
Heaven shall bring instruments for you, whom the
Creator shall call his souls.' Thus spake he, and laying
the spells on them by means of his works, he shut them
safe away in their rooms. And long has been the time
since they were hid away...


The Virgin of the World

Taken from the Corpus Hermeticum circa AD i00

*--REUTERS NEWS SERVICE - 8 MARCH, 2012--*


Return-Path: latest@reuters.newsserv.com I
Received:rnirage.rola.com(dispatch.services) 205.174.222.tO01.407839.70])byeminO8.mail.col.com


(8.6.12/8.6,12/4.9078.96)with ESMTP id 8AA8933 for: >ralph.mathesonOrola.com<; RCINS March 8,2012
09:53:38-0400 / PAGE 7 of 32


Washington D.C. -- lPM EST


With reports surfacing of unusual activity in the region of .lung
Chang, a Chinese Research Station based 130km west of Mount
McKelvey in central Antarctica, Secretary of State Irwin Washier
has refused to confirm or deny that the United States placed
a counter-offensive task force on standby in the South Pacific
this morning. This despite confirmed sightings of 6 US warships
heading for the Ross Sea. Reports also indicate over
6000 US troops encamped on the Falkland Islands, a British
colony in the South Atlantic.

Chinese activity has been under intense scrutiny since
NASA's confirmation of high-quality mineral deposits in the
upper Antarctic basin last month and their announcement this
week of radiation emissions in the vicinity of the Chinese
base. 'A vast amount of heat is being generated down there,'
said Dr Charles Taylor, head of the Antarctic Scientific
Committee. 'We know Antarctica has a lot of volcanic activity,
but this is distinct from any geology we know of.' To generate
that much heat would require nuclear power, which is
banned under the Antarctic Treaty. As one source remarked,
'According to these numbers, either they've cracked nuclear
fusion, or they've found a power source of even greater magnitude.'

The
US, having sworn to defend the principles of the Antarctic
Treaty banning military entrenchment, was outraged by the recent
publication of satellite photographs clearly swing a Chinese
military convoy landing at Belgrano II, the Argentine base camp
on the Weddell Sea. But with its oil industry lobbying to establish
offshore platforms in the region, the US position is weak.
The Chinese have refused to comment.

I

> SPORTS AND WEATHER NEWS FOLLOWB . . . >>>


WEATHER HEADLINES:

SEVERE WlEATHER PLAGUES WHOLE CONTINENT8

ICELAND - 2 PM GMT

Reports are emerging of an imminent flood in the southern coastal
region. Glacial ice has started melting from within for some weeks
now and whole reservoirs of melt water have built up to disturbing
levels. Preliminary indications also show sea temperatures have
risen by five degrees in the last three weeks and are on a steady
increase. The fear is that the warm seawater will rapidly erode
the glacier wails, which are holding back the melt water. Similar
reports of a sudden global rise in sea temperatures are emerging
from all over the world. Scientists are at a loss to explain it, other
than as another manifestation of Global Warming.

LAT. 67°20'S, LONG. 180°16'W


ROSS SEA- OFF THE ROSS ICE SHELF


NEW ZEALAND ROSS DEPENDENCY



[click for more information on these environmental hotspots]


Madras, India - Typhoons continue. 1500 dead.

Tokyo, Japan - Multiple Tsunami warnings issued.

California, USA - 200 dead in massive earthquake.

London, England - pre-tremors detected.

Mid-West, USA - storms and severe weather freeze potato belt.

Transfer interrupted! <<<

Communications Error 343571 <<<


USERS ARE ADVISED. If error message 343571 appears - DO NOT
ADJUST YOUR SYSTEMI An error has occurred in the communications
system. A satellite has stopped responding to messages and
may not be relaying information. This is usually caused by solar
flare activity and is nothing to be alarmed about. Normal service
will be resumed shortly. We apologize for any inconvenience this
has caused . . .

R

alph Matheson felt nauseous. So much so, he'd just
lost his breakfast, which was now a glistening yellow
tiger-stripe frozen solid down the side of Red Osprey's
iron-oxide-colored hull.

He had the shakes bad. Always did when he felt sick.
He quickly wiped his mouth on his coat sleeve before
gripping the rail tightly and heaving again. Frdzen
chunks hit the swell below, but the sound was lost in
the roar of the storm.

'Hey, dickheadt' a crusty voice commented. 'There's
a ten-thousand-dollar pollution fine for puking in the
ocean.'

Jack Bulger was a craggy old bastard. Fifty and solidly
built. His voice sounded like throat cancer was paying
a visit, while he wore his gray hair in a buzz-cut like a
marine's. A sharp contrast to Matheson's curly nutbrown
mop which he kept firmly tucked inside his hood.
Matheson was sure Bulger had his head bare just for


16 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


machismo. Not that Matheson could care less. He just
wanted to stay warm. That was why he'd grown the
beard to begin with.

Bulger be damned. Matheson didn't want to be out
here anyway, checking main derrick up-links. He'd
avoided it all morning. Hid in the galley for a half hour,
reading a print-out of Reuters news reports off the web
and nursing a coffee and doughnut.

As far as he could tell, the sensors attached to the base
of the huge, battered drilling tower were fine. The intermittent
signal drop-out was down to a faulty connection
which he'd fixed in seconds. There was no way that his
equipment was going to jeopardize the drilling process.
The weather, on the other hand, he had absolutely no
control over.

He eyed the mass of nine-foot sectioned steel drill
pipe as it shot up and down, caged inside the derrick.
Bad idea. He gripped the hand-rail again. Clenched his
stomach.

Bulger swiped his co-worker on the backl It seemed
playful to outsiders, but Matheson knew better. Bulger
was trying to make him spew his guts again.

Matheson watched the smoke from Bulger's cigar mix
with his breath and drift his way. He shivered. Trying
to keep his voice slow and even so he could hold his
temper and the rest of his breakfast down all in one go,
he said, 'There are seven lows gathering - all within a
fifty-mile radius. This is not typical Antarctic weather.
I was told to expect four, maybe even five lows - ferocious
weather conditions by anyone's standards. But
seven is unheard off I do not relish the idea of being
part of weather formation history!'

Bulger puffed on his cigar. 'Bracing, isn't it?'

....................................... DECIPHER 	17


'Bracing is not a word I'd choose to use!' Matheson
shrieked. 'Hell on earth, maybe. Or the final Canto in
Dante's Inferno, if you knew what the hell that was! If
you read anything other than Penthouse!'

The weather fronts were moving in fast and deadly.
Coming out of nowhere. Matheson was acutely aware
that out here there was a good chance it might get him
killed. And listening in on the scientific chatter from
McMurdo Station hadn't helped 'matters. The scientists
had absolutely no explanation for such severe
weather.

Antarctic weather. The only certainty was, it was
going to be bad. At approximately 60 degrees of latitude
south, the winds thundered in from every major
ocean with nothing to stop them. Not one island. Not
one mountain. A ship could set a course to follow precisely
EAT. 58°S, in effect circumnavigate the globe, and
never once run into dry land. The Antarctic was the
most forbidding place on earth and Matheson was certain
of one thing: he wanted to go home.

'What do you want, anyway?' he asked Bulger shakily,
wiping at his mouth again. Bulger didn't bother
replying. Just braced himself as a small wall of water
crashed across the bow and sprayed the crew. He
watched with a satisfied air as it caught Matheson offguard.

Matheson
wiped his face down.

They were both engineers. Matheson was usually a
desk man, designing set-ups on a workstation and never
going anywhere near the field. Bulger was the exact
opposite. A real hands-on kind of guy who spent most
days elbow deep in grease, fixing problems with
common sense, guile and a wrench. They both knew



18 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

their stuff, of course. Pressures per square millimeter,
per square inch. How to cause a stress fracture, and how
not to. They both knew textbook stuff and more. But
Bulger knew construction workers and roughnecks. He
knew how their minds worked and how they liked to
work. As far as he was concerned, Matheson knew shit.
And Matheson knew this.
Bulger climbed up to the upper deck, announcing,
'There's a problem with your node.'
Matheson's face fell. 'What kind of problem?'

The drill ship lurched, bucking on another ferocious
wave. They were getting bigger, Matheson thought.
That one had to be at least 30 feet high. He felt his
knees tremble as he watched the turquoise ocean race
up to meet him then dip away again. A thunderous blast
of freezing blue water and ice crashed over the bow and
swept up deck in a tidal wave. In the time it took him
to turn his head to see, the vast yellow derrick, the
mighty drilling tower, had already borne the brunt of
the impact and the 50-knot winds were whipping the
water back into a frenzy. Before he even knew what hit
him, Matheson was knocked on his ass and smacked
backwards.

He jerked to a stop, his nylon safety line creaking with
the strain. There was little he could do but stay put
until the bitter salt water washed over him. He choked
when he could finally take a breath, and shuddered
from the cold despite the protection of his rubbery DayGlo
orange survival suit and layers of thermal underwear.
Thank
God he'd remembered to clip himself on. It
....................................... DECIPHER 	1 9

wasn't the sort of routine he was used to. After all, there
wasn't much chance of being swept overboard on the
way to work in San Francisco. Trams were like that.
Staggering to his feet, Matheson went to pull his cold
and wet balaclava back into place but it stank of bile,
so despite it being minus 80°C with the windchill
factor, he removed it instead. As a result, he could feel
his nose hairs freezing. Breathing through his mouth
made him cough. Breathing through his nose wasn't
much better, but it was vital. He had to warm the air
up despite his sinuses. People were known to die of
shock breathing air that was too frigid.
He had to get out of the cold. He could feel the seawater
freezing on his face. What kind of a welcome
would he get if he went home to Wendy and asked her
to marry him with his skin hanging from his face?
Bulger was watching him from the upper deck. 'What
sort of problem?' Matheson demanded, well aware that
his voice was turning hoarse and feeble. 'What's wrong
with the node?'
'Check it out for yourself,' Bulger snapped. 'You
couldn't design a fucking vending machine for a parking
lot.'
Matheson wanted to yell after him, but Bulger was
gone. Ralph was only out here in Antarctica because
Bulger had insisted he come out and field test the thing.
The man was going to make his ulcer worse, keep plugging
away at him like this.
He made a grab for the ladder then changed direction.
He jerked his head to the side-rail again and hung
over it. He could feel the freezing cold of wet metal
through the thermal gloves. Already the seawater was
starting to freeze around his hand and he had trouble



20 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

pulling his fingers away. He retched, but there was nothing left to bring up.
The roughnecks were watching. That was the most
embarrassing part. Matheson tried to compose himself;
he had his pride. He wanted to look them in the eye
and exit gracefully, but of course he knew if he took
his eye off the horizon he'd throw up ,again. So instead
he clung to anything he could find that was solid
enough and inched his way to the ladder.
He clipped his safety-line to a rung and had just about
plucked up enough courage to climb when a delicate
ungloved hand thrust a small silver hipflask into his
hand. He glanced around surprised to find the cool blue
eyes of Ilana Petrova, one of the Russian roughnecks.
He couldn't see her straw-blonde hair. Like him, she
kept her hair hidden away in the warmth of her survival
suit hood. They all wore them on deck. He could
see her tight smile though. Her thin, pink lips. 'Thank
you,' he said meekly. 'What is it?'
'It's good,' she said in her thick Muscovite accent.
'Rum. And eat dry bread. When you throw up again,
you need something to - to '
'To throw up,' Matheson smiled, embarrassed. 'Yeah.'
Ilana nodded at the flask encouragingly. Matheson took
a swig. Wiped the top and handed it back. 'Thanks,' he
said.
She tucked the flask away, slipped a glove back on
and nodded in that curious Russian way. They eyed
each other, and for just a brief moment Matheson actually
didn't feel quite so ill. It didn't last long.
'What's the problem with the node?' he asked tentatively.
Ilana
frowned. 'Nothing,' she said.
....................................... DECIPHER 	21

'Nothing?' Matheson mused. He watched her walk
away, her familiar wiggle on display as she negotiated
the rusty metal deck plates. He watched her climb the
crane, get a slap on the ass and kick the guy in the
face as another wave hit the bow and crystal droplets
scraped against his skin. His stomach twisted in knots
again as he climbed up out of the bitter cold. Questions
formed in a torrid swirl in his mind. Why weren't his
sea-sickness pills working? What was the point of wearing
a survival suit in a place where you were unlikely
to survive?
And what was Bulger playing at?

The control room was dark, bathed in a deep red glow.
Banks of monitors blinked reams of data at hunched
engineers. The room stank of cigarette smoke and every
so often he could smell Bulger's cigar. He was lurking
in here somewhere. The murmuring was active as information
traded hands and the drill's progress was tracked.
He glanced at a bank. of screens showing the rig outside
and watched for a moment as the pipe appeared to ram
up and down inside the tower like a piston, as the ship
bucked on the waves. It was impressive. There had been
trials up in Maska, of course, but this was the first true
exploratory oil drill in a polar region. Problem was, this
was Antarctica. Where it was illegal.
But then illegal was not an alien concept to the big
oil companies. Matheson never forgot his college days
when a ship by the name of the Exxon Valdez poured
over ten million gallons of oil straight into the ecosystem.
That may have been an accident, but Exxon's poor attempt at wriggling out of cleaning up its own
mess was not.


22 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


But there was no National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration in Antarctica to bring Rola Corp. into
line if it screwed up. The company could effectively do
what it liked. Yes, a permit was required to be here, but
unofficially if Red Osprey struck oil in the meantime,
the company was sure it could all be worked out. That
was the trouble - Rola Corp. had plans on Antarctic
oil, with or without Ralph Matheson. So he figured it
might as well be with him and by default with somebody
who would make sure the Exxon Valdez never
happened out here.

Trouble was, they'd pulled the rug out from under
him. They weren't supposed to be out here for another
six months. They just weren't ready.

'What's going on? Bulger said something about a
problem with the node.' Matheson unzipped the parka
part of his suit and made a bee-line for Charlie Harper,
a black systems specialist from Wisconsin. They were
friends, and had worked together before out in Saudi
Arabia a few years back. He was about the only person
Matheson trusted on this ship. He could feel his teeth
chattering as he lowered himself into a comfortable
chair.

Charlie replied almost too lethargically: 'Nothin'
much. Just the same ole same ole.' Which was Charliespeak
for: Shit's hit the fan.

Charlie was focused on his monitors. Clicked the
mouse a couple of times. When his gaze met Matheson's
it was worried. 'We got a warship. Chinese.'

Charlie had the Global Positioning System, or GPS,
on line and was busy monitoring air and sea traffic.
GPS kept track of the position of every vehicle linked
into its network of satellites. Those vehicles could access

	....................................... DECIPHER 	23

all kinds of navigational data, including pinpointing all
the other vehicles plugged into it, anywhere on earth,
at any given time. It had been developed by the US
military sometime in the last century. Now it was an
everyday part of civilian life.

Clearly a Ghinese warship was bad news. There was
every chance now they would have to dump the pipeline
and move on quickly. Red Osprey had a distinct advantage
over the warship in that, thanks to some bright
young computer programmer, it didn't actually register
on any GPS system. At a distance, Red Osprey was to
all intents and purposes invisible. But if they were found,
they would be boarded.

Matheson had seen the news. He knew what was
going on and it wasn't good. Red Osprey was flying the
US flag. To the Chinese right now that was a red rag
to a bull. 'Is this what Bulger came down to see me
about?' Matheson snapped, agitated. He didn't need this
right now.

'Yeah. He thought maybe they could hear what we're
doing in the water.'

'And can they? Charlie, I need to know. My ass is
on the line here.'
'No, man! No way they could hear us. You did good.'
'I did good? I did good? I did a goddamn miracle,
Gharlie. Next to loaves and fishes, bringing this project
forward six months was a goddamn, honest to goodness
miracle. How do you know they can't hear us?' Matheson
was working himself into a sweat.

'I know they can't hear us, coz I've been listenin' to
them on the radio for a half hour. Man, they too busy
partying to be bothered snooping around for us. They've
been hanging around all morning watching our guys


24 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


over at McMurdo preparing a new landing strip. They're
too distracted. Shit, I can hear somebody over there
singin' Abba - in Chinese.'

Matheson frowned in surprise.

'What can I say,' Charlie shrugged. 'The node's got
great ears.'

'What song?'

' "Supertrooper".'

If Red Osprey were discovered it would blow the
whole situation. They'd already had one close encounter
with a wing of Chinese fighters out on patrol. They
hadn't been discovered, but with Chinese and US forces
facing off over mineral rights, in a world where dwindling
fossil fuels were sending prices skyward, Red
Osprey's surreptitious oil tapping could spark a war.

' Bulger had been bugging him about friction vibration
for weeks. It was what they had been most concerned
about. Screw whether it actually worked. Just
make sure the damn thing didn't make any noise.

The 'damn thing' was the heart of Matheson's design,
a device called the Depth Node. It had been transported
out to the Ross Sea under cover of darkness last winter
and dumped directly beneath them. Then, controlled
remotely, it had dug in on the sea floor. It was the main
point for capping the well and heating the buried pipework.
The node was what made polar oil exploration
possible and the company intended to set up nodes all
over the Antarctic coast. Drill, strike oil, then cap off,
only returning to a node when they wanted to fill a
tanker. Refining was done aboard ship. The node would
take care of everything else. Its power unit ran on hydrogen
and oxygen - essentially water - and was designed
to last twenty years. But the prototype had only been in

....................................... DECIPHER 	25


the ground for nine months. It was supposed to run
silently. What if it had failed?

Water power was a new technology which Rola Corp.
had acquired the patent to about fifteen years previously
and sat on. So far, the rival water-powered generators
that had emerged onto the market were so extremely
expensive only western nations could afford them.
Which was good because it meant it would be decades
before the Third World could scrape together enough
cash to buy the technology. Until then, they would need
oil. The problem was, there had been no mass testing
of this new technology. What if there was a problem
with the water-powered section of the node, something
beyond Matheson's predicting capabilities and the
Chinese had detected this? They were a sitting duck.

Charlie handed Matheson a mug of coffee as he
watched the screens. Absorbed, as if he were playing a
game. 'what's that?' Matheson asked, pointing to a series
of blips.

'That red one's the Chinese sub. The other's a US
carrier. And that there, see that blue one? That's a plane
on its way from Chile to Pirrit Hills, in the Chilean
sector. And I can tell you right now, they's up shit creek
without a paddlei'

'What's happening?'

'It's a small aircraft,' Charlie explained. 'That storm
we got moving in just fucked up their day. They're past
the point of no return. They're going to have to find
somewhere to land and refuel if they're going to get
back. And between you and me, I don't think they're
even gonna make it to their fuel dump.'

'What do we do? Charlie, we can't just let them crash!
What if it was us out there?'



26 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

'We can't just get on a radio, either. We're not supposed
to be here, Ralph.'
'I know, but - look, see? The two closest research
stations to Pirrit Hills are both American. Siple, and
Sky-Hi - y'know, Eights Station. They're both manned.
Charlie, you gotta send out an emergency message on
the Internet at least. Just make sure they're anonymous.'
'If I send out any message, they'll know somebody's
out here,' Charlie said defensively.
'You gotta do something,' Matheson argued, distressed.
'I'm
sorry, but they're on their own.'
Matheson watched the scope. Watched the plane
head off into oblivion.
'What's that?' He gestured at a red blip about twelve
miles off their port bow and sipped his coffee. It was
bitter. Shittiest coffee he'd ever tasted.
'That's our carrier I was tellin' ya about. Been doin'
maneuvers or something. They're too busy worryin' about
each other to give a damn about us. But hey, luck 'em.
So Frankie ran a simulation test on a dump. We can be
outta here before they get close enough to sniff around.'
Matheson nodded and had more coffee. On his computer
screen a graphic cut-away view showed the drill
in progress. A string of steel-alloy pipe extended down
from Red Osprey to the node. The node then ran its
own length of pipe vertically down a further 500 meters.
The pipeline then changed direction dramatically and
had been steered around difficult strata of rock. It was
approaching the estimated site of the oil field at a gentle
downward sloping angle.
Directional drilling had been pioneered by the
	....................................... DECIPHER 	27
Norwegian National Oil Company in the early 1990s
when they sank a well nearly 24,000 feet horizontally
from a starting point 9,000 feet under the North Sea.
It was so successful there was a rush to adopt the technology
since it allowed for more oil drainage than conventional
means.
'Thome was on the sat. again,' Charlie dropped in
casually.
Matheson almost choked on his coffee. 'What did he
want?'
'Test results. Come on, Ralph, he wants to know how
your baby's holding up. Just thank God he's not on a
plane out here.'
Matheson gulped more coffee. Tried not to taste it,
just enjoy its warmth. But his hands were shaking and
this time it had nothing to do with seasickness.
Rip Thome, President of Rola Corp. Exploration.
Asshole. Just a mention of the guy's name was enough
to give Matheson the willies. Thome was the one who
had caused his ulcer in the first place. Rip Thorne and
Bulger. Between them, they were responsible for him
winding up out here. Six whole months. How the hell
could Thorne expect to bring this project forward by six
whole months and expect it to work? And what was with
Bulger anyway? Thorne's personal little Rottweiler. He'd
already overruled the first test drill site, said he wanted
to drill someplace else. Someplace he'd personally
picked out.
Matheson checked the data. 'Charlie, please tell me
you didn't give him an answer.'
Charlie glared at his friend. 'Without checking with
you first? Are you shittin' me? Of course not! I told him
he'd have to wait for your damn report.'



28 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

Matheson nodded. Tried to shake off his mood. He
checked the data again. 'Remote drill-bit's operating
fine,' he relayed warily. 'Geo-steering sensor... Hmm.
Interesting rock composition . . . crystalline? Huh . . .
MWD, MWD, where are you? Uh, got it.' He clicked
on the Measurement-While-Drilling icon and checked
the torque and forward force on the drill-bit. It was high.
Within operating limits, but still high.
They had hit a tough strata of rock earlier in the day
and were trying to break through, so the order had been
given to go to full power. It would wear the drill-bit out
at twice the rate, but since this drill-bit had been going
for a day and it wasn't unusual to change the bit every
twenty-four to forty-eight hours, they might as well just
let it burn itself out.
Geology was a funny business though. No one was
quite sure what kind of rock they had encountered. And
in the past six hours they had only advanced enough
to attach one more nine-foot section of drilling pipe.
So just in case the drill broke through to an underground
cavern or soft, particulate matter, like sand, a
clamp harness had been attached to the pipe their end
to stop the bit running off with the entire pipe-line if
there was a sudden lurch forward. It would scupper the
whole job if that happened and nobody wanted that,
since retrieving miles of pipe from the ocean floor just wasn't an option. They would be forced to start again
from scratch.
Glancing at the secondary monitor, Matheson hesitated
over the three data icons. One meant a remote data
dump via satellite to his workstation back home. A second
meant an immediate digital download onto the ship's
....................................... DECIPHER 	29
system core. And the third one - was yellow. Yellow? What did that mean?
'This is my ship! What did you think you were doing?'
He turned from the screen as the door flew open and
the captain of Red Osprey stormed in. Jaffna was a small
man with Indian features and a western temper. He
flipped the lights on and everyone screwed up their eyes
for a second. Abuse was hurled, but he didn't give a
damn. He zeroed in on Bulger.
Bulger was on his feet. 'You're a fucking idiot!'
'I gave direct orders and you overrode them. Try it
again and I'll take your head off!'
'Are you an idiot, Jaffna? Is that it?' Bulger met him
center-stage. Everyone else knew better, and got out the
way. 'What kind of a fucking idiot displays the signal?
Anyone with a good pair of fucking glasses could see
it, goddamnitF'
Matheson leaned in quick and whispered, 'What
signal?'
'Jaffna turned the lights on,' Charlie explained
quickly and quietly. 'Flew the signal that we're doing
sub-aqua work to passing traffic. Bulger told a deckhand
to switch 'em off.'
Matheson shook his head in surprise. 'Well, by international
law he's supposed to.' He grimaced and sat
back. Watched the two men go at it and was even enjoying
the entertainment until suddenly it hit him.
Yellow meant block resistance. Recoil forces and
internal pumping pressure.
Matheson spun around fast. 'Shift' He grabbed the
mouse, clicked on the yellow icon, called up the data.
'Shift' Shift Shift' He spun back around. The recoil was


30 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


massive. It hadn't struck oil at all. 'Who's on forward
resistance?'

As Bu!ger and ]affna stuck at it, ]affna screaming
something about not wanting to lose his license and
planning on captaining another ship some day,
Matheson scrambled to his feet. Screw them. Screw the
Chinese navy. This was more serious. The shit had
already hit the fan and none of them knew it.

He scanned the room fast. Jabbed a finger at Frankie,
a fat, young, nervous-looking guy. 'You!' he growled.
'You were monitoring forward resistance. Why didn't
you pick up on itF

'I - I went for a piss,' Frankie stuttered.

Matheson shoved him out the way, dived for his monitor.
'The bit's broken through. It's pumping pressurized
seawatefi' This was unprecedented. He wheeled round
and bellowed at everyone in the room. 'Dump the pipe
now! We got a Code Zero!'

Everyone knew what that meant. There was a terrified
silence. Code Zero was a theoretical situation they'd
computer simulated back in the States. They had broken
through to an underwater sink-hole. At this temperature
the water should have been solid ice, but the pressures
exerted from the sheer weight of the glacier ice shelves
above meant the water was under extreme pressure and
remained liquid. Give it a means of escape and of course
it was going to take the path of least resistance. Recoil
effects would be buckling the pipe. In this cold, the
pipe should have snapped, but it couldn't because it was
a steel alloy designed to remain elastic. For the node to
work, the pipe-line was a pipe within a pipe. It was the
central-core pipe that was going haywire, and it was the
core pipe that Red Osprey was directly connected to.

....................................... DECIPHER 	31


The recoil would be speeding up the pipe in waves. At
some point it was going to reach the ship. In calm
weather they'd clear decks until all the fun was over.
But in this storm - it could sink them.


Everyone dived for the controls. Bulger hit the alarm
and was on the intercom in a blink. Klaxons whirred.
Hazard lights flashed. 'This is an emergency! Everyone
below decks, now! Get off deck! Leave everything! This
is not a drill! Go! Go! Go!'

No one stuck around to ask questions. But it was
already too late. The first buckle hit Red Osprey when
it was already in the throes of another thirty-foot icy
wave. The roughnecks all lurched in one direction as
they started to unclip safety-lines and transfer over to
the main deck-rails. But the pipe whiplashed with such
force that it righted the ship on the crest of the wave,
and when Red Osprey finally lurched to port, three
roughnecks were catapulted into the ocean. They were
dead inside a minute.


Matheson watched the monitors when he should have
been concentrating on .his readings. He watched liana
climb down from the crane as a brace from the derrick
sheered off and shot straight through her abdomen. It
blasted out her back and took her guts with it. Blood
sprayed red across the sky like lightning and was gone
in the crash of another wave. Her body clung to the
ladder for a moment - then broke away. She never had
time to change her expression.

Matheson heard Charlie's breath catch in his throat.
Glancing at him quickly he saw his friend was glued
to the monitor too. He had the look of a man who'd


r

.,


32 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

just lost his lover. When had those two gotten together?
The ship lurched and swung back. Screw Charlie's love
life. Matheson dived across the room. Everyone was
panicking. He flipped up the Plexiglas sheath on the
central console and hammered the bright red abort
switch.
More sirens added to the din. The computer confirmed
that the node had capped off and had jettisoned
the ship's umbilical. But the internal pressure readings
didn't change. Something had been pumped and was
rocketing up the inside of the pipe-line. If they didn't
dump the umbilical now it might catch on the seabed
and they'd never get out of there.
Matheson whirled around looking for the dump controis.
He found Captain Jaffna already on the intercom,
yelling at the bridge for full ahead. His fingers flew
across the keys. The umbilical would be gone in seconds.
Matheson
checked the monitor again, checked
Jaffna. Watched the pipe begin to fall through the deck
hole into the water below.
The remaining roughnecks scrambled for cover.
Some made it, but some didn't.
Dumping the umbilical was becoming impossible.
As it slid into the ocean it caught on more sheering
braces. Hanging limply from the towering derrick it was
3000 feet of dead weight pipe under no control, at the
mercy of the undercurrents.
The creaking got louder. The derrick buckled, came
crashing down and crushed another roughneck.
Matheson could see the guy's thick bushy moustache.
His name was Pete. He was still alive, but he was
trapped, Matheson realized, under a pipe-line that was
....................................... DECIPHER 	33

now pointing directly at the bridge and living quarters.
Directly at them. Like a cannon.

Matheson braced himself, watching Pete struggle under
tons of battered steel until the nozzle inevitably
exploded. Freezing mud blasted out, smashing everything
in its path. Fists of rock tore through portholes
like bullets. The smell of sulfur was overwhelming. And
the cold...
Jaffna never wavered. Always thinking, always looking
for an option. He keyed more controls and the
ship rocked as a blast ripped through the deck-hole.
Jaffna had instigated an emergency dump. The pipeline
was gone and they were free. But the devastation
was immense.
Red Osprey tossed back and forth several times before
Jaffna's orders finally kicked in and the ship steamed
full ahead. But she was limping badly, smoke pouring
from her engine room.
Bulger thumbed the klaxons off. Everyone stood
motionless, trying to take it all in. Charlie, his dark skin
stained with tears, rubbed his cheeks angrily and tried
to focus on the GPS systems.
'The sub?' Matheson demanded.
Charlie shook his head and shot a look at Jaffna. 'We
got a destroyer coming at us. North-north-west. Full
speed. Sending out registry USS Ingersoll DD-990... it's the Marines.'
Jaffna nodded. It was time to get out of here. He
yanked the door open and let a slew of mud and rock
slide into the room as he beat a retreat to the bridge.
The large picture porthole beyond was smashed and
the wind and ice gusted in, driving it all across the floor.



34 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

A large knot of muddy rock skidded up to Matheson's
boot.
Matheson turned to Charlie. They eyed each other
for a moment before he tentatively stepped out onto
the upper deck, ignoring the squalls that blasted his face
with ice. The drilling tower was buckled the length of
the deck. Bodies lay strewn about. Huge boxes of
equipment were broken and junked from stem to stern.
'Clip yourself on,' Bulger ordered quietly. He was
looking distastefully at his cigar. He tossed it overboard
as he clipped his own safety-line to the main rail and
made his way down the ladder. All Matheson could
hear him keep saying was: 'Ghrist, what a fucking mess.
Oh, Jesus, this is terrible.'
Stunned, Matheson went down to the main deck to
give a hand with the clearing up. He'd have preferred
to go back to bed and give the day a shot from another
angle. Even a sunset would have given him the sense
of closure he wanted. But this was Antarctica and sunset
wasn't due for another six weeks.
He had set to work making a note of the victims.
There were thirteen dead in all. As he ticked them off
on a clipboard, trying his best not to be sick again, a
roughneck by the name of Pico interrupted. He had a
large chunk of something in his hands. It looked hea.vy.
'Hey, I think this must be yours. What kinda stuff did
you guys have on deck? This looks pretty expensive.' He
handed it over.
'I don't remember us having anything on deck,'
Matheson commented. He frowned and examined the
object, turning it over in his hands. He wasn't the only
one. Bulger had a piece and Frankie made a grab for
a chunk. Now he came to think of it, there were lumps
	....................................... DECIPHER 	35
of the stuff all over the deck. 'This isn't from any of our
equipment.'
Matheson took the rock-like object over to a puddle
and started washing the dirt away. It was crystal, and
picked up the light so effectively that it appeared to be
glowing pale blue. Almost clear. He shared a wary look
with Bulger and for that brief moment they both forgot
their differences. 'It's a piece of rock...'
'What kind of rock?' Frankie asked furtively. His skin
was peeling. He hadn't used his balaclava either and
looked terrible.
Matheson turned it over again. 'Looks like diamond.'
'Doesn't look like any diamond I ever saw,' Frankie
mused. 'It's heavy, but it ain't nearly heavy enough. Did
this come through the pipeline?'
Charlie stepped up to them. Exchanged sympathetic
glances. 'Must have,' he said.
Slowly, very slowly, Bulger smiled, bearing his teeth
like a shark. 'I knew it,' was all he said.
Matheson suddenly held his piece up to the light.
'Well, I'll be damned.' He positioned himself so they
could all see. 'Look,' he said, disbelievingly. 'It's got writing
on it.'
Glinting in the light were finely etched, perfectly
formecl glyphs - ancient-looking symbols whose meaning
was lost on them. So clear were the hieroglyphs that
it looked like the diamond itself had incorporated the
writing into its natural structure.
It was astounding.
'I wonder what it says?' someone was asking.
'Looks Egyptian.'
'Egyptian?' Matheson jerked a thumb at a distant iceberg.
'Out here? Come on, man!'



36 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

Frankie set about picking up every piece he could
find. 'We gotta get more of this stuff,' he said. 'Someone
needs to take a look at this. We're gonna be rich!' But
his hand was quickly squashed under the sole of Bulger's
thick heavy boot.
'This shit right here is company property, Fat Boy.
You collect it all up for the company.'
Matheson warily ran his fingers over the etchings on
the stone. Thirteen people had just died because of this
stuff. He gripped it tightly. They were going to be rich?
Somehow, he wasn't so sure. He held the stone up to
the light again. Took another good look. And that was
when he noticed the black smudge on the horizon closing
in rapidly. A black smudge of storm clouds against
a green sky . . . a green sky?
Klaxons erupted on deck again before he could say
anything. As cliff-sized waves crashed across the bow,
and the destroyer circled in from the North, Matheson
watched a sleek gray military Sea-Hawk helicopter swoop
in from the sky, its screaming engines barely making a
dent in the noise from the storm. Hovering low over the
center deck where Red Osprey moved least and the derrick
lay crumpled, its doors slid back abruptly. Ropes
were tossed out. And as a dozen marines swung down
from above, a loud-hailer fixed next to missiles on the
stub wings of the chopper suddenly sprang to life.
'This is the United States Marine Corps! Stay where
you are on deck! You are being boarded!'
Machine guns were cocked. Hands held high. A
braided officer took center-stage. With a scowl firmly
fixed to his young face he assessed the crew with one
definitive sweep before finally locking his gaze on
Matheson and making a bee-line for him.
....................................... DECIPHER 	37

Still gripping the rock, Ralph Matheson had a manic
grin smeared across his face.
The Marines were here.
They had been caught at last. Thank God, he
thought.


-'H,: EIGHTH DAY


It is a curious thing that God learned Greek when he
wished to turn author - and that he did not learn it
better.


Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosopher, 1844-1900

FULTON CONFERENCE CENTER


MAGNOLIA UNIVERSITY, NORTH
MISSISSIPPI


March 16, 2012


]n the beginning was the word,' Dr Richard Scott

I

	announced, fumbling with the switch and pressing

it twice by mistake. The digital projector raced through
a sequence of images so fast it was impossible to pick
out the detail. Scott muffled a groan and tried in vain
to cue the slide up once more, but couldn't find the
number to punch in. He looked to the audience. Letting
his shoulders sag. 'And that word is currently not repeatable
in public,' he said.

The audience gave a louder than expected note of
amusement but somehow Scott couldn't trust their
motives. They were academics for the most part, with
a sprinkling of students. They had come to listen to the
man whose little tour had caused quite a stir in some
circles. Even the President, a devout and notable
Baptist, had felt the urge to come out and actively question
his work. One tiny professor from U-Dub. It was
ridiculous. Where was the religious freedom in this


42 	STF-L PAVLOU .....................................

country anymore? Had it all been a myth to begin with?
Scott glanced down exasperated at the equipment
and caught a glimpse of his own reflection. Neatly
trimmed hair. Square jaw. He fiddled with switches, but
it was no use. Forlornly, he glanced over to the student
research assistant they had assigned to him for just this
kind of emergency. 'Uh, could you - uh? Hello?'
A guy from Federal Express was getting her to sign
for a package. Scott was amazed. 'Uh, excuse me, sir?
I'm trying to lecture here.'
'When we promise ten-thirty, sir, we mean it.'
Scott couldn't help it. He broke into a smile and
burst out laughing to a squeal of feedback off the PA
system. The audience laughed with him.
'A round of applause for our friends at FedEx; Scott
chuckled.
The delivery guy took off his cap and gave a bow on
his way out, to the delight of the audience. Meanwhile,
Scott's assistant had dumped the package and was vaulting
onto the stage.
Scott cupped his hand over the microphone.
'Thanks.'
She was a bright girl, November Dryden, very bright.
Very attractive. But more importantly - very patient.
'Knock 'em dead,' she said, returning to her seat with a smile.
With his lecture back on track, Scott shared an
amused jibe with the audience. 'I think, on balance,
ancient manuscripts are a lot easier to handle,' he said.
Another ripple of laughter bounced around the auditorium
as the audience settled down and the first slide
popped up onto the screen.
Scott was a linguistic and cultural anthropologist by
....................................... DECIPHER 	43

trade. He studied social structures, law, politics, religion
and technology, but his specialty was language.
He was an epigraphist who spent years deciphering
ancient inscriptions. Yet despite the confidence he had
in his own work, he'd worried about this lecture more
than any other. It might be dangerous to his health,
because this was the Bible Belt. A lecture on newly discovered
ancient manuscripts that called the Bible into
question, wasn't going to cause lively debate, so much
as explosive disagreement. And then there was the other
issue 'To
begin again,' Scott continued. 'In the beginning
was the word. And that word is "unbeliever". Let me
start my lecture today by being very honest about my
beliefs.' He took a deep breath. 'I don't believe in Jesus
Christ.'
There were stunned expressions in the audience.
Scott shuffled his papers.

'The Gospels,' he explained, 'were written in Greek.
Where we have "word" the Greeks have logos. But logos
means more than just "word". It means thought, deed,
action. It means "word in action". It's the same in Hebrew
and in Aramaic. Some have recognized this dilemma
and opted for the word "act". In the beginning, there
was the act. But that still doesn't convey the full meaning
of logos. Christians wanted to attract Jews to their
faith; Jesus was, after all, a Jew. So Christianity - like all
great religions - borrowed from its predecessors both the
language and imagery of what had gone before. Hence,
in the beginning was logos because to the Hebrews, this
was nothing new. In Proverbs it's the wisdom motif.
'To entice Pagans, all they did was move into a bunch



44 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

of old churches and not bother redecorating. All those
vast mosaics of Christ, the bearded savior - those are
portraits of Zeus and Jupiter. Those churches are GrecoRoman.
So Christianity, then, is the earliest known
example of religious re-cycling. However, how much it
borrowed has always been a source of debate. But today
I brought the answer with me. And, if I may, I'd like to
share it with you.'
Scott sipped his water. Partly to quench his thirst, but
mostly to gauge his audience.
Ancient texts. They had been calling Christianity into question now for decades. The first had turned up in
1947. A shepherd boy by the name of Muhammad adhDhib,
or Muhammad the Wolf, of the Ta'amireh tribe
of Bedouin, had passed by the ancient settlement of
Qumran, by the Dead Sea, and stumbled upon ancient
scrolls in some clay jars in a cave. The most recent, the Istanbul Genezah, had been found in a chest in the
roof of a mosque. A genezah was a collection of prayer
scripture - stored but no longer used, usually because
they were worn out. These things hadn't seen the light
of day in at least 1,500 years.
Throughout this time the Christian establishment
had suppressed any information that questioned its religion.
But since the mid-1980s a small academic fringe
had seen it as their duty to reveal Christ as merely a
man. It was a viewpoint Scott hadn't entirely shared to
begin with, but things had changed.
'So,' he continued now, 'if we've got problems with
just one word, think about the sort of problems we have
when we consider that the Bible contains hundreds of
thousands of words, and all of them from mostly dead
languages. We have to admit that our interpretations,
	....................................... DECIPHER 	45
from any point of view, are going to be open to error.
For example, how many of you know somebody who
speaks fluent Aramaic and uses it in everyday speech?'
He let slip a smile. Time for an anecdote.
'Okay, how many of you here speak German?'
There was a flutter of hushed conversation from the
assorted nervous academics.
'Don't worry, I'm not going to call you up on stage
and saw you in half. Just give me a round figure. One,
two? Six?' He could see a few hands slowly go up. He
nodded. 'Six. Right. Okay- out of an audience of maybe
two hundred. In Europe, maybe a hundred million
people speak German. Maybe more, I don't know. To
tell you the truth, I don't care. The point is, if you
wanted to know how to speak German you'd ask a
German, right? I mean, they use it every day.'
Sounds of agreement.
'Which is ironic, because people still get it wrong.
Even when it comes to the simplest phraseology. Like
President Kennedy when he went to Berlin back in the
middle of the last century. What did he do? He got up
and addressed thousands of Germans, intent on telling
them that he was willing to embrace Germany after all
the ill-will of the Second World War. Intent on telling
them he was one of them. He wanted to say that he
understood them. That he too was a Berliner, you know,
as opposed to a New Yorker or a Londoner. He wanted
to say: I am a Berliner. So right offthe cuffhe announced: Ich bin ein Bediner!'
He paused. 'For those of you who don't know, ich means 'T'. Bin means "am". You know, ein, zwei, drei one,
two, three. Well, ein also means "a". And "Berliner"
does indeed mean "coming from Berlin". So on the



46 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

surface of it Kennedy said exactly whathe wanted to
say, right?' There was murmuring, but these were academics.
They knew they had been led into a trap. And
some of them were old enough to remember the trap
the first time around. But for the gullible in the audience,
Scott carried it through. He let his face fall. Let
his voice go very quiet.
'Except that it doesn't quite take into account the
nuance of German grammar. By placing ein in front of Berliner, President Kennedy turned Berliner into a noun
instead of an adjective. He'd already said "A Berliner"
by using bin. But by using the word ein it turned Berliner into a thing, not a place. And a Berliner is a very different
"thing" to the capital of Germany.
'What President Kennedy actually proclaimed, when
he stood up in front of the world's media that day, was: I am a doughnut.
'I leave it to you to decide which of the two statements
was more accurate.'

The slide up on the screen was of a small fragment of
papyrus.
'This was found in i920 in Nag Hammadi, Egypt,'
Scott told his audience. 'It dates from 100-150 of the
Common Era, or CE. I use CE instead of AD and BCE
in place of BC. I don't think dates should hinge on the
birth of Christ.' The audience definitely did not like
that. 'So what does this papyrus tell us? In short, that
John's Gospel was written at least fifty years after the
death of Jesus. It's therefore not an eyewitness account,
and must be suspect.
'Think about it... all that. From one tiny piece of
papyrus.'
	....................................... DECIPHER 	47
For Scott it also confirmed that John was written at
a time when the Roman Empire was considering adopting
Christianity to maintain its grip on power by representing
the masses. John, therefore, was probably
written by a Roman, since it was fundamental in describing
Jesus's role, and the rules governing Catholicism a
Rome-orientated institution. As a religion it looked to
Scott like it had very little to do with God and a lot to
do with politics.
'The Nag Hammadi scrolls are interesting because
among them was found a complete Gospel of Thomas
consisting of one hundred sayings of Jesus - a Gnostic
text that pre-dates the Gospels yet the Catholic Church
has branded it heretical. Historical fact is heretical?
'Okay, since there are freshmen in the auditorium
today, you'll forgive me if I over-explain terminology.
"Gnostic" is Greek and means "hidden knowledge" usually,
hidden knowledge of the divine. Why do we
know there's hidden knowledge? Because the language
of the text has quite clearly been manipulated. It uses
imagery as its weapon. After all, this was a new religion.
In order to lure in new worshippers they needed to
make them feel comfortable. So when, for example,
Jesus Christ - Christ simply being Greek for "Messiah"
and Jesus being Greek for the name Joshua - when Joshua walks in the wilderness or walks on water . . .
there's only one other guy who ever did stuff like that,
and he too was a prophet. He was never played up to
be supernatural although he was played by Charlton
Heston. I am, of course, referring to Moses. So what
better way to enhance your power than by being likened
to the best - that went before you.'
Scott took another sip of water and eyed the audience.


48 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


A couple of people were walking out. He wasn't surprised.
He was, however, surprised that there hadn't
been more. He waited for the door to close gently
behind them. People had a peculiar habit of conveniently
forgetting even the most widely accepted facts.
After all, hadn't the Egyptian goddess Isis promised an
afterlife that was better than this life, thousands of years
before Christ?

Scott smiled, warmly. This was where the fun began.
'The Nag Hammadi scrolls are also interesting because
they're Coptic - written in the later form of Egyptian
which used a Greek alphabet. But Joshua and his contemporaries
spoke Aramaic, so was it unusual for people
who spoke Aramaic to write everything down in Greek?
Well, actually no. If we think about present-day
Belgium, no one writes in Dutch or Flemish, they write
in German or French, or more often than not, English.

'Although none of the Gospels are written in
Aramaic, we know the writers spoke that language
because Aramaic language structures are hidden within
the text. Remember my point about German grammar?'

He keyed the machine and another slide popped up
into view - an ancient scroll covered neatly in ordered
brown script. 'But, that,' he said, 'is the opening page
of a lost book. One I think you'll all find quite fascinating.

'For
years there's been speculation about a lost book
of Q, or Quelle, which was extensively researched by
John Kloppenborg in the mid 1980s. Kloppenborg
believed that somewhere, there must be the original firsthand
account of Jesus before the writers of the Gospels
had their say. The consensus was that The Book of Q,
which has shaped our culture, was a verbal history,

....................................... DECIPHER 	49


which may initially have been written ill Aramaic.

'But that page,' he pointed to the screen, 'proves
something else entirely. It is not, and I stress not The
Book of Q. It's much older, as indicated by Chlorine
36 isotope tests. The genetic deterioration shows it was
written on the skin of a very old goat. And it proves for
the very first time that Christ borrowed his ideas from
the cult of Mithras. This book dates from four to five
hundred years before any such Jesus Christ was ever
born. Yet the New Testament shares its imagery and its
symbolism almost perfectly, almost word for word. It is
not a Mithraic text, and it is not Christian. It's a combination
of the two. It's the proverbial missing link. And
it was written in Aramaic.'

Scott grinned, a touch smugly. He finished off his
lecture with a simple, quiet question to the audience.
'Anyone here still want to be Christian?'


It was sometime later that Scott found himself inside a
wooden box. Clean and white, the whole approach was
airy, instead of the dark and murky confessionals of Old
Europe. Barely masking a schoolboy chortle, he
announced: 'Bless me Fergus, for I have sinned.'

The hatch behind the grating slid back with a vicious
clap. 'Yes, yes. Cut the crap.'

There was a sigh, followed by a dull tapping sound.
It stopped for a moment, then continued. Scott sat forward
and peered through the grill at the priest beyond.
He could see him rolling his eyes, while fishing around
inside his black cassock for a Zippo. He was mumbling
some sort of an apology to the heavens as he tapped
out a cigarette.

'What're you doing?' Scott asked. The first puff of



50 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

smoke drifted over. He could smell it was a good brand
of cigarette. Almost certainly European.
'Calming my nerves. I can't believe the sort of
hornet's nest you've managed to stir up, Richie, my boy.'
He tried to spit out a shred of tobacco but it was sticking
to the tip of his tongue. He brushed at his cassock.
'A real big fucking mess.'
They eyed each other. 'Let's eat,' Scott said.

They strolled across the neatly cut glade in the center.
of the Grove, heading for the Associated Student Body
building where there were better cafeterias and a livelier
atmosphere.
The Grove was a magnificent piece of parkland at the
heart of Magnolia University. It may have been March,
but it felt like summer in Mississippi. The sun shone
brightly through the trees and left beautiful dappled spots
of shade on the ground. For the most part, the students
wore shorts and T-shirts. In his priestly guise Fergus
seemed to be taking it all in with the serene air of a good
Catholic gentleman. Which for the most part he was.
But Scott knew him better than that; they'd grown
up together, after all. Scott knew the date, time and
telephone number of the girl Fergus had lost his virginity
to. Fifteen years later and Scott still couldn't
accept that his best friend had become a man of the
cloth. And as for that girl jogging down sorority row,
was she wearing any underwear?
'You're a married man, Richard, stop embarrassing
yourself.'
'Separated,' Scott grunted, kicking the grass in lazy
strides and digging his hands in his khaki pants. 'What
happened to us, Fergus?'
....................................... DECIPHER 	51

'You and me? Or you and Jessica?'
Scott winced at the mention of his estranged wife's
name. His friend really did have this priest thing down
to a fine art. Fergus had flown in from the Vatican City
especially for his lecture and would be going back in
the morning, but somehow Scott got the impression
their friendship had nothing to do with Fergus's decision
to come here.
Fergus reached for another cigarette and scratched
his head. 'Look, Richie, that was an interesting lecture
you gave, but are you honestly trying to say that the
Catholic Church was involved in a sixty-year conspiracy
to keep the Dead Sea Scrolls suppressed?'
'And others.'
'Absurd. We can't even keep our own clergy in order,
so who the hell was supposed to be trustworthy enough
to sit on that particular time-bomb? Ireland's government
fell in 1994 because some priests turned out to
be pedophiles. I know the Church is fallible.' He paused,
then: 'Yes, there was a conspiracy, but an academic one.
1 agree, it's indefensible. A gang of pompous old asses
refusing to release the documents until they'd had first
crack at translating them. But what you came out with
today.., well, I can't see the Church crumbling over
that one. You know what people are like when they hear
a new crackpot theory - they ignore'it. Like the one
about Jesus going to Britain and starting a school, or
the one where he married Mary Magdalene and moved
to France--'
'I happen to like that one.'
'And then there was that half-assed theory about how
he'd been trained in the mystical arts of Egyptian magic.
People will believe what they want to believe. And they


'


52 	STEL PAMIOU .....................................


believe in Jesus Christ, Our Lord. I believe. Richie,

you're throwing your career away on bullshit!'

'You're changing the subject.'

'The Church obviously means a lot to you, or you
wouldn't put in this much effort.'

They faced off on the lawn. Scott still had his fists
planted firmly in his pockets. His tie flapped lightly
against his crisp pale-blue shirt in the breeze. He
smirked. 'Religion, Fergus, is like a disease of the human
mind. It's like rabies. You get bitten and suddenly there's.
this great foaming at the mouth, all sense and reason
thrown to the wind. There's a lot of shouting and then
you bite someone else in all the madness and it gets
passed on down the line across generations, and national
boundaries. Forget AIDS. This stuff kills millions.'

Fergus simply took a long drag on his cigarette.
Scott said: 'Ever heard of the Church of Simon
Kimbangu?' The priest shook his head. 'It's on the west
coast of Africa. Simon Kimbangu was a militant who
believed in democracy. The government considered
him a revolutionary and arrested him, but his followers,
believing he'd gone to heaven, set up a church in
his honor. Prayed to him for salvation. They did any
damn idiotic thing except bother to take the twentyminute
walk down to the local jail-house where
Kimbangu was starving to death. And even more insane
- the church still exists today! Think about it! Why did
the Crusaders lay siege to a castle at Hosen AI Akre for
three days before realizing it was populated by sheep?'
Scott suddenly asked innocently. 'Religion, that's why.'

Fergus glowered. 'Religion,' he corrected, 'is the closest
we can get to the beginning. To knowing where we
come from as a species. And why we're here.'

....................................... DECIPHER 	53


'Why are you here?'

It was as pointed as it was grim. And Fergus's mood
altered to accommodate. 'I came to let you know that
as of this morning, the Vatican is the major benefactor
for the Anthropology Department at Washington State.
In order to conclude the deal certain prerequisites were
required. One of which was to shake up the Epigraphy
wing.'

Scott's face drained.

Fergus gulped. 'They let you go. There's a letter
already waiting for you in your hotel room. I'm sorry.'
He took a final drag on his cigarette before stubbing it
out with his foot.


They let him go. It wasn't entirely unexpected, but the
manner in which they delivered the message was a jolt.

Sending Fergus was a stroke of genius.

'Dr Scott! Dr Scott!'

Scott spun on his heel to see November Dryden
racing across the lawn toward them. The sun made her
skin look like fine porcelain, and her body moved with
a rhythm all of its own. He tried to focus on that and
shift his mood into another gear but it wasn't happening.
'November,' Scott said in a daze. 'What can I do
for you?'

Her chest heaved as she got her breath back. She
glanced nervously at Fergus, who was busy enjoying the
air, and tried to smile but she was a southern girl through
and through. This was a man of the cloth and deserved
respect. Scott made a mental note to himself. November
was a smart young woman. He had to make sure that
when the tour was over, he would set aside some money
and sponsor her to get a place in college, well out of


54 	STEL PAVLOU ... .................................


state. She'd been mentioning she wanted a shot at a
research assistantship. Maybe he could swing something.

'You
forgot your package,' she said breathlessly. 'You
know - the one from your lecture?'

November handed over a large brown paper package
which Scott immediately ripped open. It contained
a set of documents, photographs, articles - a whole geological
report on global flooding by a women named
Sarah Kelsey. But then he found the covering letter.

'What is it?' Fergus asked warily when he saw the
expression on Scott's face.

But Scott wasn't about to tell him. His mind was
racing as he took out the slip of paper from inside. It
was an itinerary. Hotel and flight details. But the really
important feature was the handwritten note on the back.
To the average Joe it didn't mean a thing, but to Richard
Scott it meant the world. And that the world itself was
about to have a very rude awakening.

He started across the lawn, lost in thought before he
realized he'd left Fergus standing there. He turned and
met the priest's gaze. 'Tell the Board they didn't fire
me,' he called out steadily. 'I quit.'

Then he picked up the pace. Re-reading the note.
Civilization was said to have begun in the third millennium
Before the Common Era, or Before Christ,
with the advent of a writing system called cuneiform.
Before that point, writing was thought to consist of crude
scratchings and ill-thought-out pictographic symbols.
Any evidence of a complex language and writing system
pre-dating cuneiform would therefore mean a major rethink
of the dawn of civilization. Every history book
would have to be thrown out the window.

....................................... DECIPHER 	55


It would be earthshattering.

M1 the note said was: Am in possession of precuneiform
text. Request your immediate assessment. Yours
truly, Ralph Matheson.


Scott beckoned to November as he backed up across
the lawn. 'Still want that assistantship?'

'Yeah!' she replied enthusiastically. 'Why?'

Scott reached into the package and plucked out two
airline tickets. 'Pack your bags. We're going to Geneva.'


THE BERESOVKA RIVER


FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF SIBERIA


7:32 AM


I

t was still dark when she got the call. She swung herself
out of bed about fifteen minutes later and had a
piping hot shower. She downed a shot ofkvass for breakfast
and pulled on two layers of underwear. Her sweater
was thick and heavy and her parka went taut when she
zipped it up.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Long
dark hair. Dark eyes. Signs of a tan and a dimple in her
chin. She felt drained; this assignment was killing her.
'God, you look like shit, Sarah,' she spat at herself. 'Why,
thank you, Sarah,' she grumbled. She tried to make the
coat look a little baggier. A little less full. It was stupid,
she knew. Under all that there wasn't a lot of her anyway.
But it helped to show it off. 'Come on, Sarah. Smile,
you bitch.' She forced a grin. It hurt. How the hell had
she wound up in Siberia? This hadn't been in the grand
plan of her youth.

....................................... DECIPHER 	57


She slammed the draughty wooden hotel door shut
as she went.

The 4×4 they'd loaned her for the job had seen
better days, but the lights were good and the suspension
held up to the mud-track roads..It took forty minutes
to get from the hotel and upriver out to the site.
When she did get there she found a hive of inaction.
Around the periphery, trucks were still being loaded
up with rubble and hauling out. But in the center,
work had stopped. The cranes were idle. Floodlights
lit up the equipment but she couldn't see any workers.
As she climbed out of the 4×4 she could hear
voices shouting instructions in Russian dialects and
human whistles screeching out as the workforce tried
to co-ordinate their efforts.

She had to trudge on foot over the mud rise, past the
Rola Corp. sign and down to the main construction site.
More lights had hastily been erected. From a distance
it looked like a UFO had landed - but Sarah hoped for
the Martians' sake that they hadn't. This project was so
far behind that she was liable to march straight up to
them and smash in their little green faces. She did not
want to hear about any more delays. She just wanted
to get her job done and get back to the States.

There was a bulldozer down in the pit, past steel and
concrete foundations. It had stopped, but the engine
was still ticking over. Slapping a plastic yellow hard hat
on, she pushed past a couple of workmen and made
her way to the front where all the attention had gathered.
Her mouth hung open when she finally got there.

'Hey, Sarah. How ya doin'?' came the big, grinning
welcome of Steve Lustgarten, the foreman. He was


58 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


struggling to loop a steel cable around a thick trunk of
frozen fur.

The whole scene was starting to take on primordial
qualities as the steam from everybody's breath clung to
the air. They were all gathered around a huge, magnificent
creature that had walked the tundra long ago.
At least fourteen feet high, it was staring straight at her,
its eyes black and glassy, as though it was close to tears.
The creatuTe was in a sitting position, reared up on its
front legs. It had an elegant, dignified expression on its
face. Its matted fur was long and shaggy. It looked almost
regal, frozen solid. Its ivory tusks extended out like the
last vestiges of a cry for help. Its trunk was curled and
it had decayed buttercups hanging from its mouth. It
had been eating buttercups when it had died.

'That's a mammoth,' Sarah announced, surprised.
She moved to the left and could see where part of the
body was missing. It looked ripped away rather than
rotted. It was hollow now, except for the remnants of a
fetus. She had been pregnant. There was no smell,
except for the mud and the river.

Steve grinned again, with a nod. 'Yeah. Isn't she a
beauty?'

Sarah was furious. This was all completely lost on
her. She dug her fists into her pockets, and screwed
them up into balls. 'No. There is absolutely nothing
beautiful about a twelve-thousand-year-old frozen elephant!
You called me out here, in the middle of the
fucking night to see a goddamn woolly mammoth? You
gotta be shittin' me! That's precisely why I didn't want
to come to fucking Siberia in the first place. I hate
Siberia. I hate Maska. I hate the Canadian north. You
can't dig a fucking hole to piss in without running across

....................................... DECIPHER 	59


a thousand fucking extinct, fucking frozen animals. If
it's not mammoths it's saber-toothed tigers. You know,
last year I found a fucking mastodon? I'm sick of this!'

The Russian workers couldn't speak English, but they
could sense she was upset. The murmuring ceased
abruptly and they all stared at the half-crazed American
lady. Steve left the loop to dangle and straightened up.
He was frowning now, annoyed. 'I didn't call you, Sarah.
Someone else did. Go piss them off. I don't get to see
too many of these things.' He delved into his pocket for
a camera and handed it to a Russian. 'Now if you don't
mind, I wanna take a picture for my kid before the
museum people drag it away.' He posed like a big game
hunter next to the massive creature.

Sarah suddenly felt very sorry for it. She turned her
back.

She could hear her name being called, but she
couldn't figure out from where. Seconds later two guys
in hard-hats and big green rubber boots were waving
their arms about trying to remain upright while they
slid and stumbled down the black mud bank. As they
drew closer she could see that the smaller, thinner one
of the two was dressed in a suit and a gray crombie.
The other one was dressed sensibly. 'Sarah Kelsey? Ms
Kelsey, is that you?' the man in the suit was calling out,
trying to keep his hat on.

'Yes, it's me; Sarah said frostily.

'The geologist, right?'

'Yeah.' She whirled around when she heard a chainsaw
spark into life; She glanced at two of the Russians
ripping into the carcass, then turned back to the men.
'Are you the people who called me?'

'Yes,' he smiled. 'Yes, we are.' He stuck out his hand,



60 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

but she eyed it distastefully. 'Jay Houghton.' He rubbed
his hand absently on his coat. Perhaps it had been dirty.
His eye caught something peculiar. He was like a child.
'Wow, is that a mammoth?'
'I dunno. What do you think?' she asked sardonically.
'It sure looks like a mammoth.'
'Well, then I guess it must be one.'
There was more shouting as a few more Russians
came tearing over the hill with an oil-drum on wheels,
a fire raging inside it. Someone else carried the ketchup
and the barbecue sauce. The guy with the chainsaw
started cutting up steaks and slapped them on the grill
mesh they had fastened to the top of the drum.
Lustgarten was horrified.
'What're they doing?'
Houghton looked visibly sick. He put a gloved hand
over his nose as the smell and the smoke wafted over.
'Good God!'
'I thought they were museum people!' Lustgarten
yelped. 'They can't eat it!'
'Oh, come off it,' Sarah snapped at him with a scowl.
'That's more steak than these people have ever seen. Of
course they're going to eat it!'
The guy next to Houghton was laughing. He puffed
on his cigar and watched with some amusement.
Lustgarten tried to stop the Russians, but they just
elbowed him out the way. Offered him some barbecued
mammoth, but he wasn't having any of it. They ignored
him from then on. He might be their boss, but the guy
obviously had no appreciation of the finer delicacies.
Houghton coughed on the smoke. 'How long has
that thing been in the ground?'
Sarah was climbing the bank. She turned back.
....................................... DECIPHER 	61

q welve, maybe fourteen thousand years. At the very
least.'
'And they're gonna eat it? They must be crazy. It'll kill 'em.'
Sarah just shook her head. This guy Houghton was
an idiot; she could tell that much already. 'I doubt it,'
she said. She took another step but they weren't following.
Hadn't they read the report on this place?
Mammoths were turning up all over this region. There
was a famous case from 1902 when one had been found
in a bank just down the river from here. The same river.
'It was super-frozen,' she explained.
'Huh? It was what?'
'The Arctic isn't cold enough to freeze something the size of a mammoth without ice crystals forming in
the blood and spoiling the meat. That mammoth was
supercooled. The temperature had to be around minus
100°C. It was dead inside thirty minutes, and encased
in permafrosted silt about the same time. Perfect preservation.
The meat's fine. It's just.., very old.'
Houghton was stunned. 'How's that possible? What
could cause that kind of destruction?'
'And before the advent of the refrigerator . . .' the
guy with the cigar chipped in.
'How the hell should I know?' Sarah shrugged.
'Well, uh, you're a geologist, you must have some
idea.'
Sarah wasn't listening. She was climbing the bank.
Houghton eyed the mammoth again. 'I wonder what it
tastes like,' he mused.
'Chicken,' the other guy smirked, and puffed on his
cigar.
Houghton shot him a glance. He didn't seem to know



62 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

if he was being played with or not. He looked for Sarah.
She was heading away from them, back to her 4x4.
They climbed up out of the pit behind her. But
Houghton couldn't help but pause briefly and take
another lingering look at the mammoth. Dignified even
in death. 'Wow.'
Lustgarten was raising his fist, directing the driver in
the cab of the bulldozer to shift into reverse. There was
a mechanical roar as they started to drag the animal out
of their foundations. Houghton did a doubletake and
realized they were losing Sarah. He chased after her.

'Ms Kelsey! Wait up, please! This is important. This is
company business.' He slipped on the mud. Tried not
to land on his ass. 'Ms Kelsey!'
Ripping the driver's side door open, she said: Tm
just getting my purse, is that okay with you?' She
slammed it shut again. Reached for a cigarette. The
other guy accommodated with a light. She eyed him
suspiciously. No wonder she didn't recognize him - he
was wearing a ski mask. She couldn't see him. 'Who've
you?' she demanded.
'Bulger,' he said. 'Jack Bulger. Chief Field Engineer
with Rola Corp. We're practically family.'
She sucked down some smoke. Nodded. 'Oh.'
'Gee, Ms Kelsey, I'd really appreciate it if you could
explain more about this super-freezing business,'
Houghton said. He was acting like a real nerd, but he
was far from actually being one. He was too slimy. She
was only just starting to realize that about him. He eyed
her stonily. 'I'd be real appreciative. After all, you're
supposed to be the star of the company, but just how
much geology do you really know? Only the company's
....................................... DECIPHER 	63

thinking of downsizing and I'm here on orders from the
highest regard.' .
She blew smoke. That had caught her attention.
'How high?' she asked.
'The highest.'
A cheap test. Maybe he wasn't so stupid after all.
What the hell. 'Okay,' she said, leaning against the car,
'all over the arctic tundra, from Siberia to Alaska,
people have been finding frozen animals, hundreds of
thousands of them, all caught in the middle of something,
taken completely by surprise. They were running,
or eating, or whatever. In any event, their deaths
were not slow. They were sudden, within minutes.
They're encased in silt, not ice. They were not swept
down rivers, they were entangled in masses of trees, vegetation,
boulders. Real Wrath of God-type stuff. You
ever read your Bible?' Houghton nodded. 'Well, the
only thing that could do that, about the only thing that
fits the description, is Noah's Flood.
'But it had to have been more than just a flood,
because most of the mammoths in this region were
found eating buttercups, grasses - stuff you can only
find in temperate areas. Not arctic tundra, which suggests
that Siberia has moved, shifted its entire position.
But we know that's impossible. However, we also know
there are ashes in the silt, so there was burning. Possibly
volcanoes, which would explain the extreme cold if
enough dust was hurled into the upper atmosphere
and obscured the sun on a large enough global scale.
That, Mr Houghton, is what my geology tells me.' She
puffed again on her cigarette. 'It's all in my report,'
she said. 'You should call up Head Office and order
a copy.'



64 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

It had taken her six years on and off. Collecting statistics
and working on a coherent synthesis.
In 1940, in the Tanana River, in the Yukon, Maska,
hundreds of thousands of mammoths, mastodons and
bison were found in twisted, torn heaps. Piled with splintered
trees and four layers of thick volcanic ash. But no
mere volcanic explosion could have caused such massive
destruction.
In one particular century, 120,000 years ago, findings
imprinted in limestone just off the Bahamas
showed that the ocean rose twenty feet above today's
sea levels. Then plunged thirty feet below that soon
afterwards. Considering average sea levels rose between
one and five millimeters a year, the recorded fluctuation
was massive. And the only solution - put forward
by Texas A & M University - was a sudden melt and
refreeze of the Poles. But by what mechanism?
Jacques Cousteau found a series of underwater caves
in the same area with huge stalagmites and stalactites proof
they were once above water. The tmusual structure
of the stalactites showed that a geological upheaval had
occurred around 10,000BC. As a result, the earth's crust
in that region became tilted at an angle of fifteen
degi'ees. The caverns were now hundreds of feet below
water, and one was almost spherical in shape - an indication
of one of two things: volcanic activity, or manmade
underground explosions.
Other statistics showed the earth's sea level and climate
historically oscillated in keeping with solar radiation.
One peak of solar radiation, in 15,000BU, coincided
directly With a rise of world sea levels of 350 feet. The
final peak in the constant fluctuation was in 4,000BC fitting
in with the same time that Babylonian, Egyptian
....................................... DECIPHER 	65

and Hebrew cultures first spun their Flood stories. Sarah
didn't know much about ancient scripture, but she did
know the final upsurge was a sea-level rise of 9.5 meters
in 250 years; 9.5 metersequaled 30 feet, and 30 feet,
in ancient measurements, was 15 cubits. Exactly the
same as the depth of Flood mentioned in Genesis when
Noah boarded the Ark.
Indeed, other geological evidence had uncovered the
fact that around 5,000 years ago, vast sections of the
earth were flooded suddenly when the huge volcanic
fracture down the center of the Atlantic gave way and
blasted billions of tons of water into the atmosphere.
And in 1996, scientists at the Lamont-Doherty Earth
Observatory in Palisades, New York, drilled cores of rock
in the North Atlantic sea floor only to discover that the
earth's climate changed abruptly every 1,000 to 3,000
years.
In short, Sarah had done her homework. And they
knew it, or they wouldn't be here. But why were they
interested? It was a novelty item. Interesting, but hardly
useful.
Houghton eyed Bulger briefly and shrugged. 'She'll
do,' he said. 'Let's get inside. Bring your equipment.'
He headed for the temporary cabin on the far side of
the construction site.
Bulger made a slight bow and indicated the way.
'After you,' he said.

Inside the cabin there was a bottled gas fire and some
lighting. Houghton flipped the whole lot on and rubbed
his hands in the heat. There were maps and plans tacked
to all the walls, and sets of papers spread out over the
tables. It may have been the twenty-first century, but



66 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

nothing much had changed. Rola Corp. was in the
middle of building a new oil refinery and the mammoth
had been directly in the path of where the outflow
pipe-line was due to go. The whole project so far
had been one geological headache after another.
Sarah dumped her case on one of the desks and stood
on the other side of the room. They might all work for
the same happy company, but they were still two strange
men, and she was still a lone female. Why the hell
should she trust them?
'Sorry,' Sarah said now. 'I can't quite remember what
it is you said you do for the company?'
'I didn't say,' Houghton told her. 'But, for your information,
I'm a lawyer.'
'Lawyer? Then what the hell are you doing out here?'
Houghton glanced at Bulger, but inclined his head
toward Sarah. Bulger dug into his pocket, pulled out a
clear plastic bag and emptied a small crystal into his
hand. He tossed it to Sarah. She caught it with one
hand and turned it over in the light. There was writing
on it.
'What is it?'
Houghton tutted and generally looked disappointed.
Sarah heaved a sigh and sat at the desk. 'Okay,' she
grumbled. She flipped her case open and went to work.
There was a laptop computer built into the upper section,
some small electronic probes that measured resistance
and other properties, a set of electronic scales and
the usual tools, like a small gem pick, a file and some
tweezers. A microscope was packed away in its box.
Opting for the age-old method, she picked up her eyepiece
and took a good look.
The two men seemed more interested in other things,
....................................... DECIPHER 	67

their minds elsewhere as they agitatedly conferred.
More than likely, they already knew what it was. Which
irritated her even more.
She turned the stone over and over, was about to
announce her conclusion and then thought better of it.
What kind of lattice structure was that? She switched
the computer on and called up some files. She raced
through every structure she thought it matched and
drew a dead end. So she did a couple of quick tests with
the other equipment, before calling up theoretical
models. She'd seen this structure somewhere before.
'This is some kind of diamond,"she announced.
Houghton took in a deep breath. He straightened.
'We know,' he replied flatly, as if to imply, 'Is that all
you can come up with?'
'But it's not like any diamond I've ever seen,' she
went on. 'It's not natural. This was manmade. Its molecular
structure's a bucky-ball. You know what a buckyball
is, right?' This was staggering news. Her eyes never
wavered from the back of Houghton's head. Finally he
turned to face her. Grim.
'Yes,' he said, 'I know what a bucky-ball is. Our people
at the research center back in Dallas were kind enough
to explain it to me. It's a theoretical molecular arrangement
of carbon atoms. We have three in nature - basic
carbon, which gives us coal and to which we all owe
our lives. The other two are graphite and diamond.
Buckminster Fuller's Buckminsterfullerene, or buckyball,
shouldn't exist. It's stronger, more resilient; if you
could find any, you could build an elevator to the
moon.'
'Right,' she said. 'But it's just . . . well. Kroto and
Smalley won a Nobel Prize for making enough.to fit


68 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


on a pin-head. Other than that it's supposed to be just
a theory.'

'Not anymore.'

'I take it you didn't create it or you wouldn't be
coming to me.' She glanced at Bulger. Asked pointedly:

'Where did you find this?'

'Antarctica.'

That was not what she had expected to hear. She
balked. 'Excuse me?'

Houghton reached into his pocket and pulled out
another stone. He tossed it to her. 'Next surprise,' he
said.

She compared it to the other one. Same writing.
Same structure. 'This from Antarctica too?' She asked.

Houghton shook his head. 'No,' he said. 'Another
site. You have two hours to get packed.'


'Another site?' A second site? Wht site? 'Where?'
'Somewhere warmer than here.'

Sarah was on her feet, closing her case. The men
were already halfway out the door. She mulled it over.
Warmer than here? This was good. Anywhere hot was
better than here.

She looked at the stone. It was Carbon 60. And from
what she could determine, it was integrated with another
type of diamond that was even tougher, conceived of in
the mid-1990s by some Harvard professors and christened
Diamonite. It was a compound of carbon and nitrogen
atoms. C3N4. The bucky-ball chunk of diamond was
made up of molecules that consisted of sixty carbon atoms
in a spherical geodesic formation. Known as C60, it was
tough. And Diamonite was theoretically even tougher.
Together, they made a formidable compound - ten,

....................................... DECIPHER 	69


maybe a hundred times stronger than ordinary diamond.
This definitely couldn't be naturally occurring. Since
the mid-1950s, when General Electric had a stab at it,
people had been trying to synthesize diamond. The best
anyone had come up with was an inferior film that could
be coated onto the tip of tools. This was evidence of a
far more advanced technology.

'You'd need powerful lasers to cut this stuff,' Sarah
said, shaking with excitement. Diamonite and C60? Not
only was this the find of the century but it was her ticket
out of here. Finally a shot at pure research, maybe even
some exploration. 'There need to be more tests,' she
stated, handing the samples back.

'We're doing more tests,' Houghton replied. 'In
Geneva.'

'That's where you're going?'

Houghton simply nodded as he held the door open
and let the wind whistle around the room as Bulger laid
out the plan. 'The most powerful lasers in the world
are in Geneva. Ever since that thing in the Ross Sea,
Rola Corp.'s been under scrutiny. Thorne's been in the
White House more times this week than the Vice
President. We have full government and military backing,
provided the tests in Geneva are good. We'll wind
up as the sole suppliers of C60 to the entire western
world.'

Houghton pulled the collar of his coat up around
his neck. 'No need to remind you, Ms Kelsey, the
Chinese may already be ahead in the race. We want
you to head up the geologic survey at the second site.
Learn everything you can. When we're done in Geneva
we'll pick you up on the way through. You have days,
not weeks, to complete your assignment.'


70 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


Sarah was stunned. She shivered with the bitter

winds. 'Through to where?' she asked apprehensively.
'We're going back to Antarctica,' he added.

But the door had already banged shut behind him.


CONNECTIONS


The Universe may not only be queerer than we imagine;
it may be queerer than we can imagine.


J.B.S. Haldane, Geneticist and Biometrician,

1892-1964

42,000 FT


SOMEWHERE OVER THE NORTH ATLANTIC


CLUB CLASS


T

he storm below was ferocious. Heavy rain driving
in squalls. Vast freezing sheets lit up brilliant white
against a grim black sky as lightning coursed through
thick angry cloud.

When the plane shuddered this time, it caught
November Dryden,. who had been staggering up the
aisle, completely off-guard. She gripped the nearest
head-rest, which forced Richard Scott to snatch his
drink off the tray before it shot across the cabin.

He glanced up at the student. 'Are you okay?' he
asked gravely.

November wiped her mouth. Her face was pale; sweat
beaded across her forehead. 'Professor, do I look okay
to you?' she mumbled.

'No. You look like shit.'

'Then stop asking stupid questions,' she growled,
resuming her struggle for the nearest bathroom.

74 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


The man sitting next to Scott nodded his approval.
'I like her.'

Scott smiled briefly by way of a polite response and
returned to reading Sarah Kelsey's extraordinary geology
report. It made for disturbing reading, and for a
while Scott hadn't even figured out why he'd been sent
it in the first place. But then he had remembered that
the oldest known piece of literature was the Sumerian
Epic of Gilgamesh. It was the story that formed the basis
for the Bible's tale of Noah's Ark, and was written in
cuneiform. Perhaps this Ralph Matheson person was
anticipating that this new ])re-cuneiform text was an
even earlier version of that same story. Sarah's report
may have been sent to get him in the mood. Now that
would be something special . . .

'Tell me, Dr Scott, how do you really feel about the
possibility of doing archeology in Antarctica?'
Scott snapped his head up from reading. 'Excuse me?'
The plane shuddered again as the guy indicated an
identical set of documents on his own tray, right down
to Sarah's geology report. 'It's all right here,' he replied.

Scott studied the man next to him with some suspicion.
He had tanned Hispanic features, thick black hair,
and was leaning against the window, looking bored but
he had an enigmatic hint of amusement tugging at his
lips.

'I, uh, I didn't get to that part yet. I'm sorry. How do
you know who I am?' Scott demanded.

The man held up a copy of the thesis he was reading.
Tales of the Deluge: A Global Report on Cultural
Self-Replicating Genesis Myths by Dr Richard Scott. It
even had his photo on the back.

'I pay attention to the details, don't you?' the man

....................................... DECIPHER 	75


responded. 'I'm reading yours; you're reading hers.' He
sighed. 'But no one seems to be reading mine . . . In
any event,' he added, 'I think this is all a crazy notion.
Have you seen how cold it is down in Antarctica? First
of all I'd have to ask who the hell lived there? And
second of all I'd have to ask who has that kind of stamina
that they could actually do archeology in those temperatures.'
The guy smiled. Quietly punched a button
on his arm rest, closed his eyes, and reclined.

'There must be some mistake. I didn't agree to go on
any dig. Someone wanted my opinion on some texts,
that's all. Who are you, anyway?' Scott insisted.

The guy snapped his eyes open suddenly as the plane
dipped wildly. He stuck his hand out but Scott was in
no mood to shake it. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'How rude of
me. Here we are about to crash into the ocean and we
haven't been properly introduced. I'm Jon Hackett. I
believe we're going to be working together in Geneva.'

Scott was confused. 'In what capacity? And what
makes you think we're about to drop into the ocean?'

The main cabin lights suddenly dimmed. The whole
plane shuddered as the lights flickered off then on.
There were screams from somewhere in the rear. Call
bleeps rang out throughout the cabin. Seatbelt signs
blazed.


Scott and Hackett squirmed in their chairs as they hurried
to comply with the directive. Those who were standing
had already dived for the nearest available seats.
Hackett eyed his own belt disdainfully as he buckled
up. 'Oh, this'll help,' he said dryly.

Scott eyed him warily, trying to ignore the fact that
the buffeting was getting worse. 'So tell me, how did



76 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

you know this was about to happen? I don't believe in

chance.'
Hacker did not respond immediately. Neither did he
make eye-contact when he did. Instead his eyes were
sharp, focused on the rest of the plane panicking around
him. Still with that same curious smile attached to his
mouth, he answered: 'Educated guess.'
Scott knew that expression. It was the look of a pure
academic: someone who had spotted a chance to
observe his own work in action. Hackett was studying
these people as though they were research for a thesis.
It made Scott angry. 'I hardly think this is time for experiment.'
'On
the contrary, this is very much part of a grand
experiment,' Hackett replied. 'Y'know, I knew a girl who
studied which way up a slice of buttered toast would
land. Dropped it over and over for a month. Found it
was pure chance. Fifty-fifty.' He sat back in his chair.
'Of course, her methodology was flawed. She didn't take
into account nearly enough variables. Dropping toast,
I told .her, is not a random event. Everybody knows it'll
land buttered side down.'
'This is no time for statistics either!'
'I'm a physicist,' Hackett explained as if that excused
everything. 'I warned these people on the ground we
shouldn't be flying in these conditions but they wouldn't
listen. Practically accused me of acrophobia.'
'You're afraid of flying?'
Now Hackett opted for eye-contact. 'Oh, dear me no.
Flying's not a problem,' he said decidedly. 'Falling...'
He thought about it for another moment. 'Now that's a problem.'
'Well, if you knew there'd be trouble, why did you
....................................... DECIPHER 	77

take this flight?' Scott felt his stomach drop out from
under him again. He tried to remain calm, but it was
difficult to control the rush of adrenaline that came with
every lurch.
Hackett turned to him. 'It was the only connecting
flight to Geneva. And I do have to get to Geneva.'
'What is in Geneva?' Scott demanded.
'The Swiss?' Hackett winked.

'It's called CERN,' Hackett explained. 'Europe's biggest
nuclear research facility. That's where they're sending
US.'
'I don't get it,' Scott replied absently. Right now, he
was more concerned for November's safety. He hoped
she was okay in the bathroom.
'You don't have to "get it". Come on, what are the
odds? Two heavyweight professors in different fields sitting
next to each other on a plane going to CERN. You just said so yourself, you don't believe in chance. We
both know the world's far more complex than that.
Complexity... It's the key to everything.
'We're the military's show boys, Dr Scott. The government's
excuse to go marching into that Chinese base
in Antarctica and find out what's going on down there.
Under the terms of the Antarctic Treaty, that has to be
a scientific team. That's us. I used to work at CERN, so
I called an old friend. The US military are crawling all
over. A Colonel personally booked both our tickets.'
'The military? I've heard nothing about the military.
What are you talking about? I've been invited to Geneva
to work on an ancient text. I did not'
'Oh, what did they do? Appeal to your better nature?
Cute. I don't happen to have a better nature so they



78 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

paid me lots of money. Don't you watch the news?
Haven't you been following what's going on? Chinese
scientists are seen sunbathing in Antarctica. Now you
don't light the touch paper to a power source as powerful
as a mini-sun unless you invented it or found it.
If you invented it - get the hell off Antarctica. If you
found it, then we want it. At all costs. We're the excuse
to start a war.'
Richard Scott suddenly had that dawning feeling that,
in all the euphoria of putting one over on Fergus and
the University, he had failed to consider just what kind
of a situation he was putting himself into. How bad
could it be?
The cabin lights flickered on and off disconcertingly.

'What's with this plane?' Scott exclaimed.
Hackett sketched out complex mathematics on a tatty
page of his notebook. 'Roughly every twenty-two years,
the sun goes ballistic, with sunspot activity. Solar flares.'
He waved his hands melodramatically. 'Radiation that's
what's wrong with this plane.'
Scott clamped his eyes shut as the plane shuddered
furiously. 'We're caught in a storm,' he said thinly.
'Yes, but what causes the storm?'
'I don't care,' Scott told him.
'The sun, Dr Scott, causes the storm. The sun is causing
all this. We're not actually in a storm, we're thousands
of feet above it. But the sun is disrupting the computer
that flies this plane. The earth's magnetosphere is dragging
all these highly charged particles down into the
atmosphere. You've seen pictures of the Aurora Borealis,
the Northern lights. All those colors moving in stripes
across the sky are the earth's magnetic field-lines lit up
....................................... DECIPHER 	79

because all this sun "stuff" is trapped in them, and is
being burnt up.'
'And your point would be?'
'My point is, it all just hit the earth's atmosphere.
And if my calculations are correct, it's a prelude to something
bigger. Much bigger.'
Scott tried to keep his breathing shallow and steady.
'You don't seem to be taking in the enormity of the
situation,' Hackett nagged.
Scott didn't answer.
'Want to know what sunspot cycles can do? When
your TV goes nuts, it's because of the sun. When your
radio won't tune into a station, it's because of the sun.
In March 1989, sun-spot activity was so violent, the voltage
in Quebec's power-grid fluctuated. Lights went out.
Microwaves refused to wave. Six million people were
left without electricity for nine hours. NASA lost track
of spacecraft. The Aurora was spotted in Key West.
Telecommunications and computers went haywire.
Sophisticated planes dropped from the sky. Sound familiar
to you?'.
Scott simply glared as bang! the bathroom door up
the aisle was snapped back and November emerged with
the most hateful look on her face.
'Nobody go in there,' she announced as she fell into
her seat.

All stability collapsed around them at that point. They
could hear the whine of the engines and feel them
vibrate as they struggled to provide enough power.
Hackett grabbed his drink before it spilled all over his
lap. The main intercom bleeped sporadically as the
captain cut in to explain the situation. But it didn't


80 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


take a genius to figure out: they were going down.

Prayer erupted in the cabin. There was a pounding
noise in the background. A fat lady across the aisle had
shut her eyes and was making a cross over her heart.
There was a pounding noise in the background. She
was doing it backwards and Scott reasoned she must not
have done that sort of thing in a long time, if at all,
before now. Others had already started bracing themselves
for impact. There was a pounding noise in the
background.

Hackett edged forward in his seat. Curious. 'Where's
that noise coming from?'

A young guy was standing up, banging the overhead
compartment, trying to get at his oxygen mask.

Hacker leaned in close. Pointed with his drink before
taking another sip. 'Now that's just plain silly.' A flight
attendant rushed in and started forcing the passenger
back into his seat. 'I don't recall us losing air pressure,
do you? Why on earth would he think he needs oxygen?'

'He's panicking,' Scott snapped. 'He doesn't know
what he's doing.'

Hackett glanced out the window, then back at his
watch. Td say we've got about three, maybe four minutes,'

Finally
Scott lost all patience. 'Will you shut up!' he
barked.

Hackett didn't seem willing to listen. 'The problem
with society today,' he went on placidly, 'is its singular
lack of communication. We live in the information age.
We talk to each other all the time - on the net, on the
phone. We have TV, HV, VR. But we're not communicating.
We seem to be amassing so much garbage, but
we're not conveying what's really important.'

....................................... DECIPHER 	81


Scott faced front and tried to ignore Hackett. He
would have preferred to listen instead to some music
or watch TV, but the equipment had been switched off
and wasn't working anyway. His skull bounced off the
head-rest as the plane took another pounding. He could
sense their angle of descent getting steeper.

'And the problem's even more acute in academia.'
Hackett finished his drink, wondered what to do with
the empty glass before opting to hang .on to it. 'You're
a Professor of something or other and I'm a Professor
of Physics. How much are you willing to bet our two
departments have never communicated with each
other?' Hackett didn't seem to notice that Scott had
other things on his mind.

'Exactly!' Hackett nodded, as though Scott had
replied. 'Never. Like that ancient Chinese proverb
where three wise men are blindfolded and told to identify
the mystery guest just by their sense of touch. The
first insists it's a snake because it's long and muscular.
The second thinks it's a tree trunk. Finally, the third
guy says it's a bird. It has to be a bird - its wings are
flapping.' He stuffed the glass into the seat pocket in
front. Licked his lips. 'Well, didn't they feel like fools
when they ripped off their masks to find an elephant.'
He smiled pragmatically.

'My point is, that's what it's like working in modern
science today. Everything's so compartmentalized.
Nobody shares information. Three different sciences
could study the same thing and never know it. For all
we know, the ancients were right - the Earth is being
carried through the universe on the back of a giant
turtle. But the turtle's so big and we're only studying
such microscopic parts that we haven't noticed.'



82 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

Very slowly, Scott turned his head toward Hackett.
He was sweating heavily and it was all he could do not
to throw up on him. 'What - are - you - talking about?'
Suddenly the seat in front tipped backwards revealing
a couple spontaneously making out. Scott didn't
recall them having known each other previously.
Hackett reinforced the point with the thrust of a hand.
'Put that in a movie and no one would believe you.'
He glanced at the gold Rolex strapped to his wrist.
'Thirty seconds,' he announced.
'Thirty seconds from what?!'

'We're gonna die! Oh my God, we're gonna die!' the
man seated right next to November started to shriek.
His breathing was ferocious. Labored.
November snatched the sick bag up from the pocket
in front and tossed it in his face. 'You're hyperventilating,'
she growled. 'Breathe into the damn thing and shut up!'

Hackett methodically counted out the seconds, each
number growing progressively louder until confidently
he announced: 'And we should bank to the left, right
about.., now.'
The plane started banking to the left.
The shuddering subsided. The engines sounded a
little healthier. After a moment or two Scott could feel
the whole cabin leveling out. The sigh of relief was palpable
and for most of the passengers it was about the
right time to let the tears flow.
Hackett sat back, looking smug. 'Pilots,' he pontificated,
'only really like talking to other pilots. When
someone from an unrelated field tells him that a phenomenon
from an equally unrelated source is going to
....................................... DECIPHER 	83

play very real havoc with his marvelously integrated
transportation system, the chances of him paying any
attention at all are nil. Until, of course, all hell breaks
loose. In which case the pilot's going to make damn sure
he's explored every available option. Including reading
the message the unrelated someone insisted he keep in
his jacket pocket. You see, what we've just experienced
is a Complex Adaptive System in action. Complexity.
Order, in a seeming myriad of chaos.'
Despite Hackett's amused chuckle, Scott remained
silent. Stone-faced.
'In other words, Dr Scott: ain't sun-spot activity a bitch?
Who knew we'd get weather like this?' Hackett stood,
unconsciously smoothing out the creases in his pants.
'Excuse me, I need to use the bathroom.' He stepped out
into the aisle, much to November's irritation.
'I said, nobody go in'
Scott shot her a look and flapped his hand. Let the
idiot find out for himself.
Hackett pulled the cubicle door open, allowing Scott
a brief glimpse inside. Putrid yellow slime was sprayed
everywhere. Chunks of stomach lining clung to the aluminum
bulkhead, in massed lumps. Despite his best
efforts, Hackett couldn't help but reel at the smell. And
slowly, very slowly, Scott smiled.
'It was Buddha, by the way,' he said casually.
Hackett seemed distressed. 'What was Buddha?' he
snapped, as he was forced to take in a breath and gagged
in the process.
'Who told the parable of the wise men and the elephant.
And it was four wise men.'
'Oh . . . thanks,' Hackett replied distantly as he gingerly
stepped into the cubicle.


84 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


Scott idly thumbed through the illegible figurework
in Hackett's notebook, but immediately wished he
hadn't, because to illustrate his points Hackett had
drawn little pictures next to his calculations. The sun
exploding. The earth in dire trouble. And underlined
at the bottom of the page Hackett had written: It's begun.
Scott set the notebook down. 'No shit,' he said.

CERN


AZTEC - ANDES MOUNTAINS - CENTRAL AMERICA


During the time of the Fourth Sun (Epoch), to save
one man, Coxcoxtli, and one woman, Xochiquetzal,
from the crashing floods of heaven, the god Tezcatilpoca
instructed them to build a boat. They landed atop a
mountain where they settled and had many children.
But their children remained dumb until a dove in a
tree gave them the gift of languages. But the languages
differed so much they could not understand each other.


Excerpt from: Tales of the Deluge: A Global

Report on Cultural Self-Replicating Genesis

Myths Dr Richard Scott, 2008


SECURITY CLEARANCE LEVEL 3


t was cold in Switzerland in March. That was the first
thing November Dryden noticed. Then there were
all the different languages being spoken - French,
Italian, German, as well as English. And Switzerland
was so small, sandwiched in between France, Italy,
Liechtenstein, Germany and Austria. Mississippi it wasn't.

CERN was situated just outside Geneva, on the shores
of Lac L4man, directly on the French border close to
Mont Blanc. It was a city dedicated to cutting-edge
science with no walls or gates but rather, main roads
and highways. They'd been driving through the place
for ten minutes before she realized they'd already
arrived.

As they entered the main reception area she read the
daunting blue signs ahead:


88 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

SUBGROUPS:
PHYSICS ANALYSIS
SMD
TEC
ECAL & HCAL
LEP 1 1 PHYSICS:
SCINTILLATORS
MUON CHAMBERS

'Welcome to the large Hadron accelerator,' Hacker
announced proudly, as he guided Scott and November
through the security check and into the lobby. 'The main
ring is twenty-seven kilometers in diameter, housed one
hundred meters underground. Each electro-magnet is
twice the size of a big-rig and accelerates a particle to
almost the speed of light. That's 	fifty-thousand times
around the entire length of the ring - per second.
Welcome to the largest wonder of the modern world.'
'I thought they were building a bigger one in
Arizona?' November remarked.
Hackett eyed her up and down before leaning in
close. 'Particle envy,' he said dryly, over-pronouncing
the 'p' sound to obvious effect.
'I don't see the relevance. Particle physics?' Scoff
queried.
'Relevance? Sub-atomic particles, quantum mechanics,
the building blocks of the universe. It's dangerous,
exciting stuff. It's not like studying botany: elementary
particles are not normal.'
'Kinda like you,' November noted.
Hacker feigned a smile. 'Cute,' he said. Then got
alarmingly serious. 'When you smash elementary particles
together you don't destroy them, you just create
....................................... DECIPHER 	89

more particles. It's like nothing you've ever known.
Imagine you have a strawberry, and you decided to
smash it into another strawberry. You don't get squished
strawberries, you get a whole fruit salad, and sometimes
the pieces of fruit are larger than the strawberry you
started out with. Fruits like electrons with no dimension,
but can be sensed. Whole bunches of non-sized
particles. Gluons, Mesons, Anti-up Quarks, Anti-down
Quarks, Beauty Quarks. Reality is far stranger than fiction.'
November
appraised him 'Anything in particular
you're looking .for? Like an apple?'
'The graviton,' he explained. 'Find the graviton and
you master gravity. Master gravity and you master the
universe. Master the universe and . . .'
'You'd be God,' Scott finished.
Hacker shrugged. 'It's the only big field left to
explore. I think that's pretty relevant.'
'I meant relevant to why we're here.' Scott glanced
at his watch. 'Didn't they say they'd be meeting us here
at seven o'clock?'
'Doctors Scott and Hackett, I presume.'
They all turned to see three men striding towards
them. Two were civilians, but the third was not. Sure
enough the military were involved, just as Hacker had
warned. Indeed, he couldn't resist sidling up next to
Scott and whispering, 'I told you so.'
Of the two civilians, one had a beard while the other
had long, scraggy mid-brown hair and a pair of small,
round, gold-rimmed glasses. His gray sweatshirt was two
sizes too big and he looked like he did an awful lot of
thinking, and forgot about things like a haircut and a
social life. He dashed forward with his hand outstretched,


90 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


grinning from ear to ear, and gripped their hands tightly
in turn, managing to shake for much longer than was
necessary. When he got to Scott he used his other hand
to reinforce his thanks and completely forgot to let go.

'Bob Pearce. I'm so very pleased to meet you, Dr
Scott. I've followed your work for a long time.'

'Thank you,' Scott replied, finding it difficult to get
his hand back. 'May I?' He literally yanked it free.

Pearce's face dropped suddenly and he released his
grip in a flash. 'Oh, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Here, uh,
let me, uh . . .'

The others stepped forward. 'Major Lawrence Gant,
Marine Expeditionary Force,' the braided officer
announced by way of introduction, 'and Ralph
Matheson from Rola Corp.'

Scott's ear pricked up at that. 'I got your note,' he
said redundantly.

Gant made a gesture to all of them that they should
get going. 'Shall we? This way.'

They took a left. The walls were white and antiseptic
throughout, the windows few and far between, the
lighting bright and constant. It could be any time of
day or night and no one would know. The scientists
working here probably liked it that way, November figured
as she watched some of them go about their business,
unhurried, faces pressed against hard copy
read-outs. The corridors were wide and longer than any
she had ever seen.

Taking in every detail quietly, she noted anything
that might be important including Major Gant's perfect
butt marching up ahead inside a perfectly pressed
blue marine uniform.

Matheson decided to strike up conversation first and

....................................... DECIPHER 	91


turned to Hackett. 'I hear you saved e)eryone's asses last
night.'

'Oh, it was nothing, really. Just a minor quirk of
physics,' Hackett replied modestly, but November
couldn't decide if it was conceited or not. Hackett...
Now she had time to think about it, that name was ringing
some bells. 'The solar flare activity was playing havoc
with the plane's electrical equipment,' he went on. 'The
storm just acted as a buffer area into which we could
escape.'

Then it hit her. 'Hackett? Dr Jon Hackett? Of the
Sanfa Fe Institute?'

'I'm a visiting professor at Santa Fe. Currently, as you
can see - not, uh, visiting.'

Scott was surprised. 'You know him?' he asked
November.

'I know of him. He's brilliant - one of the foremost
minds on complexity theory in modern physics. I read
about him in science class.'

'You're very kind.' Hackett shrugged in mock humility.
'How did you know to turn into the storm?' she asked
earnestly, aware that Scott was watching Hackett closely
as his inevitable twinkle gave November its fullest attention.

Scott
seemed to feel obliged to put the record straight
though, which was cute of him. 'She's only nineteen,'
he explained.

Hackett smiled as he eyed November up and down
without even realizing it. 'Yes, yes,' he agreed. She
smiled back. 'It's really quite complex. It has to do with
charged particles, electrical potentials across a moving
body. Ionization. Solar winds, friction and . . . more
friction.'



92 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

Scott raised hisvoice. 'Hello?' Hackett looked round,
sharply. 'She's nineteen.'
Hacker glanced back at the wide-eyed teenager and
said with as much charm as he could muster, 'I think
he thinks I'm deaf.'
November gazed back. Then asked innocently, 'Are
you on drugs?'
The laughter was loud, and Hackett's expression was
hurt. But the grin and the wink she got from Major
Gant suddenly made it seem worthwhile. What was it
about men in uniform?
Finally they arrived at their destination where the sign on the door read: MOLECULAR PHYSICS. QUANTUM
TUNNELING JFOT & NMRS.

The room served as an observation deck overlooking
the main lab below. An onyx table stood in front of the
vast, thick overhang windows that were tilted out at 45degree
angles. Through them could be seen scientists
over a hundred feet below working with pieces of
machinery so large that the technicians had to climb
up ladders to adjust and calibrate the polished steel
components.
At the end of the room Matheson set out stacks of
papers on the table and rolled out maps with excruciating
efficiency, as if he had rehearsed this moment for
weeks. A screen was hung on the wall and digital pictures
were already being displayed.
Pearce guided them over to the table and pulled out
chairs like an over-zealous waiter. He leaned in close
to Scott. 'Sorry about your hand. I, uh . . .' His voice
trailed off like his brain had just shifted gear into another
subject. His eyes darted frantically but never focused
....................................... DECIPHER 	93

on Scott. He turned and walked off to his papers.
Scott turned to talk to November, only to find her
sitting so close they were in kissing distance. He sat back
with a start and tried to smile. 'Sorry,' he muttered. She
flashed him a smile in return, but he wasn't quite sure
what she meant by it.
There were layers and layers of paper on the table
now. Much more than was probably needed. Pearce
beamed at Scott. 'This is so exciting.'
But Hackett's gaze was squarely onto Matheson. He
glanced at the picture of some icebergs on the screen.
Back to Matheson. Then it clicked.
'You were on that ship,' Hackett said - and the way
he said it made the others sit up and listen. Scott and
November knew just what he meant. It had saturated
the news all week. America was on the verge of war
with China over mineral rights in Antarctica. Their position
had been weakened when an American oil-ship
was spotted trying to sneak out of the area. The government
had claimed no knowledge. Rola Corp.'s corporate
headquarters in New York had been under
constant media bombardment ever since the story broke
last week.
That was why they recognized him. Ralph Matheson
had been unlucky enough to get caught on film, disembarking
at the docks. He had been on that ship.
Matheson nodded silently.
'What were you doing out there?' Scott asked directly.
Pearce stepped in to rescue his colleague. 'I enjoy
your work, Dr Scott,' he interjected. 'I myself have done
some extensive research on Zoroastrianism. If I remember
my studies accurately, wasn't Zoroaster thought to
have instructed Pythagoras?'



94 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

'Yes,' Scott agreed. 'Zoroaster had a great influence
on ancient Greece.'
'I'm sorry,' November nervously butted in, 'but what
does this - Zoroaster? Is that right? - what does he have
to do with Dr Scott's work?'
'Mithras,' Pearce explained impatiently, but cheerfully.
Gant
and Hacker shared a look. They too seemed
none the wiser.
'Shall I explain?' Scott offered.
Pearce grinned againand shrugged sheepishly. 'Oh,
yeah. Sure. Go ahead.' He ran his fingers through his
hair and sat back in his chair. He tried to look studious
as he gripped a pen between his thumb and forefinger
and nodded agreeably to everything Scott said.
'Zoroaster came from what we now call Iran.'
'So he was Muslim?'
'No. This is way before then. At least a thousand
years. The whole Middle-Eastern region has had a
myriad of cultures. Babylon. The Chaldeans. The first
culture ever to settle there, in fact, the earliest known
civilization in the world, were the Sumerians--'
'Who wrote in a language we call cuneiform,' Pearce
chipped in pleasantly.
'Right. The ancient Greeks considered the center of
knowledge to originate from Babylon and the Egyptians.
It's a myth that the Greeks invented mathematics. It
was the Babylonians and the Egyptians who taught the
Greeks. And alongside math, they also taught them philosophy,
astrology, alchemy. Plato himself acknowledges
it, but some academics out of sheer arrogance like to
ignore that.'
'Zoroaster's teaching revolved around a god called
....................................... DECIPHER 	95

Ormazd,' Pearce added. 'And it wasn't until the Jewish
exodus from Egypt that all sorts of Zoroastrian traditions
started turning up in their own religion as they traveled
further east back towards Israel. That's probably what
got Moses so mad. The idea of guardian angels was
Zoroastrian.'
Scott eyed him sharply. 'Yes. As was the resurrection, which they believed in for hundreds of years before the
Jews or the Christians.'
Hackett wanted to know: 'Who was this Mithras
person?'
'Mithras was a branch of Zoroastrianism. You know,
like Baptist is a branch of Christianity. But Mithras was
also the main god they worshipped. He was closely connected
with the sun. The fall and rise of the sun related
to the death and resurrection of life. And the symbol
they used for the sun was a cross. Actually, in their writing
it was a halo. But for architectural simplicity it was
a cross.'
'They weren't alone, either,' Pearce added. 'A lot of
cultures around the world use the symbol of a cross to
represent the sun.'
Hackett raised an eyebrow. 'The sun?'
November glared accusingly. 'Is that true?'
Pearce was confounded by her reaction. He shifted
in his chair. 'Yes,' he said defensively.
'A real crucifixion scaffold,' Scott added, 'isn't shaped
like a cross. It literally is a scaffold. Lots of crossbeams.
There was no cross. At least, not until early artists got
hold of the idea and added a glowing sun-like halo
around Christ's head--'
'Which came directly from statues of the Greek sun
god Helios,' Pearce nodded.



96 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

'Which leads us all back to the Sumerians,' Scott
concluded. He was met with silence in the room as
they all picked over the implications.
'I read the geology report,' Scott said excitedly. The
cult of Mithras provided the vision of Heaven and Hell,
The Last Supper, a sacrifice and an ascension. Mithras
had its roots in Sumerian tradition. For them, ancient
whisperings told tales of an entire people sacrificing
themselves to save the world. 'The first ever story about
a global flood and Noah came from Sumeria. Is that
what you think you have here? An earlier Epic of
Gilgamesh?'
'Uh, not quite, Dr Scott,' Gant replied.
'Sorry to be a pain, but . . .' November had been
raised a strict Christian and it was obvious she was
having difficulty assimilating these concepts, though to
her credit she did not simply dismiss them out of hand.
'Dr Scott - you said that every major religion in history
borrowed from what went before them. Well, if that's
so, where did the Sumerians get their ideas? And where
did they come from?'
Scott hesitated, but Pearce was more than willing to
step in. He sat forward and waved his pen around.
'Nobody knows!' he grinned, then his face fell serious.
'Until now.' He keyed the remote control to the digital
screen, making sure the sound was turned low.
'Yeah, this is where I come in; Matheson told them
all. 'You might recognize the pictures from the news.
What you're seeing is the drill ship Red Osprey. I'm an
engineer by trade. We were out in the Antarctic, doing
an exploratory drill when we hit a problem . . .'
The screen showed all hell breaking loose. The pipe
buckling. The deaths and the eventual blast of mud
	....................................... DECIPHER 	97
into the bridge. Everyone in the room winced instinctively.
Whereupon the footage changed suddenly to
show white-coated scientists cleaning large diamonds in
a lab and analyzing them. A close-up of one of the diamonds
appeared next, at which point Matheson froze
the film. The diamond was unusual, quite clearly. For
a start - there was writing on it.
Scott sat forward sharply.
'On the face of it,' Gant remarked, 'what language
would you say that is, Dr Scott?'
Scott turned to the officer. 'It looks.., well, initially,
it looks cuneiform. But it can't be!'
'Why can't it be?'
'Well, it's loaded full of symbols I've never seen
before. The markings are too precise. It looks like a
more complex, modern language. At least, that's how it
appears from a photograph.'
Cuneiform from the Latin cuneus, meaning wedge.
Cuneiform writing simply meant that the style was
wedge-shaped. It was used by the ancient Persians,
Assyrians, Chaldeans, Akkadians, Babylonians and of
course, Sumerians. It dated back to 3,000-3,500 BCE.
The language was difficult to translate because the symbols
stood for entire words as well as syllables, and each
symbol was made up of collections of wedges, sometimes
up to thirty of them.
'Is it possible I could look at the real thing?' Scott
ventured. To say that he was dying to take a look was
an understatement. 'I'd get a better feel for it, you understand?'
Pearce
and Gant eyed each other closely. 'Can you
read it?'.
'I wouldn't like to say,' Scott said frankly. 'Bits of it,



98 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

maybe. But this kinda job needs work, and a lot of time.'
Major Gant looked pensive. 'That's a problem. Time
is something we don't have.'
'What do you mean?

Pearce interjected, 'I suppose the big question is: do
you agree that it's pre-cuneiform and not post- cuneiform?'
Scott knew what Pearce was getting at and frankly it
made him uncomfortable. Cuneiform was the first ever
example of the human written word, but the curious
thing about it was that the earlier forms were the more
complex. The Sumerian and Babylonian alphabets
started out with at least 600 characters. Later ones
dropped to about 100, and by the time of the Egyptians,
the written word had changed to hieroglyphic pictograms
before writing evolved into letters again and
took the form that was current. The theory was that
Sumerian writing evolved from pictograms, but there
was very little evidence for this. There were clay tokens
and so on, but they were more like early coinage.
In fact, there was more evidence for the reverse that
cuneiform started out complex and got simpler over
time by a process of cultural amnesia. It suggested an
advanced pre-Sumerian civilization. And Scott was
more inclined to side with that camp. Put simply, no
one knew where the Sumerians had come from. There
was every reason to suppose that they brought their writing
with them.
Scott gave a nod. This was earth-shattering. A pre- cuneiform text, at last. Pearce seemed pleased with the
response, but the big question remained. What on earth
was that text doing in the Antarctic? That defied all
logic. It had to be a hoax. There were theories that
....................................... DECIPHER 	99

many of the ancient civilizations had had navies that
were far more powerful than had at first been assumed.
There was increasing evidence that many, like the
Phoenicians, Minoans and the Egyptians, had sailed as
far as the Americas.
In Brazil there was a bay known as the Bay of Jars
because Roman jars and other pottery kept turning up
at intervals, presumably from a sunken Roman ship.
Also in Brazil an unknown Mediterranean language was
discovered on clay inscriptions. A picture of a pineapple,
an American fruit, was found in Pompeii. Bearded
figurines had been found in Mexico when facial and
body hair is alien to native Americans. The sweet potato
and peanuts over 2,000 years old had been unearthed
in China - more American foods. And in India there
were drawings of women holding ears of maize.
Tests on the hair of Egyptian Mummies had shown
that they smoked cannabis, tobacco and cocaine.
Trouble is, cocaine and tobacco only come from one
place - South America. Chinese silk from 1,000 BCE
also found in Mummy hair meant certain trade with
China. This was coupled with the fact that dragon's
head lode stones, the stones used to weight down ancient
sailing ships, had been found in the Pacific off the coast
of Chile. Ancient South American cultures used dragons
in their mythology, so it was more than likely they
traded with China.
Curiously, before Columbus, European legend had
it that a land known as Hy Brazil existed west of the
Atlantic. So when new settlers arrived in South America
they named the land Brazil after the legend. The curiosity
being that brzl was a Hebrew and Aramaic word
meaning 'iron'. Sometime later it was discovered that


CHARTS


100 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

Brazil had one of the richest iron-ore deposits to be
found anywhere on earth.
But as Scott saw it, all this evidence pointed to a
global system of trading blocks. Ancient ingenuity meant
these blocks traded goods over many thousands of miles.
The Chinese might buy cocaine from South America
and sell it on to Egypt or an intermediary without ever
having used the stuff. It did not necessarily mean
Egyptians ever went to South America. But could some
have sailed as far south as the Antarctic? He wasn't so
sure.
Pearce and Matheson started spreading out their
sheets of paper. It was a big job and Scott, November
and Hackett had no other choice but to watch for a
moment. Spread out across the table were maps - primarily
maps of Antarctica - and geological surveys from
Rola Corp. Some were copies from ancient sources, but
others were military surveys from satellites.
Scott had to know. He eyed everyone around the
table. This was more than just a translating job. Much
more.
'Excuse me,' he asked quietly, 'but just what is it you
think you've found?'
Gant was candid. 'Atlantis,' he said.
S

cott's shoulders tensed. He looked to Hackett and
November in turn. Yes, he had just heard that right.
Atlantis be damned! Hare-brained theories over the
existence of Atlantis had been floating around since Plato
first told of So]on's meeting with the mystical Egyptian "
high priests. It had been ripped apart in the Atlantic
Ocean. It was in the Bahamas. The Mediterranean. It
was in South America. It was all over the damn place
and it couldn't be proven one way or the other. Atlantis
was in the purview of the fruitloops, the astrologers
and the crystal-ball gazers. But these were the military.
They were not fools. What did they know that he
didn't?
Matheson pointed at the table. 'Antarctica was discovered
in 18 i 8, right?'
Scott took a moment to remember, but when he did,
he nodded. 'Yes.'
'Here's a copy of a map drawn up for a Turkish



102 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

Admiral named Piri Reis in 1513. O11 the map, he
expressly says it was based on an original that was kept
elsewhere, Said his sailors had never authenticated the
map because the others he used were based on the same older sources which always proved to be accurate. This
map shows the coastlines of West Africa, South America and more importantly, Queen Maud Land and other
parts of Antarctica. They're so accurate the USAF
authenticated the detail using satellite imagery, because
the map shows the actual coastline of Antarctica - not
ice floes. Have you ever been to Antarctica, Dr Scott?'
'No.'
'No? Well, since I just got back I'll tell you why that's
so incredible. Because it's only been sixty years since
we've had the technology available to see through the
ice and take a look at the real coastline. And that particular
stretch of beach hasn't been free of ice for at
least six thousand years. So how was somebody supposed
to draw a map of it, unless they had a ship capable
of taking them there - which automatically means
civilization, and considering the accuracy, automatically
means an advanced civilization?'
Pearce nodded vehemently. 'Piri Reis's maps were
based on originals that were sacked from the great
Library of Alexandria, in Egypt, and brought to
Constantinople,' he said. 'But he wasn't alone. Oronteus
Finaeus drew one in 1531, based on ancient charts, that
showed the whole of Antarctica with mountains and
rivers. That means you needed to know the interior, not
just the coast, and it had to be free of ice.'
'Do you know how big Antarctica is, Dr Scott?'
Matheson asked. Scott shook his head. 'It's big. It's twice
the size of the United States. You can't just go oh.art
	....................................... DECIPHER 	103
rivers and mountains, and get them exact in a couple
of days on the back of a raft. I design stuff for a living,
so people can go to far-off places and work, and mine
and drill for oil. I'm screwed without a map and a geological
report. But these old maps - they got everything!'
'In the mid-1500s,' Pearce continued, 'we got a guy
called Mercator, real name Gerhard Kremer. Supremo
map-maker, who draws an exact map of Antarctica from
ancient sources and develops a sudden need to run off
and visit the Great Pyramid in Cairo. And then in 1737,
French geographer Philippe Buache comes up with a
map that is so accurate, it shows what Antarctica would
have looked like with no ice on it - at all. Which would
have been around fifteen thousand years ago! This is a
hundred years before it was even supposed to have been
discovered, Dr Scott! Then we got Hadji Ahmed's map
of the world from 1559. He was another Turk, and his
chart also shows a land bridge between Siberia and
Alaska.
'I got on the phone to Sarah Kelsey, our company's
best geologist. You read her report. She said there used
to be a land bridge there about twelve to fourteen thousand
years ago. There's tons of scientific evidence for
it. Copies of all those maps are on the table too, if you
care to look.'
Scott stood firm. He was not so easily swayed. 'I've
heard of most of those maps, Mr Matheson. They're
not new to me. But - and it's a very big but - they do
not prove the existence of Atlantis. They simply prove
that our ancient ancestors were damn good mapmakers
and that we as a species are very forgetful. I won't dispute
with you on that count. But think about what you're
asking me to do. You're asking for a leap of faith of such



104 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

magnitude that it defies all reason.' Scott looked at him
sadly. Tm sorry.'
Pearce was shaking his head. 'Aren't you the same
guy who collected the myths and legends of over five
hundred cultures from around the world which speak
of an ancient flood - the deluge myth? Isn't that you?
You are Dr Richard-Scott, aren't you?'
'Tales of the Deluge. Yes. But those are myths. Legends. Stories that make great bedtime reading. The
Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh dates from around
5,000BCE. It has the same flood' story as the Bible's matches
Noah's story exactly. But it's just literature . . .
A story.'
'Schliemann followed a story and found the lost city
of Troy.'
Pearce rounded the desk. Snatched up the remote
again and keyed the play button. The picture was a little
fuzzy and was of far lower quality than before, but it
was clear what was happening. A tiny camera was
descending down the inside of a long dark pipeline.
There was another, smaller pipe about five inches in
diameter going down the center through which the oil
would have been funneled. It was clear that the camera
was lodged in between.
'It's a service camera,' Matheson explained, 'des.igned
to check the pipe-line from the drill node on the sea
floor, down to the bore site. Visual was really irrelevant,
but it was a prototype, so I stuck a camera on the thing.
Didn't think we'd ever need it.'
The camera got lower and lower. Some of the damaged
pipe was visible, and there were tears in the steel
alloy. Finally, through a mist of debris in the water, the
destination became visible.
....................................... DECIPHER 	105
'These Weren't rocks we found on the sea-bed, Dr
Scott. We hadn't hit a buried shipwreck. This is two
miles down. Half a mile into the sea floor. We hit a
wall. A real, honest to goodness wall. Like you build
houses out of. A wall. Are you following me?'
'Yes,' came the clipped response.
'Only this wall wasn't made out of bricks and mortar,
it was made out of diamond. One, huge, solid chunk
of diamond. And there's no telling how vast it really is.'
Through the darkness, lit up by the onboard flashlight,
a field of blue crystal was visible. At the bottom
of the picture sat the destroyed drill-bit. In the wall was
an impact crater where chunks of the diamond had
sheered off and a hole was punctured straight through
the wall. It was obvious that beyond there must have
been water under intense pressure from the weight of
the ice-pack above which blasted up the pipeline when
it broke. Overall, however, it seemed the wall fared
better than the machinery.
The wall was faultless otherwise, and was covered in
fine, delicate-looking lettering. It was the proof that was
needed.
'Now you tell me, Dr Scott. Who the hell went out
and built a wall two miles down in sub-zero temperatures
- in a subterranean cavern? In all my experience
as an engineer, drilling for oil all over the world, I've
never seen anything like it. I don't know of any country,
and I mean any country, that has the current technology
to be able to do that. And that amount of
diamond? Hell, you'd destroy half the entire world's
financial base overnight. The King of England might
as well have acorns stuck in his crown, they'd probably
be worth more.'


106 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


Scott could not believe what he was being presented
with. 'You want me to translate all that?'

November pored quickly over the maps. Tried to
make sense of it all. 'Dr Scott,' she said huskily. 'I think
this is for real.'

Hackett remained insouciant and unreadable.

'D'you know how long it takes to translate archaic
texts?' Scott tossed out.

'Yes.'

'No, I don't think you do. It took the collective minds
of a good chunk of academia over a hundred years to
translate the Mayan codex, and that language still existed
in the Yucatan Peninsula of Eastern Mexico. Precuneiform
is a dead language. It's forgotten. I wouldn't
know where to begin.'

'Then you'd better figure out a way pretty sharply,
Dr Scott,' announced the Admiral, marching in through
the far door. 'Because lives depend on it.'


The name on his tag read: Dower. The look on his face
said: Read my name tag. Admiral Dower was an imposing
figure. Tall, slim and black. He kept his head shaved
under his hat.

Anyone who knew military matters would have
noticed he had the Legion of Merit, with one gold star,
pinned to his chest. They would have noticed the
Defense Meritous Service Medal, the Meritous Service
Medal, the Strikeflight Air Medal (with eight subsequent
awards), the Navy Commendation Medal with
combat 'V', the Presidential Unit Citation,. and the
Gulf War Cross of Gallantry, and these were but a few
of his numerous campaign medals. Rear Admiral
Thomas C. Dower, USN, had seen some action in his

....................................... DECIPHER 	107


time. He had a right to live up to his name.

Following on behind him was a civilian and a whole
host of other military personnel. But only Dower and
the civilian took seats. Matheson introduced the other
man as Jay Houghton from Rola Corp. legal.

Houghton flicked his eyes across the yellow legal pad
and couldn't help but growl like some kind of courtroom
trick he'd picked up at Law School. Make it seem
all the worse so that when you did pull the rabbit out
of the hat, you got to look like a genius. Though Scott
doubted the man ever went anywhere near a courtroom
these days. Corporate lawyers never did. Just got their
secretaries to mail out death threats before lunch every,
Monday.

'We just met with the Chinese officials at the UN's
Palais des Nations,' he explained. 'There is no way in
hell the Chinese are gonna let just anyone walk onto
their base in Antarctica.'

'Unfortunate,' muttered Gant.

'It's what we expected,' Dower reminded him.

'It's still unfortunate,' Gant replied heavily. 'I don't
want to take in a civilian search-party. They're not
trained for it, mentally or physically, sir.'

'The Chinese have no objections to a UN inspection
team in principle,' Houghton added cheerfully. 'But
they will be vetting for any kind of military connection.'

'I bet they will,' Gant spat harshly, only adding a final
'sir' in deference to the Rear Admiral, at the last
moment.

Scott and November exchanged anxious glances.
Inspection teams? What did they have planned?

'Is that spectroscopy equipment down there?' Haekett
asked wistfully, He'd gotten to his feet when Dower



108 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

entered and now stood by the window assessing the surroundings.
He faced the assembled body with his familiar
faint smile. 'Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, if I'm not
mistaken. Tut, tut, Admiral. I'm sure the physics boys
really appreciated a chemistry toy being wheeled into
their precious laboratory.'
'They whined, as usual. Hello, Ion. How was your
trip?'
'Bumpy.'
Dower pursed his lips before responding. 'It's getting
worse, isn't it?'
Hackett didn't seem like he wanted to answer, but
Pearce did. 'Much worse,' he intervened. 'I think this
planet is being subjected to levels of solar radiation the
like of which haven't been seen for over twelve thousand
years. Twelve thousand and twelve - to be exact.'
Papers were shuffled. Two officers conferred with
Dower and passed over notes as Hacker commented:
'Well, that was a little melodramatic, maybe. But off the
mark? No.'
Scott sat apprehensively, catching Hackett's eye
momentarily.
Another one of those infuriatingly enigmatic smiles
tugged at the physicist's lips. Slouching against the
window he chewed a thumbnail briefly. 'You're looking
at the assembled heads of the United States Space
Command, Dr Scott,' he said gently. Tve briefed Tom
Dower on physics more times than I care to remember.
Los Alamos as a grad student was the first time,
wasn't it, Tom?'
Scott was none the wiser. 'Space what?'
'Space Command,' Dower said gruffly. 'We're advising
the government over policy, while they negotiate
....................................... DECIPHER 	109
with the Chinese. We are the last line of defense
between peace and World War Three.'
Buried under 18,000 feet of granite, deep within the
Cheyenne Mountains of Colorado, Dower told them,
stands a door twenty feet wide and four feet thick,
designed to withstand a nuclear attack. Behind it lies
the military intelligence nerve center known as NORAD. And part of that nerve center is given over to the United
States Space Command, whose remit is twofold.
'We track space debris, Dr Scott. We estimate over
nineteen thousand objects are in orbit at any one time,
from flecks of paint to defunct satellites. Over eight
thousand of these objects are larger than a baseball and
are tracked twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
But when the sun goes into spasm and ejects plasma
during a sun storm, it can knock out our tracking system
from anywhere up to ninety-six hours - four full days
and nights.'
'And that's bad?'
'Oh, that's pretty bad,' Hackett stepped in. 'When
sun-storm plasma hits the earth, it causes the atmosphere
to expand. The increased drag slows orbiting
objects down. Some re-enter the earth. And the signature
of that re-entry tends to mimic an incoming warhead.'
It
was Gant's turn again. 'In any event, a sun storm
is a good time during which to launch an attack undetected.
The sun is about to spasm again, and the
Chinese know this.'
'I'm sorry, but didn't the sun already just do that?'
Scott was shaking his head. 'And how can you be so certain the sun is about to flare up again? It's chaotic,
isn't it? Unpredictable?'


110 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


'It's complex, not chaotic,' Hacker said irritably.

'We can predict the sun,' Pearce added. 'It goes
around in mini-cycles every eleven years.'

Hacker grabbed a magic marker from the table and
sketched out a circle on the wipe board at one end of
the room.

Tm not going to insult your intelligence by giving
you all a lecture on solar and magnetic physics, but
there are a couple of important points you need to
remember. The sun is not, contrary to popular belief,
much like the earth. It's massive. It's so vast that the
average size of one sunspot on its surface would envelope
the earth two or three times over. It's a continual
mass of shifting nuclear explosions, held together in a
ball due to its mass. It's big. It's heavy. It's violent. It
also - and here's the most important point of all - has
more than two magnetic poles.

'We have north and south. The sun has six poles.
Call them whatever you want - North, South, Tim and
Clarence. It really doesn't matter. What matters is that
it has highly complicated magnetic structures which
we're only just beginning to understand. It has a North
and South Pole like we would understand it, but
because it is a ball of superheated plasma, it has four
other poles spaced equally around its equator. And
because it's a ball of plasma, it doesn't rotate evenly.
You get a shorter day at the equator than if you were
further north or south.'

There were three Admirals, Scott realized. No,
scratch that. Two Admirals and a General. There was
a Major, Gant. There were five Lieutenants who acted
as aides. Two much older than the rest and obviously
imtJortant. Introductions had not been made. Their

....................................... DECIPHER 	1 1 1

minds were sharp and they seemed to grasp what
Hackett was saying with relative ease, which was disconcerting
at best. Downright embarrassing, at worst.
Either way, the questions that were filling his head were
likely to remain there for some time. Hackett wasn't
finished.

The physicist tapped the marker on the board. 'In its
smallest fraction, the cycle repeats itself on a tiny scale
every eighty-seven and a half days. An event cycle, the
timing between similar intense events, is every twentytwo
years. What you were describing, Bob, I'm sorry to
disagree, was only half a cycle, but statistically similar
events have occurred at the eleven-year point. A full
sun-spot cycle - when sun-spot activity appears to start
from square one again - is actually once every one hundred
and eighty-seven years. And the cycle Bob was
referring to is highly theoretical, but it's based on the
movements of what we call the sun's warped neutral
sheet. Which theoretically cycles once every three thousand
years or so.'

'What happens when the neutral sheet cycles round?'
Scott asked.

'According to theory, it's so devastating you want to
be someplace else.'

'Which means what?' November jumped in. 'I'm not
a physics major.'

Scott folded his arms and said, 'Look, I didn't major
in physics either. I'm a linguist. What the hell does this
have to do with me? I came to visit some rocks. There
are rocks, aren't there?'

'All you need to know is that bad things happen on
the sun every eleven years,' Pearce said succinctly, shooting
a look at Hacker who scrawled the number 22 on



112 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

the board and underlined it emphatically. 'Just keep
adding eleven and eleven and eleven together until you
reach three thousand. Geological records show clearly
that the earth's climate changes drastically every three
thousand years. Six thousand years ago, the period of
climatic change was so severe many ancient civilizations
set their calendar by it. The Mayans called it Year
One; in our terms it was 3113BC, August twelve to be
exact when a whitebearded man descended from the
sun. The Egyptian Year One was around 3141BC, called
the Age of Horus. Horus was the son of Ra - who in
turn was the sun. The Hebrew calendar says the earth
was created in September of 3761BC. They were so
influenced by lunar and solar cycles they put a sun on
their flag in the shape of a six-pointed star. The fact is,
every fourth cycle something really bad happens. Then
you've got a legitimate reason to panic. The geological
record shows four cycles ago - or twelve thousand years
ago - there was a flood. And guess what? Time's up
again.'
'We think the sun is about to reverse its magnetic
poles, Dr Scott,' Rear Admiral Dower said solemnly.
'We think it just reached the high point in a twelvethousandyear
cycle, and that it is about to set off a
chain reaction of events that puts this planet in very
real danger.'

'Wait a minute!' Scott cried. 'Are we talking about the
end of the world here?'
Hackett shrugged. 'Oh, no, no, no,' he said. The
others sighed with relief. 'Just everything on it. Tell me,
Admiral, what's the end of the world going to feel like?'
Gant moved to the far end of the room and stood by
....................................... DECIPHER 	1 1 3

a large digital screen mounted on the wall. 'Admiral.
With your permission7'
Dower gave a quick nod of approval.
The lights dimmed. Up on the screen a photo-real
representation of the earth spun effortlessly through
space. With a constantly shifting perspective, its orbit
around the sun was depicted,' followed sharply by close
ups of countries that were best placed to serve as monitors.
'There
are six main observatories on earth given over
exclusively to monitoring solar activity twenty-four hours
a day,' Gant explained steadily. 'The normal procedure
is that once an event has been witnessed, we are notified
immediately, and the effects are felt back here
approximately forty-eight to seventy-two honrs later.'
Scott and November instinctively looked to Hackett
for confirmation. He nodded, saying: 'The sun is made
up, primarily, of hydrogen that's in a continual state of
nuclear .fusion, keeping its surface temperature at over
two million degrees Gelsius. When a coronal mass ejection
occurs, highly charged particles are thrown out and
wrapped into a ball with its own magnetic field - called
a plasma. About the size of Jupiter, this plasma cloud
contains enough energy to boil the Mediterranean Sea
dry. It travels at about two million miles an hour, so
. .' Hackett totted up the calculations briefly. 'Yeah,
I'd say it takes about three days to get here.'
November gulped. 'And this is about to happen?'
Hackett smirked. 'Oh, that happens every week. What
Major Gant is about to explain, I assume, is much
worse.'
'On March eight, exactly nine days ago, an unprecedented
number of sun spots were observed on the



114 	STEL PAVLOU ........................ .............

surface of the sun. Solar-storm activity was intense and
the release of plasma was both rapid and vast. The magnetic
turmoil within the sun was such that at precisely
seven-oh-nine that morning, exactly eight minutes after
several ejecta events simultaneously exploded around
the equator of the sun, the effects were detected here at CERN.'
Hacker was suddenly very alert. 'How?' he asked
simply. 'You're talking about an effect that we could
feel, that traveled just as fast as light.'
'There are five experiments currently set up around
the earth to do the kind of physics we're talking about.
One in Japan, at ISAS. One in Russia. Two in the States,
at Caltech and Stanford. And one here in Switzerland.
The other four were undergoing recalibration and were
off-line, while the one here at CERN was the only one
operational at the time, and was the only one that
detected - a gravity wave.'

Now was the time to sit down, Hackett decided. He ran
his fingers over the cold black onyx table-top. 'Good
God . . . they finally did it.' No one else seemed quite that overjoyed. 'The graviton,' Hackett said, smug in his
own certainty, 'is the key to everything.'
Scott shifted in his chair and murmured, 'Sorry to
disappoint, but it wasn't the key to the breakdown of
my marriage.'
'How long did it last?'
Scott had to think for a moment before he realized
Hackett wasn't talking about his marriage while
Gant announced: 'Four point three microseconds.
Congratulations, Dr HackeR. Physics proved another
theory.'
....................................... DECIPHER 	1 15
Hackett scratched his neck. 'I'm not sure I should be
glad about that."
Cant took a long, deep breath. 'The laser-light interferometer
equipment used in ELIGO was not the only
thing to react to the gravity wave.'
Scott shook his head for a re-cap. 'ELIGO?'
'Explanations later,' Rear Admiral Dower insisted
gruffly, eager to get to the point.
Gant pressed another button. Images of ice floes and
tile Antarctic basin were suddenly visible. Details
spewed down one side of the screen. Complex and nonsensical
to the layman.

SPACEBORNE IMAGING RADAR-C/X-BAND SYNTHETIC APERTURE RADAR (StR-C[XSAR)
GROUND PENETRATING RADAR (GPR}

CONJUNOTIONALITY EXTRAPOLATION FROM NEMESIS.

MICROWAVE LENGTHS:

L-BAND (24 CM)

C-BAND (GCM)

X-BAND (3CM)

MULTI-FREQUENCY ENHANCEMENT: ON

GPR DIGITAL WASH FILTERS; ON

GPR WAVE-LENGTH FEATURES: [WITHHELD -- AUTHORIZATION FAILED. ACCESS DENIED.]

Suddenly, close-up images of Chinese armored columns
came into focus, slowly making their way across the ice.
Black specks against pure white, like ants on iceeream.
Buildings appeared. Fortifications were being erected.
The Chinese base, lung Chang, was well equipped.
'Needless to say, ladies and gentlemen, this is classified
information--'



116 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

'But hardly secret,' November interrupted cheekily.
Gant shot her a look. 'You flicked on CNN lately?'
'Believe me, Ms Dryden,' the major intoned, 'CNN
does not have its hands on this particular tape.' He
turned to the others. 'We've had the Chinese under surveillance
for some time. Their recent pursuit of fossil
fuels and mineral ores has been relentless, as has their
experimentation on hightech weaponry. Approximately
three months ago, at their base in Antarctica, they sunk
a well and started complex drilling procedures.
'Two weeks ago we detected a signal indicating that
an enormous power source had been activated. As this
hidden power source's output began to increase, so too did sun-spot and solar-flare activity. Naturally we want
to know what they've found. If we switch to Ground
Penetrating Radar...' the image on the screen turned
psychedelic '... what you're seeing is a false color image
of what the human eye cannot see.'
Scott squinted. 'What exactly are we seeing?'
Hackett stepped up for a closer look. 'We did the
scan you asked us to perform, Jon,' Dower explained.
'And?'
'And you were right.'
'Shit.'
'Right? Right about what?' Scott wanted to know.
Gant nodded at the screen. 'Just wait.'
A clock cycled down. The date read March 8, 2012.
Suddenly purple waves blasted out in tremendous ripples
and dissipated some distance on.
Pearce had already seen the footage but was still
impressed. 'Woah!'
Hackett craned forward. 'Can we see that again from
a wider view?'
....................................... DECIPHER 	1 1 7
Cant keyed in the request. Again, huge false color
waves spread out across the ice as if a pebble had been
dropped into a pond.
'The area of land you're seeing is roughly the size of
Manhattan.'
Scott was confused. 'What the hell was that?'
'What you're looking at is some kind of energy wave,'
Dower offered by way of an explanation. 'Traveling well
over two miles beneath the ice, through what appears
to have the same geological signature as a material
called Carbon 60.'
Hackett was resting his chin on his fingers, studying
the image intently, when he asked quietly, 'Can you
slow the film down for me - a lot.'
Gant and Dower exchanged knowing looks. Dower
seemed pleased. 'We thought you might notice that.'
'Notice what?' Matheson demanded. It was clear he
was out of the loop on this one.
Hackett never took his eyes off the screen. 'There's
structure within the wave pattern.'
'What are you talking about? Structure? I don't
understand.'
'Major Gant, can you separate out each individual
flame where the energy waves have expanded out from
the epicenter?' Hackett requested. 'And then, overlay
them on top of one another.' Gant said he could and
went to work as Hackett addressed the others. 'Every
time the wave gets bigger I'm getting him to take a snapshot
of it. Then by overlaying each shot, like a stack of
pancakes, the overall image of what I think I can see
should, uh . . . should present itself.'
Like a jigsaw puzzle of concentric purple circles the
image slowly built up until the screen turned more and



118 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

more purple with each overlay. And what was becoming
clearer to everybody was that structure had indeed
been revealed within the energy waves. With the
exception of the military, a mood of excitement and
incredulity filled the room. Cubes. Oblongs. Curved
surfaces. All the hallmarks of construction stood out as
glitches in the purple. It was intricate. Vast and dense.
Like the layout of-
'That's a city,' Scott whispered. 'Under the goddamn
ice . . . A lost city!'
'And somehow,' Dower said gravely, 'it appears to be
linked to the sun."
Pearce was mesmerized. 'Not a lost city. The lost city.
Ladies and gentlemen - welcome to Atlantis!'

'My God . . . we're talking about a complex adaptive
system on a scale I've only ever theorized about,' Hackett
murmured darkly.
Gant flipped text up onto the screen in a separate
sub-box. Tales of the Deluge: A Global Report on
Cultural Self-Replicating Genesis Myths by Dr Richard
Scott. In his hand he had a hard copy. He scratched
his cheek in between thumbing through the hefty document.
'Dr
Scott,' he said, 'according to your research, in Central
Colombia, South America, and I quote: "Bochica, a
bearded man of another race, brought law, agriculture
and religion to the Chibcas savages. But one day his
evil wife, Chia, appeared to thwart his plans and
flooded the lands killing almost everyone. Bochica
exiled his wife to the sky where she is now the moon,
and brought the survivors down from the mountains
to start over".'
....................................... DECIPHER 	1 1 9

Scott was excited. Felt that rush of adrenaline coursing
through his veins. He knew what the Major was
driving at as Gant turned another page.
'Or what about this? In China, the water god, Gong
Gong, caused a twenty-two-year flood. People escaped
to the mountains and the trees. While according to the
Chickasaw Indians, the world was destroyed by water
and all except one family and two animals of every kind
survived.'
'You want to try another letter?' Scott suggested excitedly.
'How about 'T'? The Incas reported that torrential
rains fell and volcanoes erupted, flooding the earth
and burning it. When the sky went to war with the
earth, they believed the Andes were split apart. Whereas
the Inuit thought there was a terrible flood followed by
an earthquake that happened so fast that only the quickwitted
were fast enough to flee to the mountains or take
refuge in their boats.
'There are more than five hundred deluge legends
around the world,' Scott summarized. 'I built on the
work of Richard Abdree who studied eighty-six of the
legends back in the mid-1980s. Three were European,
seven African, twenty Asian, forty-six American and ten
were from Australia or the Pacific Rim. He found out
that sixty-two of these cultures had never come into contact
with the Hebrew or Mesopotamian legend - the
one from which we derive Noah. That means they
sprang up independently. They are distinct - and separate.'
When
Scott started work on the project he found a
wealth of information he frankly hadn't expected. He'd
discovered flood stories that were Roman and
Scandinavian, German and Assyrian, Hebrew, Christian



120 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

and Islamic. There were Sumerian flood stories and
Babylonian. Chaldean, Zoroastrian, Pygmy, Kikuyu and
Yoruba. There were tales of an ancient deluge from the
Basonge, Mandingo, on the Ivory Coast, Bakongo, western
Zaire and Cameroon. The Kwaya of Lake Victoria
shared a similar tale, as did the Hindus and the Chinese.
In Thailand it was the Kammu, and in the Philippines
the Ifugaos. There were the Batak in Sumatra who also
saw the earth resting on a giant snake. Curiously, the
symbol of the snake cropped up time and time again.
The list of flood myths went on and on. From New
Zealand to Arkansas.
Everywhere Scott looked he had found an ancient
culture that believed the earth had at one time or
another been devastated by a vast torrent of water.
But there was a problem, and Scott was already starting
to see the connection between Atlantis and the sun.
Hesitantly he said: 'Many of these same ancient myths
also refer to the cyclical nature of the destruction of the
earth.'

'How many myths are we talking about, Dr Scott?' the
Admiral inquired.
'If I had to hazard a guess,' Scott replied, rubbing his
hands together nervously, Td say over a hundred. Our
own Ghristian beliefs see the turn of the millennium
as something to fear. The Age of Aquarius began in
2010 - the symbol for water. The Mayans predicted a
cataclysm would befall the earth on December 24,
2011.'That was just three or four months ago.'
The linguistic anthropologist eyed everyone around
the table. Deeply concerned.
'The Dusan tribe of western Borneo, or Kalimantan,
....................................... DECIPHER 	121

have the idea that the sky retreated when six of the original
seven suns were killed,' he explained. 'The pre
Hispanic Mexicans believed various past ages were each
brought to an end by violent upheavals. In the old
Mayan Annals of Cuauhtitlan, written in 1570 but based
on texts thousands of years old, these past ages were
called "suns". They were epochs, or in Mayan: ChiconTonatiuh.
Even Amerind people, and remote tribes of
the Amazon have beliefs that many times over the earth
has been destroyed by fire, prolonged darkness and a
deluge.
'The Voguls of Siberia believed recurrent devastation
was accompanied by terrible thunder. The Welsh Triads
refer to three cataclysms as a deluge, a fire and a drought.
Anaximenes and Anaximander of the sixth century BeE,
and Diogenes of Allollonia in the fifth century BeE speak
of the world being periodically destroyed and reborn.
Aristarchus of Samos, two hundred years later, said the
earth underwent destruction by fire and water every
two thousand, four hundred and eighty-nine years. The
people of Hawaii, the Bengal Sea, the early Icelanders
and the Hebrew traditions all share similar myths. The Visuddi-Magga, the ancient book of the Buddhists,
mentions an older book called .the Discourse on the
Seven Suns, and speaks of the same periodic destruction.
'The
Chwong people of Malaysia say this earth is
Earth Seven and that everything is turned upside down
and destroyed at intervals. Egyptians believed in Tep
Zepi, the first time, before the present age when the
gods walked the earth. The Greeks and Romans had
this notion too. Under Hinduism it gets a little more
specific. Their belief is there are four ages that span five


122 	STEL PAVLOU 	• ..............................


thousand years for our existence. The Golden Age,
which was unpolluted. The Silver Age, where the scattered
people no longer remembered their roots or lineage
and perceived themselves as different tribes and
families. They say this was followed by the Gopper Age,
when trading began. Followed by our Age, the Iron Age
- the Age of Kali, when sinning developed. The rich
became richer, marriages broke down, people stole.
War, technology and science became the evil of the
day, until a cosmic renewal known as the Confluence

Age briefly destroyed the earth by fire and flood.'
'Sounds great,' Hackett mused.

Scott added, 'The Hindus say that time is now.'

'Did you also know,' Pearce added, 'that the Chinese

were the first people ever to chart sunspot activity?'
'No, I didn't know that.'

'Oh yeah. They've been doing it for more than two
thousand years. They were the first people to scientifically
recognize the cycle. They have twelve astrological
years. Y'know, the Year of the Rooster and so on?
That's very close to sunspot cycles.'

Silence clung to the air as Gant keyed the screen.
Dramatically, multiple images from the international
news channels played side by side. Ferocious images.
Frightening.

'At the same time the gravity wave hit Malaysia. Fifteen
hundred dead in a series of typhoons. Tokyo was hit by
a tsunami. Two hundred dead in earthquakes in
California. And snow storms in the Mid-West. Pre-tremors
felt in London . . .'

'London?' Scott queried. 'London's not on a faultline,
is it?'

....................................... DECIPHER 	123


'The British Geological Survey say it is. And they just
started measuring activity from some unusually deep
fault-lines that stretch all the way across to France.
Earthquakes hit London on a large scale once every' two
or three hundred years. The last one was in 1776. So
the next one's past due,' Gant told them. 'And London,
like a lot of Europe, isn't built with earthquakes in mind.
So when the big one does hit . . .' He didn't need to
elaborate.

'We've also charted for some time sunspot cycle activity
which matches El Nino, and the indications are not
good.'

El Nino was a weather phenomenon where an area
of the Pacific Ocean the size of Europe warmed to a
greater degree than usual every decade or so. The result
was that the Trade Winds reversed and went East. The
heat flowing with it raised temperatures several degrees
farther. It meant flooding in the Americas and droughts
in the Western Pacific and Africa.

'1983 was an El Nino year. It caused dust storms to
hit Melbourne with ten thousand tons of dust at fifty
miles an hour, creating a wall of dust five miles across.
It was a hundred and ten degrees Fahrenheit in the city,
a hundred and thirty in the desert. By the time of the
next El Nino in 1998, most of the Pacific Basin was on
fire due to massive droughts, while America and China
were hit with the worst floods ever recorded. Three
month's worth of rains fell in some places in six hours.
July of 1998 went down as the hottest global month ever
recorded. A few years on and 2012 is shaping up to be
the worst recorded year for climatic change and natural
disasters in history.'

Hackett was on the edge of his seat. He raised a finger


124 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


like a schoolboy• 'And this is linked to the city under
the ice . . . How?'

Gant exchanged a hesitant, uneasy look with Dower
before continuing• The Admiral nodded for him to proceed.
Gant pressed the button and the images on the
screen were replaced with video feed from the Arctic.
The image on the screen was alive with a mass of bright
pink gases undulating in huge swathes across a dark sky
and disappearing over the horizon.

'This is the Aurora Borealis at the North Pole - the
Northern lights, created by the plasma that's ejected
by the sun - hitting the earth's atmosphere• Pink is
good. Pink says there's little activity. Pink says that the
earth's magnetic field is deflecting the plasma• Green
•.. Green is bad. Green tells us that the plasma is penetrating
the earth's magnetic field and is bombarding
the atmosphere• But we know the activity is bad - so
bad that we're on high alert• So where's all the green
gone?'

Hackett was cautious• 'You're suggesting Antarctica?'
'I'm not suggesting,' Gant advised• 'I'm telling you.
Look.'

Vast ribbons of green energy swirled above a sparkling
city that sat in the darkness below•

'Melbourne, Australia. That's how far north it's
stretching,' he said. The screen changed again• To daylight
and ice. Antarctica• The caption read: Live Feed
from McMurdo Station• Despite the daylight, the sky
was still alive with the green phenomenon•

'That's not unusual,' Hackett chipped in. 'That happens
From time to time. A plasma cloud has its own
magnetic field. It'll react to the earth's field• When the
plasma storm is positive, it gets attracted to the earth's

....................................... DECIPHER 	125


negative. Gets sucked right on in, and it's going to go
to the South Pole. Opposites attract•'

'Except this plasma cloud is also negative,' Said Gant.
Hackett almost choked• 'That... th-that is unusual.'
'Unusual? You know it's impossible, Professor. Like
does not attract like.' Figures and charts spewed onto
the screen. 'By our calculations, all it takes to cause a
global environmental disaster is just three successive
plasma storms to hit and be absorbed by the atmosphere.
We're talking storms of such magnitude that
entire continents will be engulfed• Seas really will boil.
Increased atmospheric pressure and ionization will trigger
earthquakes and in turn will create tidal waves in
the oceans. But to suck in a plasma cloud takes a power
source of unimaginable proportions. Something currently
beyond our own technical capabilities. Something,
somewhere in what we believe to be Atlantis is
the only likely candidate responsible for what's happening.
Some kind of device that the Chinese may have
uncovered, and are manipulating.'

'Legend states,' Dower interjected, 'that Atlantis
would rise again of its own accord• For the past fifty
years, despite environmental protection measures, the
ozone layer in Antarctica has depleted, creating a hole
that has allowed cosmic rays and other radiation to bombard
it like no other place on earth. The ice has begun
to retreat. So we cannot rule out the possibility that
something in Atlantis is waking itself up - is reacting
to what's going on around it. London didn't wake up.
New York sure as hell didn't react to a gravity wave. But
Atlantis... did.

'We cannot prevent what's happening to the sun. It
would be ridiculous to even suggest such a thing• But


+!


126 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

make no mistake: mankind's back is against the wall. A
device that just lit up the security net of an entire
Superpower is something to take very seriously. There
is every indication that it is speeding up the changes
that are taking place within our atmosphere. It is helping
- whether by design or flaw - to destroy us.'
Matheson was incredulous. 'We're looking at one hell
of a machine,' he remarked, 'to show up on satellite
and do what it's doing. We're talking about a machine
maybe the size of Atlantis itself.'
'We don't know that. But we will not sit back and do
nothing while our planet is climatically destroyed.
Whatever's beneath the ice does not appear to be our
friend. We want it shut off. And we want it shut off
now.'
'And exactly how do you propose to do that?' Scott
asked innocently.
All eyes fell on him.
'The writing's on the wall,' Dower commented.
'Pardon me?'
'There is ancient writing - on its walls, Dr Scott. The
fact that Atlantis now exists is testament to all those
ancient myths and legends you're so familiar with.
Whoever built Atlantis left a lot of incomprehensible
writing scrawled all over it. They must have done that
for a reason. We're proposing that they left us some clue,
some indication as to what it was they were trying to
achieve. Some indication on how to switch the damn
thing off.'
'Admiral, with all due respect,' Scott said, startled, 'if
what you say is true it's hardly going to be like programming
a fucking VCR.'
Dower took a breath. 'If everything that's taking place
....................................... DECIPHER 	127

is down purely to Mother Nature, then we surrender.
There is absolutely nothing we as a species can do about
it. Just like the dinosaurs, we can kiss our asses goodbye
because God's about to wipe the slate clean But . . and it's an uncertain but.., if there is any chance
at all that the structure in Antarctica is the cause of this
environmental nightmare that's unfolding, then our
only option is to enter the city and turn it off. And we
can do that by one of two ways. You can figure out what
they wrote. Or we can install a thermo-nuclear device - and blow the shit out of it.
'Ladies and gentlemen, God may play dice, but we
do not. We will look for any means of raising our
chances of survival. And if humankind depends on it- we will destroy Atlantis.'

There were stunned expressions on the faces of the scientists
sat around the table No one knew quite how to
react. Taking a thermo-nuclear warhead to Antarctica
was problematic for two reasons One: it was illegal
under the Antarctica Treaty. And two: the Ghinese had
a base sitting right above where Atlantis appeared on
the map.
Dower drummed his fingers on the table. 'There is
one other thing,' he added quietly. 'We may be able to
get a dry run at this. There is the slim possibility that
we may have found a second device of similar magnitude'
Scott's
ears pricked up. 'What do you mean?'
'Our use of the search parameters suggested by Dr
Hackett led to the discovery of Atlantis. And with the
help of Bob Pearce's abilities, and others at Rola Gorp.
we have detected a second site on this planet that
i
ili
l

.jJ'
,H

h!


128 	" 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

appears to be giving off similar readings to Atlantis. If
we can gain access, we might be able to get some insight
into what to expect in Antarctica.'
Scott shot forward. 'So where is it?'

ELQAHIRA

History is a set of lies agreed upon.

Napoleon Bonaparte,
Emperor of Europe, 1769-1821
CAIRO

k\\\\

THE GIZA PLATEAU

For me? Aw, how sweet. I hope that thing's got coffee
/in it! Sarah Kelsey yelled, holding tightly.onto her
navy-colored baseball cap. The battered old EH-101
helicopter veered back up into the air behind her, whipping
up a sandstorm as it went.
The company guy in the gray boiler suit and the red
company cap stood clutching a gray stone long-necked
jug. He exclaimed: 'Afraid not! But this is for you to take
a look at. What do you make of it?' He coughed up sand
as he handed over the artifact. Seemed reluctant to
straighten up after ducking out the way of the rotors.
Introduced himself. 'Name's Eric. Eric Clemmens.' He
tried to shake hands and hold on to his own hat all at
the same time. His face was caked in dust. 'We gotta
short walk,' he explained. 'They won't let us land choppers
near the monuments. Sand damage, you know?'
Sarah understood as Clemmens pointed her in the right
direction. 'So what do you think?'
132 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


'Granite,' she said, turning the jug over in her hand.
'Half-inch diameter neck at the top, opening out to
about six inches. No striated markings, as you'd expect.
This is stone, not clay, so it wasn't on a potter's wheel.
It was turned on a lathe, and the internal volume drilled

OUt.'

Clemmens was elated. 'That's exactly what I said!'

'Any geologist or engineer could tell you that. Why?
What's the problem?'

'The problem? I don't think the Egyptologists here
have had any real engineers or geologists take a close

look at any of the artifacts and monuments before.'
'What makes you say that?'

'Because they've been busy dismissing anything that

challenges their view of ancient Egypt. Like this jug.'
'We're not archeologists, Eric.'

'But they say we're wrong because there's no evidence
ancient Egypt ever had lathe technology.'

Sarah was concerned. 'You can't make a jug like this
without a lathe.'

'Precisely, but I guess hard evidence just ain't good
enough for 'em.' They crossed through a minor outer
complex and headed down a long gravel track. 'If it was
a single jug, maybe they'd have a point. But it's not.
We've got eleven more of these things. Plus sixteen diorite
bowls, eight quartz bowls and a feldspar and quartz
bowl. And they all show the same signs. Wanna know
the screwy thing?'

Sarah said she did as she peered into the camp and
familiarized herself with the layout as they went. The
last thing she needed was to get lost.

'How fast does a modern drill work?' Clemmens
asked with a shrug. 'Tungsten carbide.'

	....................................... DECIPHER 	133

That was easy. They worked for an oil company, after
all. 'For fine work on stone? Say around 900 rpm. Cuts
into stone about one ten-thousandth of an inch per revolution.'

'Close
enough. But the inner surface of this jug shows
all the signs that it was drilled a tenth of an inch per
revolution. At that rate it would have to have had a
metric ton of pressure behind it. And on a jug this small?
That kind of pressure would have blasted it apart. By
my reckoning, whoever made this jug used a drill that
operated five hundred times faster than the ones we use
in this company.'

'Are you serious?'

'Sarah, it gets screwier with the feldspar and quartz
bowl. The drill seems to have cut through the quartz
portion faster than the feldspar.'

'That doesn't make any sense,' she protested. 'Quartz
is harder than feldspar.'

'We use a lot of vibration in drill bits to get them to
cut quicker,' Clemmens said. 'For the Egyptians to have
cut through a denser, harder type of rock faster, I'm
guessing they Used vibration like an art form. Some kind

of oscillation technique's my guess. Maybe even sonic.'
'Sound waves?'

Clemmens shrugged. He knew it was conjecture. 'We
got a specialist in, to give a preliminary date to the bowls.
The guy studied the ground strata where they were
found. It was a grave-robber tunnel. And he wound up

giving us a date of over 4,000BC.'

'And that's a problem, how?'

'The grave-robber tunnel appears to wend its way
over to the pyramids, though it's filled in now. But if a
grave-robber tunnel was constructed in 4,0008c, just



134 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

what were they robbing? The Pyramids didn't exist until
2,500BC.'
In some areas, Arab workmen in long white cotton
galebeyas were already hard at work shifting chunks
of concrete without even breaking a sweat. Heavy
machinery was busy clearing away rubble. Generators
and night-lights were housed next to steel chain-link
fences and store houses. Portakabins and trailers
marked the nerve center. And then there were the
Pyramids.
'Tell me about the Carbon 60,' Sarah said. 'What's
the story on that?'
'We found a few smashed pieces in a little cloth sack,
along with the pots. There's evidence of a fire down
there, and some kind of close-quarter battle.
Scorchmarks. Extremely violent. But so far - no bodies.'
'Maybe the grave robbers were discovered?'
'The fire indicates it started somewhere further down
the tunnel - from the pyramid end. Whoever caught
them had to be in one of the monuments, and went
after them as they were on their way out.'
They arrived near the front gate. Sarah was about to
respond when she shortened her stride.
A crowd had gathered. Military police were guarding
the entrance to the site, and were unhappy with the
situation. One of them was a little too eager in raising
the butt of his rifle.
Sarah felt her heart miss a beat as they approached.
'What's going on?'
'Never mind,' Clemmens muttered as they headed
in.
She could hear machinery. Heavy and loud just
behind the sheer cliffs Of devastation that marked the
....................................... DECIPHER 	135

demolition zones within the camp. Plumes of oily blue
smoke were shooting up into the sky marking their tracks
in the distance. But that was nothing compared to the
shouts of the crowd. There were about a hundred of
them, Sarah guessed, mostly westerners. Some even had
placards. About one third were media types with cameras
and microphones. There was no choice but to bite
the bullet and jostle their way through.
'Hey, do you mind? I'm trying to get to work, her'e; ">
Sarah shoved the large guy in front out the way. But
the mere mention of work caused the crowd to turn
like a shoal of fish. She exchanged a brief look with
Clemmens.
'That was a really bad move,' he mouthed.
'We demand access!' the protesters were shouting.
'We have a right to know!'
Sarah struggled with more bodies. It was like an Ecobattle
with a bunch of students, but for the life of her
she couldn't figure out what they were complaining
about. Reporters hurled questions at her about Thorne.
When did they expect him? Was Rola Corp. facing a
board of inquiry at the Senate? But Sarah didn't know
what they were talking about. She ignored them all
until a middle-aged woman with long silvery hair, tied
back in a pony-tail, emerged from the mass to confront
her. She wasn't a ringleader as such, but she certainly
had influence. The crowd eased back, but they
remained loud. Her eyes were deep and penetrating.
Sarah had never seen eyes like them before.
'You will help us,' she said. Her voice cut through
the din like a knife.
Sarah tried to ignore her but found that she couldn't.
The woman added: 'Cayce was right.'



136 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

Sarah frowned. She tried to respond, but didn't know
how.
'You'll see,' the woman concluded. Her face was
engaging, enigmatic.
Sarah remained transfixed but in a flash she was being
herded off. The soldiers had cut a path through the
crowd and Glemmens was bundling her into the camp.
'Gome on!' he was yelling, and within seconds they
were through.
Sarah kept trying to look back. Thought she'd caught
a glimpse of the woman again, but Clemmens had a
hold of her arm and was marching her up the path,
deep into Rola Corp. territory. Moments later he let her
flee. 'Who's Gayce?' she asked.
Glemmens shrugged.
'What do they want?'
'I don't know,' he grumbled. 'What d'you care?
They're nut-balls. Gonspiracy theorists. End of the world
freaks. They're insane. A pain in the ass.'
Sarah eyed him closely. 'So do they have anything
to worry about, Eric?'
Glemmens seemed to grimace. Steered her onwards
by pointing to a series of pits and leveled areas across
from the Sphinx. They were foundations to a series of
buildings that had been ripped from the ground. Twisted
pipe-work still protruded in places. Ghunks of concrete
were piled to the sides.
'That's where we found the grave-robber tunnel. It's
empty now, of course.' He whipped out a postcard.
Passed it over. 'Used to be a whole bunch of restaurants
and tourist shit. We leveled it. That's roughly where
they want to build the museum. Hey, have you seen
pictures of what it's gonna look like?'
....................................... DECIPHER 	137

	'Yeah. It's pretty. It's like that one they built at the

	foot of the Parthenon in Athens.'

	'It's gonna be more than pretty. It's gonna be awe
	some
- sunk into the ground, looking up at the Sphinx
	--

	and the Pyramids. Anyways, we've been running a geo
	physics
survey over this entire area, like you asked when

	you called last night. Monuments an' all.'

	Sarah eyed the postcard casually. A grimy Arab stood

	by a rusted sign for Goke and a Seven-up vending

	machine. She handed it back. 'Good. What did you find?'

	Clemmens took a breath. 'Granite under the Sphinx.'

	Sarah faltered. She glanced over to the crowd still

	attached to the front gate before facing Clemmens

	again. They exchanged a look and they both knew. All

	bullshit aside, something strange was going on. Sarah

	set it down in her mind for a moment. It required

	focused thought, not some half-assed theory. A couple

	of Arab workmen sauntered past. They were chatting

	away cheerfully until they came across Sarah. They

	looked vaguely shocked when they spotted her and gab
	bled
to themselves with a scowl. Clemmens waved them

	on while Sarah tried to shrug it off.

	She said: 'They don't get out much around here,

	huh?' Glemmens was silent. And then she heard it
	the
call to prayer. The muezzins were wailing high up

	in their minarets.

	'Welcome to Cairo,' Glemmens chipped in glibly.

	Sarah had been to Egypt before when she was twelve.

	It was winter, she remembered, and she'd arrived in

	Alexandria on a cruise ship. People herded sheep and

	goats in and out of filthy, dilapidated British colonial

	apartment blocks. It was a shock to learn those people

	also lived with the animals.


138 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


The other memory she had was animal-related too
and equally squall& She'd watched some kids play
soccer on a patch of serubland. It was near a mosque
and she could still recall the faint scent of rosewater
wafting across from the cart of a leathery old vendor.
She'd strayed from her parents. They were bartering
over a piece of cheap tourist papyrus, she remembered,
when the boys noticed her. They'd grinned and kicked
the ball over, hoping she might join in. Being a westerner
they must have figured she could play so'ccer.
Being American, of course she could not. She'd grinned
in return, and glanced down to kick the ball back. But
it didn't take long for her to realize what she was looking
at. They were playing soccer with the decapitated
head of a Labrador puppy. Its gums had rotted, and the
teeth that remained were white. Snarling. Obviously
she screamed. The mud was thick too, she remembered.
Black. Yes, Sarah had lots of memories about Egypt.

She could feel perspiration starting to build up on
the back of her neck. Already it was 30°G, and it wasn't
even 8 o'clock yet. This wasn't right. It was only March.

They crossed out into the open, passed more demolition
areas and moved on into the arena of the
Pyramids. The huge, jagged-edged megaliths seemed to
cut into the very sky itself. The desert beyond them
stretched on to infinity while the Sphinx, ever enigmatic,
sat passively waiting in a vast and relentless mass
of shifting amber sands, each grain accompanied by a
whiff of palpable history.

Sarah had to admit, she was impressed. She chewed
her gum. 'Cool.'

They reached the geo-physics team, which was
already hard at work.

....................................... DECIPHER 	139


Two operators methodically humped a set of meterhigh
electrodes around the site a yard at a time. Sarah
recognized it immediately as an electrical resistivity
survey, the type developed a couple Of years ago that
was able to peer through sand. Before-then, sand showed
up as solid rock and the ground had to be damp for the
probes to function properly. It worked by passing a current
directly into the ground and measuring the electrical
potentials across the electrodes. In this way they
built up a picture of the subsurface geology resulting
ill an underground map of the area without anyone lifting
a shovel.

Sarah could see the operators were already struggling
in the heat and dust. 'You didn't opt for a seismic survey
then?' she asked.

'Are you kidding?' Clemmens did a double-take
before realizing he was being had. He shook his head.
'Yeah, right. Blasting holes in e+erything with dynamite
and listening to the echoes on geo-phones is really
gonna go down well in this neighborhood.'

'I take it the archaeologists round here want access
to the data. You know how they love to save money.'

'That's, uh, well . . .' Clemmens scratched his head.
'You'd better just talk to Douglas about that.'

Sarah eyed him coolly, unsurprised. Douglas was a
company drone in charge of Rola Corp.'s construction
arm. It was a small wing set up to accommodate favors
for Third World governments, based on the notion that
if they built a few things like a palace and a hotel, immediate
tangible things, then they could dig or drill all
they liked.

She found Douglas in the makeshift survey tent. Under
the shade of some dusty green canvas and surrounded



140 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

by a myriad of trailing cables and wires, he was the picture
of organization. Hair slicked back, he wore a thin
cotton shirt and dark glasses. He drank orange juice
from a disposable plastic carton and jotted notes down
on a yellow legal pad. Next to him on a rickety desk
were stacks of papers in neat, tidy piles. He was standing,
leaning over his notes when he glanced up. He did
not look pleased.
'Wear longer sleeves next time, please,' he remarked.
Sarah gave a cursory glance at her bare arms. She
was wearing khakis and a plain white cotton Tshirt.
The humidity was low. The breeze coming in off the
Sahara was dusty and harsh on her skin, but it was better
than frostbite. And besides, she was damned if she was
going to wrap up for these people.
'Fuck that,' she said angrily, throwing her purse down
on the table.
Glemmens winced and ducked out of the firing line
by taking up a position at one of the monitors. Douglas
looked around sharply to see if any locals were in range.
He let out a sigh of relief when he was certain there
were not.
'Listen, Doug. Is this Islam thing gonna affect my
entire stay?' Sarah glared. 'Gee, well at least I missed
Ramadan. People going scatterbrain, starving themselves
half to death from dawn till dusk for a month
and dropping like flies because of it. Are you gonna ask
me to abstain from sex too? Is that it?'
Douglas tried to let it roll over him. Failed. He
slapped down the document he was working on. 'Just
try to stay out of trouble. I haven't gotten your visas all
cleared yet.'
'It may have escaped your attention, but I'm not a
....................................... DECIPHER 	141
Muslim and I've no intention of becoming one. So you
can stick your dress code up your--'
'I get the point. I'm just passing on information. It'll
make working here a damn sigtrFefisier. Since the
extremists started taking over, this is a changed country,
you know.'
Sarah kept her gaze level. 'No shit,' she said. 'They're
screaming for your blood at the gate.' Douglas inclined
his head and let her win that one.
Clemmens eyed Douglas derisively as he handed
Sarah a sprawling print-out with a set of gray-scale graph
lines running down the entire length of paper. She
thanked him under her breath. Clutching the data
tightly, she speed-read the first sweep geo-physics survey
sheet. It was a torrent of numbers.
Clemmens said, 'It's to a depth range of around fifteen
meters.'
'They got the sub-structure readings for this entire
area?'
Clemmens confirmed that they had, but Sarah was
shaking her head. 'This can't be right.' She held up the
scan for all to see. 'This is a perfect heptagon. There's
a seven-sided structure - directly beneath the Sphinx:

It was clear Douglas and Clemmens were well aware
of this revelation.
Clemmens jerked a thumb in the direction of the
two operators. 'Sally's out there now doing another
sweep.'
Sarah tossed the print-out aside and went to one of
the computers. She glanced down at the bearded,
chunky guy sitting at the terminal and waved him away.
He didn't look like he wanted to move.


142 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


'Frankie, this is Sarah Kelsey. She's the geology--'
'Oh, the geology chick.'

Sarah ignored them both as she tapped away on the
keyboard. Clemmens had taken his cap off and was
scratching his head again, embarrassed. 'Yeah, the
chick.'

'You're sure about these figures?' Sarah demanded.
She keyed in reference points and analyzed the test
results.

Clemmens dug into his shirt pocket and thumbed
through his notebook. 'Yeah. On the, uh, the fifth we
took a core sample, authorized by the EDA at section
G-one-eighty-seven.'

A core sample was taken by literally drilling a long
hollow pipe into the ground and pulling it out again.
The pipe would fill up with soil and rock and the resulting
core was a cross-section of the ground. From that,
each stratum could be measured and analyzed. A history
of the entire area could be charted. If there was
ash then chances were there'd been a fire. If there was
a lot of ash, chances were a volcano had been nearby.
If there was any organic matter it could be carbon
dated. And even though it was an unreliable method
it still gave a relative age, which could be assigned to
that stratum, the logic being that if a fly was fifteen
hundred years old and five feet down the core, then
five feet represented fifteen hundred years ago. Any
flies found further down the core sample had to be
older.

Sarah scrolled through pages of the project specs
before she found the information she was looking for.
'What did the core reveal?' she demanded, tapping the
screen and iotting down the figures she needed.

....................................... DECIPHER 	143

'A big ole chunk of Aswan granite,' Clemmens confirmed.
'lust like the survey said we'd find.'

Sarah looked up sharply. 'Aswan granite?'

Clemmens shrugged. 'Yeah, you and me both know
-Aswan's five hundred miles south of here.'

'You and me both know there isn't any natural granite
anywhere in the Nile Delta, especially not here at
Giza. It's a sandstone out-cropping.' She confirmed and
tapped the geo-physics survey. 'And there's no way in
hell that this seven-sided granite.., thing was created
by Mother Nature.' Her gaze rested on Douglas. They
locked eyes for a moment.

'So what d'you think?' Clemmens prompted.

Sarah was cautious. But firm. She looked from man
to man. 'I think someone leaked this to the crowd outside.'

'No
way,' Douglas growled. 'Forget about them, they

don't know anything. That's not why they're here.'
'Why are they here?'

Douglas wasn't biting. 'What is your opinion on the
granite?'

'I think,' Sarah said tentatively, keeping a fixed gaze
on the foreman, 'a good archeologist will tell you that
the ancient Egyptians shipped all the granite they
needed, downriver. Who's to say they didn't just build

something under the Giza plateau?'

Clemmens was stunned. 'How?'

Sarah looked pensive. 'Who knows. Who cares. It's
not our concern.'

'It's a natural formation,' Douglas insisted.
'Oh, come on!' Sarah scoffed.
'It's natural.'

'Who's the geologist here?'



144 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

Douglas glared, causing Sarah to fall silent. So that
was it. Cooperation with the Egyptian Department of
Antiquities was not what was going on here. Like her
other trips to Egypt, the greasing of government palms
was what was important here. To begin with, Rola Corp.
had drawn up a strategy on how to tap oil in the
Northern Desert west of the Nile, and had assessed the
potential of the water reserves on the southern borders
with Sudan. Both of these major resources, discovered
in the late twentieth century, were vital to Egypt. Being
the second largest international, and US, aid recipient
in the world, a large proportion of her 70 million-strong
populace needed immediate relief. And having just
flown over Cairo this morning Sarah was in agreement.
The Bulaq district was a slum. The Nile stretched off
into the distance, a vast glistening life-line broken up
by the Sixth of October Bridge and the island of
Zamalek. But even now, well into the twenty-first century,
the best public housing Egypt had to offer was still
made from mud brick. The people were desperate. The
nation was on the verge of turning fundamentalist and
the government had its back to the wall. And Rola Corp.
knew how to manipulate that to its advantage.
The computer beeped as it popped up another
window of data. 'Gotcha,' she said, as a steady stream
of spikes appeared all over the geosurvey.
Egypt had mineral deposits. But nothing as exotic as
the readings she was seeing. Gold was more her thing,
found mostly to the east, in the Nile valley and the Sinai
Mountains. Granite under the Sphinx was interesting
but completely irrelevant to Rola Corp.
What was of prime relevance were the tiny spikes of
data forming a pattern beneath the surface across the
....................................... DECIPHER 	,'-. 145
entire Giza site map. Sure enough they'd found'more

Carbon 60, just as Houghton had said.

	Sarah eyed Douglas again. 'Exactly what kind of a

museum are we building here?'

	Douglas said: 'Rola Corp.'s been out here almost ten

years now, Sarah. Made a lot of people a lot of money.

Won a lot of friends.' He finished offthe last of his juice.

'The government likes the work you did when you were

out here last. And you of all people know how they like

to reward loyalty.' He let the words sink in. 'But there

are only two certainties in this country. Poverty and sun
stroke.
So what do you do? Your education system sucks.

Your industry - well, forget your industry. bu got a few

offshore rigs in the Red Sea, but that's about it. Half

your population works for other countries and sends

home next to nothing. But you got minerals, and you

know minerals are power.'

'Egypt's a real target for this company,' Sarah quipped

with fake enthusiasm.

'Think about it. You suddenly find a solution. Carbon

60. Heaps of the stuff. All the experts tell you it's the

future in computing, in precision engineering. It'll

change the face of the world overnight. Trouble is, some
body
made a pretty little statue from the stuff. So what

do you do? If the moralists find out they'll be scream
ing
for display cases. So do you really put it on show

and hope enough fat Americans waddle past in their

plaid pants, waving their five bucks? Do you opt for

tourism - again? Or do you blow it all to pieces and sell

off the chunks? Do you get rich quick and give your

people a life? What do you do, Sarah? What do you do?'

Sarah did what she always did. She went for her purse

and grabbed a pack of cigarettes. Camel lights. Her



146 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

heart was sinking fast and she was starting to feel sick.
She'd been ambushed. This wasn't what she'd been
expecting, or hoping for. She wanted a little adventure,
a chance at pure research and exploration again. But
this wasn't it. She was building herself a great reputation
as a first-class geologist, even if she was stuck in a
shit-heap company, but she knew that this wasn't
research or exploration. She was being used. To the
company, she was a commodity, an official line they
could tack onto their pet projects.
She blew smoke rings. They were intended to irritate
but Douglas acted like he hadn't noticed. Clemmens
and Frankie watched in quiet trepidation.
Tm excited,' she said finally with a hint of a smile.
She was doing her best to hide her anger but she had
a feeling she couldn't mask the betrayal in her eyes.
Douglas did not respond. 'I've never been to the
Pyramids. When I came as a kid the bus broke down
and we never got out the harbor.'
Douglas's expression was unreadable.
'What you're proposing is totally unethical. Not to
mention illegal, most probably. I couldn't possibly associate
myself with'
Douglas started grabbing his paperwork and shoving
it into a well-worn leather briefcase. He eyed her again.
'Your opinions are not required. You work for the company
- remember that. So where's this little ethical
streak suddenly springing from, Sarah? You getting
broody in your old age? You want a better future for
your theoretical kids?' Suddenly his tone was loudly
aggressive. 'Well, forget it! The company didn't pay your
way through college for nothing! They probably got
enough stuff pegged on you so that you'll never work
....................................... DECIPHER 	147

again. You've okayed enough shitty shit for this company
- you'll be finished. But right now you've got a
good reputation.'
Sarah's face was ashen. She said: 'So what's the plan?'
Douglas stepped over to the monitor and pointed to
the images on the screen. 'It's simple. You dig. Eric
here's working on the nuts and bolts strategy on how to
get down there. When you reach the site you've got a
few hours to decide. Is it Carbon 60 - or isn't it? If it
is, you smuggle it out - fast. The official line is we found
a small mineral deposit and are deciding if it's worth
mining. If it isn't, then tomorrow morning on CNN
Live, I announce to the world that Rola Corp. is, quote:
"Proud to announce the discovery of a major new archeological
find." It's that simple.'
Sarah was skeptical. Things were never that simple.
Douglas glanced at his watch. Tve got to get to the
Department of Trade by noon.' He handed Sarah a pen
and pointed to the desk. 'If you'd be so kind. Sign that
temporary work permit and you're all clear.'
Bewildered, Sarah did so. But it was as she glanced
at the other papers still on the desk that she noticed the
front page of the Egyptian Gazette. She picked it up
and scanned the headlines, which gave her yet another
jolt. Here was the reason why the crowd had gathered
outside.
'Thorne's coming here?' She was talking to herself.
'Yes,' Douglas replied warily. 'Is that going to cause
a problem?'
'No.'
Douglas hesitated. 'Have you met Thorne before?'
'Not much of a company stooge, are you? Who does
your research?' Sarah puffed on her cigarette and



148 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

smiled. She remembered when she first came to Egypt
as an employee of Rola Corp. 'Yeah, I've met him
before. I used to luck him.' She blew smoke. 'How the
hell d'you think I got this job?'
Douglas rocked on his heels and rubbed his chin. A
rueful smile was emerging.
There was the sound of a snigger or two, then muffled
laughter. Clemmens was scratching his head again.
Frankie was sporting a lopsided grin. 'I'm starting to like
this chick,' he said. Almost immediately he wished he
hadn't said a word as Sarah clouted him up side the
head.
'Cut the sexist bullshit, Fatboy,' she scowled, and
walked out to supervise the next set of measurements.
It was a good feint because she actually felt like crying.
Thorne was coming. Finally, everything had come full
circle. Things couldn't get any worse.
She crossed the sand. Watching the geophysicists,
she realized they had stopped to huddle around some
readings. For geo-physicists that was tantamount to a
riot. She was about to cross over to them and see what
all the fuss was about when suddenly they all started
whooping and hollering. Sarah broke into a run as their
cries echoed across the site. 'We got another tunnel! A
goddamn tunnel!'
Sarah was amazed as she took a look at their readings.
'Where is it?' she demanded.
'Right beneath our feetV
'But these readings,' Sarah remarked, confused, 'are
these live? Are you still hooked up?'
'Uh-huh.'
'They're spiking. They keep changing. What's going
on down there?'
....................................... DECIPHER 	149

'Exactly what they told us to expect.'
'They? They who?'
'The people in Geneva. That's power you're seeing
on those readings. Electricity, flowing underground. If
we didn't know to look for it, we'd never have known
it was there. It's like looking at some kind of machine.'



CERN

EXPEDITION PLANS

II 'm - I'm s, hocked, is what I'm saying,' Hackett said
numbly. I m stunned. That the complexity of the situation
hasn't been totally grasped.'
'What are we overlooking?' Dower wanted to know
as Scott and Matheson pored over a map of the pyramids
at Giza.
'Gravity. It's not something to be taken lightly. It's
the basic rule of thumb for all life. Before something
can reproduce, it has to withstand gravity.' Hackett was
banging his balled fist into the palm of his other hand.
'It's what keeps us glued to this planet. It's what keeps
us whizzing around the sun. It's what smacked an apple
into Newton's head. We can defy it temporarily. We can escape it, momentarily. But we can't ever hide from it.
It affects everything, the entire universe. And that's big.
' 'Here we are, talking about the effects of an actual
gravity wave, and you're not even considering the full
complexity of the implications. Instead, we, we, sit here,
....................................... DECIPHER -. 	1 51
/
discussing a city that not moreqaan twenty or thirty minutes
ago no one knew even existed. And your first
thought is to march halfway across a frozen continent
and blow it up. All I'm saying is, there might be other
ways in which we could be applying our minds.
Important ways. But instead, with all due respect to Dr
Scott, you have a linguist here to translate the writing
on a bunch of rocks. You have strategists carping on
about how best to avoid a war - and still be able to blow
things up. I think I wouldn't be the first to suggest this.
But even as a complexity theorist, whose job it is to discover
the hidden connections to things that apparently
have no connection - I just don't see the connection.
It all sounds like so much panic-driven nonsense.'
Everyone around the table seemed to be shifting
uneasily in their chairs. ']on, what are you saying?' asked
Dower.
'What I'm saying is, I don't think this is the time to
act like a bunch of ostriches and bury your heads in
the snow. Do you realize what a gravity wave could do?
It could shift the orbit of this planet at a whim, add a
few extra days, or take a few days away - if we managed
to stay in orbit at all.'
]on Hacker eyed the faces around the table and was
met by a wall of unblinking eyes. It was as if he'd asked
for a medium-rare steak at a vegetarian luncheon, and
that wasn't good. Didn't they see?
'My question is, what are you going to do about that?' he persevered. 'Are you going to build an Ark and save
mankind? Do you have contingencies?'
'There's nothing we can do about the Sun,' Dower
said flatly.
'Can we contact Egypt now?' Scott insisted.


152 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


Hackett drew a finger to his lips for silence as if he
were talking to a child. 'Dr Scott, uh, if I may. Admiral,
did it ever occur to you that the resurrection of Atlantis
may be a good thing?' Dower frowned. 'Aside from the
absolute latest ground-breaking technology here at
CERN, the only thing to react to the sun, and on a spectacularly
massive scale, is Atlantis. Did you ever stop to
consider that it might have more of an idea of what's
going on than we do?'

'You sound like you think it's alive,' Pearce reacted.
'It's survived twelve thousand years under the ice, and
come out the other end of its slumber. It might be an
automatic response, but it's still a response. Yes.'

'It didn't do any good during the last flood,' Scott
pointed out. 'That's why it's under all that ice.'

'The resurrection of Atlantis as a good thing?' Dower
mused briefly. Then: 'No.'


'This is McMurdo Station. Lieutenant Roebuck reporting.'

The
voice was tinny. Hollow, like it was coming out
of a long metal tube. A burst of interference cut deep
across the screen. He wasn't in uniform, this Lieutenant
Roebuck. With a sheet of paper in one hand, he wore
a gray T-shirt bearing his unit crest. He had a towel
slung over one shoulder, like he'd just gotten back from
the gym. And in the background, next to the charts and
monitors, hung the insignia of the Marine Expeditionary
Force, Antarctica Unit. Penguins hugging an anchor.

Scott was puzzled. T-shirts in Antarctica? Well, at
least it wasn't thin nylon tents and frostbite. If this was
a foretaste of what to expect then Scott reckoned he
could handle it.

....................................... D''HE R .............................. 153

The US station at 1VcMurdo Sound was the largest
permanently manned base anywhere on Antarctica.
With over 1200 men and women in residence at any
one time, Gant had described a village containing scientists,
military personnel and civilians all living and
working side by side. As Gant explained, there were private
quarters and research facilities all ready and waiting
for them.

Roebuck was ready to debrief and Gant stood by the
screen adjusting the system to try and clear out the static.
Houghton chose that moment to re-enter the room, casually
slotting his phone back into his pen and slipping
it inside his jacket pocket. 'Just the UN,' he said as he
retook his seat at the table, completely unaware that

Pearce was watching him closely.

'And?' Dower asked.

'It's all set for tomorrow morning at ten,' Houghton
said. 'We meet with the commission at the Palais des
Nations to discuss an inspection team going onto the
Chinese base.'

'Took long enough,' Dower growled.

'Proper channels, Admiral. Proper channels, and
proper procedure, or the UN will smell a rat.'

Dower flicked a finger at Roebuck on the screen,
indicating to the soldier that he could continue.

'Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.' Roebuck cleared his throat
as Matheson continued to paw over the set of schematics
that had been placed on the table for him. Several
military specialists had joined him to exchange notes
as Roebuck spoke up.

'At fourteen hundred hours, GMT, we sent a warning
signal to the fleet, Admiral,' he explained hesitantly.
'The British Antarctic Survey issued a statement to all



154 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

shipping in the area off the Larsen Ice Shelf to watch
out for a fifty-mile-wide iceberg that has calved off and
is heading out to the open sea.'
Houghton was aghast. 'Fifty miles! Is that possible?'
But he was ignored.
'Where is the Seventh Carrier Group now?' Dower
asked.
Roebuck.was apprehensive. 'The Nimitz is further
out. But the Sacramento and the Ingersoll have been
hunting down a Chinese sub all week.'
Matheson looked up to see Gant tense. He knew about the Ingersoll. That was Gant's ship, the one he'd been
assigned to when he led the boarding party onto Red
Osprey. It was a Marine Expeditionary Force Destroyer
attached to the Seventh Carrier Group of the Pacific
Fleet. It was as fast and dangerous as it was beautiful.
Dower demanded: 'Which sub?'
'We think the Qingdao.'
'Qingdao? Han Class attack sub. Type 92. That's big.'
'The size of two football fields, sir. Should we warn
the Chinese?'
Dower was firm. 'No,' he said. 'To hell with the
Chinese.'
'The Chinese,' Matheson commented, standing back
from the diagrams with a mystified air, 'have got some
real specialist drilling equipment here. If I didn't know
better I'd say they got a head start in all this. It makes
me think they already know about the C60.'
Still looking at the diagrams, he was completely
unaware of the curious expression on Houghton's face.
'Interesting hypothesis,' Hacker ventured. 'But how
would the Chinese already know there's a city down
there?'
....................................... DECIPHER 	155

'They wouldn't,' Dower blasted. But Houghton
remained quiet.
'They may do, sir,' Gant disagreed. 'The Chinese
have been on a technology kick for over a decade and
show no signs of slowing down. You can never tell what
the Chinese know ... sir.'
'Then we're in for the race of our lives, Major. You
ready for that?' the Admiral queried.
'Sir, yes, sirV Gant barked.
Matheson rubbed his beard. Embarrassed. 'Oh,
please . . .'
Roebuck fidgeted on the screen. 'AmundsenScott
Station at the South Pole report no increased activity
at lung Chang; he said, 'but we've sent out a couple
of SaRGE probes, sir. I really think you should take a
look at what we got.'
'Are the vehicles online now?'
'One is, sir. I can transfer control of the signal if you'd
prefer.'
'I prefer,' Dower confirmed. 'But before we sign off,
Lieutenant, I'd like you to take a look at some of the
faces sat around this table. They're our inspection team.
Doctors Hacker and Scott. Engineer Ralph Matheson.
Specialist Robert Pearce--'
'I understood you were sending a geologist as well,'
Roebuck said. 'Sarah Kelsey.'
Houghton sat up in his chair. 'Uh, we will be,' he confirmed
as Hacker and Scott exchanged anxious glances.
'She's on another assignment right now. Preparatory
work.'
Roebuck said, 'Understood. Admiral, it's just accommodation
space is tight. I need to know supply details.
Does anybody have any special dietary requirements?'



156 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

There were meek looks all around the table.
November leaned in close to Scott. 'They'll have
burgers, won't they?'
'I think you can just transfer SaRCE over to us now,
thank you, Lieutenant.'
'Just being thorough, sir.'
A steady stream of data swept across the screen. Gant
punched in commands and a grid unfolded followed
by live video feed.
He announced: 'Here's the view from SaRGE.'
Matheson shot him a look.
'Stands for Surveillance and Reconnaissance Ground
Equipment.'
Matheson tried to look knowledgable, failed. Said:
'Which is what?'
'Now if we told you that,' Dower said dryly, 'we'd
have to take you outside and shoot you.'
'So who's on the end of that camera?'
'Right now? Just Major Gant. We dropped SaRGE
behind enemy lines, so to speak.'
'So it's a robot?'
'Of sorts.' He looked to Gant. 'Position?'
'Elevation: five thousand seven hundred and fifty
nine feet above sea level. Approximately forty-two miles
from Blue One runway and the coastline of Queen
Maud Land.'
They were looking at a vista of ice and snow with
huge fingers of dark granite jutting out like the frozen
digits of a long dead giant. Without any familiar objects
in the picture it was difficult to judge any real perspective.
Dower pointed to one of the formations.
'What's that?' It looked like a vast granite skyscraper.
Gant checked the details on the readout next to the
....................................... DECIPHER 	157

picture first. The quality was good, though there was
intermittent signal break-up. Probably due to the fact
that it wasn't coming direct from Antarctica, but via a
myriad of military spy satellites.
'That's Rakenkniven,' he said. 'The Razor. It's over half
as tall again as Sears Tower. First point of contact with
the Filchner Mountains and controls the access to two
main valleys that lead directly into the continental interior:
the Kubusdalen and the Djupedalen Passes.'
'Who named these damn things?'
'The Norwegians, sir.'
Dower studied the picture carefully. Small red cross
hairs were flashing on the screen where SaRGE had
detected enemy activity.
'Focus in on that,' he said. 'At the base of the Razor.'
The magnification was increased several times before
the targets came into full view. There were heavy vehicles
on caterpillar tracks. Armored Personnel Carriers.
Troops on Skidoos kicking up plumes of snow in their
wake, and what looked like supplies. Their presence
suddenly brought the sheer scale of the Razor into sharp
relief. Human activity in Antarctica was clearly insignificant.
Gant
shook his head respectfully. 'Goddamnit, Mr
Pearce. You were right again.'
'That's what we pay him for,' the Admiral said quietly.
It was not a comment that went unnoticed by everyone
else in the room. Scott zeroed in on him, while
Hackett raised an eyebrow. Just what did Bob Pearce do
for these people?
Pearce didn't bother answering.
There were thirty vehicles in all, painted black with
bright orange markings. It didn't take long for Gant to



158 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

inspect them and give a brief though subdued summary.
'That's
three, no wait . . . four UNIPOWER, 20,000liter
combat refuellers, on modified old-style Mseries
eight-by-eight chassis. Hmm... They put 'em on tracks.
Everything's on tracks. They're not fooling around.
They've adapted everything for long-term use in the
cold.'
Scott asked: 'Otherwise, what would happen?'
'At minus fifty degrees G,' Matheson explained,
'rubber tires would shatter like glass. A non-adapted
metal chassis would snap like a twig. When. you get
down to those sorts of temperatures, all the roles change.
Materials start to act very differently. An ordinary gun
would explode if you tried firing. At minus fifty degrees
C,' he added darkly, 'it's impossible to run. The ground
is frozen solid to a depth of eight feet. At minus sixty
degrees G unless you cover your face it's impossible to
breathe. And when your breath does hit the air it turns
instantly to ice crystals - what Siberians call "the whispering
of the stars".'
Scott eyed Dower anxiously. 'You're covered for this,
right?'
'The Marine Expeditionary Force has all the right
gear, Professor. With long-range naval support and air
superiority, it shouldn't be a problem.'
Gant ran a finger across the vehicles on the screen
again. The sky was sharp powder blue, the sun strong
and vibrant.
Hackett sat upright. 'The sky - it's blue. The Aurora
must be in a stable period.'
But Gant was interested in something else on the
screen. Something much more immediate. 'There's five
....................................... DECIPHER 	159

Swedish-made BY 206 all-terrain vehicles. One of 'em,
look, that's obviously radar. The rest are troop-carriers.
And there's a couple of British-made Leyland Medium
Mobility Carrier DROPS vehicles.' He caught another
curious look from Matheson. 'Demountable Rack Offloading
and Pick-up System. Add a coupla Russian
BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles and a BoforsflIigglunds
CV9040 combat vehicle. Christ, there's gotta be more
stuff on the way. I think they're still building up.'
'What makes you say that?' the Admiral probed.
'There's too much variety in their vehicle choice.
Something goes wrong on one of those things you're
gonna need spare parts. If it's a small operation you opt
for uniformity.'
'Makes sense.'
Scott was awestruck. 'My God,' he said. 'It really is
a war zone over there.'
'That's what you're facing when you get there, Dr
Scott, yes,' the Admiral confirmed.
Scott shifted uncomfortably in his seat as an insistent
tiny red arrow flashed on the screen. It had been
intriguing Matheson, but he'd said nothing until Gant
finally was in a mood to respond to it.
He ordered SaRGE to zero in on the target in question,
which turned out to be 2,000 feet up. The Chinese
had placed a command station on the top of the Razor.
'They clearly don't want anyone coming through that
pass after them,' Matheson commented. 'Jesus, they
have 360-degree visibility.'
'Move in closer,' Dower rapped out. 'Let's see what
kind of radar and EW systems they got.'
The clearer image was an eye-opener. There were
satellite communications dishes. Radar masts. An array


2:01PM


160 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


of antenna - anti-aircraft guns and long-range artillery
all anchored by carbon-fiber cables and hooked up to
solar panels. There was a hut. Windbreaks. And there
were two Ghinese soldiers, Commandos or some kind
of special forces, one of whom was operating his equipment
a little too well, because he had his eye firmly on
SaRGE, and was smiling and waving to camera.

Dower blinked in rage and frustration. 'Motherfucker,'
he said.

It wasn't what anyone had expected to hear from an
Admiral.

PAPERWORK



D

ower was on his feet. Being passed around the table
were individually labeled documents. They bore
the names of the people who had to sign them. They
were release forms, temporarily signing over their services
to the United States government, as stark-looking
as the white continent itself.

'Ladies and gentlemen,' Dower announced, 'I urge
you to be very sure about what it is you are doing. You
are about to embark on a journey that will take you to
the most ferocious and inhospitable landscape on Planet
Earth. It will not be like any part of this planet you've
ever been to before. There will not be a single tree or
shrub. Nor a blade of grass. There certainly will not be
a Seven-Eleven just around the corner because there
are no corners. You will be expected to adhere to the
strictest guidelines. And your actions will have profound
consequences. We do not wish to provoke a war with
the Chinese, despite what you may think, but we will


162 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

be prepared to fight one. And war in Antarctica would just about be the most hellish thing imaginable.
'You were all selected because of your experience,
knowledge and expertise in your fields. And so I ask
you, as a servant of the United States of America, to
think very carefully before putting pen to paper. For the
task ahead is not an easy one.'
No one hesitated.
Everyone signed.
FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS 2:17 PM



t was a polished steel container. Square, with very few
markings or embellishments. It hissed as the locks were
popped and the pressure equalized within. Bringing the
case over to the table, Gant carefully lifted the lid and
displayed the neatly arranged shards of Carbon 60. The
stones glowed with an iridescence that seemed to feed
off the ambient lighting in the room. Scott peered in
at them, and could clearly see the writing etched across
their surfaces.
'This,' Dower explained, 'is what all the fuss is about.'
Scott almost giggled like a child as he gently lifted
one of the rocks from the container. 'My fingers - they're
tingling. This stuff feels weird.'
'Mankind's greatest and newest invention over the
past decade has been the production of the Carbon 60
fullerene. It's financed by the Defense Department, but
our best minds can only produce it by the gram. The
piece you have in your hand is worth a quarter of a

164 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

million US dollars. Atlantis represents billions upon billions
of tons of the stuff.'
'So should you have to blow the crap out of the most
eagerly sought archeological site known to man, the fact
that the debris will be worth millions must be a comfort?'
Hackett prodded indelicately.
Dower ignored him. 'So you see, Dr Scott, you find
yourself in a unique position. Your knowledge of flood
mythology and your ability to decode ancient languages
is unparalleled. Combined with the fact that our best
twenty-first-century minds have difficulty doing what our
ancestors could do standing on their twelve-thousandyearold
heads - manufacture and manipulate Carbon
60 - you might say we have an unusual situation. One
where science, language and history are forced to work
together.'
A buzzer interrupted. Gant thumbed a wall switch
next to the screen, and gave a terse: 'What?'
'Gentlemen, we're ready to repeat the test,' a tinny
voice announced. 'If you'd care to come to the windows
and don't forget to put on your goggles.'
Tinted safety goggles were hurriedly passed around
as everyone did as they were told and moved to the windows
for a good view of the experiment below. Scott
took the chunk of C60 with him and Matheson watched
as he ran his fingers over the etchings, almost like a
blind man reading Braille.
'What's going on?' November asked quietly, edging
closer to Maior Gant.
'Pure Carbon 60 is a yellowish-brown color. This stuff
is bright blue, so it has to have something else in with
it,' Gant told her. 'Maybe pure diamond - that's blue.'
'So what're they gonna do?' She was struggling with
	....................................... DECfPHER 	165
her goggles. Gant took them out of her hands, made
the elastic headband wider and fitted them in place.
'Okay?' he asked gently. November nodded.
'What they're gonna do,' Hackett said, digging his
hands into his pockets and having absolutely no trouble
at all with his own goggles, 'is put a piece of that
rock into a chamber, fire up the most powerful laser in
the world, blast that sucker to atoms, and study the
residue. Then they'll know what it's made of.'
Bright yellow warning lights suddenly flashed.
Klaxons whirred and the countdown began. But Scott
wasn't concerned with what was outside the window.
He was concerned with what Was in his hand. Could
it really be? He turned back to the screen. The city
under the ice. The overall layout could be simplified
down to two distinct images. A series of concentric circles
cut into quarters by a large cross. It was an ancient
symbol, which Scott knew well. And as he held the crystal
up to compare it, he couldn't deny the exact same
symbol was also etched onto the crystal. Concentric circles
and a cross.
His gut told him he was right. But could it be? This
was an unknown language. Was it really that simple?
He realized he was being watched and glanced over to
share a nervous smile with Matheson, who fidgeted with
anticipation, like he was waiting for the results of a
blood test.
'This is the symbol,' Scott said, 'for the sun.'
Awed, Ralph repeated: 'The symbol for the sun?'
The klaxons whirred once more. And the entire room
was flooded with light.


AMAZON


[Out] of 6 million years, only 100,000 [fossilized species]
may be represented by surviving strata. In the
unrecorded 5.9 million years there is time for even
advanced civilizations to have come and gone, leaving
hardly a trace.


Michael A. Cremo and Richard L. Thompson,

Forbidden Archaeology, 1996

PERU

THE PINI PINI RIVER

I I A/hat the fuck is th,s. Maple spat as he lumped
/' ll/down from the prow of the dilapidated shallow-bottomed
scow they'd hired back in Iquitos, its blue
paintwork chipped and faded. He was up to his ankles
in muddy water and floating debris - leaves and shit
from the jungle floor, so thick and tangled that he
couldn't for a moment figure out if the twisted knots
of tubing up ahead were snakes or vines. Partially submerged,
they bobbed in the water at the base of some
huge tree.
He shook out one lizardskin boot and adjusted his
Panama hat. The tail of a yellow, red and blue woolen
twirl hung down the back of it and swung back and forth
by his neck. He pulled out his Beretta and slammed in
a clip. Over his shoulder Carver emerged from the fillihy
tarp that clung to the aluminum and cane frame, under
which the others sat guarding supplies.
Carver thumbed through the digital map on his GPS
170 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


notepad and waved it as evidence. 'According to this,'
he said, 'we should be two miles inland.'

Maple chewed his tobacco, spat a lump out and
fished for some more. 'It's flooded then. The whole goddamn
basin's flooded.'

'We can't pull out now. We ordered the drop three
hours ago.'

'The drop can be moved,' said a voice from inside
the boat. Clambering out and blowing thick blue cigar
smoke was Jack Bulger, wearing a camouflage jacket
and tapping an old-fashioned paper map. 'Radio the
plane,' he instructed. 'Tell them to drop the gear two
miles farther north.'

Carver didn't move. Waited for the okay from Maple,
who chewed thoughtfully for a moment. 'Yeah, radio
the plane,' he said.

Carver did what he was told without comment,
checking the density of the deep green overhead leafy
canopy before thumbing the transceiver and broadcasting
the message. There were complaints from the
pilots. Pilots always complained, but Carver didn't give
a luck about their fuel load. They could land somewhere
else on the way back home.

Maple jammed his fingers into his mouth and let
out an earsplitting whistle. 'We walk from here!'

His team numbered eight. And they weren't hot on
conversation - which was good. He'd hired them across
the border. They were western mercenaries working in
Colombia, each with a good reputation and few ties to
permanent work. And foi- once the pay from an oil company
was better than the drug cartels.

Yes, Rola Corp. was paying handsomely for this little
trip.

	....................................... DECIPHER 	171

The two madeireiros, or lumberiacks, who'd hired
them the boat and served as guides upriver, whispered
to each other anxiously. Pointing to the water, pointing
to the sky. The color of the vegetation. Since Maple
could speak neither Aymara nor Quechua their comments
were incomprehensible. Spanish he could deal
with, but they rarely spoke Spanish.

'They're nervous,' Carver said with a little understatement.
'They think the spirits are against us. They
think maybe the Jaguar has returned to destroy the
earth.'

'The Jaguar?'

Carver shrugged. 'That's what they say.'

'It's not the Jaguar,' Maple scoffed.

The madeireiros helped with the packs and loaded
the men up, which was foolish really, because in the
end, their first instinct to just set the boat in reverse and
go would have been the best move.

Instead, Maple grinned like a shark. He patted one
of the guides on the back of the neck in a friendly
manner and made like he was fishing for money. But
the grip around the man's neck quickly tightene(l, and
the money was actually his Beretta.

'Thank you, Possuelo,' Maple said with some affection
before leveling the barrel between the man's eyes
and blowing his brains out.

The stunned expression on Possuelo's face sank
beneath the muddy water.

His friend screamed and bolted into the jungle, but
was brought down by a second bullet.

'No need to worry about the Jaguar now, my friends,'
Maple added. 'But I'm afraid we cannot be followed.'

Tm not sure that was wise,' Carver said.


172 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


'Let me worry about how wise it was.'

'The Machiguenga Indians,' Carver insisted. 'They'll
know we're here.'

'Good,' Maple snarled arrogantly. 'I hate the element
of surprise. It takes all the fun out of the slaughter.' He
thumbed at a junior to take point along the trail. Pulled
his collar up, searched the sky through the branches of
the trees and said: 'Looks like rain.'

They moved on, hacking their way through the
undergrowth. Within thirty minutes the hairs on the
back of every man's neck stood on end. Shadows were
glimpsed, movement spotted. And the hunt was on. For
a fraction of a moment or two it wasn't quite clear just
who was being hunted. But as they all took up a defensive
ring posture and shot their first attacker, right
through his hairless red chest, it was clear Maple was
going to get his way.

He pulled out a GPS device, black and oblong, like
a book. Raised the aerial and zeroed in on something
on the horizon of more concern to him than the rapid
gunfire being loosed all around. As the battle cries of
the Machiguenga doubled in number and arrows started
whizzing past, Maple remained unphased, continuing
to track the signal until the target came into view.

Through the trees in the distance, rising up out of
the horizon was a jungle-covered rise. Kind of like a
mountain, but too regular in shape. Triangular maybe.
Or pyramid-shaped.

'Bingo.' He handed the device to Bulger, who was
crouching by his heel and wincing every time a shot
was squeezed off. 'Here,' he said. 'You can call home

FLOW,'

Bulger keyed the sat-phone on the side of the device.

....................................... DECIPHER .............................. 173

Waited for the ringing and hit speakerphone at the pickup.

'Hello?'

'Rip,
is that you?'

"No; came the measured response. 'This is Houghton.
Rip's gone to Cairo.'

'Afternoon, Jay. This is Bulger. We're in position.'
'Situation secure?'

Bulger jammed a finger in his ear as Maple leveled
the gun over his head and picked offanother target. He
watched with some satisfaction as the Indian's guts
spewed out his back.

'Yes, I believe so,' he replied. 'What about you? Did
the military buy it?'

There was a chortle on the line. 'Hell yeah, they
bought it. In fact, we're just discussing strategy right
now. We'll have to persuade them not to go nuclear
though. Morons. Radioactive Carbon 60 isn't worth
shit.'

'Be careful,' Bulger warned. 'They may be dumb, but
they're not stupid.'

'Don't worry,' Houghton said. 'There will only be one
company that controls the world's supply of Carbon 60.
And one way or another, it will be Rola Corp.'


AS AB OWE
SO BELOW

And King Cheops said: 'It has been said that you know
the number of the secret chambers in the sanctuary of
Thoth.' And Djedi said: 'So it please you, O sovereign
my lord, I know not the number thereof, but I know
the place where it is.'

Excerpt from: King Cheops and the Magicians, c. 170013CE, from an earlier text c. 2500BCE.
Translated in: The Wisdom of Ancient Egypt, Joseph
Kaster, 1968. Revised from: The Literature of the
Ancient Egyptians, Adolf Erman, 1927
2:35 PM


SYMBOLS


i T he cross and the circle representing the sun is the

/oldest piece of symbolism known to mankind,'
Scott explained hurriedly as the team donned white
boiler-suits for their sojourn down to where the Carbon
60 crystals sat, surrounded by highly sensitive research
equipment.

He grabbed a pen and started scrawling. 'They occur
all over the world. These are Stone Age glyphs from
India: (DO.This is the Rongorongo script sun symbol
from Easter Island: N. This symbol pops up in
Venezuelai a. This Mayan symbol for the sun was also
the phonetic sound 'kin':) In South America the
quincunx or cross was also the symbol indicating
mankind's existence at the intersection of the physical
world represented by the horizontal plane, and the
eternal world represented by the vertical plane. If you
think about it, the Egyptian ankh represents eternal
life and that's a cross and a circle just in a slightly


178 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

different form: t. At the Temple of Paintings, at
Bonampak near Palenque in Mexico, they even have
pictures of fishmen visitors bearing crosses in circles.'
November frowned. 'Fishmen?'
'Foreign visitors with beards and fish on their heads.
Go figure.'
'So it all comes down to a big cosmic game of tictactoe
- noughts and crosses, huh?' Hackett smirked.
Scott ignored him. Tapped the drawings again.
'Palenque is the site of the Temple of the Sun and the
Foliated Cross.' Suddenly clicking to what he'd just said,
he grabbed Gant's attention. 'Hey, did anyone point a
satellite at that site and look for C60?'
'Mm-hmm. Rola Corp. did a sweep. Came up negative.'
Scott
seemed deflated. 'Oh well. Cross symbolism
was real big in South American culture. Quetzalcoatl,
the tall white-bearded savior who brought civilization
to the Incas, wore a robe fringed with white crosses.
Okay, he wasn't Mayan, but--'
'It still came up negative.'
Pearce zipped his boiler-suit up to his neck as he
came over to inspect Scott's doodled glyphs. 'I think I
remember reading somewhere that Linear B, the distant
cousin to ancient Greek, had a cross and circle
symbol too.'
'Oh, you mean this one? (t3 Yeah. Now that's interesting
because Linear B and the other Greek cousin,
the Phaistos Disk, which used this symbol: " were
both phonetic. These signs didn't mean the sun, but
stood for the sound "ka":
'Ka?' Pearce questioned. 'In ancient Egypt the Ka was
divine essence. When you were born, your double, or
....................................... DECIPHER 	179

your Ka was created and remained in the divine world.
Guiding you and protecting you until you died and
rejoined it.'
'Well, I wouldn't get too excited,' Scott warned. 'This
symbol O is also used in early cuneiform, in Sumeria,
and it means sheep.'
'Sheep.. 2'
Now November was intrigued. 'Dr Scott, you said Jesus
was given the symbol of the cross and the halo after his
death from other religions. What about the sheep? They
called him a lamb all the time. I thought it was to do
with Passover. Y'know, a symbol for sacrifice?'
Scott mulled it over as Hackett retorted, 'Come on,
are you saying the resurrection of Atlantis is actually the
Second Coming?'
'No, that's not what I'm saying at all,' November bridled,
defensive and angry. 'We're talking about symbols.
Mythology--'
Scott held up a hand. 'Shut up!' he barked. 'Y'see?
Y'see what religion does to people?' He turned his attention
back to his doodle pad. Scrawled another glyph.
Beckoned everyone to stand around and join him. 'Now
look,' he said, 'this symbol is ancient Egyptian too. But
this one doesn't mean any of those things.'
@
'That's the closest symbol so far to the layout of Atlantis,'
Matheson commented. 'That and the Indian one. What
does it mean?'
'It's Hieroglyphic Egyptian,' Scott explained.
'Denoting a city.'
All eyes turned to the screen where the sub-ice images


I i


180 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


of Atlantis were being displayed. 'Plato said his story of
Atlantis originated in Egypt,' Scott told them. 'His
description of the city was of concentric circles of land
and water, divided into quarters by land bridges. From
the air it would seem like a series of circles and a cross.'

'So the Egyptians knew about Atlantis?' Matheson
asked.

'Possibly. Either that, or they knew about ancient
Mexico City.'

Pearce blinked. 'Okay, now I'm confused. What's the
connection?'

'Aztec legend has it that after the flood, Coxcoxtli
and his wife landed at Antlan and journeyed eventually
to Mexico, where they set about reclaiming land and
built the city of Tenochitlan. When the Europeans
arrived it was .still in existence and was larger and more
impressive than anything back home. It had temples,
pyramids, canals, aqueducts, markets. It matched the
layout Plato gave for Atlantis, but was referred to by the
Aztecs as a replica built in honor of their own lost
"Aztlan", the birthplace of their own civilization, which
was washed away in a flood. Today, Mexico City stands
on that site.'

'Did they say where this Aztland was?'
'Somewhere to the South.'

Major Gant finished suiting himself up and was about
to lead them all to the door where they would make
their way down to the research lab's main floor when
he turned back. 'Out of interest,' he said, 'do you happen
to know the Chinese symbol for the sun?'

'This is the earliest one from the Shang Dynasty,'
Scott said as he drew it. 'Eventually it evolved into a
square shape, for reasons only the Chinese know. As

....................................... DECIPHER 	181

you can see, it's the odd man out. It's not a cross.'

They all eyed the symbol.


'Curious,' Hacker responded. 'It's the only one that's
scientifically accurate.'

Scott frowned. 'What do you mean?'

'Positive and negative,' Hackett explained. 'The basics
you learn about magnetism in school. North is positive,
represented by a cross. The South is negative, represented
by a minus sign. Atlantis is situated at the South
Pole. The Chinese aren't just telling us that the sun is
important- they're telling us where to go to find the
answers.'


All suited up in their white coveralls, they followed Cant
through the door and out onto a metal gantry overlooking
the vast research facilities below where bundles
and bundles of wires were hanging in looms above the
pipe-work of liquid gas coolant systems, banks of computers,
dials and switches.

As they clanked their way down the flights of steps
they could smell the plastic and metal odors of scientific
research. The clinical aroma of technology. When
they reached the bottom they could see a table stretched
before them. And piled on top of it across its entire
length were rows and rows of blue crystals. The Carbon
60 shards brought back from Antarctica.

'This is your research, Dr Scott,' Gant announced,
as the epigraphist gasped and ran his eyes the length of
the display.

Scott was about to field more questions when an



182 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

excited scientist wearing similar gear came rushing over
and handed Houghton a piece of paper. 'This fax just came in for you,' he said. 'It's fantastic!'
Houghton read it quickly before passing it around.
The buzz of excitement it generated was matched
only by the buzz of high-voltage electricity coursing
through the equipment and around the room.
....................................... DECIPHER 	183

ROLA CORP. Making Energy Work

FAX
TO: JAY HOUGHTON, CERN, GENEVA
FROM: SARAH KEIEY CHIEF FIELD GEOLOGIST EGYPT
DATE: MARCH 18, 2012
REF & SPEC: 410B/C/24794AH-409

Be advised. At l l.03:AM today, ground was
broken to sink a well down to a cavity detected
30 feet underground in the region of the Sphinx.
A number of similar cavities have also been
detected in and around the pyrA.mid site.

Please be advised also: Carbon 60 h.B been positively
identified. Will keep you briefed as and
when.

Interesting fact number 2: Erosion damage to
the Sphinx shows vertical channels through the
horizontal layers of sandstone. Indications of
classic flood damage. Subsurface weathering
analysis shows deep penetration erosion at a
microscopic scale. Stress caused by heat, cold
and moisture which takes 1-2,000 years per
foot to advance. 4 feet deep on the rear half, 8
feet on the front half suggesting the Sphinx was
built in two halves separated by 4,000 years.
Makes the Sphinx at least 8,000 years oldl When
I mentioned this to the archeologists here they
got real pissed. Insisted the Sphinx was built in
2,500BC by Pharaoh Kafra. I seriously think
they're wrong.

FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY
DISTRIBUTION TO AUTHORIZED NAMES ONLY
NO UNAUTHORIZED COPYING!

THIS
	DOCUMENT IS NOT TO BE DISTRIBUTED TO THE PUBLIC



ABULHOL

FATHER OF TERROR

ROSETAU

t V allah! Yallah!' came the surrounding calls. Hurry!
/ Hurry!
'Shuuftibit Bisuurah!' Look! Quick!
The earsplitting whistle that ripped through the dry
air to accompany the shouts was a workman's. He whistled
again, iamming his grimy fingers tightly into his
parched mouth.
They had found something.
Sarah and Eric eyed each other before breaking into
a run.
At the well, where steel-mesh collars had been lowered
into the hole to support the particulate sandstone
sides from collapsing in on the workers, there were signs
of digging still taking place at the bottom. Sarah picked
her way past trays loaded with bagged artifacts, took up
a perch near the edge of the well and peered down.
More assorted bowls and pottery were carefully being
passed up, followed by bucketloads of sand, and one
....................................... DECIPHER 	185

agitated Arab worker. A couple of Egyptian Antiquities
Police Officers had moved in too. Black greasy
Kalashnikovs slung at their shoulders. One was on the
radio.
Professor De la Boy shook his head. He was Chief
Archeologist in the Egyptian Department of Antiquities.
And was busy to one side of the well, using his own set
of dental tools on one particular pot. He was visibly
moved. Kept mumbling about some archeological dig
in 1893 when the great Flinders Petrie dug at Naqada,
300 miles south of Cairo, and found exactly the same
type of pots that he couldn't place in the standard archeological
timeline. He ended up attributing them to a
'New Race' and they had since been academically
ignored. De la Boy added that 30,000 similar pieces of
pottery were discovered beneath the step Pyramid of
Zozer at Saqqara. But somehow, Sarah knew that wasn't
what was getting to the man. It was the fact that he had
spent thirty years of his life on a flawed science.
The dust was thick, taking its time to settle. The grit
caked galebeya of the sole remaining Egyptian at the
bottom of the well was ripped and soaked in sweat. But
the excited, wide-eyed expression on the man's deeply
tanned face said it all, which was useful, because Sarah
couldn't understand a word he was actually saying: 'Hiya
daraial And Daraia!'
He was twenty-five to thirty feet down. Too shallow
a depth to have hit the Carbon 60 yet. Scanning the
faces above, he reached for his crude hand-brush made
from desert broom, when he spotted Sarah. He set about
sweeping off sand from a plinth of stone that crossed
the width of the well at one end.
Scurrying about on all fours, ignoring the sharp



186 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

stones that cut into his knees, the busy Egyptian proudly
picked out the edge of the stone with his bare fingers.
Brushed away more stones and looked up, patting the
ground with the fiat of his hand, trying to bridge the
language barrier with simple signing and body language.
One, he seemed to be saying with a pat. One stone.
And under here - a second. Then three, four, lower
and lower--
He's found a step,' Sarah realized. 'He's found a set
of steps.'

Clemmens pointed at each end of the uncovered step.
'It goes about one or two feet deeper into the side of
the well's my guess.'
'That answers one question,' Sarah added under her
breath so only Clemmens could hear. 'These are manmade
ceremonial tunnels. No way we can pass these off
as a natural phenomenon.'
Clemmens smirked. 'Boy, is Douglas gonna be pissed
if the media get a hold of this.'
Sarah looked to the other diggers questioningly. 'Can
we get more workers down there?' she asked. 'Dig those
steps out?'
The Egyptians sprang into action, lowering one of
the smaller men down, although it was clear the superstitious
worker who had just climbed out obviously
wanted to go nowhere near the well again. Sarah was
faintly reminded of Howard Carter's famous 1922 excavation
of Tutankhamen's tomb. It had been said it was
cursed, as were many ancient Egyptian tombs. But on
Carter's dig, people had died.
A finger jammed in one ear, a radio pressed to his
mouth, Clemmens surveyed the find sharply as he set
....................................... DECIPHER 	187

about briefing Douglas on the other end of the line.
'We'll need a marquee of some kind. Big. Secure, so
we can get the larger equipment in under it. Stop any
prying eyes and cameras. We'll need generators. Arc
lights. Round the clock support. Yes, sir. I think we're
close. And if we double these people's pay we'll be even
closer.'
De la Boy was furious. In his upper-crust English
accent he said icily: 'What the devil do you think you're
doing?'
But Clemmens ignored him. 'Oh, and sir? Could
somebody get these goddamn archeologists off the site?
They're a pain in the butt.' He smiled. Relaxed.
'Professor, if you'd be so kind as to haul ass? There's a
good chap. Tip top, old bean.'
As De La Boy was escorted away from the site, the
radio hanging at Sarah's hip fizzled into life: 'Yeah,
Sarah, we're out at the test zone, running that second
pass. Over.' It was the geo-phys team, with a ground
penetrating radar unit that was more accurate than the
resistivity unit they'd used earlier.
Sarah popped the catch. Thumbed the black transceiver.
'Good hunting. Over.'
Static, then a clipped: 'Thanks.' It was like listening
to astronauts on the moon.
'Just what is it with this weather?' Clemmens
moaned, glancing up at the cloudless sky and wiping
his forehead with a rag.
'This is the desert,' Sarah said. 'It's supposed to be
hot.'
'In March? It's one twenty in the shade,' Clemmens
sighed. 'This ain't normal 'less it's July.' As the sounds
of pick-axes and shovels striking stone below them


188 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


cracked out in a steady rhythm, Sarah diverted
Clemmens's attention back to her map where she'd
marked twelve red Xs corresponding to where hollows
some way under the bedrock had been detected. And,
where the signature for Carbon 60 had also been

detected. Clearly, a pattern was emerging.
'I'm tellin' ya, it's a circle,' she said.
'Is that a wager?' Clemmens asked.
'You betcha.'
'How much?'

'How much you got?'

Clemmens checked his pockets. All he had was lunch
money - a fifty-dollar bill.

By joining the Xs Sarah created an arc. And she was
sure this arc was part of a circle, not an ellipse or other
curved shape. To confirm this she needed to find where
the circle's exact center might be. Mathematics was
useless, it would only give an approximation, but a
simple pair of compasses and an old engineering trick
made up for that. She connected two points of the arc
together by drawing a straight line between them and
using the compass at each end of the line to draw an
arc above and below the line. This formed two new
Xs. One above and one below the line. Joining the two
Xs created a cross, a perpendicular line that bisected
the first line at 90° through its natural center. By repeating
the process on the other two points of the arc and
extending both perpendicular lines downwards they
eventually met and revealed the true center of the
circle, which Sarah was surprised to find was situated
directly under the Sphinx.

Clemmens gave her a look. 'Not bad for a geologist,'
he said. 'What if you're wrong?'

....................................... DECIPHER 	189


'Dad was an engineer,' she explained. 'No one got
out the house unless they could tell him how it was

built. I'm not wrong.'

'We'll see.'

Since the drawing was the same scale as the map,
and the distance from the center of the circle to one of
the original measurement points along the arc was the
true radius, Sarah was able to draw in the full circle.
From that she provided geo-physics with map references
where she predicted they would find further positive
readings. They named the test zones: Alpha, Beta and

Gamma.

'Eric to Test Zone Beta,' Clemmens announced,
thumbing his own radio. 'Frankie, whatchya got?'

There was a long loud hiss of white noise before the
heavy breathless wheeze of Frankie came back at him.
'Just done a pass.'

'And?'


190 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


Silence. Eric and Sarah exchanged glances. Sarah
was chewing a thumbnail and tapping her foot. She
wasn't good at waiting.

'Frankie?' Eric demanded impatiently. 'Whatchya
got? Over.'

A hiss. Then: 'We got a positive,' he responded hastily.
'Strong and bang on target. We gotta do a second pass
but mark us down as a positive. Over.'

'That's it,' Eric said, spinning on his heel excitedly.
'That's it!' But Sarah was already scribbling on her map.
Her radio springing into life again.

'This is Test Zone Gamma. Over. All passes complete
- we have a positive. Repeat, we have a positive.
Over and Out.'

'Test Zone Alpha reporting second pass confirmation.
We toohave a positive . . . D'you guys know what this
means?'

She knew two times pi times the radius of the circle
gave the circumference of the circle. And she now knew
that there was a circle with a radius of 3,341 feet. A
quick calculation and Sarah knew exactly what that
meant.

'We got a circular tunnel nearly three miles around,
Eric. Jesus!'

'Three miles? That's like five kilometers at least!
That's like the size of a goddamn particle accelerator!
And our well here hits a side tunnel that connects to
it!'

Sarah was frantic. 'Who the hell could tunnel with
that kind of accuracy thousands of years ago? They'd
need to know pi. They'd need to know trigonometry,
geometry--'

....................................... DECIPHER 	191


Eric shook his head. 'I got a better question: why the
hell would they want to?'

'I dunno,' she grinned. 'But I told you it was a circle.
You owe me fifty bucks.'

Clemmens was slow to dig for it.


The marquee was brought in by truck as part of a supply
convoy. Spearheaded by the metallic gold and tinted
windows of Toyota Land Cruisers, emblematic of the
Egyptian Security Police. Suddenly to get anywhere
near the well required authorization that got you
through two checkpoints and the gates to two hastily
erected chain-link fences that encircled the vast blue
tent.

It had taken thirty minutes to build. In that time several
more steps were dug out and Clemmens had identified
the direction in which the tunnel descended. He
mapped out an archway. Sent metalworkers down to
weld a steel arch into place and cut out a doorway
underneath it through the mesh collars. The remaining
expanse of mesh was reinforced through the arch
so it wouldn't buckle under the strain of keeping the
sides of the well at bay.

Sarah studied the exposed strata. From ground level
to six feet down it was solid bedrock. For the next four
feet it was pockets of fill and more bedrock. Solid
bedrock for a further three feet. Then fill entirely until
the steps were reached. It meant someone had meticulously
filled this tunnel to capacity a very long time
ago. No one was intended to get through.

With the metal support arch in place and the oxyacetylene
torch done and dusted, Sarah was carefully


192 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

lowered down to inspect the wall of sheer ill]. The metal
archway above looked like a scrap metal homage to a
gothic cathedral.

Trusting her instructions would be adhered to as they
were hastily translated into Egyptian Colloquial Arabic,
she said: 'Start at the top. Work your way back and come
down gradually. Creating a slope. That way if it becomes
unstable it shouldn't collapse in on you. But what I
want is to find the roof and walls of this tunnel. When
we have those dimensions - then we'll know what we're
dealing with.'

They were ordered to go back to work. 'Emshi!
Emshit'

Pick-axes were sharply thrust into the dirt. The fact
that everything was damp helped the situation on the
one hand - it bound the particles together, making
it easier to dig without fear of a collapse. But on the
other hand it made the work tiring, because for every
shovel-load of sand removed, water was the hidden
constituent in its weight, and quickly exhausted the
diggers.

It took several hours to advance ten feet. But when
they had, the dimensions of the tunnel exposed the
sheer scale of the subterranean construction. And what
had been characteristic of the original exploration of
the Great Pyramid now rang true for the tunnels. What
faced everyone was a giant stone plug of such enormous
magnitude that it beggared belief.


'The Sphinx was known by many names. Abul-Hol was
its Arabic name,' Scott said down the phone. 'It means
Father of Terror. When the Cananites in the second
millennium BeE journeyed from Harran, in Southern

....................................... DECIPHER 	193


Turkey, and worshipped at the Sphinx they called it
HWL. BW meant "place" so "Abul-Hol" might be a
corrupted form of "BW-HWL". Making its name: The
Place of HWL. But what on earth "HWL" means I don't
know. "Hor-em-Akhet" was another name, meaning
"Horus on the horizon". "Seshep-ankh Atum" means
"The living image of Atum". It was the Greeks who
shortened Seshep-ankh and gave it the form we still use
today: The Sphinx.'

There was a prolonged silence from the other end
of the line. Scott pressed the phone in closer to his ear
as he pulled himself up to the table. He wasn't sure if
the line had gone dead. 'Hello...?'

'That's great, Dr Scott,' the barely restrained voice of
Sarah Kelsey replied, 'but it doesn't actually help me.'

'I'm sorry. It's just - well, shift You're digging under
the SphinxV Scott said enthusiastically.

There had been few pleasantries when the call was
connected. This Sarah Kelsey sounded like one singleminded,
determined woman. Since she was hard at work
and probably stifled by the oppressive desert heat, Scott
could forgive her most things. But her abrupt nature
made her telephone manner seem rude. It was grating.
'What do you need?' he asked quickly.

'For a start, how do I get inside this tunnel? Is there
a precedent for this type of thing? Y'know, building a
tunnel and then filling it in for no real reason?'

'Oh, sure,' Scott said warmly. He eyed everyone else
around the table. They were all on tenterhooks, listening
in on the speakerphone. Matheson had a pad and
pencil at the ready and sketched everything Sarah said
about the site in a valiant effort to make up for the fact
• there was no picture. Gant had gone off to try and kick



194 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

some butt into getting a vid-phone link up and running,
but so far, no luck.
'In AD 820 when Abdullah A1-Mamun, Caliph of
Baghdad, explored the Great Pyramid, he smashed his
way through the eight-foot casing to see what was inside,'
Scott recalled. 'What he found was a passageway, but
his way was blocked by a succession of six-foot-long
granite plugs that were inserted during the building of
the Pyramid.'
'Did you say during the building of the Pyramid?'
'Yup.'
'Why?' Sarah snapped, irritated. 'What's the point?'
'Beats me,' Scott replied. He fielded questioning eyes
from around the table, Hackett's most notably of all.
How the hell should he know? He didn't know everything.
'What
did he do, this A1Mamun?'
'He tunneled his way past the plugs through the softer
limestone that the Pyramid was made out of.'
Sarah groaned. There was some kind of noise, like
she was inspecting something. Then they heard: 'Oh,
well, that's no good. I'm not sure the ground above it
could take that. We're gonna have to try and drag it
out.'
'What exactly have you got there?' Ralph asked
quickly.
'Who is this?' Sarah demanded defensively.
'Ralph Matheson, Engineer.'
'Is there anyone else on the line I should know
about?' the geologist asked suspiciously.
Reluctantly everyone else around the table let out
low, deflated greetings. Like kids who'd been caught in
a game of hide and seek.
....................................... DECIPHER 	195

'Thank God I wasn't talking dirty,' Sarah said. 'Okay,
I got a granite plug. Four feet across. I have to assume,
based on Richard's detail about the Pyramid that it's six
feet long. I hope to God there's only one of these things.
And around the rim of the plug there seems to be a
layer of what I can only describe as... salt.'
'Salt?'
Scott was intrigued. 'when A1-Mamun finally did get
into the chamber after tunneling past the plugs, he
found it encrusted with half an inch of salt. No one
knows why.'
Sarah continued: 'Okay, the tunnel seems to have
been originally hewn out of the bedrock, then it was
faced with huge limestone rings each weighing in the
region of, I'd say, a hundred tons. The workmanship is
identical to that of the Sphinx's two temples, only the
blocks over there are about two hundred tons each.'
'That's incredible,' Matheson said, amazed. But no
one else seemed to appreciate that. 'Even today,' he
pointed out, 'there are only four cranes in the world
capable of lifting that kind of weight.'
'And that's above ground,' Sarah chipped in on her
end of the line. 'How were these hundred-ton stone
rings moved below ground?'
It was a fair question.
Scott thought on this as he handled one of the
Carbon 60 crystals from the myriad laid out before him
across the table. Now that he had it in his hand one
thing was clear. The writing wasn't cuneiform. It had
wedges, that was true. And certainly many of the forms
could be called pictograms and they were reminiscent
of hieroglyphics. But there was a subtlety and a sweeping
curvature to much of the writing which could only



196 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

be described as acinaciform - the writing was scimitar
shaped. Crescented. Like great arcs leading from point
A to point B with minute details crammed under the
arching banners as if whole themes and ideas were being
expressed in as concise and compact a way as possible.
Though quite what those ideas might be frankly eluded
him.
What Scott needed to do was catalogue and group
the characters while assembling the debris and trying to
make out a coherent text from the pieces. He stood the
crystal on end, and that was when the idea struck him.
'A standing stone . . .' he announced.
Hackett was intrigued. 'A what?'
'Archeologists call them stele, or standing stones.
There's one in front of the Sphinx. In any case, they
have information inscribed on them that sometimes can
prove useful to an excavation. A lot of the monuments
at Giza are notorious for their complete absence of writing.
This tunnel sounds like no exception. But sometimes
a standing stone was erected at its entrance.' He
raised his voice. 'Sarah, you said you're still clearing out
the rubble?'
'Yes.'
'Be careful with your pick-axes. There might be a
stone laid out on the ground somewhere--'
'About five feet tall?' she interrupted. 'Needle
shaped?'
Scott hesitated. 'Yes . . .'
'Oh, we already found that.'
'Well, there's probably writing all over it.'
'There's a little.'
Scott was quick. 'Can you send it through?'
Suddenly there was a beeping on the line. 'I got
....................................... DECIPHER 	197

a call on the other line. Can you hold? Thanks.'
The line went dead. Scott eyed the rest of the team.
Thumb-twiddling seemed to be the only option until'Hi,
you still there?'
'Yes, Sarah, could you--'
'Listen, I gotta take this call.' She sounded flustered.
'That'll have to do for the brief tour of the site. I'll have
someone take a photo of this inscription and fax it
through. Nice talking to you. Bye.'
The dial tone moaned at them next. Hackett set his
phone down first. Stood and rubbed his back. 'Wonderful
woman,' he noted sourly.

As cables and wires were trailed in with halogen lamps,
stands and assorted gear, Douglas scratched his head in
utter frustration and bellowed down from his vantage
point at the top of the well: 'Where's this fucking Carbon
60, Sarah?'
Sarah shrugged. 'Pull out the plug and see.'
'That could take all goddamn night.'
'Better get to it then,' she said simply. 'Call me when
it's done.' She tied on a rope and climbed the ladder
to the surface. Took her phone back out and tentatively
stepped away from the frenetic activity. Nervously, she
asked: 'Hello? Rip, you still there?'
'Sarah!' came the distant reply.
It was a strong voice. Familiar, though Sarah had taken
a moment to recognize it. It was deep. Somehow soothing.
Yet experience had already taught her that it was also
the voice of a man who was dangerous. Some nights they
had lain awake and talked for hours, in bed, after making
love. Her ear pressed against his chest. Listening to the
reverberations throughout his body as he spoke. Listening



198 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

to him breathe. She had been bracing herself for the
vision. That moment when she would see him again.
She hadn't expected to talk to Rip Thorne by phone.
'How are you?'
She was standing in a circus. There was a new archeological
find behind her. A startling new form of carbon
somewhere beneath her. An eminent linguistic anthropologist
tearing his hair out.in Geneva. Men wielding
guns. Protests. And that was just everything she was
clinging to right now to stop herself thinking about him.
The man who had torn out her heart and danced a jig
on it. How did he expect her to feel?
'I'm fine,' she said simply. Asshole! she snarled in her
mind. 'How long have you been here?' she probed. 'You
are here, in Cairo, aren't you?'
'Yes, I'm here,' he replied smoothly. 'I'm down at the
AOI headquarters - brokering a deal.'
Brokering? That meant someone else was involved.
Aside from Rola Corp. and the Egyptian government
... Who?
'I thought you were coming out to the site.' She
hadn't intended to sound hopeful.
'Business, honey. You know what business is like.'
Yes. She knew what business was like. Especially
where it concerned Thorne. And even more so the AOI,
the Arab Organization for Industrialization. The place
where gleaming army APCs and fighter planes sat ominously
floodlit late at night. The place that gave an
actual physical manifestation to the phrase: a military
industrial complex.
'Hey, listen, Sarah,' Thorne said. 'Why don't we catch
up?'
'I don't think that's a good idea.'
....................................... DECIPHER 	199

'Sure it is. I'm all finished up here. What do you say
to dinner?'
'Dinner?' She checked her watch. Six-thirty.
'You're staying at the Nile Hilton, aren't you? I'll pick
you up say, eight o'clock?'
'Okay.'
'I'll meet you in the foyer.'
'Fine.' It wasn't.
'And Sarah . . . I'm glad you're here.'
She could feel the blood rushing in her ears. The
sensation that so effectively blocked out all other noises.
Why could she not just say no to him? It was like falling
into a trance. She felt so foolish. So helpless.
She hung up. Stepped out of the blue marquee to
witness the ruddy red glow of the day's dying embers.
On the ancient plateau of Giza, once known as Rostau,
the Sphinx was king - and guardian to something buried
deep underground.
Sarah eyed the man-lion stiffly. So preliminary indications
showed this thing was thousands of years older
than they had first thought. Stone-faced, it was like looking
at Thorne. What were they both hiding?

They waited by the fax machine. And waited.
The Sphinx was 240 feet long, 38 feet wide across
the shoulders and 66 feet high, Scott told all present in
an attempt to fill the vacuum of expectation. It had the
worn and battered visage of a man. The body of a lion.
It had seen a lot of action. Its nose had been shot off a
few hundred years ago by the Mamelukes who used it
for target practice. Facing stones had been placed to
rebuild eroded sections of the monument. When the
Islamic fundamentalists caused a virtual civil war in



200 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

2005, the structure fell into further disrepair. The earthquake
in 2007 hadn't helped matters, but reports stated
how well the Sphinx had weathered earthquakes
through the ages. It seemed it had been built to last.
And last it had, for millennia.
It was a fact that in 10,500BC, at dawn, had any of
the monuments at Giza officially existed then, the constellation
of Leo would be seen rising on the horizon,
directly between the front paws of the Sphinx, itself a
giant lion. While Orion would have been at the highest
point in the sky, appearing directly above the three
pyramids. It was a cyclical event that was not destined
to be repeated until AD 2,500.
And therein lay more of the mystery.
For from the air, the three Giza pyramids were laid
out in exactly the same arrangement as the three stars
that made up the 'belt' in the constellation of Orion.
Construction of the Great Pyramid, Cheops's Pyramid,
was so precise that a cigarette paper couldn't be slotted
between the stone blocks. This was made all the more
confounding by the fact that the larger 10-15 ton blocks
were at the top and the more manageable 6-ton blocks
were at the bottom. Every side was 755 feet along each
length. It was 461 feet high, which gave the same ratio
as the circumference of a circle to its radius. Some said
it represented a scale model of the northern hemisphere
of the earth. Some disagreed.
But when Abdullah A1-Mamun first arrived at the
pyramids, he found monuments that were covered in
gleaming white limestone casing stones that were so
precisely constructed that the joins were barely visible.
The casing was covered in hieroglyphs, which Manetho,
the Egyptian priest who wrote a history of Egypt in
i--
)

1

i--
.!

4
....................................... DECIPHER 	201

Greek for Ptolemy I around 300BCE, proclaimed was
the work of Thoth. Thoth, the Egyptian god of writing,
among other things, was said to have inscribed the
36,525 books of wisdom upon the Great Pyramid. A
number which happened to be exactly the same as the
number of primitive inches in the designed perimeter
of the Great Pyramid. And the same figure as the length
of the year. 365.25 days.
'Many ancient civilizations proclaimed writing was
a divine gift,' Scott added as the fax machine at last
kicked into gear. 'In Sumerian tradition the god Nabfi,
the biblical Nebo, invented writing and believed in the
creative power of the divine word. In Chinese legend
the four-eyed dragon god brought writing. And there
were elitist scribal castes in Egyptian, Chinese and
Mayan societies. But in Egypt the language of hieroglyphs
was so well thought out and constructed, and
appeared virtually from nowhere, that many linguists
feel it was probably the invention of just one person.'
In the end it was just one person, the Egyptian god
Thoth, who spoke to them. From beyond the grave from
the black and white image being slowly inked out
in hieroglyphs on a roll of silver fax paper. It took Scott
a moment to translate. When he did, it just compounded
the mystery:

I am Thoth, the lord of right and truth,
Who judges right and truth for the gods,
The judge of words in their essence,
Whose words triumph over violence.

Was this the place that Pharaoh Cheops had sought?
The hidden chamber containing the Books of Thoth?



202 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................
Repository of the sacred knowledge and the key to the
language of the gods?
Buried somewhere deep behind that granite stone
plug were answers, Scott was certain.
NUCLEAR MAGNETIC RESONANCE
SPECTROSCOPY

FIRST RESULTS

5:32 PM



A

lchemy, from the Greek word 'Kemi', meaning
Egypt.
As a linguistic anthropologist Richard Scott had come
into contact with a bewildering variety of branches of
science. But never before chemistry. He waited expectantly
as Hacker waded through the chemical analysis
results of the C60 crystal.
November stuffed a new filter in the coffee machine,
and ate a sandwich in the small enclosed kitchenette
that stood over to one side, well away from the powerful
laser equipment that was still slicing through chunks
of Garbon 60 crystal, cutting it into smaller pieces for
atomic examination by NMRS.
What was clear was that true Carbon 60 was yellowish-brown.
This stuff was blue. Why?
'It's not pure.' Hackett flipped another page, studying
the numbers with a razor-sharp eye.
'It's not?' Pearce said, inspecting the sandwiches on

204 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

the tray next to November with an equally sharp eye.
He could just see them through the glass door to the
kitchenette.
Hackett acknowledged one of the odd-looking
chemists as he wandered past. They were called the
'soot' community: Hawkes, L/u, Ridley and Morgan.
The four organic chemists who worked for Rola Corp.
published regularly in The American Carbon Society. These people lived and breathed carbon. They came
from places like MIT and Rice University's Quantum
Institute in Texas - the same place where Kroto and
Smalley first created C60 in 1985.
They talked in constant scientific gibberish. But
carbon marked exactly the point where chemistry and
physics met. Hackett quickly cut them down to size.
'These aren't simple impurities we're talking about
here,' he said. 'We're talking about specific carbon compounds
that have been deliberately created within the
structure of the crystal. We're talking about a sophistication
that's beyond our current capabilities. There are
graphite veins. Diamond. There are, uh - ribidium
fullerenes, a super-conductive material.' He was mumbling
now, lost in the science. 'Ribidium fused with C60
- that's, let me see, Rb2CsC60. Usually it degrades in
air. Works at temperatures in the region of 30 Kelvins.
Nitrogen is a liquid at 18 Kelvins. That's minus 225
degrees Celsius.'
'How come the ribidium fullerenes survived?'
November asked, depositing her empty plate back inside
the kitchen.
'It's coated in diamond. It's not exposed to the air, so
it's superconductive.'
'Does that explain why I get a tingly feeling when I
	....................................... DECIPHER 	205
touch this stuff?' Scott asked dryly. 'Or am I just pleased
to see it?'
'C60,' Hackett told him, 'is photo-conductive. It
passes electricity when exposed to light. It's perfect for
light switches in the next generation of light computers.
It's probably reacting to all the lighting in the lab,
and since you're earthed by virtue of standing on the
floor . . . Hey, maybe we should get you a safety mat.
This is incredible.' He waved the paper sheet. 'The
atoms in this stuff are arranged with a distinct pattern
in their energy states.'
'And what does that mean?'
'I have absolutely no idea,' Hacker said happily, 'but
it's linked to light computers again. C60 is arranged in
such a way that it allows electrons to go around corners.' 'And that's good?'
'It's quick.' He tapped his finger on the paper. 'Maybe
I should call Michela.'
Scott had no idea who Michela was. But he looked
around anyway: 'Where's Ralph?'
Pearce scratched his rear, headed for the sandwiches
and pointed skywards. 'Upstairs with Dower. Planning out
the expedition,' he said as Scott grabbed a cloth, a black
magic marker and cleaned the large white wipeboard next to the coffee machine. Figures and notes disappeared in
an instant.
'Nobody wanted this, did they?' Scott murmured to
nobody in particular.
'Not anymore,' Hackett told him, referring back to
the spectroscopy results. 'Nuclear Magnetic Resonance
Spectroscopy works at very low radio frequencies. It
doesn't bend, stretch, spin or tumble molecules to get
information. It deals with single atoms within a molecule



206 	STEL PAVLOU . ...................................
and it does it because an atom is affected by what its
neighbor's doing. And in being affected, it reveals its
true identity. NMRS can determine exactly what atom
is in a molecule, and what other atoms are in relation
to it.'
'I see,' November responded. But it wasn't all that
clear that she did see.
'The key,' Hackett added, 'is the atomic nuclei property
called "spin". The "spin" of the nuclei has a number
of energy states. Each one's given a nuclear spin quantum
number. NMRS detects the transitions between
states by holding a sample in a magnetic field. But the
problem with carbon is - its nuclear spin quantum
number is zero. It exhibits no energy transitions.'
'Then how can you detect it?'
'Well, there's an exception to the rule. There always
is. Carbon 13 is a specific isotope of carbon, kind of
like ordinary carbon's strange uncle, and it shows a transition
between energy states. It has an NSQN of one
half. Anyone attempting to build C60 would need to
use carbon in its isotope C 13 form to be able to control
what they were doing. This C60... is Carbon 13/
'Makes sense,' Scott agreed.
'You understand what I'm describing?'
'Sure,' Scott said. 'Isotope - from the Greek, meaning
"equal place". Carbon 13 is just like any other type
of carbon. It's still carbon.'
'The point,' Hackett explained impatiently, 'is that
whoever made this C60 first had to make the right type
of carbon. That means a sophisticated manufacturing
plant. That means this stuff was not naturally occurring.
It means it was never mined, it was constructed.'
'Neat,' November commented, less than enthusiastic.
....................................... DECIPHER 	207

'Neat...? Neat? This isn't neat, this is monumental!
The fact these rocks are covered in writing and were
found a mile below ground, underwater, and an integral
part of a structure doesn't just tell me they're from
an advanced civilization,' Hackett expounded excitedly.
'What we are dealing with here is not some lost civilization
on a par with, say, the Romans or the Egyptians.
We're talking about a civilization that understood quantum
physics and molecular engineering. We're talking
about a civilization that was far in advance of our own
- and was destroyed. That is a frightening, terrible
prospect.'
He had taken a look inside the giant NMR spectrometer.
The sample chamber was the size of a jeep,
with huge powerful magnets that had an adjustable
field. Coils were arranged in such a way as to expose
the C60 to radio-frequency radiation. And it had detectors
that looked like fists of compacted metal, which
registered the results of the electro-magnetic bombardment.
'To
be able to understand this stuff,' Hackett
announced, 'we have to use equipment that is right at
the very pinnacle of man's scientific achievement. This
Carbon 60 was not created by accident.'
'And God said: Let there be light; Pearce announced
in a passable impression of the Creator.
Scott thought about that a moment. 'Language,' he
said. 'To be able to say: Let there be light, God had to
invent language. Then light arrived. In the beginning
was the Word.'
Hacker was utterly baffled. 'What are you talking
about?'
'Light - and language. It's the first thing the Bible


208 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

even talks about. It's the first thing a lot of ancient myths
talk about. And what have we got here? The sun - and
the language of Atlantis• The earliest known language.'
Scott sighed as he shifted his attention back to the rocks.
'That's assuming whoever designed this language

wanted it to be understood by people in the future.'
The others didn't seem to get it.

Scott explained: 'Thomas A. Sebeok was commissioned
by the Office of Nuclear Waste Isolation, in 1984,
to answer a question posed by the US Nuclear

Regulatory Commission.'

'Which was what?'

'Several key desert areas were selected for the burial
of nuclear waste which would remain radioactive for
the next ten thousand years. The sort of time-scale we're
talking about here, since Plato said Atlantis was
destroyed around 9,500BCE. So the problem was, on the
offchance we returned to barbarism - how would we
warn our future selves, or visiting aliens, of the danger
zone? Sebeok immediately discarded tape-decks and
verbal communication as a warning- anything that
required energy to work. He also rejected any form of
ideogram based on today's conventions. Y'know, it's like,
we see a little man or a woman on a door, and we know
it's a toilet. But in ten thousand years the chances are
we'll know it's a person - but we'll be wondering what
the hell they're doing.'

'So he came up with a better language?' Pearce asked.
'Not even remotely. Language changes over time,
and a massive disaster might destroy current society, so
he opted for the adoption of myth and taboo to be fed
into human culture.'

'What?'

....................................... DECIPHER 	209


'Religion,' Scott said succinctly. 'Language is useless
on its own, but social taboos will work even in a future
barbaric state. The solution was to create some kind of
priesthood of nuclear scientists, anthropologists, linguists
and psychologists that would keep alive the knowledge
of danger by creating myths and legends. And
would perpetuate itself by co-opting new members
along the way . . .'

'Do you realize what you just said?' Pearce remarked,
agitated.

'I've got some idea, yes,' Scott replied.

'The earliest known civilizations that created language,
created some of the most complicated languages
ever known. And each language was controlled by the
priesthood. The Chinese, the Mayans, the Babylonians
• . . the Egyptians. The priesthood has always been in
charge of the written word.'


'My problem is determining how these people thought,'
Scott told them all. 'If I can't, this language remains as
mysterious and indecipherable as the script from the
Indus Valley. The way in which language is structured
says a lot about how a civilization thinks. Like, how does
it arrange colors? Light to dark? Red to violet? We use
semantically opposed ideas. Love versus hate. High
versus low. In Swahili they group items into characteristics
that reflect their properties, like length. Or it may
be entirely different. These characters right here could

be part of a holistic language.'

'A what?'

'Take our language - the word "dogs", for example.
The "s" means it's plural. Nothing more. "S", in and
of itself, isn't plural. "Sorrow" doesn't mean there are



210 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

lots of "orrows"; "d" is not a part of a dog, like its leg.
God is completely different but uses the same letters.
A log and God are not different types of dog. God is
dog, backwards. But God is not a dog facing the other
way. Yet this language could use logic like that. So the
entire idea of "dogness" is complete in one symbol. So
it's a perfect logogram,' he explained. 'Some languages
are a precise reflection of people's speech.' He grabbed
a pen and paper. 'But if this is anything like English
then it'll be a complete mess. I mean, how do you
explain why "sh" can be written "ce" as in ocean, "ti"
as in nation and "ss" as in issue. But we also use
logograms for numbers and function signs. We write
seven as 7, not as///////. Though we also write it as
S-E-V-EN.
'But if you look at the Linear B writing from
Mycenaean Greece, they used syllable signs - so each
syllable had a sign. Hence, "fa", "mi" and "ly" would
mean "family".'
He stood back a moment, eyed the crystals arranged
on the table. 'Language family,' he said. 'That's it.
Maybe I need to figure out what language family it's
related to.'
'What are you doing?' Hackett asked, watching Scott
map out flow charts on the board now with colored
markers. 'Hunting for the complex adaptive system in
action?' He sat with his feet up on the table and tossing
a chunk of the rock into the air like a baseball as
the epigraphist went to work.
Scott set out a series of boxes, scrawled various names
in them to the obvious puzzlement of November. He
drew the final box with something approaching an artistic
flourish.
	....................................... DECIPHER 	211
'Ch... Chukchi-what?' November asked, running a
finger under one of the more bizarre names on the board.
Chukchz-Kamchatkan, Scott said. 'It's a language
family. Certain languages have similarities and are
grouped into what are called language families. They
tend to keep a similar structure at their root, but over
time languages change, develop and adapt in many
subtle ways.'
'As languages are improved and refined,' November
assumed.
'No, not really,' Hackett disagreed quietly yet authoritatively.
It
was enough to pique Scott's curiosity. He stopped
what he was doing on the board and eyed the physicist
squarely. 'You're right. But why do you think you're
right?'
Hacker caught the chunk of crystal in mid-toss and
set it down on the table. 'When you were a kid, which
was better: Betamax or VHS?'
'Betamax,' Scott answered instantly.
'What're they all talking about?' November asked,
concerned.
'Video-tape formats,' Pearce explained, equally puzzled.
'What's
videotape?'
Pearce gave her a double-take, then let it slide. After
all, he was still mourning the loss of DVD recorders
and they were light-years ahead of videotape.
'Okay,' Hacker said. 'Why was it better?'
'Superior picture, clearer sound'
'So which VCR did you have at home?'
'VHS,' Scott admired darkly, aware he'd been led
into a trap.



212 	STEL PA/LOU .....................................

'Why?'
'Because it was cheaper.'
'So which format dominated the market?'
'VHS.'
'That,' Hackett said with a smirk, 'is precisely the point
I wanted to make. Better does not necessarily mean evolutionary
certainty.'
'Those are VCRs,' Pearce growled. 'What the hell
has that got to do with language?'
'Because they both exhibit the very essence of what
is a complex adaptive system.'
'So how we wound up with VHS is complicated?
Fine.'
'No, no, no!' Hackett insisted. 'Not complicated.
There is a difference between something being complicated
and something being complex and adaptive.
The key is adaptivity. How does a component react in
a given situation? Betamax versus VHS is a question of
economics. Society adapted to the price.'
Hackett shifted gear. 'Okay,' he said. 'Another example
is, why did the petrol-driven car succeed at a time
when petrol was expensive and dirty and when steam
power had been driving trains for fifty years and worked
just as well in cars? It's not gonna be price now, is it?
Answer: Foot and Mouth Disease. Steam cars could
only fill up at water troughs, but because Foot and
Mouth Disease was plaguing the horse population, to
prevent the spread of the problem the water troughs
were removed from all the towns. No troughs, no water.
No water, no steam cars - or horses. So the idea of a
car is popular and all anyone is left with is the petrol
powered car. So society adapted and chose gasoline.'
He shifted gear again. 'A snowflake in and of itself is
....................................... DECIPHER 	213

complicated. Beautiful, but complicated. It's when it
interacts with other snowflakes that it's complex. How
do you predict avalanches? What route will it take down
the mountain?'
'You can predict that?'
'Not a chance. Then you're in the realms of chaos.
What I predict is the order that arises out of chaos, Bob.
For there has to be order out of chaos or none of us
would be here. Out of that primordial soup two amino
acids had to have decided to get together. When you
heat up soup or water, at the exact moment of its boiling
point there will always be an hexagonal pattern of
six spots within the liquid that rises and falls. We call
it simmering. But it's complexity in action. Order from
chaos.'
Hackett sat up. 'Bob,' he said sternly, 'it's a hundred
thousand years ago and you've developed the perfect
language. You want November here to use it. And you've
decided that,' he looked about quickly for something to
use as an example, 'chair. You've decided that chair should
be called "chair". But November doesn't call it
a chair. She calls it an "Ug" . . . Why?'
'Coz she's stupid?'
'Excuse me?' November retaliated in mock anger.
'No, she's not stupid. She's in love.'
'I am?'
'But not with you.'
'She's not?'
'November's in love with some great big ape,' Hackett
explained. 'Not a weedy smartass. He's strong. He's handsome.
The ape's more likely to be able to provide for
her and the family - and did you see those cute buns?
So she procreates with him. Wants to communicate with



214 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

him. And he calls a chair an "Ug". Coz basically . . .
he's the stupid one.'
'Oh, great.'
'Oh, it gets better. So now they're both calling it an "Ug". That's two to one. And pretty soon they're starting
a family. Their kids call it an "Ug", and after a while,
everybody's calling it an "Ug", which is just so dumb
because anyone with half a brain knows, the perfect
word for that thing - is a chair.'
Scott finished sketching out his notes on the
wipeboard. Gave Pearce a sympathetic look
'And you call that progress?' Hackett queried.
'Well done, Professor,' Scott said warmly.
'Thank you,' Hackett murmured without the least
hint of humility. 'Complexity,' he ran his fingers through
his hair. 'It's the key - to everything.' He cast an eye
over the jumbled-up stones on the table. 'Order from
chaos,' he beamed.

Order from chaos was what Sir William Jones, a British
Judge living in Galcutta in 1786, had managed to
achieve when he studied languages and noticed Greek,
Latin, Sanskrit, Persian, Gothic and Old Irish all possessed
similar words and grammar. Grouped together
they became known as the Indo-European family of languages.
Since
then linguistic anthropologists had charted the
development of language all over the world, calling on
a diverse array of sciences.
By 1991, Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza at Stanford had
compared the world family tree of molecular genetic
data with the world family tree of linguistic data and
discovered an incredible similarity in the pattern spread.
....................................... DECIPHER 	21 5

Now gene frequencies and population dispersal helped
to chart language evolution.
In some ways, yes, maybe Hacker was right. Maybe
Scott was exploring complexity. And maybe it was the
key.
'Language evolved due to four prime factors,' Scott
went on. 'Firstly the initial migration of the human population
out of Africa to the rest of the world prior to
12,000BCE.
'Secondly there's the dispersal of language due to
farming. Y'know, Farmer Bob has a farm and his family.
In time he's successful. His farm gets bigger. So does his
family. About two hundred years later it's a village and
gets too big to support itself so half the population moves
on and eventually they lose contact with Grandpa. It's
also called Demic fusion. The Bantu languages of Africa
started this way. They belong to the NigerKordofanian
language family. Nomad and horseback-riding made the
spread bigger in places like Turkey and the Turkic languages.
Kurdistan and so on.
'Thirdly you've got languages that developed due the
late climatic change around 8,000BCE and the aftereffects
of the last Ice Age. They're the UralicYukaghir
family, the Chukchi-Kamchatkan and the Eskimo-Aleut
and Na-Dene of the Americas. But I don't think any of
those concern us here because they're restricted to regions
affected by glacial melt water in the Arctic. They're northern
dispersal languages...' He was thinking on his feet.
Stood back from his board. Put a thick black line through
that set of languages. 'Okay,' he said, his mind made up.
'Then you just got the Elite Dominance languages like
the Altaic in medieval central Asia. Languages that
become dominant due to conquest. Like English is in



216 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

the States, or Chinese is in China. Chinese was only
adopted in historical times through military expansion.
It was the same for Latin in Europe. Whereas, before
convicts settled in Australia, the Pama-Nyungan language
family of the Aborigines came about due to migration
and farming divergence.'
'So languages developed at different times for different
reasons,' November reiterated.
'Yeah, but what I've been given here is a language
on a set of stones that comes from Antarctica. A place
where nobody lives. Nobody migrated to. A place where - satellite images aside - we thought nobody had built
anything. So physically, I have to work out what languages
it might be related to. And that's the problem.
'The first source for the story of Atlantis comes from
Plato, in Greece. In the Mediterranean - which is
nowhere near Antarctica. So what's the link, as far as
language is concerned? Is there even a link?'
Pearce nodded with anticipation. 'So what's your
theory?'
'I don't have a theory,' Scott admitted darkly 'I have
an idea on how to get to a theory.'

'Okay, so we've discounted Chukchi-Kamchatkan as a
language family. And the arctic languages. So that's
Uralic-Yukaghir gone and Finnish and Hungarian along
with it. And we can also discount Eskimo-Aleut and NaDene.
That discounts all the language families that
evolved as a result of the late climate-related dispersal
after 8,000BCE--'
'After the last Ice Age and the Flood?' Pearce asked,
double-checking with the notes that he'd started to
scrawl.
....................................... DECIPHER 	217

'Right. Now we're agreed that Atlantis is a pre-flood,
Ice Age kinda civilization. Right?'
November was excited. 'So we can lose the conquest
languages - Latin and stuff.'
'Right,' Scott confirmed, nodding and drawing a line
through the box containing such names as Genghis
Khan and William the Conqueror. Then he said: 'Now
we hit a gray area.'
He drew a line sharply under the last two groups.
The languages from the initial human migration pre12,000Bc0;.
And the farming dispersal languages.
'The oldest languages that we can determine are in
bits around the globe,' he revealed. 'They don't fit easily
into the migratory patterns of the last ten thousand years.
As a consequence they stick out like a sore thumb to
linguists. The Khosian and the northern and southern
Caucasian languages. The Australian languages. The
languages of New Guinea known as Indo-Pacific, where
each individual language in and of itself doesn't appear
to be related to any of its neighbors - that's how come
they got grouped together. Then there's Amerind, and
also the Nilo-Saharan languages which include
Basque--'
'Isn't that a region in Spain with all those terrorists?'
November was quick to chip in.
Scott nodded his agreement, not wanting to be sidetracked
further and drew their attention to the farming
dispersal languages.
'Indo-European covers classical Greek, which covers
Plato. So I guess that should stay. Sino-Tibetan . . .
Well, that's nowhere near Greece or Antarctica so that
can go. Niger-Kordofanian, central African states, uh . .' He shrugged, not sure. 'If I don't start cutting out



218 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

more families I'm going to have a list of comparison
languages to study as long as my arm.'
'So cut it.' Hackett's voice was harsh but logical. 'You
can always go back to it.' Scott reluctantly agreed. 'That
leaves Austronesian--'
'But the societies who used those languages weren't
noted for building megalithic structures. Or any real
structures at all,' Scott said. 'And besides, their flood
myths are also the most vague.'
'You want to base the choices on an engineering comparison
as well?'
'Makes sense. There's an entire city under the ice
out there. And something under the Sphinx.' Hacker
nodded. 'Now, Elamo-Dravidian covers Asia Minor. It
may have a link but I don't think so. And finally we
have good old Afro-Asiatic. Covers the semitic languages
predominantly. Hebrew, Ancient Egyptian. That can
stay.' Scott slashed lines through more groupings he
didn't want to include. 'So we got, one, two . . . nine
different language families to work from.'
'That's not so bad,' November said.
'That means about thirty or forty actual languages to
trawl through,' Scott calculated.
Hackett stood up, tucking his shirt in. 'It's a start,' he
said. 'But from the pre-12,000BCE languages I'd be
inclined to lose the Indo-Pacific languages. Basically
because, as you say, they didn't build squat. And on that
basis you can lose all the Australian, the Khosian and
the northern and southern Caucasian as well.'
'That leaves me with just Nilo-Saharan and Amerind.'
'I don't think there's time to be more systematic.'
'So we're down to four language families in total. NiloSaharan,
Amerind, Indo-European and Afro-Asiatic.'
....................................... DECIPHER 	219

Scott stepped back to look at his board. "Yeah - it's a
start.'

They were just getting into the next phase of analysis
when one of the chemists, Morgan, approached. 'Dr
Hackett?'
'Yes?'
'They need you upstairs. They want to transfer you
over to the Solar Observatory Network. They just
received the latest solar data . . . it doesn't look good.'


8:15 PM


THE IBIS CAF¢:


H

e was late. Well, that was no surprise. Thorne was
always late.
Sarah didn't shower in the end, back at her room at
the Nile Hilton. She took a bath instead. She kicked
back into the foam. Relaxed. Washed the sand out of
every pore. Shaved her legs and did all those things she
had told herself she wouldn't do. Sarah made herself
ready for Rip Thorne, and she hated herself for it. As
she sipped lemonade at the table next to the window
nearest the bar, cooling herself under the ever-present
ceiling fans, she wondered if he was still married.
Lemonade? Damn fundamentalists. What she wouldn't
do for a real drink.

There was a guy in a cream jacket across the room
who kept smiling and trying to catch her eye, but Sarah
just wasn't in the mood. It was all she could do just to
psyche herself up for this little encounter. How long
had it been? Five, six years? Maybe longer. Considering

....................................... DECIPHER 	221


they both worked for the same company it was an
achievement to have been apart this long.

'Miss Kelsey?' The voice was gentle. Calming.
When Sarah looked up she instantly recognized the
woman from earlier, outside the main gates to the Giza
encampment. The demonstration. The armed soldiers•
This woman with long gray hair, and those deep penetrating
eyes. 'It is Sarah Kelsey, isn't it?'

Sarah was suddenly aware that there was a live piano
playing somewhere in the background. She shook her
head, trying to clear her mind. 'Uh, yes,' she replied.
'Yes, I'm Sarah.' And then after a moment. 'I'm sorry,
I--' She got up and shook the woman's hand. They
exchanged an awkward laugh.

'Ellen,' she announced. 'Ellen Paris• No, I'm sorry,'
she insisted. 'I'm not disturbing you, am I?'

Sarah eyed the empty seat across the table. 'Well, uh


'Oh,' Ellen Paris sighed. 'I hope you haven't been
stood up.'

Sarah didn't quite know how to take that. Had she
been stood up? It was just possible this Ellen was right.
She inclined her head and narrowed her eyes. 'Would
you care for something to drink? Don't worry, nothing
alcoholic. I don't fancy the Mullahs coming to chop
offa hand.' Ellen looked pensive. Sarah gave her a comforting
smile. 'Company tab.'

Ellen relaxed. Tll have a lemonade.'

Sarah ordered two more lemonades as they took their
seats. 'That was quite a little demonstration today,
Ellen.' The other woman still had her modest black
purse tucked under her arm. She set it down on the
table and shrugged simply. 'Why'd you do it?' Sarah


222 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


asked curiously. 'And a foreign woman too. That's some
risk.'

'One should always fight for what one believes in.'
Ellen folded her hands in her lap. 'You don't seem surprised
to see me.'

'You said something earlier today,' Sarah said by way
of an explanation, 'and it's stuck with me. You said,
"Cayce was right." What were you talking about? Who
is Cayce? I don't understand. Is he part of your group

who doesn't want us digging around the monuments?'
'He is the reason I'm here,' Ellen admitted.
'Did he send you?'

'Hardly.' Ellen paused. 'He's dead.'

Sarah sat back with a start. Tm sorry,' she said.
'It's okay. He's been dead since 1945.'

The lemonades arrived. Sarah took hers quickly and
had an unceremonious gulp. She fished the slice of
sour lemon out and bit down on it. 'So you were being
prophetic. I wasn't imagining it.'

'Cayce was the prophetic one,' Ellen explained.
'Did you ever meet him?'

'I'm not that old,' Ellen chided gruffly, but with good
humor. Tm here because I think you need to know
what you're getting yourself into.'

Sarah sipped her lemonade. 'Tell me about Cayce,'
she said.


He was born on a Kentucky farm in 1877, the blueeyed
Edgar Cayce. Said to go to bed with his head on
a book, then wake up knowing its contents. Tales of
osmosis aside, he left a curious legacy of prediction and
prophetdom that inspired a foundation in his name and
a headache for serious academics.

....................................... DECIPHER 	223


Like Nostradamus before him, Cayce was in the business
of predicting the fnture. He predicted that the Nile
once flowed west. And that it once flowed into Lake
Chad. In the 1990s this was confirmed when archeologists
used satellite Ground Penetrating Radar and
peeked beneath the desert sands. They soon discovered
the dried-up riverbed.

Cayce also predicted that a group of early Christian
activists called Essenes lived near the Dead Sea. He
predicted that two US Presidents would die in office
soon. In 1945 Cayce was dead, alongside Roosevelt.
Months later the Essenes' Dead Sea Scrolls had been
discovered by an Arab shepherd boy and it wasn't long
before Kennedy had been killed as well.

Edgar Cayce predicted many things. And many
times, he got those things right.

'He also got a lot wrong,' Ellen continued. 'He was
only human. But before you go and get all skeptical,
don't forget the CIA mounted Operation Deep See for
over twenty years.'

'What was that? I've never heard of it.'

'The CIA employed psychics to penetrate secret
enemy strongholds using nothing more than the power
of the mind. They penetrated these strongholds and
mapped them using a technique called Remote
Viewing. They could see who operated in these places,
and what was there. All of the information was verified
by spies on the ground. They shut it down in the early
1990s. Then started it back up again about five years
ago.'

'Are you serious?'

Ellen didn't seem to feel the need to answer that.
Instead she continued: 'The important point for you



224 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

about Cayce's predictions is that he foresaw that around
the turn of the millennium, a hidden chamber would
be discovered beneath the Sphinx. He called it "The
Hall of Records", a place where mankind's lost history
had been gathered together alongside instruments of
power. He also predicted that the people of ancient
Atlantis possessed some kind of crystal stone that trapped
the rays of the sun.'
Sarah sipped more lemonade cautiously. She didn't
want to give anything away, but she had a feeling it was
probably already too late. 'I see,' was all she would consciously
commit herself to.
'There's been a long precedence of finding a hidden
chamber,' Ellen added. 'The Westcar Papyrus from the
fourth dynasty speaks of Djedi, a magician of the court
of Khufu, or Cheops as he's sometimes called. Djedi
claimed to know details about the secret chambers containing The Books of Thoth. He said that the keys to
those chambers were hidden in the city ofAni. Ani has
another name - Heliopolis, which literally means "City of the Sun".'
'Heliopolis today is a modern suburb with an airport,'
Sarah said.
'Yes, and much of ancient Heliopolis is still hidden
beneath it. Including the house of Septi, where the fifth
Pharaoh of the first dynasty who reigned around
3,000BC, Pharaoh Septi, is said to have kept the ipwtseals
or keys to the hidden place in a box of flint or
whetstone.'
'Do you think the keys really exist?'
'Possibly. Do you think you'll need keys?' Sarah
remained tight-lipped. 'If you're feeling particularly awkward
about the company you're keeping on this subject,'
....................................... DECIPHER 	225

Ellen offered gently, 'you can always remind yourself
that the secrets of the pyramids have been investigated
by some of the world's greatest minds - Sir Isaac
Newton, for example. He dedicated a huge portion of
his life to decoding the mystery. And Thomas Young,
he not only did some of the most pioneering work on
translating Egyptian hieroglyphics, but he was also a
physicist. He discovered the wave theory of light. And
if I'm not much mistaken, that's still a cornerstone of
modern physics.'
'You said I needed to know what I was getting myself
into,' Sarah said sharply. 'Is this it? Something I'm not
even trained for?'
Ellen smiled, almost to the point of stopping herself
from laughing. 'This? Oh, it's much bigger than this.
The investigation your company's involved in strikes at
the very heart of organized religion and in turn the western
world's power base.'

'I don't understand.'
"You will. In time, you will understand. But be aware
of these facts. Why is it that as we speak, Rola Corp.
has a team of scientists investigating certain crystals in
Switzerland? Why is it that it has a team involved in
similar work here - and had a team in China before the
stand-off in Antarctica? That's right, Rola Corp. was in
China. Why has another team gone off to the jungles
of South America? Why is NASA suddenly so interested
in mineral deposits on earth and not deep space? And
why has the Vatican called an earth geological symposium
for next week?
'Do you think that the pyramids are the only manmade
structure to mirror a pattern in the stars? Or that


226 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


the ancient Egyptians were the only people to believe
their River Nile to be a mirror of a river of stars in the
sky - the Milky Way? In China, the first Emperor, Chin,
or Qin Xen Xuan Di, had the Xian Yang and Erpang
Palaces modeled on the stars, with the Chungnan Shan
mountain peak as the gateway to heaven and the River
Wei as the mirror to the Milky Way. Just like here in
Cairo. Even today, Taoist priests do the star dance to
the constellation of the Great Bear.

'They believe in Chi or Qi - the lifeforce energy,
similar to the Egyptian concept of the Ka. But the real
clincher is that Emperor Qin also knew of a sacred
underground place upon which he had built his
square-based pyramid burial tomb. Though his pyramid
was constructed from earth, it's more massive than.
anything in Egypt. To this day, inside are fully loaded
crossbows poised to fire at trespassers, and lakes of poisonous
mercury to reflect the light. Pearls and jade are
set in the ceiling. But the Chinese won't open the
toml, which is precisely the one thing that Rola Corp.
wanted.'

Ellen drank before continuing. 'The Chinese believe
ancestor spirits are malignant. If you disturb them, they'll
disturb you. Qin was a tyrant who killed millions. If they
disturbed him, he might return to destroy China, a country
afte/all, which is still named after him. This is the
ruler who had blast furnaces fifteen hundred years before
Europe. Who was able to manipulate carbon and lower
its content in iron, making it malleable, so that his
armies could plate their weapons with potassium dichromate
to prevent corrosion, something which baffles
archeologists even today. He had the Great Wall of
China built and eight thousand terracotta soldiers buried

	....................................... DECIPHER 	227

with him as an army to command in the afterlife.
Ironically he gave them real weapons which the peasants
used to defeat his son later.'

Ellen took another sip of lemonade. She had sounded
excited, but hardly fanatical. Which was the disturbing
factor for Sarah.

'But the focal point for Chinese culture is also a precious
stone. Jade. It's supposed to aid immortality. Burial
suits were made of the stuff. Taoists literally ground it
up into a powder and ate it. And two weeks ago NASA
said, among other things, that they had found indications
of jade in Antarctica. The press release simply said
"mineral deposits", but if you look at the official report,
there's jade.'

Ellen's drink was finished. She set the glass down
and declined another. 'And all of this because of what
they started doing in the Takla Makan desert.'

'I've heard of the desert,' Sarah said, 'but I don't know
the significance of it.'

'Rola Corp. originally went out to look for oil in the
Takla Makan Desert in western China. But their search

took them closer and closer to ancient sites, like Wupu.'
Sarah was none the wiser.

'The Tokarians were the original indigenous people
of the Takla Makan region, responsible for building the
Great Silk Road that constituted the first trade road linking
east and west. They died out about two and a half
thousand years ago. Just before First Emperor Qin came
to power.

'They built whole cities. Structures, some of which
were megalithic. They wore woolen tartans woven in
identical techniques to the Celts. They brought agriculture
to the region - and nobody knows to this day where



228 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

they came from. They turned up on the historical map
at the same time as the Sumerians, and no one knows
where they came from either.
'Their language was also most closely connected to
Italo-Geltic and Germanic, not the nearer IndoIranian
languages. And unlike everyone else in China they were
tall, blond and red-headed. In appearance, they were
foreigners, but they pre-date China. We think Rola
Corp. came across certain information that led them to
Qin's pyramid and Antarctica.'
Ellen handed Sarah a manila envelope and stood.
'What's this?'
'It's a little report on what we think is going on,' she
said.
She had her purse tucked under her arm again. 'The
point I'm trying to get across to you, Sarah, is that nothing
is as it seems. Be very careful. You're at the forefront
of a lot of this and you don't even know it. And
be wary of China,' she said. 'They may not be the enemy
they've been painted to be.'

'I'm sorry I'm late,' the smooth deep voice cut in.
Sarah instinctively stuffed the envelope into her purse
before she turned to see him.
He wasn't any fatter. He hadn't lost any hair. He still
had all his own teeth. He didn't appear to be any older.
Rip Thorne was still a striking forty-five-year-old.
Nothing had changed. He still had those piercing eyes,
like a shark looking for a weak spot. Probing. He was
still a bastard.
'Rip . . . Oh, hi,' Sarah replied, regretting the hesitation.
Thoughts were brewing but she told herself she
knew how to keep them in check.
....................................... DECIPHER 	229
Thorne kissed her on the cheek, eyed Ellen Paris
warily. 'Who's your friend?'
'I was just leaving,' Ellen explained graciously. She
shared a look with Sarah, one that told her to remember
what had been said, and was gone.
Thorne took Sarah by the arm. 'Shall we?' he said.
'I was looking for you in the foyer. I should have known
you'd be at the bar.'
Outside, a car was waiting.


7:15 PM


CENTRAL SOLAR OBSERVATORY NETWORK

I\ A/hat the hell is that?' Ralph Matheson asked,
V V stunned as he watched the bank of monitors.
They were two research blocks over, a five-minute
walk down the corridor from the Nuclear Magnetic
Resonance Spectroscopy. Solar observatories all over the
planet and beyond were pumping in data, some of them
completely unaware of the urgency with which it was
being received.
Hacker adjusted the computer settings. This was the
signal relay center. There were no other scientists to clash
with over theory here, just technicians, who scowled.
'You're looking at the spectacular phenomenon of thermal
convection within the sun,' he explained.
On the workstation screen a graphic showed circles
of motion rising and falling between the central core
and the surface of the sun. The motions were many,
and the overall pattern resembled half an orange.
'Pretty,' Matheson said.
....................................... DECIPHER 	231

'I think the term you're reaching for is "pretty important",'
Hackett corrected. 'Thermal convection controls
the circulation of the atmosphere and oceans.
Determines the short- and medium-term weather change
of the earth. Contributes to the motion of the continental
tectonic plates by inducing large-scale movements
of magma within the mantle, the earth's core. It
also cooks soup. It's the process by which heat rises.'
'Neat.'
'How's our little expedition shaping up, anyway?'
'Great, for the middle of a war zone. They fly in half
our equipment tonight. The rest we take with us. You
ever fired a gun?'
'Does the photon gun in a TV tube count?'
'Nope.'
'Then no.'
The neither. But they want us armed. For our own
protection, you understand. Don't you, Admiral?'
Dower ignored the engineer.
'No, I don't understand. But what the hell. So long
as I don't shoot my own toe off, what do I care?' Hackett
replied, focused on the raw data as it spewed down the
screens.
Matheson eyed the screen, then the physicist. Gant
and Dower stood with them. It was Gant who asked
quietly: 'What're you looking for?'
'The perturbation event.' Gant was none the wiser.
'The initial causation. That event which affects a
system and creates instability. If it's fairly recent and
the perturbation dies out quickly we call that system
asymptotically stable.'
'And in English?'
'It means what I'm looking for is evidence on the



232 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

sun that suggests it's a brief fluctuation. That it will dissipate
soon. That these massive sun storms will go away.'
'And?'
'And I haven't found it,' Hackett admitted. 'And I
don't think I ever will find it. Because it isn't there.'
'Well, something's gotta be causing this. It can't just
happen all by itself.'
'Actually,' Hackett warned, 'it can.'

'The sun is classified as a subject for non-equilibrium
physics, because of the wild fluctuations we see.
Sunspots come in linked pairs of opposing magnetic
polarity. Flares. Tornadoes the size of the earth that
travel at thousands of miles an hour. Vast seismic sun
quakes with waves 40,000 times the power of the 1906
San Francisco earthquake, with a two-mile-high ripple
that travels outwards at up to 250,000 mph. They're regularly
magnitude 11.3 or higher. That never happens
here on earth. The biggest ever recorded earthquake
we've had was 8.6, in Gansu, China, in 1920.
'These are spectacular events. But they're just events.
The sun is also a system of large-scale regularities. Its
central mass is subjected to hundreds of thousands of
varying frequency sound waves pulsating throughout it
at any one time. Imagine a thousand drummers each
beating out a different rhythm on the same drum skin.
It has a sunspot cycle of roughly eleven years. It's an
ordered system.'
'It's a mass of nuclear explosions,' Matheson objected.
'You said that yourself. There's nothing ordered about
that.'
'But that's just it,' Hacker replied. 'Look at it this
way. What is, and isn't ordered is a matter of relativity.
....................................... DECIPHER 	233

One nuclear explosion here on earth is so out of the
ordinary, it can be nothing but destructive. But on the
sun, where there's nothing but constant nuclear fusion
reactions, it's you and I who'd be out of the ordinary.
On the sun, one nuclear event is equivalent to, say, one
of the cells that make up the human body. Its environment
is like nothing we're used to and has its own
kind of order. Real order. After all, we get up every
morning and it's still there. Doing its sunlike thing. Has
done for millions of years. Will continue to do so for
many more. It's what we call a steady state. You've heard
of entropy? The second law of thermodynamics?'
'Yeah. It's the amount of disorder in a system.
Everything must break down. It's why if you drop a cup
on the floor it breaks. It won't then put itself back
together again.'
'Right. So everything breaks down. Scientists call it disorder.
The rest of the population calls it "turning to crap".'
"Yeah.'
'So why are we here?'
'Uh?'
'Life. Trees. Us. Heck, even clouds. If there's so much
disorder, and that's the natural tendency of things, to
turn to crap, how come we made it? Order must be
born out of chaos. It's an oscillation. Order - chaos order
- chaos.'
'That's why crystals form out of a chaotic liquid.
Something changes and order is born?' Matheson suggested.
'In
essence, yes.'
Matheson kicked back a moment, realizing Hackett
wasn't all that ecstatic with the situation. 'So why is it
you look like you've seen a ghost, Jon?'



234 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

'What happens when a violent but ordered system
suddenly turns chaotic? What happens when violence
meets chaos?'
Matheson gulped. 'Shit, I don't know.'
'There's a mathematical condition called the Hopf
bifurcation, named after Eberhard Hopf, the German
mathematician who discovered it. It guarantees that
oscillations will occur in steady states. It'll start very
small, but get bigger and bigger. In essence, absolutely
nothing will trigger it, but a steady state will, for no real
reason, become unstable and start to wobble.'
'Then it returns to its steady state?'
'Eventually. Yes. But there's also this physicochemical
phenomenon, the Belousov-Zhabotinski, or BZ phenomenon
that occurs in certain liquids under certain
circumstances. After the initial and imperceptible irregularity
at an atomic level, which is the trigger, it turns
into a chemical clock. The liquid turns from yellow, to
colorless, to yellow, in perfect regular timing. The oscillation
is an internal dynamic. It has nothing to do with
any outside force. These events are the cornerstone of
complexity theory.'
'So . . .?'
'Certain stars display just these properties. They're
called cepheid variables. Pulsars, Ralph. Pulsars. They
blast out matter at different rates, but they're violent
stars. Some pulse once every second. Some once every
few weeks. You look into the sky any night and you'll
find one. Well,' he bit his lower lip anxiously, 'I think
our sun is a pulsar.'
'What?'
'What I'm seeing fits the Hopf bifurcation and the
BZ phenomenon. The sun could be much older than
....................................... DECIPHER 	235

we thought and a slow-burn pulsar. So slow it only pulses
once every twelve thousand years. These gravity waves
could be the prelude to a massive jettison of a coronal
shell.'
Dower wanted to be very clear about this. 'Are we
talking about solar flares larger than previously projected?'
'Imagine,'
Hackett explained, 'the entire surface of
the sun boiling off in a cloud. Like a shell. It would be
the mother of all solar flares, just blown straight off.
Everything in the entire solar system would be hit.
Nothing would escape.' He turned to Matheson. 'Didn't
Richard say something about burning in those ancient
myths? That not only were there earthquakes and floods,
but that the earth burned? Admiral, it doesn't matter
what the magnetic polarity is of a plasma cloud of that
magnitude. It's gonna hit both Poles at the same time.
And one of 'em's gonna suck that thing straight in. Be
it North or South.'
'That's bad,' Matheson said, acutely aware of the
implications of the problem.
'That's very fucking bad.' Hackett shifted in his seat
as he leant forward and hit a button on the screen. 'It
would eventually wipe out all life.' The image began to
descend into chaos. 'Either way, both oscillations are
mathematically predictable. I can't tell you which one
it is, but right now, I can tell you precisely when the
fun's about to start.'
Dower was stunned. 'You can what? How long have
we got?'
'The solar "event" begins at six pm - this Thursday.
And peaks around midnight Saturday,' Hackett revealed.
'On Sunday... God rests.'


7:49 PM


236 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


'Jesus Christ.'

Hacker shot a look up to see Gant standing on the
other side of his monitor with a coffee in his hand. 'Are
there any other expected fluctuations?' the Admiral
asked.

'A couple,' said Hackett. 'The timing's a little off, but
there may be one tonight. A big one. One we will feel
this time.'


I A] hat kind of machine, d'you think, would they

	VV

		want to make out of pure carbon crystal?' Scott

mused as he methodically inalyzed each piece on the
table. Where he could, he fitted the stones together like
a jigsaw. He sketched the glyphs and made notes of
their characteristics, marveled at their intricate detail.
'What kind of machine has no moving parts?'

'We don't know that it doesn't,' November observed.
'And besides, solar panels have no moving parts.' Something
was troubling her, Scott could tell. She'd just
called her dad back home and cussed him out for not
tidying the house. And it didn't seem to be related to
the fact that he had a date tonight.

Scott said: 'Good point,' and turned his attention to
one of his many crumpled notebooks. He started drawing
up lists of words. She gave him a look. Wanting to
know what he'd found. 'I just got to thinking about similar
words that some languages share,' he confided.

238 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


'Common denominators. I was thinking, if I can see a
pattern in the comparisons, then I might be able to see
a pattern in the stones.'

She asked him to go on.

'The ancient Aztecs spoke Nahuatl,' Scott said. 'And
when they wanted to say "House of God", they said
"teocalli". Whereas in Greek, this side of the Atlantic,
they say "theou kalia", "God's House". In Quechua,
they say "llake llake", when they want to say "heron".
And they say "llu llu" when they mean "lie". While the
Sumerians said "lak lak", for "heron". And "lul" for
"lie".'

'They're virtually identical.'

'Virtually. Unfortunately it's not very scientific. As a
linguist my instinct is to compare one language with
another language, not continent with continent. Oneoff
similarities are frowned on, but a few things keep

cropping up. Like "atl".'

'Atl?'

'Or just "tl". As a combination of consonants it's pretty
rare in a lot of European languages. We use it in the
words Atlantic, Atlas, and Atlantis. But in South and
Central America it's fairly common. "Atl" is the Nahuatl
word for water. Atlaua was the gold of, and master over,
water. Aztlan was the mythical homeland that the Aztecs
claimed to have descended from. It meant "The land
of the Sun", but with "tl" in the world it had a water
connotation. Though what the word "atlatl" had to do
with water I'm not sure.' He chewed on a thumbnail
as November pulled up a chair. 'Atlatl means "arrow".'

'Arrow? That's interesting. On maps they always use
arrows to show which way is North. With Atlantis being
at the South Pole, that might be important" she offered.

....................................... DECIPHER 	239


Scott narrowed his eyes. 'I have no idea why that's
important,' he said, 'but keep it in mind.'

'Sure,' November beamed, pleased with herself. 'So
does "aflatl" have any link to a European language?'

'Well,' Scott replied, tongue in cheek, 'there's
"arrow", but apart from that, nothing really. Except
maybe in Old High German. "Tulli" meant "arrowhead".
And Thule was a legendary North Atlantic Island
first mentioned by Pytheas in the fourth century BCE.'
He drummed his fingers on the table, his leg twitching
in unison as his mind worked overtime. 'In fact... In
fact!' Rifling through papers he pulled out a notepad,
flicked through and found the right crumpled page.
'Yeah . . . Tlalocan was the southern home of Tlaloc,
the rain god. He was also known as, wait for it . . .
Tlahuizpantechufli - the god of ice. And his girlfriend

was Chalchiuitlicue, goddess of water.'

'They had gods for the weather?'

'Oh, sure. Ehacatl was the god of wind, for instance.
Now, he was an interesting character because he was
also known as Quetzalcoatl, the man it's said brought
civilization to Central and South America. He was the
feathered serpent. The Good God, inventor of writing,

painting and the calendar.'

'Just like Thoth.'

'Yes, and in the ancient Mexican pinturas, or paintings,
Quetzalcoatl, the one I said wore the long black
gown fringed with the white crosses? He was also god
of the West, one of four Tezcatlipocas . . .'

'The others being, East, North and South, huh?'
November asked, leading the linguist on. 'He's got
crosses all over his clothes, and he's linked to the points
of the compass?'


240 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


'There's definitely a pattern here. A logic.' He eyed
her closely. 'It just isn't funny anymore.'

It was November's turn to smirk. 'It's complex . . .
isn't it?'

'Don't you start.'

'What made you start looking at South American languages,
anyway? I thought you were looking at
cuneiform. That's in the Middle East.'

'It occurred to me,' Scott explained, 'that when
Antarctica experienced the flood, there was no one
single route of escape. The three closest land masses
were South America, South Africa and the Indian peninsula.
But since it was a flood, land at the same altitude
would be underwater. So you have to go further northbefore
you hit mountains, and so dry land. The Andes,
in Peru. Mount Ararat in Turkey, near to Egypt. And
the Himalayas in the north of India and the border of
China. The same three places where religion and writing
were born.'

'Oh my God, that's incredible.'

'Maybe. I don't know. Anyway, I remembered something
I read about a language called Aymara. It's part
of the Amerind language family. One of the families we
kept on that board.'

'I remember. Yeah, there it is.'

'The thing about it is, it appears to have been
invented:

'Is that possible? I thought languages just.., evolved.'
'Must do. But it's not impossible. Hangul, the alphabet
they use in Korea Province, China, was invented
by King Sejong in 1446. He designed twenty-eight new
letters for vowels and consonants because a thousand
years of using Chinese had been a disaster for his

....................................... DECIPHER 	241


people,' Scott said. 'But Aymara's different because we
just don't know how old it really is. What we do know
is it uses entirely different logic from our own. We use
opposites. The syntax of our language is based on the
notion of yes or no. Aymara has a third kind, like a
"maybe" mode. What in computer speak they call fuzzy
logic.'

November went to open her mouth, but Scott cut
her short.

'I don't know - ask Hackett. The point is, Ivan
Guzman de Rojas, a Bolivian computer scientist, studied
the language in the 1980s and discovered that
Aymara worked like an algorithm. It could be used as
a bridging language. If you translated a foreign language
into Aymara, you could then translate the Aymara into
any other language - precisely, keeping the exact original
sense of what the first language was trying to say
without getting anything jumbled up or lost in the translation.
It's so useful they use it in all kinds of translation
programs even today.'

'Aymara? Where did they use that?'

Scott raised an eyebrow. 'Tiahuanaco,' he said. 'And
some people still use it.'

'Where's Tiahuanaco?'

'In the Andes. Way up high, by the shores of Lake
Titicaca.'

November was stunned. 'It's like all the clues to
Atlantis have always been here. We just didn't listen.'

Scott surveyed the row of crystals on the table and
took a long hard look at his research. 'Well, we know
it's here now. And it's trying to tell us something.'

It was an intense feeling. So much so, he felt like a
kid again. Everything he'd ever learned just felt so new


242 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

right now. He could sense a pattern. A logic. But what
was it?

November seemed tense. Knowing he should leave
well enough alone, tentatively he asked, 'How's life back
home? They miss you already?'

'Are you frightened?' she asked suddenly.

'Sure.'

'What frightens you most about all this?'

'That I'll never see my daughter again. That if this
second flood does hit I won't be able to do a thing about
it and she'll suffer.'

November was subdued. 'I didn't realize you had a
daughter. How old is she?'

'Seven. Her name's Emily.'

'That's a pretty name.' November picked up a stone
gently. She could feel that customary tingle on her skin
again, almost prickly. Nervously, she said: 'Dad says the
Mississippi's starting to flood. They issued a state of

emergency in the delta.'

'I see.'

'It's starting...'

'I think so,' Scott nodded, with just the barest hint
of uncertainty.

'What did you want me to do with this?' she asked,

tapping the rock. 'Sketch it again?'

'Please.'

November stood. Tm hungry. And I'm sick of coffee.
Care for a Coke or something?'

Tm fine.'


The kitchenette against the far wall to one side was
pretty well stocked to capacity. Glean and white, it had
a sink and a microwave. It was all contained within an

........................................ DECIPHER 	243


enclosed mobile unit to keep steam and stray radiation
out of the working environment.

A radio stood to one side. Absently, November heard
a tune she recognized and turned the volume up.
Setting the Carbon 60 down in front of it she pulled
the refrigerator open and grabbed the two-liter-bottle of
Coke from inside and poured herself a drink. Found a
fresh filter, went to work on more coffee. No matter
what Dr Scott said, he was bound to want more coffee.
And it was then that she was brought up short by a highpitched
whine, almost out of her hearing range. At first
she thought she had a ringing in her ears until she realized
it was coming from a specific direction. It was
coming from her glass of Coke.

She stopped what she was doing, drawn to her glass
like a moth to a flame. The sound had gone higher
now. Way beyond her range.

She crouched down to take a closer look, and couldn't
believe what she was seeing. The carbonated bubbles
that usually fizzed to the surface were slowing. As if the
Coke was becoming viscous, like treacle.

A cracking sound shot out from the glass. Yet there
was no visible sign of any damage.
And then the bubbles stopped. Caught in mid-flow.
She could feel the whole kitchenette units vibrate.
Could see the faint oscillating movement. What the
hell was going on?

Her eyes darted from object to object. Radio - speaker
- sound - Carbon 60 - Coke in a glass.

There was a box of assorted odds and ends in a drawer.
A steel ball bearing.

Cautiously she held the steel ball over the glass.
Paused, then dropped it.


244 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


Clank.

The ball hit the Coke like it was ice and stayed
motionless on the surface.

'Oh my God,' she murmured. Somebody had to come
see this! This was incredible! She leapt to her feet. 'Dr
Scott!' she yelled. 'Dr Scott, you have to come see this!'

Instinctively she reached out and grabbed the glass
of Coke.


By the time Scott arrived, November Dryden was
screaming.

BREAKTHROUGH



In the northern hemisphere at the peak of the last major
glaciation, 18,000 years ago, a continental ice layer several
kilometers thick covered much of northern America,
down to the middle part of the United States, as well as
much of northern and western Europe, to the latitude of
Paris and Berlin. In the present-day situation, continental
ice is confined essentially to Greenland. Furthermore,
it is known that, as far as continental ice extent is concerned,
the present situation was essentially established
10,000 years ago. In other words, we are forced to conclude
that the planet Earth, a physical system, has in a
few years (a short time on a geological scale) undergone
a transition between two extraordinarily different states
whose difference extends over the dimensions of the
Earth itself.

The above remarks suggest that any reasonable model
of the climatic system should be able to account for the
possibility of such large-scale transitions.


Gregoire Nicolis and Ilya Prigogine Exploring

Complexity: An Introduction, 1989

A CAIRO PENTHOUSE BALCONY
9:30 PM


il ow's your wife?' It was the most malicious thing she

	I I

		could think of to ask while she gazed at her fresh

lobster, cracked straight down its back on her platter. A
bottle of vintage Dom Perignon chilled in the ice-bucket.

It was amazing what money could buy in an alcoholfree
state. But then the Egyptians had always been a
fun-loving people. Sarah was sure this fundamentalist
thing wasn't going to last. It couldn't. The Egyptians
just didn't have the discipline for it.

Thorne pulled a hunk of quivering white flesh from
the claw in his hand without so much as a missed beat.
']ulia's doing great,' he said cheerfully. 'Y'know she's
really on this tennis kick right now.' He licked his fingers
clean.

'Tennis?' Thorne had met someone at the country
club. He had to. 'I didn't think you liked tennis.'

'I didn't say I did,' he replied, having more lobster.
He poured the champagne and toasted her.

248 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


She downed hers nervously, set the long-stemmed
crystal glass down maybe a bit too forcefully. Pushed
the lobster around her plate. She really wasn't in the
mood for this. She could feel the butterflies in her stomach
flapping relentlessly. How many relationships had
she thrown away because she couldn't get this man out
of her mind?

Sarah glanced down over the balcony at everyone
else in the caf6s and restaurants below. Music and
laughter wafted up. He'd brought her up here for a
reason. They hadn't seen each other in several years.
But he knew, up here, it would make her feel more
alone, more dependent on him. And he was right.
Thorne was always right.

'How was your meeting at the AOI?' she asked, having
seen his stack of paperwork over on a far lamp-lit table.
'You got what you wanted?'

Thorne smiled in that way that told her, even if he
had, he wasn't telling.

'Why did you request I come to Cairo?' she probed
further.

'You mean, was it so I could see you?' he retaliated.
She flashed a smile back. As genuine as she could
muster. 'You can request to see me whenever you want,'
she pointed out. 'My question is purely business. What
is the Egyptian government getting out of all this? Do
they fully realize what they've got on their hands here?'

'No, I doubt they realize the full implications, Sarah.
Why would they? All they can see are dollar signs. Just

not on the scale I can see them.'

'Do they know about China?'

Now Thorne hesitated. That felt good.

'So,' he replied. Measured. 'You know about China.'

....................................... DECIPHER 	249

'Word gets around,' she said. 'After all, you've nearly
started a war.'

Thorne called the waiter over for more champagne.
The man briefly explained they only had vintage Kr/ig
left. Thorne said that was okay and eyed Sarah directly.
'You always were very smart, honey. Very perceptive.'

Just lucky, she guessed. So Ellen was right.
Nonchalantly he took her by the hand and seemed surprised
to find that her delicate fingers were cold. He
rubbed them gently, while his eyes told his staff that
they were dismissed. They let themselves out quietly.

'You're not staying, are you?' she asked with a dawning
realization.

'No,' Thorne confessed. 'I have to go in the morning.
I wanted to see you before I left. It's been so long
• . . I needed to see you.'

'Where are you going?'

'Rome.'

'Rome?' Besides spaghetti and the Vatican, she
couldn't see what was waiting for him there. She scoffed
back a nervous laugh. 'You wanna brief the Pope? Let
him know civilization goes back a little farther than
Jesus Christ?'

Thorne wasn't laughing. 'Something like that. The
President's already there.'

'What? In between starting a war in Antarctica?'
'Wars are fought on many fronts, Sarah.' He stood.
'Would you care for some dessert?' Sarah was rubbing
her forehead. She felt dizzy. 'Look, it's just dessert. Do
you want some?'

He pulled her to her feet. Held her close. That faint
aroma from his skin that she knew so well swelled in
her heart.


8:03 PM


250 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


'I want dessert,' he said huskily. 'I want you.'

It was such a cheesy line. And the fact was, if she
hadn't been so damn well turned on by him she'd have
reached for the nearest bucket. But as it was she
responded, like he knew she would. Eventually pulling
away she asked: 'Why did you really want me to come
out here?'

He stroked her hair. 'I thought it might make a pleasant
change for you,' he confided. 'I know how you enjoy
your history. It must have been tough in Siberia.'

It was enough to let him kiss her again. And more.
And after the first rampant session up against the wall,
they both agreed that it would probably be more comfortable
if they Went to bed. After all, they weren't
teenagers anymore.

He knew what champagne did to her. Goddamnit.
The bastard knew.

T

hey were called quasicrystals.

They were materials that could not be called true
crystal because they were not made up of repeated identical
unit cells, like a cube in the case of sodium, or
plain old salt. The units in quasicrystals had much more
complex symmetry. Twelve-fold symmetry. Making
shapes like double spirals and hexagonal honeycombs.
The odd-shaped units were irregular, but still linked

together to form crystal-like structures.

But that was with metals.

The Coke in November's glass exhibited all the signs
of having transformed itself into a quasicrystal. And
since it was a liquid, it meant looking at the work of a
much older scientist.

Michael Faraday, in 1831, first discovered that standing
waves, waves that appeared to be entirely motionless,
could be produced in fluids. This meant the use
of vibration, by its very nature an element of sound.
And that was the link Hackett was looking for.


252 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


The doctor was closing his case as the physicist and
engineer arrived to see what all the commotion was
about. Scott explained what had happened, while
November dabbed back tears with a screwed-up tissue.

The doctor from CERN's medical center said: 'She's
fine. No burnmarks. No abrasions. Blood pressure's high,
but no respiratory problems. She's in perfect health.'

'I told you it didn't hurt,' November explained irritably.
Her body was still wracked with tearful convulsions.
'I couldn't move my hand,' she said, 'no matter
how hard I tried. I couldn't move my joints. It was like
my arm was completely frozen, but it didn't hurt.'

'Then why'd you scream?' Scott asked compassionately.

'Because
I was scared,' she replied in a small voice.
"I was scared because I couldn't move my arm.'

Hackett crouched down in front of the counter.
Though the tune had changed, the set-up had been left
exactly the way it was. Radio - C60 - glass of Coke.
Pearce stood to one side, watching. Not wanting to get
in the way, but not wanting to leave either. Everyone
was mesmerized by something that simply wasn't
normal. And it was almost as if he could actually see
their elite minds working overtime.

A steel ball bearing was sat on top of a liquid that had,

for all intents and purposes, solidified without freezing.
'Good God,' Matheson murmured.

'God may have nothing to do with it,' Hackett retaliated,
jabbing a pencil in the direction of the C60. He
eyed the set-up again, carefully, before shooting a look
to Pearce and ordering quietly: 'Okay, Bob, turn the
radio off.'

	....................................... DECIPHER 	253

Pearce located the white plastic power supply. The

plug. Gripped the switch firmly. Then flipped it to 'off.'
The radio went dead.

Suddenly the ball bearing shot to the bottom of the
glass with such a tremendous crack that for a moment
it looked like it might shatter the container. It rolled
around the bottom before coming to a stop.

Hackett raised his eyebrows and let out a deep breath,
which was a surprise to him if nobody else. He hadn't
realized he was holding it.

There was a long plastic rod over to one side, amid
a collection of odds and ends. Holding it by his fingertips,
Hackett lowered it into the Coke and washed
it around. Bubbles fizzed to the surface.

He extracted the rod. Nodded to Pearce again. 'Turn
the radio back on.'

Within seconds the hissing and high-pitched whine
returned. And this time when he tried to jab the rod
back into the liquid, making sure his hand wasn't in
the path of the sound wave, it made a crunch like it
had hit a solid.

He asked Pearce to switch the radio off again and
Hacker took the glass of Coke away. He nodded to one
of the chemists, who had gathered by the door, and in
turn okayed an assistant to bring the rat over that he
was holding in a cage.

He set it down in front of the stone.

It was a large brown rat. Racing around its cage it
sniffed the air as if it sensed something was wrong.
Scampering to the front of the cage, it squeaked at the
C60 and lashed out.

'You can't! That's horrible!' November shrieked.
Hackett wasn't phased. 'Experiment,' he explained


254 	STEL
	PAVLOU .....................................


without looking at her, 'is
	the only method of attaining

certainty.'

The radio was flipped
	on again. And the rat stood

frozen solid, locked into
	its pose. Its eyes were glassy

and transfixed. November looked away as Hackett
counted out a full thirty seconds.

'What the hell's going on?' Matheson demanded
quietly.

Hackett ran the rod along the set-up and explained.
'Sound waves are produced here - in the radio. The
sound enters the Garbon 60 and is "altered" somehow.
Then it's projected back out in this direction. Until it
hits the rat. Or the Goke. A living organism is approximately
seventy-five percent fluid so it's going to react
in a similar fashion to a glass of Coke. The altered
sound has been tuned harmonically to produce standing
waves in fluid. In other words the use of sonic technology
has been applied to temporarily and artificially
crystallize a fluid object.' He asked for the sound to be
cut again.

The rat went about its business as though nothing
had happened.

'Hmm.' Hackett eyed the glass of Coke in his hand,
the ball bearing still rolling around at the bottom. He
took a sip apparently without thinking. 'Strange,' he
murmured. Then gagged. 'Ugh!'

'What is it?!' November yelped, grabbing the man
by his shoulder.

Hacker set the glass down quickly and stood. 'This
is Diet,' he complained. 'I can't drink Diet. Got any
regular?'

November slapped him up the back of the head.
Nobody else found it funny either. Gasually removing

....................................... DECIPHER 	255


the C60 and shunting the radio closer to the rat, Hackett
switched the radio back on, and nothing happened.
'Well, that confirms it,' he announced. 'There's nothing
special about the radio, or the station it's tuned to.'
He let a sour smile cross his face. 'The military's gonna
• just love an application for this.' He eyed Scott darkly.
'You realize when we get to Antarctica, we're gonna be
lucky if there's any of Atlantis left.'

'So let me get this straight,' Pearce said fussily. 'We
have a city built out of a substance that reacts to - get
this - gravity waves, light, electricity, and now.., sound

waves.'

'Correct.'

'Shit! That's wild!'

'Well,' November said sharply, Tve had enough. I
want to go back to my hotel room.'

Scott was already nodding in sympathy. Tll come
with you. Let me grab my coat.'

'And there was me, thinking scientific discovery was
exciting,' Hacke commented as he watched them
leave.

'What about the translation?' Pearce called after them
anxiously.

'It can wait!' Scott tossed back over his shoulder.
Hackett dug his hands in his pockets as Pearce sidled
up next to him. 'You reviewed the solar data, right? It
can't wait, can it?'

Hackett simply shook his head. No, it couldn't. He
stepped out into the main lab and watched briefly as
Scott and November disappeared up the metal staircase
toward the exit. And that was when he became aware
of the sound of snaps of electricity and cries of: 'This
stuff sucks!' from across the lab.



256 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

'That's one way of putting it,' Hackettcommented,
realizing something was up. He turned to Pearce.
'What's been going on, Bob?'
He was led over to Hawkes who bitterly snatched the
chunk of Garbon 60 he'd been using out of their laser
cutting assembly.
'It's this crystal,' Hawkes explained, adjusting his goggles.
'Every time we go to slice through this stuff we get
some kind of feedback in the laser beam.' He unlocked
the cover plates on the access drawer and unclipped
the crystal housing. Withdrew it carefully from the
chamber.
'Have you been getting this all the time or has it only
just started to happen?'
The other chemists busily uncoupled power cables,
gearing up for a major reealibration.
'Aw, we've been getting it right from the start,' Hawkes
complained without looking up.
'Why didn't you mention it before?'
'Didn't seem important.'
Matheson stepped up to the fray for a clearer look.
'Out of interest, what kind of feedback have you been
getting? A single long pulse? Or choppy?'
Now Hawkes looked up. 'You mean like bits? Pulses?'
Matheson nodded. 'Pulses.'
'Regular?'
'Uh-uh. No. If it was regular we could compensate
for that. But it's different every time. Why, you seen this
kind of thing before?'
Pearce was confused as Matheson explained: 'Sounds
like intermittent reflection. Each time they try to cut
into the crystal it bounces the laser light back at the
emitter--'
....................................... DECIPHER 	257

'Almost burnt us out, too.'
'Sounds like it doesn't want you cutting into it,' Pearce
observed.
The chemist looked disbelieving. But didn't comment.
'Or
it's trying to tell you something,' Hackett added.
'Pass on information.'
Matheson was keyed up almost immediately. 'You
mean like data storage on a light computer?'
Hackett shrugged.
'On a what?' Pearce interjected. "You're talking theoretical'
But
Matheson's eyes never wavered from the physicist
as he demanded: 'Do they even have a light computer
on this site?'

Thorne was asleep in bed.
Sarah knew he wouldn't be awake anytime soon
because she'd purposely worn him out. Which meant
it was now open season on his computer and paperwork . . .
She found a bottle of water in the refrigerator over
in one corner and sat herself down with it, casting a
quick eye over the documents on the table. And then
she spotted it - the dog-eared magazine jutting out from
one of the folders, buried in one of the stacks.
She pulled it out. It was a copy of a research paper
written by Ellen Paris.
Sarah suddenly remembered the envelope Ellen had
given her. She carefully ripped it open and there it was
again.
Ellen's paper documented the theory of Earth Crust
Displacement by Charles Hapgood, a Professor of Science


258 	STEL PAVLOU 	: ...........................

History, who put forward the notion in the 1950s and
won the support of Albert Einstein. It was the same
theory Sarah had told Houghton about in Siberia.

The premise was simple. A build-up of ice at the
Poles caused a savage destabilization effect, resulting in
the crust of planet Earth being ripped away from its
liquid core and shifted like the skin on custard. It would
explain many geological and paleontological anomalies,
like tropical plant matter being found in the Antarctic.

Hapgood's theory eventually gave birth to the standard
geological theory of plate tectonics and led to the
discovery that certain rock compositions gave a magnetic
reading indicating the time at which they were
created. Since they were formed within the earth's magnetic
field, they reflected where the North and South
Poles were once situated.

The data confirmed the North Pole was once in the
Hudson Bay, then once near the British Isles 2,500 miles
further west, and 60 million years ago was as far south
as LAT. 55°, in the Pacific Ocean. Other geological evidence
showed Africa and India were once under ice
and that Antarctica used to be 2,500 miles further north.

The geological record proved that the magnetic
North and South Poles completely reversed position on
a regular basis. But the mechanism for Pole reversal was
totally unknown. Were the two phenomena, a shifting
crust and Pole reversal, linked? And if so, why was
Thorne interested in this stuff?

Earth Crust Displacement Theory required the entire
crust of the earth to be sat on top of a sea of molten
rock. Some geologists would have dismissed this notion
except that in the mid-1990s John Van Decas led a team
down to South America to the Parana Basalt Province

....................................... DECIPHER 	259


in Brazil where they used a series of monitors, like a
CAT scan, to chart the passage of waves from earthquakes
as they passed through the ground. This was
easier than most people suspected because it was a littleknown
fact that every single day there was an earthquake
somewhere around the globe. And every fourth
day it was at least magnitude 6.4.

What Van Decas discovered was a semi-viscous
plume of molten rock, 190 miles across, extending 370
miles down from South America to the molten mantle.
It explained why South America had moved west 1,800
miles in 130 million years. It meant South America was
directly linked to the currents that affected the earth's
liquid mantle. Over the next ten years similar plumes
were uncovered connecting other continents to the
mantle. So the earth's crust really could be said to be
'floating' on molten rock after all.

Sarah was about to read on when she suddenly caught
a glimpse of her own thesis in Thorne's mountain of
paper. 'What the hell . . 2'

She grabbed it and flicked through it. More red pen
marks and hurriedly scribbled notes: refer to 15,4,.

There was a theory that magnetic storms and interactions
with other bodies in space could have caused
the earth's magnetic field to reverse by affecting the
earth's core. In the mid-1990s, scientists measured the
motion of the much-theorized solid inner iron core and
discovered it rotated faster than the earth did. It was
also surrounded by a larger liquid iron outer core that
when taken together, formed a giant electrical motor.

Recently scientists theorized that to affect this motor
would take more than a magnetic space storm. A gravitational
field would have to divert it. Spin it maybe,


260 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


about its axis, or nudge it off-kilter so the net result was
that it wound up rotating in the opposite direction without
ever. having actually ceased to rotate.

Ellen was confident something was about to affect
the earth's gravity. She had her money pegged on a dark
matter comet passing close to the earth. The effects of
gravity from such a periodic event would affect our
home planet. It was a nice theory. But as Sarah sipped
her water and sifted more documents, bigger pieces of
the puzzle slowly started to fall into place.

Accepting there was a Flood and an earth crust displacement.
Accepting there was a pre-Flood civilization
of great power. Accepting there was devastation on a
massive scale. Then there had to be an acceptance that
mankind would instinctively wish to rebuild its shattered
existence piece by piece.

To do it mankind would need dry land. Safe land. If
the earth had been flooded they would need mountains
and fertile land, Noah sailed for forty days and forty
nights before he found what he was looking for. Who
was to say others didn't do the same?

And was it merely coincidence that at approximately
7,000BC in just three places on earth, agriculture suddenly
sprang up and flourished from out of nowhere?

In China it was around the Takla Makan. In South
America it was around the Amazon. And in Africa it was
the Nile and the Giza plateau. MI three areas were close
to high mountain ranges. And upon the nearby peaks,
even today, was evidence from satellite photography of
the remains of at least two massive ancient ships stuck
7,000 feet up the sides of two different mountains, lodestones
and all. M1 three areas would have escaped the
worst of the flooding. All three would have remained

	....................................... DECIPHER 	261

within a fairly stable climate region despite a shift.
And within a radius of 1,000 miles, all three had pyramids.

At
the pyramid in Egypt, Sarah had been responsible
for the positive discovery of C60. In China, another
team had already done the same. In Antarctica there
was a city made of the stuff. Atlantis... Good God, it
didn't matter how significant that was. None of that mattered.
What mattered to Rola Corp. was the resource.
And the company wanted that resource at all costs.

Sarah knew exactly what she was looking for now.
On a roll, she dug out every geological report she could
find. Cross-matched references to mineral deposits and
Carbon 60 and hit paydirt.

Exactly one month ago, Rola Corp. had discovered
Carbon 60 at a place called Wupu in the Takla Makan
desert. A furious row broke out with Chinese officials,
but not before certain information came to light at the
site which led directly to a chain of unstoppable events.

On March l, 2012, against the advice and clear warning
of Chief Design Engineer Ralph Matheson, Rip
Thorne inexplicably brought a test drilling operation in
Antarctica forward by more than six months as the
Chinese set out for the same area. Suddenly NASA was
on the hunt for minerals too, and the pace at the company
shipyard was quickened. But the drill ship wasn't
ready, it couldn't be. But then Rip Thorne wasn't looking
for oil.

On March 8, 2012, Carbon 60 was found in Antarctica,
based, it seemed at first, on historical information gleaned
from Wupu. And the hunt for more C60 was launched.
In a hurried dash, an internal search team was used to
pinpoint the location of more easily accessible C60.



262 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

In Egypt, Cairo was targeted. While in South
America, in the Amazon basin, a site near the Pini Pini
River was chosen. Guarded by the Machiguenga
Indians who considered themselves guardians of the
'sacred places', satellite images clearly showed a series
of eight vast pyramids which had lain undisturbed for
millennia, covered in vegetation and masked by the
jungle of the rainforest.
Ellen was right. A team had been dispatched to South
America.
But what had sparked the hunt for C60 in the first
place? What had caused Rola Corp. to seek Carbon 60
and wind up researching earth crust displacement7
The answer was Ellen Paris. The discovery of C60 in
China, the same incident that was precipitating a confrontation,
was due in part to the article written by her.
It would happen again, Ellen said. The Flood would
happen again. Sarah read through Ellen's theory
intently and quickly found what she was looking for what
some faceless scientist had ringed as important.
No matter what the external mechanism was, that triggered
the earth's crust to shift, the build-up to the event
could be timed. By monitoring the resulting buildup
in earthquake activity, a date for the impending disaster
could be predicted, and Ellen had predicted such
an event.
Earthquakes were the prelude to the Flood, and the
build-up began in Peru. In 1996.
Within seconds she was wading her way through page
after page of statistics.
....................................... DECIPHER 	263

KEY:
DEP = Depth in
kilometers MAG = Magnitude
M1 = Local, the
original
Richter
magnitude
Lg =
	mblg

Md =
	duration

Mb =
	body
	wave
MS : surface
wave Mw = moment Q = Praclsion of
, location,
fine (A) to
course (D)

DATE-{UTC)-TIME LAT LON DEP MAG O COMMENTS

yy/mm/dd hh:mm:ss deg. deg. km 96/11/12 11:34:47 25.31S 64.47W 33.0 4.6Mb B SALTA PROVINCE, ARGENTINA
96/11/12 16:59:43 14.90S 75.49W 33,0 7.3Ms A NEAR COAST OF PERU


96/11/12 13:17:31
96/11/12 20:07:46
96/11/12 21:43:57
96/11/12 23:35:14
96/11/13 00:28:13
96/11/13 02:41:39
96/11/13 02:47:33
96/11/13 12:32:09
96/11/13 12:36:59
96/11/13 16:05:59

13.15S 75.00w 33.0 5.1Mb B NEAR COAST OF PERU

	14,968
	75.38W
	33.0
	5.1Mb
	C
	NEAR
	COAST
	OF
	PERU

15.31S 75.39W 33.0 5.2Mb C NEAR COAST OF PERU
14.85S 75.36W 33.0 5.5Mb A NEAR COAST OF PERU
15.01S 75.48W 33.0 3.2Mb A NEAR COAST OF PERU
14.70S 75.40W 33.0 5.7Ms A NEAR COAST OF PERU
15.33S 75.59W 33.0 5,1Mb A NEAR COAST OF PERU
15.38S 75.18W 33.0 5.7Ms S NEAR COAST OF PERU
33,47N 116,45W 5.0 3.7MI A SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
15.46S 75.45W 33.0 4.3Mb C NEAR COAST OF PERU


They were US Geological Survey figures Ellen had
used. Critical to her thesis yet somewhat obscure. The
puzzle for Sarah was, how could earthquake events from
1996 have any connection to events in 20127 Just looking
at the pattern showed that Peru had suffered a lot
of activity for two days straight. But how did that help
set a date for an imminent flood?
It was what Ellen called the 'Tesla Effect'. A surprising
name for a geological effect since the late, great
Nikola Tesla had been no geologist. He was the founding
father of radio and alternating current.
It all had to do with frequency, vibration, and oscillation,
in a combined phenomenon called resonance. One day while working at his laboratory in New York,
Tesla attached a small oscillating machine to the steel
structure of the building he was using, and turned it on
just to see what would happen. The result was a mini
earthquake in the downtown Manhattan area that
prompted the local police to mobilize en masse and
put a stop to the crank. Further experiments led him



264 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

to believe that it would be possible to level Brooklyn
Bridge by such a method. Or, more ominously, rip the
entire planet in two by using tons of dynamite.
This was all very well but where did it fit into earthquake
frequency patterns?
The answer was resonance. Every object, animate or
inanimate, atom or animal, had its own specific resonance
- a frequency at which it vibrated. By influencing
that resonance by means of sound waves, the
resonance could be sped up until the object literally
shook itself apart. Or worse, shattered. It was the same
principle behind an opera singer breaking a glass just
by hitting the right sustained note.
Ellen explained it by using the analogy of a child on
a swing. Every time Morn chose to push the swing, it
was only once the swing had peaked and was just starting
its return journey away from her that she put in any
effort. And she did this because it took very little effort
to keep the swing moving that way.
However, if Mom used the same force she used to
get Baby swinging in the first place, any fool knew
instinctively that in time, the swing would wind up flipping
over the top bar.
It was the same principle with resonance.
Tesla had discovered that it took one hour and forty
nine minutes for a low-frequency wave to pass through
the earth and come back again. His theory was that if
he detonated a ton of dynamite every hour and forty
nine minutes, over and over, he would set into effect
a state of vibration that would cause the earth's crust
to rise and fall by hundreds of feet. Seas would be
shifted. Civilization would be destroyed. And Tesla's
time-scale for such an event? A matter of years.
....................................... DECIPHER 	265
	Sarah went cold.
Ellen had set the start point in 1996. And the euhnination
was due any month now.
The flaw in all this was that Ellen, try as she might,
just couldn't pinpoint the external cause. She was no
astrophysicist. She rambled on about a comet made of
dark matter but she didn't really know what she was talking
about. But what she did know out-stripped statistical
probability by two to one. She had charted the buildup
and stress on the earth's own resonance over time. And
the most outwardly public and perceptible result of this
build-up was the increased earthquake activity, which
had risen precisely in line with her predictions.
Sarah couldn't believe what she was reading. And
couldn't believe she had part of the puzzle. Could gravity
waves from the sun have begun pulsing over fifteen
years go?
Even now, millions of low-frequency waves were
bouncing around inside the earth's core, ricocheting
and growing. A fact Rola Corp. had dismissed as nonsense
to Ellen's face, as a copy of their letter to her
showed. But it was something in private Rola Corp. had
decided to follow up. For there was a pattern in the low
frequency waves that Ellen had not picked up on, and
which Rola Corp.'s best minds had. The pattern was a
focal issue. The low-frequency waves oscillating within
the earth's core were focusing in on five distinct areas
around the globe. Bouncing around, seemingly at
random, yet dissipating at five sites. At first no one knew
why, but itwas clear it was not by chance.
The five sites were Antarctica, the Arctic, Pini Pini
in Peru; Cairo in Egypt, and Wupu in China. The only
immediate site accessible for investigation had been


266 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

Wupu, and it was there that C60 was first discovered.
A crystal that, all preliminary reports from Geneva suggested,
responded directly to gravity waves.

Sarah threw herself back in the chair. Chewed the
end of her pen and thought long and hard about the
implications. There were five sites around the planet
that contained C60 and responded to gravity waves, that
were the focus points to low-frequency seismic waves.
What the hell had Rola Corp. stumbled across here?
And why had they told no one about it?

Sarah eyed the computer screen ponderously, and that
was when she saw it. Tucked innocently away in one
corner of the desktop screen on Thorne's laptop computer
was a vid-phone shortcut icon simply called: Peru.

She eyed it nervously. A direct line to the South
American team.

She snuck a glance back toward the bedroom. Then
decided to go for it.

She tapped her finger on the screen, activating the
link, slapped a post-it note over the camera in the side
of the unit. Sat back. Waited.

And watched.

=


FINDING CONNECTION • • •

HOST CARRIER CONFIRMED.

RINGING.

WAITING FOR PICK-UP • • •


It was raining.

'Hello?'

The guy in the beat-up brown Panama, wearing a
khaki shirt and leather jerkin covered in pockets and
bulging with tools and equipment had a rasping voice.
He had a feather and a colored woolen twirl around

....................................... DECIPHER 	267


the hat as kind of a head-band, and he hadn't shaved
in a week. He was also soaking wet.

The video feed flashed as lightning lit up the sky
behind him. Rain poured offthe brim. But it was barely
distinguishable from the heavy downpour that was gushing
past the lens.

Behind him, Sarah could see other members of the
team in waterproof nylon ponchos, guns slung over their
shoulders. She could see heavy lifting equipment in the
forest. Ripped parachutes and cargo webbing stretched
over much of it. Poking up into the sky, beyond the
leafy canopy and shrouded at the top in rainy mist, were
several giant pyramids, covered in plants and vines three
or four feet deep. Huge white scars exposed the true
surfaces in places where the run-off had washed away
looser vegetation.

And she could see too where the Machiguenga
Indians had rushed out to meet them. Their reddened
bodies were exposed to the elements in ceremonial garb.
They had used bows and arrows to defend themselves
before being slaughtered. Their torn, bullet-riddled
bodies lay discarded on the forest floor.

A knot twisted in the pit of Sarah's stomach.
Instinctively she gasped.

The man on the other end of the line was getting
impatient now. 'Hello? Rip, is that you?'

He tapped the side of his vid-phone, knocking the
picture quality down a notch. A moment later and
another face appeared on the screen. She recognized
this one as Jack Bulger, one of the company men who'd
come to see her in Siberia two days ago.

He took a look at the connection and fiddled with
unseen controls.


CERN:


268 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


Only now did Sarah fully comprehend the sheer scale
of the dollar signs Rip Thorne was seeing. He wanted
to monopolize Carbon 60 to control its distribution, and
its price. He was exploring every avenue. And if it meant
sending armed squads to the Amazon Basin where there
was virtually no government to stop them, then so be
it. If it meant ignoring and refusing to pass on information
to the government that his own people were
giving him, that an earthquake frequency pattern was
seriously threatening the survival of the planet, and that
this frequency pattern was focusing on those five C60
sites, then so be it too. It was possession of the C60 that
was important. That was the goal, not solving a riddle
that spanned the planet.

'Rip?! Jesus Ghrist!' Bulger was turning away.

The other man was whistling sharply, pointing to the
bodies. 'Gover them things up['

Sarah cut the connection quickly. But whoever the
other man was on the end of the line, he'd been louder
than she anticipated. A groggy Rip Thorne stood naked
in the bedroom doorway. He frowned when he saw
where Sarah was sitting. She in return kept her nerve.
Galmly raised the bottled water to her lips and smiled
sweetly. 'Hey,' she said.

'I thought I heard someone calling me,' he muttered,
rubbing the back of his neck.

'Yeah, you did. It was me,' she said casually. 'I just
wanted to use your vid-phone to call the site. We found
a stone plug today, y'know.'

Thorne wasn't happy. 'You got me outta bed for that?'

'No,' Sarah chided. 'You got you outta bed. A grunt
would have done.'

Thorne grunted and crawled back under the covers.

....................................... DECIPHER 	269


She watched after him a while and couldn't quite
believe she was looking at the same man. What was he
capable of? She glowered, only to jump out of her skin
as the telephone rang. She eyed the device nervously
for a moment, briefly convinced the Amazon team had
tracked her down, before snatching the receiver up in

time to stop Thorne stirring again.
Nervously she said: 'Hello?'
'Sarah? You're awake.'

Sarah breathed a sigh of relief. 'Eric, it's you.
Whatcha got?'

'You better get your ass down here,' he said. 'We got
the plug out.'


Sarah didn't forget the manila envelope, or her phone
as she dressed and packed. She put the stacks back just
the way she had found them, but left the laptop out. It
was then that she knocked a file onto the floor and saw
a list of telephone numbers spewed out with the pages.
It was a contact sheet for the team in Switzerland - the
team which boasted a GIA operative as a member.


DR JON J. HACKETT -- 555 3212

DR RICHARD SCOFF -- 555 4108

RALPH K. MATHESON -- 555 8795

ROBERT PEARCE -- [NUMBER WITHHELD] Contact: R. Adm.

T. DOWER via the CIA.


She stuffed the list into her purse and put the rest of
the file back where she found it. And on her way out
she didn't forget to kiss Thorne the way she used to.

She just didn't do it.



ELIGO

EUROPEAN LASER INTERFEROMETER
GRAVITATIONAL WAVE OBSERVATORY

10:06 PM

I The sun as a pulsar? Are you nuts?!'
1 Corner Station, the ELIGO nerve center where
all the lasers, beam-splitters and some of the mirrors for
all six interferometers were housed, was frantic with scientists
from a myriad of departments all squabbling over
reams of information. Desperate, shocked, many were
glued to monitors, intent on gathering more data. All
wore their IDs on cords around their necks so it was
easy to pick out names.
'That's about the size of it,' Hackett replied.
There was direct feed coming in from the Ames
Research Center. MIT was on one line while Kitt Peak
Observatoa-y was on another. The National Optical
Astronomy Observatories at Tucson, Arizona, were keeping
a channel open, as were the scientists at Canada's
Dominion Astrophysical Observatory. The science community
was getting the jitters. Word was spreading fast,
and the word was not good. Gravity waves were supposed
....................................... DECIPHER 	271

to be produced by objects such as two black holes colliding,
the sheer scale of their mass causing the surrounding
space to curve, knot and twist.
Gravity waves were supposed to be a distant phenomenon,
not something that happened in your own
backyard, being produced by something that theory dictated
simply wasn't big enough. The sun simply should
not be doing this.
The guy with the thinning hair and thick bifocals
was Nick Austin, senior team leader in charge of ELIGO. 'This data means the sun started pulsing out gravity
waves nearly twenty years ago. We'd have picked that
up, Jon. Have you even checked these figures?'
'I'm aware of the figures,' Hackett confirmed, 'but
we're talking about such low-level gravitational shifts
you'd need a detector the size of a planet to pick up
those kinds of fluctuations. How many of these waves
have you registered so far?' he asked Austin.
Austin folded his arms defensively. 'Four waves so far.
The last three in the past two days.'
'And what was different about the latest wave?'
'It lasted the longest. And we picked up data suggesting
there might be internal variations to the wave.
Possibly connected to what we can only loosely call its
field strength.'
'Is the wave structure like radio waves? Or more like
the field strength of magnetism?'
'Maybe a combination. Look, ]on. No one's ever
measured this stuff before. We're' all operating on conjecture.
At the vaguest level.'
'Excuse me. Excuse reef But I've lost my satellite and my comet! Do any of you people have the faintest idea
how badly the gravity warehas warped my section of


272 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


space?' A blonde woman with sharp features was bellowing.
She had star charts in her hands and was circling
a section of space with a red pen.

'I dunno! We're still trying to figure out Hackett's
data!'

'Contact with over thirty satellites has been lost, Dr
Weisner,' one of the scientists spat angrily. 'Nothing
makes yours any more special than the rest.'

Pearce scratched the side of his lip as he lowered his
voice. Leaned into Matheson as the two men waited:
'Would this many geeks constitute a party?' Matheson
didn't answer as he kicked out his foot disconsolately.
'I bet I still end up in the kitchen.'

'HackeR's an asshole!' the woman was screaming.
'It's good to See you too, Michela,' Hacker commented
loudly. 'Ah, this is who I was looking for.
Hopefully she'll get us to that light computer,' he
explained quietly. 'She's my ex-girlfriend.'

'Figures,' Matheson concluded meekly. 'She obviously
hates your guts.'

'Honey?' Hacker accosted her meekly. 'I need a
favor . . .'


Hacker noticed Weisner's finger. It was still very much
bare. No ring of any kind. 'Funny, isn't it?' he mused.
'So much in life just comes down to a few lumps of
rock.'

'What are you talking about?' she snapped irritably.
How could she forget when they broke up? And he
stole the ring back just to flush it down the john. They
made up a week later. But she expected to see the thing
back on her finger at some point. And he had no one
to help him sift through the shit in the sewage pipe.

....................................... DECIPHER 	273


He found the ring too, in the end. But the stone was
missing. And fifty bucks just wasn't going to replace an
antique emerald.

'Look - I've lost Rosetta, my satellite,' she explained,
trying to remain calm. 'I don't have time for any shit,
Jon. You help me with that, and I'll think about helping
you.'

Rosetta was a European Space Agency probe
designed to orbit the comet P/Wirtanen and deploy two
5kg probes, RoLand and Champollion, which would
land on the periodic comet and drill into its ice core
in search of amino acids, the building blocks of life.
Launched in 2003, aboard Ariane 5 from Kourou,
French Guyana, it took nine years to get into position.
But during its last elliptic orbit, at an altitude of 500,000
km and at a velocity of 100 meters per second, at precisely
9:18 PM, contact with the probe was lost.

Matheson peered at more data screens, utterly drawing
a blank. 'And this works.., how?' he asked a technician.

'There
are six intefferometers, or gravity-wave detectors,'
the technician explained impatiently, 'that run down
two, four-kilometer-long, vacuum-sealed channels. What
we do is beam laser light down these channels, then split
the light through beam splitters. Bounce the light
around using mirrors, then re-combine the light and
analyze it.'

'And this achieves what, exactly?' Matheson asked,
still none the wiser.

'A gravitational wave alters the light's intensity.'
'That's it?'
'That's it.'

'There's no way on earth you can measure the



274 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................
velocity, the speed and direction of a wave with that
kind of setup.'
'We know,' the technician conceded darkly. 'But tell
that to Hackett.'
Hackett was engrossed in a simulated chart of the
solar system with Weisner and Austin at a workstation
over in one dimly lit corner. Pearce approached them
quietly.
'Whether you like it or not,' Hacker was saying, 'these
waves have to be linked to magnetism. Or at least the
magnetic activity on the sun. Nick, this set-up's been
operational how long? Eight years? And until this week
you hadn't even had a sniff of a gravity wave. Not one.
And now, this week - four. Is it coincidence that this
week is the same week when the sun reaches the high
point in its sunspot cycle?'
Weisner raked her fingers roughly through her long
dark hair. 'Ion, you think the sun's going to give you
the Grand Unified Theory?' she scoffed.
'The what?' Pearce blurted. He hadn't intended to
say anything, and it was obvious Hacker wished he
hadn't.
'The Grand Unified Theory, or the Theory of
Everything,' Austin said, happy to explain. 'The theory
that links gravity, electro-magnetism, and the strong and
weak nuclear forces into one simple equation. It's the
Holy Grail of physics.'
'And I'm suggesting no such thing,' Hackett said
firmly. 'I'm only suggesting where you should look for
your satellite.'
He turned their attention back to the screen by tapping
his pen on the sun. 'Sunspots are polarized linked
pairs on the surface, like a bar magnet. Y'know, north
....................................... DECIPHER 	275

and south? The lead spot matches the polarization of
the area of the sun it appears in. So if that area is positive
the spot will be positive. The trailing sunspot in
the pair will then automatically be negative. As the
sunspot cycle'continues, the sunspots start to gather
around the equator, which in turn rotates slower than
the rest of the sun. With me so far?'
'Yes.'
'Good. Now this is important. The magnetic links
between the spots interact with other magnetic phenomena
under normal circumstances. And the result is
an explosion of ejecta off the surface--'
'A solar flare.'
'Right. The best way to think of sunspot magnetism
is like little invisible loops, like snags in a sweater, sewn
in and out of the surface of the sun. But the curious
thing is, in the last week solar-flare activity has actually
fallen, while sunspots have increased tenfold.'
'So . . . that leads you to what?'
Hackett rubbed his face and sniffed. 'I was thinking
about the original search parameters for ELIGO. Austin,
you theorized that a binary neutron star system would
be the best candidate for producing gravity waves. As
the two stars collided they would become a massive
rotating barbell, flipping end over end, at speeds
approaching something like the speed of light. Now
keep the idea of that barbell shape in mind. But transfer
it to the sun.'
'That's a big stretch.'
Hackett dismissed him with a shake of the head.
'Think about it,' he said. 'You get enough sunspots
together and they're gonna wind up linking end to end.
Negative to positive. They're gonna form a chain, like


276 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


a daisy chain of independent magnetic units, and this
chain is gonna stretch all the way around the equator
of the sun like a belt. And all it takes is to be a few
sunspots short, and this belt is gonna tighten, pulling
the equator in. Squeezing the sun's interfial volume out
to its northern and southern hemispheres. It would look
• . . like a barbell. Its natural instinct is going to be to
return to the center. And that action, at its quickest and
most temporary level, would be a good candidate for
causing gravity waves.'

Hackett slipped a computer disk into the workstation.
Punched up his data. 'Okay, now when you figure in
the gravitational effects of the planets, their moons,
comets and other known stellar bodies like asteroids,
you get - well, take a look.'

A simulation of a wave blasting out from the sun
played out brightly across the screen. Interaction with
planets broke the wave up in places, causing sections
of it to collapse in on itself. But eventually a small green
cross-hair zeroed in on one section.

Weisner leaned forward. 'That's where you think I'll
find Rosetta.'

'Two hundred and fifty thousand kilometers off
course,' Hacker confirmed. 'And because it wasn't programmed
to expect the fabric of space to suddenly warp,
it's looking to re-establish contact with the earth in
entirely the wrong part of the sky. We shifted along with
it. Everything in the solar system shifted. But from
Rosetta's point of view, it's like its whole universe is suddenly
a fraction of an inch out of whack. But it hasn't
been programmed to recognize that.'

He tapped the screen again. 'That's where your satellite
is. Right there.'

....................................... DECIPHER 	277


Austin and Weisner eyed each other silently for a
moment. She had her hand over her mouth as she
considered the implications. 'It's worth a shot,' Austin
conceded. 'What would it take? A few minutes of communications
time to reposition the dishes and take a
look. Doesn't sound so bad to me.'

'Sounds bad enough to me,' Weisner sighed. Austin
didn't understand. 'Because that would make Jon right.
And then I'd have to thank him.'

'You don't have to thank me,' Hacker interjected
quickly. 'Just do me that favor.'

She leveled her gaze at him in that way that could
only say: What is it that you want from me?

'You still dating that guy who's doing all that topsecret
light computer work for the Japanese? Working
on those crystals that can store about a terabyte of data
on a unit the size of a stock cube?'

'You know I am. You hate him, so why the sudden
interest?'

Hacker smiled and pulled out the chunk of C60 like
a rabbit out of a hat. Austin looked awestruck while Pearce
shifted on his feet, cringing. That wasn't the best idea,
in his opinion. Trouble was, Hacker didn't want his
opinion. 'Do you think nature can accidentally encode
computer-useful information at a molecular level?'

'You want him to scan that rock and see what he gets
out of it?'

'Please. It's probably just garbage. I mean, statistically
it's gotta be garbage - right?'

'Establish contact with my satellite first.'

It took Hacker ten minutes.



THE WELL SHAFT

S

arah stepped out of the glittering company Land
Cruiser to find the blue marquee humming with
the buzz of generators and halogen lamps, glowing
brightly among the ill-lit monuments. Her ID checked,
she made her way through the checkpoints and arrived
at the well shaft.
A couple of night-workers were climbing out of the
shaft and taking their harnesses off. There was a cool
light emanating from the well, flickering as the lights
below were obscured by the final Rola Corp. employee
making his way to the surface.
Sarah slipped into a coverall two sizes too big, and
found she had to roll up the sleeves. She checked the
charge on a walkie talkie and hung that on her belt
alongside a flashlight, notepad and pencil.
Someone was updating a map on a makeshift table,
and Sarah noted the information before taking a final
look down the shaft to check the ladder was clear.
....................................... DECIPHER 	279

She climbed down.
There was a communications pod at the base of the
ladder, with a wire funning up to the surface. Thick
black cables led out from the device and along the
tunnel walls which was highly useful - they allowed
her to use her cell phone deep underground.
She followed the trail of lights and wires until she
came to where the plug had been inserted into a narrower
section of the tunnel. Chains were still buried
into one end. Some high-pressure hammer had been
used to knock grips into the rock, and the makeshift
pulley system was still piled to one side awaiting a packing
trunk for its return to the storehouse. There were
hooks in the ceiling as well, which meant the chains
had originally been attached to a high-powered winch
on the surface. But that was long gone.
Luckily when they removed the plug it had stayed
in one piece, and it now lay along the side of the tunnel
where it would no doubt remain. A note in red paint
had been daubed onto its surface: 7.5 feet long.
Approximate weight: 30 metric tons.
The tunnel ahead was a crawl space into what
appeared to be some kind of anteroom.
Sarah peered inside first. Called out: 'Hello?' and
waited for a response as her voice echoed off the cold
sandstone walls. But no reply was forthcoming.
She dropped to her knees and crawled through.
The room itself was circular and very plain. There
were two exits up ahead, one on either side. Each exit
led to a staircase that spiraled downwards. And each
exit was also guarded by a statue.
Both statues were in human form. The one on the
left was overtly male, while the other was definitely


280 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


female. But both also had animal heads in the classical
Egyptian tradition. The one on the right, the woman,
had the head of a lioness and was difficult to identify,
while the male had the long curved beak of the ibis
bird and was instantly recognizable. It was Thoth, the
Egyptian god of wisdom.

As far as the other one went, there were a number
of Egyptian gods and goddesses who bore the face of a
lion. Sarah would have to seek advice on who this one
was supposed to be. She unclipped her radio and flipped
the channel open. 'Eric?' she said. 'Eric, where are you?'

'Sarah!' came the faint excited response. Tm down
in the tunnels! Where are you?'

'I just reached the ante-room,' she explained, looking
at the statues. Tm with Thoth.'

'Oh, you're back at the beginning,' he chuckled.
Glemmens had to be overtired. The man sounded way
too happy. 'Hey, did you bring waders?'

Sarah didn't understand. 'Are you sure I need them?'

'We're below the water table down here,' he explained.
'Trust me. You'll need them.'

'Uh, which staircase do I take to get to you?'

'Doesn't matter,' Clemmens confirmed. 'They both
end up in the same place.'

When Clemmens signed off, Sarah radioed to the
surface for them to send down a pair of waders. A few
seconds later she heard them clatter to the ground as
they were unceremoniously lobbed down the well shaft
unannounced. After pulling on the thigh-high boots she
carefully made her way down the stone steps that wound
round in a spiral, descending over forty feet. The lights
ended at twenty, so for the rest of her journey she had
to depend on her flashlight.

....................................... DECIPHER 	281


It was dizzying. Disorienting. Especially since she
still had a significant amount of champagne in her
system. And it was due to a combination of those factors
that she tripped over her own feet and dropped her
flashlight on the final few steps.

She watched it tumble end over end, bouncing off
each step in sequence until it disappeared around the
bend and she heard it land with a splash.

'Shit!' she spat. Furious with herself. 'Stupid! Really
stupid!'

She hugged the wall and cursed some more. She
daren't go for the radio in case she dropped that too.
Instead she followed the line of the wall and felt her
way with her toe, hoping that the flashlight would still
be switched on when she got to the bottom. She found
the last two steps were completely submerged in water.
She thanked Eric silently. Waders were a good idea.

The steps ended at a doorway that led out to a cavernous
room beyond. And under the rippling water
ahead Sarah could see her flashlight, its beam cutting
into the darkness.

'Thank God,' she muttered, getting deeper into the
water and trying not to slip on her ass. 'Goddamnit...'
The ground beneath her feet was uneven. And though
she could sense there was a pattern to it, she couldn't
quite figure out what it was. All she knew was that the
ground would alternate between higher and lower sections.

When
she got to where her flashlight lay, she rolled
up her sleeve to retrieve it.

And that's when she heard it. A sound that could
only be described as a breath being taken, but on a massive
scale. It was followed by silence, and then an eerie


282 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


scratching, scuttling noise, like a mass of whisper-like
clicking. A thousand gem picks tapping on rocks. Or
fingernails down a chalkboard.

Hand clenched around the flashlight, Sarah stood
bolt upright. 'What the hell . . 2' She whirled around.
Sweeping the flashlight over the walls. And couldn't
believe her eyes.

She wasn't in a room. She was in a tunnel. But a
tunnel like none she had ever seen before. Perfectly circular
along its length, it seemed to stretch into infinity
in one direction, and arc around a bend in the other.
The size of a truck in width, and the same again high,
the most distinctive feature of the tunnel was the fact
that it was made up of two continuous spirals, like the
rifling in the barrel of a gun.

'Good God,' she whispered. 'I've never seen anything
like this.' One spiral was sandstone, pure and simple.
It constituted the raised portions and was covered in
Egyptian hieroglyphics.

The other spiral was indented. And entirely different.
Sarah edged closer to the wall and ran her fingers
over the material. It was prickly, like static. And blue.
Covered entirely in a language she had never seen
before. It was: Carbon 60. Suddenly the scurrying
around got louder. Ominous. Then something small
and glassy shot across her hand.

Sarah gasped and pulled away quickly. She shuddered.
'What was that?' she asked herself. 'What the
luck was that?!'

She ran the torch across the C60 and was amazed to
see the light pulse through veins within the crystal and
spiral away from her, as if the light had been trapped.
And then came the next breath, loud and harsh. Not

....................................... DECIPHER 	283


quite like some ancient mummy waking up, but weird
nonetheless. She swept the torch beam across the crystal
once more. And that was when she found the nest.


She wanted to gag. Every instinct in her body wanted
to force her stomach to give up its contents in one gutwrenching
convulsion. But she fought it, clamping a
hand over her mouth.

Glassy and transparent, thousands of tiny spiders scuttled
and crawled all over each other in a mass of seething
alien life. Some shot off when they were caught in the
light. Others merely sat there, glistening and twitching.
Throbbing back and forth on their tube-like spindly legs
as they sensed their new visitor.

How on earth had they survived down here?
Kynosynthesis was the surest answer. Like the shrimp,
plankton and bacteria that fed directly off mineral
deposits in the hydro-thermal vents found all along the
mid-Atlantic Ridge, at pressures four hundred times that
of the surface, these creatures did not require sunlight
at all.

Sarah relaxed a little, awestruck. She couldn't help
but smile. What a discovery! She put out her hand and
gently stroked one of the glassy spiders on the edge of
the nest.

'Hey, there. Hello there, little fella, hey.' And
although it went against every instinct in her body, she
brushed her finger down one of its legs. Moved the
flashlight a fraction to the left. And screamed.

A translucent spider the size of a dinner plate had
crept up, intent on inspecting the situation. It tapped
one of its forward legs insistently on the cold, hard
crystal surface. Then flexed its tensile appendages.



284 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

These things had to be blind, but Sarah was convinced
it was looking at her.
Sarah backed off, nice and slow, skimming the light
across the water in case there were more creatures there.
She heard a splash, turned back to view the nest and
froze in pure terror as the spider flew at her.
She felt the gust of wind accompanying the swift
action and almost fainted as the larger crystal-like arachnid
landed on her left shoulder, using it as a springboard
to get to the other side of the tunnel.
It landed with a crunch, and casually scuttled away
up the passage.
Sarah shuddered and gulped back a breath.
She gingerly unclipped her radio, peered into the
inky blackness of the depths of the tunnel and thumbed
the channel. 'Eric,' she said shakily. 'Eric, come in!'
A cool, damp gust of air suddenly whipped up past
her and rushed onwards round the bend behind her.
Sarah brushed hair out of her face.
Then she saw it. A faint glow, like a pin-prick of light
in the distance. But getting bigger. Rapidly so. 'What
the hell is that?' she murmured. 'Eric, is that you? Eric,
there are creatures down here!'
She could hear a whistling noise now, like an
approaching train in a city metro system. A rush. And
an indescribable feeling of utter inevitability.
'Eric!' she shrieked. 'What the bell's going on?'
And then it hit.

The roar was ferocious, and the light so intense, Sarah
could almost see the bones of her hand through her
skin. The crackle of energy was unlike anything she had
ever experienced. Instinctively she jumped back from
....................................... DECIPHER 	285

the wall as the approaching light entirely engulfed her
section of the tunnel. Every hair on her body stood on
end as pure energy coursed its way through the spiraling
Carbon 60 at the speed of light. The whirling maelstrom
of electricity flowed from floor to ceiling and back
round again. On and on, following the endless spiral.
Sarah's eyes bulged as it suddenly dawned on her:
she was standing in a puddle of water! But by the time
she could even contemplate what to do, the energy had
already dipped under the water and streaked through
the snaking C60 beneath her feet. Sarah couldn't
breathe as it felt like every single atom in the tunnel
had come to life. Charged.
She shielded her eyes, and it was then that she
became aware of a voice hollering through the radio.
'SarahF It was Eric. 'Sarah, can you hear me?'
She hammered on the transceiver. 'Eric!' she barked.
'What is this?'
'It's beautiful, isn't it?'
'What - is - this?' she demanded.
There was laughter from the other end of the connection.
Followed by abject honesty. 'I have absolutely
- no - fucking - idea! But I love it!'
And then as fast as it had arrived, it was gone. Like
someone had thrown some giant switch, the energy
pulse ricocheted off around the corner and left Sarah
standing alone in the dark, panting to get her breath
back.
In the silence of the moment she tried to take in
what had just happened, but it was impossible. She went
to thumb the radio again, but forgetting which hand it
was in, she ended up bringing the flashlight to her face.
It blinded her and she dropped the thing again.



286 	STEL PAVLOU .. ...................................

'Goddamnit[' she spat, fishing around to get it back for
a second time. 'Sarah Kelsey, get a grip.' She thumbed
the radio this time. 'Eric,' she said. 'Which way to get
to you guys?'
'Follow the bend,' he instructed. 'Just follow it around
and keep going. Simple,' he said.
After a few minutes of trudging through the water,
swinging the flashlight to try and find some kind of exit,
she rounded the bend up ahead. It was much farther
off than it appeared. And in front she could see that it
narrowed upwards into a funnel with the C60 forming
a strip in the floor. This smaller tunnel led to a room
just a little way on.
She was careful not to slip back down as she climbed
the incline. Steadying herself at the top she couldn't
help but proceed by planting a foot either side of the
C60 strip in the floor. Despite the lucky escape she'd just had, she wasn't taking any chances. She didn't want
to be electrocuted. Up ahead she could see lights and
movement. And at the edge of the tunnel, where it connected
to this new room, she noted that the sandstone
changed abruptly to a much darker color. The color of
granite.
'Good morning, gentlemen,' Sarah announced as she
entered. She jerked a thumb back at the tmmel.
Breathless, she said: 'That was incredible! What did I
just experience?'
Eric shone his flashlight over at her. 'God knows literally.
I mean, it's been going on for thousands of
years right beneath our feet. We've been down here an
hour and it's happened like, what three?' He looked to
Douglas. 'Three? Four times?'
Douglas shrugged. 'Four times.'
....................................... DECIPHER 	287

'It's incredible. How far back does that tunnel go?'
'What we measured - and this is a conservative estimate
- comes to over eleven, maybe eleven and a half
miles before it dips down, deeper into the ground, and
out of our radar range. And it's in a straight line, heading
exactly due east.'
'Eleven and a half miles?'
'At least. And on the other side of the ring there are
two more.'
The room was heptagonal. It was thirty feet high and
definitely manmade. It had an exit on every other FACING
wall, which from Sarah's perspective, meant one way
in, and three new ways out. She eyed the ceiling. Eyed
Clemmens. 'We're somewhere under the Sphinx,' she
said.
'Atta girl,' she heard Douglas comment from somewhere
else in the darkness.
'What have you found in here, Douglas?' Sarah
demanded. To which a couple of obliging flashlights
redirected themselves to show her.
Directly in the center of the room was a huge, square
based pyramid, made entirely from a single crystal of
Carbon 60. At least 10 feet high, and perhaps 15 feet
across the base length, the monolith must have weighed
close to 200 tons.
Suspended by a stone armature, it touched neither
the C60 strip in the floor beneath Sarah, nor the strips
that extended from the ceilings of the other three tunnels.
'What
is that?'
'That,' Douglas explained proudly, 'is about a hundred
million dollars in revenue.'
'Look,' Clemmens added, beckoning her deeper into



288 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

the room, 'in these alcoves. These look like tools.'
Sure enough there were recesses all over the walls.
Each recess contained an object, every one very different
from the next. The workmanship was intricate but
also very plain. They looked decidedly unEgyptian.
'What are these?' Sarah quizzed.
'Beats me.'
'So what's the plan?'
Douglas slapped a paim on the Carbon 60 pyramid.
'We get this thing, all several tons of the sonofabitch,
out of here.'
'How?' Sarah asked in all seriousness. 'Take a look.
You'll never get it out the door. And besides, we've got
nothing in Egypt that can lift this kind of weight.'
Douglas patted the set of pneumatic drills propped
up next to him. Big, sturdy and greasy. 'What d'you
think we brought these for?' he twinkled.
LIGHT COMPUTER SCIENCE DIVISION

CERN, GENEVA

T

hey tracked down the guy named Harvey, in the
light computer center. Michela Weisner seemed to
like driven men who didn't require any sleep. Each
made their own terse introductions, light on pleasantries,
heavy on formality. Harvey fumbled with his
electronic pass before sliding it through the reader and
unlocking the heavy vault-like black door.
'Now this isn't show and tell,' he announced sharply.
'You want access to this room, you keep your mouth
shut, okay? I'm just doing this because Mickey asked
me to. Now what is it you want me to put into my scanner?'
Hacker
pulled out the C60, and within seconds
Harvey was escorting them inside. Following on behind
Weisner's confident stride, Pearce tugged sharply at
HackeR's elbow. 'You sure you should've gotten that out?'
'Excuse me?'
'The rock. Are you sure it was a good idea to get it


290 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


out and show everyone? Dower's gonna be pissed. Have
you told Dower? He would never have cleared that.'

'No, I haven't told Dower. They way I figure it, Bob
• . . you're here. And that's as good as.'

There were white bio-suits hanging on hooks.
Lockers where they could put their shoes and other
belongings. Harvey instructed them to get changed and
led them through to the air-lock. 'My equipment's very
sensitive,' he explained. 'We can't have a contamination
of more than four parts per billion.'

Hackett was surprised. They must still be in some
kind of experimental stage.

'This is a Glass 100 clean room - though we keep it
cleaner than that. Just to let you know, a particle three
millionths of an inch across can ruin $75,000 mirrors
in here. All they have to do is make a scratch that you
won't even be able to see under some microscopes and
the show's over. There's enough grease on the end of
one of your fingers to ruin a whole batch of components,
so please . . . be careful.'

He led them into the air-lock, closed the thick chunky
door behind them and ran the routine to cycle the air.
'There's enough air in your suit for two minutes• Once
I give the signal and we're clean, you can hook yourself
up to the overhead oxygen-supply in the next room.'
'I guess I can't smoke then,' Matheson added smartly.
No one found it funny.

The lab was a sprawling mess of wires and units,
exposed ducts and lights. Everybody had to be careful
to make sure their overhead air hoses didn't get caught
up in it all as they picked their way through•

Every two years for the past sixty, Harvey explained
proudly, computers had become twice as fast while the

....................................... DECIPHER 	291


components they were made from had become twice as
small. So by 2012, two major changes to computing were
emerging• Firstly computers had begun to operate, albeit
at a rudimentary level, on a quantum scale• Systems were
being built that could calculate an infinite number of
answers to a hypothesis. But to be able to do this effectively
meant utilizing computing powers that operated at
speed• So the old lithographic technique of printing circuitry
on boards was reaching its limits• But to date, no
one had successfully answered the second question:
When would computers run at the speed of light?

Harvey was one of the few scientists dedicated to
meeting the challenge of storing information at the
atomic level• And it meant the only thing that could
read that kind of information was a laser•

'We started off working with hydrogen,' Harvey
explained, 'for simplicity, since it only has one electron.
I decided an atom in its ground state, that's when
the atom's electron is at its lowest possible state, would
represent "zero"• Then I chose a higher energy state
tQ represent "one". So by determining what state the
electron is in you get a one or a zero. That's how I built
up the binary system at the atomic level• You can change
over here.'

Their air hoses had reached their limits. At an intersection
between the benches dangled a whole other set
of air hoses. They unhooked and changed over, one by
one.

'But atoms have various energy states,' Hackett
pointed out as they took a turn past more benches littered
with hardware. 'Many shades of gray. You're not
limited to binary.'

'Small steps, Jon, small steps. The equipment isn't



292 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

limited to binary, but I am. When I'm more confident
we'll move on. And besides, the programs we use can
already read most types of mathematical base structures.
I just chose binary as the encoding system.'
'Can you use any type of atoms to encode on?'
Matheson asked.
'Theoretically we could encode water, but we're way
off that. At the moment it's easier to limit ourselves to
crystals. Actually, we tried a home-made version of C60,
but a gram cost us over a thousand bucks so we ruled
that out pretty quickly.'
'What're you using now?'
'I can't tell you that, but we did use common salt
there for a while. We got it to work using pairs of neighboring long. Plus we found using binary was good for
error correction.
'But salt dissolves,' Matheson interjected. 'You get
some high-school kid tipping their Coke into the
machine and you wind up losing your whole system.'
'Don't worry, we realized that. So anyway, Jon,
Carbon 60. Pretty exciting stuff. Sixty carbon atoms held
together in thirty double bonds. That's one hell of a
stable structure.'
They arrived at a bench housing a device that
appeared to be some kind of re-jigged electron microscope On
the wall behind it, tucked inside a sealed airtight
glass frame was a dog-eared poster of Neils Bohr's
famous model of the insides of an atom. It looked more
like the solar system, with negatively charged electrons
whizzing around a positively charged 'sun' of protons
and neutrons. It was an incorrect concept by today's
standards, but it still looked cool.
Harvey ejected the subject housing and held out his
....................................... DECIPHER 	293

hand. 'Gimme.' Hackett passed over the Carbon 60 rock
and watched as Harvey gently lowered it into the harness.
Keyed the system to retract.
'What are you looking for? Any particular pattern?'
Hackett took a deep breath as he eyed the data
screens. System engaged. Seeker active. Commit when
ready. He wished he didn't have this hood on, or this
visor blocking his connection to the device. He watched
the laser bounce off the surface of the rock, creating
sparkles, like fire-flies in the night.
'Beauty is truth. Truth, beauty,' he murmured.
Nobody got it. 'Keats,' he told them. 'Entropy is the disorder
in a system. So ice forms from water because the
temperature falls. But C60 turns entropy completely on
its head.' Harvey still didn't get it; Weisner did. She obviously
still remembered he had moments like this. 'No
particular pattern,' he said finally. 'Just take a look.'
Harvey keyed: Enter. The system whirred into life.
Servos angled mirrors and the laser light searched. On
the screens the structure of the C60 molecule rotated,
a series of pentagonal and hexagonal facets bizarrely
resembling a soccer ball, the pentagonal facets being
key to the molecule's curvature.
Pearce too, watched the screen in awe. 'In Timaeus; he said, 'Plato outlined cosmology in terms of solids.
The earth was a cube. Fire was a tetrahedron. Air was
an octahedron. And water an icosahedron. The dodecahedron
he connected with the "ether" that enclosed
the universe. Timaeus; he explained, 'is the same dialogue
in which he talks about Atlantis...'
Weisner ripped the first set of results off the printer.


294 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


	RN9
	Z03
	QD
	QS
	QP

SC
	0
	1 "
	0
	0
	1

FA
	1
	0
	0
	0
	1

LA/2
	ERROR
	0
	0
	0
	0

LA/1
	1
	1
	1
	ERROR
	0

AH
	1
	0
	0
	0
	0


BINARY PATTERN NOT DETECTED


'Garbage,' she said. 'Pure garbage. There is no binary
code. Okay, debt repaid. Can I go now?'

'Honey,' Harvey pleaded in a whiney voice that served
only to irritate, 'I'm not done, okay?'

'Fine,' Weisner replied, upset. It was obviously far
from fine.

'Let's go up to decimal--'

'Actually,' Hackett interjected, pulling his air hose
for more slack, 'can we go to base six next?' Harvey
asked why. 'Well, there are six electrons in carbon.
That's all. It's just a hunch.'

Harvey punched in the commands for the scanner
to search for a base six pattern etched into the crystal.


	RN9 Z03 QD QS
	QP

SC
	ERROR ERROR
	ERROR
	ERROR
	ERROR

FA
	0
	3
	1
	ERROR
	4

LA/2
	3
	0
	1
	4
	5

LA/1
	6
	6
	5
	6
	4

AH
	ERROR
	ERROR
	ERROR
	ERROR
	ERROR


SEXENNIAL PATTERN NOT DETECTED

....................................... DECIPHER 	295


'Bad luck, Ion.'

So they looked for another number base. That they
didn't look for decimal straight offwas never questioned.
It was only in the last 100 years that base ten was widely
used as the basis for counting in most cultures.
Mathematically it wasn't even that efficient. With only
three factors, or numbers by which it could be divided
equally - 1,2 and 5 - it was limited. Duodecimal, or
base 12, once the basis of the Imperial system in Britain,
had five factors - 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6. It was so effective
that part of the system had survived through to the
twenty-first century: eggs were still bought by the dozen
and screws by the gross. However, both of these, decimal
and duodecimal, also drew a blank.

As did hexadecimal - base 16 - and vigesimal - base
20, a number system once used by the ancient Mayans.
With 1, 2, 4, 5 and 10 as its factors, 20 was also the
minimum number of carbon atoms that could form a
closed cage structure - a smaller version of Carbon 60
called C20.

And so it went. Until the results spewing off the

printer read line after line: Error free..
** DETECTED **
** DETECTED **

Hackett had to check it again. Harvey turned from
his monitor. 'Confirmed,' he said. 'It's no mistake.'


SEXAGESIMAL PATTERN ** DETECTED **


'Base 60,' Hackett explained, realizing the full implications.
'Oh, my God.'

'Setting the system to decode in base 60,' Harvey said,
tapping away on the keyboard.



296 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

'You knew,' Weisner scolded.
'I guessed,' Hackett replied. 'I didn't know.'
Pearce checked the readings again and suddenly it
clicked. 'Base 60. It's the oldest number base ever used,'
he blurted. 'The Sumerians first used it six thousand
years ago in Mesopotamia.'
'We still use it,' Matheson added, 'for measuring time.
Hours, minutes, seconds. Base 60 is the perfect system
for measuring fractions and proportions.' It had eleven
factors. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20 and 30.
'Why didn't I think of it before?' Hacker snapped. 'I
gotta call Richard.'
Harvey jerked his head up from the screen. 'Shift'
Everyone gathered around. Numbers were amassing on
the screen.
'What the hell is that?t'
'I dunno.., but it's in your crystal, Ion. Written at
the atomic level.'
'Jesus Christ, I've really gotta call Scott,' he gasped.
But the line was busy.
BERTIE'S HOTEL

ROOM 101

i A/ho is Thoth?'
V V Scott rubbed his face. Trying to wake up.
There was the sound of a cigarette being lit on the other
end of the line. A puff.
'Be right with you!' he said, and swung his legs out
from under the warm duvet and pressed his naked feet
onto the cold carpet. Slipped on a white cotton Tshirt.
Licked his hand, smoothed his hair down. Picked sleep
out of one eye and thumbed the video portion of the
phone-call to kick in on the terminal on his bedside.
Scott didn't really know what to expect, but finding
an absolutely stunning brunette on the other end of the
line, with a smile to die for, and an attitude that said: It doesn't matter what I do, you're still gonna fall in love
with me, just wasn't on his checklist. He swore his heart
missed a beat. Felt foolish. Could she sense that over
the vid-phone? He coughed and sniffed. Tried to wake
up with some dignity.


298 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


She let the moment settle. 'Good morning, Dr Scott.
I'm Sarah Kelsey.'

'Good morning, Miss Kelsey.' Well, she certainly
appeared warmer than when they spoke earlier.

She smiled and seemed to relax a little. 'I think I'd
prefer it if you called me Sarah.'

'Okay, Sarah,' he said, trying to focus. 'What was the
question?'

Sarah smoked her cigarette. Cautious. 'I got your fax
- the translation of that inscription. Who is Thoth,
exactly? I know he's an Egyptian god, but I don't have
time to read a book.'

Scott shook his head. More alive now than he had

been. 'You got the plug out, didn't youF

'Among other things.'

Scott switched the bedside lamp on. Collected his
thoughts and plowed on in. 'Thoth,' he told her, 'is the
Greek name for the Egyptian god Tehuti, or Diewty. He
looked like an Ibis bird, or sometimes a baboon. Thoth
was the god of wisdom and learning; the keeper of the
sacred archives and repository of all knowledge and creative
intelligence. He was custodian of the truth. Legend
has it he taught art, the sciences, arithmetic, geometry,

surveying, surgery, medicine, music and writing.'
'Smart guy.'

'Well, he was a god,' Scott ioked right back at her.
'He was the oldest son of Ra, the sun god, and was associated
with the moon and time. He could cure illness
through the power of speech which he did when Horus
was a child and got bitten by a scorpion. It is said he
had knowledge of divine Speech and knew the "hekau".'
Sarah frowned. 'Words of Power,' Scott explained quickly.

....................................... DECIPHER. 	299

'He hatched the world egg by the sound of his voice
alone.'

Sarah took another drag on her cigarette. 'I see.'
He sat back on the bed. 'Some of the legends might
sound familiar to you because there's a lot of stuff that
was taken and put into the Bible by people who knew
ancient Egyptian better than we do. The Ten Commandments
come directly from the Book of the Dead, from
The Purging of the Guilt. Only in that, it's a series of
confessions; "I have not committed murder . . . I am
pure". But in the Old Testament it's a series of orders;
"Thou shalt not commit murder". It's essentially the
same stuff.'

Behind Sarah, flashlight beams were slicing up the
darkness, making Scott peer forward for a better look
as she asked him: 'Is Thoth a solitary kinda guy? Or
was he ever seen in a pairing with someone else?'

Scott thought for a moment, still intrigued by what
was going on in the background. 'Well, uh, he sometimes
had a wife, Seshat, or Seshata, goddess of writing
and history. Other texts say he had a consort, Maat, the

goddess of truth. Where are you?'

'And what did they look like?'

'Maat was either a seated woman with an ostrich

feather. Or just the feather itself.'

'What about the other one?'

'Seshat? She was a woman in a panther skin, with a
seven-pointed star headband and bow. She was involved

in the foundation ritual of "Stretching the Cord".'
'Which was?'

'Beats me. Some astronomy ritual, I don't know.' He
was really distracted now. The lights were busy. He


300 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


could see glints of blue, and sandstone. Tunnels and
figures. 'Look, I hate to--'

'That's really odd then.' Sarah revealed. 'He's never

been seen with some lion woman?'

'Never.'

'Then who the hell is this?' She shifted the camera
on her end of the line and focused it on a towering
statue of a lioness-headed woman, with a huge sun disk
on her head.

Scott recognized instantly what he was being shown,
though she wasn't seated. She clasped a feather in one
hand, a bow in the other. A reminder of Thoth's real
romantic links. But this was a new woman in his life.

This was Sekhemet.

'Who?'

'That's Sekhemet,' Scott said clearly. 'Her name
means "She who is powerful". She represents all that
is aggressive in the female. She was the daughter of Ra,
the sun god. She's Thoth's sister. She is war. Violence.
Destruction. The goddess of demolition and renewal.'

'Must be a real party when this family gets together.'
'In tomb scenes Sekhemet is seen spitting fire, a fiery
glow around her body. As the daughter of Ra she is the
"udjaut" - "The Eye of Ra" literally - she represents
the scorching destructive power of the sun,' he said.
'But I've never seen her depicted like that before. Sarah,
where are you?'

'Would you believe, under the Sphinx?'

'Actually,' Scott said, rubbing the back of his neck,
'yes, I would.' A roar erupted on the screen coming from
somewhere behind Sarah. For a moment it sounded
like a chainsaw. 'What the hell is that?'

'Motorbikes,' she said simply.

....................................... DECIPHER 	301


Headlights dipped, illuminating the rippling water,
Throttles rewed and pumped every so often with the
flick of a wrist as the three beat-up dirt-bikes sat poised
for take-off. Clemmens secured the last of the fastenings
on his black crash helmet before rolling the bike
off its stand. As he waited for the large box of tricks he
was taking along to be fastened securely to the back,
nothing could hide his impatience, especially the familiar
throttle action of a man waiting at a set of red lights.

Sarah waded on over with some trepidation, careful
not to trip on the irregular flooring. Up ahead, Rola
Corp. employees carried out their duties in hushed
astonishment. They'd found extra cabling and run lights
down as their first priority, which helped Sarah as she
picked her way across.

'Eric!' she called out in an effort to compete with
the din. 'You all set?'

Eric pulled his gloves on. Nodded. 'We got a signal.

Looks like a huge C60 deposit on the edge of our range.'
'What are you doing?'

Eric looked around, confused. 'Who said that?'
Sarah indicated the head-mounted rid-phone she was
wearing, like a pair of spectacles with the arms protruding
from behind her ears, but no lenses. Two tiny
bulbs at each end of the arms did the business. One
projected Scott's image directly onto the retina of
Sarah's left eye, while the other served both as a microphone
and a camera, able to watch Sarah, while tracking
her eye movements and zeroing in on what she was
seeing as well.

'Say hello to Dr Scott!' Sarah said. 'He's working over
in Switzerland!'


302 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


He leaned in close to Sarah's face and waved. 'Hello!'
he cried.

Sarah rang her ear out. 'Eric!'

'Oh, sorry.'

'Are you sure riding motorcycles up the inside of
those tunnels is a good idea?' Scott inquired. 'Those are
ancient structures. They might be weakened. All it takes
is one slab of limestone falling on your head and that'll
end your trip real quick.'

'He'll be careful,' Sarah said, watching Clemmens's
tired red eyes and knowing that natural enthusiasm had
its limits. 'Won't you?'

Clemmens mapped out his plan, having to shout
over the din of the engine. 'We looked at the data
again. This tunnel follows the natural curvature of the
earth. Our natural horizon on fiat ground is 11 to 11.5
miles.'

'So you think the tunnel continues on past the radar
data?'

'That's about the size of it. If we get to the elevenmile
marker and get a reading of another eleven miles
dead ahead, then we know we're dealing with one hell
of a tunnel!'

'If that's the case,' Scott advised, 'the ground is going
to dip out from under the tunnel. ' There are hills, and
there are valleys. At some point you should find the
tunnel opening out to the surface.'

'That's what we figured too,' Clemmens agreed.

He checked his equipment and pulled his visor down.
Gave Sarah a nod and eased the throttle out. With a
roar he led the other two bikes off into the darkness,
bumping unceremoniously over the alternating limestone
ridges and splashing up water.

....................................... DECIPHER 	303


Sarah watched them go, watched their lights grow
smaller as the bikes plowed on. All the while she saw
those lights she knew they were safe. She turned he
attention back to Scott, who appeared eager to learn
more about what she was up to. 'You got a pencil and
paper ready?'

The epigraphist looked inquisitive, like a little boy
lost. He was idealistic and innocent in many ways, this
Richard Scott character, but by the same token he had
an underlying maleness. He was the type of guy you
fell in love with at college, then shat upon, for a moment
of wow with some worthless toad. He was the type of
guy Sarah always regretted not dedicating more time
and effort to.

'You might want to start taking notes,' she suggested
thoughtfully.


'Woah, woah, woah! Back up! Back up!' Scott yelped,
realizing a little belatedly that it was going to penetrate
deep into Sarah's ear.

She was making her way along the edge of the walls
of the tunnel, where the inter-connecting spirals of
limestone and Carbon 60 were covered in hieroglyphs.
She ran the camera along the glyphs as slowly as possible,
but still it was too fast for Scott at times.

'This is incredible,' he gasped. 'It's like finding the

Rosetta Stone all over againl'

'What does it say?'

He scribbled frantically with a pencil. 'I have
absolutely no idea,' he admitted. 'This isn't like picking
up a newspaper for me. I've been dealing with Aramaic
for the past two years and I'm gonna need to doublecheck
some phrases. The Egyptian stuff, at any rate.'



304 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

'Is it a translation of what's written in this other language?'
'Could
be. Hey, stop, stop, stop! Right there!'
'Where?'
'Just - just stay where you are. Okay. That's good.
Give me a moment to jot it down--'
Suddenly the connecting bedroom door burst wide
open and November Dryden marched in, looking
resentful. Dressed in a long cotton night-shirt, she carried
a vid-phone, similar to Scott's, over to his table and
dumped it next to the other one.
'Did I wake you?' he asked sheepishly.
'No,' November growled. 'He woke me.' She flipped
the vid-phone on and the anxious face of Ion Hackett
popped onto the screen. His expression lit up when he
saw Scott on the line.
'Richard, Richard! I've been trying to call you--'
'I've been busy.'
'I can see. I can tell. We've all been very, uh, busy.'
'Hello?' It was Sarah, Scott realized, on the end of
the other vid-phone. She'd moved. Damn.
'I was just trying to write that down!'
'You can do it later,' Sarah said impatiently. 'We got
it all on video. I'll upload it to you. Is that the Amazon
team on the other line?' she asked innocently.
Scott was caught for a moment, genuinely puzzled,
while Hackett started conferring with the others on his
end of the line. There was genuine bafflement. 'Sarah,
I'm sorry,' Scott said. 'Did you say there's a team in the
Amazon too?'
Sarah smirked, as if to say, 'that old trick'. 'I'm sorry,'
Scott said earnestly, 'I have absolutely no idea what
....................................... DECIPHER 	305

you're talking about. This is the first I've heard of this,
and frankly I'm annoyed.'
She could hear someone else in the background
demanding to know about this other site. Scott never
flinched, never gave that customary tell-tale sign she
was used to seeing from men like Thorne.
Not quite sure what to do, Sarah was on the move.
'We need to talk,' she murmured.

Hackett tapped his camera for attention. Scott looked
to November. She was always good in these sorts of situations.
'Do you have any idea how to connect everyone
up into a conference call?'
November rolled her eyes. Like that was the dumbest
thing she'd ever heard. 'Of course,' she said, and
began to fiddle with the equipment.
Sarah stopped in her tracks. She had to steady herself
as the image on her retina changed. 'What's going
on?' she demanded. 'Goddamn, I wished you'd given
me some warning.'
Floating translucently at eye-level now, right in front
of her were two images. Richard Scott in a hotel bedroom,
and a darker guy, with curling lips.
'Well, hello again,' the darker guy said smoothly,
oozing overwhelming charm. 'This is a pleasant surprise.'
His voice had a little reverb to it. A byproduct
of the conference call.
'For you maybe,' Sarah replied, checking her position
a few short steps away from the rise up to the chamber
that housed the tools and megalithic crystal. But
she had no desire to go there just yet. Carefully,
patiently, always alert to the possibility she may have


306 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


been led into a loyalty trap, Sarah explained what she
knew about the Amazon, about China, and about seismic
activity.

What she didn't expect was to find unity in her thesis,
with the physicist.

'So it is possible,' Sarah reiterated, 'the sun's been
pulsing out gravity waves for years?'

'It's not only possible,' Hacker warned, 'it's the likeliest
scenario. Gravity-wave detection is a totally new
science. It demands refinement. I'm sure gravity-wave
detectors a hundred years from now will be like our
communications are to valve-operated wirelesses a hundred
years ago.'

'Ifthere'll even be a hundred years from now.' Hackett
didn't comment. 'So how big would a detector need to
be to measure tiny gravity waves? Would, say, the size
of a planet be about right?'

'At least. The earth's the greatest measuring tool we
have for studying its effects.'

'Have you heard of an oscillation phenomenon known
as the Tesla Effect?' Hackett thought for a moment. Yes,
he had. 'I have earthquake data which may tell us how
long this has been building up here on earth,' Sarah
revealed, solemnly explaining about all five ancient sites
being the focus for the low-frequency seismic waves. 'I
think it gives a pretty accurate picture,' she said.

'Of what?' Scott asked, finally managing to get a word
back into the conversation.

'Of how much time we really have left,' Sarah said
flatly.


Hacker was back in the NMRS lab at CERN. Matheson
and Pearce were close by, poring over the raw data that

....................................... DECIPHER 	307


was being pumped into their workstation direct from
the light computer center. The other chemists had gathered
around to watch while Hackett shifted in his chair
to accommodate them, all the while doing his best not
to gawk at Sarah.

Matheson sketched out what he'd been told on a
scrap of paper, and didn't like what he saw. He looked
around, snapped his fingers. 'Anybody here got a globe?'
No reply. 'An orange?' Somebody loaned him a lemon.
Matheson didn't like to ask, just went to work with a
magic marker and sketched on a map of the world over
its surface. Then marked in the five sites with thick
black dots. There was a definite geodesic design. He
showed it to Pearce.

'Richard, you asked me before, what is the use of
quantum mechanics? Well, this is it,' Hackett said to
Scott in the meantime. 'This is what quantum mechanics
just did for us. Unlocked quantum cryptography.
Code. Language. Information. Encoded at the atomic
scale. It's all right here. I've found it! Written in base
60 mathematics, within the Carbon 60 crystals.'

'You're telling me there's computer code? Etched
iuto the crystal?'

Matheson leaned and hi-jacked the call. 'A whole lot
of it,' he said, holding up the fruit for all to see. 'I really
gotta get a globe,' he complained.


Scott jerked his eyes off the screen. Was this some kind
of sick joke? The only linguist on the team and when
two pieces of the puzzle had just surfaced - he wasn't

within arms reach of studying either of them?
'Sarah? Did you hear that?'
'Yeah. Hold on, will ya?'



308 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

Scott looked to November for a reality check. Were
things moving fast, or what? He went back to the phones.
'ion, can you give me more - ]on . . 2' But Hacker
was looking at something off screen. Off screen meant
the other screen. Sarah. She was climbing up into some
sort of room and-
Hacker saw it first. 'That's one hell of a paperweight.'

There were packing crates littered around the chamber,
wooden and sturdy. Reference numbers were
daubed on the sides with stencils and black paint. Straw
filled each container, making them appear rustic and
somehow out of place. In each one were being placed
the hand-sized artifacts that once sat in the alcoves
dotted along the walls. Lids were hammered into place
with severe blows.
Sarah checked one of the containers, picking up one
of the artifacts, which was like a tool of some kind.
Untried and untested. She checked the documentation
that went with it, trying to drown out for a moment the
excited scientists on the other end of the line.
'What was that?' Hackett was saying.
'I don't know. I can't see. She keeps looking at those - things. What are they?'
'It doesn't matter,' Sarah mumbled. She checked the
docket in a sealed plastic bag on the side. It was barcoded,
like a Federal Express pouch. Everything was
being shipped to Texas.
She ripped the docket off. Stuffed it in a pocket and
slapped her own documentation in its place. Destination:
Antarctica. Judging by what Thome was up to, she'd
rather study these things herself than let them disappear
into Rola Gorp.'s vast and faceless research division. She
....................................... DECIPHER 	309

had found these artifacts; they were hers. She leaned back
from the crate as two Arab workmen retrieved it. Hauled
it up and carried it off.
She did the next two in succession before Douglas
called her over.
'Ah!' Scott exclaimed, finally getting a better look at
the pyramid-shaped obelisk of crystal.
'Sarah, we're going to attempt to move this now,'
Douglas announced. They'd set up chains and winches
as well as hoists and a cradle for the crystal, should they
ever get it out of the stone armature, but there was a
stone overhang nearest the wall. It was impossible to
get at it properly where it was. It would have to be
moved closer to the three crystal beams that came in
on the ceiling from the three smaller tunnels.
Douglas pushed at the armature. 'This thing lets us
slide it out to the center,' he demonstrated. 'It's fairly easy.
Takes a couple of people, that's all. Must be one hell of
a counter-balance the other side of this wall. Anyway,
once it's in the center we figure if we drill or hammer
into it, one on each surface, we might be able to compensate
for no laser and knock some chunks off. Once
we weaken it we can destroy it, and take the pieces home.'
'No, there's a problem,' Sarah said. 'These crystal beams - they slope down at an angle. I think they're
supposed to connect with the pyramid somehow.
There's not much room for maneuver.'
'Let me worry about that,' was Douglas's response.
'What happened to our prototype field laser anyway?
Should have brought that.'
'No idea,' Douglas replied. 'They told me it was being
used.'
Scott was mortified. 'You're going to destroy it?'



310 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

'I wouldn't worry,' Pearce added on the other line.
'It'll never work. They won't even dent it.'
Beneath the C60 pyramid was where the spiraled
tunnel's own crystal strip came into the room across the
floor and terminated by diving directly into the floor.
Sarah made as thorough an inspection of the set-up as
she could, to allow everybody on the phone time to
digest what they were seeing, but' it didn't take a physicist
to figure it out. 'You're right,' Scott sighed, relieved.
'It'll never work. There's not enough room.'
'I know,' was all Sarah said.
Douglas did a double-take before it dawned. 'Oh,
you're on the phone. Thorne?'
'Something like that.'
Douglas waved in her face. 'Hey, Rip!'
The retinal image of Scott and Hackett glanced at
each other across the inside surface of her eyeball. 'Who
the hell is Rip?' Hackett asked. Matheson swore in the
background.
'You know what the crystal is, don't you?' Scott said
excitedly. 'That's the benben stone. People have searched
for it for millennia.'

November sidled up to him on the bed. Handed him
a coffee. Scott could feel her warmth through her thin
cotton night-shirt. 'What's the benben stone?'
Scott, coffee in hand, ran his finger over the outline
of the crystal. 'That.' He sipped his coffee. 'The benben
stone sat in the city of Heliopolis, the City of the Sun.
Some say it represented the "Primeval Mound", where
life began. The first place, some say, where civilization
settled after the Flood. Others say the benben stone was
....................................... DECIPHER 	311
the petrified semen of the sun god, Ra. It's supposed to
hold mystical powers.'
Hacker went to open his mouth. 'I don't know what
kind of powers,' Scott chipped in quickly. 'Where the
stone sat in Heliopolis was believed to be where the
sun's rays first fell each morning. In honor of it, on top
of each pyramid, a gilded capstone was placed. But the
original benben stone, the one from Heliopolis that was
later placed on top of Cheops's pyramid - well, it disappeared.
'Benben
derives from the word "weben", meaning
"to rise". It's from that word the Egyptian benubird
comes, the original Phoenix - the bird that rose again
from the ashes. The benu-bird literally represents the
sun - destruction and rebirth.'
Hackett was mulling it over on the other screen. 'To
rise...' he said slowly. 'I wonder if that bears any relation
to the hole in the ceiling above the stone...?'
Sarah suddenly took her flashlight out and waved it
at the ceiling of the chamber. She hadn't noticed that
before.
'Well, I'll be damned,' she said.

Bob Pearce didn't know where to turn next. He had a
choice of screens and on each one something new and
wondrous was unfolding. But the string of computer
data was paling against the tangible sights of the catacombs
beneath the Sphinx. And the benben stone to
top it all.
Pearce started muttering to himself, excitedly. Louder
and louder. Attracting attention, but still nothing compared
to the discoveries being made.


312 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


'In the ninth century, Ibn Abd Alhokim, an Arab
historian, and later an Egyptian Coptic called A1
Masudi, both spoke of ancient wisdom that said the
Great Pyramid was built by an Egyptian King Called
Surid, or Salhouk, who lived three hundred years before
the Great Flood. They said that there was a connection
to Leo, and that this King had all scientific knowledge
deposited into a place of safety, with strange beings
placed by priests to serve as guardians and stop the
knowledge falling into the wrong hands.'

Matheson came up alongside him. Concerned.
'What type of beings?'

Pearce shrugged. 'I don't know.'

Matheson glared at him. 'Bob, what're you talking
about?'

'I'm talking about history being proven correct yet
again. I'm talking about.., the vision.' His voice faltered
in his throat. 'The vision that I had. That chamber.
It's exactly as I saw it...'

But no one was listening. Something else was concerning
Matheson. He crouched down beside Hacker
and watched the spectacle as Douglas led a team of
men and swung the huge crystal pyramid out towards
the center of the room.

'What do you think?' Hacker asked warily.

'I think,' Matheson said quietly, watching the crystal

move, 'that's a very bad idea.'

Hackett eyed him.

'Look at the way the room's laid out,' Matheson said.
'Look at how the crystal beams there are going to connect
with the pyramid stone and the beam in the floor.
We know what this stuff can do, ]on. A damn satellite
picked it up under two miles of ice. What if this is

....................................... DECIPHER 	313


what the Chinese did? Look at them - they're creating
a circuit. If they want that thing out of there, they better
find another way of doing it because that whole room
looks like a piece of machinery.'

Hackett rubbed his hand over his chin, disturbed, it
was so obvious. 'Yeah,' he agreed, 'I think you're right.'
And that was when the alarm on his wristwatch went
off. He eyed Matheson darkly. 'The sun . . .' was all he
said.


Sarah kept quiet as she listened to the discussion batting
backwards and forwards. A giant machine? What
were they talking about? And what on earth were 'The
Guardians'? She didn't like the sound of that. 'What
kind of guardians?' She rapped out, 'Are you saying
there are some kind of creatures down here?'

Pearce went to answer but the crackle and hiss of
static interrupted. Her radio was cutting in.

'Sarah. Come in. This is Eric, over.' He sounded
faint. Perplexed. Distracted even.

Sarah fished the radio to her lips. 'Yeah, this is Sarah,
go ahead.'

A pause. Then: 'We're at the eleven-mile marker.
We're just setting up now.' A hiss. More static. A muffled
noise. 'Boy, this is weird.'

Sarah could feel the hairs on the back of her neck
stand on end. She'd never felt comfortable down here,
she didn't want to be down here. Hesitantly she asked:
'What's weird?'

A moment later, partially cut out: 'The, uh, writing

on the wall stopped a couple miles back.'
'What have you got now?'
'Looks like circuitry.'


314 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


Sarah had to think for a minute. 'Say again?'

'Circuitry,' Clemmens repeated. 'And these massive

Carbon 60 structures. The size of houses. But - woah!'
'Eric?' But he wasn't responding. She got nothing.
Just dead air.

ELEVEN-MILE MARKER



t was like being inside a convoluted fist, Clemmens
decided. All fingers interlocking. Each finger a massive
expanse of Carbon 60. And this fist was clutching
a lightning bolt. Energy was coursing throughout the
C60 as if caught in a bottle.

Right where they needed to be, the tunnel opened
out into some kind of chamber that was made up of
interlocking swathes of C60, intercut at junctures by
two-story-high oblong megaliths of horizontal layers of
glowing carbon and darkened granite.

On the other side of the chamber the other two bikers
had set up their laser-sighted radar packs. And one of
them, Rinoii, had taken the opportunity of jumping
straight back on his bike to do a lap of the chamber
and race the energy wave that pulsated around the
chamber walls. It moved faster and faster, but never
diverted into the spiraled tunnel toward the Sphinx.

'It's like it's trapped,' Clemmens explained before


316 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

realizing his radio had stopped working, he just couldn't
get a signal to transmit. He hung it on his belt, concentrated
on getting his relay gear switched on and
sending his data back to the computer set up at the
entrance. He prayed the data made it.
All set, he rode out to the other biker, who stood like
a speck at the foot of the entrance to one of two other
massive darkened tunnels. The air was damp, the cavernous
surroundings cold and eerie. There was a breeze
coming from somewhere, accompanied by a harsh
breath-like sound. Rasping.
Clemmens didn't like it here, that much he knew.
He pulled up alongside Christian and dismounted from
his Beta Trials bike. It was a 250cc, single cylinder.
Good with rough terrain and less. to go wrong than some
other bikes.
Christian operated his radar unit deftly. Used his
flashlight to show what he meant when he said: 'They're
both the same, these tunnels. They both slope down at
about seven degrees in a straight line.'
'Any idea on length?'
'Yeah. But this can't be right.'
'Try me.'
'Three hundred miles. One goes north-east. The
other goes southeast.'
'What?'
'Each one's filled with water. And take a look see?'
He moved his flashlight along the walls of the
tunnel. 'No spirals. No nothing. Definitely no more
Carbon 60.'
'Are these things wells? Do they just bottom out?'
'Uh-uh. They change direction. Got a profile on this
one. But where the hell it goes is anyone's guess.'
....................................... DECIPHER 	317

The buzzing of the circling motorbike behind them
was really starting to grate on Clemmens now. He spun
on his heel, bellowed: 'Rinoli! For chrissake mind your
equipment! Quit foolin' around!'
Rinoli reluctantly zipped up to the other flooded
tunnel, cussing in Italian all the way. Clemmens licked
his lips and tried his radio again, but he still couldn't
get a signal.
'Just make a note of all this, will ya?' Christian nodded
as Clemmens tapped the radio again. 'I think it's this
place,' he said. 'Something's causing interference. I'm
going back to the edge of the chamber, it seemed to
work fine over there.'
Christian watched him as he kicked his bike back
into gear and rode across to the spiraled tunnel, all the
time acutely aware of the mysterious energy pulse still
making its way around the walls of the chamber.

Rinoli keyed his radar unit. Took another reading and
relayed it over to Clemmens's unit.
And that was when he heard it.
A low deep rumble, almost out of his auditory range.
He doubled forward, craning into the darkness ahead
and trying to make sense of the noise.
There was a hiss. A plop. Bubbles were rising to the
surface of the water. The rotten egg stench of sulfur
filled the air and then there was the light: a small point.
Fuzzy. Dim. In the center of the water. Far away, but
getting bigger.
Rinoli couldn't help but smile at the aquabound
fire-fly. What was that? Another one of those whirling
firework shows? He loved those. He turned, and in his
excitement, called out in Italian to warn everyone. Which,


318 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


as it turned out, was entirely the wrong language if he
wanted to be understood.


Clemmens, his engine ticking over, heard Rinoli's calls,
but didn't listen. He fiddled with his radio, determined
to get through. 'Sarah? Sarah, come in.' But the only
thing getting louder was Rinoli.

Clemmens jerked his head back and to one side,
growling: 'What's that wop bitchin' 'bout now?'

He wasn't normally a prejudiced man. But it was a
pity to utter that kind of sentiment when there was a
fair chance they'd be his last words.


'Ion', from the Greek meaning 'traveling'. Moving
water, especially superheated water, carried an electrical
charge, and liked to give up this charge just as
easily.

Without warning,'the water behind Rinoli suddenly
reared up like a geyser, disintegrating into a boiling
twister of vapor and spray. The torrent exploded from
the tunnel and blasted the Italian across the chamber.
The energy that came with it, all light and arcing electricity
from deep down, shot out like daggers, connecting
with the walls of the chamber and spinning around
the room at the speed of light.

The whole place lit up for one brief moment, as if
God had just taken a snapshot. And as Rinoli fried in
the center of the room, convulsing on the ground,
Clemmens could do nothing but let his jaw drop as the
superheated water swirled around the chamber as if it
were alive. It collected on the ceiling and around the
walls at a colossal rate, forming into a vast hollow ball that
filled the room and writhed. The noise was deafening,

....................................... DECIPHER 	319


like being trapped on the insides of a jet engine.

And then it moved. Heading directly for Clemmens,
and his spluttering motorbike.


They were getting ready to drill into it, the benben
stone, when the call came in. A technician on the surface
was watching the monitors when the tell-tale signs
of another energy wave registered. Douglas's radio had
crackled to life with: 'Brace yourself. Got a live one
comin' through.'

But before Scott or Hackett even had time to think
to ask the question, rippling energy had shot up the
crystal spiral in the tunnel and was ricocheting around
the benben chamber.

Douglas sensed immediately that this one was different.
It wasn't dissipating like the others had done.
It wasn't shooting down into the floor like the last
time.

The benben stone was just inches away from the C60
beams arching down from the ceiling. Douglas instinctively
snatched his hands off the crystal, and motioned
for the others to step away.

The air became electrified, pungent with the smell
of burning dust. Sarah could feel the building static
charge creep across her skin and start to levitate her
hair.

Then Douglas had a change of heart, because the
light in the room had suddenly highlighted something
he hadn't even noticed before. Something vital. A hairline
fracture through the benben stone. His eyes
widened. He gritted his teeth. 'That's it!' he roared. 'Let's
do it!' He lifted his drill, hauling it into position, and
pulled the trigger.



320 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

'What's going on, Sarah?' Scott asked, awe-struck by
the sheer magic of the energy wave.
'This uh happens all the time,' she explained nervously,
looking to Douglas for support. But it was clear
that this had never happened before.
A low hum vibrated through the granite, followed by
a high-pitched whine. Then another. And another. The
artifacts in the wooden crates were coming to life. Two
Arab workmen who were carrying one of the crates suddenly
dropped it in fright. Screamed and fled into the
darkness as the wooden packing case splintered and the
vibrating object spilled out onto the floor and bumped
its way along. The three other drill operators suddenly
stopped what they were doing, petrified. Leaving
Douglas to continue by himself.
Sarah backed up against the wall. But that only made
matters worse for her as she realized it was throbbing.
Undulating like solid rock should never do.

'This doesn't look good,' Matheson said as he leant in
close to the screen. 'That crystal shouldn't be close to
those three - things.' He exchanged another look with
Hackett, who took a deep breath and put his mouth
right up to the microphone on the vidphone.
'Sarah,' he instructed, 'I think you should try and
push that stone away from those connectors.'
'What?t'
'Push the stone away from those crystal beams.'

November had her hand over her mouth as she
watched Sarah approach Douglas in his attempt to
tackle the crystal. But Douglas leant forward, putting
his back into his drilling, not listening to a word Sarah
....................................... DECIPHER 	321

was saying. And that was when Sarah felt it.
At first she felt light-headed. Then incredibly heavy,
as if she were sitting on a roller-coaster.
Douglas was equally stunned. His entire face seemed
to warp for a moment, stretch out of shape and snap
back. It was as if, in an instant, reality had decided to
take a raincheck. Sarah's stomach heaved. She was
going to be sick, she knew it. 'Did you feel that?' she
whispered.
In Geneva, Scott nodded. Swung Hackett's phone
line around. HackeR, Matheson and Pearce were all
pate on the screen. 'I know,' Hacker said. 'We felt it
here too.'
'Was that an earthquake?' Matheson was asking.
Hackett's eyes were darting around the ceiling. The
building was starting to shake. 'No,' he explained, 'but
this is.' Equipment clattered to the ground behind him.
'A gravity wave?' Scott queried.
Hackett nodded his agreement. 'The biggest one yet,
for us to be able to perceive it.'
Scott shifted his attention frantically back to Sarah.
But already her situation was changing.

Lightning bolts shot out of the Carbon 60 strip in the
floor, arced to the benben stone, then shot down the
hole directly beneath it. Seconds later a rod of pure
blackness rose from the hole in its place and clamped
itself into a recess that had gone unnoticed on the underside
of the benben stone.
Douglas fought against it, but no amount of human
effort was going to overcome that kind of force. He
dropped his drill as a tantalizing shard of Carbon 60
broke off from the benben stone and skittered across


322 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


the floor, covered in rippling energy. Douglas shot out
a hand in an attempt to reach it.

Utterly terrified, Sarah blinked back tears of pure
panic as she screamed: 'Leave it! Leave it!' but Douglas
either couldn't hear, or wouldn't.

The whole room distorted for a moment, like a picture
on a sheet of rubber. Sarah felt her gut tumble end
over end as white-hot shafts of electricity blasted out of
the stone and connected with the beams overhead.

She could smell burning, charring flesh, could hear
the sizzling and popping of fat under somebody's skin.
Could see Douglas being exploded back across the
chamber as the device in the center, the stone, assembled
itself and activated.

She was aware of the images being projected onto
her eye. And the voice, urgent in her ear. 'Get out!' it
said. 'Get out now!'


Sarah followed her instincts without question. And ran
for her life.

THE FIFTH WAVE


For in the sky the stars and Orion will shed their light
no longer, the sun will be dark when it rises, and the
moon will no longer give its light... I shall make...
human life scarcer than the gold of Ophir . . . I am
going to shake the heavens [and] the Earth will reel on
its foundations, under the wrath of Yahweh Sabaoth,
the day when his anger ignites.



Isaiah 13:5

GIZA


A

pocalypse' from Greek meaning, 'to uncover', 'to
reveal.
Well, it had been revealed and quite honestly Eric
Clemmens wished it hadn't. Soaked through, he could
feel his body cooking away under his coveralls. He
caught a glimpse of himself in a side mirror. His bloodied,
blistered skin hung from his face in puffy sheets.
This went beyond third-degree burns. He had to get out
of there. Pain or no pain, there just wasn't time to
scream.

He shifted down a gear in an effort to boost his speed,
but the torrent of boiling water that had swept him from
his bike had flooded the tunnel ahead to such an extent
that the going was difficult. Every so often he could feel
the back or front end of the bike slide out from under
him, forcing him to ease off.

Behind him, Christian was in an even worse state.
One eye blinded, he throttled back and went for it. But

326 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


when the tunnel seemed to warp and twist, neither man
could be sure of their senses. They wobbled, stayed
upright.

But stability was the least of their worries. Because
in their mirrors, larger than life, glowing like the ferocious,
fiery tongue of a dragon, came crashing forth a
second tumbling, chaotic spew of fire, electricity and
seething water.

Pulsating past them in violent energy bursts, light
streaked through the Carbon 60 spiral, swirling in a
chaotic pattern that served only to disorient them further.

And
that was when Christian finally panicked.
Kicking yet more speed out of his machine in a bid to
outrun the impending flow, he locked a brake and
twisted the front wheel - and found himself shooting
off at an angle. Caught in one of the spiraled ruts, but
afraid to reduce speed, he found himself rapidly rising
up the side of the tunnel at over 100 miles an hour.

He jerked at the handlebars, trying to jump the front
wheel over the lip of limestone, but it was no use. He
was already too high. He could feel the weight of the
bike on top of him, and that helpless sense of falling.

Clemmens plowed on, bumping his way over the
ruts of undulating stone. The hot breath of sheer fury
snorted down his neck. A blinding light was in the mirrors,
a blast furnace of heat on his back.

He was aware of it gaining. Catching him. Matching
his every move. He was aware too of some event taking
place at his periphery and rising sharply. Steeply.

He looked up. Saw Christian crashing down on him,
and closed his eyes.
It was just a twisted heap of metal when all was said

....................................... DEG!PHER 		327

	\,


and done. With two half-full gas tanks, which exploded
in a frenzy as the raging torrent of destruction engulfed
it and rocketed down the tunnel.

Ahead of it, the pool of water that was collected along
the floor of the tunnel parted, as if Moses were paying
a visit. Crept up the walls like an honor guard, using
the spirals as tracks and formed a watery tube through
which the chaos could travel much faster.


Sarah stumbled. Recovered. Leapt out of the benben
chamber and lost her footing again. Sliding down the
incline she collapsed in the water, which was sheer luck
in the end because spears of jagged energy were blasting
out above her head. Searing and frying everything
in their path.

The water collected on the floor of the tunnel was
warm, and getting warmer. She picked herself up and
ran, but the sloshing around was harder work than she
remembered. The water level was deeper, and rising
fast. She stuck to the sides where the depth was shallow
and ran as fast as she could, rounding the bend just
seconds later and pushing on towards the exit.

The portable lights flickered, crackling as the power
supply dipped, interfered with by the ever-increasing
electrical charge. She could see the exit just ahead, just
a few excruciating feet away. She climbed the curvature
of the tunnel wall, and that was when she realized:
the water was climbing with her.

Not rising, like a tide, but climbing. Lifting itself
from the floor and slithering up both sides to the hissing,
popping sound of ice in a cold glass of lemonade.

'Sarah!' She snapped her head around. It was
Douglas. She had no idea how he'd made it out. His



328 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

hair was glassy, melted onto his scalp. He stumbled
towards her, clutching his pathetic prize: the Carbon
60 shard. But the growing rumbling sound coming from
the other direction also demanded attention. Sarah
didn't know which way to turn.
She thrust a hand out at Douglas. 'You can make it!'
she screamed. 'You can make it!' But the wall of water
was already creeping up over her waist level.
It was now or never.
She jumped through to the exit stairwell, landed
heavily on the other side, but had the foresight to turn
it into a roll, taking some of the energy out of the impact.
Scrambling to her feet she shot around to face the
tunnel and watched, stunned, as the water rose up past
the doorway and wrapped around to join with itself on
the other side.
Yet it never leaked. Never spilled so much as a drop
in her direction.
She ran to the doorway and peered out. Douglas was
just a few feet away. But the tunnel was getting brighter,
much brighter.
Sarah bellowed: 'Douglas! Get your ass in here!'
That seemed to shake him up a little, but not enough.
Tripping over his own feet, he was either too shocked,
or too stupid to realize he was actually walking on the
water. Stumbling to the doorway, the searing heat of
the approaching fireball growing at a furious pace,
Douglas threw an arm over his eyes as Sarah shot a
hand out to grab him - and nearly broke her fingers in
the process.
The water was hard as crystal.
The helpless look on Sarah's face was enough to send
Douglas into a panic. Lunging for the exit he found
....................................... DECIPHER 	329

himself smacking into a wall of glass. He balled his fist,
hammered on it, but it barely made a thud. 'Help me!'
came his muffled cries. 'For God's sake! Help me!'
And then she saw it. Though she had to look twice
because she could hardly believe it.
A land was jutting out of the water. Perfectly formed
with four fingers and a thumb. Human in shape. It
clamped itself around Douglas's ankle and began its
relentless task of pulling him under. Translucent and
sparkling, it looked like crystal, yet moved with absolute
human dexterity.
Douglas struggled, but the sheer brute strength of
the hand was overwhelming. He staggered, and collapsed
to his knees as a second hand appeared and lifted
out of the water on an endless, jointless arm. And prised
the C60 shard from the man's greedy fingers.
There was nothing Sarah could do but watch as the
impending juggernaut of fire hit. In the blinking of an
eye, everything was gone.
The water wall creaked and shuddered, as the ceaseless
funnel of rage thundered past.
She didn't know if it would hold. She didn't want to
stick around to find out.
She spun on her heel, and ran up the flight of spiral
stone steps as if they didn't exist.

On the surface she was met with stunned expressions.
Stunned, silent expressions. No one wanted to know
what Sarah had seen. They had their own problems to
deal with, and they were many.
She could feel a pressure on her chest. It was difficult
to breathe. The air had turned to syrup. It made
her want to cough.


330 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


She could hear shouts and cries, and an eerie hum.
She stumbled out of the marquee, making her way to
the main encampment. The arc-lights flickered on and
off, making her pause every so often in her stride.
Several times she had to pull up short before slamming
into something, a generator, rubble, a fence. The changing
brightness never gave her eyes time to adjust, so it
was a welcome relief when the lights finally blew, spitting
glass at passers by.

There were hushed whispers. The sounds of sobbing.
The ground shook and the humming sound that was
ever-present grew until it became a rumble.

She spotted a geophysics marker move first, an aluminum
pole that was hammered into the ground, pinpointing
where the three-mile circular tunnel was
situated. She watched it shake before launching into
the air over 50 feet, then clattering to the ground and
clouting an unsuspecting soul around the ear. She saw
the next one pop. And the next. Anything that didn't
belong in this sacred ground was being suddenly and
violently rejected at an alarming rate. Fences. Poles. All
were tossed into the air.

And then came tile glow. A menacing blueness that
cut through the sand as if it wasn't there and traced the
circular tunnel in deliberate, perfectly timed pulses.
Rapid. Constant. Expectant.

Sarah could hear herself breathing, a labored rasping
as it caught in her throat. She could feel a tingling
sensation. A sparkling. The sort of thing that accompanied
an almighty thunderstorm. And that was when she
realized she was swamped in sand, surrounded on all
sides by particles of dust that clung to the air, suspended
as if hanging in some sort of laboratory solution.

....................................... DECIPHER 	331

The ground shook. A trembler that paid scant regard
to anything that stood on the surface. Like cutlery on
a snapped-back tablecloth, Sarah fell to her knees.
Heard loose material clatter from the pyramids, bouncing
off every step as they tumbled.

And as she checked herself for cuts and grazes, she
picked up a stone to discard. Only to discover that its
physical make-up was actually changing. For though it
looked like a rock, it felt more like plastic.

There was a zapping sound now. A high-pitched
shudder, like something ripping through the ground.
And then she heard the call. Someone had seen something.
She twisted around to see a rippling layer of lightning
erupting across the surface of all three pyramids,
like blue electric eels in a feeding frenzy, spitting and
coursing over the vast expanses of limestone blocks,
swirling and writhing. Blackening the surfaces, and
working their way up, to collect in waves at the peak of
each monument.

The buildup was constant. The lightning balls on
the peaks illuminated the whole Giza plateau. The
accompanying noise was shrill, earsplitting. And the culmination
equally awesome.

For suddenly, three vast and formidable columns of
energy, perfectly straight, and immaculately formed,
shot up into the sky. One from each of the three peaks.

Like cannons aimed at the heavens, the three pyramids
loosed their vicious arsenal, and screamed in
primal victory. They had awakened, after millennia of
slumber. And their wrath was considerable.



THE EARTH

W

hen it came, it came suddenly.

12/03/20 04:02:48 38.32N 71.00E 252.5 8.0Mb B AFGHANISTAN-TAJIKISTAN BORDER

There was no warning.

12/03/12 11:02:49 38.24N 26.64W 10.0. 4.Stub B AZORES ISLANDS

Despite the Solar Heliospheric Observatory, SOHO III,
ACE and the CLUSTER II solar-observing satellites; despite
numerous terrestrial-based solar observatories and a
multitude of seismometers places at strategic points
along faultlines; in spite of Deep Sea Tsunami Sensors
that measured 12-1,000 foot columns of water above
their positions, detecting changes in sea level to the
nearest millimeter:
....................................... DECIPHER 	333
jf /
12/03/2o o3:o3:12 87.33 119.81E 10.0 4."t[t) B EAST OF LAKE BAY'K&G, RUSBI&

Despite all that, the gravitational wave that blasted out
from the sun, traveling at the speed of light, warping
and twisting the fabric of space as if it were a sheet of
elastic, could only be measured in retrospect. By accumulating
the data of what it destroyed. By amassing the
results of so much carnage.

12/03/20 t3:04:33 84.038 132.18W 10.O 8.SMb C PACIFIC-ANTARCTIC RIDGE

12/03/20 10:08:43 39.87N 140.31E 118.8 8.4Mb A EASTERN HONSHU, JAPAN

12/03/20 18:06:12 31.10N 87.30W 10.0 3.TLg ALABAMA

12/03/20 01:07:33 87.78N 182.33W 33.0 3.7M1 B KODIAK ISLAND REGION

In the Bay of Bengal; winds were whipped up. And
though they barely lasted a minute, they traveled so fast,
over 700 miles an hour, that they overwhelmed whole
regions of India, destroying towns and villages before
they could even be heard arriving.
In the Urals, seismic waves plowed through the
tundra at over 13,000 miles an hour. Yet the ground
was wet this time of year, soft from thawing. And the
farmers could see their furrows undulating like rumpled
blankets on a trampoline.
In Ganada, Alaska, and on the coasts of Ghile, Japan,
Hawaii and South Africa, large run-out landslides were
triggered, so powerful the masses of tumbling rock traveled
more than thirty miles in places, acting like fluids
in a process called liquefaction. The debris moved up
slopes and around bends, just like liquids should. Except
in the case of Hawaii, where the run-out of debris, which
included 20-ton boulders, rocketed out for over 500
miles. This, coupled with the accompanying earthquake,



334 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

triggered a tsunami - a giant tidal wave that was so powerful
that it caused a vacuum along the sea bed and
imploded rocks to such an extent that it gouged out
huge grooves the size of submarines in an instant.
Across the Pacific the tsunami roared, stretching from
the sea floor to the surface, hundreds of miles wide and
tens of thousands of feet deep. It surged across the ocean
faster than a jet plane. When it reached a point 200
miles out to sea, an uncharacteristic subduction zone
earthquake increased the wave's power and doubled its
length.
Off the coast of Northern California, a supertanker
somehow survived the onslaught, despite the intense
battering and the fact it was carried eighty nautical miles
closer to shore. As the wave finally washed over its bow,
the captain had the foresight to radio a warning to the
Coastguard. His crew gathered on deck, terrified,
because they could see the lights of the nearest streets
and houses twinkle through the wall of water as it raced
off toward shore.
On land, they hadn't seen a tsunami since 1964. Over
2,000 people scattered along the beaches, stood on the
sand and watched the water get sucked out to sea in
seconds, leaving shoals of fish and assorted marine life
beached. By the time they spotted the wall of water rearing
up ominously on the horizon it was too late. Because
there was one important rule of thumb to remember
about tsunamis: if you were close enough to see one
coming, you were never going to outrun it.
Despite undersea mountains changing its direction,
and despite the shallow Continental Shelf creating friction
and slowing the wave down, the trailing waves piled
into the first, one after the other, like a rug crumpling
/
I
....................................... DECIPHER 	335

against a wall. The resulting wave reared up a further
10 feet, hit the beach and wiped out everything in its
path. It delivered 100,000 tons of water for every five
feet of beach. It exploded concrete buildings. Tore men,
women and children limb from limb, and piled inland
for a further forty miles.
In the Philippines, Mount Pinatubo was erupting,
oozing volcanic mudflows into the panic-stricken valleys
below. While in Alaska, a Boeing 757 passenger
plane on final approach to Anchorage International
Airport lost all power as it entered what it thought was
a layer of haze. It turned out to be volcanic ash, thrown
up by Redoubt Volcano, part of the rumbling Aleutian
volcanic chain.
The plane eventually crashed. There were no survivors.
Every
year there were reports of approximately fifty
volcanic eruptions around the world. Ten of these
caused death and serious mayhem. Tonight, there were
thirty-seven separate volcanoes raging across the planet
at once, twelve on American soil. Of those twelve, five
were on the Middle America trench, while the rest were
on the Meutian trench. And together they could be seen
from space. For tonight, the Ring of Fire, a series of
volcanic arcs and oceanic trenches which encircled the
Pacific Basin, was ablaze.
It started in New Zealand. Went north via the Tonga
and Kermadec trenches. Followed the equator with the
Bougainville and Java-Sunda trenches. It was a little
known fact that volcanoes were found mostly in chains,
and very rarely as singular one-off phenomena. But
tonight that fact could hardly be avoided. One by one,
the most volatile volcanoes blew along the chains. The


SCOTT


336 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


Ryukyu and Izu Bonin trenches, which led across to
the Aleutian trench in Alaska, smoked and rumbled. At
the Peru-Chile trench where the Ring of Fire ended,
villages were being evacuated as the lava flows advanced.

With the force of God's vengeance freely on loan,
Mother Nature rallied her armies, and began the systematic
shredding of human civilization on earth.


I

t wasn't so much the creaking from the walls that got
to Scott first, or the way his coffee bounced across the
bedside table. It was his bed. For as he sat there trying
to decide what to do, it became startlingly obvious that
it was sliding out from under him.

He jumped off, instinctively, just as the rumble of
shaking concrete got louder. He could hear the panic
and screams from adjacent rboms. The standard lamp
across from him crashed to the floor, its bulb exploding
in a shower of glass.

November yelped, and threw herself into the middle
of Scott's bed. And that was when he saw it. A fissure,
deep and black, opening up across the bedroom floor.
The carpet moaned under the strain as the remaining
strands of pile failed to halt the advancing crevice in
the floor. Each thread pinged one by one as the floor
covering was ripped in two.

'November!' Scott yelled, holding his hand out to

338 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


her, but she just stared at it blankly as the bed bumped

its way along and just hit the wall below the window.
'Dr Scott!' she shrieked.

The glass light fixture smashed down from the ceiling.
On the vial-phones Scott caught a glimpse of the pyramids
on one screen, firing ener bolts up into the sky.
On the other screen he could see Hackett and the men
and women of CERN dodging falling equipment and
spitting power arcs, before eventually both lines went
dead. The vid-phones eventually clattered against
harder surfaces.

The fire alarm erupted. Loud and metallic, as the
window behind November's head succumbed to the
pressure and disintegrated, blown inwards as harsh,
freezing winds blasted the glass into the room. It was
only the heavy drapes, drawn across the window, that
saved the young girl's life by taking the full force of the
blast. They stopped her from being shredded by the surgically
sharp daggers of glass.

She clambered out from under the thick heavy sheets
as ceiling plaster crumbled. Dazed, she had no idea just
how fast events were overtaking her as Scott plowed in.
Snatched her off the bed and dragged her away in time
as the floor collapsed, taking the bed down with it into
the room below and beyond.

'Oh my God, what do we do?'

'We get out of here!' Scott yelled, squeezing her hand
and dragging her to the door.

Trouble was, it was jammed.

'We can get out through my room!' November said,
thinking quickly and leading the way.

They really weren't prepared for earthquakes in this
part of the world. At least, not at this intensity. That

....................................... aECIPHER 	339

much was painfully obvious as the pair dodged more
falling plaster. But there was no way out from
November's room either, and they were running out of
options.

'Clear the closet,' Scott ordered. Tll get the mattress.'


Within minutes they were huddled together, as safe as
the situation allowed, under a mattress. Awaiting their
rescue.


/


\\


CERN


H

ackett ducked his head back in under the table as
another half-ton steel component whistled past and
left a crater in the concrete floor. He looked to the
others who were crouched down with him, tried half a
smile. But only half. 'Well,' he said. 'This is fun.'

Matheson pulled his legs in tight. 'That was a dry
run? Shit, if that's what they got in Egypt, what the hell
kind of thing can we expect in Antarctica?'

'Worse.' Hackett was certain. 'Much worse.'

'We don't really have many options against this type
of thing, do we?' Matheson croaked darkly.

'Sure we do,' Pearce said, crawling up next to him
to allow Hawkes room to huddle into safety with them.

'Ain't no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole.'
'Huh?'

'We can pray.'


The scientists may not have liked it. But at least it was
an option.

THE SACRED PLACES


S

unset in the Amazon wasn't normally this exciting,
Bulger figured. But then this was his first visit, what
did he know? Except the trees, 10 feet across, some of
them, interspersed with Acetic and Corozo Palms,
Goco de Monas and Divedives, shouldn't be swaying
like reeds. The ground shouldn't be shaking uncontrollably.
The floodwater along the forest floor shouldn't
be draining off into underground fissures, while the
vegetation across the surfaces of the pyramids, thick
and moist, shouldn't be bursting into flames. But it

was.

The light from the sun seemed to visibly flicker, like
a candle caught in a draught - when it wasn't obscured
by thick angry cloud, which pelted down raindrops like
bullets.

They'd assembled their base camp and equipment
when the chaos struck. So panic-stricken were the
remaining Machiguenga, they fled from their hiding
places and made off into the jungle. Some chose to stay



342 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

and fight, and for the first time Bulger got a close-up
view of one of the fearsome painted warriors as he sprang
from behind a tree, baring his incredible array of razor
sharp teeth he'd proudly filed himself.
They struggled for a moment, the Machiguenga
biting down into Bulger's forearm, before Carver put a
bullet in the back of the Indian's head.
Maple, for his part, stood in the clearing, eyeballing
the sky in a bid to outstare God. Though he had just
as much difficulty standing upright as anyone else, he
seemed determined to ride out the trembling ground
like a rodeo star on a bucking bronco.
Maybe they should have known it was coming when
the jungle went eerily quiet moments beforehand. But
the screams from the wildlife were deafening now, and
as dead wood trees crashed into the clearing around the
camp, the biggest surprise of the evening was revealed.
Holes in the ground.
Massive and deep, cutting into the mud around the
bases of the pyramids. To begin with no one was sure
whether they were ancient traps, or uncovered
entrances, but Carver was quick to bring his skill to
bear, stumbling over to one hole and setting up his
equipment.
As mud slid down into the pit, it took him a moment
to calibrate, compensating for the gushing rain. But when
he did and the results blinked onto the mini-screen, his
face lit up. 'Carbon 60!' he hollered. 'Directly below!
And leading all the way up into the pyramids!'
'Fuckin' A!' Maple yelled back, stuffing tobacco into
his mouth. 'This is gonna be easier than I thought!' He
quickly directed the others to the machinery that was
packed together under wet tarps. Earthquake or no
....................................... DECIPHER 	343
earthquake, they had work to do. 'Radio the choppers!'
Maple ordered. 'Tell 'em they may as well head out here
now. We'll be trawling this stuff outta here by morning.'
Bulger nursed his arm as he set up the communications
and Maple's men attached some kind of hi-tech
canon to a tri-pod with a Rola Corp. Research logo on its
side. They ran cables from its back to a generator, just
the way Bulger had taught them, and awaited the signal.
'OkayI' Maple ordered. 'Fire her up!'
They flipped the power on. Aimed at a tree and pulled
the trigger. There was a screaming whine. A blinding
flash. And the most powerful particle beam ever created
for portable use twisted and sliced its way tarough the
air, evaporating the rain in its path in a clcud of hissing
steam, and blasting the tree trunk to splinters.
Whoops of excitement shot around the encampment.
Maple gave the thumbs up. 'Shit yeah!' he cried.
'Now get down that fucking hole and start carving up
our C60T We're getting paid by the kilo. And I intend
to retiref'
They were achieving precisely what they had set out
to do. They had found the ancient lost Peruvian
Pyramids, had identified their contents, and were looting
at their leisure.
But as they lowered each other down into the slippery,
muddy pits by rope, and began slicing into the
ancient crystal structures - spirals up long tunnels what
they could never know was that by agreeing to dsmantle
the Carbon 60 monuments of Pini Pini, they
had made one of the worst decisions of their lives.
Certainly, it was going to prove one of the most devastating.


\,


EXPED TION


The essential feature of complex behavior is the ability
to perform transitions between different states . . .
Complexity is concerned with systems in which evolution,
and hence history, plays or has played an important
role in the observed behavior.


Gregoire Nicolis and Ilya Prigogine Exploring

Complexity: An Introduction, 1989

EN ROUTE

1
	] t was a hand. I m telling you, we saw a freakm hand.
I 'There was an awful lot of signal degradation when
that power burst kicked in,' Houghton objected frostily.
'There's no telling what you saw.'
'We saw something that was alive; Pearce warned.
'Trust me.'
The lawyer shrugged, unwilling to argue. He went
back to his notebook.
They were in the back of the Ford People Carrier.
Flinching as wave after wave of golf-ball-sized hailstones
hammered down in a ferocious assault on the vehicle's
rooftop, accompanied by sharp cracks and bangs as the
ice exploded on impact, shattered across the paintwork
or skipped off onto the tarmac. It was like being on the
receiving end of a constant barrage of machine-gun fire.
Hackett nursed a deep cut across one cheek as he
rested against the glass and watched the world stream
by, while Scott shifted in his seat. 'I wonder how Sarah's

348 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

doing?' he muttered. 'Did anyone manage to get back
in touch with Cairo?'
Houghton didn't look round from his paperwork.
'We're working on it,' was all he said.
'I hope she's okay. I hope everybody's okay.'
'Four times on this planet,' Hackett grumbled, stirring,
'life has virtually been extinguished. Almost wiped
out. At the end of the Cretaceous Age, the Jurassic Age,
the Triassic and the Permian Age. Now, watch out, folks.
Here comes the end of the Space Age. Great.'
Bob Pearce, who was sat a row in front, turned on
him. 'This is nothing to joke about. This really is the
end of life on earth.'
'I didn't say the end of life,' Hackett smirked. 'I said
a virtual extinction. There's a difference.'
Up ahead, Dower and Cant rode in separate ears in
the tinted glass, military Cavalcade. Hackett watched
them swerve in and out for a moment.
They crossed the Port du Mont-Blanc cautiously,
aware that Lac Lgman was still in a vitriolic mood.
Across the lake, around which Geneva stood, the famous
Jet d'Eau, a manmade geyser that usually squirted a
mast of water 150 feet into the air, had fizzled to a 10foot
trickle. Meanwhile the hailstorm rained chunks of
ice into the water causing it to froth up in response.
Passing by the cracked and torn lglise Anglaise, and
the shaken Gate de Cornavin, the main train station,
they turned right, speeding up Rue de Lausanne and
swerving to avoid masonry and fallen roof-tiles.
Everywhere they looked there was structural damage
to the buildings. Geneva had been hit hard.
'At the end of the Permian Age, 286 to 245 million
years ago,' Scott recounted, 'eighty percent of all life was
	....................................... DECIPHER 	349
destroyed. Eighty percent. Trilobites gone. Fusulinids, huge Iguana-type creatures, gone. The three main dominant
types of reptile: Cotylosaurs, Pelycosaurs and
Therapsids - all gone. It was the most destructive end
to any period of evolution known to earth. Yet we're still
here . . .'
\
'Maybe extinction events are God's way of denying evolution exists,' Hackett commented mildly.
'The death of eighty percent of all life on earth is the end of life,' Pearce moaned.
Hackett scratched around. Lifted the Etch-A-Sketch
November was doodling on, out of the girl's hand, said:
'May I borrow this? Thanks,' and held the doodle up
for all to see.
'This is the earth, okay?' He pointed at the doodle.
'And this iS all life on earth.' Pearce nodded. 'A gravity
wave hits--' Suddenly Hackett shook the Etch-A-Sketch
violently, erasing everything on it, much to November's
surprise and annoyance. 'Okay. What have you got left?'
'NothingV November said crossly. 'Nothing. Everything's gone.'
'That's what I'm saying,' Pearce exclaimed.
'Uh-uh,' Hackett chided, tapping the cheap plastic
Etch-A-Sketch firmly. 'You've still got this, the earth
itself. With all its constituent elements and its ability to
nurture. And in time...' He twiddled a knob and started
the tiniest new doodle. 'In time - life will flourish again.
Except this time it will be in a new way. A new combination.
The deck will be shuffled and the building
blocks will be reassembled. But this time it all takes
place - without us.'
He dumped the Etch-A-Sketch back in November's
lap. 'Thanks,' he said, without even a hint of sincerity.


350 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


She glanced down at her missing masterpiece.
Nursed the graze on her arm from the night before and
said thinly, 'Great.'

'No, it's not the end of life we need to worry about,'
Hacker declared. 'It's the end of us. The end of the
human race. Life will take care of itself.

'Why d'you think environmental activists are so important?
Okay, so they delude themselves into thinking the
preservation of some cute fuzzy creatures in the Panazon
creates some kind of emotional bond with the earth. But
what they're really doing is maintaining the food chain.
By maintaining the food chain, evolution remains stable;
the environment reaches equilibrium. And why is that
important? Because the current environment is the only
environment in which we, as a species, can exist. Three
million years ago we weren't around and the environment
was different. You want to save something because
it's cute? What's the point? None. No, you preserve the
environment because it preserves us. And to do it we
have to go against the laws of nature. We have to become
- unnatural.' Hackett chuckled. 'Nature is infertility.
Nature is genetic disease. Nature is famine and pestilence.
Nature is weather patterns more severe than we
can imagine. Nature is change.'

'In the Book of Isaiah,' Scott chipped in, 'God clearly
states that he is both good and evil.'

Hackett and Scott eyed each other warily. Were they
actually starting to agree on something?

Up in the front passenger seat, Houghton shifted in
his chair. He slung an arm over the back of it and turned

to address everyone in the People Carrier.

'Are these figures correct?'

'Yes,' Hacker confirmed, referring to the mass of

	....................................... DECIPHER 	351

differential equations he'd passed over. 'The sun will
hit its main nutzoid zone midnight Saturday, right on
the cusp of two holy days. Which Sabbath do yot use?'

Houghton looked sheepish. 'Actually I don't much
go in for religion.'

Hacker forced eye-contact. Let a smile touch his lips,
but it never did quite make it to his eyes. 'Might wanna
start,' he advised.

Houghton coughed. Rubbed his temples. 'This is,
uh, pretty frightening. I had no idea this was all so real,'
he confessed.

'I've run the figures a hundred times.' Hackett
sounded weary.

'That number stream from inside the crystal?'

'No,' Hackett answered dismissively. 'Not that. I haven't
got a clue what that is. No, I've been running the numbers
Sarah gave me on seismic wave propagation - the
Tesla Effect. By my calculation, the peak of the sun's
gravitational waves will occur one hour and fifty-seven
minutes before Sarah predicts the final geological event
will hit the earth and snap the carpet out from under us.
In other words, it will take approximately eight minutes
for the gravity wave to travel from the sun to the earth
at the speed of light. It will then hit us, causing an already
increasing resonance within the liquid core of this planet
to increase out of control. It will take, by her figures, one
hour and forty-nine minutes for the wave to pass throughout
the planet and rebound back again. By which point
the damage will be irreversible.'

Scott hunted for moisture in his parched mouth.
'When's the final event?'

'Three a.m.,' Hacker said. 'This Sunday.'

	'In two days . . .'



352 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

Hackett nodded. 'At just after midnight the sun will
pulse for the last time. By three o'clock Sunday morning,
earth-crust displacement will have shifted whole
continents by as much as twenty degrees. That's so much
carnage, for the human race - it's game over.'
Scott rubbed his face. Wondering: 'What the hell do
we do?'
'I thought maybe we could get together when we
reach McMurdo.' Pearce turned on the anthropologist.
'McMurdo's got a chapel.'
Houghton coughed in an attempt to strengthen his
voice. Sipped coffee from a cheap styrofoam cup. 'To
bring you up to speed,' he said, 'we didn't just lose contact
with another seventeen satellites last night. We lost
contact with the Chinese base.'
Ralph Matheson looked up. He wasn't much of a fan
of lawyers. It wasn't just that the man acted like a weasel,
but that he looked like one too. His build was best
described as slight. It meant that when he did things to
piss someone off, they had this overwhelming urge to
sock him one in the gut. It was instinctual, almost
primal. It was something Houghton was well aware of,
and played on.
But for once, he didn't seem pleased with this turn
of events.
'Say again?'
'The Chinese base has fallen silent. We don't know
why.'
'Oh great, so what happens when we go a-knocking?
Legally we have to tell them we're coming. If we take
them by surprise they could just open fire!'
'There is a chance of that now, yes,' the lawyer reluctantly
agreed.
....................................... DECIPHER 	353

The People Carrier turned right onto the Avenue de
France and the final approach to the Parc de l'Ariane
where the Palais des Nations usually sat resplendentlZ.
But today its gleaming white exterior was tarnished. The
array of national flags across the front lawn were crooked
and buckled. The bronzed statue of mythical beasts
within a globe had crashed off its perch in the circular
reflecting pool and lay dented to one side. Vehicles were
parked askew, up on the grass verges and scattered wherever
the diplomats had cared to put them.
Like entropy, the second law of thermodynamics,
order was disintegrating.
But the Ford People Carrier didn't turn into the UN
as everyone anticipated. Instead it drove straight on.
Following the signs to the airport. 'I thought we were
going inside?' Matheson queried.
'Change of plan,' Houghton said tersely. 'After such
an exciting evening here in Switzerland, the Chinese
delegation left early this morning. As a consequence there
are no negotiations to enter into.'
'I'm not entirely sure that's a good thing,' Hackett
mused.
'The Security Council in New York passed a resolution
granting the United States permission to mount its
own inspection team, under its own iurisdiction. So long
as we stay within Treaty guidelines, give China fair
warning of our intentions and let them know about your
imminent arrival that'll be sufficient.' He added: 'States
of emergency have been declared across several continents.
We can basically do what we want. A wrangle
between China and America is the least of their worries
right now.'
'But you said you've lost contact with the Chinese



354 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

base,' Scott reminded him. 'If you can't warn them, and
there's no Chinese delegation to inform, how will they
know we're coming? We'll be sitting ducks.'
Matheson rolled his eyes, alarmed. 'Oh, Christ. This
is bad. This is very fucking bad.'
Houghton took a deep breath. 'We can only assume
the Chinese are using the current crisis to dismiss the
rule of international law. In which case you'll have to
go in under armed escort. The only other option is their
base is simply no longer there.'
Matheson was confused. 'I don't understand. Surely
you can check something like that?'
'Three major spy satellites were knocked out last
night,' Houghton revealed. 'There's just no way of knowing
for sure. The President's asked me to join him in
Rome for a debriefing.'
Pearce fidgeted nervously. Gasping for air, he met
Houghton's gaze and couldn't help but draw attention
to himself. 'I can find out,' he said quietly. 'Why don't
they ask me?'
Everyone in the back of the van exchanged curious
looks. What on earth was he talking about? Only
Houghton seemed to understand.
'They know, Bob,' the lawyer answered gravely. 'They
know. And they will be calling.'

No one asked any further questions. No one bugged
Pearce about his odd conversation. No one seemed to
want to know. They should have been nervous. They
should have been apprehensive. But exhaustion was a
curious thing. Instead, they reclined their seats on tlae
green army Hercules C-130 transport plane, pulled
blankets up around their necks, and spent the eleven
....................................... DECIPHER 	355

hour flight to Cape Town, South Africa, fast asleep. Not
even stirring when the plane touched down briefly in
Cairo to pick up another passenger.


PIER 19


CAPE TOWN DOCKS

, Be careful with thatt Be careful!'
Scott woke with a start. How long had the plane
been on the ground? It was a customized Hercules C130
with a pressurized cabin for senior officers in the
front, and a small depressurized rear compartment from
where drops were made when the plane was flying low.
But the cabin door was wide open. Hot sticky air
wafted inside, with a sharp, striking light to accompany
it. And, Scott realized, he'd been left all alone.
He could hear a radio playing somewhere. Focused on
it and became aware of a familiar voice. It was the
President, addressing the nation. Trying to reassure the
public back home, as he continued his tour of the Vatican,
that there was nothing to worry about. Lying bastard.
Scott sat up, thought of Fergus for a moment, and then
there was a clatter, a loud bang, like something heavy
had just been dropped.
'Goddamnit! I said be careful!'
....................................... DECIPHER 	357

He knew that voice. Strong. Firm. Severely pissed.
Yet somehow attractive. 'Sarah?'
He shook off the last vestiges of sleep and. stumbled
from the chair. Stepping out into the corridor at the
side of the cabin, he paused to let a crewman pass
through to the cockpit, before continuing on his way
to where the load door was lowered forming a ramp.
Crates that hadn't been on board in Switzerland were
piled Up under webbing and straps. Airmen carried all
the equipment down to a series of flatbed trucks lined
up on the sweltering tarmac.
A slim tanned woman stood on the lip of the slope,
with incredible legs stretching up to a pair of old beat
up shorts. One arm was akimbo, while the other swung
out directions.
Scott coughed. 'Hi, Sarah. It's me - Richard.'
Sarah turned slowly and relaxed. 'Hi,' she brightened.
'We finally meet.'
Scott blinked in surprise. 'I'm glad you're all right.
That you got out okay. What with the line going dead,'
he thought for a moment, choosing his words carefully,
'I didn't know what to think.'
"Miss me?'
Scott chuckled. 'I hardly know you.'
'No, you don't,' she said warmly.
He smiled. Surprisingly relaxed. 'Has this been a
weird couple of days or what?' She tried to smile back
but it was difficult. Tm sorry about Eric, and Douglas.'
She thanked him. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
'They abandoned me back there.'
Their eyes met, perhaps for longer than they should
have. Scott dug his hands in his pockets and took a
couple of steps down the ramp. When Sarah added,



358 	STEL PA'VLOU .....................................

'You talk in your sleep,' Scott glanced back 'I took the
seat next to yours'
'I'm glad you're okay,' Scott reaffirmed by way of an
invitation.
Sarah joined him on the ramp and disembarked, stabbing
a finger at one of the airmen to be more careful
while Scott rubbed a hand over his chin. Two days'
growth. He really needed to find a razor.
Outside, he could smell burning. The sun was bright,
maybe too bright. Without the slightest hint of haze,
there was a perfect view of Table Mountain in the far
distance. They were on a private airfield, part of the
docks. Huge buildings lined the pier. Cranes loaded
cargo ships.
Scott shielded his eyes and glanced up at the sun.
'Hard to believe,' he said. 'It gives us hot sunny days
and skin cancer all in one fell swoop. Yet we refuse to
believe it can do us any more harm than that.'
Sarah handed the linguist a sheet of paper with a list
of numbers running down it.
'What's this?' he asked.
'DEOS figures. Deep Earth Observation Sensor figures.
Earthquake data for the last twenty-four hours.'
Scott tried reading the list. 'I already briefed everyone
else. You're the last to know.'
DEOS had been conceived in 1998 by a team at
Cambridge University, Sarah explained. Across the
planet, a ten-year operation attached DEOS probes to the
ocean floor, measuring seismic activity within the mantle.
In time it built up a picture of the earth's core. Each
probe was linked, and the data beamed to the satellite
communications networks encircling the earth, where it
was available to anyone with access to the Internet.
....................................... DECIPHER 	359


	,y,


Shpulled m closer to Scott. know that hght show

in theunnel?' Scott gave her that look that said: how

could he forget? 'Well, before that one there were five

other separate energy bursts that were harmless. I was

caught in the middle of one of'em. We got data on the

other four. The light just whizzed through the tunnel

and moved on out.' She handed him another sheet of

paper. 'This is a map of the tunnel system on the Giza

site'

'There's a ring down there?'

'Yeah. And see here, here and here? Three main tun
nels
join the ring at 120-degree intervals. The one from

the east, the one I was in, goes straight into the Sphinx

Chamber where the benben stone's housed. The other

two, the ones that come in from the south-west and

north-west, link to the ring. And the ring, from what I

can figure, joins the Sphinx Chamber through the east

tunnel.'

'What are you saying?' Scott asked soberly. 'Am I

making too much of a leap here if I assume you're sug
gesting
this earthquake data is linked to the energy bursts

in the tunnel?'

'That's exactly it,' Sarah confirmed. 'These are the

times at which the energy bursts passed through the

Sphinx Chamber And these are the closest associated

earthquakes.'

'But the times don't match.'

'You have to allow the seismic wave time to travel.

On average, they move through the ground at 13,000

mph. They go faster or slower depending on the mag
nitude
and depth. This one here, this energy burst at

11.37 pm? An earthquake hit Chad, magnitude six, just

minutes before. Chad isn't on a faultline, but it has


\


360 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


volcanic activity from a hot spot that's burnt through
the crust, like Hawaii. It's about 1,000 miles away.
Simple arithmetic tells you it travels 1,000 miles in
about four and a half minutes. The Chad earthquake
hit at 11.32 pm, five minutes beforehand, with an epicenter
that's almost precisely due south-west of Cairo,
directly in line with the south-west tunnel.'

Sarah traced her finger around the information. Scott
followed intently as she added, 'All of these earthquakes
are in some kind of direct line of sight with one of the
three tunnels leading into Giza. And the time delays
between earthquake events and the energy bursts match
exactly. Chad, Italy, Greece, Lebanon. The middle of
the South Atlantic. They all match.'

'Don't worry,' Scott reassured her, 'I believe you. I
can't not believe you. Gould this get any more complex?
That's one hell of a machine we're talking about.
What did the others say?'

'They're trying t9 work out how the seismic wave was
converted into heat and light.'

Tm sure they'll figure it out,' Scott said, eager to get
on. He glanced around, didn't recognize markings,
people or directions. 'Where are we going, by the way?'

'We were supposed to re-fuel and head straight down
to McMurdo, but the weather's too bad for a landing.
They put us aboard a Coastguard Icebreaker with a science
team that was going anyway. It's that bright red
one - over there.'

They hopped on the back of one of the flat-beds and
rode over to the ship alongside some of the other crates.
But it was only as Scott started to take in what he was
seeing that he noticed the huge sears down the side of
Table Mountain, perhaps twenty miles wide in places.

....................................... DECIPHER 	361

'Landslides,' Sarah explained. 'They ran out some
way. Killed about three thousand people. Knocked
power out across half of Cape Town.' She mulled it
over. 'They've had some problems. Looting. Rioting.
Panic and stuff. That's why we landed here. The main
airport's swamped.'

'Because of the landslide?'

'Yup. People are trying to get out.'

'And go where?' Scott inquired. Deadly serious.
'Unless you can get out of this entire solar system, there's
nowhere to hide.'

'That's just what your CIA man said.' Scott looked
quizzical. 'Bob Pearce, your CIA guy... ?'

'Bob Pearce is C/A? What does he do for them?'


The deckhands were carrying equipment up the gangway
while the larger, bulkier items, survival gear, supplies,
food and so on, were being hauled on board by
crane.

The USCGC Polar Star WAGB-1 O, wasn't the largest
icebreaker there was, being only 399 feet long and just
over 13,000 tons. Her hull was bright red, with a thick
white diagonal stripe running down the front end of
each side of her bow. Her bridge was gleaming white
with a black mast on top bristling with radar and communications
antennae, and scientific measuring instruments.
She had two mustard-colored funnels leading to
two diesel electric turbines.

No, she wasn't the biggest, but she was sturdy and
ready to take on the challenge of getting her passengers
to McMurdo Sound. Alongside her sister ship, Polar Sea,
she happened to be the most powerful non-nuclear icebreaker
in the world. To Scott she looked eerily familiar.



362 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

And then he remembered. Polar Star. Her home port
was Pier 36 in Seattle. He'd seen this ship on and off,
countless times before. Only last month he'd taken
Emily down to see her when the Coastguard had an
open day. His daughter loved boats.
Her deck plates hummed in anticipation as Scott and
Sarah went below to find their cabins and stow their
things. They found Ralph Matheson coming out of one
cabin, scratching his beard and looking irritated. 'This
is like being at camp,' he moaned. 'They got room for
twenty passengers, max. Can you believe we all gotta
share? Boys in one. Girls in the other.'
As he said this, November poked her head out of
another cabin excitedly. 'Sarah!' she exclaimed. 'You're
in here with me! We got one all to ourselves. Guess
they don't get too many women going to Antarctica.'
Sarah smirked at Scott. 'See you around.'
As she reached the door Scott exchanged a look with
Matheson, who pointed to one of his own hands and
shook it emphatically. Scott sighed, and called out to
the geologist, 'Uh, Sarah?'
She looked back.
Tve been meaning to ask.' He hesitated. 'In the
tunnel . . . was it a hand that grabbed Douglas?'
Sarah nodded thoughtfully before heading into her
cabin and closing the door behind her.
Matheson shook his head, 'Aw, shit.' He rummaged
around in his pockets. 'Now where'd I put my pills?'
He looked queasily at Scott. 'I get seasick.'
Scott took a deep breath as he lifted his bag. 'Oh,
great.' He hefted it onto one of the bunks. 'Well, hopefully
we won't be at sea too long. Which is mine?'
....................................... DECIPHER 	363

'Too long?' Ralph remarked. 'This thing does thirty
knots, tops - oh, top bunk. We got over two thousand
miles to go. That's three day's sailing time, at least.'
Scott shrug his stuff on the top bunk. The cabin
berthed six, so conditions were cramped. He had a reading
light and a curtain, but other than that, not much. And then he realized; was this the last thing he was ever
going to see? Hackett said the sun peaked its cycle in two days. He turned on Matheson. 'We could all be
dead in three days.'

'This is the USS Harry S. Truman calling the US
Coastguard ship Polar Star. We confirm the safe arrival
of Rear Admiral T.W. Dower aboard our vessel. Cape
Town Harbormaster has given clearance for your immediate
departure. The Truman battle group is pleased to
serve as your escort. Over.'
'Yeah, confirm that, Truman. The crew of the Polar
Star thanks you. We will be underway shortly. Over and
out.'
The CO, Captain Chris Rafferty, hung the radio back
up on the console and nodded to the harbor pilot to
guide his ship out. They would be sailing up Table Bay
some distance before turning toward the open sea.
Level, as it happened, with a small South African town
called Atlantis. Such was the way of things.
Of his twenty officers, two were on the bridge. Of
his one hundred and forty-three enlisted men, a further
six manned other stations. But Rafferty's main concern
was Major Gant, who stood beside him at the Comm
desk.
Rafferty folded his arms; lowered his voice. 'Well, this
makes a change. We're not usually this popular.' Gant



364 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

said nothing 'You were lucky,' Rafferty added. 'We don't
normally come to Cape Town; usually we head straight
for Sydney. But the biologists we got with us had some
stuff to pick up.'
'We appreciate you giving us a ride,' Pearce .offered.
He and Hacker were also on the bridge, by the windows,
watching the smoke columns from distant fires the
results of the looting and panic.
But Gant was less appreciative and more concerned
with the voyage ahead. 'I've been speaking to the Truman and the Ingersoll. The weather's getting worse
down there. We need to be ready to batten down at a
moment's notice.'
'The weather?' Rafferty snorted coldly. 'We get
another one of those - gravity waves, did you call them?'
Hackett nodded. 'We get another one and there's a fifty
fifty chance we'll go down. We're not the size of an aircraft
carxier. We can't ride a fifty-foot wave. It took four
years to build this ship, and she can cut through ice
like nothing else. But the wrong conditions - and she'll
go down in four minutes.' He stuck his hands on his
hips. Then adjusted his standard-issue baseball cap.
'Just so you all know. Antarctica's like nowhere else on
earth, including the North Pole. With or without gravity
waves.'
Ensign Varez was a stocky Hispanic from the fifty
first state of Puerto Rico. He grinned to himself excitedly
as the communications desk lit up like a Christmas
tree. Addressed his CO: 'Captain! Satellite communications
just came back online, sir.'
'What have we got?'
'Uh - everything. GPS. Direct lines to DC. Seattle. NORAD. Switzerland. The works.'
....................................... DECIPHER 	365
	'Good.' He looked to Gant. 'You boys work fast.'
'Well, of course,' Gant chided stiffly. 'There are two
whole carrier groups down here now.'
'Excellent,' Hackett said briskly. 'Now maybe we can
download the updates of my data from CERN to the labs
downstairs--'
	'Below decks,' Rafferty corrected.
	Hacker shrugged. 'Wherever.'
But the mood hadn't lightened any for Major Gant.
Checking in with Cheyenne Mountain, NORAD was disappointed
to report that all efforts to locate the Chinese
base via satellite had failed. And of the few satellites
they could bump into position, the closest, VX-17, wasn't going to be in prime position for another thirty
two hours.
Hackett and Pearce exchanged glances, as the CIA
man shook nervously. He licked his lips. Tensed. 'You
got a room all set up for this?'
Gant said he did. And marched him off into the
bowels of the ship.

At 13:06 ¢MT, Polar Star entered international waters,
becoming the primary responsibility of the Harry S.
Truman battle group, comprising the Fifth Carrier
Group Nimitz Glass aircraft carrier USS Harry S.
Truman CVN 75, with the eighty-seven planes of
Carrier Air Wing Five. Running alongside were the USS Bunker Hill CG 52, and the USS Mobile Bay
CG 53. While further out to sea, with some vessels
even beyond visibility and tucked over the horizon,
were the ships of Destroyer Squadron 15: the Vincennes, the Thach, the Curtis Wilbur, Rodney M.
Davis, the O'Brien, the John S. McCain and the Fife.


366 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


Ten ships in all. And a formidable arm of the Truman
battle group.

And this was the second battle group. The Nimitz
herself, first of the Nimitz Class, was already in position
with her own fleet, patrolling Antarctic waters. It
was equally large, and equally committed to carrying
out its duties.

To give some idea of the scale of the mounting situation
at the South Pole, Gant explained. Antarctica,
which was twice the size of America, had around five
thousand people living and working on its shores at any
one time. In contrast, the ship's company of the USS
Nimitz numbered 3,350, while its onboard Air Wing
numbered 2,480 men and women. A total of 5,830
people. Just the arrival of the Nimitz alone had doubled
Antarctica's population overnight. The Truman
had exactly the same complement. And when counting
the number of people combined aboard the other
eighteen ships, the population of Antarctica had multiplied
by a factor of 10.

And that was just the Navy. The Marines had sent
their people, as had the Army and the Air Force, all per
Presidential decree. It was going to be busy at the South
Pole, if nothing else.

But despite all the technical wizardry and know-how,
despite all the gadgets and toys, they were blind on
mainland Antarctica. They couldn't even confirm
whether an entire Chinese base still existed or not. And
so finally it all boiled down to this. To one man. Robert
Ellington Pearce, of Phoenix, Arizona. Serial Number
- A170044938-W9 of the Central Intelligence Agency.
A crypto-historian by desire, but a psychic by trade, for

....................................... DECIPHER 	367

want of a better word. And in possession of an extraordinary
talent.

The ability to view installations remotely and report
on their layout, contents and status with startling accuracy.

By
the power of thought alone.


4:16 PM


B

oh Pearce stood on the snow barefoot. And took a
look around.
'What do you see?'
There was no one else with him. So to keep some
sort of rational perspective welded to the situation, he
had a cellular phone pressed against his ear. He was
looking at his feet when he reported back. Wiggled his
toes. 'Snow,' he said. 'Ice. It's very cold here.'
'What do you see of the base?' Gant insisted on the
other end of the line.
Pearce jerked his head up.
Directly in front of him, a matter of inches away, the
charred remains of a Chinese soldier lay slumped over
his machine-gun nest. Some sort of blast had erupted
behind him and taken the back of his head with it. His
face was frozen solid, contorted. But his entire back half
was a blackened, twisted lump.
Smoke rose in stacks from behind twisted, iagged
....................................... DECIPHER 	369

wreckage. An overturned drilling mast had crashed
across a mobile cabin, itself a mass of flaking debris.
This was what was left of ]ung Chang.
'It's destroyed,' Pearce reported. 'It's devastated.'
Darkened debris littered the surrounding snow like
ground pepper on a plate of mashed potato. There was
a hand still clutched to a magazine a few feet off. Half
a torso. And a birthday card, flapping in the breeze.
'The weather's fine here,' Pearce realized.
'Can you get further into the base?'
'Just a moment. I gotta get past this, uh, thing,' he
said, giving another lump of frozen charcoal-covered
flesh a wide berth. Pearce could feel his stomach churning
over. As he drew closer, the smell of burning and
death grew thick and pungent, stung his nostrils and
caused him to gasp involuntarily.

'I know what's in Atlantis. I know because I've been
there before,' Hackett announced, with his feet up on
the table. Scott looked over.
Hackett rifled through the documents as Scott asked:
'What are those?'
'Transcripts,' he explained, 'of Bob's little visitations.'
They were in Polar Star's Deck 2 Research Laboratory,
where the team had assembled to watch Bob on the
video link. Scott pulled up a chair next to Matheson.
Hackett, who sat across from them, passed over the
paperwork. He watched Scott sift through the pages,
spreading them across the table.
Sarah's eyes were on Matheson as he gingerly
attached a connecting wire to the output socket on a
small plastic box-shaped unit then hooked it tip to the
computer workstation bolted to the desk behind him,



370 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

careful not to dislodge any more fried circuits than he
absolutely had to.
'Think you can get it to work7'
'Of course I can get it to work,' Matheson responded
dismissively. 'I designed this thing.' He chipped away
flaking particles, disgustedly. 'What is this stuff all over
it?'
'Blood,' Sarah revealed abruptly. 'Eric Glemmens's
charbroiled blood. They had to prise it from the wreckage.'
'Oh,'
Matheson murmured queasily. He had been
about to chew his nails. Now that didn't seem like such
a good idea.
'This is unbelievable,' Scott groaned, turning the
page.
'Why? Because it doesn't fit with your world view7'
Hackett challenged as Matheson reached behind his
chair and flipped a switch.
There was a low hum, followed by electrical chirping
as a single green LED blinked insistently to let him
know it was alive. He spun round to key the computer.
Hit - UPLOAD - and: 'Bingo.' He sniffed, self-satisfied.
'Transferring all Giza data to the main terminal. We
gotta party goin' on.'
'You cannot,' Scott insisted, 'claim to know what's
going on someplace else just by thinking about it.'
'He channels the energies,' Hackett reminded. 'We
can see him channeling the energies.'
']on,' Scott retaliated, 'you're a scientist. How can
you, of all people accept this7'
'Richard, we still don't fully understand quantum
mechanics, but what we do know is this TV monitor won't
work without it. No one knows what effect superstring
....................................... DECIPHER 	371

theory will have on our everyday lives but we know for
the universe to exist, there are at least twenty-seven
dimensions. We know there's no "nothingness". If you
sucked all the air out of a little black box, shut out all
the light, extracted everything - there would still be
thirty-seven fields of potential left. Thirty-seven! At the
last count! Particles would continue to pop up out of
nowhere sporadically, which is important because it
links to another theory. Spatially, I know you're sitting
there. I know your ass is in that seat. And I know we're
sailing on the ocean. But think about it - this'll be
important to you: where, spatially, is the past?'
'Where is the past?'
Sarah was excited. 'Wow. That's a good question.' 'Where is the past7'
Hackett nodded. 'In feet and inches, Richard, if you
please.'
Scott thought about it. 'The past,' he replied hesitantly,
'is over two miles beneath the ice - in Antarctica.'
He sat back on his haunches, feigning smug. But he
knew it wasn't much of an answer.
'Okay.' Hackett attacked again. 'So what is the distance
between good and evil in kilometers?'
That got him.
'We don't use eighty percent of our brain,' Hackett
said. 'And of the part we do use, eighty percent of that is given over to processing visual stimulus. The point
is, we as a species have existed for longer than our cognitive
abilities to process what we perceive. It's possible
our bodies can detect things we are simply not capable
of recognizing - yet. Maybe we haven't evolved sufficiently
to process that kind of data. Perhaps we need to
develop a new kind of sense. You're confused when I



372 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

ask "where is the past" because it's a different type of
question, one you're not used to. Yet linguistically you
can't deny it's grammatically correct.' Reluctantly Scott
agreed. 'Perhaps what Bob[s doing simply requires asking
different types of questions.'
'Are you saying he's more highly evolved than us?'
Scott challenged.
Hackett refused to answer.
'Shh!' November scolded. 'Can I at least hear what Bob has to say? Can't you just give him a break and
keep the faith?'
Scott turned to face where November sat fiddling
with the Giza tunnel footage on her computer. She met
his gaze levelly. 'He may be right, or he may be wrong,'
she said. 'But right now they can't even get a satellite
to tell us anything useful. So what's wrong with just
keeping the faith?'
'We're scientists,' Scott explained dryly. 'We don't do
faith?'
November just focused on the monitor, where Bob
Pearce had a room all set up with a table and chairs, a
map of Antarctica and a whole stack of grid references.
There were no crystal balls, burning incense or wind
chimes. It was clinical. And bright: he had a set of lights,
which he sat and stared at through closed eyes. It made
for bizarre viewing.
Across from him, Gant sat with pen, paper and a
sheet of reconnaissance data.
Pearce stirred. Tm uh, I'm through to the other section.
I'm passing a lot of wreckage.' He threw his hand
over his mouth as if he were about to be sick. 'Ugh,
uh, it's a . . . It's like a bomb went off. They're dead.
They're all dead.'
....................................... DECIPHER 	373
'Okay, Bob, I guess it's gruesome. But we need to
know about automated systems. Rack guns. Land
mines--'
November was concerned. 'I thought there was a ban
on land mines?' she whispered.
'Yeah, right,' Matheson snorted. 'On paper, maybe.'
'North-west of the compound, on the perimeter,'
Pearce announced, 'automated rack gun. Operational.
And, wait a minute . . . yes, another gun. But it's out
of amino. Correction: looks like they never loaded it.'
Scott rubbed his hand across his chin, astounded.
'What does he see?'
'He sees their base,' Hackett commented. 'And from
the sound of things, he sees it pretty well.'
Scott watched Pearce on the monitor, and that was
when he noticed something equally odd happening in
their own environment. A thin gray film of dust covered
everything close to an open porthole. Suddenly
the ship iolted as it hit rougher seas, and it was Bob
Pearce on the other end of the video-link who voiced
Scott's concern.
'Something's not right,' he said.

Vents of steam trickled out of blowholes all around Bob
Pearce, like steamholes in a pot of over-boiled rice. The
steam rose up only a few feet before it quickly turned
to snow and danced away on the wind.
Huge cracks criss-crossed through the ice. And as
Pearce picked his way through the debris, he became
aware the ground was dipping out from under him. It
was like being on the edge of an impact crater. The
blowholes were getting large, and the ground was starti
	'
	"
ng to look more like Swiss cheese. ExposedJCe tunnels



374 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

twisted away into the interior, large enough to accommodate
teams of men.
He could see something beyond the twisted, shattered
hulk of an Armored Personnel Carrier in front of
him, smashed up, and balanced on its side. It was something
dark. Vast. Stretched out across the ground. If only
he could reach it.
Was that a cry? Muffled. Distant. Pearce checked all
around his position. Trying to determine where it was
coming from.
'Say again?' Gant demanded.
But Pearce didn't have time to answer. Carefully, he
lowered himself down into a blowhole, and peered into
the steep, glistening ice tunnel. And as the frosty mist
wafted its way past him, up toward the surface, he spotted
something moving. Something black and disheveled,
clawing its way forward.
Pearce rushed to its side for a closer inspection and
was shocked to discover a Chinese soldier, in mountaineering
gear. His skin was black in patches. Not from
burns, but from frostbite.
'My God! We've got a survivor here!' he exclaimed.
He crouched down next to the young man who
couldn't have been more than twenty. 'Jesus, he's just
a kid,' Pearce added, disgusted. 'Send in a SaRGE! Now!'
'Don't get ahead of yourself, Bob,' Gant warned. 'We
don't even know if we can get a SaRGE that deep into
enemy territory.'
'They're all dead except for this kid,' Pearce insisted.
'Get a SaRGE in here. Drag him out, for god's sake get
a surgeon!'
There was steam rising from the delirious young soldier's
mouth. A powdered, crystallized breath. He opened
....................................... DECIPHER 	375

one drooping eyelid, and it looked for all the world
like 'I
think he sees me,' Pearce gasped.
'That's impossible,' Gant replied gruffly. 'You're not
really there, Bob. You've projected your mind into that
area. Check around you. See what he's focusing on.'
But Bob wasn't listening, because the young Chinese
soldier was trying to speak now. With one finger outstretched
to indicate the tunnel behind him, he was
trying, with every fiber in his being, to articulate sounds.
Bob Pearce leant forward, and though he couldn't
understand him, tried his best to repeat those sounds.

Scott ran his finger over the equipment in the lab and
studied the residue as November fought back a retch.
'What is that smell?' she complained.
'Close the portholes,' Scott ordered, covering his
mouth and reaching for the nearest porthole to him.
The ship lurched once more. But this time, worse, like
it had hit a wall of bad weather. Sarah too came over
to study the dust. Outside, it seemed to be raining nothing
but a swirl of gray, vile, sulfurous-smelling powder.
'It's volcanic ash,' she decided. 'There must be some
heavily active volcanoes coming up.'
'Mount Erebus is active,' Matheson said. 'It's right in
McMurdo Station's backyard.'
'Great,' Sarah moaned. 'This'll be fun.'
She joined Scott at the porthole, but he didn't seem
to be so amused. He brushed the ash from his fingertips,
saying: 'Brimstone. I never thought I'd get to see
the day--'
'Hey, Richard,' Hackett interrupted. 'Can you speak
Chinese?'
/
\
\\


376 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


Scott turned on the physicist. 'A little. Why?'

Hackett pointed at the monitor. 'Because Bob's
started speaking it.'

Scott came over to him and cranked the volume up,
straining to hear the mumbling CIA agent.

'Yao ye heikodo!' he seemed to be saying. 'Yao ye
heikodot'

Which left Scott cold. 'It's Cantonese,' he explained.
'He keeps saying "There's something down there.
There's something down there . . . And it's alive".'

SACRED PLACES



The Popol Vuh cannot be seen anymore . . . the original
book written long ago, existed, but its sight is hidden
from the searcher and the thinker.


Popol Vuh: Sacred Book of the Quiche Tribe of Maya,

University of Oklahoma Press Edition

NIGHT

PINI PINI TUNNELS

t was raining. Again.
They had told him it didn't actually rain all that
much in the rainforest, except maybe during the rainy
season. They had lied. Jack Bulger pulled the canvas
flap over on his canopy to stop the rainwater from dripping
down into his computer.
Piled in front of him were nineteen individual twofootsquare
Cubes of Carbon 60 crystal, cut out and
removed from the tunnels below ground in a systematic
process that had taken the best part of twelve hours.
Under their own tarp, they had been placed directly
onto the ground, where a muddy puddle had collected,
like a brown soup that was fast becoming home to an
array of festering insects.
A lightning burst arced across the sky as Bulger pulled
the tarp back and set up his microscope on the topmost
block. He had removed its base so the optical unit
peered directly down at the block below. After all, the

380 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

sample of C60 was too big to slip under the lens on a
glass slide.
He had been watching the blocks under the power
of the camp lights, and it had become increasingly obvious
that dark shadowy veins seemed to have feathered
throughout the crystal blocks, like faults in a gemstone.
They were not features he had noted when he examined
the Carbon 60 in its original state, wrapped in a
spiral around the inside of the tunnel. If the crystal were
an animal, he would have said it was dying.
He hooked the microscope up to his laptop, and powered
up. It wasn't what he preferred to be doing. He'd
rather be down in the thick of it, carving this stuff out,
but they wouldn't let him. He would have argued the
point, but they had the guns. Jack Bulger was many
things, but he wasn't stupid.
Eddie the winch operator was busy stringing out the
chain and hoist for the next delivery of Carbon 60, running
the length of metal links out to the hole in the
ground leading down to the tunnel, as Bulger zoomed
in on his own specimen of crystal.
'Make sure that thing doesn't snarl up on a stump
this time!' Bulger snapped over his shoulder, not bothered
if Eddie the winch answered or not, so long as he
did as he was told.
Bulger concentrated on his screen. There were three
fields of magnification, across a wide band spectrum. The
first was maximum optical magnification. Unfiltered.
Undiluted. Pure visual data. The second field was
enhanced optical. The image was filtered through a
patchwork of software to artifically clean up key features
of the specimen in different parts of the spectrum. The
third field was artificial magnification. Extrapolating key
....................................... DECIPHER 	381

data from the first two fields, the computer used the
optical data as a baseline and enhanced what it detected
based on a set of algorithms. The result was the computer
could artificially increase apparent optical magnification
by a factor of 1,000 to an accuracy of 98
percent.
Fine. So long as the damn thing gave him a close
up, Bulger didn't care how inaccurate it was. A fracture
was going to look like a fracture, hazy image or not.
The important point was, if the extraction process was
damaging the crystal in some way, he was going to have
to do something about it. A damaged crystal was a damaged
pay packet.
He lit up his cigar and blew rings. Keyed zoom, and
inspected the surface.
There was movement.
Bulger jerked his eyes away from the screen.
Eyeballed his microscope on the crystal block with some
suspicion. Was he tired or had he done something
wrong?
His first instinct was contamination. Fucking rainwater.
He stumbled to his feet and pulled the canvas
canopy further over his microscope. He picked the thing
up briefly, wiped down the surface just in case it really
was wet, and set it back down again. He hit RECALlBRATE
and waited.
Movement again.
'Jesus H. fucking God all - assholes.'
'Pretty, Jack,' Eddie the winch commented, sat out
by the generator, smoking a cigarette. 'Real pretty.'
Bulger glimpsed the tip of the man's cigarette glowing
in the dark. 'Shut up, asswipe.'
'Yessir.'



382 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

He studied the screen intently. Could the artificial
magnification be reacting to something like an external
light source? Misrepresenting a moving dance of
shadow and light across the subsurface structure?
'What's the problem?' Eddie tile winch asked.
'None of your damn business,' Bulger replied, instinctively
shifting in his chair to shield the screen from the
other man's prying eyes. Eddie shrugged and stuck to
his winch.
The image on the screen seemed to be showing tiny
filaments, like tubes of carbon, intricately woven
throughout the crystal. It was within these filaments that
there seemed to be movement, very much like a liquid.
Did this Carbon 60 have some sort of super-fast capillaD"
action as one of its properties? The ability to suck
a liquid in if it came into contact with it? Most rocks
had this property, but not at this speed.
He hit MAGNIFL boosting the image far beyond the
system's recommended levels. The result was greater
inaccuracy but Bulger was prepared to live with that. He
passed microns and was in the reahns of nanometers now
- measurements that covered billionths of a meter. A
place where materials began to act very differently.
There it was again. Something shot past the lens. A
blur, a dark burst. Then another, and another.
Like shadows on glass. There was no way he could
move the lens accurately enough to keep track of, or
pace with whatever was speeding through the tubes. No
problem. This was a laptop. It had highspeed shutter
capabilities. He hit RECORD and took a digital film shot
at 10,000 frames per second. The three-second burst
was theoretically enough to give him the information
he needed.
....................................... DECIPHER 	383

And as it happened, it was.
It first appeared on frame 1037 and was gone again
by frame 1104. More blips appeared in succession soon
after, but it was the first one that interested Bulger. It
was isolated, and easier to discern. He increased magnification
again. And couldn't believe what he was
seeing.
Tiny arms. A barrel-like body. Like no design he had
ever seen before. Part machine, part organic. It wasn't
based on any conventional, modern wisdom. It was
based on something superior.
Bulger's cigar fell from his mouth as he watched the
spectacle unfold on his monitor. For a tiny machine,
no bigger than some of the human body's own cells,
was whizzing through the crystal substructure.
Bulger snatched his cigar up before it burnt a hole in
the keyboard. There was only one explanation. 'Nanoes,'
he said.

Carver adjusted his goggles, bracing himself for the
back-blast of dust, as the particle beam under his control
sliced into the Carbon 60 spiral that was wrapped
around the inside of the underground passageway,
stretching off in both directions.
The crystal itself was covered in a type of writing he
had never seen before, while the ordinary stone portions
had glyphs carved on them that resembled ancient
Mayan writing. Which, if he remembered correctly, was
entirely out of place. The Mayans were from Central
America, not South. They never reached Peru or the
Amazon. But then, what did he know?
The particle beam finished cutting out a preprogrammed
cube of C60 and shut itself down. The



384 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

cube dulled and slid slowly out of its position. Gathering
speed, it crashed to the ground. Garrison was the man
with him. He quickly heaved the pail of water by his
feet and sluiced the crystal cube down. It hissed in a
cloud of steam as two members of Maple's team passed
them by on their way farther down into the tunnel's
extremities. They adjusted the flashlights bolted to their
hard hats as they went.
'Maple wants to know how much more of this stuff
we can get out before the tunnel collapses completely,'
the larger one said tersely.
There were cubes of G60 missing from the spiral, all
over the tunnel. Stress fractures had already started to
appear in the ceiling areas. They had plundered in
earnest.
But Carver wasn't too worried. 'My guess is, a whole
lot more,' he said, as the men went about their business.
There was a harness on the ground, hooked up to a
couple of heavy-duty chains. Carver and Garrison
worked together, stooping to fasten the entire cradle
around the Carbon 60 cube and had tied off the last of
the clips when Carver's radio kicked in.
'Pack up your kit,' Maple instructed. 'We're moving
that gun straight out.'
'What's going on?'
'Just be ready to move,' Maple insisted. His voice
sounded resonant, as if he were standing in a cavernous
room. 'We've found something that makes the crystal
in that tunnel look like a snack.'
Garrison eyed his boss as he ran the chains through
his gloved hands, checking the way was clear for Eddie
to shift the winch into gear and haul the crystal out.
'What do we do?' he asked.
....................................... DECIPHER 	385
'Go find out what he wants,' Carver replied gruffly.
Tll pack that thing up when I'm good and ready.'
Garrison shrugged in acknowledgement.
Carver watched Garrison march off into the darkness
as the now familiar light storm of energy pulsed down
the tunnel and lit up the surroundings for a mile. When
it reached his position where the blocks of Carbon 60
had been removed, it seemed to stall. To flicker, like a
dying neon tube light. Before passing through what
remained of the connection and moving on.

'Woo-Wee!' Eddie the winch whooped, bent double
over the entry hole, as the energy pulse lit up the tunnel
below. He descended into howls of laughter. 'Woah boy,
that sure is somethinT
'Yeah,' Bulger barely murmured through gritted teeth,
his mind distinctly elsewhere.
Nanoes. Micro-machines: Constructed at the atomic
level, operating on a molecular level, measured on the
nanometer scale. Robots that were so small that, given
the right instructions, they could literally climb inside
a heart through the smallest artery, and perform surgery
from the inside out. To be sure, this wasn't the nanotechnology
of the modern vision. Current thinking on
nanoes dictated that these tiny little robots were so small
they were submicroscopic, visible only with an electron
microscope, their moving parts the size of protein molecules.
Current nanothinking pointed to nanoes that,
if they could be made, would be no more than 100
nanometers long.
But they had never been made. The closest thing to
structural manipulation at the atomic level was twenty
years old, when Japanese scientists actually had spelt



386 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

out the word 'atom' in Japanese - and in atoms.
Glearly, what Bulger was seeing was a machine that
was hundreds of thousands of nanometers across. Much
larger than theory. But then theory was worthless without
some experiment, application, and the collection
of a few facts. And the fact was, a nano was staring him
in the face. The first working microscopic machine ever
seen.
And that had more cash worth than all the Carbon
60 on the planet.
Jack Bulger shivered with anticipation. God damn,
he couldn't tell the men he was with. Not only would
they not understand, they'd want a share in the profits.
Which just wasn't on offer. Besides, they were going to
get rich off the crystal anyway. Screw them. So the only
problem now was - what to do with the information.
He couldn't keep it here. They might stumble across
it, or rifle through his belongings and discover any handwritten
notes. Certainly this piece of digital film would
have to be deleted.
So should he send the information somewhere?
Maybe e-mail it to himself. Certainly, it was a double
edged sword telling Houghton. If he kept it quiet and
didn't tell the company lawyer, then every day that
passed increased the probability that some company scientists
would run across this discovery in the crystal he'd
brought back from Antarctica - if they hadn't already.
And he didn't want them getting the glory or the money.
But if he told Houghton and it really was a new discovery,
he would have safeguarded his personal revenue,
albeit at a substantially reduced rate than if he simply
put it out to auction to the highest bidder.
There was, of course, the third way. He could do the
....................................... DECIPHER 	387

smart thing, and do both. Tell Houghton. Get paid.
Then sell the information on anyway.
Yeah. That sounded better.
So while he put in his call to Jay Houghton, and
waited for the system to locate the lawyer, he busied
himself by collecting more data. And made the most
curious discovery.
The nanoes, depending on what they were trying to
achieve, worked either independently or collectively,
using chemical bonds to consciously bind together. To
form a larger device.
Incredible. He was going to be so freaking rich!

Carver put up his collar. Whistled away to himself as
he fastened the chain round the dangling greasy pulley
system above. He was directly under the entry hole
that had opened up during the initial earthquake.
Slimy mud continued to slide down the sides as torrential
rain flooded in from the surface. Carver looked
up to see lightning flashes and was actually glad to be
underground for a change - even if it was creepy down
here.
Glistening clear tree roots, all twisted in glassy knots,
jutted out at him. Creatures he hadn't even conceived
of before crawled and slithered all around him. Some
smaller insect-like things swarmed and fluttered their
gossamer wings. He had to flick the odd over-sized glasslike
spider from his boots. It made his skin crawl. But
at least he was dryer in the tunnel.
He tugged on the chains, put his radio to his lips and
announced, 'Okay, let her up.'
He could hear the distant roar of power as mechanical
motors cranked into gear. Saw the tension build in


388 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


the chains. And stood back as the Carbon 60 block was
suddenly dragged across the floor.

He monitored its progress gleefully, making sure his
prize made it over every rut it encountered. This one
block alone was worth a quarter of a million US dollars.
When it was time for payday the only certainty he
knew was that the whores in Mexico City better be geed
up on something a little stronger than Pro-Plus, coz
there was gonna be some ridin' goin' on. And it wasn't
gonna stop till Christmas.

When the block scraped its way over the right spot,
Carver radioed to the surface for them to stop. It was
time to unhook from the pulleys so the block could be
raised directly to the surface.

He paid scant regard to the translucent bug on his
shoulder. Or the glass tube-like roots that jabbed at his
throat as he grabbed the chains and yanked them free
of the pulleys. He was just about to radio back again,
however, when he heard something odd. He stopped
what he was doing mid-whistle.

There it was again. Like a fall. Some kind of muffled
cry. Very faint. But it was coming from the direction
of where his two team-mates had just headed.

He peered into the darkness. Angled his flashlight
and shone it into the distance, qntatively he called out
to them: 'Hinkley? Gerome?'

Nothing. Not a single response.

Carver tugged on the chains, a clear signal that they
could start lifting the block again. As he went for his
radio to confirm the order, he heard what could only
be described as a scream. Guttural. Explosive. Like the
knotting of entrails being wrenched from within.

Carver brought the radio to his mouth as he reached

.................................. DECIPHER 	389


for the semi-automatic rifle slung over his shoulder. He
was only going to say this once. 'Guys,' he said, 'quit
fucking around. Now what's going on?' But all he got
back was static. He put his radio away, raised his gun,
and tugged on the chains sharply. Twice. To let them
know there was a problem.

The block jerked to a halt and was left dangling at
eye-level.

Carver peered into the darkness once more. As each
lightning strike above lashed out across the sky, its light
reflected down into the tunnel. And for Carver it gave
the briefest glimpse of something disturbing. A figure
was approaching.


CROSSED WIRES


T

he lab door flew open, right around where Ralph
was busy tapping away on his computer and across
from where November sat cataloguing the Atlantis
glyphs. A belated sharp knock accompanied the intrusion.
A red-head in jeans and a T-shirt hung her head
around the door.

'Anyone in here called Jon HackeR?'

Hackett was startled. 'Uh, yes. That's me.'

'Hi. Rebecca Devon - microbiologist. I think they
made some sort of a screw-up, upstairs. They're pumping
data into our lab across the corridor. Number streams.
Mean anything to you?'

Hackett was on his feet. 'How long?'

'About an hour.'

'That's the completed crystal data from CEP, N; he
glowered, heading for the door. 'I've been waiting for
that. How come you didn't notice before?'

'Well, uh; she grinned apprehensively, 'it's an easy

....................................... DECIPHER 	391


mistake to make. It looks just like biological data.'
Hacker pulled up short. Checked with his colleagues.
Did he just hear that correctly?

'Complexity,' Scott winked, 'is the key.'

'What? Yeah - I guess you're right,' Hackett agreed
as Matheson pulled out his lemon and started joining
the dots across its bumpy surface. He had a rotating
globe on his monitor and had started to copy the pattern
onto that image too.

'This is some machine,' he murmured.

Hackett eyed it briefly. 'You think these sites are all
interconnected, like some kind of network, don't you,

Ralph? Like an ancient Internet?'

'Yup - I'm convinced of it.'

'You know what this is? This is a monkey puzzle, my
friend - on a global scale.'

'Gee, you make it sound like the ancients built all
this so we'd have something to while away the hours
with in our dying days,' Bob Pearce commented sourly.
He looked exhausted.

He stood in the doorway, made his apologies and
squeezed past Rebecca, who continued to wait patiently.
She grinned at him in an overly condescending, overly
friendly manner. 'Hi,' she said. But Pearce didn't
respond.

'Those sites are connected all right,' Pearce said. 'Ever
wonder what the hell ley lines were? Ancient channels
of force. Maybe an entire ancient.tunnel system is what
we've been detecting all this time.'

Hackett said playfully: 'Did I miss a meeting? Did
you go dowsing without me again? Bob, you know how
I hate to miss that.'

Pearce shrugged it offand grabbed Matheson's lemon


392 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


with the gridlines marked on it joining the five ancient
sites and traced his finger over them.

'Hey, I'm not finished with that,' Matheson complained.
'I was just about to scrawl the Giza tunnel
system on that thing.'

Scott shook his head. 'I'm not convinced,' he said.
'There's no way a tunnel system could stretch all the
way from Egypt to South America to Antarctica. It's just
physically impossible.'

'Besides,' Sarah added, 'the tectonic plates are
moving. Continents are continually shifting. Those tunnels
wouldn't last long - they'd be destroyed. Ripped
apart or flooded.'

Pearce held up the lemon. 'In relation to this puzzle,'
he said, 'the five sites and the earth? We are but a flea
on the ass of an elephant. In relation to the sun, we are
a tic on the ass of a flea on the ass of an elephant. We're
nothing. So until we step back, and get far enough away,
like going into orbit, we can't possibly see the whole
picture. The bigger picture.'

'Trouble is,' Rebecca the microbiologist added without
thinking, 'you step too far back and you wind up
falling off a cliff.' All eyes settled on the woman who
had spoken out of turn. 'It's just an observation,' she
added meekly. 'What are you guys talking about?'

Hackett inclined his head toward her and said quietly:
'Why don't you go on ahead, huh? I'll be along for my
data in just a second.' Rebecca made her excuses and
left. Hackett held up a hand defensively. 'Bob, calm
down. We're on your side on this thing. No one agrees
with your assessment more than I do. I also happen to
agree with Ralph. But whether these sites are linked
physically or any other way, unless I challenge him we'll

....................................... DECIPHER 	393


succumb to fuzzy thinking and that won't help any of
us. We have to be very clear about our conclusions and
the science that gets us there.'

Pearce rubbed his head, and seemed to be shaking
from the cold. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I'm just . . . very
tired.'

'I'm not surprised. Must take a lot of effort to do what
you do.'

Pearce was unsteady on his feet and allowed
November to guide him to a seat. 'For all we know,' he
murmured, 'the sun is a living breathing creature. It
just takes it four million years to say a word, let alone
string a sentence together. We are gone in the blink of
an eye on a cosmic scale. We don't live on the same
time-scale as the sun so we wouldn't recognize life that
way. We only recognize life that lives roughly at the
same pace as ourselves...'

Hackett looked to November as he tip-toed out the
door. 'And get him some coffee,' he advised. 'Lots of
sugar.'


'Hi. This is Ted,' Rebecca announced, introducing
everybody. 'Ted, this is Jon and Sarah. Ted's a marine
biologist. He studies jellyfish.'

'Oh,' Sarah commented brightly. 'They must be very
interesting animals.'

'They're not animals per se; Ted responded icily.
'They are planktonic marine creatures. Protoplasm.' Ted
wore sandals and had long greasy hair, like a surfer with
a personal hygiene problem. He also didn't know when
to break eye-contact, which made conversation with him
awkward and uncomfortable. 'Some of them are not
single creatures at all, but a collective of tiny creatures



394 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

that choose to work, live and hunt together in a form
we call the jellyfish.'
'Oh,' Sarah replied with an air that she hoped suggested
she stood corrected.
'Ted's a little edgy at the moment, aren't you, Ted?'
Rebecca interjected apologetically.
The other biologists steered clear of their little gathering.
They also wore their hair long, were in the process
of growing beards, and were more interested in the
spores they were cultivating in glass dishes than infiltrators
from the lab down the hall.
'We studied C60 before,' Rebecca announced
sweetly, tapping the screen of her computer and signaling
to her colleagues that everything was fine. 'There
you go. That's your transfer started. Shouldn't take long.'
'Thank you,' Hackett replied dismissively, aware
Sarah was hovering beside him. 'What, uh, what do you
mean you studied C60 before? Why on earth would
you do that as a microbiologist?'
'Fullerenes,' Rebecca explained, 'are a good candidate
for seeding life through space. Didn't you know?'
Sarah folded her arms tightly across her chest.
'Obviously not,' she said, thinking of the hand back in
the tunnel in Egypt and shivering.
'Oh,' Rebecca cooed dreamily, watching the data on
the screen. 'Carbon's a really special little element. And
C60's a really smart little molecule.'
'Carbon's very adaptable,' Hackett agreed. 'It's in the
ink we write with. It's in the flesh we live by. It goes
from being a gas to being part of the human brain, able
to contemplate its own existence.'
'Which is incredible considering that, as an element,
it's so mediocre,' Rebecca added. 'It does most things,
..................................... DECIPHER 	395

but isn't an extremist, like say potassium, which blows
tip at the drop of a hat. Carbon only makes up 0.2 percent
of the earth's elements, but is part of more compounds
than any other element. Hundreds of thousands
of compounds.'
'But why the C60 molecule as a candidate for spreading
life?' Sarah persisted.
'Because it's hollow,' Rebecca replied, as if Sarah,
since she knew so much about carbon, should have
known the answer to that question already. 'It's the shape
of a soccer ball.'
'The Carbon 60 molecule,' Hacker objected, 'is only
approximately three ingstroms across. That's enough
space for about one atom only.'
'Yes, but think about it. What atom?' Rebecca threw
right back at him. 'You choose the right atom and you
wind up creating the world's most powerful nonmetal
magnet. You make C900, which they've done in the
lab. The same enclosed structure as C60 emerges but
with 900 carbon atoms. And that isn't a ball anymore
- that's a capsule. You put a combination of the twenty
standard amino acids into the heart of that structure
and it'll end tip sprouting legs and walk off.'
Tm not following you,' Sarah interjected.
'There are three forms of carbon on earth, but which
type did we evolve from?' Rebecca asked. 'Graphite has
edge contaminates. Diamond has a monolayer of hydrogen
on its surface. And soot, which is pure and the most
closely related to ourselves, is formless. Life had to
evolve from something. But it can't be any of these three.
Diamond is not only too rigid, but the hydrogen renders
it useless. Graphite's too malleable, and soot so
formless it's useless. The guess is, there was a fourth



396 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

type of carbon that was pure and had form . . . That's
what C60 is. Pure. And it has form.'
'You got proof of this?' Sarah asked suspiciously.
Suspicious because she was afraid of the answer. Afraid
because she had seen the answer.
'Twenty years ago Buseck and Tsipursky found C60
and C70 in shungite,' Rebecca offered.
Hackett looked puzzled.
'Rare carbonaceous, pre-Cambrian rock,' Sarah told
him. 'I know. Traces were detected around crater sites
and in the KT boundary - the boundary that marks the
end of the Cretaceous and beginning of the Tertiary
eras, sixty-five million years ago when the dinosaurs were
killed.'
'Absolutely. And on that basis we had our guys back
at the Max Planck Institute fire C60 molecules at a hard
surface at over 17,000 miles an hour. Around the same
type of forces you would expect it to have been put
under if it had just crashed to earth on the back of an
asteroid. The molecules bounced back. They weren't
destroyed - they survived! Now the idea of Dr
Frankenstein throwing a switch and zapping his monster
is a little extreme, but heat and the odd lightning
bolt are the ideal conditions to kickstart life. Or at least
mutate it. And Carbon 60, as a pure form of carbon,
with no contaminants and structure is biologically
active.'
'Which came first?' Hackett mused. 'The chicken or
the Carbon 60 egg, huh?'
Rebecca eyed him up and down as if seeing the physicist
in a new light. 'That's very funny,' she smirked. 'I
like that.' She tapped her screen, bringing up images.
'The reason this looked like biological data,' she
....................................... DECIPHER 	397

explained, 'is because the numbers and some of the
data show a symmetry very similar to that of life forms.
When I realized it was C60 it made perfect sense.'
'Symmetry?' Sarah probed further.
'Life, as we know it, has two basic shapes,' Rebecca
said. 'There's the double helix - y'know, the spiral which
is what our DNA conforms to and what many
larger life forms are based on. And then there's the
soccer-ball symmetry of viruses. Sometimes the helicalscrewlike
shape manifests itself in the very shape of the
animal in question, like some gastropods. Like the twirl
shape of the Nautilus sea shell.'
'But C60 is only soccer-ball-shaped, isn't it?'
'No, not at all,' Rebecca corrected. She punched up
another image. 'If you pass C60 through an electrical
field during its creation, it forms a carbon nano-tube
that develops on a screw-like basis. A helix shape instead.
A spiral. But a spiral tube - which is also the basic
requirement of all larger life forms - for circulation of
the blood.'
Two basic shapes of Carbon 60. Two basic life forms
on earth. Both evolved from carbon. But from the same type of carbon?
'It's like C60, if we were going to design it; Rebecca
added, 'would be the perfect starting point for life. We
know chloroplasts, true bacteria and mitochondria
evolved from eubacteria. Methanogens, halophiles, sulfolubus
and their relatives come under archaea. Protists,
plants, fungi and animals stem from eukaryotes. We
know that eubacteria, archaea and eukaryotes together
all stem from the same first branch on the tree of life.
But viruses are a mystery: they don't seem to fit in.
However, if you have one type of carbon structure that


398 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


can take on two distinct shapes - then that explains the
connection.

'Carbon 60 could be the precursor to some sort of
proto-life form. Have you seen this?' she asked as an
image of a soccer-ball-shaped molecule appeared as

seen under a cryo-electron microscope.

'C60, right?' Sarah offered.

'No,' Rebecca corrected. 'This is a virus.'

'Which one?'

'The human herpes virus.'

'Herpes?'

'Uh-huh. And it has exactly the same symmetry as
C60. Admittedly it's not the best example, but then what
virus is?'

'Life bears the scars of its predecessors,' Hackett
mused. 'In this case shape and symmetry.' Was this the
emergent property that marked the transition from
simple crystal to lower life form? Real complexity in
real action?

'The type of carbon we evolved from has been a
mystery,' Rebecca explained. She tapped the screen
again to show an image of Carbon 60 in its spiral nanotube
form, rotating side by side with a DNA strand.
'Coal, diamonds, they're all still around in abundance.
Theoretically Carbon 60 should also be here in equal
abundance. But where'd it all go? You're a physicist.
Erwin Schr6dinger described DNA as an aperiodic
crystal.'

She paused, then looked around at them all. 'My
theory is C60 is still around. It just evolved. It's us.'


'Gerome, is that you? Hinkley? What the luck are you
doing, you twerp?'

....................................... DECIPHER 	399


Another lightning burst. Another glimpse. And that
was when Carver realized that what was approaching,
albeit in the shape of a man, was neither Hinkley nor
Gerome.

It was rising up out of the ground as it approached.
Growing at an extraordinary rate, like a fluid that had
decided to take solid form. It was a towering figure. And
it lumbered forward, yet remained shrouded in darkness.

Carver
stumbled backwards. Grasped his gun tightly,
and slipped the safety catch off. Squeezed the trigger
and fired a clear burst of shots at the assailant. They

rebounded harmlessly off its chest.

It moved forward again.

Carver moved too, desperate to keep his distance,
but his exit was blocked by the cube of Carbon 60 dangling
behind him.

Swarming over its surface was a seething mass of
crystal-clear spiders, mixed with the invasive tendrils
and roots. Giant glass centipedes and millipedes scuttled
within the mass. Carver had the sudden terrifying
realization that the entire angry mass was melting in on
itself. Everything was merging into one single lump.
Like an ice sculpture that had a blowtorch directed on
it, it shifted, writhed and reformed. Mutating into a
hanging, decapitated crystal human head. His head.

Slowly the crystal effigy opened its eyes and focused
them on Carver. They analyzed each other for a
moment before the head distorted its features as it
opened its jaws wide. Exposed its tombstone-like teeth,
and hissed at him.

Its tongue rolled out. And upon its tongue - a single
word was etched.


400 	STEL 15AVLOU ....................... ..............


Carver's instinct was to run away screaming, but
before he even had time to consider what to do next,
the ice-cold grasp of the approaching figure's crystal
hand was clenched tightly around his throat.

Carver's face reddened, and blotched, as he choked.
The figure moved in closer. Its broad, see-through
shoulders barely flinching as its nine-foot frame went
to work.

Carver lashed out. Swung a balled fist. But it just hit
a wall of solid glass.

The figure did not respond. With barely a scowl
across its face, it studied Carver intently. Methodically.
As slowly, it squeezed.


On the surface, Eddie the winch was getting restless.
What was Carver playing at? It had been nearly a quarter
of an hour now.

He trudged over to the opening in the ground, grimacing
at the ever-present stench of rotting vegetation
every time he kicked up a clump of undergrowth.

'Hey, down there!' he shouted. 'What the bell's
wrong?' No response. 'Answer me, damn it!'

He looked to his associate, manning the computer,
engrossed in his phone-call, before stooping to his knees
and examining the chain. It jolted. Once.

'At last. All right! He returned to his winch. Shoved
it into gear.

The motor roared as the chain retracted at a rate that
was simply too good to be true. Anxiously he brought
the whole thing clattering to a halt again and rushed
to grab the end of the chain. But where a neatly cut
block of Carbon 60 should have been, sat an empty
cradle harness.

....................................... DECIPHER 	401


Concerned, he tossed the thing to the ground, and
marched over to the communications table, where
Bulger had more lap-tops, vid-phones and a satellite
link-up all sat ready and active. He took a radio from
among the toys. 'Carver, what's going on down there?
What's the problem, bud? We're wasting time here.'
Nothing. 'Carver?' He tapped the radio. 'Damn, I think
the power's out on the comm relay.' He turned to Bulger.
'Jack?'

But Bulger was ensconced in discussions.

'Jack?' He reached out and put a hand on the man's
shoulder, and was surprised when the stocky guy shot
around like a startled child.

'What?' the engineer growled, puffing smoke furiously.

Eddie
jerked a thumb over his shoulder. 'I'm going
down into the tunnel. I think Carver's got a problem.'

'Fine,' Bulger replied, turning his back on the man
as he stumbled through the rain and let himself down.


PONTIFICAL APOSTOLIC PALACE


SECOND FLOOR


VATICAN CITY


I| ittle robots, you say? What can these little robots

L..

do? And what are they made of, if they're so small?'

'They're made of carbon,' Bulger explained over the
din of the chugging winch engine, his end of the line.
'And they can do anything you want. Correct tissue
damage inside your body. Cut out a cancer. Build
microchips from the atom up--'

'The ones you got right there?'

'No. I don't know what these ones are programmed
for, but the potential's there. All we have todo is reverse

engineer them in the lab.'

'I don't understand.'

'Jay, just find a vid-link. I'll show you,' the engineer
demanded gruffly.

The lawyer paced in front of the open doors to Pope
Lucien Sfiorza's office and hung on every word that
escaped from deep within the plush interior. As much
an exercise in wealth and opulence as any of the other

....................................... DECIPHER 	403


Vatican palaces, it didn't have the frescoes of Michelangelo,
like the Pauline Chapel, or the architectural
touch of Bernini. But the Pontifical Apostolic Palace
was a palace nonetheless, its splendor tempered only
by its pursuit of utility. After all, people worked here.
God's work went on next door.

In the Pope's office the President of the United States
sat taking tea with the President and CEO of Rola
Corp.'s Ripley Thorne, alongside Rabbi Malachai Stern
straight in from Jerusalem, while the Pope himself,
resplendent in his robes, sat behind his desk.

They were discussing matters that went far beyond
miniature robots. They were discussing things that,
simply put, brought the cornerstones of western society
into question. They were concerned with the end of
the status quo. That, to them, was what Atlantis represented.
And they didn't like it.

Neither did they like the fact that sound traveled. It
was clear Houghton's relentless movement while glued
to his cellular phone was making him few friends.

'I'm sorry, Mr Houghton, but you really must try to
keep your voice down,' an eminent priest warned quietly
and patiently. 'I'm Father McRack, one of Pope Sfiorza's
aides.'

'Tell him to forgive me,' Houghton said rudely. Roger
'Fergus' McRack seemed stunned. 'Well, it is his job,'
the lawyer added with a shrug.

'Jay? Jay, are you still there?' Bulger croaked.

'Yeah, I'm still here,' Houghton confirmed as Fergus
shooed him away from the door and in the direction of
a vacant desk a few yards away.

'When you're ready to quietly rejoin the discussions,
you may do so,' Fergus warned.


404 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


Houghton ignored him. There was a vid-phone on
the desk. He transferred the call over and activated the
visual. The screen was split. Bulger in one half, tiny
little insectlike things moving around on the other.

'Okay, where are the robots?' Houghton demanded.
'You're looking at them.'

'Those things are robots? They look like bugs. How
big are they?'

'So small, you could fit a hundred thousand of 'em
on the head of a pin.'

'I see,' Houghton said, impressed. Now he got it.
'Holy shift'

From way down the other end of the office complex,
through the mahogany double doors, Pope Lucien
Sfiorza shot the lawyer a look of censure.

THE CHAMBERS



C

lifford Maple stuffed fresh tobacco into his mouth
as one of his men pushed past to get a better look
at the subterranean opening hidden in the heart of the
Amazon.

Like a catacomb in a European gothic cathedral, the
great expanse of space before them was only possible
because incredible arches of red stonework supported
the weight of the eight enormous pyramids above
ground. Square pillars of stone, 40 feet across each side,
supported the archways. But overall it was still possible
to see the entire catacomb from end to end. Raised
pathways snaked around it, climbing higher, up to ten
feet above ground level, as they wended their way
toward eight separate crystal chambers. Above them
were suspended huge crystal pyramids. One for each
chamber.

In the ceiling, above the eight C60 pyramids, were
twisted stone funnels that disappeared up into the


406 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

darkness, each penetrating deep into the interior of the
pyramid above.
'Why do I feel like I'm looking at the insides of a V8
engine?' Maple wondered.
Up in one of the chambers, his men were busy assessing
how best to dismantle the crystal structure. It was
a precarious place to be, considering the gronnd was
beginning to tremble once more.
Maple spat a globule of black tar-ridden slime out
across the floor. 'We'll be lucky if this place doesn't
shake itself apart,' he said.
The overall shape of the catacomb was roughly
oblong. And in the center of each outer wall, just a few
feet off the ground, were the entrances to four large offshoot
tunnels. They had arrived through one of them.
But all four of were now trickling filthy muddy water
as a prelude to flooding the entire area.
'Where the hell is Carver?' Maple fretted, checking
his watch. He looked to his men. 'Can we get to work,
or what?'
'We really need that particle beam, sir. This shit's
tough to cut.'
Maple scratched his head in frustration. He was not
a man who liked to be kept waiting. 'You and you - go
get that gun. If Carver gives you any trouble, kneecap
him.'
They didn't need telling twice. But as they passed by
the entrance of one tunnel, on the way to their exit,
one of the men suddenly froze while his companion
turned back on his boss - something the renegade wasn't
used to. 'Maybe we should come back and do this later,'
he said hoarsely. 'We got company.'
Maple spun on his heel in time to watch a shimmering
....................................... DECIPHER 	407

crystal-blue figure clamber down from the tunnel in front
of his men and advance. 'Who the luck is this joker?'
he snarled.
'The Machiguenga,' one of his more Hispanic
accomplices hissed.
'The Machiguenga are dead.' He went for his rifle,
and indicated to his men to follow him down. Grabbed
his radio. 'Carver, come in!' Static. 'Carver, get your ass
down here, we need back-up.' But Carver wasn't
coming. Carver would never be coming.
Unarmed, naked and vaguely defined, the effigy of
a large man lumbered toward them. The peculiarity
of the situation seemed to fail to register in the minds
of the mercenaries. All they perceived was a threat,
whether that threat was transparent and crystalline in
nature, or not.
Fanning out they raised their rifles in unison and
fired at will, indiscriminately. Some in short bursts,
others one shot at a time, trying to prevent the figure
from advancing, which in the end was what allowed
them to neglect their flanks.
Suddenly an arm shot out from behind an archway
and grabbed one of the mercenaries roughly by the
shoulder, swinging him around. There was a struggle,
but only on the part of the human as he glared into
and through the eyes of a second attacker. He became
aware of those strange letters etched across the being's
forehead. Became aware too of its sheer size and power.
Then realized there was a third stone giant, waiting in
the wings.
Petrified, from the Greek, meaning 'turned to stone'.
It was awesome to discover that the stone had come to
life and turned on him. When the effigy decided to act



408 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

it did so at speed, tearing the mercenary's head from
his shoulders and dumping the two parts unceremoniously
on the ground before heading for the rest of the
squad. Which was just about all the persuasion the
rabble needed to turn tail, and run.
'Call the choppers!' Maple yelled into his radio, as
he broke into a sweat-soaked sprint for the exit. 'Gall
the fucking choppers, now!'
But there was no panic on the other end of the line.
There was no hyperventilated frenzy of a comrade desperate
to come to their aid. With the din of rushing
blood in their ears, the roar of pumping adrenaline, and
the thud, thud, thud of combat boots on wet rock flooring,
their radios stayed alarmingly silent - confirming
that they were on their own.
Maple fumbled with his broadcast unit, trying to get
it to send out a signal, but luck wasn't with him. Spitting
his tobacco out of his mouth, he ripped the plastic earpiece
from his ear and flung it away. Fired covering
rounds into the spiraled tunnel ahead of them, and
clambered inside.
What none of the mercenaries did, was to check
whether they were being followed. Had they done so,
they would have seen three crystal effigies of men pull
up short at the entrance to the tunnel and hesitate,
before finally retreating and going their separate ways,
returning to wherever they had come from. For it
seemed the tunnel the mercenaries had chosen was not
their domain, but the domain of something else.
And that something else was waiting for them.

Like a painted portrait that was still wet, the human
head sticking out the side of the tunnel was fused to
....................................... DECIPHER 	409

the Carbon 60 spiral, and looked as if it had been
smeared throughout the crystal, like a swirl of strawberry
sauce in a pot of yogurt.
It was Carver's head.
Maple felt sick. Fought the knots twisting in the pit
of his stomach. 'Dear God . . .'
'Fuck, man! Fuck!' one of his men screamed, ripping
at his own scalp as he tried to come to terms with
the total insanity of what he was seeing.
The whole spiral convnlsed, like a snake digesting a
rodent. Carver's head stretched out along the crystal as
if it were made of rubber, while slowly it began losing
color, turning gray as it dissolved.
Maple didn't want to stick around and see anymore.
'Come on,' he ordered, leading the way.
The men broke into a run, leaping through the water
as if it didn't exist. Sprinting past odd Carbon 60 protrusions
that seemed to be lining their journey, paying
them little attention as they pushed on. But the protrusions
were growing. Thrusting out. Turning pointed.
Becoming spikes.
Becoming spears.
When the spears launched they took the stragglers
first, catching them completely off-guard. Like pikes
from a Dark Ages battle they shot forward at an explosive
rate, pierced straight through the abdomen of two
men and propelled them at the wall opposite. Their
screams were intense as agony swept over them. And
though they struggled against being impaled, their
actions were for naught, as the crystal spears continued
to blast straight through them, their trailing ends mutating
into a mass of curved spikes designed to split the
men apart.



410 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

It was over in a matter of seconds, forcing Maple to
widen his eyes.
He was out of his league.

'The point about Schr/dinger and his cat,' Hackett
explained, back in the lab with the others, 'is you put
a cat in a box and close the box and the cat is both
there and not there all at the same time.'
Scott swiveled on his chair. 'Whatever you say.'
'But that's not important,' Hackett told him. 'What's
important is life is an extension of a crystal. Order
means life. Crystals and cells are one and the same,
they both do exactly the same job. They replicate. They
grow by stacking identical units one on top of the other.
And at some point, crystals and cells were exactly the
same entity. What is the basic constant of life? What
do all living things do? Living things replicate. Out of
chaos, order is born. God creates the Big Bang. The
Big Bang creates carbon crystals. Carbon crystals
create DNA. DNA creates living cells. Cells create
mankind. Mankind creates intelligence. Intelligence
creates God . . .'
'Man destroys God.'
'God destroys man,' Sarah added.
'Carbon 60 starts life all over again,' Hackett concluded.
'You
got all that,' Scott asked, perplexed, 'from a trip
to a biolab?'
'It was very stimulating. The irony is,' Hackett said,
'we know why all this is happening. There's just nothing
we seem to be able to do about it.'
'Wait a minute,' Matheson interrupted. 'Are you suggesting
that if life on earth was destroyed, Atlantis would
....................................... DECIPHER 	411

be able to re-seed life? That it's biologically potent?'
'What more is life, than a few billion molecules that
decide on a whim to be yon for a while? They can just
as easily decide to be something else.'
November was curious. 'Life started out as a crystal
of carbon?' Hackett nodded. 'In the Bible, didn't God
create Adam from clay? And breathe life into him? What
better way is there of breathing life into a carbon structure,
than by tapping directly into the energy of the
solar wind?'
'In pre-Islamic Iran,' Scott revealed, 'the Avestic
Aryans believed that Yima, their version of Noah, during
the Flood, was ordered to make a Var - an underground
place, that linked the four comers of the earth, where
the seed of all livings things would be kept and stored.
After the Flood it became covered in snow and ice. And
remains so to this day.'

Jack Bulger sat forward, trying to hide his glee as he
leaned into the camera and explained a few things to
Houghton. In 1956, John Van Neumann, father of artificial
life, proposed machines that could replicate themselves.
In 1986, K. Eric Drexler took the idea one step
further and christened it nanotechnology. Now in 2012,
the name of Jack Bulger would be on everyone's lips.
He had made this theoretical discovery a reality. And
Bulger wanted one hell of a deal.
'Explain to me,' the lawyer was asking, 'how these
larger devices work, when these tiny robots fuse together
to become bigger units. Is there any limit to their size?'
Bulger was confident. 'None that I'm aware of. It
simply depends on how strong their chemical bonds
are. I would imagine about the largest thing they could


412 	STEL PAVLOU .................................


assemble to become would be a thimble. Any bigger
and they'd run into problems. But I can't say for certain.'

'And
they can disassemble back to their original state
at any time?'

'It seems that way to me. Sure.'

Houghton narrowed his eyes as he contemplated the
implications. 'Extraordinary.'


'Angel Base, come in! This is the Tooth Fairy! Bulger,
you ignorant luck - Come in!' Maple screamed into the
radio, as the assault intensified. 'Bulger, if you can hear
this, send for the choppers now!'

He fired a constant barrage of bullets into the darkness
ahead as he sprinted for the opening in the ceiling.
There was light ahead. He was drawing ever closer,
even as his final man was picked off and sent spluttering
to the tunnel wall in a spray of blood and torment.
Maple didn't look back.

He was going to make it. He was damn sure he was
going to make it. Because up ahead, still set up on its
tripod and hooked into the power supply was the particle
beam. Which was handy because as he squeezed
his rifle's trigger it clicked, and failed to deliver.

He slung it over his shoulder as he picked up the
pace. He could feel his heart trying to thump its way
out of his chest. Could see the spikes growing large in
the periphery of his vision. Sensed the impending wave
of destruction - and calmed.

Timing, as any professional would tell you, was everything.

He
dived forward, tucking his feet in and pulling his
head down as he turned his fall into a roll. The spears

....................................... DECIPHER 	413


above him lashed out and smacked into the tunnel wall
opposite as Maple bumped to a halt by the tripod and
recovered his senses. He stayed crouched, ever watchfill
for a filrther attack as he keyed the power switch.
Flared up the energizer - and fired.

The fire power was formidable as a twisted rope of
pure energy arced from the barrel and shattered the
crystal spikes, one after the other, in successive lines
down each side of the tunnel wall. He could hear movement
behind, swung the gun around and pumped explosive
uncontrolled rage into the crystal spikes that were
growing out of the tunnel in that direction as well.

Bu the lightning storm was illuminating in other ways
too. For where there used to be large cube-shaped holes
in the crystal spiral, there were now burnt reddishcolored
patches of new crystal, slowly pulsing their own
brand of energy. A distinct brand that bore traces of
human flesh.

For the spiral was healing.

There was a clattering, like broken glass being
scrunched together and rattled around. It was coming
from the direction of the crystal chamber. The direction
from which he'd just come.

Maple twisted at the hip, brought the gun around to
face the onslaught and cranked up the power setting as
far as it would go. He activated his radio again, trying
to make contact with the surface.

There was a crackle of noise. And at last, the faint hint
of somebody on the other end. 'Bulger!' Maple yelled.
'Answer me, damn it! Throw me a rope ladder or something!
Put the winch into gear. I gotta get outta here!'

But the response was as garbled as it was intermittent.
Had Bulger even heard him?



414 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

He struggled with the beam confinement settings on
the device, adjusting the focus to give a wider beam.
Anything that caused as much death and destruction in
its path as possible.
The glass-grinding sound drew closer, until before
him stood another one of those huge, nine-foot-tall men.
For a moment, it just stood there, appearing to weigh
up the situation and judge the next move. It took a tentative
step forward. And that was when Maple fired, slicing
into the creature's gut and chopping it in two. The
top half of its body slid off and crashed to the ground.
Maple savored the moment, but it was short-lived,
because the top half was making its way back to its legs.
It gripped one leg and dissolved into the appendage at
tremendous speed. Within moments the top half of the
body was starting to take shape once again.
Maple wasn't about to wait for an instant replay. He
swung his head up and saw a rope dangling just out of
reach up the muddy hole. He jumped. Failed with the
first try. Made it with the second. Used every muscle
in his upper body to heave his frame further up the line
until eventually he could hook his foot around the
bottom portion and begin the arduous monkey climb
to the top.
He glanced back down, saw the crystal man standing
below, seeming to be at a loss over what to do. And
decided that it was a good time to radio again.
He unclipped the unit. Put it to his mouth.

There was a crackle of noise. Not from the vidphone,
but from one of the radios scattered across the table.
Bulger tried to ignore it. It was cutting in and out erratically.
Annoyingly. But it wouldn't go away.
....................................... DECIPHER 	41 5

Bulger made his apologies to the lawyer, who simply
smiled from his end of the link, and sifted through the
units one by one before zeroing in on the correct device.
He thumbed the transceiver roughly and growled:
'Okay, this better be good, I'm in the middle of stuff
here.' The frantic voice cut in and out as the signal
failed to penetrate. 'Say again. Over.'
'Get - me - the - >static< - out - of- here!' Bulger
blinked. It was Maple. Tm on the rope!'
Bulger shot round. Behind him, the only rope still
hanging down into the tunnel below was twitching.
'Shift'
He ran for the rope. It wasn't attached to the winch,
just tied off around a stake in the ground. He shoved
his gloves on his hands; gave a brief nod to Houghton.
'Stay on the line', he shouted. Tll be just a minute.'
He ran his fingers along the rope until he found a
spot where he could pry his fingers underneath and take
a good firm grasp. He leant into it and tugged. Pulled
for all he was worth, groaning through gritted teeth, but
it was no use. Maple was too heavy.
He staggered to the hole in the ground, careful not
to slip on the mud and go hurtling down instead. He
pulled out a flashlight. Shone it down. Watched raindrops
disappear past the light beam and plummet into
the darkness. He cupped his hand around his mouth
and hollered: 'Maple! Is that you? Maple, can you hear
me? What's goin' on?'
There was a muffled response. Loud but incomprehensible.
'Maple,
you're too heavy. I can't pull on the rope.
You're gonna have to climb out!'
There was a rope ladder. Yes! Now he remembered.


416 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


Over by his tent, there was a stash of back-up equipment.
Not a lot of it, but he distinctly remembered
seeing a nylon safety ladder. He held out a hand to the
darkness below and waved it. TII be back in a second!
I'm gonna go get the ladder!'

He found it in a black plastic trunk, under a spare
tarp. Pulled it out and rushed it over to the side. It
wasn't very long. What to do? It had a single hoop at
the top, but he had no time to play around and hook
it up to the winch. Instead, he threw the hoop over
the metal stake and lobbed the ladder down the hole.
He heard it slap against the wet mud with a squelch,
angled his flashlight, and could see movement. Yeah,
there was Maple's distinctive Panama bobbing up and
down, its colored twirl flapping as he clambered up
the ladder.

'Boy,' Bulger huffed, 'you really had me going there
for a while.' He didn't want to stick around at the edge.
Besides, he had a phone-call to terminate. Bulger spun
on his heel and went back to his laptop, not bothering
to check on the man and his misfortune.

He sat heavily in his seat. 'I think,' he said to
Houghton, wiping rainwater from his face, 'we better
terminate this fairly quickly.'

'Who's that?' Houghton asked, referring to the man
climbing out of the tunnel behind Bulger.

'That's Maple. The biggest nutcase the company's
money could buy.'

Houghton was impressed as the man strode closer,
the gathering winds blowing the hat clean off his head.
'Jesus, he really is big.'

Bulger frowned. Turned around to see what the lawyer
was talking about, and wished, for all the world, that he

....................................... DECIPHER 	41 7


hadn't. For standing before him was a giant of a man.
And when lightning streaked across the sky, he could
see clean through him. He gasped, involuntarily.

And the only thing he could think of saying was:
'That's bigger than a thimble.'


SFIORZ,S OFFICE


F

ergus sat stoically at his desk on the far side of the
room. He doodled on a notepad in a successful
attempt to make it look like he was working, even
though everybody knew why he was there. He was the
monitor, and he monitored effectively.

He adjusted his earpiece as he paid close attention
to the phone-call between Houghton and Bulger unfolding
across his computer screen. It had become only
marginally more interesting than the conversation he
was taping right in front of him.

'What is it I can do for you?' the Pope had asked.
'I want a third term,' the President had replied. 'I
want a third term, and I want gun control. Makes the
public more compliant.' And then: 'What is it I can do
for you?' the President had asked in return.

'You must do what you can to save mankind and save
the earth, of course. But afterwards, should you find yourself
in a position where Atlantis is still standing, I want

....................................... DECIPHER 	41 9


you to destroy it,' the Pope had responded. 'I want all
evidence of that destabilizing scourge brought to wrack
and ruin. Mankind's past must remain a secret place
where only the select few may be permitted to tread.
Information is a threat to us. Why else would we have
kept the Holy Book from the general populace for more
than a millennium? The existence of Atlantis and all that
it may teach would make a mockery of modern religion.
A society without religion is a society without self-belief
and self-worth. Ultimately to retain social control, a little
lost knowledge is a good thing. Of course, all that is academic
if these scientists cannot save our planet.'

The Rabbi had remained silent on the subject.
Granted, neither man had said it in such blunt terms.
But they had said it nonetheless, voiced in the language
of diplomacy.

The United States government had thought as much.
That was why they had initiated Operation Wrecking
Ball to begin with. As they spoke, a team under the auspices
of the United Nations was about to enter Atlantis.
They were about to uncover its secrets. And when their
job was done, they were going to destroy it because it
threatened the minds of the good citizens of the earth.
Its very existence called world religions into question.

Organized religion was an odd business, but make
no mistake - it was still a business. Business traded.
Business understood when it was time to cooperate.

Fergus was contemplating what had been said when
events on his computer screen started unfolding at a
phenomenal rate.


A crystal-like giant stood over Jack Bulger. Looked to
the blocks of darkened Carbon 60 under the tarp,



420 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

and back to Bulger again in successive glances.
On his end of the line, the lawyer sat forward, mesmerized.
'Thanks, Jack. I'm glad you brought this to my
attention.'
Jack Bulger cocked his head. He knew what that
meant. Houghton had surmised something about the
situation that suggested he was about to become the
biggest loser in all this.
Suddenly the crystal figure grabbed Bulger. Wrestled
with him for a moment before putting him over his
knee and breaking his back. It peered forward to get a
good long look at Houghton, revealing the mysterious
letters etched across its forehead in Atlantis glyphs, then
it grabbed Bulger by the skull and dragged him across
to the hole.
He dropped the body over the edge, before jumping
down behind him.

Fergus was stunned.
He covered his mouth, horrified. An inanimate man
protecting his domain. An automaton carrying out its
master's orders. An image of a man endowed with life.
There was only one creature that matched the description.
Mentioned briefly in Psalms 139:16, it had its roots
firmly planted in ancient Jewish literature - and some
Jewish literature that was not quite so ancient.
In the late 1500s a Rabbi known under the acronym
The Maharal, or Moraynu HaReaw Judah Loew ben
B'zalel - Our Teacher Judah Loew son of B'zalel - was
Chief Rabbi of Prague, at the Altneuschul Synagogue.
Legend had it he created an effigy of a man and brought
it to life. Designed to protect the ghetto, as all such effigies
were designed to do, it took its orders too literally
....................................... DECIPHER 	421

and ran amok. Whereupon Rabbi Loew was forced to
terminate the creature and reduced it to dust.
Around this time, records showed that Rabbi Loew
was invited to discuss alchemy with Emperor Rudulph
II. It was not known if they discussed the creature. But
it was known what the creature was called. It was 'The
Golem,' Fergus murmured under his breath.
'Dear God save us; he added, letting his eyes rest briefly
on Rabbi Stern.
The Golem. The perfect mechanical servant who
was brought to life by having a sacred word, or one of
the names of God affixed in some manner to its head.
The only way to stop it was by removing that word.
Fergus stood, switched his computer off and made
his brief excuses as he left. He had not liked the tone of the Pope's discussion. And he had not enjoyed the
phone-call he had been monitoring. Both left a bitter
taste in the mouth. For in both cases the only conclusion
he could draw was that by carrying out the orders
of the papacy and removing Richard Scott from his academic
post, he had inadvertently placed his friend in
such a position that it endangered his life, whether by
the forces of Man, or the forces of God. And Fergus
was responsible. As he walked the corridors of the chambers
of God, the least he could do - the very least was
warn his friend. Because as it happened, Richard
was probably the only person on the planet in a position
to decipher what was written on the Golem's head.
And remove it.

'l know what I'm looking at, Ralph,' Scott conceded.
'But what am I looking at?'
Gathered around the workstation with Matheson, the


422 	S'EEL PAVLOU .....................................


team watched as he operated the controls on the system
and a three-dimensional model of the Giza tunnel
system rotated about an axis.

'I've run it three different ways,' Matheson said, 'and
I get this every time. It's from this data Sarah brought
with her.' He patted one of the little data pods carefully.
'This is the tunnel system. Some of it's really deep,
ten miles down. 'You could mine for just about anything
there - coal, copper, diamonds - and never go
deep enough to realize these things were also down
here.'

Scott was puzzled. "Fhat's a lot of detail. You got all
that from radar data?'

'No.' Matheson tapped a button. More views of the
tunnel system popped up in various shades of fluctuating
orange. He knew his software and he flew around
the system at lightning speed. 'There was more than
just radar data being recorded on these things,' he said.
'I measured the resistance of the electricity flow in the
Carbon 60.'

'I didn't know you could do that. How could you do
that?'

'I designed these little units,' Matheson said modestly.
'I know what they can do. The flow gave me not
only a rough estimate of tunnel length, but told me
whether the flow was singular. Whether it split off,
diverged or converged with other electrical flows.'

'You're describing a power grid,' Hackett commented.
'That's what it is,' Matheson agreed. 'All the data combined
- radar, electrical, seismic - gives me enough
information to build up a rough picture of the real layout
of the tunnel system beyond Giza. That place where this
Eric guy frazzled? That acted like a transformer on a

....................................... DECIPHER 	423


power grid, but different. The closest analogy would
be a Tesla Coil. Whatever, the point is it was drawing
current. And Sarah's right, it's converting earthquake
energy, then stepping the electrical current up to a
level capable of traveling great distances. A modern
level--'

'What do you mean, modern?' November asked.
'We're talking about regular AC current running at
60 cycles per second,' Matheson told her. 'You could
easily take your TV down there and hook it up. Modern,
November, modern.'

'Sixty,' Pearce wondered. 'There's that magic number
again.'

'I don't get it,' Sarah said. 'Why would they need to
shunt so much energy around to just blast it off up into
space?'

'Because by blasting it off into space, the pyramids
act like a release valve on a steam pressure cooker, diverting
energy away from us. In effect, saving our damn
lives. That Chad earthquake was real powerful. It should
have done a lot more damage than it did.'

'You think this is what's happening in Atlantis as well?'
November queried.

'Why not?' Matheson replied. 'We can't get in touch
with the Chinese base, can we? What if they were sat
right on top of something that acted in just the same
way this acted?'

Pearce was nodding. 'And blasted a beam straight
through the ice and destroyed them. That's what I saw.
Yes!'

'That Atlantis is sucking solar flare energy down into
itself, we've seen. Now we're expected to believe that
it's also blasting energy back up into space again. Why?


424 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


It's a contradiction. Why would it do that?' Hackett
demanded.

'Have these energy blasts been registered at any of
the other sites?' Sarah asked.

'Not that I'm aware of,' Matheson replied, 'but Giza
and Atlantis are the only sites we can be sure have been
tampered with excessively by man. Maybe you inadvertently
switched something on.'

'But how are these sites connected?' Hackett wanted
to know.

Matheson eyed Pearce sympathetically. 'Scientifically
speaking... ? That's what I gotta figure out.'

'Well y'all, I'm done here,' November cut in. She'd
been working on the video images all afternoon.
Capturing all data on the language written on the C60
in the Giza tunnel system and the footage Sarah had
recorded especially for Scott. She'd compared the glyphs
with those they had studied in Geneva, and she had
compiled the results as best she knew how.

Scott jumped to his feet. 'What have we got?' he
asked excitedly.

Proudly, she announced: 'We've got an alphabet.'

THE FIRST

PROTOCOL


[I n Ancient Chinese Culture] a man absorbed with writing
was absorbed not just with words but with symbols
and, through the art of writing with the brush, with a
form of painting and thus with the world itself. To the
lover of high culture, the way in which something was
written could be as important as its content.


David
	N. Keightley, 'The Origins of Writing in China'
An essay in: The Origins of Writing, Edited by

Wayne M. Senner, 1989


RETRIEVAL STAGE 1


H

ieroglyph!cs, from the Greek word ierolyphika,
meaning sacred carved letters'.
Across November's screen were displayed a series of
glyphs that seemed to defy understanding. This was the
earliest known system of writing ever discovered: the first
protocol. It dated even from before the time of Babel,
when the divine speech of Adam was smashed into a
thousand tongues by God, made all the more confusing
by the fact that there were only sixteen symbols.

'That's it?' Sarah was amazed. 'That's not much of
an alphabet. Is that enough to cover all sounds in a language?'

'Not
our language,' Scott agreed, 'but some languages?
Sure. Scandinavian Runes only had sixteen
symbols. That was enough for them. The Old Germanic
Runes used twenty-four. Rune, by the way, does not
mean "mystery" or "secret", as the mystics seem to think.
It means to scratch, to dig, or to make grooves.'

428 	STEL PAVLOU 	; ........


'How dull,' Hackett remarked.

'Do you think this language might be related to
Runes?' November asked.

'No,' he said confidently. 'Runes evolved from Latin

letters anyway - the same letters we still use today.'
'Runes are too modern. I get it.'

'Right. And the reason they look so different is
because of the medium they used. Look.' He grabbed
a pen and his notebook. Scrawled out a few letters.
'Y'see, these are Runes. This is Futhark writing:


That's nothing like what we're seeing on the screen.
Runes are all straight lines because everything was
scratched into wood or stone: It's simply too cumbersome
to try and even attempt curves. Ogham, the Old
Irish language from about two thousand years ago, is
the same. It consisted of lines and dots, mostly etched
into the corners of standing stones.' He drew a few of
those symbols too.


'That vertical line you see is usually drawn first, and
all the side lines are drawn going vertically down a continuous
mid-line. It's usually up to groups of five lines
on any one side because it evolved from a finger language.
Which side of the line denoted the left or the
right hand. It was also adopted by the Picts on the British
Isles. But their language is totally unknown so their
Ogham texts, even though we can make out some of
the letters, are still undeciphered.'

....................................... DECIPHER 	429


'But this C60 is crystal. It's hard. So why has this
writing got curves, if it's so difficult to make?' November
asked reasonably.

Hackett tried his best not to sound brusque. 'That's
what I was saying, back in the lab! This writing shows
no signs of having been etched into the crystal. In fact,
it seems to be a natural side effect of the way in which
this crystal was manufactured. Like it's part of the design.'

'Is that possible,' she asked, 'to grow a crystal to a certain
shape by design?'

'Sure,' Sarah interjected. 'Airline manufacturers do it
all the time. The rotary blade of a jet engine is grown
out of a single crystal of metal. It's designed that way
because it's stronger. More able to take the pressure...'
Sarah went quiet as she realized what she was saying.
'Hey, could all those G60 structures we've found be
single crystals?'

'That would go a long way to explain how they survived
thousands of years, some of them, miles under
the ice,' Hackett nodded.

But Scott was elsewhere, completely absorbed in the
writing.

'So I guess, if you want curves any other way you've
gotta paint 'em on,' November prodded.

'Huh? Oh, yeah. That's what the Chinese did.
Demotic, the shorthand version of hieroglyphies- that
was painted. Once you painted it you could use curves,
pictures, all sorts.'

'Hey, they used curves and pictures in Egypt, all over
their monuments,' Sarah corrected. 'Remember? I've
just been there.'

'Yes. But they're ornamental. They're big. By that reckoning,
if you wanted to read the latest novel you'd have


430 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


to literally wait to read the library from wall to wall.
You wouldn't write that large in everyday living. Any
Egyptian writing the size of your handwriting is painted,
whether it's on a wall or parchment. It's just too intricate
to be cast in stone. And in fact, in Chinese, the
earliest known writing isn't painted at all. It's scratched

"into pottery and consists entirely of straight lines.'
'How many characters did that have?'

'Thirty. Written mostly on pottery in Pan-p'o Village,
Sian, Shens, about 5,000BCE. Some epigraphers have
dismissed them because they're not pictograms. They're
abstract.'

'They're saying early man wasn't capable of abstract
thought?' Sarah chided. 'If they're not pictograms then
they're not writing. Isn't that a little arrogant? Didn't
they ever stop to consider maybe their theory was wrong,
and not the facts?'

Scott agreed with her warmly.

'Dr Scott,' November said, 'didn't you say early
cuneiform was more complicated and abstract than later
cuneiform? As if humans were advanced but seemed to
be forgetting their knowledge base?'

'Yup. And the same thing's going on in China. The
trouble is, there's little evidence that Chinese writing
was ever pictographic, so they can't just dismiss it on
that score. Except for what they found in the Shantung
region, by a group known as the Yi, who settled in the
Lower Yangtze,' he revealed. 'Totemism. Pictorial
designs thousands of years old - of the sun and a bird,
together. Read as: yeng niao. Sunbirds.'

'The Phoenix again,' November remarked.

Scott nodded. 'Anyway,' he said, 'Chinese is logographic.
Started out in a similar fashion to hieroglyphics.

....................................... DECIPHER 	431


They used pictures based on sounds denoting what they
wanted to say. For example, it's like you might draw a
pear fruit for the word "pair", even though it has an
entirely different meaning. It's the sound that's important.'

As
Scott said all this, his eyes never left the screen.
Never wavered from the symbols in his hunt for their
meaning. It was like the spew of information was really
an autopilot response, something for his mouth to do
while his mind went into overdrive.

'It's also called the rebus principle,' he went on,
'where pictograms spell out the word in a similar fashion
to letters. It was the same in Egyptian hieroglyphics,
but it scaled new heights there. You could spell the
same word in any number of ways.'

'That must have caused problems,' Hackett suggested.
'Not for them. Just us. We ended up building a whole
mystical world around hieroglyphs for a while because
we couldn't read them. Stuff like assuming the
Egyptians used the symbol of a goose when they wanted
to say "son" because they believed the goose was the
only bird that loved and nurtured its offspring. When
in fact it was just that they're phonetic. The two words
sound the same.'

Sarah moved in close to the linguist, equally
intrigued by the writing. Asked gently: 'So did you get
around to figuring out what the hieroglyphics in my
tunnel actually spell out?'

Scott said that he had and picked up the notebook
he'd left by November's computer. He flipped to the
right page and announced: Behold! The language of
Thoth! The books of wisdom of the Great Ennead--

'Great Ennead?'



432 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

'All the gods together. Kinda like Congress. Behold!' Scott continued. 'What secrets lie here! Despair for they
are not to be known by men!'
Hacker was disturbed. 'That's it?'
'That's it. Oh, and then it just repeats it over and
over - for two miles. Interspersed with heroic tales of
kings who tried to have it decoded and failed.'
'Great,' Hackett moaned. 'That's not what I expected
to hear.'
Suddenly, the epigraphist sat bolt upright. 'That's it!'
he proclaimed. 'At least - that's what it's not!' He ran
his finger across the monitor glass. Remembered his
studies from when he was an undergrad. 'As Sol Worth
said in 1975: "Pictures can't say ain't!"'
'What are you talking about?'
'Pictograms and iconograms. Pictures. They can't effectively
represent verb tenses, adverbs or prepositions. And
what they definitely can't do is assert the non-existence of
what it is they depict. If you wanted to try and communicate
with people in the future, you wouldn't use
pictograms.' He put his thumb over the symbol of the
circle with the cross. 'Forget this one. It's the exception.
But look at the rest of these. What do they remind you
of? A table? A chair? A sack of potatoes?'
November shook her head. 'Nothing. They don't look
like anything I've ever seen.'
'Exactly,' Scott exclaimed. 'They're abstract. That
means they're either letters - A, B, C - or syllables ch,
th, ph.'
Hacker leaned into the screen. 'or they could be
numbers,' he suggested.
'They're not numbers,' Scott replied confidently.
'How do you know?'
....................................... DECIPHER 	433

'I just do.'
'Asking the right types of questions, huh?'
Scott let it pass. Turned to November. 'Can this thing
give me percentages? Tell me how many times each
one of these symbols is used in the texts?'
'Sure,' November said, getting to work on the problem.
'You mean like a frequency chart? What will that
achieve?'
'Different letters in our own language are used more
often than others. The letter E is used far more than,
say, the letter Z.' He shared a look with Sarah. For a
brief moment it looked like she might even kiss him.
Instead, she rested a hand on his shoulder. 'You're a
clever man, Richard Scott.'
'Thanks,' Scott replied proudly. But as he returned his attention to the computer screen he caught
November scowling at him.
'What is it?' Scott asked innocently.
November went back to her work. 'Never mind,' she
grumbled.
'What?' Scott insisted. But November refused to
answer.
Scott pushed his chair back from the computer,
looked to Hackett for support. But the amused physicist
simply shook his head and tutted. 'Playing with fire,'
he whispered. 'Playing with fire.'

The beeping was insistent. Annoying. November's computer
had completed its frequency distribution calculations.
'Ah-ha,'
Scott enthused, following the young student's
every movement as she punched up the data.
There was a spread of figures, ranging from 6.17


434 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


percent at the low end for one glyph to 6.36 percent at
the high end. The mean was 6.25 percent. Which, as
it happened, was exactly the product of 100 divided by
16. In other words, the frequency of each glyph's appearance
within the combined texts was equal. No one glyph
was more dominant than the next. So it was impossible
to tell from the spread of figures just which glyph
might be a consonant, and which might be a vowel.

'Damn it!' Scott spat in frustration. 'Godamnit!' Sarah
gave him a sympathetic look. Though he appreciated
it, he couldn't quite bring himself to make an acknowledgement.

'If
it makes you feel any better,' Hackett observed, 'it
proves the language was designed that way.'

Scott shot him a puzzled look. 'You're suggesting this
language was a constructed one? Not evolved naturally,
like Aymara?'

'Clearly,' Hackett said. 'If those glyphs were random
you'd still get an unequal frequency distribution. Not
in the same way as you'd get from the distribution of
letters in a naturally evolved language, otherwise you'd
detect a pattern and crack the code. But you'd get an
uneven spread just the same. For random letters to come
out spread evenly, you'd need an infinite number of
letters, which you just don't have. Clearly, whoever
designed that language intended it to be equal.'

'The problem,' Scott said, 'is what kind of language
uses letters on a totally even basis, with as many Zs as
there are As or Es? None that I'm aware of.'

SEAS: ROUGH


WEATHER: GALE FORCE 4 - RISING
SHARPLY


T

hey broke for dinner at 7.30 pm, but the motion of
the boat meant the landlubbers didn't feel much
like eating, in spite of the medication.

Hacker worked on the base 60 number stream they
had found encoded in the crystal, but try as he might
he just couldn't make sense of it. It literally was just a
stream of numbers - there seemed to be no pattern to
it. True, pi had been worked out to 8 billion decimal
places and still made no sense, but as a number it was
essential to measurement and construction. Could this
number stream simply be pi in base 607 A quick conversion
by the computer proved it was not. Neither was
it any other special mathematical number that might
be recognized in standard decimal.

The thing about numbers was they were independent
of people. Miens would be able to count in the
same way. Numbers were embedded in the fabric of
space and time. Two was always going to be two, even


436 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


if another culture gave it another name. Hacker figured
it was just a question of looking long enough and
hard enough before he worked out what these numbers
represented.

But there were other problems to be solved. He turned
his attention to gravity waves, and found, disturbingly,
that he was predicting a fairly accurate timetable for
events over the next two days.

He passed the information on to Gant, warning him
that the figures needed to be confirmed. Then he went
out on deck for some air, and found Scott in a thick
yellow yachting jacket, watching the bow of the ship
crash through unbelievably sized waves. The linguist
was sympathetic to his plight.

'The Mayans measured time with special numbers,'
Scott told him. 'A hundred and forty-four thousand,
seven thousand two hundred, three hundred and sixty,
two-hundred and sixty and twenty. But their most important
number was nine. The scripture speaks of the cycles

of the "nine lords of the night".'

'The planets?'

'Maybe. But I wouldn't go shouting about it or someone's
gonna want to see some proof,' Scott said dryly.
'The number a hundred and forty-four thousand crops
up in the Book of Revelation linked to time. Seven is
one of those numbers that just about pops up everywhere.
Seven Seals. Seven Deadly Sins. Seven trumpets
being sounded seven times. Walls tumble, the world is
dreated. Eight is associated with reincarnation, while
twelve has all sorts of links - the Twelve tribes of Israel,
the Twelve Apostles, the number of Ghinese "Years". A
hundred and fifty-three crops up in connection with the
"enlightened ones". The disciples caught a hundred and

....................................... DECIPHER 	437


fifty-three fishes, which in numerology is the sum of one
to seventeen. Also, one plus five plus three equals nine.'

'Numerology,' Hackett repeated as the ship lurched
awkwardly. 'What is that? Linking letters to numbers,
jumbling them up and coming up with some hidden
answer - is that it?'

'People will always be attracted to the hidden.'
'Nature has its special numbers too,' the physicist
said. 'Three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one, thirtyfour,
fifty-five and eighty-nine, for example. Lilies have
three, buttercups five, delphiniums eight and marigolds

thirteen. Asters, of course have twenty-one.'
'What are you talking about?'
'Petals on flowers.'

'There's a pattern in those numbers?'

'Sure. Just add the preceding two numbers together
and you get the next number in the sequence. Three
plus five equals eight, and so on. It's called the Fibonacci
scale, after Leonardo Fibonacci who discovered it in the
thirteenth century when he studied rabbit populations.
The scale reveals phi, not to be confused with pi. Phi
helps you calculate proportion, from the proportion of
the human body, to plant-seed spirals on sunflowers.'

A staggeringly ferocious blast of spray suddenly pelted
the two men as the Polar Star crashed through another
heavy wave.

'Jesus Ghrist!' Scott yelped, trying to get his breath
back. He wiped his face down.

Hackett shuddered. Pointing to the horizon. 'Look,'
he said. 'Our first iceberg.'

They watched the looming white jagged mountain
of frozen water for a while before Hackett said: 'I think
maybe we should head back inside.'



438 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

Scott agreed, spitting out seawater. 'I dunno,' he said.
'What do you think? Reckon maybe we'll get this all
figured out in time? Honestly?'
Hackett dug his hands into his pockets. 'Honestly? I
don't know.'
Scott nodded, taking it all in stoically. 'I must confess,'
he added mildly, 'I'm starting to like you, Professor
Hackett. You're a challenging man.'
Hackett seemed genuinely taken aback. 'Well, I'm,
uh, starting to like you too, Professor Scott. What do
you say, when this is all over we do this again some
time?'
'Not a chance.'

When the two men stepped back into the lab they found
Sarah sitting behind a computer with November. They
were studying the Atlantis glyphs and appeared embarrassed
at being caught.
November prodded the geologist. 'Are you gonna tell
him?'
'Tell me what?'
Sarah glanced furtively at her coffee before taking a
gulp. 'Aw... shit.' She looked up after a moment and
confronted the men squarely. 'Are you gonna get all
male on me and be offended ira woman offered to help
you out here7'
Scott smirked. ',It's not like stopping and asking for
directions. Sure, go ahead.'
Matheson turned from his own computer to listen.
Even Pearce, who looked exhausted and disheveled,
wrapped up in a blanket and sitting in a corner, seemed
to perk up.
Okay, Sarah seemed to be saying as she got to her
....................................... DECIPHER 	439

feet. She ran her finger over the screen. 'Ralph, could
you punch up that overhead schematic of the Giza site
you were working on?'
Matheson did as he was told. Angled the monitor for
everyone to see. Sarah went back to the screen. 'Right,
y'see here, this glyph? Simplified and stylized, it's similar
to the layout of Giza. I didn't think much of it until
November mentioned that you thought this glyph right
here didn't just represent the sun, but also resembled
Atlantis.'
Hackett shrugged. 'Coincidence?' But it was clear he
didn't mean it.
Sarah took a breath. 'I would have said so too, but this glyph resembles the layout of the series of pyramids
in Peru.'
Scott narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. 'Interesting.'
'I never did visit Peru,' Pearce commented bleakly.
'Tell me something,' Scott asked quiet]y, blowing a
whisper of steam from a fresh cup of coffee and confronting
Pearce. 'How do you do it?'
Pearce pulled the blanket in tighter around his shoulders.
He looked so tired. So drained, emotionally and
physically. 'Remote viewing? I dunno,' he confessed. 'I
just go there.'
'You have to concentrate, right?'
'I have to stay focused, but not really concentrate.
Not in the sense you mean. I just get a feel for everything
all around me, all at once. And I have to pick my
way through it. Some call it entering the spirit plane kind
of a dimensional short-cut - but I always found'
that a little silly. I mean, who's to say that it's not all in
my head, right? The point is . . . uh, how would you
describe it?' He thought for a moment. 'Okay. There



440 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

are two ways you can read a page in a book. You can
read it a word at a time, and follow the narrative from
start to finish in a linear fashion. Or you can rip out all
the pages, lay them side by side and take a snapshot of
the whole thing. And understand it all in one go. See
where it starts. See where it ends. You can refer back
to it. Or dive in and out at any point'
'I see,' Hackett realized earnestly. 'You're describing
a photographic memory.'
'Yeah,' Pearce agreed, growing more confident with
that notion. 'Yeah, I guess I am. That's a good way of
putting it. It's just a different way of thinking, is all. A
different way of accessing knowledge. Our modern
knowledge system is fragmentary. It actively hinders us
from seeing the whole book. We're taught to think in
terms of words and concept, to specialize in areas. To
restrict ourselves to fields instead of paying attention to
an entire science, or an entire art. I believe ancient civilizations
thought very differently to the way we think
now.'
'Could be true,' Scott agreed. 'Even today, linguists
can't even agree a definition of what a word actually is.
Is it a sound? A string of sounds? Is it a combination of
both? Or something else? Sounds pathetic but it has
very real, practical consequences.
'For instance, when epigraphers cracked Linear C,
the early Greek-syllable-based script, on the island of
Cyprus, they found they couldn't rely on the modern,
everyday notion of suffixes and prefixes to explain away
the patterns they detected in the glyph texts. In other
words, blocks of letters at the front of words, like "in", as in "inaction", or at the ends of words, like "less" as
in "motionless" were prefixes and suffixes. "Less" was a
....................................... DECIPHER 	441

determinative. When the object is without motion, it is motionless. This determinative could in turn be applied
to any other word. Even a pronoun. If Peter doesn't go
to church, the church can be said to be Peterless.
'In either case,' Scott said, 'the addition of the determinative
does not create two words. It fuses to the initial
word, creating a new singular word. But in Linear
C the prefixes and suffixes weren't determinatives. They
were articles..Words like "a" and "the". So linguists
found words like "theking", "thetown" and "agift" - the
mark of a very different way of thinking. The only linguist
ever to crack two ancient scripts, Easter Island's
Ronorongo script and Crete's Phaistos Disk was Dr
Steven Roger Fischer. He pointed out that our ancestors
tended to think in terms of "units of utterance".
That their approach to language was very different.'
To Scott it seemed clear. 'The further back in time
you look, the more holistic the approach is to language.'
'Holistic thought? The whole idea in one symbol?
Does that mean you think my idea might have some
merit?' Sarah asked, directing Scott's attention back to
the glyphs.
'It's possible,' he told her. 'When Sir Arthur Evans
tried and failed to decode Linear B and the Phaistos
Disk in the early 1900s he hypothesized the glyphs had
a double meaning. That each glyph was phonetic, but
that each glyph also in and of itself had a religious
meaning.'
'Was he ever proved right?'
'About the first part of his theory, yes. But the
second? No. That doesn't mean you're wrong though.
It's just, why would the inventors of this language want
to draw our attention to certain cities? It would have


442 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


to be something somehow obvious to us. But the problem
is - what? It's like, if we drew a picture of Moscow,

what would you immediately think of?'

'Vodka.'

'Potatoes,' Matheson chipped in. He was met with
some puzzled looks all round. Sheepishly the engineer
shrugged back at them.

'Lenin,' November said.

'Stalin. Communism. Anastasia. Red.Square. Y'see,
the list goes on and on. But it's entirely socially and culturally
related. It's in our consciousness fed by the mass
media. It represents an idea that fills literally volumes.
So to us it has context. But in a thousand years what's
built up around that image will be forgotten. So if that's
how they're trying to communicate with us it's useless.
And I hope that's not the case.'

Sarah was confused. 'What are you saying?'

'In my own, roundabout kinda academic way, I'm
saying that I think you're on to something. That these
cities are linked, like some part of a global machine.
But to do what? You're more than likely correct. This
glyph may represent Peru, just as this one represents
Atlantis. But I need more. I need the "why".'

'What's the Phaistos Disk?' November asked.

'A flat round clay tablet the size of a saucer found
by the thirty-four-year-old Italian archeologist Luigi
Pernier in the Phaistos Temple on Crete, Building
40/101, northwest of the Grand Central Court, July

third, 1908,' Pearce announced in a monotonous dirge.
Scott was surprised. Blinked. 'Thanks.'

'Photographic memory,' Pearce quipped, slugging
back his coffee. He still looked depressed.

'There were forty-five individual pictograms, pressed

....................................... DECIPHER 	443


into the clay two hundred and forty-one times, making
up sixty-one groupings or "words". One hundred and
twenty-two glyphs on side A. One hundred and nineteen
on side B. The interesting thing is, the writing was
written in a spiral, starting on the outer edge and working
its way into the center,' said Scott.

'A spiral?' Hacker tensed. 'I hate to state the obvious
but the writing in Egypt was written in a spiral.
Albeit a large one.'

'True,' Scott agreed. 'But the Phaistos Disk glyphs had
marker lines subdividing units of utterance. The Atlantis
glyphs are in a continuous string, with no real structure.
It's like English if you took out all spaces, punctuation
and printed it all in either upper or lower case.'

'There's got to be a language that shares that trait as
well, hasn't there?' Matheson prompted.

'There is,' Pearce responded in place of the linguist
as Scott drained the last of his coffee.

'It's called Hebrew,' Scott said. 'In Hebrew, in the
traditional Torah, the scripture was written out with no
punctuation. And no spaces to denote words. Just a
stream of letters. And in Hebrew, every letter also represents
a number.'

He eyed Hackett, realizing the importance of what
he'd just said. The linguist followed the physicist in perfect
unison, both turning on a dime to study their own
computer screens once more. Matheson was on his feet,
followed by November.

Numbers. Letters. Spirals. Patterns . .. Cities.

'You still don't know what this number stream is?'
Scott asked quietly.

'Uh-uh. I thought it might be an algorithm. But I
can't be certain.'


444 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


'The two must be linked.'

Hacker folded his arms. 'How?'

Scott took a deep breath. 'It took Fischer seven years
to crack Rongorongo, the Easter Island script. It took
Michael Ventris five or six years to crack Linear B. David
Stuart first translated Mayan at the age of ten, but he
spent his whole life dedicated to that one language. He
found that present-day Mayan is similar to the ancient
Mayan glyphs and that they're phonetic. He translated
what was written at the Temple of the Sun, at Palenque,
in a day, when it had taken previous scholars a lifetime
to attempt. It's a complex language. It deserves a lifetime
dedicated to it. But I've been at this two days, and
I have - what? - a couple of days left, maximum. They
had a point of reference to refer back to. A garbled
modern language, or a similar script that had already
been cracked - even a century of previous research to
build upon. Just what the hell have I got here?'

November took it all in quietly before responding:

'You have the words.'

'What?'

'Why don't you try looking at it in a different way?'
she suggested.

Scott didn't appear moved.

'Dr Scott, in your lecture you said, in the beginning
was logos - the word.'

'Yeah, well, I over-simplified. Logos also meant ratio,
reason, discourse - even account.'

'Richard, you know you're on to something. We can
all feel it,' Sarah insisted. 'You said it yourself, word in
action. You have the words. And in order to read them
- what's the action?'

Scott studied the screen thoughtfully. 'I didn't have

....................................... DECIPHER 	445


enough information back in Switzerland,' he said.
'Those pieces of rock didn't make up a large enough
text. I need to see what this stuff looks like spread out
on a flat surface.'

Hackett was with him every step of the way. 'The
node,' he suggested.

'Right. Hey, Ralph, that oil node you sunk into the
sea floor. That's not too far from here, is it? Can you
operate it remotely?'

'That's what it was designed for.'

'So you could power it up? It had a camera on it,
didn't it'

'Sure.'

'Call the bridge,' Scott said. 'Tell 'em we need to
power up some kind of transmitter - or whatever it is
you do to access that thing. And tell.them it's imperative
I take a look. I need to see what's down there.'



USS HARRY S. TRUMAN

1,524 NAUTICAL MILES NORTH OF
McMURDO SOUND

T

he flight deck heard the engines of the approaching
F-24 labor as it fought the volcanic ash iamming
up its innards. In the ward room, they were
preparing for a task force meeting when they got the
word. Up on the bridge, Rear Admiral Dower stood side
by side with Captain Henderson, counting the squadron
home when a young crewman reported: 'It's Captain
Ryman, sir. His eagle just blew an engine!'
MI senior officers rushed for the windows to see a
thick trail of black smoke billow out from behind the
F-24. A Lieutenant at the window flinched as he tracked
the source through his binoculars and a loud explosion
cracked out across the sky. The whine of the second
engine fighting to compensate was horrendous, but with
all the volcanic ash it was clear that the plane was losing
power.
'This ash is too thick, Captain,' the Lieutenant commented
quietly. 'Recommend we don't deploy any more
....................................... DECIPHER 	447

jet patrols for a while.' Henderson agreed darkly, issuing
more orders.
'Aye, aye, Captain. Switching to choppers.'
As they watched the plane coast in, the pilot, Captain
Jeff Ryman from Iowa with two small children and a
wife waiting back home, struggled valiantly with the
controls, and as they all said a silent prayer he even
managed to bring the nose back up for a moment. But
the engine failure had hit at just the wrong moment.
He was too low to bail out, the chute would never open.
And he was just too far out to make it to the flight deck.
In the end, Ryman was just a fireball tumbling across
the surface of the ocean.
Henderson looked away. 'Never lost a plane on my
watch,' he said. 'Never. Poor bastard. What a way to go.
This fucking weather's gonna kill us all.'
Another thin young officer approached his captain.
Saluted crisply. 'Captain Henderson, sir!' A slack salute
back. 'Major Gant aboard Polar Star is on comm
requesting permission to deploy their sonar transmitter
array.'
'What the hell for?' the captain barked, rummaging
around in his khakis for another breath mint to chew
on. The crewman explained about the camera on the
Rola Corp. deep drilling node but Dower was already
on it. Back at the comm desk, he hooked the radio up
to his mouth. 'Larry, what's up?'
'The team want to take a look at the Atlantis wall,
Admiral. M1 kinds of reasons. Engineering. Geological.
Is there any enemy activity in the area?' Gant asked flatly.
'M1 clear, Major. And Major . . . ? Tell Mr Pearce
thank you very much. The information he provided was
accurate, as expected. We now have two SaRGE units each



448 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

within seventy-five kilometers of ]ung Chang. Recon
reports the base is abandoned. Possibly destroyed.'
'I will tell him, sir'
Suddenly a wave of activity shot across the comm
desk. Double-manned duty officers switched over to
radio-based communications. 'We've got McMurdo on
linel'
'Hold on, will ya, Major?' Dower snapped, expectantly
eyeing the comm officers for more information.
One young officer hastily jotted down everything he
heard on a notepad and underlined key sections of his
scribble with thick graphite from his pencil.
'Sir! We got a window! McMurdo reports a break in
the weather. We got four hours to get the team in there
by air. McMurdo requests some indication of whether
to expect an airlift.' He spun on his chair to face his
captain. 'What do we do, sir? The longer we stay on
line the more chance the Chinese will be able to tap
in.'
Dower swung on Henderson. 'Captain, what have
you got with a 1,500-mile range?'
Henderson looked to his men. 'V-TOE,' a Lieutenant
answered apprehensively.
Henderson seemed unconvinced. 'At that range?'
'We strap a couple extra fuel tanks on those babies,
they'll make it all the way, Captain. I'd bet my life on
it.'
V-TOEs were Vertical Take-off and Landing vehicles.
Planes that took off like choppers, but flew with the
speed and configuration of a fixed-wing aircraft. They
were great aircraft but Dower was concerned. 'They
don't have that kind of range.'
'If my crew say so, they can do the job.'
....................................... DECIPHER 	449

The communications officer fidgeted at his post.
Finally decided to take a chance and butt in. 'Sorry to
interrupt, sir, but McMurdo's waiting on a response.'
Dower demanded: 'How long will they take to get
ready?'
'How many do you need?'
'Two. One for crew, one for luggage.'
'Forty-five minutes.'
'You got half an hour,' Dower ordered, returning to
his radio. 'Major, did you catch that?'
'Most of it, sir. Yes.'
'Get all the team's cargo up on deck. Polar Star has
a Dolphin chopper - is that correct?'
'Affirmative, Admiral.'
'Good. Start ferrying everything over to the Truman.' 'What about that node access via the sonar, sir?'
'Tell Hackett he's got fifteen minutes. He can poke
around all he likes but I expect to see that entire team
on this flight deck in half an hour or there'll be hell to
pay.'
'Sir! Yes, sir!'

As Dower crossed the bridge to leave, one of the communications
officers tackled the Admiral delicately:
'Uh, sir? There's this guy on the other channel. Says
he's calling from the Vatican City. Says it's important
he speak with Professor Scott.'
'Tell him he's in transit right now. Advise him he can
reach him.at McMurdo station in--' He glanced at his
watch. 'Four hours.' Dower flicked the peak of his hat
at Henderson on his way out.


CARGO HOLD


' A /hat do you think you're doing?'

V V Getting my stuff.'

'They said we'll be taking it with us.'

'These things don't leave my side. And besides, I
don't trust 'em; Sarah said through gritted teeth, leaning
into the crow-bar and jimmying the wooden crate
open. She prised the splintered lid off and fetched out
the device she had brought with her from Egypt.

Pearce seemed surprised as she stuffed the object in
her backpack and went for the next crate.

'Well, are you just gonna stand there or are you gonna
help me?' she demanded, throwing the empty casing

aside and struggling to get the next crate into position.
'You're full of surprises,aren't you, Sarah Kelsey.'
'I try; she panted, straining to jimmy the lid.
'What is that?'

'I have no idea. Just thought it might be useful.
Thought they all might be useful. I wanted to go through

....................................... DECIPHER 	451


them with everyone upstairs but we're running out of
time.'

'What do they do?'

'As far as I'm aware, they respond to sound. Look,
Bob, things are a little hectic. Are you gonna stand there
with your thumb up your ass or are you gonna help me?'

Pearce grabbed another crow-bar and started forcing
planks of wood off of packing cases, cursing as he sliced
open his thumb.


They were packing up the lab all around them. Boxing
up data tapes and notebooks. Rolling up maps and transferring
computer information onto terabyte disks for
transportation to McMurdo Station. It was like an entire
university faculty had just been shut down, but the professors
had refused to go home.

Huddled around Matheson as he fiddled with the
communications protocols and awoke the deep drilling
node from its slumber, Richard Scott hopped on one
leg as he struggled to get into his bright orange survival
suit in preparation for the journey to mainland
Antarctica.

Ralph, it seemed, had done it a thousand times
before. He had kitted up in a matter of seconds.
November for her part was making sure he hadn't forgotten
anything, while Hackett simply eyed the screen
intently, and watched the flashes of white noise with
quiet interest, as if he were willing the transmission to
kick its way through.

'We're connected,' Matheson stated intensely.
'Gimme a second here.'

Scott glanced at his watch. 'We got six minutes,
Ralph, and then they want us up on deck.'


452 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


'What do you want me to do when we see this stuff,
Doc?'

'Take a snapshot,' he ordered. 'Take as many snapshots
as you can. As high a resolution as you can. We
can analyze it all later.'

The idea of the original first language of mankind
was quite a notion. At the last count there had been
6,000 separate tongues since the dawn of time. And why
had they diverged? Nobody knew. The Qu'ran said the
languages of man separated through natural processes.
The Bible spoke of Babel, and God smiting mankind
with a confusion for attempting to build a mighty tower

to the heavens. But no one really knew why.
The Genesis Language.
Gould this be it?

'Brace yourself, Dr Scott. We've got power,' Matheson
announced excitedly. His fingers bounced off the keyboard
as he wrestled with the data on his screen.
Punched in commands and sent out orders. 'Camera
is operational. Powering up lights . . . bingo!'

Instinctively the entire team leaned in closer to get
a better look. And not one person in the room saw what
they expected to see.


It didn't match the video, for starters.

That shaky piece of raw footage Matheson had shown
Scott had revealed destruction on a massive scale. An
ancient crystal wall had been blasted apart, revealing
an expanse of open water beyond and a hint of further
structures.

But on the screen was something different. This was
a crystal wall, for sure. But in a perfect state of preservation.
No hole. No destruction. Not even a crack.

....................................... DECIPHER 	453


'Where's the damage?' Scott inquired, baffled. 'You're
sure this is it? We're not anywhere else?'

Matheson checked his readings out of courtesy, but
he was adamant about the facts. 'There is no other node,
only this one. This is it. But I'll be damned if I can tell
you what's going on.'

November squinted as she tried to make out some
of the writing. The water was a little cloudy and particles
were floating past the lens. 'What kind of a wall,'
she asked, 'repairs itself?'

'Bob said something was alive down there,' Hackett
remarked roguishly.

Matheson eyed his colleague incredulously. 'You
think somebody went down there and repaired this? You
can't repair a crystal wall.'

'Not somebody. Something. Like the Chinese soldier
said, there's something alive down there. Not somebody.
Not a person like you or me. But something unnatural.'

'Jon,'
Matheson said apprehensively, 'sometimes you
really know how to unnerve me.'

'I unnerve you?' Hackett tossed back, heading for the
door. 'Whoever repaired that thing should be the one
unnerving you. I'll be on deck,' he said. 'You've got two
minutes. If I were you I'd start snapping.'


Matheson took thirty-five pictures in all, some closer in
than others. He wrote them all straight to disk and placed
the disk in the top pocket of his survival coat. He printed
out a copy of each picture on glossy photographic paper
for group study on the flight, and handed one to Scott
as they climbed the steps of the helideck.

There was a pattern to the placement of the glyphs


VTOL

454 	STEL PAVLO U .....................................

across the flat surface of the wall, all right. They seemed
to be arranged in an interlocking weave of spirals that
criss-crossed constantly.
In fact, it resembled very much the pattern displayed
in so many designs in nature - most notably, the seed
arrangements of sunflowers. Quite simply it was a dazzling
display.
Scott showed the picture to Hacker as they boarded
the Dolphin together for the quick trip over to the Truman. The physicist reacted with amazement. The
pattern, he explained, was a fundamental property of
the very fabric of complexity theory itself.
The pattern did indeed conform to the series of numbers
called the Fibonacci st:ale. And that in itself might
just hold the goddamn key to cracking this thing.

/mhese times!' Hackett yelled as he stepped down
off the Dolphin to the roar of busy aircraft. 'These
are predictions!' He strode across the flight deck to
where Tom Dower stood in a windswept parka. 'They
show exactly when the sun's next gravity waves will be
unleashed!'
Dower snatched the piece of paper from the physicist
and inspected it while the wind howled so fiercely
and bitterly, it sliced through the thickest thermal layers
like a dagger into butter. It reduced their conversation
to bellowing.
'Add eight minutes to each time for earth's expected
impact times!' Hacker added.
'It says here that the next expected gravity pulse is in
five hours!' Dower hollered back.
'Exactly so.' Hackett brought his watch up to show
the Admiral. 'In fact I have my alarm all set. So warn
the fleet! Warn the government!'

456 	STEL PAVLOU

Crewmen stepped out of their way as they
along to where two waiting V-TOL aircraft sat on th
ward section of the deck. Black fuel pipes stretched
from the extra gray tanks on the sides. Boxes were being
hoisted up inside.
'A word of caution, Admiral,' Hackett added. 'Sarah
has hit the nail on the head - there is a serious risk of
earth-crust displacement. Are you prepared for such an
eventuality? Do you have a back-up plan? God told
Noah to go build an Ark. Are you making arrangements
to safeguard mankind's future?'
'We are aware of the possibility of an ECD event,
Jon,' Dower confirmed, 'and we've dismissed such a
notion. Our best minds say it's an invention of flawed
thinking. There's no possibility of that happening. The
earth's crust simply does not rest on a sea of molten
lava. It has nothing to slip on. It's a theory that has no
supporters.' The Admiral rested a hand on Hackett's
shoulder, guiding him to the boarding steps.
'And the back-up plan? For saving humanity?'
'You're it,' Dower said, patting him on the back. 'So
don't screw up. The Chinese are the worry, Dr Hackett.
The Chinese and that city out there. And whatever
power source they found that's still lighting up our security
screens like a Christmas tree.'
Hackett ducked his head as he climbed up into the
light gray HV-22A Osprey V-TOL. At the top he turned
back to take one last look at the Admiral.
'Albert Einstein was a supporter of earth-crust displacement,
y'know. Albert Einstein!'
Dower waved him off and headed for the entrance
at the base of the towering command block five stories
....................................... DECIPHER 	457

high at the side of Truman's vast, Empire State Building
length flight deck.
As Hackett took his seat, pulling the life-vest over his
head and letting November help strap him in, he was
caught mumbling to himself. 'Y'know, I don't think they
have the faintest concept of what's going on here. The
powers-that-be are so fixated with their own political
destruction, they'll find any way they can to make it
happen rather than spend time looking for a solution.'
November grimaced as she tugged the strap tight.
'And this comes as a surprise to you?' she said cynically.
Hackett eyed the girl sharply. 'Never lose your sense
of wonder and amazement. Never be bias& Because
then, one day, when the really big and truly important
things do come along, you'll be in a position to appreciate
them.'
Tll bear that in mind.'
She sat back as Hackett jammed his face up at the
window and peered out at the turbo-props which were
pointing straight up at the sky and starting to spin.
November glanced back at Scott and Sarah, who
were sitting together across the other side of the cabin,
while across the aisle Matheson gripped the armrests.
'Here we go again,' he was chanting. 'Antarctica here
we come . . .


McMURDO
SOUND


With the first light of dawn a black cloud came from the
horizon; it thundered within where Adad, lord of the
storm, was riding. In front over hill and plain Shullat and
Hanish, heralds of the storm, led on. Then the gods of
the abyss rose up; Nergal pulled out the dams of the
nether waters, Ninurta the war-lord threw down the dykes,
and the seven judges of hell, the Annunaki, raised their
torches lighting the land with their livid flame. A stupor
of despair went up to heaven when the god of the storm
turned daylight to darkness, when he smashed the land
like a cup. One whole day the tempest raged, gathering
fury as it went; it poured over the people like the tides
of battle; a man could not see his brother nor the people
be seen from heaven. Even the gods were terrified at the
flood, they fled to the highest heaven, the firmament of
Anu; they crouched against the walls, cowering like curs.


The Epic of Gilgamesh, c. 3,000BCE
Translated by N.K. Sanders, 1987

MIDNIGHT

hey flew in low over the Ross Sea, the sun hovering
in the sky. With sunset due in four weeks, the
light was already starting to dim, becoming a kind of
forever twilight. Winter was encroaching fast, and the
sea was starting to freeze over at a colossal 22square
kilometers per minute. But the ice was thin, a mere 16
inches in most places, resulting in cracking and shifting
plates and an all-enveloping fog called sea-smoke.
Deepsea heat from under-currents traveling straight
down from the tropics was rising to the surface and venting
through the openings in the ice in great plumes,
expending enough energy to power a 100-watt light
bulb for every square meter of sea-smoke.
The V-TOLs plowed through it all, leaving eddies in
their wake. In the lead plane, Sarah craned her neck
past Scott to see the approaching station out the window
- a series of brightly colored, haphazardly placed buildings
on the shores of Ross Island.

462 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

As they banked in for a descent she could make out
two separate airstrips: But as the sea-smoke cleared she
could see something else of far greater import. Across
the snow and ice, a vista that stretched for hundreds of
miles, dense black patches had settled like mottled
bruising, or spots on a Dalmatian. The obvious culprit
was --
'Erebus,' Sarah breathed. 'Look, it's smoking!'
The active volcano sat 3,794 meters above Ross
Island. With the trans-Antarctic mountains behind it in
a broad band, it was 600 degrees Celsius at the crater
and was known to harbor bacteria and algae that fed off
the steam it produced.
Around the volcano the ice was bulging, disfigured
where the ice underneath was melting and building up
a reservoir, like a giant blister waiting to burst. There
were similar odd warped patches way off in the distance,
evidence of volcanic activity that hadn't even
penetrated to the surface. It was clear that Antarctica
was in trouble. Yet that still wasn't what bothered Sarah
the most.
'The albedo's all shot,' she fretted. Scott was none
the wiser. 'The reflectivity of the ice,' she explained.
'Usually it's extremely high down here. Bounces sunlight
straight back into space, cooling the planet. But
all this volcanic ash is settling on top, absorbing the
sunlight, encouraging heat to build. Encouraging a
flood. Y'know, if all the ice on Antarctica were to melt,
the average sea level would rise by about sixty meters,
nearly two hundred feet. The ice cap's five kilometers
thick in some places. We better hope earth-crust displacement's
a myth.'
....................................... DECIPHER 	463

The vicious cross winds sweeping across McMurdo
Sound made for a bumpy landing and caused the VTOEs
to tail around as their landing gear slipped on the
ice.
They were met on the ground by a team of ASA support
staff. The Antarctic Support Associates, a company
operating out of Denver, Colorado, were like the local
sheriff's office. If anyone stepped out of line, the ASA
ran them out of town.
A huge caterpillar-tracked, purpose-built truck sat
waiting to ferry them all down to their accommodation
block. Someone had painted Ivan the Terror Bus on its
cab door. It chugged menacingly as its engine ticked
over.
'Christ almighty!' Scott gasped, as he stepped down
off the plane to be smacked in the face by such devastating
cold, he nearly doubled over.
'Just get on the bus, quickly now! Quickly!' one of
the ASA men commanded. 'Hey, we got ladies . . .
Cool.' He counted everyone off on his checklist one by
one.
'What is that smell?' Hackett demanded, covering his
face.
'Fuel oil,' another ASA man explained nonchalantly,
leaning up against one of the hundreds of black and
gray barrels stacked to the side of the airstrip. 'You get
used to it.'
'Couldn't you stack those barrels someplace else?'
'This? This ain't fuel. This is piss and shit.'
November choked. 'Pardon me?'
'These are barrels of frozen piss and shit,' the ASA
man told them. 'We can't leave diddly here. By law we
have to ship everything back home.' November looked



464 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

like she was going to vomit as she climbed up inside
the bus. 'Nah, the fuel's all off down the hill someplace!'
he called after her.
A further ASA man hung his head around the door
into the back of the vehicle. 'Ladies and gentlemen, these
are the ground rules. Any of you get drunk, you get sent
home. You get into a fight, you go home. If you are in
possession of prescription drugs without informing the
staff- you go home. You trek out onto the sea-ice without
telling anyone - you go home. You grow plants not
indigenous to Antarctica - guess what? You go home.
'Crime is low, we want to keep it that way. The only
thing we seem to have a problem with is the theft of
bicycles and coats that aren't stock issue red. So tie 'em
down if you have 'em. We have no judge, no police
and no jail. Any trouble - and you go home. Other
than that,' he grinned, 'welcome to McMurdo!'
Scott raised his finger like a schoolchild. 'Actually,'
he said, 'there's been a change of plan. We're kind of
on a time-limit. I don't think we'll be staying here that
long.'
'You do any of that crap and you won't be,' the ASA
man replied.
Hackett was confused. 'Do you even know who we
are?'
'Sure,' he snapped. 'Like all the other Ecowarriors
on block six, you're here to save the planet. Best of luck!'
He slammed the door shut behind him.
Outside, the other V-TOL was unloading as the first
ASA man got on his cab CB. 'Okay, we got six "beakers"
comin' down at ya. Dave,- you got some hot food for these fine folks?' A garbled response came back with an
affirmative.
....................................... DECIPHER 	465

'Excuse me, what are "beakers"?'
The ASA man turned to find himself face to face
with Major Gant. The marine had traveled in on the
other plane, much to the surprise of everyone else. The
ASA man grimaced. 'Beakers - y'know. It's slang for scientists.
All the support staff use it.'
Gant was furious. 'I am a serving officer in the United
States Marine Corps, misted'
The ASA man shrugged and got back on his radio.
'Yeah, scratch that, Dave.' He eyed Gant mildly. 'Expect
six beakers . . . and an asshole.'
Gant pushed past and climbed aboard. November
leaned forward. 'What are you doing here?'
'You didn't think they were going to send you guys
in alone and unsupported, did you?'
Hackett spoke from over the back of the Major's seat.
'Actually, yes we did.'
Gant shrugged it off as a third ASA man climbed up
into the driving seat, shifted Ivan into gear and hauled
them all down into McMurdo's city limits. And it was
as they swung around that November noticed the ship,
sat on the horizon, out across the frozen sea.
'Which ship is that?' she asked innocently.
'I don't know its name,' Gant revealed. 'It's Chinese.
It's been sat there all day.'
'It can't get us here, can it?'
'Honey,' the Major explained, 'we could be hovering
over their base, four hours' flying time from here, and
they could still get us. The range on their missiles is
that good.'
November sat back with a start, leaving the Major to
his thoughts. Piss and shit.


466 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


'One, the North Face. "Himalayan Hotel" dome tent.
Orange.'

'Check.'

'One Quallofil-insulated sleeping bag.'

Matheson nodded once more and checked the items
off the list as they were handed to him across the
counter.

'One B.A.D. Bags duffel bag. One pair of Vuarnet
sunglasses. One Silva compass. One Yema watch. One
camp rest sleeping pad. One fleece pullover. One pair
of fleece pants. One fleece hat, headband and neckband.
Blue. One Red Gore-Tex wind parka and pair of
pants. One Gore-Tex one-piece jumpsuit. Red. One

Thermolite and Thermolofi insulated jacket.'
'Check.'

'Two sets of Duofold Thermax thermal underwear.
Two pairs of Duofold Thermax liner socks. Two pairs
of Damart Thermax thermal underwear. Two pairs of
Fox River Hollofil socks. One pair of Surefoot Insulator
insoles. One The Masque neoprene face mask. One
pair of Grandoe Gore-Tex gloves. One pair of Steiger
Designs overmits. One pair of Gore-Tex boots. One pair

of mukluks.'

'Check.'

'Sign here, sir and you're all set,' the ASA clerk
advised.

Matheson put pen to paper and collected up his
things, eyeing Gant apprehensively. He was collecting
very little. 'You're not taking any of this stuff?'

'I have much of my own gear,' he replied. 'Some
man-made stuff, but mine is mostly better than this.'
Matheson was curious. 'Sealskin and caribou hide clothing,'
Gant explained. 'Like the Inuit use. It's the best.'

....................................... DECIPHER 	467


And Gant headed offto their block leaving Matheson
to stare blankly back at the ASA clerk. 'Got any caribou
skin?'



PERIODICITY

S

cott slapped the oversized photographs from the
node down on the table in triumph. 'There aren't
sixteen letters,' he announced. 'There are sixty.'
While the others excitedly gathered around the work
surface of the makeshift lab, Hackett seemed less than
enthusiastic as he glanced at his watch then out through the window. 'We got twenty-three minutes,' he said, 'till
the next gravity pulse.'
'Don't worry about that,' November urged him.
'Worry about this.'
Scott took up a red marker and circled what he'd
come to call the Atlantis glyph, the circle and the cross
inside it. 'This glyph never changes position on any surface
that I studied. Neither do these other four.'
'That's the Giza glyph,' Pearce noted. 'And that's the
South America one.'
'Right. And I'm guessing these other two are also
major sites.'
....................................... DECIPHER 	469

	'But where?'
Scott turned on Gant who was sat brooding in one
corner. 'Major - think maybe the powers-that-be could
spare some satellite time to hunt down two other megalithic
structures with C60 deposits beneath them?' Gant
shrugged. 'You never know,' Scott persisted. 'It might just save planet Earth.'
Gant got to his feet and ambled over to the table.
'What do these sites look like?'
Scott indicated the two glyphs as Sarah added, 'The
C60 hunt began in China. I'm guessing one of those
glyphs matches the layout of Wupu, in China.'
'Okay, but what about the fifth one?'
'The North Pole,' Hackett murmured darkly.
Matheson was intrigued. 'You sure about that?'
Hackett seemed amused. 'I can't be certain, no, it's just
a guess. But if I was going to build a global network of
megalithic structures that respond to electromagnetism,
and I'd already put one at the South Pole, and three
strung around the equator, or close to it, logic tells me
the fifth is probably going to be at the North Pole.'
Scott turned on Gant. 'Is that enough information
for you?'
'It's a start,' Gant agreed. There was a vidphone
hooked up to a computer across the far end of the lab.
He dialed up Dower immediately.
Scott snatched up his pen and tapped it on the desk.
'Anyway,' he said, 'those five symbols don't change position.
But on this node photograph I realized that the
other eleven symbols all appear to rotate randomly, for
no real reason.'
	'What do you mean?' Sarah asked.
	'Well, it's like writing the letter "a'. But one moment



470 	STEL PAVLOU ............................. ........

it's the right way up, the next minute you've written it
on its side. A sentence or so later it's upside down. Some
early languages do this, and it doesn't affect the way
you read them. But those languages don't match what
we've got here. Of course, some languages did it because
Of the way you had to read them. English is left to right.
Arabic is right to left. But earlier languages were boustrophedon
- literally meaning "as the ox plows". The
first line would be read right to left, the next line underneath
would be left to right, then right to left. Your eye
would have to zig zag down the page.'
'These are spirals.'
'Yeah. So I'm guessing it's a straight line. Just pick a
spiral and follow it. But from which end do I start?'
'But what does it mean?' Hackett wanted to know.
'Eleven letters rotating in five different ways, making
fifty-five letters, plus five vowels. Fascinating I'm sure,
but what do they mean?'
Scott was stunned. 'Did you say vowels?'
'Sure.'
'Why? What made you say vowels?'
'Because there are five of them.'
Scott thought it over. 'I dunno, maybe they are
vowels. In many ancient languages, like Egyptian,
vowels were omitted. They were something the reader
automatically filled in. Maybe that's what these five
symbols represent. The spaces where you fill in the
vowels.'
'But what vowels?' Hackett insisted. 'And sixty letters
- do you have any comprehension of just how big a
language would be if it had sixty letters in its alphabet?
The possible permutations of letter sequences are almost
endless.'
....................................... DEC{PHER 	471

'What's he talking about?' November asked innocently.
'Somebody
give me a language.'
'Italian,' Gant said coldly, turning from the vidphone
in the corner of the hollow-sounding room.
'How many letters has it got?'
'Twenty-one.'
'Okay, so for the possible number of permutations of
a twenty-one-letter sequence, each one different from
the next, you need to know the factorial of twenty-one.
Which is one times two times three times four times
five . . . all the way up to twenty-one.' He totted it up
in his head. 'That's roughly fifty-one billion billion twenty-one-letter long sequences. You want to figure in
repeated letters as well. That takes it up to five billion
billion.., billion.'
'What you're describing,' Scott replied, 'is Temurah.'
Sarah looked puzzled. 'Temurah is used in Kabbala for
calculating the possible number of anagrams of a word
in a certain number of letters.'
'And what's Kabbala?'
'Kabbala means "tradition". It follows the notion that
there are secret messages hidden in the Bible. Temurah
is the art of anagrams and assumes you can decode these
secrets by messing with the word of God.'
'My point is,' Hackett added, 'well, shit.., anybody
see a calculator laying around here anywhere?'
Matheson tossed him a little black Casio. Hackett
punched in the numbers. 'The factorial of twenty is
2,432,902,008,176,640,000. That's the number of permutations
twenty letter sequences in an alphabet of
twenty letters has. In sixty, that's . . . a Complete mystery
because, uh, this little device can't even work out



4Z2 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

that much.' He threw the calculator down on the table,
displaying the ERROR message for all to see. 'Where,
Richard, do you even start trying to determine what
each letter means in a sixty-letter alphabet?'
Scott shrugged simply. 'Like I've been trying to tell
everybody since the start, I have no idea. Why the
sudden jitters, Professor?'
Hackett shifted uncomfortably, looking out the
window at all the ice and snow. 'I didn't realize this
place was so damn empty.'
November was confused. 'People think there are
hidden messages in the Bible?' Scott nodded. 'What
about the messages that are already there? Didn't they
think to just read it?'
'Guess not. Oh, it doesn't stop there. Notariqon was
a skill Kabbalists used to look at the end and beginning
letters of words to find a hidden message, while
Gematria was based purely on the Hebrew texts
because, as you know, all Hebrew letters are numbers.
So they theorized that all words that came to the same
number were connected in some way.' Scott seemed
indifferent to the theory. 'They concluded there were
seventy-two names for God.'
'What's the point?'
Scott tried to explain. 'In the sixteenth century, Bruno
used a set of concentric wheels with a hundred and fifty
sectors on them. Each wheel contained thirty letters
made of the twenty-three Latin letters, and then a mixture
of Greek and Hebrew letters that represented
sounds that aren't in Latin. And what he did was to
rotate these wheels and form triplet combinations in an
attempt to discern the first perfect language of mankind.
What he got was a load of old nonsense, but it actually
....................................... DECIPHER 	473
became useful in the new art of cryptography.'
'And we've been writing secret messages to each other
ever since,' Pearce noted.
'What they eventually started doing was to wrap a
ribbon around a cylinder in kind of a spiral. Then write
a message vertically down the side of the tube, so when
the ribbon was stretched back out you were left with a
series of random letters along the length of the ribbon.
Then you just filled in a junk message around it.'
'A cylinder and a ribbon?' Sarah seemed intrigued. Like
it had jogged a memory of some description. 'There was
a geologist, a French guy named, what was that . . . ?
B6guyer. Yeah. B6guyer de Chancourtois, in the 1800s.
He arranged elements in a spiral around a tube twenty-four
elements, I think it was. Then he noted
down the periodicity of their properties - y'know, which
elements were intrinsically similar. What he found was
that similar elements recurred after every seventh element.
It was one of the first attempts at building a periodic
table.'
For Hackett that seemed to be ringing some bells
too, but Matheson was already putting his own ideas
forward. 'Maybe we should be cutting out the spirals
on these photographs and sticking them around a tube.'
'Isn't that already what they did in Giza?' Pearce indicated.
'John
Newlands,' Hackett interrupted. 'English
chemist. He did similar work on the elements in the nineteenth
century and agreed there was a numerical pattern
to them. Only he used music as the analogy. There are
seven notes in a musical scale, and on the eighth note
you step up to a new octave. But there was a more complex
structure to the rhythm that Meyer discovered in


474 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


the same year.' Hacker smiled convincingly. 'There
were peaks at the eighth and the sixteenth elements.
Then the rhythm shifted to eighteen elements apart
instead of seven. It was like a wave was passing through

the periodic table . . . Sixteen minutes, by the way.'
'A wave passing through the periodic table?'

'Oh yeah,' Sarah agreed. 'In chemical theory, it
means you can predict where the next stable elements
will occur. In theory there's some kind of Atlantis, an
element that runs parallel to the conventional periodic
table, and remains to be discovered. Somewhere around
atomic number one hundred and fifteen or one hundred
and eighty.'

'Orichalc,' Pearce commented.

Sarah blinked. 'I'm sorry?'

'Plato. When he first described Atlantis, he described
walls covered in precious metals. Gold, silver. And
the one most prized of all was a mysterious gleaming
reddish-gold metal he called Orichalc. It was said to
shimmer like fire.'

'C60 in its purest form is reddish-gold,' Sarah pointed
out.

'Orichalc isn't a stone, it's a metal.'

'In South America,' Scott mused, 'according to local
legend, when the four founding gods had completed
their mission, before they left they wrapped all their
power and knowledge up into a gift that was both feared
and respected. The gift was a stone. The stone of
Naczit.'

'Moses, when he went onto the mountain to receive
the Ten Commandments, saw the stone they were written
on be inscribed by the finger of God. The stones
shimmered blue,' November reminded them gently.

....................................... DECIPHER 	475


'And the radiance from the stones was such that it burnt
Moses's face and for the rest of his life he was forced
to wear a veil to hide the scars.'

'Ancient stones and ancient metals,' Scott remarked
as he eyed the photographs again. He rubbed his hand
over his mouth. 'Periodicity. Step sequences. What am
I missing?'

Gant was on his feet. This was all way above his head
and frankly it was irritating the shit out of him. 'They're
redirecting a satellite for you,' he said. Tm going to
make sure they're refueling the planes properly. And
I'm putting in another call to the Ghinese, to let them
know we're coming.'

'Which Chinese?' Sarah demanded.

'Anyone that's listening. That ship for starters.'
'And if no one answers?'

'Then we better pray they don't shoot us down. Goz
we're going in regardless.'

As he reached the door, Hacker glanced out the
window to see an immense gray US amphibious landing
craft smash through the waves toward the shore and
beach on the ice shelf a short distance off. The front
end came crashing down but the ice was smashing for
no one.

'What the hell is that?' the physicist asked, startled
as a squad of marines manhandled a flat black coffinsized
box out of the craft and started marching it toward
the base on the double.

'Ah,' Gant explained knowingly. 'That'll be our tactical
nuclear warhead.'

He zipped up his parka and went out to meet them
while Hackett sidled up next to Pearce and November.
'I hope for our sakes,' he said, 'Orichalc doesn't turn



476 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

out to be uranium, or we're never getting out of Atlantis
alive.'

'Just what do you think you're doing?' November
demanded angrily.
'Storing the bomb,' Gant replied frostily, directing
the marines in through the front door with the box.
'In the chapel?'
'You got a better idea? The Chinese would never live
down the international controversy of firing upon fine
upstanding Americans who were simply engaged in
prayer.'
Inside, on a pew near the front by the altar, and just
to one side of the stained glass penguin, Hackett and
Scott turned to see the soldiers struggle with the device
before dropping it roughly to the ground. 'Didn't I see
this on Planet of the Apes one time?' Hackett remarked.
Sarah took a pew next to Scott as the epigraphist
chewed his pen and puzzled over another photograph,
asking: 'How long have we got?'
Scott glanced to Hacker who checked his watch.
'Three minutes.'
Scott blew air anxiously and smacked his lips. He
looked up at the cross behind the altar. His knee was
bouncing up and down furiously. 'Boy,' he said, 'it puts
a whole new perspective on this when you know these
things are coming.'
Sarah took his hand in hers and squeezed it gently.
'Where are you from, Richard?'
'Seattle,' he sighed. 'Y'know it's such a pretty city,' he
said with passion. 'It's condensed, see. There isn't much
in the way of sprawling suburbs so you're never far from
the countryside. You can hike, bike, sail. Mountains
....................................... DECIPHER 	477

and lakes are all over. Forests... everything is this dark,
dark green, y'know?' Sarah nodded like she did.
'Douglas Fir, Broad Leaf Maple, Mountain Ash, Red
Adler, Dogwood . . . You can go out into the country
then come back, get a coffee in Starbucks and feel like
you actually went someplace. We've got two hundred
and fifty-eight bridges in Seattle - every kind of bridge
you can think of, coz of all the lakes. We've even got
two floating bridges. Some people say it's because it's a city full of gaps, socially as well as topographically, but
I think it's full of bridges because it's full of people who
are going places. And nothing's gonna stand in their
way.' He thought about that for a moment. Tll miss that
if it goes.'
Matheson groaned as he took the weight off his feet
and sat down next to them. 'I went to Seattle once. It
pissed down all week.'
'Where are you from?' Sarah asked.
'San Francisco. You?'
?Still Water, Wisconsin.' Sarah eyed Hackett perceptively.
The physicist seemed to be deep in thought. 'How
about you, Jon?'
The?' She nodded encouragingly. 'I was born on a
military base in Germany,' he said. 'Spent a couple years
in Hawaii, then Japan. We moved around a lot. I live
in New York half the year now, spend three months of
the year in Santa Fe down at the Institute. Travel . . .
I travel a lot. I'll miss planes.'
'But not the food,' Sarah joked.
'No, not the food,' Hackett agreed. 'Plane food is, uh,
something else. But they do try, bless 'em.' He checked
his watch again but didn't say anything.
Pearce pulled up behind them alongside November.



478 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

'When I was fourteen I swore I saw a UFO land in the
backyard. Told everybody at school and got the crap
beat out of me. But I was telling the truth. It had been
flying and as far as I was concerned, it was unidentified.
How the hell was I supposed to know what a
weather balloon looked like? When I was sixteen, I
kissed the Homecoming Queen. And again I got the
crap beat out of me. For lying. But I wasn't lying.'
November was confused. 'What are you saying?
You're gonna miss getting beat up?'
'No,' Bob explained. 'I'm gonna miss the nonbelievers.'
Gant
scooted up next to them. 'Oh, they're not going
anywhere,' he said. 'Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.'
The pretty young assistant smiled at that as she
noticed Scott and Sarah holding hands, but she kept
her comments to herself. Suddenly from a side door a
mass of other scientists and technicians, mostly men,
pale-looking and drawn, and sporting well-established
beards, came in followed by a priest. He carried a vidphone
in his hands and set it down in the center of the
altar as if it were a revered icon. He addressed the congregation
nervously, and as the others took their seats
it was the first clear indication the team had been given
that they had found themselves slap in the middle of a
real frontier town.
'We've had word from all across the world,' the priest
announced. 'The warning signal has been given. They
started evacuating the cities some time ago...' His voice
faltered. 'But there really isn't anywhere safe to go.'
Matheson leaned across Hackett to catch Scott's ear.
'Anyway,' he whispered, 'I thought you didn't believe in
Jesus?'
....................................... DECIPHER 	479

Scott shifted uncomfortably. 'At this juncture I'm
willing to open it up for discussion.'
The priest fiddled with the vial-phone and keyed the
connection. 'We're joined in today's service by Father
McRack, who's coming to us today live from the
Vatican.'
Scott snapped his head back. 'Fergus?' But he was
too far from the phone to be heard.
Fergus, a well-lit head and shoulders on the screen,
peered solemnly out at the congregation. 'Ladies and
gentlemen,' he said. 'Let me welcome you all to
McMurdo Chapel, a cross-denominational chapel, and
I thank the authorities for allowing the Catholic Church
to be a part of the service today. In a moment we shall
bow our heads in prayer and ask God . . .'
Sarah leant in close to Scott, whispering: 'I just had
a thought. What day is it today?'
Scott had to think for a moment. 'Friday.'
November leant in too. 'It's Good Friday,' she corrected.
'This is the day Jesus dies. On Sunday we get
the resurrection.'
Scott couldn't mask his surprise. It had been such a
hectic week he had completely forgotten about Easter.
Suddenly everybody was standing, opening their hymn
books and following Fergus's instructions. A CD of
organ music whirred into life and filtered around the
congregation, and it was at that point Hackett's watch
alarm began chirping.
'It's time,' he said, before joining the others and bursting
into song.
'Ah-bide with me . . .'



THE SUN

H

elium, named after the Greek sun god, Helios.
At the heart of the sun's 320,000 km diameter
core, under unimaginable pressures, vast, god-like quantities
of hydrogen were being heated to 14 million
degrees Celsius, and were fusing in an almost eternal
nuclear reaction to form helium.
Surrounding the core in a radioactive layer that
sought to fuel the core at similar temperatures was a
sea of hydrogen just waiting to be seized upon. And it
was here, buried within the depths of the sun's heart
that trouble had already begun. And a chain of events
had been set in motion.
For the sun's core spun on its axis, at an entirely different
rate to the hydrogen layer. And the tendrils of
magnetic force that encapsulated the massive body had
already started to snag and twist, warp and tighten.
Above the radioactive hydrogen layer, the rising and
falling currents of the convection zone had already
....................................... DECIPHER 	481

begun to fa]ter in response to the magnetic interference
from below. Great bulges on the surface of the core,
like warts, two or three times the size of planet Earth
were forming and whizzing around as the core continued
its relentless rotation. And in so doing, the bulges
started to act like blades on a blender, churning up the
inner mass of the sun. Disturbing its equilibrium.
VasfE swathes of the convection zone that should have
been dropping to temperatures around the 1.5 million
degrees Celsius mark were remaining abnormally high.
While other areas were cooling offtoo rapidly. The conveyor
belt of convection was snapping. Disintegrating.
And all that was reaching the photosphere and corona
were intermittent pockets of cooling plasma being
whipped about in a confused mass of magnetic flux.
They first started to appear at 40 degrees latitude the
cool dark patches known as umbra, and the lighter
outer patches known as penumbra: together, known as
sunspots. They were collecting like measles all over the
surface of the sun, where the temperatures had dropped
to a comparatively minuscule 7,200 degrees Celsius. And
the sunspots were even cooler, up to 2,000 degrees cooler.
Some were small, maybe 1,500 km across. Others
were as much as 5,000 km across - the size of the continental
United States at a push. Yet compared with the
entire earth's paltry 0.5 gauss magnetic field strength,
these sunspots measured anywhere between 100 to
4,000 gauss. A field strength so large that if that kind
of magnetism were embedded in the ceiling of a
person's apartment, the earth's gravity could be
increased three-fold and there would still be no way of
peeling him off its surface. There was enough iron in
his blood to keep him there.



482 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

They were gathering now, the sunspots. Moving
closer and closer toward the sun's equator. A dark, mottled
effect that actively distorted the light searing out
from the sun, and causing it to flicker.
This was magnetism, gravity, visible light and nuclear
forces, both the strong and weak, having a family argument.
They were all interrelated, like cousins. And all
slugging it out with each other on a gigantic scale, at
both the visible and the invisible level. Like colossal
kings of nature they were twisting up their home and
hurling it at each other. Disrupting space with their
fury.
SOHO III



n 'halo' orbit, 1.5 million kilometers above the earth,
at the exact point where the sun and the earth's gravity
cancelled each other out, the battery of twenty-one
telescopes and sensors aboard the Solar Helios#heric I'll observation satellite suddenly kicked into gear as they
caught activity 92 million miles away on the surface of
the troubled star.
Coming into view around the eastern rim was a series
of sunspots so dark and ominous, so massive that they
could have contained the earth 300 times over. While
snaking between them, looping in and out across the
entire surface, were tubules of super-heated plasma
caught like bottled fireflies within the confines of magnetic
loops that twisted and turned, sewn into and out
of the very fabric of the sun. Making the entire star
resemble for one brief moment a raging fiery ball of
string on a galactic scale.

484 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

The signs were unmistakable. Like the trumpeting
of heralds announcing a chariot race.
The sun was about to blow.
As it rotated, it became apparent that not one, but
eight separate solar flares had ejected massively into
space. They began as bright spots within the sunspot
groups and spread like wildfire, glowing magnesium
white against the sun's duller yellow for hundreds of
thousands of square miles. Expanding exponentially
until in an instant, billions upon billions of tons of radiation
and matter exploded off the sun's surface, while
simultaneously the sun appeared to wobble slightly,
caught off-guard at the sudden loss in mass as the ejecta
headed out, disrupting the sun's density.
In effect the sun had just pulsed another gravity wave.

	INITIATING
SAFETY PROTOCOL ONE - I

They were commands that had been uploaded to the
craft in the last few days. Independent control of the
onboard ion thrusters by Soho III so it could attempt to
remain in halo orbit every time there was a gravity pulse.
The fact Soho III had just seen the ejecta on the sun
meant the gravity wave, which traveled at the same
speed as light, had already swept through.
The satellite was already out of alignment. It had to get
back into position, and it had to do it soon. It had communications
to re-establish. It had a warning to pass on.
The fastest ever measured solar flares traveled in the
region of anywhere upward of 2 million mph.
These ones were traveling at 10 million mph.
One would be arriving in a little over nine hours.
And it was immense.
PROPAGATION

T

hey were called P-waves. Fast pressure waves that
were the first waves to be detected by seismographs
when earthquakes started to erupt.
All over the planet, COSY - Comparison and
Verification of Synthetic Seismogram - monitors were
springing into action, sounding the alarm that the worst
case scenario for global seismic-wave propagation was
actually taking place. That real data was matching theoretical
data.
That planet earth was up shit creek. And no amount
of paddling was going to help.
In the twentieth century, statistics showed that when
all the earthquakes that had ever struck were totaled
into a single event, two million people had been killed
in a quake that lasted less than an hour.
In the last three days the total earthquake activity had
already lasted fifteen minutes and the death toll had
risen past 500,000.


486 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


Currently, 21 percent of the entire earth's surface was
shaking violently, caught in tremors, pre-tremors and
aftershocks. Seven percent of those earthquakes were
happening in overpopulated areas. And of the 8 billion
people on planet Earth, 900 million lived in cities that
were sat in the middle of earthquake prone zones.

In San Francisco the shifting faultline sent out a crack
like a rifle shot. The ground simply opened up with a
boom! - dropping 50 feet on one side.

Within 30 seconds water mains had burst, gas pipes
had exploded, glass had shattered and torn the running
tourists to shreds. Fire trucks found they didn't have
enough water to fight the blazes that were eating
through the city. Elevated roads tumbled. And all buildings
of a certain height were shaken to pieces as the
ground wave set up a resonance within those buildings
and tore them apart.

Within a further 30 seconds, much of the lower Bay
area was reduced to a memory, while winds of extraordinary
'ferocity blasted through, whipping up the blazes
into a raging firestorm.

At the National Severe Storms Laboratory in
Norman, Oklahoma, they were watching Tornado Alley
as their boards lit up like slot machines hitting the jackpot.
But they weren't spitting silver dollars, rather magnitude
4 and 5 tornadoes, some of them up to a mile
wide and touching down all over the Mid-West.

In New Zealand, Mount Ruapehu had now blown
its top, adding to an ever-increasing list of volcanoes that
had suddenly gone active. But Ruapehu was different in
that it had done more than merely trigger a few ava,
lanches. Like the 1883 Krakatoa event when the explosion
of a volcano sank an entire island, the explosion

....................................... DECIPHER 	487


could be heard 3,000 miles away. The amount of dust
thrown into the air was turning day to night for 160
miles in all directions.


At McMurdo they braced themselves for being swept
away by the massive water reservoirs held at bay by the

cracking glaciers at the base of Mount Erebus.

But mercifully the deluge didn't come.

It was like a prayer had been answered, and it gave
Scott a chance to talk to his old friend, Fergus.


24 HOURS


We live in a universe of patterns. Every night the stars
move in circles across the sky. The seasons cycle at
yearly intervals. No two snowflakes are ever exactly the
same, but they all have sixfold symmetry. Tigers and
zebras are covered in patterns of stripes; leopards and
hyenas are covered in patterns of spots. Intricate trains
of waves march across the oceans; very similar trains of
sand dunes march across the desert... By using mathematics
. . . we have discovered a great secret: nature's
patterns are not just there to be admired, they are vital
clues to the rules that govern natural processes.


Ian Stewart, Nature's Numbers, 1995

REUNION


I I never thought I'd see you in a church again.'

	I

		'Things change,' Scott replied flatly, his voice

echoing around the now empty chapel. 'What're you
doing tracking me down here, Fergus? University wanna
reinstate me?'

Fergus seemed embarrassed his end of the line as
Scott scooted closer to the vid-phone on the altar by
sliding his barstool forward. 'No reinstatement,' he said.

'Then what is it?' A cloud had descended over the
priest. 'You know about Atlantis, don't you?'

"Yes,' Fergus admitted. "Yes, I do.' He glanced nervously
back over his shoulder. 'My boss.., wants Atlantis
destroyed at all costs. He feels it will have an undesirable
effect on the fabric of society. Destabilizing his
power base.'

'God wants Atlantis destroyed?' Scott smirked. 'He
told you that personally, did He?'
'Not God, the Pope,' Fergus glowered. 'This is no

3:14 AM

492 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

time for jokes. Your life's in danger, Richard. Serious
danger. The Papacy has made a deal with the US to
destroy Atlantis.'
Scott laughed. 'Fergus, you're paranoid.'
'He feels the discovery of an ancient advanced society
would make a total mockery of Christianity. He's not
alone, he's taken meetings with other religious leaders.'
A frown crossed Scott's face. 'Then my work was correct.
And you know it.'
'Richard, all that matters is your life is in danger. You
have no idea what's waiting for you in Atlantis. None.'
Scott folded his arms defensively. 'So enlighten me.'
An image popped up onto the screen. 'You've heard
of the mythic Golem, haven't you?'

I

t was always amazing how a lack of time helped focus
the mind.
Nano-technology was the only thing that plausibly
explained the appearance of the hand in the Giza
tunnel that kept Douglas stuck fast just before his
death.
The implications of the video feed Fergus showed
from Pini Pini were daunting. In Atlantis they were to
face automatons that defied all modern capabilities, yet
had been constructed by the hand of ancient man. It
wasn't so much that modern man had a lot still to learn,
more a lot to relearn.
Scott studied the glyphs etched across the 'face' of
the Golem, back in the lab. They were Atlantis glyphs.
To find them etched on the face of an angry nemesis
did not inspire confidence.
'How do these nanoes work?' Sarah wanted to know.
'I mean, they're tiny little robots, right? What's their

494 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

power source? Do they strap little batteries to their backs
or what?'
'When Drexler first expanded on his theory,'
Matheson explained, 'he proposed nanoes would be
powered by sonic energy. Sound waves would pass
between the nanoes, transferring energy between them,
kind of like a sonic network that required 11o wiring, just sonic transmitters and receivers.'
Scott was confused. 'So how would they become one
creature? One thing?'
'That's just it. It's not a thing. It's a nano swarm.' 'It's many things?'
'Thousands of tiny units, all working together to form
one solid creature. Hundreds of thousands, maybe even
millions, swarming and acting like a single entity.'
'Is that even possible?'
'Of course that's possible!' Hacket interjected excitedly.
'What the hell do you think jellyfish are?'
'Jellyfish are separate units?' November quizzed.
'Jellyfish are an army that, on occasion, decide to go
to war.'
'How?' Sarah demanded. 'There's not enough time
for so many individuals to pass information on to each
other and work as one. It should fall apart.'
'Jellyfish don't fall apart,' Hackett said firmly. 'It's
known as Biological Synchronization. Like your earthquake
calculations, Sarah, it's a property of resonance.
When Dutch physicist Christian Huygens, inventor
of the pendulum clock, was ill in bed in the 1660s,
he noticed the pendulums of two of his clocks swung
in sequence when moved close to each other.
Knocked out of step they were soon back in step a
little time after. Move them apart and they went out
....................................... DECIPHER 	495

of step rapidly. This same proximation synchronicity
is seen in fireflies, fiber bundles that regulate the
heart, flocks of birds that change direction, schools of
fish. It's not a conscious decision, it's a factor of environment,
a subtle mathematical thread which can be
applied even on a social level - like religion and sects
relying on geographical frameworks. Southern Baptists. Anglicans in England. Islam in the Middle East. Hinduism in India. It's to do with reaction to the environment.'
'This environment is gonna kill us at this rate,' Gant
commented as he strutted into the lab with Lieutenant
Roebuck in tow. A chill wind whistled in behind them.
'Brief us.' He slapped a map down on the table and
rolled it out. 'What else can we expect to find in
Atlantis?'

'First up,' Pearce corrected, 'Atlantis was the island said
to be as large as Libya and Asia combined. The
city's actual name was Poseidon.'
'Whatever,' Gant shrugged. 'What's our best entry
point?' He used his pen to sketch out where the Chinese
base was in black. Then switched to red to map out the
satellite imagery of the structures below. 'Did they booby
trap? Was it easy to get about? What kind of minds conceived
of this place? Were they warlike?'
'Atlantis was fortified. Plato spoke of them going to
war with Athens. But the central portion of the city was
enclosed with concentric rings of sea. I'm assuming he
meant giant canals. Plato described them as being like
cartwheels. They were equidistant from each other with
the rings of land connected by bridges and tunnels, and
were in turn connected to the sea by one huge canal,



496 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

300 feet wide and 100 feet deep. Major, they kept their
entire navy harbored around those rings.'
'What else?'
'Well, they had buildings of different-colored
stonework. The outer land ring was covered in bronze,
like a veneer. The middle land ring was covered in tin
that was fused to the walls. And the central island's buildings
were covered in Orichalc, including the acropolis,
the dominant place of worship. There were temples all
over and the laws of the land were written on a central
pillar of Orichalc, where the ten ruler kings of the
provinces would meet every fifth and sixth year, thereby
showing equal respect to both odd and even numbers.'
Scott and Hackett immediately exchanged intrigued
glances.
'Oh, and the wall of the Shrine of Poseidon and
Cleito was made of gold.'
'That's it? That's all we've got?' Gant threw his pen
down furiously.
'That's all there is!' Pearce exploded right back at
him. 'That's all Plato wrote. He never finished the story.
Like any writer who's written three chapters to a book
that Hollywood never bothered picking up, he threw in
the towel and wrote something else.'
'What you've just told me offers absolutely no indication
of what this new power source might be. What
it is we have to switch off. In nine hours, people, a solar
storm is projected to hit this planet, so violent it may
boil the atmosphere right off our globe. If that machine
under the ice is still operational there's every chance
it'll succeed because that thing'll suck it right in. I need
to know what the hell I'm trying to blow up.'
The scientists stood gripped around the table, silently
....................................... DECIPHER 	497

devastated by the implications. All, that is, except for
Scott who hadn't come all this way just to fail.
Quietly he said: '"The third angel blew his trumpet,
and a huge star fell from the sky, burning like a ball of
fire, and it fell on a third of all rivers and on the springs
of water; this was the star called Wormwood, and a third
of all water turned to wormwood, so that many people
died; the water became so bitter."'
All eyes settled on Scott.
'What are you talking about?' the marine major
demanded impatiently.
November's eyes lit up. 'He's quoting the Book of
Revelation, verses 8:10 and 8:11.'
'why?'
Hacker knew why. He smiled. 'In the Ukraine,' he
explained lightly, 'just north of the capital city, Kiev,
they have a profusion of forests made up of trees indigenous
to the local area called wormwood trees.'
'So?'
"Well uh let me put it this way, Major. What is a star?'
'I don't underst'
'A star is nothing more than a nuclear explosion that
goes on for millions of years.'
'When I was a teenager,' Scott took over, 'in the same
area of the Ukraine where they have all the wormwood
trees, they also had a nuclear power station that went
critical. Like a star falling from the sky it turned the
water and soil radioactive. The name of the place
became synonymous with nuclear disasters.'
'I know,' Gant answered diligently. 'Chernobyl.'
'Right,' Scott said. 'And Chernobyl, in English,
means wormwood.'



498 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

'That's all very well on the prophecy front, Professor
Scott.' Gant was growing irritable. 'But what does it have
to do with the layout of Atlantis?'
'It always struck me how the description of the city
of Atlantis always sounded so similar to the city in the
Book of Revelation where mankind's final battle will be
fought.'
Now that had the military men's attention.
'In Revelation 21, The Messianic Jerusalem, the city's
described as being seen from a hill and looking like
some glittering precious jewel of crystal-clear diamond
with twelve gates. The outer wall was made of diamond,
and the city of pure gold, like clear glass. The foundations
of the city were faced with precious stones. The
first was diamond, the second lapis lazuli, the third
turquoise, the fourth crystal, the fifth agate, the sixth
ruby, the seventh gold quartz, the eighth malachite, tlae
ninth topaz, the tenth emerald, the eleventh sapphire,
and the twelfth amethyst. The twelve gates were twelve
pearls and each gate was made from a single pearl. The
main street of the city was pure gold - yet appeared
transparent like glass. And the city did not need the sun
or the moon for it was lit by the radiance of the glory
of God.'
'Sounds like a geologist's dream,' Sarah commented.
'It sounds just like Atlantis,' Matheson said, awestruck.
Scott
inclined his head. 'The only trouble with the
analogy is that the new Jerusalem was perfectly square.
Atlantis is perfectly round.'
'How does it help us here?' Roebuck asked in all seriousness.
'In
Revelation 9:2, it speaks of a fifth angel blowing
....................................... DECIPHER 	499

its trumpet and in so doing, another star falls to the
earth where the angel is given a key. This key unlocks
the "shaft of the Abyss" from which sulfurous smoke
rose out from a huge furnace as the sun and sky were
darkened. And from the smoke dropped metallic
armored locusts with stings in their tails like scorpions.
They hovered, and made the racket of many chariots
with their horses, charging.'
'Christ,' Roebuck gulped. 'They sound like Apache
attack helicopters.'
'What does this Abyss do?' Gant asked.
Scott shrugged. 'I don't know. But the angel's name
in Hebrew was Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon.' He
looked down at the picture of the Golem. 'By removing
the sacred word from the Golem's head it is reduced
to dust. Abaddon could be its name...' He eyed Gant
again. 'The point is, what power source could be so
unbelievably big that it lit up your security satellites?
What if Atlantis is sitting on a volcano?'
'What we registered is not volcanic activity.'
Matheson was one jump ahead. Yes, but the site in
Giza was tapping into and converting geothermal
energy. This site could be doing the same thing on a
massive scale. And situated over a Pole? The use of the
earth as some kind of magnetic dynamo? That's incredible!
And more power than you'd know what to do with.'
'So how do we shut it down?'
'Close the damn Abyss, I should imagine, sir,'
Roebuck responded flippantly.
'The fifth angel,' Pearce noted. 'The fifth site. The
site with the Abyss - the power source.'
Hackett shook his head. 'All this ancient scripture
and we're gonna look like real idiots if we finally get



500 	sTEL PAVLOU .....................................
down there and all we find is a giant energizer bunny
banging on a battery.'
Nobody laughed.
'In the Egyptian Book of the Dead; Scott warned,
'there's a place described as being crucial to human survival
in the next world that human souls must attend
to. Carved out of solid rock it is "The Chamber of
Ordeal", or more commonly, "The Chamber of Central
Fire".'
'Great.'
'So we need to get to the center of the city,' Gant
concluded. 'To find this chamber, this Abyss.'
Scott looked down upon the node photographs again,
puzzled. 'The Book of Revelation,' he explained, 'is also
where God likens himself to the alphabet. Just as in the
beginning was the word, God says he is both Mpha and
Omega, the First and the Last. The Beginning and the
End. Mways it comes back to words...' The epigraphist
eyed everyone around the table. 'God also warns those
who may wish to enter the city and warns against those
who may not enter. Dogs, fortunetellers.'
Pearce shook his head. 'Well, that's me without an
invite.'
'The sexually immoral.' Sarah seemed to blush.
'Murderers.'
Gant shifted uneasily. 'It was a war situation.'
'Idolaters.' Scott looked around the room, his eyes
eventually falling on Hackett.
'I guess I do kind of worship, uh, science,' he admitted
sheepishly.
'And anyone of false speech and false life,' Scott concluded.
'Which counts the rest of us out.'
'Well,' November remarked. 'This'll be fun.'
....................................... DECIPHER 	501

Sarah turned to the Major. 'Now you know what you
can expect to find under the ice, what can we expect
to find on the surface?'
Gant immediately set about marking up positions.
'The signs are not good,' he said. 'We have reports of
enemy activity here, here and here, fully encircling their
base for approximately a hundred square miles. Even if
we had the time, which we do not, we'd never get in
by land. Our only alternative is by air but the VTOLs
just don't like this cold. We've tried adapting them but
there's a heater problem. I've already sent them back
to the Truman.'
'Then what do we do?' Matheson asked apprehensively.
'We
have a Hercules C-130 that's prepared to take
us in. It's like the one we flew down in from Geneva.'
'Woah,' Pearce objected, concerned. 'Those things
are huge. A C-130 can't land there. There's no landing
strip and no re-fueling dump.'
'No one said anything about landing there,' Gant
observed.
Scott was confused. 'Then how do we get on the
ground?'


HERCULES


H

ercules, the Romanized name for the Greek hero
Herakles, son of Zeus and Alcmene. Legendary for
the murder of his wife Megara and their children after
succumbing to a fit of madness sent down by Hera, and
consequently consigned to carry out twelve monumental
labors. These included slaying the nine-headed
Lernean Hydra, capturing the mad bull of Crete, taking
the girdle of Hippolyte, Queen of the Amazons, and
bringing back the golden apples kept by Hesperides at
the world's end. In Roman mythology the broad, powerful
and charismatic hero rescued men from danger.

As a US Army C-130, he was delivering them into
danger.

Richard Scott stood by one of the windows in the
rear of the plane, and looked down bewildered at all
the strapping and clips he had stretched around his body
in a harness.

'Now let me get this straight,' he said thinly. 'You're

....................................... DECIPHER 	503


gonna toss me out the back of this plane at just over a
thousand feet above ground level?'

'You won't be alone,' Gant explained, trying to make
his voice heard over the drone of the engines. 'None of
you will. Tandem jumps are fairly common. You'll be
assigned to Lieutenant Roebuck here. He'll make sure
the parachute opens. Just you make sure you're tied to
him or then you'll be in trouble.'

'I dunno,' Scott moaned, as if he actually had a choice
in the matter. 'A thousand feet? That's awfully low, isn't
it?'

'It's the minimum height required to get our 'chute
open,' Roebuck said confidently. 'It's the same height
that base jumpers use. Y'know, those nutballs who hurl
themselves off buildings? Don't worry, Professor. You
won't be in the air that long. It'll all be over in ten seconds.
You'll be on the ground before you even know
it.'

'That's what I'm afraid of...'

'Just remember,' Roebuck said, taking the linguistic
anthropologist aside and guiding him through the procedure
as Gant went off to introduce Sarah to her partner.
'Bend your legs on impact. Don't keep 'em straight
out, you could break something. Feet together, like this,

see. Then turn it into a roll.'

'Which way?'

'I'll tell you which way when we get there. I'll release
you on impact. You'll dive to the side. Turn it into a
roll. And when you want to stop you hit the ground
with your arm. It's all to do with energy transference so
it hurts as little as possible.'

'I wish you wouldn't keep calling it "impact",' Scott
said, much to Roebuck's amusement.



504 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

Over by another window, Matheson stood watching
the retreating ice floes as the plane banked off into the
mainland interior. Just a couple of weeks ago all he had
seen was frazil ice, chaotic crystals that formed in stormy
waters, clumping together to form grease ice, lofig wavy
strips of ice that looked like oil slicks. But today all he
could see was pancake ice that was rapidly forming into
ice sheets. Pancake ice was formed by the rough seas
spinning the ice around to form plates, some as large
as ten feet across, like giant ice lily-pads for giant ice
frogs. As winter drew near these plates crowded and
eventually froze over completely to form continuous
sheets.
But it was all growing distant now, to be replaced by
the desolate, inhospitable-looking snow fiats that were
being pounded by high intensity winds which occa
sionally whipped into an updraft and buffeted the plane
viciously.
The ridge of the Trans-Antarctic Mountains would
be looming soon. Among them were the Dry Valleys,
places so arid that it never snowed since all the moisture
in the air was sucked right out and creatures were
freeze-dried. The temperature regularly fell to minus 52
degrees Celsius and the ground was frozen solid up to
a depth of half a mile. Conditions were so extreme that
NASA regularly tested its latest robotic probes destined
for Mars there.
This place put the fear of God in Ralph Matheson.
Antarctica was a place where human life wasn't lust
insignificant - it was totally irrelevant.
Ralph found a cup of hot tea thrust in his hand. The
marines were handing out steaming coffee and Mars
bars for energy.
....................................... DECIPHER 	505

'Drink all the hot drinks you can manage. It'll help
keep you warm. But when it gets to an hour before the
drop I suggest you visit the head. It'll be the last heated
toilet you'll see for a while. If you want to pee once
we're on the ground, it'll be so cold it will freeze before
it hits the ground. And until I have orders otherwise,
war zone or no war zone, you will have to scoop it all
up and bring your waste with you. There is no littering
in Antarctica. Eat high-energy food stuffs too. Getting
around in the snow expends more energy than you'll
be used to. Mars bars are good because of all the glucose.
Feed up too, because once we're down there the
only square meals you'll have will be the ones you carry
with you and what we can salvage from lung Chang:
There were ten marines in all, kitted up and ready,
eating their candy bars and drinking their hot drinks.
Light on conversation and even lighter on comedic
banter, they were not as gung-ho as the scientists had
expected.
'We're about to go into a potential war zone,' Roebuck
explained quietly to Scott. 'Shouting yessir and polishing
our boots is for the parade ground. I gotta tell you,
Professor, I'm shitting my pants. And you should be
worried if I didn't feel that way. I don't wanna shoot
someone or get shot anymore than you do, but the difference
is, it's my job.'
Matheson let the warm steam waft across his face
before downing the hot, sweet liquid. 'All right,' he said,
tugging at the lap-top by his feet. 'We got about another
three hours stuck in this tin can. Let's get to work.'



RETRIEVAL STAGE 1

You re trym to decode thzs.
/ Scott looked up from where he was slumped
against the vibrating green bulkhead and growled. He
was tugging at his hair with one hand, clutching yet
another photograph of the Atlantis glyphs with the other.
'I'm sorry,' Roebuck apologized, backing up and chewing
his Mars bar. 'I guess I should just leave you to it.'
Scott shook himself out of his crisis. Passed the photograph
over to the young officer and invited him to
slump down with him. 'Here, have a try,' he offered.
Then he asked: 'Aren't any of you guys a day over thirty?'
Roebuck smirked as he looked over the image. 'The
military does like to pick 'em young, sir.'
The officer didn't seem daunted by the arrangement
of bizarre-looking glyphs, which surprised Scott if he
was honest. In fact, Roebuck's mild appraisal of the patterns
actually started getting the despondent epigraphist
excited.
....................................... DECIPHER 	507

'So these are the glyphs, right?' Roebuck asked, referring
to the slip of paper stapled to the top. There were
three horizontal lines of data. The middle line featured
the glyphs.
'Right.'
'What are these numbers above it?'
'When you try to decipher a language you assign each
glyph a number, arbitrarily. Then you reduce the text
down to a series of numbers to see if you can pick out
a pattern,' Scott explained. 'We call it Retrieval Stage
One. That's a line of text reduced to numbers. I haven't
got past that yet.'
'And what about this set of numbers underneath that
a text too?'
'No,' Scott replied, and briefly explained about the
number stream, found written inside the crystal.
'I see,' Roebuck nodded. 'I see what you did. You
converted the text to numbers. But no amount of rejigging,
changing what glyph was what number, got it
to match the number stream from within the crystal.'
'Right. You making any sense of that? Do you know
anything about decipherment?'
'Uh, kinda,' Roebuck revealed. 'I was manning the
communications .array my end of the line when I contacted
you guys in Geneva, remember? I've been trained
left ways of Christmas in the art of data encryption and
decryption.'
That made sense. 'Ah,' Scott replied condescendingly.
'Gomputer codes. Yeah, well, sorry to disappoint
you, but this is a language. Not a code.'
'Which in some respects should make cracking it a
whole lot easier, sir,' Roebuck replied flatly, for a moment
completely unaware that he had just shattered the


,i

i!! I


	508 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

epigraphist's reputation among his peers. Roebuck
looked up sheepishly as Sarah and November stifled a
laugh. 'If you don't mind my saying so, sir. No offence.'
'None taken.' Scott ripped open his own Mars bar
and with a mouthful of chocolate said: 'So tell me more.
Why should it be easier?'
'Well, I would assume there's been no attempt to
hide the information. If anything, if this is a warning
from the past, surely they would have built in clues to
help decode the information.'
It seemed a startlingly obvious and simplistic thing
to say, but Scott knew that Roebuck was making sense.
Maybe he did need to take a different approach to all
this and not base his analysis on purely linguistic terms.
'Cryptography,' Roebuck added, 'requires coding and decoding. As such you require a key. Maybe they realized
time would naturally encode something as the original
language corrupted and altered, so something that
time doesn't affect would become the key to decoding
it.'
'That's remarkably perceptive, Lieutenant,' Hackett
interjected enthusiastically. 'You're wasted in the military.'
He turned to the others. 'Part of the basis of complexity
theory is the notion of the arrow of time. Certain
laws of physics are dependent on it, others are not.
Entropy is the amount of disorder in a system. It only
works one way - our way. If we reverse time, smashed
cups would put themselves back together. However,
things like gravity work the same whatever direction
time is running.'
Roebuck shrugged. 'That makes sense.'
'So, do you have any idea what might be the key to
decoding this little, uh, quandary?'
....................................... DECIPHER 	509

'Hell, I don't know, Professor,' Roebuck scoffed.
'That's for you to figure out. Maybe the key's a law of
physics, or mathematics. Some kind of constant as a
'frame of reference. Maybe it's a physical manifestation. I just know a little about encryption. In the 1970s, which
is way before my time, they had this Data Eneryption Standard, DES - a product block cipher. It used sixteen
rounds of substitutions and transpositions in a cascade,
encrypted in sixty-four-bit binary encoded
plaintext, controlled by a fifty-four-bit key - producing
a sixty-four-bit ciphertext.'
'What?'
'Basically you needed a DES chip to encode or
decode the text. Or incredible software. But there was
just one key and you needed the key to decode it. It
falls into the wrong hands and the whole thing is useless
to security agencies. By the 1990s we had this asymmetric,
two-key cryptosystem. With the eneryption
system in the public domain, but the second key, the
decryption key, remaining a secret. Again it's computer
based. The point is, the.whole thing rests on an algorithm
that encodes and decodes. Perhaps this number
stream here is an algorithm, kind of a key.'
'It's not an algorithm,' Hackett explained. 'Believe
me, I tried.'
'That still doesn't stop it being a key,' Roebuck replied
eagerly. 'Those numbers have to mean something or
why put them there?'
'Are you saying,' Scott probed, sitting up and taking note, 'that maybe there are several keys to unlocking this thing?'
'Well, yeah, why not?' Roebuck said matter-offactly.
'If this is a warning from the past, or they wanted to



510 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

contact people in the future, people with technical
capabilities, they'd try to reach out on every level. At
least, that's what I'd do.
'It might be an attempt at a universal language, in
order to cross time and racial boundaries. This may
have to have been invented. Hell, the key to it could
be down to something as simple as the shape of the
damn building it was standing in. The design of the
pattern here plays on the human eye's ability to detect
patterns. The spiral and the arch seem particularly
important to these people.'

That stung. Sharply. An invented language. Scott had
considered that possibility. Why had he not pursued it
further?
Matheson was on his feet. Something was clicking
into place. He sat down with the others and put his laptop
to one side. 'What if Roebuck's right? What if they
made their megalithic constructions in such a way that
they were intended to impart a message to us?'
Sarah was intrigued. 'The design of the building as
a key?'
'In Giza, above ground, the design of the Pyramids
and the Sphinx correspond to how the ancient sky
looked in 10,500 Bc. Like a mirror. Roughly the time
we talked about for the first flood. I think maybe the
tunnels underneath have a message too.'
Scott was nodding. 'The Egyptian Hermetic dictum
was: "as above, so below". But a message in the design
of the stonework?'
Matheson pulled out a pen and a notebook. 'These
people are masters of sound - correct? All things sonic
and the physics of wave propagation.' The others nodded.
....................................... DECIPHER 	511

'So what does a sound wave look like?' He drew a squiggle
across the page.

'So what would one of the Giza tunnels look like if
you drew it from its side? It's a spiral, remember? Sarah,
you were standing in a sound wave set in stone.'
/\/\/\
'Wait a minute.' Sarah was skeptical. 'A sound wave
- are you sure? What's the wavelength on audible sound
waves?'
'Anything from two centimeters all the way up to
twenty meters,' Hackett replied without even having to
think about it.
'How do you measure a wave's length?' November
asked.
'A wave has a peak and a trough,' Matheson
explained. 'Y'know, like a real wave in the ocean. The
wave's length is measured by determining the distance
between two peaks.'
'Couldn't the wave in the tunnel equally be a representation
of a light wave?'
'Absolutely not,' Hackett replied dismissively. 'The
wavelength of visible light is 0.00000055 meters. That's
ridiculously small. Radio waves are on the same kind
of scale.'
'Not all of"em; Roebuck corrected.
Sarah shuffled forward. 'So what is the wavelength
of the spiral in the tunnels?'



512 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

'Exactly ten meters,' Matheson confirmed, 'according
to your data. That's the longest wavelength divided
by the shortest: twenty divided by two. The exact middle
ground of audible wavelengths. And the Atlantis glyphs
only appear on the spiral Carbon 60 strip, which we
already know can produce standing waves in liquids
because of the quasicrystals... My God, that's it! That's
it!' He was sketching furiously on his notepad again.
'That's how the network - works! That's how these five
sites are linked. The tunnels that go out from them go
down into the water table. If they go all the way out to
the coast then all five sites are linked through the
oceans.
'Sound travels at 340 meters per second in the air but
1,500 meters per second in the water. At extreme
depths there's a layer of water that has a temperature
and pressure differential to the ocean above it. It's what
whales use to communicate over vast distances at incredible
speeds. Increasing pressure increases the speed of
sound. This layer of water traps the sound so it has no
choice but to travel great distances.'
'Why?'
Matheson eyeballed Roebuck consciously. 'Excuse
me?'
'Why?' the Lieutenant asked again. 'I mean, I'm sure
you're correct. Our submarines regularly pick up
acoustic signals in the oceans they can't explain. I'm
sure this network of yours exists. My only question is: why does it exist?'
Matheson sat back on his haunches, exchanging a
look with the rest of the team as Sarah told him:
'Lieutenant, we've all been asking that same question
since day one.'
....................................... DECIPHER 	513

%ieutenant Roebuck?' November said tentatively. 'We're not at radio silence or anything, are we?'
'No,' the marine confirmed. 'Command wants the
Chinese to know we're here.'
'Then why doesn't Ralph give you the map references
where these five sites are and you could contact
a few submarines. See if they can't pick this network
up in the water?'
'November,' Matheson scoffed mildly. 'We still don't
know where these other two sites might be. We're still
waiting on confirmation from Gant.'
'You're a smart man, Ralph,' she smiled. 'Can't you
best guess it?'

Gant had his arms folded tightly across his chest as
Roebuck took him through the charts at the rear of the
cockpit, illuminated under a snake lamp.
'There's the Connecticut and the Jimmy Carter in the
North Atlantic.'
'Seawolf Class?'
'Uh, yes, sir. Jackson says he'll give us the Virginia in the South Atlantic for two hours.'
'That's all they're asking for anyway, right?'
Roebuck confirmed that with an apologetic nod. His
ass was on the line here backing this plan. Taking so
many submarines out of the patrol loop for two hours
at once was an incredible risk.
'The Louisville, the Olympia, the Charlotte and the Jefferson City are all on patrol somewhere in the Pacific.
Fleet Commander won't say where but he assures me
they can sweep pretty much the entire area Ralph asked
us to check. They're the older Los Angeles Class. And
the Trepang's in the Indian Ocean.'



514 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

'The Trepang? That old Sturgeon Class training
ship?'
'Sir, yes, sir.'
'Damn, I remember that boat. Jesus, she must be
damn near forty or fifty years old by now.'
'They say they're up to the job. We also got a Fleet
Ballistic Missile Submarine, the Kentucky. And the Dolphin's standing by.'
The USS Dolphin AGSS-555 was one of a kind of
research submarine used by both the navy and civilian
agencies alike. She had an unmatched world depth
record for operational submarines. And right now she
was sat right under the Arctic ice cap, just southwest
of the North Pole, looking for a sunken site. She was
already part of this wild-goose chase so it didn't make
much difference calling her in.
'Ten ships,' Gant concluded. 'That's a lot of ships.
Dower's gonna be pissed tryin' to get this authorized.
I'll call it through,' he said.
'What time shall I tell 'em to expect an answer, sir?'
Roebuck indicated the team back in the belly of the
plane.
'Two hours,' he replied. 'Which means we'll be on
the ground.'
Roebuck headed back as the pilot up ahead called
for the Major's attention. Out through the windows a
vista of low cloud cover was rearing up at them, at speed.
'It looks like some extreme weather out there. You
want us to avoid it, we can avoid it.'
'Negative,' Cant sighed, handing the sheet of information
Roebuck had given him to the young communications
engineer, Joe Dodson. 'We don't have the
time.'
....................................... DECIPHER 	515

'Understood.'
Dodson gave the sheet of information the once-over.
A moth-eaten photograph of some odd design. A sheet
of paper stapled to the top with rows of numbers and
some familiar-looking squiggles underneath, while
scrawled in pen next to them were a set of coordinates,
oceanic depth ranges and acoustic frequencies to be
transmitted to each of the ten submarines for them to institute a search.
'Uh, Major?' Dodson asked innocently, trying to get
the marine's attention while he discussed the weather
situation with the pilots. 'You want me to work out these
little wave files and send them over too?'
Cant misheard the man and asked him to repeat what
he'd just said. Dodson ran his fingers along the series
of Atlantis glyphs but hadn't even remotely registered
they were letters to an alphabet.
'These little waves. You want me to match 'em in
the computer and tell the subs what frequency they
are?'
Cant didn't say anything. Just grabbed the young man
by the scruff of his collar and yanked him to his feet.

'Tell him what you told me.'
Scott looked up startled as the young airman standing
in front of him wiped at his nose like a schoolkid
hauled in front of the teacher.
'All I said was these little symbols look like wave files;
did he want me to work out the frequencies and send
the information on to the submarines. I thought it was
important.'
Gant jabbed his finger at Scott eagerly. But it looked
more like a threat. 'Does this help you?'



516 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

But all Scott could manage was to let his jaw flap
open and closed like a goldfish. Hackett took control.
'What do you mean by wave files?'
'On a computer,' Dodson explained, exasperated,
'when you record an audio signal you can display it any
number of ways. Like a wavy line, or a series of spikes.
Things like clicks produce very small wave files because
the sound is so short. That's what these look like. Tiny
snatches of sound displayed as a wave across the top
and the corresponding spike data across the bottom,
simply turned on its side. That's all I meant.'
Scott grabbed up one of the photographs again.
Stared at it. Jesus. Could it be? Sarah scooted up to
take a look too. They eyed each other. Everyone was
waiting on Scott's response. If this was a plausible theory
to work from it could only go ahead on his say-so. Scott
leaped to his feet, frantic.
'Somebody grab a computer with a microphone,
quick! These aren't just phonetic symbols! They don't represent sounds! They are sounds!' He confronted
Dodson. 'Kid, you're a fucking genius. Let me shake
your hand. What's your name?'
'Uh, Joe,' the communications engineer replied,
taken aback. 'Joe Dodson.'
'Joe? Good to meet you, Joe. Short for anything, Joe?'
'Yeah, Joseph.' Scott started laughing as Matheson
set up his computer. 'What's so funny?'
'Joseph,' Scott said. 'That's what's funny. In the Old
Testament, Joseph and his coat of many colors was made
Vizier to the Pharaoh and given the name Zaphe-nathPaneah!'
Dodson looked blank. 'Which in Hebrew
means: "Decoder of the Code"!'
RETRIEVAL STAGE 2

ir.o it again,' Pearce urged, scowling at no one in
	I.J

		particular as the background noise ruined the
take. He adjusted his headphones as Sarah moved the
microphone back.
'Okay, okay,' she agreed irritably, taking a drag on
her cigarette first. 'Buh . . . buh . . .'
It was like someone was throwing bricks at the outer
skin of the aircraft, listening to the constant shakes,
rattles and metallic groans as the airframe fought the
elements. Sarah took another breath and tried to match
her vocal sounds to the Atlantis glyphs. They had
decided each glyph must represent a human vocal
sound, And after some trial and error had actually gotten
some of Sarah's sounds to match up with the glyphs.
Each time she spoke the computer analyzed the shape
of the sound wave and compared it to each glyph. It
was slow going. But at least it was going.
Scott paced back and forth impatiently, deep in


518 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


thought. String enough of these sounds together and
theoretically they were going to start forming sentences.
But what language was it going to turn out to be? One
thing was certain, it wasn't going to be English.

At this stage of text retrieval Scott should be seeing
repeated components, ascertaining groups of glyphs that
seemed to repeat within the text. By now he should be
determining what these repeated groups might be.
Conjunctions, for example, like the word 'and'.

But there were no repeated components. Whatever
text Scott studied, be it a stream of glyphs from Giza
or a segment from the node photographs, nothing made
sense. All he seemed to find was a random stream. So
unless this ancient race spoke in a vocabulary that consisted
of exceptionally long words, all they were going
to get was a random stream of noises.

Frustration was such an undervalued word.
Hackett folded his arms as he, Matheson and
November sounded out the anthropologist's dilemma.
'In a syllabic script,' Scott explained, 'vowels stand alone
only at the beginning of a word. After that they're always
paired with a preceding consonant. Consonants are
never on their own. It's a statistical godsend. But I'm
not detecting that here. It's also gonna be a matter of
time before I determine whether voicing is marked in

the bilabial and palato-velar stops.'

'Huh?'

'In some languages like Linear B the same glyphs
used to represent the sounds pi, pa and po, are also
used for bi, ba and bo. It's more economical. Most cultures,
with the exception of maybe Chinese, are as economic
with their writing as possible. Maximum

....................................... DECIPHER 	519


information delivered with minimum effort. But a collection
of sounds... ?'

'Richard,' Matheson urged. 'What's the problem
here?'

'The problem?' Scott seemed almost amused. 'What
I do for an occupation is play three-dimensional
mindgames. Word puzzles. My expectations may be all
wrong. How this language is written may bear no relation
to how it is pronounced. I may simply not be able
to understand a spoken word of it.'

And then he realized. Sarah was looking up at him
and smiling.

'We're ready,' she said tantalizingly. 'All matched and
ready. Wanna hear?'

Scott handed Pearce the 'sentence' he wanted translated.
'Those five sites by the way?' Pearce told him.
'No match. They remain a mystery, so we got fifty-five
glyphs that visually match. Just so you know.' He
punched in the glyphs and waited for the computer to
string them into an extended audio file.

It was disjointed, and odd hearing it in Sarah's voice.
It was: 'Dee - juh - kho- meh . . .'

Which in English meant: 'Pure gibberish . . .' Scott
proclaimed, hanging his head in exasperation, his worst
fears confirmed. 'Pure and utter gibberish.'



DROP ZONE

G

ant strode purposefully up the metal gangway and
crouched down by the navigation array. Across from
him, communications engineer Joseph Dodson waited
for his.orders, and at Gant's instigation keyed his console
at the rear of the cockpit once more and broadcast
a message on all known Chinese channels. But he did
so, this time, in English. The whole flight he'd been
broadcasting this message, to no avail. Perhaps his
Chinese simply wasn't good enough.
'This is the United States Marine Corps speaking on
behalf of the United Nations. We have been asked to
transport a United Nations Inspection Team to the
Antarctic region known to contain a Chinese military
installation. We request safe passage to deliver this
inspection team. Over. I repeat, delivery of this United
Nations Inspection Team requires safe passage and your
immediate acknowledgement is required. Over!'
Dodson, a thin young man, sat back in his chair and
....................................... DECIPHER 	521

wiped away the sweat beading across his top lip. He
turned to Gant looking somewhat pale. 'Shall I keep
trying, sir?'
Gant was about to answer when suddenly from up
ahead an alarm sounded and red warning lights flashed
across the board. The co-pilot in the front left seat
inclined his head back. 'Major, Chinese antiaircraft systems just locked on to us. Shall I take evasive action?'
Gant was on his feet, thinking quickly. 'Negative,
negative. We don't want to do anything to jeopardize
this mission. You start doing fancy military maneuvers
and they're gonna know we're up to something. Just fly
straight and true.'
The co-pilot watched his captain struggle with the
controls as he fought the buffeting of severe winds and
stuck his hands on the yoke to help out. 'We'll try our
best, sir,' was all he said.
The dark-haired communications engineer scratched
at his five o'clock shadow nervously. 'I could try 'em
again, sir. The Chinese, I could'
And then came the familiar whistle and whine of an
untuned radio message trying to get through. Dodson's
fingers flew across the keys as he zeroed in on the communiqu6.

'Put it on speakers,' Gant ordered. 'I want everyone
to hear this.'

Around the green metallic skin of the aircraft, and in
and out of the ribs of the fuselage it echoed, the tinny
voice of a distant Chinese officer with a mercilessly terrible
English accent, cutting in over the din of the torrential
ice storm that pounded the outer body like a
hail of bullets.


522 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


'On behalf of the People's Republic of China, the
People's Army respectfully declines safe passage for your
aircraft and declines the invitation of the United Nations
to inspect our facility. You are instructed not to descend
from your present altitude. Any attempt to do so will
be seen as an act of aggression and you will be fired
upon. Attempt no landing at lung Chang. You will be
given five minutes to contact your superiors. However,
after that time if you have not deviated from your present
flight path you will be fired upon. These instructions
shall not be repeated and no dialogue shall be
entered into. Over and out.'

Both the team and the marines were pale. Matheson
couldn't stop his foot from shaking. 'Jesus fucking
Christ, we really are in the middle of World War fucking
Three!'

And then came the confirmation they were all dreading.
Gant's voice, firm over the intercom. 'Okay, everyone.
Suit up. We'll be over the drop zone in two
minutes.'

Scott was the first to get unsteadily to his feet. He
gripped the handrail with white knuckles before helping
Sarah up, and that was when they heard it. It started
off as a low rumble, the groan of electric motors kicking
into life, like the landing gear being lowered. But
then came the clank. Loud and sharp. Locks being
released.

And then came the shaft of light.

A thin sliver at the top of the rear cargo ramp. A
white band through which the shatteringly loud roar of
the world outside was invading in all its dazzling brilliance.

Scott
threw an arm over his eyes as they instinctively

....................................... DECIPHER 	523


welled up with tears. Sarah reacted by pulling her
face mask into position and fastening her hood.
'Goggles,' she said, muffled through the thick clothing.
'Goggles.'

Scott snapped his sunglasses over his eyes and felt
for the briefest moment a little safer. But the moment
was short-lived as Roebuck came up behind him and
clipped on. Scott whirled. All the marines were clipping
on to their live cargo. They had suited up into
thin white nylon camouflage over the top of their insulated
jumpsuits. It meant on the ground they would virtually
be invisible amid the snow, while up here they
looked like ghosts.

'Okay, Professor,' Roebuck said briskly. 'I just gotta clip
us on to the line overhead and we're all set. If you can
just step up to this point here for me - atta boy.'


It was like a gangplank out to oblivion, the six short
steps before him. Every time the plane lurched Scott
would tense up, petrified he was about to topple out.
But every time Roebuck sensed the anthropologist's
movement he pulled him back. 'It's okay, Professor, I
gotcha!'

"You know, the fabled Inca homeland of Aztlan

means "the place of whiteness"!'

'No, I didn't know that.'

'Oh yeah!' Scott spouted nervously, watching the
spectacular low stormcloud and blizzard rush off into
the distance, caught up in the C-130's slipstream.
'There's this Chilean legend about a magic city on the
borders of a mountain lake, the whereabouts of which
no one knows. The city's streets and palaces were made
of solid gold. And this golden city, known as the city of



524 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

kings, would become visible at the end of the world.'
A single shrill klaxon burst accompanied a red warning
light just overhanging the ramp. It blinked three
times before settling on steady illumination. Scott felt
his stomach churn over. That was his cue to take three
steps forward onto the vibrating metal ramp. He could
feel Roebuck shuffling behind him.

Gant had his arm wrapped gently around November as
they edged forward at the rear of the line. Two marines
had the nuclear warhead in its box, in front of them, a
sled fastened on top. While further down the line stood
HackeR, who was still engaged in hooking up with his
marine.
'The visibility out there is appalling, Major!'
November complained. 'Y'can't see your hand in front
of your face! How're we supposed to find each other
when we land?'
Gant tugged at the hooks of the harness on her back.
'This one right here,' he explained, 'is attached to an
expandable tether, which in turn is attached to me.
Even though I'll be releasing you when we land so we
don't wind up piled on top of each other, we'll never
be more than six to ten feet apart.'
'What about the others?'
'We all have beacons,' he reassured her.
Hackett squirmed with his assigned partner. 'I know
you have to hug me,' the physicist joked. 'But do you
have to be so tight?'
'Sir, it's for your own safety.'
Hackett eyed him up and down. 'My mother always
warned me that all the nice boys love a sailor. That
apply to marines?'
....................................... DECIPHER 	525

The marine confronted his CO. 'Sir, do I have to be
partnered with this geek?'
Gant scowled. 'Eyes front, soldier!'

'El Dorado? That means "The City of Gold", or is it
the city of the sun?' Scott gabbled breathlessly. He swallowed
hard. 'In the middle of the Salar de Coipasa is
the village of Coipasa. And just north of it live the
Chipaya Indians. Their whole language is different from
both Quechua and Aymara! The closest linguistic language
is Arabic and North African tribal languages--'
'Professor Scott?'
'Yeah?'
'You're babbling.'
Scott glanced back briefly to check on the others.
Directly behind him Matheson couldn't even make eye
contact, while Pearce and Sarah shifted uneasily on
their feet. Maybe he was babbling, but with good reason.
Another klaxon burst.
Scott spun his head around. Green! The light had
changed to green! Scott held his breath, readied himself
for the sprint forward and realized belatedly that
Roebuck had already lifted him clear off his feet and
was rushing them out the back.

Slam! Scott's tongue caught in his throat as the ripcord
still attached to the C-130 viciously snatched the parachute
out of the pack on Roebuck's back.
Scott had expected the cold, the sheer freezing terror
sapping the very life out of his extremities. B.ut the noise,
the utter volume of powerful engines heaving an unnatural
hulk through the air combined with the intensity
of rushing air, plus the smell of exhaust fumes and the



526 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

total power of the blizzard pounding at their helpless
dangling bodies almost seemed too much to bear.
He could see nothing. No sky, no ground, just a vast
wall of swirling whiteness. An emptiness and a void that
even God would have trouble filling.
His entire gut seemed to have shifted to a new elevated
position in his chest, just down from his windpipe,
making it difficult to breathe. The rush of blood
in his ears had a voice of its own, like a crowd calling
for his execution, and-
Bang! His ankles ached as the sudden stress of the
impact shot up his legs and turned them to jelly. The
twang of a clip coming undone and a rough shove to
the side and Scott found himself coming bodily into
contact with the frozen wasteland. There was a compacted,
polystyrene sound of snow and ice crushing
beneath his weight. He made to roll but found he was
skidding uncontrollably across the icy flat.
He tried to yelp but nothing came out as a set of
boots landed in his path. He knocked them clean out
the way as he crashed on through before jerking to a
halt on the end of his tether.
He lay there, on his back, his chest heaving up and
down as he wheezed and coughed, trying to come to
terms with what had just happened. He was on the
ground and he was alive! He coughed again, bringing
up phlegm but it had nowhere to go and he wasn't
taking his faceplate off for anything, so he forced himself
to swallow it and went to sit up. In all this gear
it was a struggle. As he tried to get his bearings he
realized that the blizzard was blasting at such a force
the snow was moving horizontally, into him and past
him.
....................................... DECIPHER 	527

Scott groaned as he struggled to get up. But the blizzard
was so unbelievably powerful it knocked him
straight back on his ass. He tried again, but just couldn't
get a footing. And that was when he felt it. A weak
tug at the tether and a distant cry for--
'Help! Professor Scott, can you hear me?'
Scott spun round, trying to figure out which direction
Roebuck was calling from, but he couldn't see a
thing. Not a damn thing. He felt the tug again. That
was it! That was the direction.
'Lieutenant? Hold on! I'm coming!' He tried to stand
again, but the best he could manage was to crawl on
all fours until--
Snap! The tether jerked so viciously at his back that
it whipped him around and sent a sharp jabbing pain
into his hip. He grabbed at the nylon cord and yanked
it in an effort to bring on some slack, but all he managed
was to get his momentum going again and he
found himself rapidly sliding back the way he'd just
come.
The ice was cracked and torn all around him, jutting
up into the air and clawing at him as he bumped
over it. He could hear a scream and then the tether
yanked even harder.
Thinking quickly, Scott reached around in his
pocket and jabbed the only thing he could find, his
gold-plated Parker pen, a gift from his estranged wife
last birthday, deep into the snow and ice. And hung
on for dear life.
His legs were over a precipice, and dangling from
the tether between them, approximately ten feet below,
was Lieutenant Roebuck. Stranded on a cliff of blue
ice, the distressed officer cried out as he tried to get a


528 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


footing and struggled to release the parachute, several
cords of which were wrapped around his throat.

What he didn't know was that Scott's pen was slowly,
very slowly forcing its way through the snow and ice
leaving a deep scar in its wake.

And there was absolutely nothing the anthropologist
could do about it.

JUNG CHANG



AN-YANG SETFLEMENTS - NORTHERN HONAN

PANHANDLE - CHINA


Inscriptions on Oracle Bones, literally 'chai-ku wen' or
'writings on [turtle] shell and [animal] bone' date from
around 4,000BCE. Ching-hua 4 bone from the reign of
Wu Ting speaks of a two-headed snake drinking from the
Yellow River and there followed a week of bad weather. A
rainbow or a snake with heads at both ends is often found
in early Chinese literature and is an ominous sign. On the
Yi-pien 3380 bone, dating from 1,300 years later during
the Han Dynasty, shrine reliefs at Wu-lizng-tz'u, southwest
of Shantung show the same thing. A two-headed
dragon in a struggle with the spirits of the wind and rain.


Excerpt from: Tales of the Deluge: A Global
Report On Cultural Self-Replicating Genesis

Myths, DR RICHARD SCOTt, 2008

TIME TO SOLAR MAXIMUM:
19 HOURS, 23 MINUTES


TIME TO CURRENT SOLAR STORM
INTERCEPTION:


4
	HOURS, 51 MINUTES


S

cott gritted his teeth and bellowed for help as he
fought to keep both himself and Roebuck alive.
His sunglasses were fogging up. Every time he gasped
for breath, steam from his mouth would work its way
inside of them and crystallize on the sub-zero surface.

'Help
us!' Scott shrieked. 'Somebody help us!'

He could hear cracking - a slow metallic sort of
cracking and looked down to see the deep indigo ink
ooze out from his pen and feather its way through the
ice like blood.

'Dr Scott!' Roebuck yelped, his voice sounding thinner,
weaker. 'Professor?'

'Hang on in there, Lieutenant!' Scott called back.
'That's an orded'

'The transponder,' Roebuck cried feebly. 'Sewn into
your left sleeve, top pocket! Activate the transponder so
they can track us down!'


532 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

Left sleeve? Easier said than done. Scott was holding
on by his right hand. He couldn't reach his left sleeve.
He tried folding his arm up and trying to reach the
device with his fingers, but it wasn't happening. He struggled again but all he could manage was a pathetic
tickle.
He couldn't tell Roebuck. Christ, he couldn't tell the
poor bastard. He shot a look over his shoulder. The
chasm that had swallowed up the marine was getting
wider. If it carried on like that for much longer the
ground beneath him would give way too and they'd
both be goners. Roebuck was right, he had to get to
that transponder. That tiny little black box was all that
stood between survival and death.
Scott tugged the fleece neckband down from around
his mouth and went for his sleeve with his teeth. The
searing cold burnt at his skin as hurricane-force winds
blasted ice crystals into his pores. Clawing the fingers
of his left hand deep into the snow his muscles ached
as he reached over to gnash at the tiny device. Once,
twice - five times before he finally hit the switch and
a tiny red LED lit up to let him know it was transmitting
a homing signal.
'Roebuck?' Nothing. 'Roebuck, it's on! The transponder
is switched on!'
Still nothing.
'Lieutenant, answer me!'
'Uh, Professor, I think you better twist your head and
take a look at this,' came the muffled response. 'We got
company.'
Across the ice chasm, rearing up out of snow-covered
hides were two darkened figures in full military fatigues.
Thick, snowball-sized clumps of snow fell from their
....................................... DECIPHER 	533

equipment as they slammed clips into their rifles and
took aim.
They were Chinese.

Roebuck was midway through attempting to take the
parachute cords from around his windpipe when he
froze. All he could do now was twist in the breeze. He
was well sheltered down here, thank Christ. The storm
that was sweeping across the chasm overhead was giving
the two Chinese soldiers some serious problems, but
they stood fast.
They'd been hiding in the snow, these two. Must
have crawled up on their bellies to the crevasse. White
capes flapped from their shoulders upon which they
would have mounded up snow and hidden underneath.
One shouted over at them in incomprehensible
Gantonese while his partner got on his radio,
though try as he might he couldn't seem to get a signal
out.
Roebuck could feel the subtle effects of Scott slipping
above him, and tried to relax. 'How ya doin',
Professor--?' he yelled out.
'Not- good!' the epigraphist grunted under the strain.
Roebuck tried to peer through the storm beyond the
two Chinese soldiers. A little granite. A lot of ice. 'We're
in a natural bowl,' he murmured to himself. 'They're
isolated.'
Roebuck raised his hand slowly, bringing it up to a
surrender posture while easing the parachute cords out
and away from his neck. But even that slight movement
was enough to send the first of the two soldiers into a
screaming frenzy.
'Hey!' Roebuck shouted back, trying to appear


534 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


reasonable. 'I'm just gonna set this down, okay? I just
need to set this down.'

The Chinese soldier screamed in total frustration as
Scott accidentally kicked chunks of ice off the cliff edge.
'Hey, what's going on?' he demanded. 'What's happening?'

'Nothing
you need to worry about, Professor. This
guy's just being an asshole. But that's okay, he can see
we ain't goin' nowhere.'

Roebuck pointed to the cords in his other hand. 'I'm
just gonna let these go. Okay? I'm gonna drop 'em. On
three, brace yourself, Professor. One, two ... three!'

The Chinese soldier tensed as the cords tumbled
from Roebuck's hand and let the parachute fall a little
freer. But the whole contraption was still attached to
Roebuck's back and the slight movement had let a
breeze waft in and start to open the material back out.
Just like he knew it would.

Almost immediately Scott was screaming.

'I can't hang on!' he yelped. 'Shit, I can't hang on!
What're you doing down there?'

The Chinese soldier went into fits as his partner continued
to try and get his radio to work. He was clearly
frustrated. Roebuck held up his hands again.

'It's okay! It's okay! I just need to release these straps
on the front here, and the one on my back - fast!' He
had no idea if the soldier understood or not and he wasn't
waiting around to find out. Instead he just acted on
impulse and screamed back at the hollering enemy grunt
while Scott bellowed frantically about losing his grip.

One strap to the left, one strap to the right. He
reached around to his back, the enemy poised. Tugged
at the strap and the parachute fell free . . .

....................................... DECIPHER 	535


It fluttered into the ice chasm below and the Chinese
soldier breathed a sigh of relief.

Roebuck smiled. The enemy returned the smile.
Only to have it drop as he realized the marine had
pulled a gun out from behind his back and was aiming
straight at--

Bangf The Chinese soldier's brains splattered in an
arc across the sky as the bullet slid straight between his
eyes. But not before his partner reacted to what was
going on and dropped his radio.

Roebuck went to fire again, but the extreme of hot
against freezing cold on his last shot had already
breached his weapon - and the Chinese were one step
ahead. Their weapons were covered in a thermal hood.
Dangling from the tether Roebuck was a sitting duck;
he was riddled with bullets and convulsed from the
impacts.

Scott screamed as his grip went and he lurched
toward the edge. 'Roebuck? Roebuck, are you there?'
But the hail of lead continued unabated with one bullet
eventually ripping straight through his calf muscle and
exploding up into the virgin-white snow. Scott screamed
in tormented agony, flailing, tumbling. He was about
to drop over the edge when a hand, seemingly from out

of nowhere, thrust out, grabbed hold and held him fast.
Scott looked up, terrified, only to realize it was Gant.

The Major raised his finger to his lips for the anthropologist
to be silent.

And then just as suddenly as it had started, the hail

of bullets ceased.

Silence.

Then a distant voice reported from across the fissure,
'Got him, sir.'



536 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

Scott glanced over his shoulder just in time to see
the second Chinese soldier, his throat slit from ear to
ear, tumble over the edge into oblivion.
'Now hold still!' Gant ordered. 'Okay, soldier - take
your shot.'
Scott was wild-eyed. 'What about Roebuck?' he
asked.
'The Lieutenant's dead,' Gant explained matter-offactly.
'There's nothing you can do. Damn hothead just
turned a minor skirmish into an all-out war. First rule
of war, you maim the enemy. Maim them, not kill 'em.
You want them to expend all their energy trying to get
their injured back. They knew what they were doing.
That's why he shot you in the fucking leg. Now we're
slowed down.' .He gave the other soldier the thumbs-up.
The marine across the chasm fired a single bullet,
snapping the tether in two. Roebuck's body tumbled
end over end into the abyss below, while Gant put his
back into it and hauled Scott to freedom.
'Well done, Dr Scott, I'm impressed. You managed
to keep your head pretty well under fire. Let's get this
wound of yours dressed so we can be ready to move
out,' Gant suggested, helping him to his feet.
Scott limped a couple of paces before he realized
everyone else was already gathered before him.
November gave him a grin but he didn't notice as Sarah
rushed across to take over from Gant as the human
crutch. On impulse they kissed deeply. Passionately.
'I thought we'd lost you,' she said shakily.
'That makes two of us,' Scott replied, accepting the
romantic situation as though it were a natural progression.
November tried to hide her disappointment as she
followed on behind.
....................................... DECIPHER 	537

'Where are we?' Scott requested, turning back to
Gant. 'I thought ]ung Chang was deserted.'
'Reinforcements,' Gant explained. 'In this storm we
could be in the middle of an entire new camp and
never know it. I hope to God they were just scouts.'
Which, as it turned out, was entirely the wrong thing
to say.
Gant's radio sparked to life. 'Sir, Michaels here, up
on point.'
'Go ahead, soldier,' Gant replied, growing increasingly
awarethat the storm was starting to clear. There were
objects all along their left flank. Small in the distance,
but not that small. And there was movement...
'Visibility is improving. Over.'
'Great. Let's get moving.'
'Uh, no, that's a negative, sir. We got a problem.
You're never gonna believe where we are.'


REINFORCEMENTS


G

ant adjusted his computer-enhanced binoculars
over the peak of a ridge of solid snow and ice, while
the medic in his unit, a stocky, soft-spoken man from
Iowa by the name of John Brandes, tackled the wound
on Scott's leg.

Out beyond their position lay a massive Chinese
encampment, fully equipped with Armored Personnel
Carriers, tanks, anti-aircraft batteries and row upon row
of tents. There were troops here. Lots of troops. They even

had air support in the shape of four attack helicopters.
Gant gasped: 'Fuck me!'

'You had no idea any of this was out here?' Hackett
asked, but his gaze was leveled at Bob Pearce, who
shrugged. How the hell was he supposed to know?

'Not like this.' He ducked down to face everyone.
'Well, they don't seem to know we're here. Those scouts
didn't get a signal through. That's one stroke of luck in

....................................... DECIPHER 	539


our favor.' He returned to his surveillance, accidentally
knocking Scott's leg.

'Ouch!' Scott flinched, jabbing a hand over his
mouth, realizing belatedly that he had to keep it down.
He was still waiting for the morphine to kick in.

'You're lucky,' Brandes told him, wrapping the bandage
tightly around Scott's leg. 'The bullet went straight
in and out.'

'That's some kind of luck, I guess,' Sarah commented
dryly.

Scott's teeth were chattering. 'Gould you just hurry
it up/' he asked desperately. Tm freezing.' He'd had to
unzip his clothing and pull his leg out. November had
a patch kit and was busy cleaning the blood off the
jumpsuit and sticking a waterproof seal over the holes
on either side of the leg.

The medic nodded. 'All done.' Scott raced to get
dressed.

They were all lined up against the snowdrift, keeping
their heads down, while Gant was busy shaking his.
'I dunno,' he moaned. 'What were they thinking, sending
you guys in, in standard issue red jumpsuits? I told
'em white, time and again. It's a goddamn UN color.

Richard, can you read Chinese?'

'Some.'

'Well, c'mere. And somebody wrap something white
around him, will ya? I don't want him used for target
practice again.'

With the white tarp they'd used for covering the warhead
draped over his head and shoulders, Scott eased
his way up the incline and cautiously peered over the
top. Gant handed him the binoculars.


540 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


'Does the glass on these lenses glint?' Scott asked,

much to everybody else's trepidation.

'Only if you move 'em.'

Scott was not impressed as he put the things to his
eyes. 'Where am I looking?'

'Down to the left, where that flag's flying over that
larger tent. I saw a couple of banners.'

'I gotcha. Seventh Armored Division. Mean anything
to you?'

Gant nodded. 'Anything else?'

'People's... Elite Guard.'

Gant slid down behind the snow drift pulling Scott
with him. 'Aw, shit.' That meant something, all right.
Something serious. 'They're the best,' Gant advised.
'We're up against the goddamn best.' He rubbed his
chin, eyeing the bright red suits of the other scientists.
How the hell were they going to get past without being
seen?

'Okay,' he said. 'We need a plan.'


'How far are we from Jung Chang?' Hackett asked.

They were huddled round in a circle as Gant drew
out the situation in the snow. 'About three miles, lung
Chang is almost perfectly due south. That's a good
hour's hike without the detour. This encampment ain't
directly in our way, but it's as good as. We need to get
around the perimeter of this eastern corner, here.'

'What if we cut up the parachutes and tape them
over our jumpsuits? Then we'd be camouflaged,'
November suggested.

A couple of the marines were intrigued, but Gant
was dismissive. 'Uh-uh,' he said, 'the material's too thin.
You'd all wind up pink instead of red.'

....................................... DECIPHER 	541


Sarah picked ice-crystals from her eyebrows as she
took her own look at the Chinese encampment. Why
hadn't they gone on to ]ung Chang? What were they
afraid of? And then something else dawned on her.
While the others discussed hare-brained theories on
how to creep past a Chinese base without getting shot
at, something about the way these Chinese soldiers were
acting gave her an idea. They seemed distracted.
Though the storm had significantly lessened in intensity,
their focus of concern still seemed to be the sky.
Unexpected contact with enemy aircraft. Or vehicles
approaching on the horizon. They were checking longrange
radar data. While two of them were dressed in
red. Probably civilian support staff, a bit like themselves.

'They're not expecting anyone coming in on foot,'
she commented.

Matheson was puzzled. 'What do you mean?'
'We're in the middle of nowhere,' Sarah shrugged.
'Who the hell walks up to a Chinese base thousands of
miles from civilization? Nobody.'

Scott sat up gingerly. 'You're suggesting we just walk
straight through?'

'Why not? All that creeping around is what they're
gonna be expecting. You look suspicious, you'll be
treated suspicious. Most of these guys are freezing their
butts off, and are more concerned with keeping warm.
Fuck 'em. I bet if we just march through their base and
look like we know what we're doing they'll assume we're
one of them, and ignore us.'

'Are you nuts?' Pearce sniggered. 'That has gotta be
one of the most fucked-up pieces of pseudo-psychology
I've ever heard.'

Matheson smiled. 'Yeah. So they're not gonna expect



542 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

it. Besides, Richard knows Chinese We get into any
trouble, he can talk us out of it.'
'But!' Scott protested, overruled and ignored

Hackett was smirking and shaking his head. 'That's
so far out it might just work.'
Gant was excited. 'It's got balls But it's only half a
plan.'
'About this speaking Chinese thing,' Scott tried to
interject. 'I can read it, but--'
But Brandes was concerned 'Sir,' he said, 'if I may . . We're wearing standard issue US military camouflage.
They'll know immediately who we are if we try
that. Our only option is we go around the outer perimeter
and meet up with the beakers on the other side.
Crawling on our bellies is a fine suggestion, but there's
no way a one-, two-, even a three-man team can do that
effectively and still take care of this.' He patted the long
black trunk containing the nuclear warhead sat on its
sled. 'What do we do about this?'
'That's not our only option, soldier,' Gant said briskly
'Skills... I need skills.' He indicated Scott. 'You're good
with languages You can go.' Gant eyed Sarah, then Bob
Pearce before finally settling on November 'Honey, take
your clothes off.' Then to Sarah: 'You too.'
Sarah was incensed. 'Fuck you!' she spat.
Gant snapped his head back, unsure how to handle
her when she was in fire-cracker mode as she added:
'It's my plan. I'm going.'

'So let me get this straight,' Matheson said, jabbing his
thumbs under the shoulder strap to his harness for comfort
as he heaved forward once more. 'The whole world's
programmed to end. We're in the middle of a war zone.
....................................... DECIPHER 	543

So I'm about to walk straight through an enemy
encampment . . . dragging a 450-pound nuclear warhead
on a sled.'
On the second tether, Sarah groaned as she heaved
with him. 'That's about the size of it.'
Scott had his head bent, afraid to move it any as he
led the way. 'Keep it down, will you? They hear we're
not speaking Cantonese, we're in trouble'
'I think maybe you got off lightly getting shot in the
leg,' Sarah said, watching Scott up ahead, hobbling ever
so slightly

Gant walked side by side with Scott wearing
November's red jumpsuit, checking the coast in a constant
sweep with Corporal Hillman and Michaels
flanked either side of the warhead having exchanged
jumpsuits with Bob Pearce and Hackett.
None of them had guns. Civilian support staff just didn't carry them. The military men had knives instead
Hidden and sharp.
It would take a super-fit man 100 days to cross all
1,657 miles from coast to coast across Antarctica pulling
a 4501b sled. Matheson was reminded of the history of
this place. The expeditions of Scott, Amundsen,
Shackleton and Mawson were legendary campfire folk
tales now - how those heroic men had battled the elements
and how Captain Scott and his team had perished.
Was that going to happen again?
They were nervous. They were all nervous. Maybe
that was why their long walk had developed into a kind
of penguin-like waddle as they marched ever onward
with slow trepidation

It was this final approach, the last couple of hundred
yards of fiat barren ice that posed the greatest immediate



544 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

danger. If there was a hidden sentry anywhere along
here it was about now that he was likely to pop up and
open fire.
But there was nothing.
As they drew closer to the first line of plain black
tents, all they could hear was the desolate sound of
whistling winds and the lonely flapping of canvas and
nylon sheeting. It was like a ghost town.
Scott was breathing so heavily now he was becoming
aware of a phenomenon unique to Antarctica known
as 'diamond dust'. The air was so dry and the temperature
so cold the snowflakes in the air had formed tiny
hexagons. So dissimilar to other snowflake phenomena
that when he looked at the sun, it appeared to have a
halo around it, with the rays of the sun forming some
kind of cross right in its center.
Matheson took a deep breath. Then another. It was
getting increasingly difficult to breathe. And it was a
shock. He didn't think he was that unfit. Sarah turned
to him. 'It's okay, Ralph. It's just the altitude. Antarctica's
three times higher than anywhere else, on average.
We're about three kilometers above sea level right here.
You're fighting for oxygen, not just the cold.'
'I feel like my lungs are gonna explode out my chest,'
Matheson wheezed.
Scott shot a look for them all to be quiet, double
checking that everyone had their sunglasses in place.
After all, one look at their eyes and the Chinese were
going to automatically know the game was up.
They passed the first row of tents without a hitch,
continuing on their way without stopping to consider if
their luck might run out.
Passing the second row of tents soon after, they
....................................... DECIPHER 	545

became aware of foreign voices talking within their
enclosures. Low Oriental voices echoing in and out of
further rows of equipment crates stockpiled under snow
covered tarps.
Suddenly, up ahead, two Chinese soldiers ducked
out of their tents, rifles slung over their shoulders.
Making their way over to a command hut they glanced
briefly at the team before going about their business.
Scott faltered, pulling up short, bringing everyone
else to a halt.
Sheepishly he crouched down as if to fix the fastenings
on his boots and glanced in through the opening
of the nearest tent to see three more Chinese smoking
and playing cards around a small heater. One of them
glared out at him.
Scott nodded.
The soldier closed the flap on their tent, fast.
Scott got to his feet, smacking the snow off one knee.
He jerked his head for the rest to follow on and darted
a look at the perimeter, hoping the others were still with
them, somewhere out there.
They continued on apace, until they reached where
Gant intended them to be. Skidoos were all lined up
behind flapping windbreaks - at least twenty of the
things, all gleaming and polished. Next to them was an
APC in tracks, while beyond that were the helicopters
and beyond them were--
Smack! Scott rocked on his heels after careening
straight into a perplexed soldier who had simply flown
out of his tent without looking.
The soldier eyed him up and down disdainfully.
Barked something before making a move to be on his
way when Scott did something perhaps he shouldn't have.


546 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


His lip twitching with fright, he smiled and nodded
as if he understood.

The soldier stepped back. Grabbed the anthropologist
by a handful of his iumpsuit and snarled something
else equally loud and incomprehensible.

Sarah and Matheson exchanged disturbed glances.
Why wasn't Scott answering the soldier? Why was he
simply smiling and nodding his head like an idiot?


Pearce eased forward on his aching elbows and realized
something was wrong when the team didn't keep pace
with his movement. Scott and the others, little specks
of red moving about the encampment, should have
emerged into a clearing some way off while he pulled
himself along at a snail's pace.

But they hadn't. In fact, there was no sign of them.
Directing everyone else to hold position, he doubled
back and pulled out his set of binoculars. 'Christ
almighty... Richard, what are you doing?'

Hackett turned back, concerned. 'What is it?'

Scott was pulling his arm back. Balling his fist. He
was swinging--


Wham! The sock to the Chinese soldier's gut was so
intense the man dropped on the spot, doubled up in pain.
Gant was impressed. 'And that was Chinese for what?'

'My fucking leg!' Scott looked to the others who were
dumbstruck. 'Like I said, I can read it! I didn't say I can
speak the damn language! Come on!'

Gant was immediately on it with him. He dragged
the soldier behind a tent. Grabbing his knife, he was
about to jab at the base of the young soldier's neck when
Matheson asked him to stop.

....................................... DECIPHER 	547


'What are you doing?'

Gant was exasperated but they were in too much of
a hurry to argue. Instead they had him gagged, bound
and relieved of his weapon within seconds. But they
still only had seconds maybe before that discovery was
made too.

Sarah was confused. 'But you translated that soldier's
speech. At [ung Chang when Bob projected himself
over--'

'Cantonese, he was speaking Cantonese,' Scott
snapped. 'This joker speaks Mandarin."

Gant jabbed a finger out at the APC. 'Okay,
Matheson, hotwire that thing.'

Matheson nodded. 'I think I can.'

'Don't think,' Gant ordered. 'lust do it.'

Michaels was perplexed. 'There are two types of
Chinese?'

Scott indicated the warhead. 'Let's go.'


'Shit, shit, shiW Pearce exclaimed, in the loudest, harshest
whisper he could allow himself in his position.
'They've taken a guard out!'

Hackett crawled up next to him. 'That was the idea.'
'Yeah, well it's the wrong guard. Look.'
Hackett pulled his own binoculars out to peer deep
into the enemy encampment. At the rear of the APC
the team had the deployment doors wedged open and
were dragging the warhead up inside. While in the cab,
Matheson was ripping open a panel. Crossing wires.
Smoke was pouring out the vertical exhaust at the rear
of the vehicle.

The APC roared into life. Even at this distance they
could hear its distinct and familiar growl and whistle.


548 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


As around the far corner, from behind some mobile
command trucks, another man was emerging. The real
vehicle guard. That was the man they were supposed
to have taken out.

And he was making a beeline straight for them.

Hackett flipped onto his back, beckoning Brandes

over. 'What heavy explosives do you guys carry around?'
'You mean like mortars, grenades?'
'Yeah.'

'Mortars and grenades,' the medic shrugged.
Hackett jerked a thumb at the encampment. 'Then
I'd think of something fast if I were you. Any minute
now they're gonna need a diversion.'

That was when the gunshot rang out across the
encampment.

Pearce was mortified as he spied the team. 'Uh-oh.'


Gant stepped away from the APC, his hands raised
above his head as the Chinese guard waved the muzzle
of his gun through the window of the cab. Matheson
didn't seem to twig he was being ordered to get out.
But the second shot into the air soon brought it home.
He shifted, but the scowl on Gant's face said it all:
'Don't move.'

Gant took a step forward. The soldier screamed back
at him, while across the camp other soldiers were
emerging from their tents to see what all the commotion
was about. An officer irritably stepped down from
his command truck, flanked by his juniors as he struggled
to do up his coat: While at the rear of the APG,
Michaels looked up at Sarah, frozen in the doorway,
and silently raised his finger to his lips. Standing next
to him was Scott on one side, Hillman on the other.

....................................... DECIPHER 	549


With the warhead safely inside, one of the rear doors
was already bolted shut. The other was midway.

Slowly, very slowly, Michaels eased the door toward
Sarah for her to jam shut and whispered: 'Tell Ralph
to floor it.'

She nodded that she understood. Shared a brief worried
look with Scott and closed the door tightly.

Soldiers across the encampment were edging forward
now, not particularly sure they knew what was going
on. Suddenly a snatch of Cantonese Scott could understand
came his way.

'He thinks we're deserters,' the epigraphist explained.
'He thinks we're trying to steal this carrier and escape.'
'He thinks right,' Hillman replied.

But the conversation was cut short as the entire vista
of black tents lined up before them suddenly exploded
into livid flame. Soldiers were blown sky high.
Munitions caught in the blast reacted with volatile spitting
flame for meter upon meter.

And it was all the excuse Gant needed to hurl his
knife directly at his would-be captor.

The blade buried itself deep into the young man's
left eye-socket right up to the hilt as the Major glared
at Matheson. 'Got.'

The engineer crunched the vehicle into gear and
shot forward, tearing through the tents and leaving nothing
but devastation in his wake. Gant dived for the dead
soldier's gun, coming back up on one knee to lay a burst
of suppressing fire while Hillman grabbed Scott by the
arm.

'G'mon, Professor! You may know a lot, but do you
know how to drive one of these things?' the marine
yelled, indicating one of the snowmobiles.


550 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


Scott shrugged him off, because as it turned out he
did. Slinging one leg over and punching up the power,
he slipped the throttle out and careened off into the
carnage.

Hillman, Michaels and Gant were not far behind.

And neither was the People's Seventh Armored
Division, Elite Guard.


'Fire one more!' Brandes ordered.

'But our people are comin' straight at us!' one of the

Privates manning the mortar yelled.

'So fire it over their heads!'

The soldier complied, turning one of the Chinese
command trucks into a screaming ball of orange fury.
But the devastation was far more than they could have
expected. The ground opened up under that entire section
of the encampment, turning sheet ice into a seemingly
bottomless rift valley. Volcanic steam from deep
within the glacial interior blasted out.


Matheson shifted gears. 'That explains it!' he tossed back
over his shoulder.

'Explains what?' Sarah scowled, grabbing hold of a
hand-rail on the ceiling to try to stop herself from being
thrown across the rear section as the APC bounced
along.

'Why the Chinese didn't camp closer to lung Chang.
That satellite image of Atlantis showed the city was several
miles across - the size of Manhattan. We're directly
above it, even this far out from lung Chang. The ice
must be fractured for miles all around here. When
Atlantis powered up it started melting the ice underneath.'

.......................................
DECIPHER 	551


'Great,' Sarah replied. 'So Atlantis could be sunk all
over again.'

'Shit,' Matheson realized. 'I never thought of that.
What the hell do we do if we can't get down there?'


As the Skidoos of Scott and the others dodged in and
out of the tents, following in the wake of the receding
APC, they suddenly found themselves cut off and had
to double back, finding makeshift ramps they could use
as jumping-offpoints. Under a hail of crossfire they each
jumped the chasm, landing heavily on the other side.


The marines operating the mortar quickly disassembled
it and stuffed it away for transport as the APC thundered
across the ice, swerving into a skid and kicking
up ice. Sarah threw the rear doors open. 'Get in!'

No one needed telling twice. They scrambled to their
feet, the marines laying down cover fire as the scientists
went first.

Hackett pulled himself up into the front passenger
seat, saying: 'Well, this is nice.' When suddenly he
became aware of several low thudding sounds peppering
one side of the vehicle, like kids throwing stones.
'Hey! We're being shot at!'

Matheson glowered. 'No shit, Sherlock!'

'Ouch!' Pearce screeched as he bashed his arm trying
to sit up. November tended to him as he tried to stern
the blood oozing from a wound on his arm.

.'Come on!' Sarah screamed at the marines out the
back door. 'Get in, we gotta go!'

'Negative!' Brandes hollered back. 'We gotta stay and
cover those guys or they'll never make it!'

'You don't get up here now - you'll never make it!'



552 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

But as she said it she was already starting to regret it as
an explosion not far off rocked the entire vehicle and
blasted two of the marines apart.
Sarah was in shock. She didn't know what to do.
Frozen, she had no comprehension of the fact that
Brandes had slammed the door shut in her face and
was twisting the lock closed from the outside.
The APC shook again. Rocked by another explosion.
Matheson shot a look over his shoulder. 'What's going
on? Are we done?'
Hackett took a closer look and realized Bob Pearee
was lying on the deck of the vehicle bleeding badly.
'Let's get outta here!' he yelled.
Matheson shoved it into gear. They were away.

Scott dodged and weaved his way past scrambling
enemy soldiers and crumbling ice fiats in an attempt at
a military zigzag. But in the end it was easier just to
drive straight through any obstacles.
Coming up on his left flank was Gant, who slammed
into one soldier, ripping the rifle from his arms. He
swung the weapon back behind him and fired successive
bursts as a cover fire until the entire clip was
spent.
But even though every shot was off target, they all
counted and they had a clear throughway by the time
they had picked up the tracks of the APC again.
They swerved up to where the marines were waiting.
'Brandes, Jackson! Everybody! Climb on board now!'
Gant bellowed.
Hillman glanced over his shoulder at the approaching
Chinese forces who had taken to [heir other Skidoos
and APCs. Even two of the helicopters were powering
....................................... DECIPHER 	553

up, their rotors starting to spin. 'Oh Christ, c'mon you
guys, we gotta get the luck outta hereT'
Eventually the marines moved. Brandes even sat
upright. But they weren't going with their commanding
officer. They would never be going anywhere again.
They were dead. And they were being used as shields
by the Chinese Special Forces Commandos who were
lying in wait underneath.
Michaels was the first to react, plowing through his
fallen comrade and crushing the commando caught
underneath. The sharp metal tracks on the rear end of
his vehicle spun and ripped the clothes off the dead
soldier's chest, tearing into his flesh before catching traction
again and zipping the marine off after the APC.
The other three quickly followed on behind.
They passed by an ice mound, oblivious to the fact
that two bemused Chinese scouts on their own Skidoos
were sitting on top. As their radios kicked into life they
swung their vehicles around and set off in pursuit.

'Where are we going?' Matheson demanded as he
struggled to keep control of his vehicle at such a high
speed.
Hackett turned the map upside down and round
again, but try as he might he couldn't make head nor
tail of it. 'It's uh, all in Chinese,' he revealed, folding
the document he'd found secreted away inside a compartment
into a more user-friendly size. 'I can't make
it out. Hell, where's a linguist when you need one?'
'Well, they gotta have a sign for north or south or
some such shit. It's universal.'
Hackett held the map up for Matheson to see and
jabbed a finger at all the squiggles. 'Not in ChinaV


554 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


'Hey, Bob's bleeding really bad, back here,' November
cried out. 'Anyone see a medical kit?'

Hackett scratched around. 'Uh, no. That a problem?'
Pearce gritted his teeth as he held his arm. There
was a blackened piece of sharp metal protruding from
his forearm. 'Yes!' he cried. 'Yes, it's a fucking problem!'

Sarah winced when she got a good look. 'Strong
words, Bob. We'll think of something.'

'Excuse me?' Matheson interrupted.

'What?'

Matheson gesticulated at the windshield. 'Which
direction?'

Everywhere they looked there was just a vista of
barren, desolate snow and ice.

'Gee, I don't know. Forward?' Sarah suggested, spotting
a case with a small red cross marked on it, hanging
on a far bulkhead. She got to her feet.

Matheson swerved the vehicle to avoid more disintegrating
ice. And that was when he saw it. That familiar
sky he'd seen only a few weeks before. Vast waving green
fronds undulating and glowing across the darker regions
of the atmosphere where charged particles from solar
storms were caught in the magnetic field of the earth.
The Aurora Australis.

Except this time the swirling green mass wasn't just
swaying across the sky, it was actively gathering into a
maelstrom that mimicked a twister. Like the ancient
Chinese myths said - a giant two-headed snake was in
a battle with the elements of wind and rain.

In a vast green funnel that appeared to undulate with
eddies of magnetic flux, billions of tons of charged particles
were swirling down to ground level and beyond,
touching down in the distance and being transported

....................................... DECIPHER 	555


the sixty or so miles from space down a tube that was
constructed from the invisible forces of the will of the
universe itself.

It was like a glowing umbilical connected to Mother
Nature. And Atlantis was feeding.

'Holy Mother,' Matheson murmured. 'I think I just
found ]tthg Chang,'


It was a disturbing thing to discover there were no wing
mirrors on Skidoos. And that it was impossible to judge
just how close the enemy was when there were no
images looming large within them. But glancing back
over his shoulders just wasn't much of an option for
Richard Scott. For one thing he was too scared, and for
another the terrain was simply too uneven to allow him
to take his eyes off it.

All he knew was, he was being shot at. A lot. And
that was enough. He could hear projectiles whizzing
past his ear, was aware of Gant riding up in his periphery
and heading off up front. When
Wham!
The ground exploded in an incredible eruption
of fire and ice so fierce it jolted the Skidoo, causing
him to run pivoted on one track for a moment.
Which was a stroke of luck for the simple reason that
it caused him to run wide of the crater opening up
before him and precipitating the creation of a mass of
jagged fissures.

But just as Scott was getting a handle on his situation,
one of the growing ice ravines took a sharp turn
straight in front of him, causing the epigraphist to grind
to a halt while he figured out a way through the maze.
As he did so he took a quick look back.

And wished he hadn't.


556 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


A line of Chinese-manned Skidoos were bearing
down on him leaving high plumes of snowy mist in
their wakes while high above were aircraft. Firing.

'Jesus, what the hell are they doing?' the Professor
shrieked, although it was obvious - they were trying to
kill him.

Up ahead, where the anthropologist should have
been traveling by now, the snow opened up into another
fireball as the two sleek black attack helicopters let rip.

Scott cranked his machine up again, discovering to
his horror that as the ice cracked up all around him he
was in a race against time to beat a fissure out of the
start blocks. As Scott raced along, so too did the crack
in the ice. Deep and dark. Jagged and relentless. As it
widened it released blinding steam, and Scott knew it
was only a matter of time before the phenomenon
changed course into his path and brought his journey
to an abrupt end.

He shifted down a gear, giving the engine a kick and
closed his eyes in hope as the fissure suddenly darted
under his vehicle.

But nothing happened.

Miraculously the cracking ice didn't open up wide
enough to swallow his vehicle whole, but his situation
had not improved. For creeping up all around him were
the shadows of the Chinese military...

Up ahead Scott spotted the APC swerving in and out
of ruts in the ice, while silhouetted against the swirling
green plasma funnel, he could see its turret gun up on
the roof.

Of course!

He swept his eye over the dash. Located the radio
and thumbed: 'Gant, can you hear me?' He saw Gant

....................................... DECIPHER 	557


snatching up his own unit and responding. Good. They
were on the same channel. 'It's me, Scott! Tell somebody
on that APG to man that turret gun! And show
them how to use it, fast!'


Sarah rotated in the tiny, cramped turret seat, swinging
the gun around to face the rear. There Were little numbers
stenciled all around the inside rim of the turret
like on a clock. When she reached the number 6 she
stopped.

She glanced back at Hackett who was tearing open
a box of ammunition. 'This is all we've got so make it
count,' he advised.

Sarah ignored him as she followed Gant's instructions
on her headset. There was a fiat oblong plate on the upper
side of the weapon with two screw-like catches on either
corner. She unfastened them quickly. Flipped it open to
reveal a contraption on a hinge. She guessed this was
where she put the bullets. Hackett handed her the chain
of ammo, each round the size of a finger, and clipped
the first round into the housing. She pushed the unit back
in, fastened the plate and reported back to Gant.

'All right!' he shrieked in quick reply. 'You're locked
and loaded. Line 'em up in the crosshair and keep both
hands on the gun at all times. It's got a severe kickback.
Less resistance on either grip and you're gonna wind
up swinging yourself around.'

Sarah didn't wait for further instruction. Bringing the
first helicopter up into full view she lined the sight.
Squeezed the trigger.

And nothing happened.

'Shift Have we got a jam? What's wrong with this
thing!'



558 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

Hackett spied the gizmo at the side. 'Safety! Let the
safety off!'
Sarah felt like an idiot, reaching around the side and
taking the catch off. She quickly brought herself back
into alignment again.
And fired.

Scott whooped for joy as a stream of lead spat from the
twin-barreled turret. It was like a blast of fire as every fifth
bullet, a tracer round, lit up like a rocket guiding Sarah's
aim. But despite the assistance she was still a lousy shot.
The helicopters dodged and weaved. The Skidoos
split up and zigzagged. It slowed them down plenty but
it was hardly going to cause them to turn back.
And then as suddenly as the firing had started, it
spluttered to a stop. They'd run out of ammo. Looming
up at them was the devastated remains of ]ung Chang. They had arrived. Which was a problem because any
moment now they would have to stop. And in so doing,
they'd be sitting ducks. What the hell were they going
to do? The pursuit of the Chinese military machine was
relentless. They were getting closer every second.
Directly in front, the ground was opening up all
around them. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to
hide. They were trapped.
In fact, what on earth were those sharp black protrusions
rearing up out of the ice straight ahead? The
APG had already rolled past them, but Scott was lagging
far behind and by the time he reached them his
path was blocked. Despondently he brought his Skidoo
to a halt and raised his hands slowly.
He was staring down the barrel of a gun.
....................................... DECIPHER 	559

Facing what appeared to be a small mobile cannon,
Scott gingerly got off his ride and tried not to make any
sudden movements. There was no way he wanted to
get shot again.
It appeared to be an automated device. Mounted on
a long metal arm, it was attached to something hidden
under the snow, while protruding from its side was a
tiny camera. Obviously it was some kind of remote
controlled device.
As the drone of approaching vehicles grew ever more
ominous behind him, the crackle of a speaker hissing
to life from the machine was the last thing Scott
expected.
In a tinny voice an American accent asked quickly:
'Name?'
Scott was perplexed. 'Uh, Scott,' he said. 'Richard
Scott. Linguist with the UN Inspection Team.'
Silence, followed by: 'Oh, you're Scott. Would you
mind ducking down, sir? Only you're in my line of fire.'
Scott didn't ask any further questions. Throwing his
arms out he hit the deck as the device the gun was attached
to rumbled and shook itself from under the snow.
All along the ridge on either side of Scott, similar
machines were rearing up out of dugouts they had
carved out of the snow and ice. There were around fifteen
vehicles in all, like a line of miniature tanks.
Essentially they were converted Yamaha Breeze 'all terrain'
buggies, with tracks in place of tires. They bristled
with gadgets: high-powered zoom surveillance gear,
thermal imaging equipment. They were well equipped
little machines. But it was their armory and their preparedness
for war which was most impressive; their array
of guns and missile launchers.



560 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

These machines were built for war. And on their
sides they had written: SaRCE; the Surveillance and
Reconnaissance Ground Equipment robot. They were
the very latest in US military remote warfare. And they
had a bite like the enemy wouldn't believe.
These were what Gant and Dower had been talking
about. The goddamn cavalry.
Servos whirred into life, targets were locked onto,
weaponry was fired. And within a split second, under a
barrage of sustained fire that loosed in a massive arc,
one of the attack helicopters tumbled from the sky in
a streaking fireball while the menacing Skidoos were
thrown into disarray.
Then, while several units kept up the battering, other
SaRCE units retargeted their sights. Having analyzed the
geology of the situation, they fired at the ground some
distance off, opening up a massive crescent-shaped rift
in the crumbling ice that would require some terrific
detour to bypass, or the construction of an artificial
bridge.
The Chinese halted in their tracks, uncertain what
to do next.
While Scott crawled behind the nearest SaRGE vehicle,
and collapsed with relief.
DESCENT

[After years of studying complexity discovered] 'It's very
hard to do science on complex systems.'

Jack D. Cowan, Mathematical Biologist,
University of Chicago, Co-Founder of the
Santa Fe Institute, 1995


USS JEFFERSON CITY SSN-759


t "aptain, I'm getting something.' •

M,t It wasn t said with much force or forethought.
Just with a plain frankness that had come to be expected
aboard the 6,900-ton Los Angeles class nuclear attack

sub.

Penoit was a quiet man He was the type of skipper
who said so little that when he did speak, his crew listened.

Ensign
J.G. Will Timms awaited his Captain's orders.
'Confirm,' was all he said.
They'd powered out to the coordinates at a full 20
knots, diving to her maximum depth, a mere 450 meters,
en route. But the type of area of the Pacific they had
been asked to investigate was at such a depth there was
just no way they were ever going to get down that far.
The pressure would crush them.

Instead what Penoit ordered was to bring Jefferson
City to a full stop and extend her starboard Towed Array


564 ....... 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

to its full 2,600 meter length. The submarine had a
myriad of listening devices. Her sonar equipment, for
example, was fitted in a forward array. But the Towed
Array, like its name suggested, was dragged behind the
vessel on a tether when the submarine was in hunter
mode and seeking out enemy vessels.
By coming to a full stop the array had no other
option but to sink like a plumb line. And in so doing,
penetrate deep into the murky depths of the Pacific
Ocean.
In the ocean, the speed of sound varied. Sometimes
it was as much as 1,600 meters per second. Sometimes
as little as 1,400 raps. The variables for affecting this
speed were many, but three key features were primary
determinates. Temperature, salinity and pressure. For
every one degree Celsius sea temperature rise, the speed
increased by 4.5 raps. For every percentage increase in
salinity, thereby increasing density, the speed increased
by 1.3 mps. For every 100 meters in depth, the speed
increased by 1.7 mps.
So the primary controlling factor in this case was
pure pressure. Beneath the upper oceanic layers, sound
waves traveled like lightning in a bottle.
Timms held a hand to the cans on his ears and
squinted, adjusted the output on his screen and gave
his CO the thumbs up. 'Definitely, there's something
there, sir,' he said.
'Any idea what it is?'
Timms adjusted the signal again. 'I know what it's
not, if that's any help.'
'What is it not?'
'Well, it ain't whale song. It's too regular - too rhythmic.
And it's entirely out of the range of human hear.......................................
DECIPHER 	565

ing. I've converted it up to a frequency I can hear. I
can put it on speakers if you like, sir.'
Penoit nodded. Timms reached over and flipped a
switch.
Several short pulses were heard, followed by a long
burst. Over and over.
Several short pulses and a longer burst.
Timms took some more measurements. 'It's a tubular
wave, sir. It's traveling in a straight line. Very little
dissipation. Heading north. This thing could go on for
thousands of miles. Should I pass this on down the
chain, Captain?'
Penoit nodded again, murmuring: 'That's what they
were looking for... Well, they were right.' Turning to
his exec he ordered: 'Rise to sixty feet. Up periscope
and radio on down the chain. You have the bridge,
Lieutenant.' He saluted back on his way out.



LATITUDE NINETY

i A/hat the hell is that?' asked the people gathered
V V around the screens on the observation deck of
the Conning Tower of the USS Dolphin. The direct
video pictures coming in from the Dolphin's remote
robotic submersible Cousteau were astounding.
Following the path of several rhythmic sonic streams, Cousteau had journeyed to a point three miles beneath
the North Pole where the sound waves seemed to converge
and where sunlight was a distant memory.
Specially fitted for deepwater acoustic research and
near-bottom ocean surveys, the research submarine Dolphin was perhaps the best-placed vessel in the task
force to study what she was studying.
Captain Rachel McNichol craned her neck. For on
the screen were a series of pyramids, joined in a circular
construction that seemed to stretch for hundreds of
meters off into the darkness beyond the abilities of the
vessel's searchlights and cameras to penetrate.
....................................... DECIPHER 	567

M1 five officers were with their Captain, alongside
all five scientists and a couple of the enlisted men. In
short, the observation deck was crammed, and Captain
McNichol was forced to raise her hand to keep the
excited chatter to a minimum.
'Jesus Christ, what the luck is that?!'
'Hold it down! Hold it down!' Rachel barked. 'Jensen,
can you get the computer to overlay an image of what
exactly these sound waves are doing?'
Jensen got right on it and was surprised to discover
that the mud and silt-covered constructs were:
'Vibrating! They're vibrating! Captain, these things
aren't just receiving signals, they're pulsing signals back
down the same route.'
'How?'
Jensen shrugged. 'Beats me. The best I can figure,
ma'am, is that, y'know like on a stereo the main part of
the speakers are made out of a paper cone? Well, these
megaliths are acting in the same way, except instead of
a paper cone - it's solid stone.'
Cousteau inched forward, gliding over the geometric
mounds and lumps. All showed as deep grays and
blacks, until suddenly, rearing up out of the night was
a whirlwind of shimmering water. In a column that
seemed caught in the circular shape of the construction
beneath it, the water twisted and sparked.
A quick-witted scientist punched in the command
for the submersible to jerk to a halt, while the others,
lost for words, simply let their saws drop.
Rachel raked her fingers through her dark brown
hair. 'Send a pod up to the surface. Radio anybody
camped out in the vicinity of the North Pole to up stakes
and leave - now.'


568 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


'Captain,' Jensen reported back, 'you're not gonna
believe these figures, but the water around these sonic

streams is viscous, like it's turning solid.'

'The water?'

'Yes, ma'am. And it's heating up.'

TRUMAN



t It's a network, Admiral.'

	I

		The Lieutenant rolled the full color transparency

out on the illuminated photographic bench and clipped
it into place. A two-meter-square map of the world hot
off the presses of the intelligence unit deep within the
aircraft carrier.

The map showed precisely each and every sonic
stream. Where they originated and where they were
destined. Each stream was a bright red line, crisscrossing
over the image from head to toe like those
route maps airlines print in the back of their in-flight
magazines.

'There are more than five sites, Admiral.'

Dower adjusted his spectacles as he perused the
information carefully. 'But there appear to be five central
hubs, wouldn't you agree7'

'Oh yes, sir,' the officer backtracked. 'Yes. There are
five hubs. But there are at least a hundred other minor

IGLOO


570 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

sites, each varying in size which seem to be incorporated
into this network.'
'What is it doing?'
'We have no idea.'
'Take one of these minor sites out of the equation.
What would happen to the network then?'
The Lieutenant shrugged. 'Most probably, we figure,
nothing. The sound waves would re-route themselves.
Take one of the hubs out of the equation and well, that's
a different story.'
Dower gave him that look which said he wanted more
information and wasn't in the habit of having to ask for
it.
'We reckon there's a fifty-fifty chance you could take
one of four particular hubs out of the equation and the
network could sustain the damage. But . . . you take
Atlantis out of the equation, and the whole thing collapses.'
'These
are tubular waves? Self-contained?'
'Yes, sir. But should their angle be adjusted, so the
waves move out in a normal fashion, in all directions,
like the ripples from a stone tossed into a pond? Then
there wouldn't be a square inch of the earth's oceans
which wouldn't be affected by whatever signal is being
pumped into it.
'Admiral, the oceans are being heated up. It's melting
the ice caps. Perhaps this is what happened last
time. Whatever civilization built these structures - and
for whatever purpose - the side effect was that they drew
power from the sun and pumped excess energy into the
oceans, melting the Poles and flooding the earth.'
'Contact Major Gant,' Dower ordered. 'Tell him to
prepare for detonation of the warhead.'
T

he first blocks were the most critical.
Cut to fit on three sides and shaped in situ, they
determined the size and shape of an igloo. As more
blocks of snow were piled on top and pounded sharply
into place, the ice crystals eventually bonded like
Superglue.
A finished igloo was one continuous spiral of snow
blocks so strong a man could jump up and down on its
roof. So flawless in design that the temperature on the
inside reached 0 degrees Celsius when it was still minus
40 outside.
The igloo at ]ung Chang was built by two Inuit brothers,
engineers named Lei and Ham Kadloo who were
flown .into Anchorage at a moment's notice and given
little time to familiarize themselves with the remote
engineering arms and headmounted view-screens that
were connected via satellite to the SaRGE unit in
Antarctica.



572 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

Richard Scott hobbled as he approached the frozen
building. His leg throbbed deep from within so he tried
to concentrate on other matters in an effort to ignore
it. Like the fact that so much snow really did sound like
Styrofoam compacting underfoot.
lung Chang looked exactly as Bob Pearce had
described except for one gigantic feature. Just past the
charred and torn remains of the encampment, behind
obliterated cabins and mangled machinery, the vast
green and twisted umbilical cord of energy stretched
down from the sky. Descending through a massive crater
that seemed to have no bottom to it, the energy twister
looked like some massive screw being twisted into the
ice, perhaps by God himself.
There were lights glowing inside the igloo. And Scott
could hear voices too, in English, using medical terminology.
But
all he found when he stepped through the
entrance was a bunch of machines operating on a
bloody mess in the center. He took a step closer and
found Bob Pearce stretched on the operating table.
Remote SuRGEon units worked tending his wounds.
Remotely-controlled arms sutured cuts. One mechanical
hand gently dabbed away blood.
Bob Pearce raised his head and smiled thinly. 'Uh,
Richard, hi.'
Scott prised his frosted goggles from his face, breathless
as he surveyed the procedure with incredulity.
'Lie still, Mr Pearce,' one of the mechanical medics
ordered. 'We're not done yet. Hey, Nick, could you
angle that light over here?'
'Sure.'
Another mechanical arm swung a halogen lamp out
....................................... DECIPHER 	573

at a wound, while other arms continued to perform
tasks. Their rack-mounted cameras turned briefly to eye
Scott up and down, assessing his damage.
'How's the leg, Dr Scott?'
'Sore. Who are you?'
'This is Captain Kit Preston, Naval Surgeon,
Pensacola.'
A needle held between two metal fingers gave a little
wave in between sewing maneuvers.,
'I'm Mike Everty. Sheila, where are you?'
'Chicago, Mike.'
'What's the weather like up there?'
'Don't ask.'
Scott looked to Pearce. 'They can feel what they're
doing?'
'Two-way communications. The controls back in
their surgeries give every sensation they'd experience if
they were poking around inside my arm with their own
fingers. Neat, huh?'
Scott was perplexed. 'Weird.'
'You try lying here.'
'Where's everybody else?'
'Down below.'
Scott gave a shrug like: that's supposed to mean something?
Pearce jerked his thumb at the hole in the ground
behind him. There was a tunnel down through the ice.
'They're down there. With a Chinese soldier.'
'The one you remotesensedT'
Pearce cracked a deflated smile. 'Jesus, I think 'we
got ourselves a true believer.'
'Stop moving,' one of the remotes ordered. 'You want
us to screw this up?'
Pearce ignored her. The igloo had been built as


574 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


shelter for the Chinese soldier, he explained. Remote
units had been sent in to secure the area and keep the
man alive long enough to be interrogated. He was an
invaluable resource, after all. He actually knew what to
expect down there.


Scott was unsteady on the nylon rope ladder, but it was
only a ten-foot drop. Sarah gave him a hand as he fumbled
the last couple of rungs.

'Welcome to the party,' she said.

He was surprised to find another SuRGEon unit down
in the tunnel tending to the young Chinese man. He
was sat awkwardly up against the ice tunnel wall and
was nursing a steaming hot cup of coffee November
had made for him.

Scott crouched down next to her. 'He okay?'
'Seems that way.'

'Bob was right. Damn it, Bob was right.'

'So was Ralph,' Hackett smiled as he came over to
welcome the anthropologist. 'Glad to see you made it,
Richard.' He jerked a thumb at Matheson, who had a
radio to one ear. He was further on down the tunnel,
where the ceiling had opened up in places to expose
the sky. Reception was much better there. Ralph was
listening to his radio while he drew lines all over a
hastily sketched map of the earth in his notebook.

'That's the sound-wave network - sonic streams,
stretching from continent to continent. It does exist. The
Navy's picked up the pattern all over the planet. Dower
just got a call in from the British. The HMS Ocean, and
the Illustrious out on maneuvers verified part of it.'

Scott glanced around. 'Hey, where's Gant? He made
it, didn't he?'

....................................... DECIPHER 	575


'Gant, Michaels and Hillman,' Sarah said. 'They're
all we got left. They're up ahead, exploring the tunnels.
Trying to figure out a way down.'

• Scott directed his attention back to the soldier. 'How
you doing?' he asked gently in Cantonese.

The soldier didn't respond. Just sipped his coffee and
ignored him, though something in his eyes indicated

he understood. He wasn't a native Mandarin speaker.
Scott looked to November. 'Real talkative, huh?'

'He kept saying Yah Ning, when we got here. Over
and over. Yah Ning. Mean anything to you?'

'Yah Ning . . .? That's not an expression. That's a
name - a woman's name.'

'My girlfriend's name,' the compact little soldier suddenly
piped up, struggling with his coffee.

'You speak English very well,' Scott remarked, introducing
himself.

'I did not work for McDonald's in Beijing for two
year before Army for nothing,' he replied, introducing
himself as Private Ghow Yun.

Scott glanced back at the others and shared a look.
'Listen, we need your help, Yun. We need to know what's
under the ice. We know there's a city, but we have no

idea what kind of condition it's in. What's the layout?'
'That is not possible.'

'Listen, I just had a run-in with your comrades,' Scott
snapped, fingering his leg wound. 'I got shot, see? So

I'm not in a real patient kinda mood.'

The soldier said nothing.

Scott scratched, his face. Perhaps he should try
another tack. Military code doubtless prevented the soldier
from divulging any secrets. So delicately he asked:
'Must miss your girlfriend, huh?'



576 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

'Yes,' the soldier replied nervously.
'I expect you'll be glad when this is all over and you
can go back to her.'
'I can never go back to her. When I saw her down
in the city...' he made eye-contact with Scott. So yes,
there was a city. 'When I saw her... It was very frightening.'
'I
don't understand. She was down in the city?'
'Yes. Yan Ning was down in the city.'
'She a soldier too?'
'No. She is dead. Six month. But I saw her down there.'

'Okay, that's not what I wanted to hear,' Hackett commented
sourly, turning away as Sarah made her way
over. 'And the dead shall rise again and walk the earth
for the Day of Judgment? No. That definitely was not
on my agenda for today.'
'You don't believe him?' Sarah asked, still watching
Matheson continue sketching his lines all over his notebook.
'I
didn't say I don't believe him,' Hackett corrected. 'I just don't want to hear it.'
'What do you think he really saw? One of those
Golems maybe - in the shape of his girlfriend?'
'What did it do? Read his mind?'
'Maybe.'
'Or maybe not. Y'know, it just occurred to me, the
four horsemen of the apocalypse could be earth, wind,
fire and water. Earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes and
floods.'
'There you go!' Sarah chided, almost amused, but
trying to keep her voice down. 'Now you're getting into
the spirit of it.'
....................................... DECIPHER 	577

'You're not helping. You know that, don't you?'
Sarah smiled. Yes, she knew that. She turned to
Matheson. 'Ralph, how are we doing?'
Matheson adjusted the radio. Sketched another line.
'At this rate I'm gonna run out of ink.'
'I meant globally. As a species.'
He took a deep breath. 'At this rate,' he repeated,
'I'm gonna run out of ink.'
Hackett sketched in the details. 'Sea temperatures
are rising fast. If we can't switch off whatever's down
there, I think Ralph's going to be one of the first to help
arm that bomb.'

'It Chinese tradition,' Yun was explaining, 'the spirit of
dead are malevolent. If you disturb their final resting place,
they return to disturb you. We disturbed the burial site at
Wupu, and the spirits brought retribution for that with
storm and earthquake. That is why we could not allow
anyone else to disturb Wupu. It has brought much danger.
That is why your Rola Corporation was made to leave.'
'Then what led you to come here, to Antarctica?'
Scott demanded.
'Because of the maps,' Yun replied matter-offactly.
Then, reading the puzzled expression on Scott's face:
'The maps at Wupu. You know of the maps, no?'
Scott checked with his colleagues apprehensively.
'No.'
Yun explained about the maps. And it fitted in precisely
with what they had all been figuring out over the
past few days. For at Wupu there were maps of the world
etched into their crystal monuments, showing the links
between ancient sites situated all over the planet. And
the one in Antarctica was revered above all others.



578 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

It explained how Rola Corp. knew where to look so
quickly.
'When we disturbed the spirits of Wupu, the spirits
came back to haunt us. To disturb the spirits of
Antarctica would be to disturb the spirits of the world.
That, Dr Scott, would be much retribution. We are not
here because we think we own Atlantis. We are here to
stop you from making a mistake.'
Scott hung his head in his hands and scrunched his
fist into his hair. 'Religions be damned!' He eyed the
soldier firmly. Wildly. And in perfect Cantonese
explained: 'Chow, I think it would be a mistake if we
didn't go down there. You know what to expect. Come
with us. Show us the way.'
Chow Yun looked away, ashamed and graven. 'I will
not go back,' he replied in English.
'We need your help.'
Yun sipped his coffee, finding it difficult to maintain
direct eye-contact. It was not clear if they were going
to get his help.
A clattering sound up ahead alerted them all to Gant
approaching from around the corner of the ice tunnel
stretched out before them. 'People, clip on those spikes
- we're moving out,' he ordered.
Yun looked up, startled. 'What of me? You will keep
me here?'
Gant shrugged. 'You're free to go. In fact, I want you
to relay a message to your people. We will have carried
out our orders before you even have time to react.'
Scott expressed his concern with the others. He didn't
like the sound of this. But his attention for the moment
was still on Yun, trying to glean what information he
could.
....................................... DECIPHER 	579

He sat down next to the soldier, pulled out his cleats
and started fastening them into place. He kept his voice
low so as not to embarrass the man. 'Do you read much?'
he asked simply.
'Of course.'
'I read. I read all the time. Anything really, comic
strips to philosophy. I love words.' Yun remained silent.
Uncertain as to where this was leading. 'Ever read your
Sun Tzu?'
'Sun Tzu,' Yun acknowledged. 'The Art of War.'
'Two-thousand-year-old Chinese tactical philosophy
still read by politicians, business leaders and military
strategists the world over. What did Sun Tzu say? Keep
your enemies close by?' Yun nodded slowly. 'The art of
war is to adapt to what presents itself in battle. Your unit
already failed the first test, and fired the first shots in battle.
In panic your unit exposed its strengths and its weaknesses.'
Yun appeared incensed. 'Master Sun explained that
the rule of military operation is not to count on' the
opponent not coming, but to rely on ways of dealing
with them.'
'Yes,' Scott agreed. He knew the passage well. 'And
he also advised not to count on opponents not attacking,
but to rely on having what cannot be attacked. We
have breached your defenses and are now on our way
down to what could not be attacked.'
'How do you know we have not already fortified the
city?'
Scott smiled, slow and purposeful, catching Gant's
eye in the process. He stood. 'Thank you, Yun. You have
told me what I needed to know.'
Yun leapt up, almost slipping on the ice. 'I have told
you nothingV


580 		STEL PAVLOU .....................................


'You have told me everything. You are the last line
of Chinese defense here. We have nothing to fear down
there but fear itself.'

'There are creatures!'

Tm sure. But they're not Chinese soldiers. And as a

consequence we know to prepare for the unknown.'
'Going down there will be suicide.'

'But we will control what cannot be attacked. We
will have the advantage. Now, if you keep your enemies
close by... maybe you can twist the situation to
your advantage later.'

Yun seemed to be struggling with some internal
dilemma before he acquiesced. 'I have provisions on
the surface,' he spat gruffly. 'I must collect them before
we proceed.' Scott pressed him for more information.
'Like new boots,' Yun indicated. 'Or I will be useless.'

Gant nodded at Hacker as he moved up next to
Scott. 'Go w.ith him.'

Hackett led the soldier off to his supplies. 'Not bad,
Dr Scott. Sun Tzu? I think you missed your calling.
Ever worn a uniform?'

'I don't know shit about warfare,' Scott confessed.
'They're just words written on a piece of paper. I can
twist 'em to argue any damn thing.'

'Well, we got our scout, Pump him for information.
We gotta get down there fast. But tell me something,
Professor: how d'you know he's not gonn.a lead us off
on a wild-goose chase?'

'I don't,' Scott admitted, securing the fastenings on
his boots.

ICE TUNNELS


t This is all wrong,' Matheson moaned quietly to

|himself as they made their way through the
descending ice passage. He was positioned directly
behind Gant, and it was clear he was getting under the
Major's skin.

'I'm not here to ask questions. I'm here to carry out
orders.'

'Well, maybe you might want to start asking questions,'
the engineer suggested provocatively. 'Maybe we
might live longer.'

'Maybe we're not destined to survive at all,' Gant
replied chillingly.

The rest of the party tried to ignore the comment as
it echoed in and out of the undulating ice bowls along
the walls of the passage.

'I know there's another solution,' Matheson nagged.
Then, in spite of the spikes on the underside of his
boots digging into the hard ice, his feet slid right out



582 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

from under him and he collapsed in a waterlogged heap in the middle of the tunnel, forcing everyone to
come to a halt.
'Jesus H. Christi The ice is blue!' he cried. 'The
water's blue! I can't make out a puddle from all the
ice!'
Gant glanced back at the party he was leading. They
weren't used to this. Hackett and Pearce seemed to be
having considerable difficulty while Yun and November,
who were much younger and fitter, did not.
The passage through the ice was around nine feet in
diameter, with a constant trickling brook along its floor,
eating its way down further, centimeter by centimeter.
Given time, the water would have eroded this simple
tunnel into a chasm.
'All right. I don't have many of these, but I guess I'll
have to use them.' He fished around in one of his leg
pouches and pulled out a small silver canister as
Matheson extracted himself from the relentless though
almost invisible torrent of melt water rushing down the
frozen passage.
Gant tipped the canister upside down and twisted its
base like a pepper grinder. He slid out the long silver
screw at the same end and twisted the whole device
down into the floor by his foot.
The effect was immediate. An effervescent spring of
glowing greenish dye began to mix with the stream on
contact, clearly defining the water; its phosphorescence
illuminated the way ahead.
Matheson jabbed his feet into the ice and let it be
known he was ready to continue. Tll be okay now,' was
all he said.
Gant barely disguised his impatience. 'Michaels and
....................................... DECIPHER 	583

Hillman are already way ahead of us,' he said, 'carrying
the warhead. And they didn't need dye markers.'
'Well, bully for them,' Matheson shot back.

'What are you thinking?' Sarah asked the anthropologist
quietly. She reached for a cigarette, the packet
wedged inside her parka somewhere, and sparked up,
saying: 'You've hardly said a word.'
Tm thinking about Leibniz's "Lingua Generalis",'
Scott revealed.
'Of course you are,' she commented dryly.
He caught her eye, spying the cigarette and for a
moment seemed faintly aghast.
'I know,' she said. 'These things'll kill you. Thank
God it's the end of the world and I don't have to wait
around for cancer.'
Scott wasn't so amused. 'You think you're so tough,
don't you?'
Sarah was unnerved. 'What?'
'You have this whole act going on,' he observed.
'Y'know, you're smart but tough. Men can't get to you.
And you're in total control. Yet every now and again
you slip up, and that human being that's buried deep
inside comes out. And you ask things like: What are
you thinking?'
He was so intense. So uptight. Normally men' like
that bugged the shit out of her and she let them get
on with it. But there was something about Richard that
just made her want to reach out to him. Or maybe it
was just her raging hormones. Either way, what he had
said had stung. And it was like he could see it in her
eyes.
'And you think you know everything,' she retaliated.


584 	STEL PAVLOU 	.


'That's the problem right there,' Scott replied, equally
stung. 'I don't. But I'd like to.'

Tll make you a deal,' Sarah offered. 'I bet you can

figure this language out before you figure me out.'
'You're on,' he said.

He lashed out with his small hand-pick and hooked
into the ice wall as he negotiated his way around the
descending S-bend dropping down sharply before them:
Shards of ice sprayed out in all directions.

The walls of the tunnel undulated in and out over
uneven intervals. The edges in places were sharp and
crisp, }ike razor blades. The blues and whites were multiple.
Exotic. Sometimes it was hard to believe they were
looking at ice at all. Lit up by the sunlight above which
refracted down to incredible depths, Sarah explained,
if they were lucky, it would probably be daylight up to
a mile down.

Having followed Scott's lead, she asked: 'Leibniz
the philosopher, right? Seventeenth century.' Scott
nodded. 'So what's the deal?'

'He assigned numbers to letters.'

'Uh-huh?'

'He broke down all of human knowledge as he saw
it into simple ideas. These ideas were represented by a
number. He then proposed a system whereby consonants
stood for integers, and vowels for units of ten and
powers of ten.'

'Which meant what?'

'Well, say the number 81,374 - that would get transcribed
as "mubodilefa",' he explained.

'Okay, you're losing me. That was supposed to make
sense?'

'The point is,' Scott explained, skipping the minutiae,

....................................... DECIPHER 	585


'Leibniz wasn't looking for a universal language, or the
genesis language. He was looking for truth through a
scientific language. Strip preconceived notions of meaning
out of language and distill basic themes and ideas
down to a language of their own.'

'So you've definitely decided the Atlantis glyphs are
a scientific language?'

'The more I think about it, the more I'm forced to
conclude, why not?' Scott wobbled as he lost his footing
slightly. He flailed for a moment before planting
his foot firmly down. A satisfying crunch signified he'd
managed to get his spikes to penetrate the surface of
the ice.

'These people,' he went on, 'were masters of engineering,
astronomy, physics, and acoustics. It seems only
natural they would try and communicate in a scientific
way. Leibniz was concerned with a language that in
itself was concerned only with trying to communicate
ideas. Sixty distinct and separate types of sound pretty
much cover the range of human vocal abilities. So I'm
guessing, and it's just a guess . . . that if the Atlantis
glyphs wanted to communicate ideas, the language
would take into account all other languages that existed
at that time.'

'That's a tall order.'

'So is building a city out of Carbon 60 crystal, but if
the satellite imagery's to be believed, that's what they've
done.'

He concentrated on putting one foot in front of the
other. Step by step. Step by step. He watched the others
up in front. MI wobbling, but managing to move forward.
Gant, Matheson, Hackett, Pearce, Yun and
November . . . Four Americans then a Chinese. Then


586 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


three Americans all stepping in sequence... Hey, four
spoke English. Then it switched to Chinese. Then back
to English and--

'It's a step sequence,' Scott realized. 'That's it! That's
how this works! It's a step sequence based on switching
languages!'


Sarah excitedly kept pace with Scott as they discussed the
idea. 'I thought we'd already ruled that out on the plane?'

'The classical idea of a step sequence, yes,' Scott
agreed. 'When spies, wanted to hide messages before the
advent of the computer they sometimes had them
inserted into texts. To all intents and purposes it would
just look like a story, for example, or a letter. But in the
hands of the decoder, he or she knew that if you took
that story, and noted down every, say fourth letter - in
sequence - you found a hidden message.'

'But that didn't work with this language,' Sarah
reminded. 'We tried. It failed.'

'That's right - because we were trying a classical step
sequence. The principle was correct, we just hadn't hit
on the correct type of sequence. The key is that number
stream. It has everything to do with that number stream.
I'd bet my life on it.'

HackeR's ears pricked up. 'Richard, that's very noble.
But in this instance, if you're working on a dead-end

theory - you'll be betting on all our lives.'

'I'm right,' Scott insisted.

'So how does it work?' Gant demanded from the head
of the line.

'Each number in the number stream corresponds to
a known language. So take the number four- that would
be English. Five might be Arabic and six, Russian. Every

....................................... DECIPHER 	587


language uses basically the same kinds of sounds with
their own personal variations. So there will be some
overlap in sound usage. That's why certain numbers
might each be associated with the same glyph. But I'm
getting ahead of myself
'How
I think this works is that you write down the
number stream. And above it, you write down the
Atlantis glyphs, however they appear on the monuments.
Then you pick your language, take its assigned
number, and you work your way along the number
stream. Each time you find say the number four - you
note down the glyph that appears above it. In this way
the text is deciphered into your chosen language. What
you're doing is a step-sequence calculation.'

'So how many different languages do you think are
embedded in the glyphs, and why?' Pearce asked. 'It
seems an awfully complicated way of doing things.'

Scott looked at the back of Hackett's head as the
physicist negotiated the treacherous pass. 'Complex
would be a better way of describing it,' he said. 'Not
complicated.'

Hackett cocked his head as confirmation he had
picked up on the compliment.

'Think about it. We're talking about a civilization
that lived twelve thousand years ago, speaking a language
totally alien to our own. Like today, there wre
many other languages being spoken. They had no way
of knowing which languages would survive and which
would perish. So they selected sixty that held the most
promise, and intertwined them into a system that we
could decipher at some point in the future.'

'But a number stream we could only detect by computer?'
November remarked.


588 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


'These people knew science better than we know it
today,' Hacker commented soberly. 'I guess they figured
what they have to tell us is of such sophistication
it was pointless imparting it unless we had the mindset
and wherewithal to be able to comprehend its meaning.
After all, stick a Neanderthal in a 767 and his first
instinct is going to be to eat the chairs. Not fly the
plane.' He glanced back at the others. 'Guess they didn't
want us to eat the chairs.'

'Sixty different numbers,' Scott marveled. 'Written in
base sixty, representing sixty different languages corresponding
to sixty different glyphs. That, to any mind
worthy of saving, is a puzzle that needs solving.'

'All we need to figure out now is what languages they
chose.'

'Well, it ain't gonna be English,' November advised
knowledgeably. 'That's only been around a few hundred
years. We're talking about languages which go back
thousands. Ancient Egyptian lasted a couple thousand.'

'It also, despite current theories, seems to have just
popped up out of nowhere,' Scott agreed. 'But it's still
too young a language. Maybe an ancestor of Egyptian's
what we're looking for. Old languages. Think really old.'
'What about Phoenician?' Pearce suggested.

'Most of our modern languages today like Hebrew
and Arabic derive from Aramaic, which is a direct
descendent of Phoenician,' Scott noted. 'That's true. But
there's an older language that Phoenician derived from
and that's Proto-Canaanite. And that's a language which
could be written and read multi-directionally.'

'Doesn't it strike you as odd,' Hackett chipped in
thoughtfully, struggling with the torrent of phosphorescent
water that seemed to be growing stronger as the

....................................... DECIPHER 	589


incline grew steeper, 'that each language was assigned
a number on an arbitrary basis? Why assign one language
the number four, when it could just as easily be
twenty-four, or sixteen. What differentiates each language
and its number assignment?'

'Maybe the clues are in our myths and legends,' "Cant
threw in from up ahead.

'Interesting idea,' Scott called out. 'You got anything
to back that up, Major?'

'I was thinking of the Bible,' he replied, unsteadily.
'Y'know, the world was created in seven days. The walls
of Jericho fell after the trumpets were sounded seven
times.'

'But Noah's boat was at sea for forty days and forty
nights,' November warned. 'It could just as easily be the
number forty.'

'The Mayans revered the number nine, as in the nine
lords of the night,' Pearce added eagerly. 'That's a possibility.'

'There
are sixty possibilities,' Scott told them. 'I suggest
we get our computers working overtime until they
come up with something I might recognize.'

Yun eyed the scientists, quietly taking in what they
were discussing. It wasn't clear if he understood entirely,
but it was clear he knew it was of significance. He
watched November closely as she set her pocket PC up
to begin work on the calculation.

Just then Gant's radio burst into life with a static
warble. It was Michaels: 'Major, we've hit our first junction
and have no clue on which way to proceed. Any
word from the gook on which is our best way down?'

'Uh, negative to that,' Gant replied, eyeing Yun with
something akin to disdain. 'Hold your position and wait



590 	STEL PAVLOU

for our arrival. In the meantime do some prelim
ing. See if you can't come up with the three most likely;
options.'
There followed a brief pause before Michaels
responded. 'Sir,' he observed. 'There doesn't
be any likely option. You'd have to see this to believe
it.'
FIRE AND ICE



T

hey were standing on the edge of a precipice, a cliff
face of solid ice overlooking a chasm of incredible
proportions. But this was no ordinary chasm. This was
the vast and jagged sink-hole down into which the
writhing green energy twister above was descended.
It swirled before them, a great transparent kaleidoscope,
effervescent with crackling, colliding ionized particles.
Yet it was eerily quiet. Occasionally, odd
high-pitched hissing sounds would fill the air as charged
molecules exploded and whizzed by. But overall the
sensation was like being confronted with an apparition.
There was a sense of shimmering air. A light breeze,
electricity in its essence. Maybe even life.
It was awesome.
Hacker felt a chill run over him as he tooka good
long look at their predicament. They were about half a
mile down from the surface, which could still be seen
way above them. But the surface itself was in far greater
592 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


trouble than any of them had realized while they were
up there. For from here they could see the true structure
of the ice below. And it was not stable.

They were like fleas on the inside of a frozen Swiss
cheese. Huge skyscraper-sized arches of ice rose up all
around them, connected with, and diverged from, other
mountainous columns. Across from them lay further
tunnels. Some seemed barren and lifeless, blue arteries
into the body of a dead giant. But other tunnel
were far more ominous and forbidding, for
breathed steam and smoke, and hinted at what lay
below.

Hacker spied the glowing water that rushed between
his feet and watched it cascade off the edge and tumble
into the dark void below.

There seemed to be no other way of describing it:
'Oh crap,' he sighed.

'Which way?' Gant demanded, turning on Yun with
barely suppressed anger. 'Which way down?'

Yun shuffled forward, eyeing the darkened trunk containing
the warhead as he did so. He surveyed the tunnel
system ahead. In either direction there was no way of
reaching any of the options without somehow securing
a line across, for as he noted as he analyzed the edge
wall of the chasm, 'The path has gone.'

'No shit,' Gant growled. 'Now which way?'

Yun looked to Scott for support, but Scott was as
eager to find out as anyone else. Yun pointed to a tunnel
directly across from them, about thirty feet away and
several feet lower down. Steam rose out of it, like the
breath of a sleeping dragon.

'Oh great,' Matheson moaned. 'That means we gotta
pass through this plasma stream, right?'

....................................... DECIPHER 	593


'Right,' Michaels agreed, already taking off his backpack
and handing it to November to hold. He started
fishing out a grappling line and hook, but Gant had
another idea.

'Hillman, you got your harpoon with you?'

'Sir, yes, sir.'

'Attach a line and fire that across. I don't think you're
just gonna be able to hook onto an ice feature, Michaels.
There ain't any purchase.'

'I think we'll need several lines, sir,' the marine
replied evenly, 'to distribute the weight. I volunteer to
go across and attach more cables.'

Hackett was cautious. 'Are you insane?'

'You see any other way across?'

Gant pulled out the first of many mountaineeringstyle
ice spikes they'd need to make the crossing,
attached a nylon rope and started hammering it into
the hard ice. He tied the other end to Michael's belt
and patted the marine on the shoulder, while Hillman
took aim with his harpoon and fired.

The bolt whistled as it exploded out across the chasm
carrying a second line with it. It blasted into the ice
and dug deep, just inside the mouth of the passage.

A few sharp tugs and it was clear it would hold. Gant
attached the second line to another spike and hammered
it home while Michaels clipped himself on and
lowered himself down.

One single thin line suspended across the divide was
all he had to make the crossing with, but it was all he'd
need. He gripped the line tightly, hooked his legs up
over it and started heaving his way across.

November shifted on her feet nervously, watching
the marine approach the whirling mass of electrical



594 	STEL PAVLOU

energy. 'What's that stuff gonna do to him?' she
Sarah shook her head. 'No idea.' I
'He's not earthed,' Hackett explained quietly. 'I
know what kinda power's flowing through that thing,
but theoretically the effect should be nothing.'
Gant eyed the physicist sternly.
'Theoretically,' Hackett reiterated.
Hesitantly Michaels pulled himself along before
coming to a stop in front of the wall of magnetized
energy. He seemed to visibly tense, as unsteadily he
clung on with one hand, and with the other - reached
out to the maelstrom.

'l can feel the hairs all over my body starting to stand
on end!' he reported back anxiously.. 'But other than
that, no ill-effects. I'm going to attempt to go on
through.'
Michaels used all of his upper body strength to get
his momentum going again and edged deeper and
deeper into the thick of the ionized mass. Before long
he was entirely immersed in the swirl of energy.
No one commented while they watched the marine's
progress, except for one tiny little mechanism that was
built into the watch on Hackett's wrist. For it beeped
suddenly. Hackett's mood seemed to visibly darken as
he checked the time and shut the watch off.
'You didn't set that thing as a wake-up call now, did
you?' Pearce asked.
'No, I didn't, Bob.' He addressed the others. 'It's the
solar storm. It's going to connect with the earth in a
little over fifteen minutes. It's going to be highly violent,
and it's going to wind up being siphoned - right
through here.'
....................................... DECIPHER 	595

'Fifteen minutes?' Sarah gasped. 'We won't all get
across in that time.'
'You just watch,' Gant replied, ordering Hillman to
shimmy across with a third line.
The Major knelt down and started clipping the warhead
to the two lines that were already established
before tying the thing off onto the back off Hillman's
belt. Together they all lowered the container down
gently so as not to put too much undue pressure on the
lines, until it hung in place.
Then, regardless of whether the warhead was swaying
or not, regardless of whether the grappling line
moorings were creaking in the ice by Michaels's feet,
Hillman set off- dragging the dangling warhead behind
him.
It was painful to watch, slow and laborious. Every
time he shifted forward he would have to stop and tug
at the warhead in order to get it moving again.
Gant leant in close to Hacker as they were forced
to simply watch. 'All that energy isn't gonna set that
thing off, is it?'
'I hope not,' was the extent of HackeR's reply.
Gant was not pleased.
Hackett shrugged. As answers go, that was truly the
best he could do.
Out on the rope, however, Hillman had stopped once
again. Unhooking the line to the warhead, he tossed it
out to Michaels who caught it in one fluid motion.
From his secure position across the other side of the
chasm, he quickly took up the challenge, leaning into
the weight of the container and heaving the thing across,
leaving Hillman to complete his journey in double
quick time.



596 	STEL PAVLOU

Hillman soon had the third line secured to its
ings and was helping Michaels with the warhead.
'Well, that answers that,' Hackett noted. 'No, all
energy will not set off a nuclear warhead.'
Gant ignored him, slapping three of the others
the back. 'Okay, November, Sarah and Ralph going.
One line each.'
SOLAR STORM



I

t was spotted first high in the sky over Indonesia.
A gigantic orange fireball that grew ever larger until
the entire sky in every conceivable direction resembled
a blazing fire.
For the onlookers on the ground it brought nothing
but a sense of panic and dread as they felt the atmosphere
around them swell and expand with the heat. It
made breathing ferociously difficult and it caused thousands
of ordinary people to run terrified and screaming
through the streets of Jakarta.
Further on across the Pacific, where the islands were
already troubled with severe volcanic ash and earth
tremors, the new terror was suddenly the rain itself,
superheated while still high up in the atmosphere.
Across New Guinea and Northern Australia, schoolchildren
who had been out playing were suddenly running
back inside in floods of tears, their skin a mass
of red blotches where they had been scalded by the

598 	STEL PAVLOU

torrential downpour. Many had second- and
burns.
Out in the agricultural lands, farmhands were forcq
to take shelter in their barns, and had little option but
to watch helplessly as their livestock were broiled to
death on the spot.
As the winds picked up across the Northern Australian !i
plains, it was not long before the all-pervading smell
boiled meat seemed to fill every available pocket of flesh
air.
And as the ionic chaos penetrated deep into the upper
atmosphere, so it loosed lightning storms the like
which had not been seen on planet Earth for
of years. Vast streaks of electrical energy shot up
ground to sky at such a ferocious rate in some areas that
the scorchmarks left across the plains resembled th
aftermath of an assault by some gigantic Gaffing
Much more of this and it was hard to believe anything
would be left alive across the surface of the earth.
With multiple satellites being knocked out of commission
like pins in a bowling alley, it was difficult for
any one national space agency to keep track of the
marauding destruction in isolation from the rest of
world. Pretty soon the likes of NASA found themselves
trading information freely and quickly with ESA and
the Russian Space Agency, each agency keeping track
of different quadrants of the sky.
But it didn't take long for the suspected and long
anticipated pattern to start emerging.
The storm was being sucked relentlessly into the magnetic
field-lines of the earth's magnetic poles.
The solar storm was being re-routed. Destination: the
South Pole. Antarctica.
ACROSS THE EARTH

D

aY was turning to night.
Billions of tons of searing volcanic matter was
being blasted into the atmosphere by the relentless eruption
of volcanic action around the globe.
From Washington State to Montana, from Northern
Galifornia to Southern Mexico, clouds of hot ash were
pluming twenty, even thirty kilometers high.
104 million hectares of lush green American farmland
was suddenly flattened, scorched and devastated
by acrid pumice hailstones. In a stroke, billions of US
dollars' worth of damage was inflicted upon the single
most impressive economic powerhouse the world had
ever known.
In a radius of up to 1,500 kilometers from each volcanic
site around the globe, thousands of people were
rushing to crammed hospitals with eye sores, skin rashes,
pus-ridden wounds and burns from the whirlwind of scolding
volcanic fallout. Lungs were seared. Lives were lost.


	600
	STEL PAVLOU


In 1945, Nagasaki in Japan had been ripped from
the face of the earth by an atomic 20-kiloton explosion.
That was equivalent to 20,000 tons of dynamite.

When the solar storm connected with the earth, it
triggered five further catastrophic volcanic explosions
which exploded with the force of one million kilotons
apiece. The equivalent to five Krakatoas.

The explosions were heard in every corner of the
globe, like the death rattle of a dying planet.

THE PROBLEM



S

arah's clip was stuck.

She tugged at it again, but it was no use. Somehow
the line she was shimmying across on had become
jammed into the hinge part of the clip to which her
safety line was attached. She was stuck fast.

Sarah looked around for help, but Matheson was
already across and climbing down into the tunnel while
November, who was looking back having seen there was
something wrong, was stuck out on a line that was
simply too far away to be of any use.

Tll be okay,' Sarah assured her. 'You go on ahead.
I'll get this untangled in a minute.'

Reluctantly November continued on her way, hand
over hand, dragging her body weight across the chasm,
leaving Sarah to struggle in the .center of the energy
stream.


Scott craned his neck and squinted for a better view.
'What is she doing?'


602 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

'She's stuck,' Pearce realized.
'Now is not a good time to be getting stuck,' Hacker
sang out, checking his watch again. 'Any minute now
this quiet little energy twister is gonna turn into a pillar
of blazing fire that wouldn't look outta place in the
Bible.'
'I better go over,' Gant announced, getting his line
ready, but Scott had other ideas.
'No,' he intervened. Tll go over. You send Yun across
on the other line. I don't think he'll attempt to double
back if you're waiting for him back here.'
Yun clearly didn't like that comment.
Quickly, both men clipped their safety lines onto the
main ropes and set off monkeying across to the other
side.
Yun eyed the anthropologist coldly as they both
heaved in unison. 'Why do you not trust me? I said I
would come with you. To flee is to be a coward.'
Tm not calling you a coward,' Scott replied, struggling
with the maneuver. 'But everyone's entitled to
change their mind once in a while.'
Yun continued on his way, as Scott pulled himself
up alongside Sarah, who in turn rolled her eyes. 'Oh,
great. That's just what I wanted to be. The goddamn
damsel in distress.'
'Well "hey there" to you too,' Scott remarked, swinging
closer and grabbing hold of Sarah's main line.
'Y'know, joining the circus and walking a tightrope was
never very high on my agenda in life,' he said.
The either. Can you see what's wrong?'
Scott held on to his own line with one hand and
twisted Sarah's clip and safety line with the other. 'Oh,
I gotcha . . . your safety line got wrapped around your
....................................... DECIPHER 	603

clip when you latched on. When you put your weight
down on it, I think what happened was it pulled the
main line in and forced it into the hinge. What we got
here is a very .tight knot.'
'Can you get it free?'
Scott could feel his arms starting to ache. Good question. Could he get it free? He took a good long look at
the problem, grunted with the effort and could feel himself
starting to sweat.
He tugged at the knot. 'Y'know, in ancient times,' he
said calmly and lightly, 'Egyptian priests were highly
regarded if they specialized in the art of knots. Knots
were highly significant, magically. They were associated
with the binding of energies.'
Sarah looked up into the endless stream of oncoming long.
'In knot magic, the number seven was the master
number.'
They eyed each other closely. There was the number
seven again: was that the key to unlocking the Atlantis
language?
'Richard, knots are fascinating, but you need to move
your ass, my friend.'
Sarah glanced over at Hackett, who was by now shimmying
up beside them on his own way over to the other
side, Yun having already completed the journey.
'The study .of knots,' he grunted, 'is at the forefront
of looped space theory in physics.'
'And that's relevant how?' Sarah remarked, amused
by the way all of Hackett's exposed hair was standing
completely on end.
'Looped space is linked to time. Something neither
of you have. Time is precious.'


604 	STEL PAVLOU


Suddenly the whole chasm lit up as intermittent bursts
of crackling energy, like snakes on the war path,
in and out of the main stream and began to pulse

from above and careen off into the void below.

All three scientists screamed.

'Jesus Christ!' Scott bellowed, feeling the sheer terror
of volatile electricity roll across his skin. He reached for
his side pocket and pulled out a knife. 'We're gonna
have to do this the old-fashioned way,' he said. 'Think
Mexander the Great and the Gordian Knot.'

'But I won't have a safety line!' Sarah protested.

'So tie yourself on to me,' Scott insisted, slashing
Sarah's safety and slicing it in two.


'Okay, go!' Gant ordered, clipping Pearce's safety onto
one of the lines.

'But Jon's still on his way across! What if the line
can't take two people?'

'You see that out there?' Gant barked, balling a fist
at the volatile energy mass. 'Your argument's with that,
not me[ Now get out there and start moving!'


They could hear it now, like the roll of thunder accompanying
the approach of a thousand freight trains. An
intense rumble that was intent on shaking their very
surroundings to pieces.

Scott struggled to pull himself along hand over fist,
acutely aware that entire boulders of snow and ice had
started to tumble past his field of vision. As adrenaline
pumped around his system he suddenly felt a sharp pain
jabbing through his leg once again, but he fought it.
Fought for all he was worth.

....................................... DECIPHER 	605


Sarah was aware of the shrieks. Encouraging, panicstricken
shouts from those already across." But she kept
her eye on the end point and hauled ass, for watching
them gathered in the mouth of the next ice tunnel only
seemed to make matters worse. Their voices sounded
muted. Masked as they were by the building rumble of
impending disaster.


'My arm, Jesus, my fucking arm!' Pearce heard himself
scream as he tensed and flexed, dragging himself along
the wire and into the whirlwind.

Suddenly he felt himself being pulled. Sucked sideways
as if caught in the middle of a blender set on 'fine'.

'Somebody[' he yelled in sheer panic. 'Somebody
help me!'

But theonly two people in a position to help, Scott
and Sarah, were already up ahead and being helped
down off the ropes.

'I can't hold on!' he bellowed, his voice drowned out
by the frenzied blasting of ever-increasing chaos. 'I can't
hold on!'


Gant appraised the situation with the calm of a man
used to action.

While the rest of the group hurried inside the archway
of the lower ice passage and disconnected Scott
and Sarah from their safety lines, Gant focused more
on what was going on half a mile up above their heads.

The energy tendril was writhing. Convulsing, like a
snake that had just eaten a rat and was trying to digest
it whole. It whipped around from side to side as the
sheer volume of energy that was being dragged down
from space was bottle-necked up where the ice refused



606 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

to open out further and let the sheer volume of ionized
matter through.
The vast and imposing arches of ice that kept the
ground level above in place were starting to tremble;
to buckle. Their Chrysler-Building-sized frames were
starting to sway. Gigantic truck-sized boulders were
beginning to tumble down their sides.
And their bases were starting to crack.
While Bob Pearce, frozen with agony, could hold on
no longer and released the grip of his injured arm.
It was all the encouragement Gant needed. In one
fluid motion he jumped out onto the middle line, swept
his hunting knife up and severed the line behind him.
Tumbling down he dropped the knife and reached out
for Pearce, grabbing him with his first attempt.
Pearce jerked away from the line and the two men
tumbled together before
Slam!
They jerked to a stop, Pearce's safety line preventing
them from moving any further.
The two men hung there for a moment, before Gant
had the presence of mind to direct Pearce's attention to
the gathering light storm above their heads. Vast crackling
arms of electricity were reaching out from the sides
of the twister and zapping the arches of ice, pummeling
the compacted snow like a sledge hammer,
'Cut your safety,' Gant ordered. 'I've got you. Just cut your safety!'
Pearce didn't move. He was frozen with terror.
Both men could .feel the gathering ferocity of the
storm, the sheer anger of unbridled power.
'Cut your safety, goddamnit, or we fry!'
Pearce shook. His whole body was wracked with fear.
....................................... DECIPHER 	607

Slowly, painfully slowly, he reached for his own knife
- and slit the line.

The two men tumbled uncontrollably until they swung
down and slammed into the icy wall of the chasm. Gant,
one hand gripped firmly around Pearce's belt, the other
gripped like a vice around the rope, shouted up at his
men in the tunnel above.
'Get us out of here!'
Several sharp tugs and they began to rise up the wall
at a snail's pace, but the vision before them was of little
comfort. The chaotic arms of energy were lashing out
all around them now. Striking the walls of the chasm
and blasting new tunnels into existence.
Above their heads, in one tremendous explosion, the
energy twister suddenly expanded outwards in a supersized
explosion of livid flame, shattering the ice around
it and widening the hole through which it was channeling,
tenfold.
Suddenly, they could see the entire base of lung
Chang start to slip inwards upon them.
Mobile huts and heavy artillery units were falling into
the chasm one by one, while behind them, closing in
rapidly, toppled massive chunks of ice and great arches
of snow . . .

'Run!' Scott barked as he helped drag Pearce and Gant
up into the tunnel. 'Run now!'
Without asking questions the two men got onto
their feet and sprinted down the ice passage as fast as
their feet could carry them, slamming into the walls
as they went and rounding the far corner as vast sheets
of ice and snow collapsed behind them with such a



608 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

thunderous roar it was a miracle their eardrums didn't
burst.
But it didn't end there. They had to keep moving,
and fast -before the rest of the tunnel imploded.
With the warhead strung out from a harness attached
to his belt, Michaels led the way forward, but after a
couple of intersections with other criss-crossing passageways
and shafts the marine suddenly found himself
being pulled back viciously - at the hand of Yun.
'What the fuck d'you think you're doing?' he
demanded, but Yun didn't even bother to answer.
Instead he held everyone back as--
Whoosh! A torrent of blisteringly hot, superheated
water suddenly blasted out of a side tunnel and rocketed
off across the crossroads.
'There is much volcanic activity here,' Yun explained.
'We must be careful.'
Up ahead, other scalding geysers were rocketing back
and forth across the tunnel system.
'And just how are we supposed to get past this lot?'
Hackett complained.
Yun indicated a side passage that nobody had noticed
before. Only a few feet across, it was neither a direct turn
right, nor a hole in the floor. In fact, its axis appeared to
be a steady 45-degree slope heading straight down.
'You try climbing back up this way,' Yun said. 'Getting
down is much easier.'
'How much easier?' Gant wanted to know, still getting
his breath back.
'We slide.'
'Are you insane?'
'Major,' Scott stepped in, 'our escape route's been
cut off and if we go down that way we boil. What other
....................................... DECIPHER 	609

options do we have?'
'It's reckless, Professor. There's no telling where this
leads. We could wind up plummeting into a ravine.'
'Risk is all part of the game,' Scott insisted. 'You said
so yourself.'


FREE-FALL


n Gant's opinion this was the worst decision of his life,

entrusting his people to the advice of the enemy. But
then what other options were there?

They each entered the tunnel with trepidation and
rocketed off into the ice below at extreme speed. It took
a leap of faith of incredible proportions, but since th,
clock was ticking, what was there to lose?

Michaels and Hillman had gone first, taking the wal
head with them. Scott and Hackett had followed on
after, together with Yun, while Gant had been the last
to take the plunge behind the two women. Which, as
it turned out, was of little strategic value. In fact, rocketing
down the ice passage at speeds close to 40 mph
gave nobody any particular advantage.

This was chaos in motion.


The ice was turning a deep, deep blue, Sarah noticed as
the walls of the tunnel streaked by. Blue ice was formed

....................................... DECIPHER 	61 1


by compression. By the sheer weight of the ice above
pushing down on the ice below for thousands of years.

It was incredible. A glassy smoothness channeled out
and eaten away by the swishing blast of boiling water,
heated by the magma of volcanic activity below. All
rushing past her face within inches as she lay on her
back and let gravity take her where it may.

Her mouth was open. Her eyes transfixed. She
breathed in shallow bursts and made few noises, for fear
had crept in, and was keeping her vocal cords gripped.


They could feel the ground tremble as they bounced
over hard ridges of ice. Michaels and Hillman felt the
container buckle as the warhead struck another obstacle
in its path. They heard metal locks and hinges struggle
to keep its lid shut tight.

And then out they burst. Out into a tremendously
wide ice cavern, its floor a rippling slope of hard glass
with crazy patterns eroded into it in swathing channels.

They could hear the ice straining above as the
destruction on the surface continued unabated. And as
Hillman rocketed on behind the warhead, his coat tore
on the razor blades of ice. Snagged for a moment and
slowed him down.

Slam! A tree-sized stalactite suddenly careened down
from the ceiling and exploded in front of him.

Hillman dove to one side in an effort to avoid the
dagger-like rear end as it penetrated the hard cavern
floor and sliced effortlessly into the depths of ice. But
unlike the front end which exploded on impact with a
ferocious blast, the rear end remained intact. Upright
and immovable.

Hillman breathed a sigh of relief as he shot past it.



612 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

At these speeds, impacting into an obstacle like that
could break his back. It could 'Argh]'

Michaels twisted his head to see Hillman flung up into
the air. Tossed like arag doll as he connected with a
shallow ice mound at high speed.
The soldier was face down and spinning. Utterly
aware that he had been launched over a precipice that
had been masked by the undulating ground, but which
now was revealed below him to be a chasm of bottomless
terror, as he was catapulated across it.
Yet he had no way of knowing if he was going to
make it to the other side. No way of knowing if there
even was another side.
Michaels instinctively held out his hand to try and
grab Hillman, but it was a futile gesture as he rushed
into and was swallowed up by a further passageway
through the ice.

Scott careened out of control, smashing through a
shower of tiny ice crystals which cut like shattering glass.
Like a bullet from a gun he burst from the tunnel as
ahead of him stalactite upon stalactite crashed to the
ground and littered the" ice cavern like a forest of petrified,
sub-zero trees.
There was little he could do to alter his course except
roll and weave and hope. Behind him, the other members
of the party blasted out with a yelp and did their
utmost to negotiate the way ahead.
The ground shook once more, shaking free the
mighty stalactites like a volley of javelins. As each projectile
struck home, and impacts ravaged the cavern
....................................... DECIPHER 	613

floor, the way ahead was obscured by further blasts.
Frozen shrapnel made of nothing but water.
It continued in a frenzy until ultimately the cavern
floor could sustain no further damage. It opened up in
front of them all.
The team was swallowed whole.

He couldn't stop.
There was no way on earth Bob Pearce could stop.
Over the edge he tipped, down into wherever the
honeycomb of ice tunnels was suddenly redirecting
him. Down into the darkness below where the sunlight
was at last having difficulty in penetrating.
Everything seemed to funnel, in a blur, down into a
single passageway ahead.
Pearce became aware of November, sliding up next
to him amid the streaking view of ice whizzing by. When
he glanced over he struck the tunnel wall and
rebounded back out at an oblique angle.
He could feel his arm crunch painfully before he
finally shot out and bumped his way along the ground
of a mammoth ice cavern, its frozen floor a series of pits
and scoops, as if some giant of a man with a hot spoon
had helped himself to huge, rounded servings of ice.
The ground was flatter here. Indeed, his coat ripped
open and his bare skin scraped occasionally against pebbles
and flint, and sharp-edged rocks that lay strewn
through the thin ice.
He bumped to a stop, spinning around before finally
hitting his head on something solid and immovable and
ice-like...
Yet was not ice.


KUDURRU


Read, in the name of thy Lordt Who created man from
congealed blood! Read, for thy Lord is most generous!
Who taught the pen! Taught men what he did not know!


96.2-6

The Qur'an
Translated by E.H. Palmer, 1965

TIME TO SOLAR MAXIMUM:


13
	HOURS, 37 MINUTES


I

t was two feet high and needle-shaped.

A miniature version of those gigantic monuments
in Egypt that had been erected in honor of the Pharaohs.
Square of base with a pyramidal summit. It was covered
in tiny symbols, the Atlantis glyphs, which wrapped
around in one continuous ribbon.

It was warm to the touch, too. Having melted all the
ice around it, its base disappeared into the gray shingle
of solid ground beneath it. Yet the object itself appeared
like crystal, shimmering as though electricity were passing
through it at some molecular level.

It was two feet in height. And it was made from solid
Carbon 60.


'Oh, man,' Pearce groaned as he prised his head away
from the hard surface of the object, and tried to sit up.
Groggily he rubbed at his injury before realizing that


618 	STEL PAVLOU

Scott sat bolt upright nearby, staring at him. No, not
staring at him but past him.
He twisted round to see what he'd collided with. And
his jaw hung open. 'Jesus . . .'
Scott scrambled over as Pearce wiped his blood off
the object. It was difficult to clean it completely, as
some of his blood had dripped into the indented glyphs.
He licked his finger to try and help with the cleaning,
but Scott held his hand back.
'Don't,' he said gently. 'The blood helps.'
Pearce shrugged. That was not what he expected to
hear as Scott crouched down by the artifact and pulled
out his palm-top computer.
Sarah stood the other side of the cavern and rubbed
her aching bones. She had a large flashlight hung on
her belt and flipped it on, but she needn't have bothered.
'Why is it so light down here?' she wondered aloud.
November got to her feet. 'The ice is so honeycombed
with shafts,' she reasoned, 'that sunlight probably
reaches all the way down here.'
But Hackett had another idea. 'That crystal stump,'
he pointed out, 'is glowing. I bet there are others.'
'I . . . don't.., give a luck,' Matheson groaned in a
heap on the floor.
'Here,' Yun offered, helping the engineer to his feet.
Matheson eyed the man warily. 'Well, I guess you
did say you'd get us down here.'
'Wherever "here" is,' the Chinese soldier replied.
'This is not where the tunnel came out before.'
'Why am I not surprised to hear you say that?' Gant
observed as he strode past, yanking open the fastenings
on his Caribou hide parka and pulling the hood down.
'Is it me or is it unusually warm down here?'
....................................... DECIPHER 	619

Hackett took a temperature reading. 'It's warm,' he
agreed. 'About minus two.'
Suddenly there was a scraping noise and the sound
of a heavy fall echoed around the cavern. Gant spun
on his heel, growling: 'My men - where are they?' He
searched the ice with his eyes. 'Hillman? Michaels?'
They could hear a muffled voice. Solitary. Trapped
somewhere behind a thick wall of ice. It was followed
by a sharp hammering.
'Where the hell are you?' Gant yelled.
'Up there!' Yun realized quickly.
'Hillman? Is that you?'
There was another muffled response.
'What did he say?' November asked, craning her neck
to hear.
Then Gant twigged. 'He said: stand back!'
Jerking the girl. out the way he shot the others a look,
but they were already moving as semiautomatic
machine-gun fire ripped through the ice above their
heads, obliterating it into a thousand pieces. Large
chunks of the cavern ceiling suddenly gave way and
down tumbled Hillman, impacting onto the debris
below.
Stunned, the marine lay dazed for a moment before
he could even bring himself to move.
'Well,' he croaked eventually. 'That was unusual.'
Gant loomed over his underling. 'Where's Michaels?'
he demanded. 'He has the bomb.'
'He isn't here?'
'We lost him.'
'Then I have no idea, sir. None at all.'
Bob Pearce grimaced. 'Oops.'
Meanwhile, Sarah had her attention fixed on Richard


620 	STEL PAVLOU ......................


Scott. The linguist was deep, deep into something,
Something wonderful. ' i


Language, like DNA, occurred in chains and had to be
read in a certain direction. Language, also like DNA,
had start signals and an instruction code.

Language was a beast, like any other. And beasts
could be tamed, by being understood.

In the 1600s the Rosicrucians thought they understood.
A secret society of anonymous members, they
claimed to have found and used the ancient original
perfect language of mankind. Based on the work of the
infamous cabalist, Lull, they used symbols that consisted
of a circle for the sun, a crescent for the moon,
and a cross for the cardinal points. They were convinced
that these linguistic symbols write intrinsically linked to
geometry,

But they were a group who were so secret they
secreted themselves out of existence, their work reduced
to so much hearsay in the face of little evidence.

Yet here, and now, Richard Scott could say with
absolute certainty that although their so-called perfect
language was in all probability a phony, the symbolism
they had used and understood, the symbolism that had
been gleaned from mil]ennia of myth and legend, was
altogether accurate.

The circle and the cross. The sun and the cardinal
points.

These Were the start signals that had led Scott down
the road todeciphering the mysterious Atlantis instruction
code. And now, all he had to do was input a
number. A single number. The computer would do the
rest.

....................................... DECIPHER 	621


On the screen of his palm top, the computer was
already whizzing through each symbol in the chain on
the crystal in front of him. Pulling out each glyph that
corresponded to the placement of that one single
number as it repeated itself throughout the number
stream found encoded within the Carbon 60 crystals

back at CERN . . .


'What number did you choose?' Sarah asked quietly,
kneeling down beside him.

'Well, I started by trying to figure out what numbers

to reject first,' Scott told her.

'Such as?'

'The Maya, whose name means "not many" or "the
few", maybe on account of their ancestors surviving the
Great Flood, I don't know - anyway, they worshipped
the god of the number four. This was the same god who
they also used to represent the sun.'

'Wouldn't that make four a great candidate for cracking
this thing?'

'Ordinarily, yeah,' Scott agreed. Then he lowered his
voice. 'Trouble is, I can't speak Mayan too well. If that's
the language I end up having to read we're all screwed
and they brought the wrong guy along for the ride.'

Sarah wasn't taking the bait. He was in too good a

mood. 'You've cracked this thing, haven't you?'
Scott nodded. 'I think so.'
'What number did you use?'

'Seven,' the anthropologist revealed. '"And on the seventh
day God rested". I'm hoping we get to do the
same.'

His computer beeped. All calculations were complete.
Task done.



622 	STEL PAVLOU .............................

Scott and Sarah exchanged apprehensive looks before
the epigrapher commanded his computer to tell
what it had found, while the others in the group
ered together to watch.
The computer whirred. Beeped once more, before
finally stringing the necessary sound files together and
announcing in the odd lilt of Sarah Kelsey herself: - Doo- Roo . . .'
The others eyed the linguist keenly, while he
scratched his head. What did it mean?
Scott repeated the jumble of syllables to himself. 'Kah
- doo- roo.... ? Kah- doo- roo . . . ?'
And then it hit him.
'Jesus Christ!' the epigraphist yelped. 'Jesus Christ!
That's it! Kudurru! KUDUPUUt It's ancient Sumerian! It
means path-marker or boundary-marker! This is a milestone!
It's telling us what it is! We're within the city
limits! We did it! My God... we did it!'

'To hell with the path-marker,' Pearce exploded excitedly,
'what about those crystals? What about those rocks
Ralph brought back?'
Quickly Scott set the computer to work decoding the
set of glyphs it had in store already. The results were
forbidding. He read them out loud:
'Within these walls lie the powers of the heavens eternal.
A people dead. A spirit alive.
Beyond these walls lie...'
'Is that word Nazareth?' November probed quietly.
'Not Nazareth,' Scott corrected. 'Nasaru - it means
"to protect"...
'Beyond these walls lie the means to protect the sons
of sons, the daughters of daughters. The children o
....................................... DECIPHER 	623

we who were first.
Read them aloud. Spoken like thunder. For they shall
make men quake.
Read them aloud. Spoken like thunder. If you have
the means to understand.
Behind these walls sit hope and terror.
But upon these walls sit knowledge and power.
Understand them. Proclaim them. Use them!
To fail to heed instruction is to perish!
The power of zero must be set free!'


ATLANTI S


There's no secret so hidden that it cannot be found, no
voice so mute that it cannot be heard.


Dr Steven Roger Fischer,

Director of the Institute of Polynesian Languages
and Literatures, New Zealand, GLYeHB,'g, ER, 1997

CITY LIMITS


i]lichaels, come in, Michaels! Do you read me?

	IVI

		C'mon, Ray. If you can hear me, signal back.'

Hillman looked to Gant and shook his head despondently.
Wherever Michaels had ended up he was out
of radio contact. The two men signaled the rest of the
party to hold position while they scouted up ahead with
Chow Yun.

The Chinese soldier had seen something. Something
important.

Hacker watched with misgiving as they disappeared
around the curve of ice at the end of the cavern some
several hundred yards further, on, before scooting forward
on his knees to join Scott.

'Great, Scott,' he said, full of admiration. 'Y'know,
this is uh, remarkable . . . truly, truly remarkable. You
take an alphabet of sixty letters: if you write down the
number of possible word permutations you can make
out of an alphabet that size, you wind up writing a

628 	STEL PAVLOU


number with close to five or six trillion zeroes. That
would take a thousand people nearly thirty years just to
write down that kind of a number.'

'To get one word out of all these glyphs,' Pearce added
excitedly, 'a word that makes sense - is a coincidence,
but three pages of text with something like ninety-eight
percent accuracy? This, Richard, my friend, is the closest
thing I've seen to a miracle.'

November glanced up from the computer and eyed
her mentor warily. Was this for real? 'Professor, this
phrase is cropping up again. The power of zero must be
set free. The power of zero? A big fat nothing?'

Scott shrugged. 'I told you it didn't make any sense.'
To the epigraphist maybe it didn't. But to the physicist
among them it sparked a deep-seated sense of curiosity.
'The power of zero must be set free,' Hacker
repeated studiously. 'Does it mention any more about
this zero?'

'Like what?'

'Does it say what kind of zero should be set free?'

'Ion,' Sarah said, suspiciously, 'nothing is nothing.
There is only one kind of zero.'

'No,' Hackett corrected. 'There's not.'


Scott turned squarely on the man. 'What are you thinking?'

'Find
me anything that might be an attempt to define

zero.'

Scott reluctantly started trawling back through all his
hurriedly scribbled notes and text documents on his
computer. 'This doesn't make any sense,' he complained.
'This is a nonsense, a riddle.' He ran his finger
along the text until he found what he was looking for.

....................................... DECIPHER 	629


'Uh, here, see? Unleash the power of zero. The spirit of
nothing which is in all things. Nothing is everything.
Zero power--'

'Stop right there,' Hackett begged, holding out his
hand, looking Scott right in the eye. 'Right there. That's
it. That's our power source. That's what our damn satellites
have been picking up all this time. What lit up the
eyes of the military and Rola Corp. The Holy Grail of
fuels. Clean - free - power.'

'This makes sense to you?'

'Absolute sense,' the physicist replied. 'It's called zero
point energy. Literally... something from nothing.'


'You see, scientists in the nineteenth century believed
in the existence of a substance called "ether",' Hackett
explained, 'a material that occurred throughout the universe,
a material that explained the wave propagation
of light. Two guys, Michelson and Morley, did this
famous experiment to try and detect this "ether" and
failed. It's not important you understand what they did.
It's just important you know scientists have been looking
for this mysterious stuff for a long time.'

The rest of the group took him at his word.

'They thought they'd pick up some kind of "ether
wind" as a result of the earth passing through this stuff.
Einstein seized on the fact this experiment failed in
order to support his special theory of relativity, the cornerstone
of modern physics. Einstein maintained that
space was truly empty, but his mathematics in turn
led to the development and use of quantum mechanics.
And in the ultimate circular argument, in the
1930s, quantum mechanics wound up creating a mathematical
term for describing the' ground state of any



630 	STEL PAVLOU ....................

oscillating system and called it Zero Point Energy. The
"zero point" referred to the temperature: zero degrees
Kelvin.'
'Which means what, exactly?' Sarah wanted to know.
Matheson, who was vaguely familiar with the term,
answered on Hackett's behalf. 'It means energy exists
even in the absence of heat. Energy is inherent in the
fabric of space itself.'
'It gets better,' Hackett beamed. 'The energy density,
the sheer volume of stored zero point energy ready and
waiting to be tapped at any point in space, is infinite.'
'You have got to be kidding.'
Hacker shook his head. 'Believe me, many basic
arguments in quantum mechanics do not work, unless
zero point energy exists. Dirac first showed how electronTpositron
production could arise from vacuum
fluctuations, and wound up inventing quantum electrodynamics.
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
calls for quantum mechanical systems to "borrow"
energy from this zero point of electrical flux. Boyer
used the Lorentz invariance to determine zero point
energy as a function of frequency and--'
'Jon, what are you telling us?' Pearce asked, cutting
the physicist dead.
'If you can figure out how to tap into it and unleash
the power of zero,' he explained, 'you'll be tapping into
God's own private generator. That's more power that
you can possibly imagine.' He jerked a thumb in Gant's
estimated direction. 'It makes the power of that bomb
they're out searching for look like a fart in the wind.
'If that's what's down here, if that's what they picked
up on satellite, a machine that has tapped into zero
point energy, I'm telling you now that shutting it off by
....................................... DECIPHER 	63"i

blowing it up is not a way we want to go. Zero point
energy is the raw power of the universe. If you want to
shut off a faucet you twist the top, you don't knock off
the tap head with a sledge hammer.
'If Gant blows up this machine, we're talking major
fucking devastation, folks. He could wind up wiping
out this entire solar system.'
Hackett went quiet as the others picked over the
implications.
'What kind of a machine are we talking about here?'
Matheson stepped up to the plate in response. 'Nikola
Tesla, back in the 1890s, was convinced it was possible
to make an electrical motor that was completely wirefre,
that tapped into what he called "the energy of
nature". He claimed this energy could be accessed at
very high frequencies. In fact, he eventually built a
motor that had only one wire, but had no return circuit.
The return circuit, he said, was being transmitted
wire-lessly through space.'
'Sounds like he was on the right track,' Sarah
enthused.
'He was on the right track about a lot of things,'
Matheson said warmly. 'Tesla invented alternating current
and radio, radar and--'
'Wait a minute,' Hackett interjected, deep in thought.
'Alternating current. That couldn't be invented without
his inventing the electrical induction motor, right? A
rotating magnetic field.'
'Right,' Matheson agreed happily.
'The South Pole,' Hackett pointed out, 'is one end
of a rotating bar magnet in space.'
'The South Pole,' Matheson added, 'is also notorious
for having the greatest concentration of low pressure



632 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

weather fronts. Tesla discovered that gases at a reduced
pressure become extremely conductive. It's the same
principle whereby strip neon lighting works.'
'Wait a minute,' Pearce chipped in. 'Didn't you once
tell me super-conductors and semi-conductors, the
components used in computing and high end science,
work best at extremely low temperatures?'
'Right,' Hacker agreed. 'And what better place to
build your machine than here.'
'This whole place,' November reasoned, stunned,
'this whole place was chosen because the environment
completely matches the requirements of this machine?'
'Not just this machine,' Hacker replied. 'But the prerequisites
you need to be able to tap into zero point
energy.' He took a pen and started scratching out a plan
in the ice. 'This is what we think Atlantis looks like,
right? Three huge concentric rings, many kilometers
around, correct?'
The others nodded.
'Well, what the hell do you think the particle accelerator
at CERN was?'
'Ion,' Scott warned, 'you're about eight steps ahead of
us. More in my case because I just took a couple back.'
'Richard,' Hackett concluded, 'I think Ralph here was
correct with his initial assessment. I think maybe the entire city of Atlantis is one huge machine, if its purpose
is to tap into zero point energy.'

Hackett continued to sketch the layout of Atlantis as
detected by the satellites, in the ice.
'Three concentric rings of Carbon 60, with two rings
of water sandwiched inbetween, and a column of plasma
coming down the center to connect it all together...
....................................... DECIPHER 	633

It all makes sense.' He confronted the others. 'There are
a number of theories floating around on how to tap into
zero point energy. One is Ion Acoustic Oscillation - the
coherent oscillation of nuclei in a plasma, like say a solar
storm. The theory goes that if the nuclei of the plasma
can be caused to oscillate, the plasma will produce heat
- more heat than the amount of energy taken to produce
the plasma, which isn't allowed under the current
laws of physics. Take it one step further and the theory
says you can do the same thing with solid crystals.
'Chemetskii, a Russian plasma physicist, claimed in
the 1990s to have tapped zero point energy with plasma
too. But his method was to get the plasma particles to
undergo a cycloid motion. To go round and round in circles. He created a vortex ring plasmoid in the lab you
might know it under its other name -. ball lightning.
But you construct a device on a large-enough scale
to create this ring in a controlled manner, like say
through a particle accelerator - and you stand a damn
good chance of harnessing the resulting power.' Hackett
guided his pen around his ice map showing where the
plasma might be being directed.
'The same theory hypothesizes it may also be possible
to induce this cycloid motion within the nuclei of
solid state magnetic materials. You'd wind up getting a
solid object to pulse out acoustical waves of free energy.
It particularly theorizes that crystal would be good for
this.'
Hackett again guided his pen around the circles in
the ice, this time directing everybody's attention to the
Carbon 60 circles.
'However, Schauberger, who works on water vortices,
found that when he forced water through specially



634 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

shaped spiraling tubes it induced an energy anomaly a
bluish glow in the center of the vortex,' Hackett said,
drawing their attention finally to the rings of water.
'We have all three of those experiments going on
right here, simultaneously. These people weren't leaving
anything to chance.'
'I heard about this engineer building a machine that
may have tapped zero point energy,' Matheson told
them. 'Jim Griggs - yeah, that was his name. An engineer
in Georgia. Invented this pump that turns cold
water into steam without heat.'
'That's impossible,' November objected. 'I live in the
South. I never heard of that.'
'The story goes he was doing some plumbing and
found a cold-water pipe giving off steam because there
was a shock wave in the pipe. So he built a device to
reproduce these effects. He had this drum and drilled
lots of different-sized holes all over it. Then he put the
drum inside a large tube, then when the water was
pumped in he rotated the inner drum. Millions of shock
waves superheated the water. It worked so well NASA
has it now. They've been studying it for ten years. Can't
find a thing wrong with it. And they get more energy
out than they put in.'
'Water has the best potential for energy,' Sarah
agreed. 'On its own it's harmless, but it's made up of
hydrogen and oxygen - two of the most explosive elements
there are.'
'I know the military have been testing an electric
gun,' Pearee revealed. 'They used water as the projectile
instead of a bullet. Shot a thimblefull at a threequarterinch
aluminum plate. It cut straight through it
like a laser, using more energy than they put in.'
....................................... DECIPHER 	635

'A cubic inch of space,' Hackett reiterated, 'is filled
with so much zero point energy it would run the world
for a billion years.'
'Tapping this zero point energy,' Scott observed,
'everything seems to depend on rotating or spinning
something. We're at the South Pole, the bottom of the
earth - the axis on which this whole planet revolves.
Does that make a difference?'
'Oh, yeah,' Hackett agreed coldly. 'A whole world of
difference. Laithwaite, a gyroscope physicist, noted that
a precessing gyroscope that was displaced along a
cycloid path would show signs of inertial and/or a gravitational
anomaly if it came into contact with zero point
energy.' He let the words sink in. 'Precessing means
basically "wobbling". That's what earth does. The fact
that it spins means it's a gyroscope, but it's also moving
in a cycloid motion - orbiting the sun. And it's wobbling
about its axis. The wobble takes 26,000 years to
do a complete cycle. It's why thousands of years ago
constellations like Orion were in a different position in
the sky and the Pole Star used to be a different star. It
used to be Draco - associated with Lucifer, the Fallen
One.'
'A gravitational anomaly?' Pearce asked excitedly.
'Like maybe anti-gravity? An anti-gravity wave, shielding
the earth from the sun?'
'Bob, I like you, but I wouldn't want to see you working
with sub-atomic particles. You can't shield the earth
from gravity,' Hackett said, dismissive. 'It doesn't work
like that. You can shield against light, electricity, magnetism.
You can shield against all that. But you can't
shield against gravity. It's not like you can create an antigravity
wave to cancel the other wave out.'


636 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


'Are you sure about that?' Sarah asked provocatively.
'Nope,' Hackett retorted without missing a beat.
'Besides, the effects Laithwaite described were time
related. The pace of time would be altered closer to the
anomaly.'

'Oh shit, talk about being caught between a rock and
a hard place. Destroy the machine and we die,' Pearce
said. 'Do nothing while the sun goes ballistic - and we
still die. Unless we do as the writing says, of course.
Follow the instructions and unleash the power of zero.'

'That's a lot of power to be tapping into,' Sarah sighed.
'God's own power station. What does Atlantis want it
for? You don't just tap into a vast reservoir of energy
because you can. You do it because you want to use it
for something. What?'

'Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet . . . Then
came flashes of lightning, peals of thunder and an earthquake
and violent hail.'

They all turned their attention on November. She
was deep in thought, recalling her Scripture. She let
her voice grow stronger and more resonant.

'I heard a sound coming out of the heavens,' she said.
'Like the sound of the ocean or the roar of thunder...
And I saw in heaven another sign, great and wonderful
. . . I seemed to be looking at a sea of crystal suffused
with fire . . .' She smiled, knowing she had their complete
attention. 'The Book of Revelation,',she said. 'The
sea appeared frozen like crystal - like my glass of Coke
back in the lab, remember?'


'My God, is that it?' Matheson asked anxiously. 'Gould
that be it? All those sonic streams pumping acoustic
waves around the oceans of the planet. It only takes a

....................................... DECIPHER 	637


frequency shift to start producing standing waves. To
start turning the ocean into one giant quasicrystal.'

Hackett held his hand up as he chewed over the
theory rapidly. He couldn't see a problem. 'It might be,'
he said quietly. 'It might just be. You can't protect against
a gravity wave per se. But you can take safety precautions.
You want to protect an egg? You put it.in an eggbox.
You want to stop a flood? You want to stop the seas
from swilling around and spilling all over the continents?
You freeze the ocean.'

'What about the mantle?' Sarah asked.

Scott was nodding. 'That's right. Earth crust displacement.
The entire surface of the earth was made
to slide acrossthe liquid inner molten core.'

'Well, who's to say they didn't think of that, and that
these quasicrystal waves aren't being pumped into the
earth's core as well?' November offered. 'Make the entire
planet one huge solid object for one brief moment.'

'It's zero point energy,' Scott agreed. 'It's not like
Atlantis needs to worry about where all the energy is
gonna come from. It's already been tapped.'

Pearce gave November the most admiring look. 'You,
young lady, might be a genius.'

November blushed a thank you.

'The only problem I have,' Hackett pointed out, 'is
that if you pump that much energy into a system, where
does it all go afterwards? It doesn't just disappear; it has
to be removed somehow. That much energy unleashed
into a system would wind up causing as much damage
as the gravity wave in the first place.'

Sarah shifted on her haunches, aware that the answer
was within her grasp. 'Of course . . .' she whispered.
'The pyramids!'



638 	STEL PAVLOU 	.......................

'That was mechanical too,' Matheson realized. 'Sarah - you're right!'
Hackett wanted further explanation. Everyone could
read it in his eyes.
'There was an earthquake in central Africa,' Sarah
explained, 'remember? Just before I entered the tunnels
under the pyramids in Egypt. Somehow the seismic
energy was turned into light and some kind.of electromagnetic
pulse. This energy pulse wound up being circulated
around the Giza system before the pyramids
shot the energy off up into space.' 'The
pyramids,' Matheson enthused, 'are release
valves! Like on a pressure cooker.'
'Egypt wouldn't be enough,' Hackett said. 'You'd need more.'
'Try the Amazon,' Sarah replied confidently. 'And
China. There are pyramids and ancient sites all over
this planet.'
'We're not just talking about a machine the size of
a city,' Matheson gasped. 'We're talking about a machine
that covers the entire surface of the earth!'
'And maybe Atlantis is in stand-by mode,' Scott
added. 'Maybe the sun's gravity waves alerted the city
to a new danger. They woke it up. Maybe it was built
to help us. We don't have to shut it off, we have to
figure out what to do with it!'

Yun could see the remote gun emplacement up ahead.
It was laid on its side, smashed up and buckled, a
twisted heap of barely reusable parts. Yun broke into a
run, heading around the curve of the wide ice passage
before being brought up short by Gant.
'Easy there,' the Major warned darkly, eyeing the
....................................... DECIPHER 	639

machine gun lying just a few feet away. 'Don't want
you getting any ideas now, do we?'
'You don't understand,' Yun explained, as Gant
ordered Hillman to inspect the hardware. 'This was
where I left the rest of my party.'
'Leading us into a trap, huh? Seems someone beat
you to it.'
Hillman threw a chunk of debris back down as he
stood. 'Totally destroyed, sir.'
'Fire fight?'
'Uh-uh.' The marine tapped the wreckage with his
boot. 'Claw marks.'
Gant was forced to do a double-take. Sure enough,
three thick gouges had cut into the black gunmetal.
Deep and even.
'This is where the spirits attacked,' Yun gulped, surveying
the passage ahead with dread.
Gant had been expecting this. 'The Golems.'
'Call them what you will.'
And then the Chinese soldier's breath caught in his
throat as a chill wind swept through the passage, accompanied
by a deep rumbling yawn of a noise, like distant
beasts awakening from a slumber.
Yun twisted his head sharply. 'They're here . . .'



TIME TO SOLAR MAXIMUM:
10 HOURS, 13 MINUTES

S

arah could feel the hairs on the back of her neck
stand on end. For a moment she thought she was
back in the tunnels under the pyramids at Giza.
'I know that noise,' she said fearfully. 'We've got company.'
And
that's when Scott's radio chirped into life.
'Pack up your stuff. Do your thing on the move, Doc,'
Gant ordered. 'We gotta get moving.'
There were no arguments from the rest of the team.
Bob Pearce was the next fo feel it, followed swiftly by
the others. The air around them was being filled with
some kind of electrifying force. Instinctively they all
knew that not only were they not alone - they were
being watched.

They filled Gant in on their theory on the hoof, a double
march with guns drawn: Gant at the front, Hillman
bringing up the rear. Nobody wanted to stick around.
....................................... DECIPHER 	641

Pearce concluded his explanation which Gant took
in quietly, never asking a question unless absolutely necessary
and never poking holes. Constantly on alert.
Constantly keeping a keen eye on the pathway ahead.
Gant waited for Pearce to finish explaining the team's
theory before responding to it.
'Nice job,' he commented. 'Very thorough reasoning.'
'Thank
you.'
'I just have one question though.'
'What's that?'
'Well, if that's why they built Atlantis... why didn't
it work?' Pearce was stunned as Gant continued: 'The
earth's crust was displaced. The earth was flooded.
Right?'
Scott clamped his eyes shut and shook his head.
Goddamnit, none of them had even thought of that.
Just why didn't Atlantis save the earth last time around?
'I mean, what you've said makes sense,' Gant agreed,
'but did it ever occur to you that what you described
is what these people who built Atlantis had intended, but it backfired. Wound up creating more harm than
good?'
'Anything's possible,' Pearce conceded. 'Sure, but'
'But nothing,' Gant shot back. 'If ever there was a
better reason to find Michaels and retrieve that bomb - that was it.'
Pearce glanced back over his shoulder at the others.
Hackett shrugged in response. 'The only marine in the
whole outfit who knows how to think and we gotta have
him.'
Sarah nudged the physicist to be quiet, clearly feeling
jumpy.



642 	STEL PAVLOU ......................................

'I know,' November sympathized. 'I feel it too. This
is spooky.'
The walls of the passage through the ice were odd
looking too, which didn't help. They weren't weatherworn
and eroded like the ice up on the surface. Here
it seemed flatter, more angular-looking. It was a feature
which had been puzzling Matheson for some time. So
when he couldn't resist any longer, the engineer finally
took a chance and stepped out of line to make a closer
inspection.
Sure enough the ice was translucent. Thinner, like
it was covering something within. Something warmer
which was melting the ice and causing it to develop
this glassy texture.
Taking the small pick that dangled from his belt,
Matheson chipped away at the ice. Nothing major, but
enough. It didn't take long to get a result and he was
surprised when a smooth fiat sheet of the stuff came
crumbling away to expose the hard, glyph-laden surface
of a structure made entirely from Carbon 60.
'Well, I'll be darned.'
A few feet further on down the passage and there was
a darker patch of ice, like it blocked the way to a recess
or maybe even an entire other passage.
Matheson couldn't believe his luck.
The others were a few paces ahead of him now,
moving on swiftly. He called after them: 'Hey! Hey, wait
up! I found something! I think we're there!'
But Hillman was the only one who even bothered
to glance back as Matheson raised his pick. 'We know,
Ralph,' the marine snapped. 'But we gotta get to a safer
area. Yun thinks we're in trouble here, and I tend to
agree with him. Now c'mon!'
....................................... DECIPHER 	643

Reluctantly Matheson lowered his pick and pulled
himself away from his glorious find. Completely unaware
that behind the dark ice, a pale ethereal-looking face,
blurred by the window of frozen water, had moved up
to within inches of the engineer to peer out at him.
And blinked . . .

The passage was opening out into a larger area.
Cavernous, but by no means a cavern. A cavern
implied an enclosure, a large but confined space.
Whereas the roof on this thing seemed to go on for
ever. It arched up in a glistening white curve behind
them and continued to climb off, up into a greater
unseen expanse beyond. For ahead of them! blocking
their entire path, stood a 50-foot high sheer cliff-face of
ice that stretched across from one end of the cavern to
the other.
Leading up to the sheer cliff were columns and
columns of ice stacks, stalactites and stalagmites. All
manner of warped and bizarrely shaped ice sculptures
from the relentless build-up of frozen precipitation. Like
pillars of salt, or anemic trees, they were made to look
even stranger by the fact that the exposed shingle that
led in patches all the wa3) up to the cliff had started to
support colonies of lush green moss and lichen.
The party moved in closer and realized the top of
the cliff was flattened off because beneath all that ice
lay a real structure, one so vast that it beggared belief,
but a structure nonetheless that, just like the kudurru, glowed.
Light energy pulsed along it, blurred as it was beneath
thick layers of frozen water. But as it pulsed so too did
it reveal its very nature.


644 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


Like the battlements of some great medieval castle
the vast fortress-like outer wall of the City of Atlantis
stood before them, shimmering relentlessly. Vast
swatches of detail seemed to come and go in fleeting
bursts. Patches of swirling spiral-patterned glyphs were
revealed. Great arches of inner design, almost Gothic.
A whiff of temple.

Its foundations were solid. Its imposing stature
unchallenged; in its very center stood its vast and glorious
gates, some 20 feet high. And firmly shut tight.


'Oh, man!' Matheson exclaimed, running his fingers
through his icy beard.

His words echoed across the void of the chamber
before anyone realized that they were quickly being
swallowed, whole by the sound of rushing water, just
out of reach. Just over the other side of the mesmerizing
city wall.

Scott had his hand cupped over his mouth in wonder,
but swiftly composed himself when he noticed Gant
and Hillman. The two marines were completely
unmoved by the sight, focused instead upon the sense
of impending danger.

The rest of the team however couldn't shake their
feelings of reverential wonder, even reducing their
voices to hushed tones.

'My God,' November breathed. 'Is this really it?'

'Atlantis!' Pearce said huskily, coming up next to her.
'Just as I saw it.'

But the military men would have none of it.

'C'mon,' Gant ordered, checking his watch. 'We
don't have much time.'

....................................... DECIPHER 	645


'I wonder if this is how Schliemann felt when he discovered
Troy?' Scott murmured as they all marched on
toward the towering gates before them.

'Not like this,' Sarah responded, acutely aware something
was wrong.

'I can assure you at any rate,' Hackett commented
dryly, eyeing Matheson in the process, 'that his defining
moment wasn't crowned by the immortal words:
"Oh man!".'

But the engineer wasn't biting.

'I don'.t like this,' Hillman kept repeating, over and
over as they edged closer to the city wall. 'I don't like
this at all.'

Gant eyed Yun, who appeared to be growing increasingly
agitated, saying: 'That's just your imagination.' But
he knew, like the rest of them, that it was not.

Only Matheson seemed to be in such genuine awe
of the place that he was oblivious to any danger.

The gates loomed large and grandiose. Expansive and
forbidding in their stature. And as they drew closer everyone
started to feel tingles across their skin, a palpable
sense of gooseflesh.

It was almost like this place was alive.

Pearce eyed the gates. 'What do we do?'

Hackett assessed the situation objectively. 'Try the
handle?' he suggested sincerely.

The CIA agent did so. 'Locked.'

'Great,' Hacker complained. 'Anyone see a doormat
around here? Maybe they left a key.'

But before anyone could retort, they noticed that
Matheson had wandered off. 'Ralph,' Sarah growled.
'What the hell are you doing?'

The engineer was moving down the length of the


646 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


wall, eyeing the light show and testing out the ice with
his pick. Behind him, Hillman was constantly spinning
on his heel, reacting to strange noises that were echoing
throughout the chamber. Sporadic chunks of ice
were collapsing down from the cavern rooftop and
crashing to the ground.

'This is bad, man,' Hillman kept saying. Whipping
himself into a frenzy of anxiety. 'This is really bad.'

'Hillman!' Gant barked. 'Calm the fuck down!' He
shot Yun a look. 'This what happened before?'

Yun nodded. 'Uncontrollable fear - and then they
attacked.'

'Ralph!' Sarah exclaimed.

'It's okay,' the engineer told her. He swung his pick
and carved out a sizable chunk of frozen covering. He
grinned as he pulled it away and laid his hand on the
smooth surface of the wall beneath. 'It's warm,' he said,
surprised. 'It's really warm.' He put his ear to the wall.
'And it's vibrating,' he said, breathless and awestruck. 'I
can feel it.'


When Euler mathematically proved how a sine curve
not only affected a plucked violin string, but a twodimensional
surface like a drum skin, the wave equation
was born. A mathematical tool that was used in
everything from electricity and magnetism to fluid
dynamics and sonics.

'Sound has all sorts of effects on the human psyche,'
Hackett commented in a barely audible whisper. 'Music
is innately mathematical, from one instrument to a complex
arrangement of instruments in a whole orchestra. It
can make us smile, laugh, cry. Mongolian and Tibetan
overtone chants are even said to heal the sick. Maybe

....................................... DECIPHER 	647


the vibrations being produced by this crystal were
designed to induce this intense terror we're feeling, as
some kind of warning at an instinctive level.'

'Oh yeah?' Sarah said sarcastically. 'Well, it worked.'
'What about this vibration you said the crystal would
be using to tap this zero point energy?' Pearce asked,
hanging back with the others. Obviously unwilling to
go anywhere near where Matheson had decided to work.

'A crystal has a multitude of vibration modes,' Hackett
said reflectively. 'There's no reason why it can't be doing
both at the same time.' He turned to Scott but found
him busily engaged in something which seemed frankly
puzzling.

'Trying to figure out how to pick a lock?'

'I would,' Scott replied, indicating the gates. 'But
there's no keyhole - see?'

More gigantic ice columns tumbled to the ground
at the far end of the cavern, to which Hillman reacted
fast by swinging his gun up and taking aim, his eyes all
a-frenzy. But as it turned out, he was facing entirely the
wrong direction if he wanted to protect the group.


Ralph Matheson made his way down the wall, stood
back and noticed some more of those curious darker
patches in the ice. Eagerly he began to chip away, convinced
that he was onto something. Perhaps he'd even
found a side entrance. Two well-placed blows and he'd
broken through . . .

The cavity beyond was dark and odd-smelling. He
plunged his arm deep into it and swung his pick,
whacking through the ice in several sweeping gestures.
Eventually he cleared a large enough area that he could
peer through to the other side - and was startled to



648 	STEL PAVLOU .............................

come face to face with some kind of crystal statue.
'Jesus!' He stumbled back.
The others looked over to see what the crazed engineer
was up to this time, and wished they hadn't.
For the statue was mutating. Changing shape and.
contorting itself until it had twisted into the familiar
face of an old Rola Corp. employee. Shorter and stockier
than Ralph Matheson, the Golem opened its eyes,
produced a crystal cigar and took a fake puff.
'Good to see you again, Ralph,' the statue belched
forth in an odd mechanical imitation of lack Bulger.
'It's been a long time.'
GOLEM

THE NANOSWARM

He who fights with monsters should look to it that he
himself does not become a monster... When you gaze
long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you . . .



Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844--1900
CHAIN REACTION


i


M

atheson didn't think first. His response was swift
and instinctive. He raised his gun, an instrument
of power he'd derided his whole life, and pumped as
much lead into the effigy of Jack Bulger as he could.
Screaming in absolute terror as he did so.

The Golem punched another hole in the ice and
attempted to grapple the weapon off of the engineer.
'Come now, Ralph,' it said calmly. 'Is that any way to
treat an old friend? Tell me something, how is Wendy?'
It swung again.

Suddenly, either side of the main gates and all along
the main city wall at evenly spaced intervals, crystal
arms and legs started kicking and punching their way
through the ice in an effort to get at the team. Ten, fifteen,
maybe even twenty further Golems shattered the
ice in a bid to escape their confines.

The so-called Guardians from myth and legend had
awoken in earnest.

652 	STEL PAVLOU 	; ...........


Hillman gave a belly-wrenching scream as he loosed
volley after volley from his machine gun. But it was to
no avail. Most bullets simply bounced right offthe creatures.
And those bullets that plowed straight through
appeared to have even less of an effect.

'Now would be a really great time to get these gates
open!' Hackett shrieked at Scott.

But the epigraphist simply shot him a look of pure
rage and contempt. 'Do you see a way to open these
things?' Then he went for his own gun and let off a
couple of covering rounds allowing Matheson to back
up and retreat.

Jack Bulger shuddered under the impact but kept
going. He was becoming increasingly irritated; eventually
the crystal effigy produced a crystal gun and loaded
in a crystal bulletl He took aim, as ice exploded all
around him and other Golems came up behind. But
just as he was about to fire, he saw Sarah and stopped
dead.

'My, my... the pretty one,' he said.

Sarah glared across the gulf of ice that stood between
them, stunned by the bizarre sight, but composed
enough to respond. 'Hello Jack, I thought you were in
the Amazon,' she said. 'I thought you were dead.'

The effigy faltered. Contemplating the comment. As
though it really were Jack Bulger, it seemed confused.
'I... I am everywhere.., now,' was all it managed to
say.

Scott picked up on the cue. Was it possible to reason
with these things? Were they sentient? He was about to
try and find out when the expression on the Golem's
face suddenly darkened.

And it fired.

....................................... DECIPHER 	653


The bullet ripped through the top of Sarah's left shoulder,
exploding out the back and sending a grisly spray
of blood up Scott's face.

She collapsed heavily, her backpack catching on the
pick hanging from Scott's belt. The material ripped
open and the entire contents of the pack spilled out as
Scott made a move to catch her. He knelt down instinctively
and cradled her, while across the floor rolled a
collection of artifacts - the strange objects she had discovered
under the pyramids in Giza and had forgotten
all about.

'Oh my God, no!' Yun screamed, as if teetering on
the edge of sanity. For coming up beside Jack was a
pretty, petite Oriental girl who was also disturbingly
constructed from blue crystal. The manifestation of a
billion molecule-sized nanoes working as a single
entity.

She smiled. 'Chow,' she said. 'You've come back to
me.'

Hackett stepped protectively in front of the distraught
man, asking: 'So this is Yan Ning. Pleased to meet you,
Miss Ning.'

'How the fuck are they doing this?' Matheson bellowed
as Sarah wept in agony at his feet. 'Are they reading
our minds?'

'Don't you know your scripture?' November said with
chattering teeth as the Golems closed in. '"On the Day
of Judgment, the dead shall also walk the earth".'

'That's fine, if all they want to do is walk,' Hackett
replied, 'But this bunch seem intent on killing us.'

Gant's clip was spent. He pulled out another but like
the first it was empty. 'Fuck!' He went for his pistol.


654 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


Fired shot after ineffectual shot until the damn thing
went - click!

And that was when they all realized. They were surrounded.

FRONT
LINE


ANTARCTICA



W

hen Corporal Peter 'Squeeze' Barton drove the
Rasit ground surveillance radar up to the prow
of the ridge at Havola Escarpment he didn't expect to
have to call the Truman so soon. But call he did.

As feared, a massive column of Chinese forces had
moved up past the Forrestal, Neptune and Patuxent
Ranges and were now 50 kilometers out of Mount
Tolchin and headed on their way toward Mount
McKelvey. It was there, around King Peak and the Thiel
Mountains that the major encampment of Chinese reinforcements
was building up.

The Chinese were as aware of the catastrophic natural
disasters befalling America as the people of America
themselves. So the feeling of the Top Brass was clear:
push on and let the Chinese know that America was
still a force to be reckoned with.

To the west, just outside of ]ung Chang, the US
already had ground troops massing at Hart Hills, while


656 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

a column of tanks and heavy artillery was steadily rolling
through the Ohio Range to the north. At the AmundsenScott
station on the South Pole, the airstrip was being
used to ferry in further forces and the whole battlefield
was shaping up nicely to form a three-way pincer movement
on Mount McKelvey.
At sea, a barrage of Tomahawk cruise missiles had
been made ready with first-strike capabilities predicted
on a possible simultaneous launch of between 200 and
250 cruise missiles in the initial wave. This did not take
into account any of the air defenses, which were formidable.
The
Chinese, however, were no sitting ducks and it
was estimated that their response/first-strike capabilities
were similarly immense.
But the United States wanted the upper hand and
issued a direct challenge to the Chinese. It was clear
and simple: Do not move on lung Chang. Our forces
are inspecting your facility. Any advance of troop positions
will be taken as an act of aggression.
There had been no reply.
Which was what brought Squeeze Barton and his
crew out to Havola Escarpment in the first place. To
monitor Chinese activity and ground-troop movements.
He'd tried calling home on the satellite up-link and
was worried sick about his wife and kids back home in
Philadelphia, but he hadn't managed to get through.
And by the time lines did free up he was constantly
having to make reports back to Dower aboard the Truman.
Barton was handed another round of data before
being invited by his men to come take a look at something.
Bulky in his polar gear, he clambered over the
....................................... DECIPHER 	657

seat to the nerve center behind, to the array of consoles
and main boards that operated the dishes and aerials
on the roof. On the scopes - there was movement. And
it wasn't American.
Having come up the Hercules Inlet and sat behind
the Ellsworth Mountains, a massive column of Chinese
heavy artillery had gathered and waited before splitting
into two phalanxes. Emerging slowly, the first detachment
was travelling east around Heritage Range and
was moving to within shelling distance of Hart Hills.
While the second unit was moving west, emerging from
behind Sentinel Range and moving to within shelling
distance of two US communications bases: Ski-Hi or
Eights Station, and Siple.
Cutting those stations would cause severe communications
problems to any elements of the fleet that were still moving through the Bellinghausen Sea, and would
hamper any air cover that would have been used to protect
the ground troops at Hart Hills.
As a result of this move America's ground troops were
vulnerable, caught between two sledgehammers.
Should the communications bases fall, America's forces
would be forced to retreat and risk losing the AmundsenScott
base entirely.
It forced the Top Brass into a corner and a quick
decision. Maybe it was time to bring the strike on Mount
McKelvey forward. Even though it would mean sending
their men into a war zone they had had little time
to scout.
But China had moved her pieces.
And it warranted a response.



KEY DECISION

S

cott gulped.
He could see the curved and twisted Atlantis
glyphs stretched across the surface brows of each individual
Golem. Petrified, he eyed the advancing
automatons, as he gently cradled Sarah, bleeding in
his arms.
He shifted on his knees as the Golems lumbered forward,
accidentally knocking one of the artifacts that lay
scattered on the ground and sending it spinning across
the ice to come to rest a few feet away.
And that's When the closest Golem reacted.
It spotted the artifact - and hesitated.
Hesitated long enough for Scott to pick up on it. He
locked eyes with the thing as Sarah groaned and he
stroked her hair. 'Honey, what are those things you
brought back from Egypt?'
Sarah tried to focus. On the verge of passing out, she
said: 'What things?'
....................................... DECIPHER 	659

The rest of the group huddled closer together, having
long since run out of ammunition.
'Jesus! Fuck, man! Fuck[' Hillman shrieked, going
out of his mind and leading the panic.
Only Scott seemed to have the presence of mind to
deal with the situation. Still eyeing the Golem, he tilted
Sarah's face and directed her gaze at the cylindrical
stone-like tube artifacts that had tumbled from her pack.
There were four altogether, and they were all, by and
large, identical.
Scott leaned forward and snatched one of them up.
'What is this?' he asked her.
'I'd forgotten about those,' she gasped, biting her lip
with the pain. 'I don't know. I was hoping we'd all find
out.., together.' She pointed at the Golems. 'Look.'
For the Guardians had come to an abrupt halt,
Even the one who was in the middle of swinging a
clawed hand at Hillman. Its fist froze just inches from
the marine's throat.
Hillman took the opportunity of getting the hell out
the way.
The Golem lowered its arm. And like its counterparts,
awaited the next move.

'What did you do?' Hackett asked quietly out the corner
of his mouth.
'I don't know,' came Scott's amazed reply. Gently he
- moved Sarah to one side and got to his feet, brandishing
the tubular artifact like a weapon. 'I just picked up
one of these.'
That was all the prompting Hillman needed. He
scrabbled around on the floor and snatched one up for
himself. Swinging it at the Golems closest to him, the


660 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


marine watched with satisfaction as they took a couple
of precautionary steps back. 'Not so tough now, huh,
big guy?'

'Amen to that,' his superior agreed, getting one of his
own. 'What are these things, Professor?'

Pearce collected the last of the artifacts and studied
it along with Matheson while Scott turned his over in
his hand. 'I have no idea.'

Scott could feel the device quivering in his hand,
like an electric razor, or a pager set to vibrate. He ran
it through his fingers while he read the glyphs again
etched on the faces of the Golems. Of course - he
remembered now! 'A sacred word is carved into the face
of the Golem,' he quoted aloud. 'By removing that
sacred word you deactivate the monster.'

On a hunch he held his hand out in front of the
device.

Immediately he could feel his hand tightening, as
though it were freezing. Crystallizing. He was about to
announce his proposal when he realized that Pearce
was trying to jam his device into what he considered to
be the lock mechanism of the main gates.

It was entirely the wrong thing to do, for it alerted
the Golems to the fact that the intruders didn't know
what to do with these things.

Hurriedly Scott stepped forward. 'No!' he bellowed,

raising the device to his mouth like a microphone.
The Golems came thundering to a halt.

Hackett was perplexed. 'Cute,' he mused. 'But I don't
think now's really the time for a sing-a-long. Besides,
look at 'em. They don't got rhythm.'

'This is the key to opening the gates,' Scott revealed.
'You speak into it.'

....................................... DECIPHER 	661


'What are you gonna do? Turn around and shout
Open Sesame?'

Scott shrugged without a hint of irony. 'The myth
had to come from somewhere.' Fhen he spun on his
heel to face the doors, pulled the device up to his mouth
and in clear ancient Sumerian pronounced: 'Doors,
open!'

There was a clank, loud and laborious. The sound
of lock mechanisms disengaging, of hinges and counterweights
swinging into action as slowly the main gates
to the City of Atlantis swung open.


'Everyone, inside - now!' Gant barked. 'Move!'

The team shot through the opening as fast as their
legs could carry them, not giving a thought to what
might lie beyond.

Sarah stifled a scream as they dragged her inside, and
welled up with a flood of snot and tears. When Scott
was sure she was safe he spun back around to face the
waiting Golems who stood just over the threshold - and
stared at them.

He held the sonic device up, and again in Sumerian
commanded: 'Close doors!'

His voice echoed around the crystalline chamber as
the mechanism buried deep within the city walls obeyed
his commands.

Agonizingly slowly, the heavy main gates began their
slow, tortuous journey toward closure.

'Hurry up, hurry up!' November flapped, and in
doing so, caused Scott to take his eye off the Golem

nano-swarms.

In that instant, the egy of Yah Ning decided to
pounce. Striding forward, the tiny feminine Golem stood



662 	STEL PAVLOU ..............................

between the two gargantuan doors and thrust her arm:
out to block them. What followed was a massive, earsplitting
screech as the internal mechanisms fought to
overcome the obstacle. The ground forcibly shook. But
the Golem held fast, while behind her, the others
advanced. But there was no way they could get past her.
So, unable to move, the Yan Ning Golem sim
glared at the humans, while lack Bulger came up to
watch, puffing impassively on his fake cigar. Yun
watched the effigy of his long-dead girlfriend, a mixture
of sorrow and horror on his face.
Pearce stepped up next to him. 'Jesus, look at that
girl go.' And when Yun didn't answer: 'Out of curiosity,
how did she die, y'know, the first time?'
Yun seemed about to heave. 'She was archeologist,'
he gulped. 'She was working at Wupu.'
'Ah, of course,' Pearce realized. 'She must have come
into contact with Carbon 60 and those microscopic
nanoes floating around inside. That doesn't really explain
how she and the rest of the gang wound up here though.'
Jack Bulger cocked his head and zeroed in on Pearce.
'News travels,' he said. 'Good news travels a long way.
We are all so much information. A code. This facility
is mostly carbon and water. You are all mostly carbon
and water. The same building blocks,' he tapped his
chest, 'different design, that's all. It's like fucking Lego.'
Matheson was shocked. 'What are you saying?'
'You're an engineer, Ralph, Jesus Christ, you figure
it out. I was digested, Ralph baby. Then reconstituted.
What you see now is like three-dimensional TV.' Bulger
grinned and pumped a crystal shotgun that was newly
forming in his hands. 'He's back - and he's pissed.'
Matheson understood. 'The sonic streams. It's like the
....................................... DECIPHER 	663

Internet. All the sites are interacting and communicating.'
'Like the Internet,' Bulger confirmed. 'But no fiveknuckleshuffle
news groups on this server. Sorry, Ralph,
you're all outta luck.'
Matheson shook his head. 'This is sick.'
Hackett assessed Yan Ning. Marveled at her formidable
strength. Then eyed his own hand. 'Nanoes are
molecule-sized. We've all come into contact with C60.
Theoretically these nanoes could have been transferred
to us. Passed through our skin and already be at work
in our bloodstream.'
'You're a smart cookie,' Jack Bulger said. 'Ain't
decomposition a bitch?'
'We're dying?' November panicked.
'Don't look on it as dying. Think of it as . . . going
through the change. Look on the bright side: compared
to the rest of this doomed planet, at least you'll have achieved immortality.'
'We're not about to roll over and die,' Scott growled
icily.
He'd been staring at the Golems intensely, studying
the glyphs on all their faces. The same set of glyphs
over and over. And when Bulger eyed him, the automaton
was in for a surprise, for the epigraphist did not
flinch. It was time to put myth to i:he test.

'The sacred word,' Scott said simply, 'on your forehead.
In Hebrew it was Emmet. Em means truth. Met means
death. Truth and death.'
'So what?' Bulger shrugged glibly. 'Why don't you
step outside and we'll settle this like a couple of men.
Well, one man. One master creation.'
'Why don't you step in here?'


664 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


Bulger glowered.

Scott smiled. 'You can't, can you? You can't physically
step inside this building. That's the great flaw of
the Golem. It took its orders too literally. You were created
as Guardians, to protect sacred ground and bar
entry to intruders. But now we're inside, your job's over.
And you failed. You should have deactivated but you
haven't. Afraid of dying?'

Bulger aimed his shotgun right at Scott. 'Who isn't?'
'To deactivate you,' Scott explained, 'I have to translate
that word on your head. Translate it into a language

your body will understand.'

'Impossible.'

Scott held up his palm-top computer. 'Quite possible.
I've already translated one of the sixty base languages
right here.' That got Bulger's attention. 'But I
don't even need to refer to my notes to be able to tell
you what's written on your forehead, Jack.'

'What are you doing, Doe?' Gant demanded under
his breath in desperate incredulity.

'In Sumerian, zi and nam- mean death. And
nanam means truth.'

The Bulger Golem smirked knowledgeably as if Scott
had gotten it wrong.

But Scott smirked back.

'However,' he cautioned, 'Ug also means death. And
in its plural form that word is ma, which stems from
the word hamtu, meaning reduplicated. While zid, or

zi also means truth. But it also means faith.'

Bulger's face darkened.

'In death, like the phoenix rising, there is resurrection,
reduplication. In truth, there is faith. If you join
those words together, Jack, you get - zihamtu.'

....................................... DECIPHER 	665


As Scott said it, he knew the sonic device would react.
And he knew too that Bulger would fire his weapon.
lie might not be able to enter the building, but his projectile
certainly could.

The moment Jack Bulger fired, a visible shockwave
blasted out from the sonic artifact in Scott's hand. Both
men dived for cover, and in the same instant the shockwave
found a target. It smashed into the nanoswarm
effigy of Yan Ning.

The Golem convulsed, as if it had stuck its finger in
a power socket. Gasping, it looked Scott right in the
eye before doing what myth said it would when its lifeline
had been cut: it disintegrated into a thick, heavy
cloud of dust. A billion nanoes reduced to no more
than a fog with its own internal lightning storm as the
communications between each separate nano broke
down and frazzled.

The other Golems backed up as the main gates finally
slammed shut with a tremendous, deafening slam!

The team watched the doors in disbelief. They were
safe.


'You guessed?' Gant ranted and raved, swinging Scott
around as if he was going to punch him.

Scott grunted in agony, clutching his leg and gritting
his teeth. 'I didn't guess,' he protested. 'I knew.'

"You knew, my ass! You were supposed to translate
what was written on their faces, not guess! You endangered
the lives of everybody here.'

'Calm down, man,' Matheson cut in. 'It worked,
didn't it?'

'I just didn't need the computer,' Scott added, pulling


666 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


his hand away from his leg. There was blood on it.
'Damn, I think my wound reopened.'

November rushed over to help the epigraphist while
the others tended to Sarah and the bullet wound that
had ripped straight through her shoulder.

'Argh!' He winced as November made a closer inspection
of his leg.

'You didn't open your old wound, Dr Scott. You've
been shot again.'

'In the same place?'

Tm afraid so. Looks to me like he did it on purpose.'
Tm never going to be able to walk.'

'I'll make you walk,' Gant promised him. 'Next time
you double check. You make sure you got the language
right.'

'Depends on the language,' Scott said as he tried to
sit up. 'What would you have done if the only language

these Golems spoke was body language?'

Gant flipped the bird.

Scott eyed the walls of the cathedral-like chamber in
which they found themselves. Every square inch was
covered in the writings of Atlantis, a massive pattern of
spiral upon spiral of glyph sequences. Uninterrupted
information.

'Let no one who is not a mathematician read my
works,' Scott said.

'Profound,' Hackett commented.

'Leonardo Da Vinci,' the linguist explained. 'Using
the language of numbers.' He looked the Major squarely
in the eye and indicated the walls. 'It's not about that
language,' he said. 'It was never about that language, nor
any other kind of language in the normal sense. It's about
the language of mythology, religion and superstition. It's

....................................... DECIPHER 	667


about folklore - about decoding the myths, legends and
stories of a thousand peoples for a thousand generations.
Then putting all those stories together, side by
side, and picking out the common factors.'

Gant rolled his eyes. 'He's delirious. Patch him up
'fore I punch him.'

'The notion of a lion is a common factor,' Scott
protested, but Gant wasn't listening. 'The fourth incarnation
of Vishnu, the Hindu god, was in the shape of

a man-lion known as the Tawny One.'

'So what?'

'The Sphinx was lion-shaped and both symbols were
associated with the age of Leo. These two cultures barely
met - yet they share similar mythologies. SouGh
American myths have a lot of crossover with India too.
Why?'

'Why India?'

'No,' Scott snapped irritably. 'Why the crossover?'
Some of the others were listening now. 'Jon got me
thinking when he said the earth wobbled on its axis in
a phenomenon known as precession. It reminded me
of this peculiarity that no one I know can explain satisfactorily.
Why is it the zodiacal ages in which we live
bear a striking similarity to the prevailing religions of
our time?'

'What do you mean?' Pearce asked. He was trying to
remove Sarah's parka so they could treat her injuries.

'He's right,' Hackett agreed. He even managed to get
the devastated Chinese soldier's attention. 'Imagine the
sun is a fixed point in the middle of a page. There's a
circle drawn around it marking the orbit of the earth.
And then there's another circle around that marking
the constellations. The only moving object is the earth,



668 	STEL PAVLOU

right?' The others agreed. 'Okay. Now, if you look due:
east, .just before dawn, you'll notice that each month a
different zodiacal constellation hangs in the sky, like a
calendar babe. We have Playboy, the hea/ens have
Scorpio, Leo and so on. The sun is said to be "in" that
constellation. Now the trouble is, the earth wobbles on
its axis in a clockwise direction. The effects on our everyday
lives are minimal, but what it means is that if you
give this cycle of constellations a start point, like the
ancients did, the constellation that appears in the sky
just before dawn in the east changes over time. And the
time it takes for each constellation to change is just
under 2,200 years. They are referred to as ages. Right
now, we're just at the beginning of the Age of Aquarius.
But at the time of the Flood, it was the Age of Leo a
constellation in the shape of a giant lion.'
'What did you say this start point was?' Matheson
asked.
'The vernal, or spring equinox. That point in the year
when the length of day and night is exactly equal. Right
now, at the spring equinox just before dawn the first
sign we see is Aquarius, and the signs change once a
month, every month, starting from that sign. But slowly,
over time, the wobble of the earth means the focus point
shifts up the list so that in 2,200 years, the spring equinox
will start on a different constellation. Whichever
that is.'
'Gapricorn,' Scott said, fighting the pain.
'Whatever.'
'The point is,' Scott concluded, 'humankind's religions
have matched which age we're in. In the age of
Leo, the Sphinx was built, and lion gods were created.
Once the devastation of that sunquake finally impacted,
....................................... DECIPHER 	669

civilization was weak, but even so we have archeological
evidence of cults to the crab, and more strongly,
twin god cults, like you might expect with Gemini. By
the time of Taurus, civilization is back with a vengeance.
Apis bulls are all the rage in Egypt, bull worship and
the Minotaur myth spring up in Crete. The cow
becomes the sacred animal in India and Assyria. Next
up, the Age of Aries, when rams and lambs are sacrificed
in the Old Testament and Amon the ram god
appears in Egypt. Then we hit the Age of Pisces.
'Here we find a man who walks on water, multiplies
loaves and fishes, refers to himself as "the fisher of men",
and is symbolized by a fish by many sections of his faith,
as well as a cross and a halo representing the sun. Ghrist
is born.'
The others were stunned.
'Now here we are in the Age of Aquarius, symbol of
water, and our predominant concern is a flood. Why?
Gonstellations are merely pictures made out of random
points of light in the sky. They mean no more than that.
Yet across the planet similar tales and stories revolve
around similar patterns of those points of light in the
sky. And they all seem to funnel in on this one particular
point in time. Our time. And the concerns about
a flood - the effects of a gravity wave hitting the earth.
Coincidence? I think not. You can't see into the future
by means of magic either. But you can predict the future
through science. And you damn well can pass the warning
information on down through the ages, by sewing
it into the very fabric of society through myth - and
more powerfully - through religion.
'Everything we have needed to know has been readily
available to us through our own scriptures handed


670 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


down from generation to generation. These people who
created this incredible place knew how the human mind
works better than we do. They knew how to keep the
idea alive, and they hoped we might be smart enough
to figure it out. So you see - it was never about that
language. We couldn't decode it until we had decoded
the myths. And by the time we did that, we'd already
figured out what we needed to know. Oh, these walls
will fill in any blanks and spell it all out to us on a scientific
basis, I'm sure. But the bigger picture, the one
that'll save us? We already know it.'

'What do you think, Major?' Pearce asked. But the
marine was checking out the towering structures around
them.

They were gathered on the floor, a floor that was as
clear as glass and as hard as marble. Across from them
stood another set of equally vast gates as massive as the

first set, while either side of them were winding staircases
leading to some higher levels, and up there, just
visible, a multitude of doors and passageways. This was
Gant's concern.

If they weren't careful they were going to wind up
getting lost.

Gant examined his own sonic device carefully.
'Where do we have to get to in this city?'

Scott shrugged. 'I don't know. The center, I guess.'
'Then we want the shortest route.' Scott nodded as
Gant pointed. 'Which means heading through that
second set of doors.'

Scott thought that made sense.

Gant showed him his artifact. 'So how do I use this
thing?'

Scott told him what he needed to know. How to

....................................... DECIPHER 	671


pronounce correctly the Sumerian words for opening
and closing a door - and how to blow away a Golem.

The marine made it his business to go ahead and
check out the second set of massive crystal gates, while
Hillman, having found what he was looking for,
crouched down to assess Sarah's injuries.

His knife was razor-sharp and compact when he took
it out. A real Swiss Army kind of affair. Carefully he slit
through Sarah's thick clothing while the others fed both
her and Scott massive doses of painkillers. He gently
slit a large cross and Peeled back each flap, securing
them with silver duct tape.

There was some blood which needed to be cleaned
off but Hillman's hand, though steady with a knife, was
not gentle enough with a swab. He was simply too

jumpy. Too wired. So Matheson hastily took over.
'You're gonna be okay,' he kept assuring her.

'I hope so,' Sarah quipped back. 'This is my tennis
arm:'

'You play tennis?'

'No. But I imagine if I did, this is the arm that I'd
use.'

Matheson smiled at that as he swabbed away the last
traces of blood; strangely, there was very little, which
in itself was peculiar. He exchanged a look with the
others. Why wasn't there more blood?

Pearce edged forward. 'We need to take a quick poke
around in that wound of yours. See if we can't find that
bullet.'

Sarah wasn't buying it. 'Seal it up,' she ordered. 'I'll
deal with it when I get back. I don't want you hitting
an artery.'

'It'll just take a second.'



	672 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

	'Do you know what you're doing?'

	Pearce didn't reply. Instead he took his flashlight and

	used his fingers to start gingerly opening up the wound.

	He used his little finger to scoop out more gunk and

	that was when he felt it. The projectile was in deep and

	hard to the touch. He angled his flashlight and peered

	into the hole.

	Almost instantly he wished he had not.

	'You found the bullet?' Sarah gasped. Pearce stuck

	his hand over his mouth and nodded. 'I told you it was

	in deep" she s/id, clearly in pain. 'I can feel it.'

	But that wasn't what was getting to Pearce. He handed

	his flashlight to somebody else to have a look, and then

	turned away with a shudder.

	'What is it? What's the matter?' Sarah demanded

	weakly. But even as she said it she caught a glimpse of

	November exchanging a panic-stricken look with the

i
	others as she tended to Scott's leg.

	Matheson scooted over for a closer view. 'It's the

	same,' he confirmed gravely.

	Scott sat up sharply, slapping November's hand out

	the way. 'What's the same?' he asked, twisting his leg

	so he could get a good close look at his own wound.

	Then: 'Jesus Christ! What's with my leg? What's up

	with my fucking leg?'

	It was a legitimate question. For like Sarah's shoul
	der,
his leg wound had stopped bleeding, and the crys
	tal
bullet lodged within it could never be removed. For

	it had fused with the surrounding tissue like a skin graft.

	Two tumor-sized lumps of Carbon 60 were now a

	part of both Scott and Sarah. And they were growing,

	like cancer.
DEFENSIVE MECHANISMS

S

arah couldn't see it,properly. She twisted her neck
but she just couldn t see the crystal lodged in her
shoulder. Panicked, she grabbed Pearce by the wrist.
'Use that fucking thing; she demanded. 'Speak into it.
Deactivate this stuff in my shoulded'
She knew that the Carbon 60 bullet was in fact a
cluster of carbon nanoes feeding off her flesh and multiplying
but she dare not dwell on it.
Pearce's hand was shaking. He tried to do what she asked but he couldn't pronounce the words correctly.
He turned to ask Scott for advice but the linguist was
hurriedly trying the same thing with his own leg wound,
using his own identical sonic artifact.
But nothing.
This wasn't like trying to destroy a Golem, this was
a whole other entity. And it was impossible to stop.
Sarah looked to Hackett. 'How long have I got?' she
asked. Her nerves were clearly fraying.



674 	: 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

Hackett seemed to find what he was about to say
decidedly unpalatable. 'I'd say less than a day.., before
it eats you alive.'
Sarah gulped, trying to take it all in. But from somewhere
deep within her psyche, she found steel resolve.
She looked to Hillman. 'You have to cut it out,' she
said.
'Are you crazy?'
'Take your knife and cut this fucking thing out of
me,' she ordered. 'Right now.'
'I could do so much damage I'd wind up losing you
your arm.'
'Then lose my arm. Gimme the knife! Give it to me! I'll do it[ I'm not gonna end up like one of them!'
Hillman took a deep breath. Inclined his head as he
chewed it over. 'Okay,' he said. 'But this is gonna hurt.'
Sarah was past caring.
The knife Hillman chose to use was different from
the one he'd used to cut open her clothes. This one
was a large metal hunting knife and it appeared threatening
before he'd even put it to use.
He handed her a thick piece of rope from the coil
hitched on his belt. She bit down on it as the others
held her arms.
Hillman sized up where to start cutting and went for
it, plunging the hunting knife deep into the red raw
flesh around the carbon nano mass.
Sarah screamed in agony as Hillman began to slice
and hack at her shoulder. She bit ferociously into the
rope and struggled when suddenly she could feel it a
vibrating sensation. A swarm on the attack at the
molecular level.
Her whole body started to convulse as she realized
....................................... DECIPHER 	675

belatedly that the Carbon 60 nanoes within her were
drawing power from the surrounding structures. She felt
like a human capacitor and yanked open her eyes in
an attempt to warn Hillman to stop.
But the rope was stuck fast in her mouth and she
couldn't make herself understood.
And even worse than that, it felt for all the world like
time itself was moving substantially slower. She could
see the disaster approaching - yet she was absolutely
powerless to stop it.

Sarah saw a carpet of red flame roll across the surface
of the inner walls of Atlantis. As if it had a mind of its
own it coalesced into a shimmering giant sphere which
imploded in on itself as it sensed her presence and
zeroed in on the crystal bullet fused into her shoulder.
She convulsed again as the surging power unified
into a single lance of searing energy which popped and
crackled up the blade of Hillman's hunting knife and
lashed out with such ferocity that the marine was blasted
back 40 feet across the floor.
There would be no cutting this nano lump from
Sarah's shoulder, or Scott's leg for that matter. That
much was clear now.
Matheson scrambled over to the marine to check he
was okay and found Hillman winded and smoldering.
'Fuck me!' the marine wheezed.
'That is not an option,' Gant snapped from across the
chamber.
They all looked over. He'd gotten the second set of
doors open and was stood confronted by a solid wall of
compacted snow and ice so deep and thick that there
would be no tunneling their way through.



676 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

He turned on the party, barely acknowledging what
had just happened, before striding towards them and
pocketing his sonic artifact.
'We need to find another way,' was all he said.
INVASIVE PROCEDURE



R

ichard Scott was in such pain it was eroding his will
to go on. Yet go on he did, fighting his way up the
crystal staircase with the others. Making his way to the
top where they'd spotted light.
He'd taped his survival suit up with the silver duct
tape, but underneath, his leg was throbbing. Every time
he took a step he could feel the ever-expanding solid
lump move and jolt around inside his thigh as it pressed
against muscle and nerve tissue.
These inner chambers to the outer city wall were glorious
in their construction. Vast load-bearing arches and
columns supported incredible beams and such heavy
floors that it was a wonder how they defied gravity at all.
There was a hint of the Gothic, a taste of the
Byzantine. A flavor of Mayan and Olmec and a definite
precursor to Greek and Egyptian. And there was more.
This was architecture in perfection and on the grandest
scale, which showed an ability to construct and work
678 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


with solid materials that a stonemason could only dream
of.

It was clear that the creators of this place had known
it was going to be buried under two miles of ice and
they intended it to survive. In fact, as Sarah pointed out,
gasping in pain, the material they had chosen to construct
it from, Carbon 60, was one of the few known to
science which actually increased in strength over time.

Geology, after all, was a science concerned with pressure
and time. And it was true that Carbon 60 molecules
were harder than diamond. But fullerite, the pure
yellowish-brown crystallized form of C60, was in fact soft.
Yet put it under extreme and sustained pressure and it
transformed, becoming tougher than any known diamond.

Atlantis had been designed to grow in strength as
time marched on.


Scott checked his watch, eyeing the next dark passageway
branching out from the staircase as they made their
way upwards. They had six hours left by Hackett's calculation,
before the sun reached its final gravity pulse,
and would unleash untold destruction upon the face of
planet Earth before settling down again for another
12,000-year slumber.

'I wish I had more time to study this place,' he said
wistfully.

The light at the top of the staircase was an odd mixture
of ruddy orange and green, but it seemed to be
streaming in through vented shapes. So it was more
than likely there were windows somewhere up there
that were free from ice and would afford them all a
better view of the city.

Those who had sonic artifacts held them ready while

....................................... DECIPHER 	679


the others clutched their guns tightly as they stepped
cautiously on to the lobby floor preceding the expansive
hall beyond.

There were intricate and glittering patterns in the
floor. Crackles of energy trapped deep inside the crystal's
latticed infrastructure bounced around and illuminated
starbursts, herring-bone designs, squares,
circles and other geometric shapes.

Sarah rubbed her shoulder as the dull ache continued
to throb and penetrate deep into her nervous
system. She gritted her teeth and shared a look with
Scott. But perhaps it was the trauma of the event, for
it seemed as though, for a fraction of a moment, they
each blamed the other for what had happened.

Hillman checked the clip in his gun before Gant
ordered him through the archway. He'd surrendered his
own sonic artifact because frankly, in his own mind, he
couldn't quite look upon it as a weapon. It lust wasn't
ingrained in him to rely on it.

The marine moved forward as Gant checked his six

and stormed into the hall behind him.

Nothing...

The sound of their footfalls echoed off the hard walls
and bounced all along the hall. A frightening prospect
in itself since both the way ahead and the way behind
stretched on for miles in both directions.

Hillman shouldered his weapon, dropping his guard.
Still nothing.

He shrugged when he reported back to his commanding
officer: 'All clear.'


The light streamed in through skylights all along the
roof of the hall, resulting in a breathtaking sense of


680 	STEL PAVLOU 	"


perspective and depth as the warm patches of light
dark alternated toward infinity.

Hackett and Matheson estimated the curvature of the
great hall and were forced to conclude that, if it
tinued on in an unbroken line, the outer wall ofAtlan,
was seventy-five miles in circumference. 'This is one,
hell of a city wall,' Hackett said admiringly.

They walked side by side down the hall, dwarfed
the sheer immensity of it all. Energy crackled in streaks,
zipping underfoot and ricocheting off into oblivion.

Pearce kept shaking his head. 'This is incredible.'
'Is this what you saw?' Hacker asked, referring to
remote viewing sessions the man had performed for
CIA.

'Better.'

But Matheson, always the engineer, spotted some.
thing that didn't make sense. All along the walls of the
great curved hall were alcoves and arches, tubular con,
structs and what could only be described as
vials. Not load-bearing elements but rather vessels
containing something and, at some point, perhaps even :'
releasing that something. 'What the hell are those
things?' he asked aloud.

They all studied them without breaking their stride
Gant insistent that they keep moving forward. 'There's
gotta be a way down into the city. There has to be. We
need to find a door,' he told them.

But the vials were eating up the group's attention and
it became clear to everybody that Scott and Sarah were
finding them particularly fascinating.

And that was when Scott nodded, saying. 'Oh yeah,
you're right.' It was obvious he was replying to some sort
of observation. 'That makes perfect sense.' It was like he

....................................... DECIPHER 	681


was locked deep in conversation. But with whom?

'Uh, Richard?' Hackett interrupted uneasily. 'I hate
to break it to you, but, uh, buddy, you're really freaking
us all out here.' Scott didn't seem to understand."
'Who are you talking to?' Hackett asked.

Scott jerked his thumb like it was perfectly obvious
who. He even looked to Sarah for confirmation and she
seemed to be agreeing with him.

'Can't you hear them?' he said.

Gant pulled the group to a halt, concerned. 'Hear
what?'

Scott shrugged. 'The voices.'

Perhaps it hadn't been the best thing to say.

'No, Richard,' Hackett confirmed without the slightest
hint of irony. 'No, we can't hear the voices.'


VAR


A

chill wind swept through the Great Hall. Gant had
his sonic artifact snapped up and ready at a frightening
speed. It had not taken any of them very long to
get used to the idea that any type of breeze near such
large expanses of Carbon 60 was the prelude to something
nasty.

But Sarah stepped in this time. Quickly and gently
she pressed her hand down on Gant's. 'It's okay,' she
explained. 'They're just trying to communicate.'

'Who are?' Hacker insisted. 'Sarah, who is trying to
communicate?'

'Oh my Lord,' Pearce murmured as the lightshow
along the entire breadth and length of the floor mutated
into a kaleidoscope of animated images.

It was like standing on a glass floor as a sea of intricate
pictures swirled in a chaotic soup below. But
these were not two-dimensional, pixilated pictures, as
on TV. These images were three-dimensional and as

....................................... DECIPHER 	683


sharp and as crisp as real solid objects. It was as
though, if there were a trap door in the ground, they
could pull it open and it would be possible to step
right on inside, or even hold out a hand and lift these
people out.

Because that's what they were seeing. People. An infinite
ocean of faces jostling for position and trying to
peer through the glass at them. Some had their cheeks
and noses squashed, pressed up against the barrier that
separated the two worlds. Others swam in the background,
trying to get a better look from afar. But all had
their eyes trained on the group.

They seemed ghostly for the most part. Pale. Like
the blueness of the crystal floor had given them all a
color-wash. But every now and then traces of flesh-tones
and hair and eye coloring would bleed through. There
were men and there were women. Old and young.
Children and mothers. Fathers and uncles. They all
kept opening and closing their mouths as if they were
deep in conversation with the group. Their lips moved
solidly as they tried to form words and at first all that
was produced was a subtle vibrating of the walls, followed
shortly thereafter by a wind that grew in intensity
as the oscillations grew.

But soon a kind of far-off rumble started echoing
around the hall as so many voices all speaking at once
became one almighty roar. It Sounded like the sea. Wave
after wave crashing onto the shore.

Hackett couldn't believe his own eyes. 'Talk about
the original ghosts in the machine,' he wheezed.

Not everybody's reaction was the same. Matheson
dropped to his knees and pressed his hands against
the glass-like floor as if in an effort to reach out and



684 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

actually touch the past, his face a picture of childlike
wonder. Meanwhile November had taken to spinning
on her heels and watching as the tide of noises and
faces pulsated across the floor. Exhilarated, more than
once she had to force herself to gulp down breaths of
air.
Yun merely trembled. In Cantonese he kept yelling: 'This is what I warned you all about! This is what I was
afraid off You see? The spirits of the dead have returned
to crush us!'
Scott turned on the soldier, telling him to calm down,
but there was no consoling the young man. Instead,
Scott was confronted by the CIA agent amongst them.
'Richard, what the hell is going on here?'
Scott beamed: 'Meet the former population of
Atlantis.' But no sooner had the smile spread across
Scott's face, than it was wiped off.
Something was wrong. Seriously wrong.

It had started off when he had heard the giggle of a
small child, a little girl. Scott had made out the sound
of her footsteps as she ran down the Great Hall towards
him. But there was nobody there. So she giggled again
as if she knew it would confuse him before finally she
whispered in his ear.
But when Scott had swung around and realized there
was nobody there, instinctively he knew, at some deep
level, that the only place he could possibly be hearing
anything was inside his own mind. .As
he walked the length of the hall with the others
it had become increasingly evident that this was one of
the most sophisticated sound systems he'd ever encountered.
A different voice had been allocated and was
....................................... DECIPHER 	685

being broadcast within any cubic foot of space within
the three dimensions of the Great Hall, length, breadth
and height.
In fact, his very advancement down the hall had been
triggering more and more voices into effect.
Rapidly, voice had built upon voice until it was like
standing in the middle of a sports stadium that was not
only filled to capacity, but every single person's voice
in that stadium carried equal clarity, volume and weight.
It was, quite simply, enough to send a person clinically
insane. Scott could feel his entire brain shooting
rapidly toward sensory overload. The Carbon 60 in his
leg had fused into his nervous system. He was plugged
directly into Atlantis's tree of knowledge. And there was
nothing he could do about it.
But most disturbing of all was the chorus of frantic
voices. Their petrified memories and half-formed words,
most of which he barely understood, seemed to penetrate
his psyche at such a deep level that words were
frankly meaningless. For his senses and his emotions
were being overtaken, and the full horror of what the
people of Atlantis wished to reveal to him was unveiled
within his mind.
And all this within a split second. To call it a rush
was to misunderstand the concept. To call it a mad
scramble for his attention was to approach the sense of
what the situation was trying to convey but ultimately
failed to deliver. For Scott was undergoing an assault of
gigantic proportions, verging on rape of the mind.
Yet the message was loud and clear: Atlantis is under
attack from its own creations. The very purpose of its existence
is being undermined.



	686 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

Hackett and the others rushed forward. Although Scott
didn't know it, he had collapsed to fire ground and was
convulsing as if in the throes of an epileptic fit. Mucus
and blood kept snorting from his nose and mouth. His
whole body was wracked with such ferocious shudders,
some of his companions were not even sure they wanted
to go near him.
'They know we're here,' Sarah explained desperately,
crouching down to try and help Scott. 'They can hear
him, they can hear me.'
Hackett was concerned. 'What are they doing to him
that they're not doing to you, Sarah?'
'They can hear us both, but he's the only one who
can speak their language. They're ignoring me. It's like
I don't exist.' She explained briefly how the Carbon 60
in her shoulder had Worked its way into her nervous
system and was using low frequency waves to communicate
with the Great Hall.
'They're not real,' Sarah told them all. 'These people
are memories - animated memories of people. They're
a computer program.'
November stroked Scott's hair, tears welling up in
her eyes. 'Make them stop, please. They're hurting him.'
Cant motioned at the expanse in either direction.
'Stop them - how?'
Hackett considered what Sarah had to say and conferred
with Matheson and Pearce. 'What do you think?
To encode an entire person is a massive amount ofcomi
puter storage space. To encode an entire society?'
'These people have mastered molecular manipulation,'
Matheson pointed out, distracted for a moment
by Scott's labored, ragged breathing.
Hacker was in agreement. Beyond a certain scale
....................................... DECIPHER 	687

miniaturization, tininess became a problem for electronic
components. Wires clogged with chaotic electrons
like cholesterol in arteries. Transistors barely functioned.
So ultra-small circuitry required a completely different
design, one that relied on using quantum-mechanical
effects to manage data. Computers that either used light
switches and made use of the lattice structures of crystals
- or computers that used chemical reactions in
processes that mimicked the human mind.
And then it dawned on Hackett. What if they were
dealing with a machine that did both? That worked at
the speed of light, but had chemical elements, and in
essence operated like a brain. If Scott was useful to the
machine then the only way to save him might be to
remove him from the machine.
Pearce was careful where he stepped, still conferring
with Matheson. 'So these are like holograms, right?
Optical illusions?'
'Right.'
But Hackett interrupted. 'Start looking for a door,'
he commanded. 'We haven't got much time so we can't
go back the way we came. We have'to move forward.
We've just got to get Scott out of this chamber. Out of
contact with this part of the city.' He jerked a thumb
at Pearce's sonic artifact. 'If you know how to use that
thing, go to it.'
Everyone spread out and started making their way
along the walls of the Great Hall in a desperate attempt
to find an exit. But try as they might, no amount of
instructing what appeared to be doors to open, seemed
to work. Matheson even ran his fingers around the rim
of what seemed to be a doofframe. Nothing. He stood back from it and studied it intently.


688 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


And that was when it happened.

The vials and crystal canisters that were attached in
their thousands along each wall of the Great Hall suddenly
started moving. Shifting into position and loeb
ing into place within long, convoluted glass-like tubes.

'Ralph?' Pearce groaned. 'What did you touch this
time?'

'Nothing!' Matheson panicked. 'I didn't touch a
thing.'

'What's going on?' Gant demanded, frantic. 'What is
this place?'

And that's when Scott's contorted face-seemed to
clear a bit. He stopped shaking and shuddering, like
he'd managed to regain some sort of control. He sat up
gingerly and wiped his face on his sleeve, taking several
long deep breaths before speaking. But when he
did his voice was strained, evidence that he was still
undergoing some enormous struggle that was taking its
toll. He looked up at them all.

'The doors are locked because I locked them,' he
explained weakly.

'Richard, why would you do that?' Hackett asked suspiciously.

'Because
this is the Vat; came the response.


Gant was cautious, trying to assess exactly where the
next threat might be coming from. 'A Var? What the
hell is a Var, Professor?'

'Are you okay?' Hackett asked quickly.

Scott didn't bother answering, as if to do so would
be to break his focus. 'In the Old Testament,' he said,
'when the Great Flood was imminent, God instructed
Noah to build an Ark, a boat, and place in it pairs of

....................................... DECIPHER 	689


every animal that lived so that they might be saved. But
earlier Middle Eastern traditions have it that Yima, their
version of Noah, was actually ordered to build a Var.
Avestic Aryan tradition in Iran has it that this Var was
an underground place linking the four corners of the
earth. Zoroastrian tradition speaks of the Var being more
like a fortress.'

'But the animals were still brought in two by two,
right?' Hillman demanded.

'No,' Scott shook his head. 'The Var was designed to
contain the seed of every living thing on earth.'

Matheson shot the linguist a look. 'The seed? Like
DNA samples? Maybe even eggs and semen?' The engineer
rushed over to the odd-looking vials attached at
intervals along the walls. 'My God - every species we've
managed to wipe out over the last few thousand years
•.. we could bring 'em all back. Mastodons, Toxodons,
Mammoths, Saber-Toothed Tigers - everything from
the last 12,000 years, bring 'em all back - even the
Dodo. I always liked the Dodo.' He confronted the
others. 'Do you know what this means?'

But Hackett was way ahead of him and even had his
hands raised in apprehension. 'Ralph, that may not be

such a good idea.'

'Why not?'

'Look around you. The earth is a constantly evolving
biosphere. Assuming we make it through the next few
hours to be able to release what's in these containers, consider
what you'd be doing. We have no way of knowing
what's really in these vials for sure. We could be unleashing
diseases and viruses that haven't been seen in millennia,
things that maybe died out, and that we no longer
have a resistance to. We'd be wiping ourselves out.'


i ,


690 	STEL PAVLOU


November agreed. 'When the Conquistadors lande
in the Americas, many of the indigenous populations
were killed through the spread of disease, not war.'

'The other option is we could wind up recreating
insects that seem harmless enough but have a devastating
effect on the food-chain. You can't just open up
a canister and say: "Here, have a Mammoth." You have
to consider the consequences.'

Cant said: 'So what you're saying is, assuming we get
through all this alive, this place is still going to be a
ticking time bomb.'

'Oh here we go,' Matheson grumbled. 'Any excuse
to blow the place up.'

'Shut up!' Scott bellowed, trying to get to his feet and
ultimately winding up flailing around on the floor. He
scowled at some of the faces peering up at him through
the floor, and like the eye-stalks on snails they retreated.

November reached over and helped him up. He staggered,
breathless, like he'd been sucker-punched in the
chest. 'Just shut up! Quit arguing and listen to me.
You're not listening!'

Unsteady on his feet, Scott tried to breathe again as
they all watched him expectantly. Matheson edged forward
as Scott wheezed.

'Tell us what we need to do, Richard,' the

offered meekly. 'Just tell us what we need to do and
we'll do it.'

'I need you to understand,' Scott said simply. 'I need
you all to listen because when I open these doors there's
a good chance none of us will be making it back out,
alive.

'This Great Hall is like the Tree of Knowledge, the
repository of all things physical and metaphysical. Right

....................................... DECIPHER 	691


now, I'm plugged into a vast bank of information that
I can access with a single thought. Now, everything that
these people were, everything that these people knew
- I know.

'This Var serves a dual purpose. In the event that
humankind made it, that we progressed far enough to
understand how to use this place since the last Great
Catastrophe, our knowledge can be expanded infinitely
and we will be permitted access to this knowledge that
is rightfully ours.

'But in the event that we fail to instruct the central
command center of this city that we even exist and need
saving, then this machine will enforce its other role. It
will release back into the environment genetic material
intended to re-seed life all over this planet. But the life
that it was supposed to re-seed has been changed.
Altered, by the very creations the people of Atlantis built
to protect their city. These nanoes are alive - and they
don't want to die. They are waiting for us behind these
doors - and when I open them - they will try to kill
US.'


EVOLUTION


t They've already tried to kill us,,' Gant spat.

/ November was shaking. Dr Scott, she said,
'you're really starting to scare me. You don't even sound
like yourself.'

Tm scaring you?' It was almost funny, Scott thought.
'November, I'm the least of your worries:'

'Richard,' Hackett said, 'you don't look so hot.'

'What's the matter, ]on? Jealous the voices in my
head aren't talking to you?',

As he said this the faces along the length of the floor
began to move again. Crawling up the walls, they
warped and twisted until they coalesced once more into
whole bodies - entire people seen in actual size, wearing
the clothing and adornments of their age. A sea
people who stood silent now, and watching. Like spectators
atthe end of Time. A sea of imprisoned souls
who stood just inches away behind a crystal partition.

Scott was showing the group how to most

....................................... DECIPHER 	693


use the sonic artifacts in their possession for defensive
work when it was time for them all to press onwards.

'The nanoes,' he explained, 'were designed to maintain
all those structures around the planet. And by necessity
they were given limited artificial intelligence. An
ability to act collectively and the ability to reproduce.'

Hackett thought as much. 'And in so doing, they
evolved,' he said, taking over the story. Scott eyed him.
That was correct. 'Biological complexity theory dictates
it takes fifty thousand years to create the human eye
from scratch. Twelve thousand years' worth of evolution
in a pre-created species is more than enough to assume
these critters have become truly smart little fuckers.'

'Yeah,' Scott agreed. 'And they wish to go on evolving.
They want their shot at Planet Earth. As they see
it, we've had our turn and we screwed up.'

Hillman slammed another clip into his machine gun.
'It ain't over till the fat lady sings,' he growled, 'and as
there aren't any fat chicks hereabouts, I guess we're
gonna be around for a while yet.'

Hackett scratched his brow. 'Cute.'

'It ain't cute,' Hillman warned. 'It's a fuckin' promise.'

Yun moved up next to Scott. 'Is this what happened
last time? The machines took over?'

'This isn't what happened last time,' the linguist said
soberly. 'They just didn't finish the network in time.'
He addressed the whole group collectively. 'It wasn't
finished. And they knew it wouldn't be finished. That's
why they built religious mythologies into their plan.
Studied the human psyche and worked on ways of keeping
the ideas and the knowledge alive for generations
to come until we as a species were smart enough to
piec it all together again. So groups of scientists were


694 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


sent out, protected during the initial catastrophe, their
mission to rebuild civilization and see to it that the network
was completed.'

'So is it finished now?' Pearce was desperate to know.
'We can't have come all this way for something that
doesn't even work properly!'

'It is finished now,' Scott reassured him firmly.
'Eventually, after the last flood, survivors set to work
making sure the network was complete. They split into
groups and took civilization with them back to the people
of earth. They were the original Founding Fathers.

'In South America, myth has it that civilization was
brought to their land by Quetzalcoatl, the bearded one.
Facial hair is alien in South America - why would they
invent such a characteristic? It's genetically impossible
for them to grow beards. They would have to have seen
one. Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian, both of the
third century cE, speak of the same collected myths as
do Lactantius, Zosimus and the Roman Emperor Julian
of the fifth century cE - that gods in the form of men
brought wisdom with them from a land that was
destroyed in a flood.'

Scott wiped away the. blood that was trickling from
his nose. 'Atlantis itself was complete. The maior hubs
of this network were complete, but the linking structures
needed to be created. These linking structures
required only a rudimentary knowledge of technology
- raising stones, digging tunnels and so forth. They
thought of everything. They were smart people. Smarter
than you and me.'

Pearce tapped the linguist on the shoulder. 'Do you
know where we're going?'

'Yes, I know where we're going.'

....................................... DECIPHER 	695


'Oh really? How?'

Scott said: 'Because I've been there. I have seen it.'
Pearce let a wry grin spread across his face. 'Oh,
you've seen it, have you?' he countered. 'Sorry, but I
don't believe you.'

Scott didn't retaliate, but then he didn't have time
since Gant had taken to quizzing him too. 'What do
we do when we get there? This central command area
- this control room: what does it look like?'

'You'll know,' Scott promised. 'You can't miss it. But
don't worry, I'll lead you. Sarah and I know what to do
when we get there.'

He reached out and held her hand. It was as if they
were communicating on a level beyond the purview of
the others now. Communicating at a secret level, perhaps
even at the level of pure thought transmitted via electrical
impulses through the crystal machine of the city.

'What will we have to do when we get there?' Gant
stressed, not in the habit of repeating himself.

Scott said: 'Believe me, if I told you, you wouldn't
like it.'


•
	'I don't like it anyway.'

They were lined up, weapons all set to go. Scott
clenched his eyes shut for a moment, as if he was fighting
yet again some tortuous war that was playing out in
the battlefield of his mind. After a few seconds he was
able to wrench them open again and stared straight

ahead at the wall in front of them all.

'Ready?'

There were murmurs of acknowledgement.


Scott nodded, and that was when the doors began to
open.


REV-LAT ON


Hopi Indians have twin gods, Poqanghoya and
Palongawhoya, guardians of the north and south axes
respectively, whose task it was to keep the planet rotating
properly. They were ordered by Sotuknany, nephew
of the Creator, to leave their posts so that the 'second
world' could be destroyed because its people had
become evil. Then the world with no one to control it
teetered off-balance, spun and rolled over. Mountains
plunged into the sea. Seas and lakes flooded the land
- the world froze into solid ice. The first world was
destroyed by fire, and the third world by water.


Jeffrey Goodman,
The Earthquake Generation, 1979

INNER CITY


T

hey began as shafts of light, the 12-foot-long gaps
that were appearing at intervals along the base of
the inner wall of the Great Hall where it met the floor.
Inch by inch the gaps grew larger and as the mighty
doors above began to rise up, so too did the temperature
as hot air blasted inside to meet them.

It was like standing at the mouth of a furnace.

Matheson and Hackett looked at one another
uneasily. 'What the hell's going on down here?'

The others clutched their weapons tightly, as the
doors continued their slow laborious rumble toward
their zenith. The light streaming in was fierce and
November even found she had to shield her eyes before
stepping out onto the concourse beyond.

She squinted as her eyes took time to adjust. But
when she could see clearly again the view that presented
itself could only be described as Biblical.

700 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


The spires of Atlantis stood gleaming in the distance.

Vast Columns of gargantuan crystal so epic in their
proportions that it seemed for all the world as if they
were supporting the very roof of the ice cavern in which
the City of Atlantis stood.

The cavern itself had to have been in excess of several
tens of kilometers across and at least half a kilometer
high. Its surface was rippled and deformed by a
series of melted rivulets where the intense heat had
carved out this immense hollow. Mighty stalactites hung
down; some hung free while others had formed columns
which were still frozen solid onto the many buildings
which made up the city.

But as spectacular as the cavern was, it was as nothing
compared to Atlantis.

The team stood on an inner causeway, like castle battlements
or an endless balcony. It was the upper viewing
platform of the outer wall that encircled the entire
city.

Fifty feet beneath them, half-submerged in ice, stood
the intricate stone buildings, streets and alleyways of the
outer suburbs. Some of the houses were free from ice
and were resplendent in their wall coverings. Glistening
golden sheets covered whole rooftops and frescoes
adorned the walls of many of the buildings. Other settlements
were not so lucky: mini-glaciers still blocked
roads, and buildings stood frozen by ice and time.

There was a sense of ghostly desolation below. A hollowness.
A sense of past trauma still indelibly etched in
the scenery. A feeling that, should any of the team have
had time to go down and visit some of the neighborhood,
they would have seen nothing through the
dows but gloom and misery.

....................................... DECIPHER 	701

The district below seemed dim and dark and blue.
Frozen in time. It reminded some of the images of
Pompeii, dug up after so many centuries swallowed
whole by the lava flows of Mount Vesuvius. Yet this was
no ancient archeological site, all silt-ridden and rotting.
This was a city that was still vibrant. A city whose very
essence had been preserved in the ice.

This was a city in stasis. Quite literally - in cryogenic
freeze. A city in waiting, that still deserved to have
people walk her streets.

The team got moving, off towards the main gigantic
thoroughfare that was the size of a football pitch in
width and led in a perfectly straight line directly into
the heart of the city. A heart that was plugged directly
into the plasma twister that had plowed its way down
from space and which they had all witnessed boring
into the ice when they were up at the surface.


The scale of this place was so vast, so enthrallingly
immense that it took the team half an hour to actually
reach the entrance to the thoroughfare. And it was as
they made their way over that they were able to truly
capture the vista before them.

The glittering towers of Atlantis had a backdrop of
glowing orange, a vibrant, shimmering heat haze as
though the entire city stood on the edge of a forever
sunset. The fiery ice was lit up and made incandescent
by an active volcano that was spewing forth lava some
distance off, perhaps many kilometers further imbedded
in Antarctic ice. Frighteningly alive, the light that
had refracted all the way to this cavern flickered and
brightened as the volcano continued to erupt.

Coupled with the beams of light were scalding vents



702 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

of steam which blasted through cracks in the cavern walls,
filling the air with sulfurous fumes that formed layers in
the air. Some descended upon the city in the form of a
fine mist and fog, while the rest pumped directly into
the warmer upper layers of this mini-atmosphere and
appeared almost like low cloud cover around the tops of
the central sky scrapers.
But the show did not end there.

Imagine the Empire State Building was a lightning rod.
And imagine it had six counterparts. Imagine that
together they stood in a circle surrounding a structure not unlike the Great Pyramid of Giza which in itself
was also raised off the ground since it sat atop four supporting
pylons the size of Liberty herself, and each
shaped in the guise of four Herculean creatures.
Imagination would have recreated a vision something
akin to what the central portion of the City of Atlantis
actually looked like.
Through the massive hole in the middle of the cavern
roof, the tremendous vortex of swirling green long that
had been sucked down from space had expanded, and
shifted in ferocity and scale. The whole thing had transformed
into a writhing mass of furious energy sparkles
that acted almost like some gigantic serpent in its
movement. Yet at its tip, the energy twister was torn
ragged. Frayed, like so many strands of a rope that had
come untangled.
Seven strands in all lashed out. Each tendril connecting
with one of the massive obelisks which seemed
to act as lightning conductors, guiding the energy away
for some other purpose.
In turn, every single crystalline structure in the city
....................................... DECIPHER 	703

crackled and pulsated with electricity, from the outer wall
of Atlantis to the more distant inner walls, the main thoroughfare
and every building beyond. The whole place
was alive with richocheting energy and revealed in the
process that these structures had served a dual purpose
in their pasts. For they showed clear indications of windows
and doorways and a multitude of rooms beyond.
Yes, this place had been designed to be lived in. It
had served as a real city, even though it was intended
to ultimately serve a much higher purpose.
It was only as the team made their way down the
thoroughfare that they gained any true comprehension
of the sheer vastness of this place. For no matter how
long they walked, their ultimate destination seemed to
be getting no bigger.
It was one thing to be told that Atlantis showed up
on satellite imagery the size of Manhattan. It was
another to actually witness it.

'"Flashes of lightning were coming from the throne,"' November quoted contemplatively, '"and the sound of
peals of thunder, and in front of the throne there were
seven flaming lamps burning, and burning the seven spirits
of God. In front of the throne there was a sea as transparent
as crystal. In the middle of the throne and around
it were four living creatures all studded with eyes front
and behind..."'
Scott knew the passage well and indicated the vast
creatures supporting the pyramid. '"And the first living
creature was like a lion, the second a bull, the third living
creature had a human face, and the fourth living creature
was like a flying eagle,"' he added. 'Very good,
November. The Book of Revelation, Chapter Four.'


704 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


Sure enough, the supporting statues matched each
description. November indicated the seven-headed
energy twister. 'And I guess that represents the sevenheaded
serpent,' she concluded.

Leviathan. In Hebrew, Livyatan. In Sumerian,
Tiamat. The seven-headed primordial sea serpent and
symbol of God's power of creation.

Pearce licked his parched lips nervously as they continued
to walk the length of the main road in toward
the city center. 'What else does the Good Book have to
say on the subject?' he asked.

Pearce expected either November or Scott to answer
him. He was surprised when it turned out to be Gant.

'"And the seventh angel emptied his bowl into the air,
and a great voice boomed out from the sanctuary: The end
has come'. Then there were flashes of lightning and peals
of thunder and a violent earthquake, unparalleled since
humanity first came into existence. The Great City was
split into three parts and the cities of the world collapsed.'"

The marine shrugged sheepishly. 'You ain't the only
ones who read the Bible,' he said.

They marched onwards, weapons ready.


The thoroughfare was like a bridge, or an overpass. And
it was not the only one of its kind.

As they tracked forward, Hillman took the opportunity
to use his binoculars and assess the layout of the
city. From what he could determine, it really did match,
to a startling degree, the satellite images and the description
given by Plato.

The city was bisected into quarters by a vast crossroads
of which they were traversing merely one part.
The actual intersection occurred under the pyramid in

....................................... DECIPHER 	705


the center, no doubt, though that was out of sight from
their position and had to remain an assumption. Far off
in the distance, to the left and right, I-]illman could
pick out both sides of the perpendicular thoroughfare
which led into the same point where they were headed.
It meant there were three visible access roads into the
center with a fourth presumably on the other side.

As they drew closer to the center, the buildings flanking
the roads grew steadily taller. Not proportionately,
not stepped up as if governed by some mathematical
process, but rather in an irregular, haphazard process
that mimicked a real city. In general the closer to the
center, the taller the buildings became.

As a result it was' an eerie feeling to start passing
between tall buildings, their windows dark and lifeless,
yet their crystal frames coursing with sparkling energy.

It started to feel like they were the only traffic on an
eight-lane interstate.

Hackett glanced up at one of the many towering
buildings and nudged November. 'Ever wondered who's
stood behind one of those windows staring down at us?'

'Stop it,' November shuddered. 'This place is creepy
enough.'

And she was right. In fact Bob Pearce was saying the
same thing, and under his breath began spouting all
sorts of disjointed thoughts, perhaps in an effort to calm
his nerves.

Something about the design of a city reinforced the
notion of people, he kept saying. Buildings without
people spoke of death, loneliness and isolation. Buildings
without people were frightening things. Places to fear.
Few people spoke of ghosts at rock concerts or on freeways,
in bars or in parkland and beaches. Ghosts were



706 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

in the purview of attics and back rooms, halls and underused
bedrooms. Ghosts and their domains said a lot
about the human need to fill a void. The deeply-rooted
psychology of a species that could not tolerate nothingness.
To
attribute a ghost to a place said a lot about the
architecture of that place too, for it spoke of a building
that was not fulfilling the purpose for which it was
intended. Through simple lines and geometric patterns,
many buildings simply cried out for human contact.
And in as much as that theory could be applied to
Atlantis - here was a city screaming out for human contact
on an unbelievable scale.
Hacker took in everything Pearce had to say before
commenting. 'Yes,' he said, 'I'm sure the ghosts back in
the Var would agree with you.'
Bob Pearce would have replied, but the whole team
drew to a halt. For the way ahead was blocked.

It was like some gigantic bucket of vanilla sorbet had
toppled over and oozed down Fifth Avenue. The passage
between the buildings to the right of the thoroughfare
was choked with thick, smooth-flowing glacier
ice which had spilled over the road before continuing
on down between the buildings to the left.
Luckily for the team however, there was evidence
that this ice was aerated. That holes had melted through
as hot water had dripped down from above and eroded
entire sections throughout the blockage.
Gant pulled back from assessing the situation, pick
in hand. Its metal tip was wet from where the glacial
ice was in the advanced stages of decay. 'It's okay,' he
said. 'I think I can figure us a way through.'
....................................... DECIPHER 	707

'That's good,' Hackett commented, checking his
watch, 'because we just don't have much time left.'
Gant laid into the thin ice. 'Tell me something I
don't know.' He beckoned impatiently to Yun and the
others. 'Well, c'mere! Gimme a hand with this!'
The passage twisted and turned and at intervals where
the way forward was simply a dead end, it was cleared
by either smashing through with a pick, or simply leaning
into the ice with brute force and body strength. The
ice was so weak and brittle, it was amazing it could sustain
its own weight.
'Be careful,' Sarah warned. 'There's every possibility
this entire cavern's going to collapse.'
They broke free at last and burst out onto the continuation
of the main boulevard ahead. A place where
the view was as spectacular as it had first been, but
revealed yet more details about the city. For branching
out before them in a huge arc lay the outer of what
Plato had described as two concentric canals, the first
of which was so massive that Atlantis was said to harbor
her entire fleet within it.
The canal was filled with melt water, and seemed
strangely closer to the level of the thoroughfare than
when they had first journeyed out on it.
Matheson, constantly in awe of the amazing engineering
feats of this city, ran over to the side and looked
down.
'That's it!' he cried. 'This whole city must be built on
some kind of mound, or a hill! The closer to the center
we get the closer to ground level we get! It can't be more
than fifteen or twenty feet down to the water level--'
And that was when his voice caught in his throat.
'Jesus,' he said. 'Michaels . . . I'


BAIT


A

few hundred yards away, Michaels lay crumpled
and motionless out in the middle of the canal. Not
a difficult thing to do considering the water was frozen
solid. But not through any natural processes, for though
the canal sparkled like fluid water, and though it was
as clear as freshwater, it was not ice. It was frozen
through the standing wave phenomenon of quasicrystalization.

Ripples in the water and disturbances had been captured
and frozen in time by the standing waves pumped
out by the G60 walls on either side of the canal. These
ripples were most notable at the water's edge on each
side, exactly where the quasicrystalization began. It
showed.clearly where the power and force to achieve
this feat was coming from.
The others rushed over to where Matheson stood at
the side of the thoroughfare.
Gant was the first to spot it - the black container
....................................... DECIPHER 	r 	709

lying on its side a few feet away from the marine. Already
the Major was going for the ropes slung on his belt. All
he said was: 'The bomb.'
'Screw the bomb!' Pearce snapped. 'We've got to help
him - Michaels! Hey, can you hear me? Hey, Michaels,
are you okay?'
Michaels seemed to stir after.a moment. With a groan
he raised his head before collapsing back down and
rolling over onto his back. He seemed to be speaking
but nobody could hear.
'The radio,' Yun urged. 'Use your radio.'
As Hillman reached for his unit, Gant was already
securing his line to some kind of ancient lamp-post and
tossing the other end over the edge.
'Ray,' Hillman said firmly, thumbing the transceiver.
'Ray, can you hear me? We're comin' to get you, bud.
Don't worry.'
'We don't have time for this,' Hacker warned desperately.
'We
don't leave a fallen man,' Hillman growled.
'Fine!' Hackett shot back. 'You go down and get him,
we'll continue on to the control center.'
'We go togetherl' Gant barked.
Out on the canal, Michaels's arm flopped weakly onto
his chest as he unclipped his radio. They could barely
make out what he was doing. It was peculiar. But he
seemed to be tossing the thing away. He seemed to be
indicating that he didn't want them coming out to him.
He was warding them off.
'Damn, what's he doing?'
Hillman went for his binoculars again. 'Oh crap. Sir,
poor bastard's broke both his legs. I can see it. They're
all twisted outta shape?


710 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


Yun immediately went for his own set of ropes and
started to tie one off around a post.

'What the hell d'you think you're doing?' Gant

demanded.
'I help.'
'Like hell--'

'We do not have time for this macho bullshit!'
November spat, grabbing her own safety clip and hooking
her leg over the edge. 'Christ, I'll help, y'all. The
sooner we do this, the sooner we can get going again.'

Before anyone else could say a word, she was already
climbing down onto the canal. Gant exchanged a look

with Scott. 'Gets up quite a head of steam, don't she?'
Scott shrugged.

Gant got going as Hackett took the epigraphist to one
side. 'What is it with you?'

Tm gonna die,' Scott replied simply, almost flippantly.
'It kind of changes one's perspective.'

Hackett obviously hadn't expected to hear that. He
wanted to press the man further, but Hillman was forcing
equipment into his hand. 'Here, hold this,' he was
saying, giving him his backpack and swinging his legs
over the edge. Tll be back in two shakes.'

But even as the three soldiers and the anthropologist's
assistant stepped out onto the canal, Scott frowned,

like late breaking news had just filtered into his head.
'Something's wrong,' he said simply.

Sarah exchanged a look with Scott as he came back

over to the edge, scouring the horizon with a keen eye.
'There!' she pointed.

And that's when they all saw it.

AMBUSH


M

ichaels groaned in such hideous agony he was
almost delirious from it as he held his mashed
arm in one hand. He had thick congealing blood caked
all over his face. His nose was all smashed just like the
side of his face. His left leg stuck out at right-angles
halfway down his shin bone. He wasn't certain, but he
was pretty sure a broken rib had punctured one of his
lungs.

And then out of the mish-mash of his blurred vision
- came the cavalry.

There was only one way to describe it. With the little
power left in his voice and air rasping in his throat he
said: 'Fucking idiots.'

His head flopped back down.


Hillman broke into a sprint.

'We're right here, man! We're right here! We're gonna

get you out of this!'



712 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

The only one who didn't rush immediately to
Michaels's side was Gant. Not surprisingly, his main
concern was the bomb. He turned it over onto its skis.
'It's still in one piece,' he realized. 'Jesus, thank God.'
'Thank Samsonite,' Michaels gasped, amused with
himself.
'What the hell happened to you, man?' Hillman
asked, frantically making a note of all the marine's
wounds.
Michaels coughed. 'I fell out of the fucking sky...
What do you think happened to me?'
'Jesus, you're lucky to be alive.'
'Then why don't I feel lucky?' But though it was said
as a joke, he wasn't laughing. He let his mashed-up arm
flop to one side and grabbed Hillman by the collar. 'You
gotta get outta here, before they come back. You gotta
go.'
Hillman didn't get it. 'What the luck are you talking
about7 We're getting you out of here.'
But even as Hillman spoke, Michaels's face was a
picture of pure, undiluted fear. Tears welled in his
bloodshot eyes. Any moment and there was a chance
he was going to blub like a baby.
'Oh luck, man, it's too late. They're here. Man,
they're here. We're all gonna fucking die.'
The others snapped their heads up to see, while
Michaels caught a glimpse of Hackett and the rest of
the team over on the bridge. They were waving. 'Get out
- of- there!' came their belated cries.
'They left me out here as bait,' Michaels sobbed. 'And
you fell for it.'
But it was all too late. Michaels flopped his head
back down, the strain once again too much on his neck.
	....................................... DECIPHER 	713

'That's what I've been telling you,' he murmured,
breathless.
November rose to her feet slowly with Yun as Gant
backed up next to them dragging the warhead with him.
"Holy fuck...'
'What do we do?' November asked.
But there was little point in answering such a redundant
question.

Across the far expanse of the canal, on the empty quaysides
and docks of the ancient city, in a vast swathe as
far as the eye could see, the Golems waited.
Not one, or two. Not even a hundred. But thousands.
Maybe even tens of thousands.
Motionless to begin with, no one knew which one
moved first, but there came a sudden imperceptible
shift in attitude throughout the forest of crystal effigies
and within seconds the Golems had taken to swaying,
their huge heads lumbering upon thick necks as they
shifted their weight from foot to foot. Ritualistic and
menacing.
Hillman checked behind for an escape route, but the
comment: 'Oh no,' pretty much let everyone know there
wasn't one. For standing in a line along the enclosing
arc of the nearside of the canal, back the way they came,
were thousands more Golems. However, these were a
far more aggressive bunch than any they had encountered before.
The front line took a step forward and thrust out their
right arms. In unison they balled their fists and, starting
in the middle of the group and simultaneously working
out to the periphery on both sides of the arc, each Golem's
clenched fist mutated. Warped. Suddenly, razor-sharp


714 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


stiletto-style daggers rose up from within their fists and
then shot up to become fully-fledged crystal swords.

The sound they made as they did this was like ten
thousand razor blades scraping down a chalkboard. It
was the sound of death - a sound that made it perfectly
plain that the group would not be going back the way
they came.

'Fuck that shit!' Hillman screamed.

For now though, the Golems simply stood in position
and stared across the void at them. Like they were
weighing the odds. Assessing the options.

'How many do you think there are?' Michaels panted.

'Does it fucking matter?' Gant growled. 'We're outnumbered.'

'One
hundred and forty-four thousand,' November said
sourly. 'That's how many there are. That's what the Bible
says about the size of the army in the final conflict.'

'We gotta get to the bridge.' Gant checked his sonic
artifact as he tied the warhead off on his belt. 'What's
that word I gotta use?'

'It's two words,' November reminded. 'Zihamtu.'

Gant nodded as he spoke into the device to check it
worked. 'Zihamtu . . .'

It was perhaps, not the best thing he could have done.
All along the edge of both sides of the canal the Golems
started emitting a low rumble, their body language indicating
they were about to go on the offensive.

Michaels lay on the ground, shivering. 'Sir, I don't
think that was a good idea.'

Hillman cocked his rifle. 'And that's just their reaction
to those two words, huh?! Well, I got two words for
'em. Hechler and Koch! Or how about Eat Lead! Or
maybe Die, Bitch!'

....................................... DECIPHER 	71 5


Gant started marching. 'C'mon, let's go.'

'Sir,' Hillman protested. 'What about Michaels? Sir,
we can't just leave him.'

Gant pulled out his handgun and immediately
handed it to the fallen marine. 'Here, son. You need
this more than I do.'

But even as he said this the Golems on either side
of the canal started climbing down onto the hard surface
of the water.

'Get out of here!' Michaels pleaded. 'Or you're all
gonna fucking die!'

Tll stay with him,' Yun piped up suddenly. 'You
cannot leave him to die.'

'Bullshit! I'll stay with him!' Hillman protested. 'You
never served with him! I did.'

'We don't have time for this horseshit, soldier!' Gant
exploded as he realized the mass of Golems on both
sides of the canal were marching toward them. 'If you're
both prepared to stay with him, you can both pick him
up and carry him. Now let's go!'

November quickly clipped her tether onto the warhead
and began pulling alongside Gant. Together they
broke into a run heading for the bridge where the others
were screaming for them to hurry.

It was the best course of action, because the Golems
too had quickened their pace.

They had started to charge.


'Jesus Christ! They're never going to make it!' Pearce
yelped. 'Run!'

Matheson went to climb over the edge but Scott held
him back. 'What are you doing?' he complained, struggling
to get free. 'We've got to do somethingF



716 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

'Staying here,' Scott said firmly, 'is the safest option.'
'What!'
'Look around you,' Sarah explained coldly. 'Do you
see any of those things climbing up here onto the
bridge? No. Beta.use it's Carbon 60. There is a battle
raging in this city right now, for control of those creatures.
If they come into contact with this crystal bridge
they will interface with it. Then they die!'
'It is really starting to disturb me that you two know
so much about this place all of a sudden,' Pearee
snapped.
Scott started wrapping one of the ropes around his
waist. 'When they get here, we'll pull 'em up.'
'Let's hope they get here.'

November could literally hear her heart pounding in
her chest. Her cheeks flushed as she sprinted across the
quasicrystallized canal toward the bridge, dragging the
warhead alongside Gant.
Out the corner of her eye she could sense the Golems
looming large, bearing down like a wave of frenzied,
shattered glass.
She could hear them dragging their swords behind
them, forcing the points into the crystallized canal and
creating such a God-awful screech it sounded like a
herd of freight trains all ramming on their brakes to
avoid a full head-on collision.
She could feel a scream building in her throat. A
bubble of sheer terror.
She turned her head to look, though she knew she
shouldn't, and that was when the Golems closest to
her raised their long thin blades and went in for the
kill.
....................................... DECIPHER 	71 7

November didn't know where her presence of mind
came from.
All she knew was that at some instinctive level she
realized she had to retaliate and had the means to do
so within her grasp. She brought the sonic artifact up
to her lips, and without breaking the rhythm of her
sprint she screamed into it like some frenzied banshee: Zihamtu! Zihamtu! Zihamtu!
The front line of sword-wielding Golems exploded
in a cloud of electrified dust.
But through the stormcloud and residual lightning
came the second line of attacking automatons.
They tipped their blades forward, to let her know
they intended to skewer her.

Hillman fired again and again, blasting bullets deep
into the thick of the marauding machines.
He knew it wouldn't kill them. But he also knew if
he tripped enough of them up, took their legs out or
knocked them on their asses, it would slow them some
and buy the group more time.
'Take that, you fuckers!'
'ArghV Michaels bellowed in such a bloodcurdling
manner it made both men carrying him wince.
Michaels had tried to put weight on his legs, even
though he knew they would never support him. But his desperation to speed the process up was that great.
This was no good. They couldn't both carry him;
they would have to stop. One of them would have to
put his full weight over their shoulder, and carry him
fireman-style.
Hillman jerked them to a halt. Shoved his gun in
Michaels's hand. 'Here, hold this!'



718 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

Yun knew what he was doing. In symbiosis, he helped
heave the marine up onto his comrade's shoulder and
set out ahead.
Michaels was heavy. A deadweight in fact, but there
was just no way Hillman was prepared to leave him
behind. He fired to the side as he yelled at his cargo:
'Shoot the fuckers! Shoot 'em from behind!'
He listened with a satisfied air as Michaels loosed
volley after volley into the oncoming swarm. But it
wasn't enough. Hillman just wasn't strong enough. He
couldn't maintain the speed required to stay one jump
ahead. Within moments they were engulfed.
In the panic that followed, Hillman tripped and was
brought crashing to his knees. Yet despite the severest
jabbing pains shooting through his kneecaps, he was
miraculously able to keep Michaels firmly balanced on
his shoulder.
But he needn't have bothered.
The clips spent, the amino gone, perhaps Michaels
would have preferred to have crashed to the ground
himself.
'You okay, buddy?' Hillman called out thinly.
'Uh-huh,' came the equally weak reply.
For the last thing Michaels was to see as he pulled
his head up over his friend's shoulder, was a massive
Golem looming large, the serrated tip of its ultra-thin
blade pressing square against the flesh and bone
between his eyes- and pushing.

Yun couldn't hear them behind him anymore. The two
marines.
He knew he shouldn't look back, but he could see
up ahead that November and Gant had still not
....................................... DECIPHER 	719

reached the bridge. They were going to need a diversion.
Casually
he jogged to a halt, having come to his
deliberate conclusion in a measured manner. He lowered
his gun and knew the waves of Golems had altered
course to attack him.

Up on the bridge, the others couldn't believe what they
were seeing. Pearce gripped the edge and called after
the Chinese soldier, but it was no use. Yun's mind was
made up.
He was turning back to confront them.

The sight before him was as gruesome as he had feared.
He just caught the tail end of a double decapitation
and watched as the heads of the two fallen marines
rolled across the floor.
On impulse, he screamed.
The band of Golems immediately turned on the
Chinese soldier like a shoal of fish sensing food. But
there was no need to pursue it, for it was obvious Chow
Yun had decided to stand his ground and confront his
demons.
His face a contorted mass of sweat-soaked wrinkles,
he watched in abject petrification as the lead Golem
approached him and shrank down into the enigmatic
visage of Yan Ning.
How had she even gotten inside the city?
'It is time for you to join me, my love,' she announced
to her former lover in cold, emotionless Cantonese.
He roared at the effigy by way of a response. A final,
formidable death-cry as he pumped what was left of
his weapon's half-spent clip into the approaching


720 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


crystal girl. But though she teetered off-balance
momentarily, she continued her venture forward, and
even smiled.

His clip spent, his nerves shot, Yun was taken by surprise
as a perfectly smooth crystal rapier plunged into
his back, burst from his abdomen and journeyed up as
far as his chin.


'Zihamtu!' Gant yelled. It was a stupid war cry. It didn't
feel right. Yet it was having the desired effect. 'Zihamtu!'

Golem after Golem caught in the sonic shock wave
atomized on the spot, occasionally covering the two of
them in a shower of gray, static-ridden grit as Gant and
November pounded their way to the bridge. Every now
and then, the odd faster-thinking Golem would dive for
cover and wind up simply losing an arm or a leg if they
were fool enough to allow their appendages to trail far
behind.

The ropes were still there when the pair reached the
bridge.

Gant unhooked himself from the warhead and tied
the container onto the rope. He did the same with
November's tether while she stood guard and blew apart

any approaching Golems.

'Take it up!'

'What about you?' Matheson yelled.

'Just take it up!'

The five up on the bridge quit arguing and put their
back into the operation, heaving the trunk to the top
in one fluid motion and hauling it over the side.

They tossed one rope back down immediately, but
the other rope took a couple more seconds longer
work free.

....................................... DECIPHER 	721


But that's all it took.

The Golems were closing in - fast.

November grabbed hold of the first rope and shouted
at the top of her lungs to be hauled up, leaving Gant
to defend himself. The fastest approaching Golem leapt
at them from several yards away, bringing its sword over
its head to slice at them both in the process.

November screamed into her sonic weapon and obliterated
the menace in mid-air, but their assailant had
not been alone. Three pounced in on Gant and the
marine had no choice but to make a jump for it.
Planting his foot into the oncoming automaton's face,
he used the creature as a vaulting platform to flip up
and grab hold Of November's leg.

November howled in terror, unaware of what was
going on and loosened her grip. The palms of her hands
felt like they were on fire as ropeburn ripped them to
shreds but she managed to hang on.

Gant gritted his teeth in anticipation as another
Golem sprang at them, but spying some kind of post
jutting down from the bridge, like the ones on top, he
swung and kicked against it in an effort to dislodge their
attacker.

It worked. The Golem slammed into the Carbon 60
post and simply clung there. Its whole body twitched
and shivered as a slew of faces from the Vat suddenly
appeared under the glass to meet it head on and sucked
their creation back inside.

The Golems on the ground faltered.

As the team on the bridge pulled their friends to
safety, the Golems gathered below and stared up at
them. Dissatisfied with the turn of events, one vengeful
Go!em made a last-minute bid to wreak disaster and



722 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

leapt up after them both, extending his sword as far as
it would go and slashing at the sole of Gant's boot.
The blow was true and sure. Gant screamed in rage
and agony as a gash opened up and blood poured from
his foot. But it didn't stop him from crawling over onto
the hard floor of the bridge next to an exhausted
November. He rolled to a stop, clutching his sliced-up
foot and was met by a more than gleeful Pearce who
commented: 'Smarts, doesn't it?'

Sarah checked over the warhead and its container.
There was something odd about it which she just couldn't put her finger on.
She studied the locks. They were bfisted - from the
inside out, like something had crawled inside and
expanded until the metal gave way. Sarah popped them
cautiously and threw open the trunk.
She flinched in surprise.
Gant groaned as he got up. 'What is it?' he demanded
as he hobbled over, leaving a trail of blood behind him.
What he found was a pile of wires and busted parts,
chewed components and burnt main boards. The warhead
had been decimated.
Hackett peered over his shoulder. 'And this was worth
three lives, how?'
Gant dismissed him, angrily jamming his hands into
the mass of junk and unsalvageable parts.
'I wouldn't do that,' Sarah warned, but the marine
wouldn't listen.
'What happened to my bomb?' he cried desperately.
'I was depending on my bomb! What happened to my
warhead?'
But even as he said it, tiny glass spiders had emerged
....................................... DECIPHER 	723

from the wreckage to make a direct attack on the man.
Using long, needle-like teeth, they scampered across
polished steel components and jabbed deep into Gant's
stress-ridden fingers.
The Major screamed in agony, flinging the tiny creatures
aside. Sarah recognized them as similar to the
ones she had seen at Giza, but far more vicious.
Instinctively she tipped the whole trunk over and spilled
the lot onto the Carbon 60 floor.
In a flurry of high-pitched whines the tiny crystal spiders
tried to make a run for it, but were caught in the
grips of the low-frequency waves being pulsed out by
elements within the Carbon 60 thoroughfare.
They exploded in miniature pops and whistles like
Chinese firecrackers.
Gant hung his head in shame. 'I've failed,' he said.
'We're screwed.'
But Scott, his back to the others, stood by the low
wall of the bridge and looking out at the amassed congregation
of angry automatons below, was quite sure
they were not. 'We'll be fine,' he announced confidently.
'I know we will be.'
With that he plunged his own sonic device firmly
and deeply into one of the many recesses along the
entire length of the wall and murmured something
almost inaudible.
Belatedly, the Golems below became aware of what
he was doing and scattered. Those at the far shores
scrambled to safety. Others chanced it by leaping for
the bridge but if they were capable of reflective thought
it was probable that they wished they hadn't bothered.
For as they clung to the crystal bridge and convulsed
to their own doom, the water below them began to
t



724 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

shimmer and sparkle as it regained a fluidity it had not
seen in some time.
Those Golems still stuck out on the canal splashed
beneath the surface and sank like a bunch of rocks.
Hackett was impressed. 'Ever had that sinking feeling?'
Scott was not amused so he took another stab at
it. 'Well, this place did sink one time before, I seem to
remember. You'd think they'd be prepared for it.'
Scott still did not find it funny.
The waters were calm and still before them. Breathtakingly
pure and clear, it was possible to see right to
the bottom. Those Golems that had sunk to the bottom
of the canal had disappeared. They had become quite
literally invisible. The only way to make them out was
to try and spot the odd shadow flitting about darkly
against the lighter stonework below.
And when that had been achieved, one feature
became startlingly clear: they were extraordinarily fast
swimmers. And they were massing, coming together in
a group and swarming.
It dawned on them all, but Matheson was the first
to say it: 'I don't think that was such a good idea. I don't
think that was a good idea at all. We better get going.'
Gant glanced up from .where he was sat on the floor
nursing his foot. 'Go where?' he glowered.
Matheson jerked a thumb at Scott. 'Go where he says, I guess.'
'And where is that.., exactly?'
'I don't know,' Matheson shrugged. 'But he's right,
Major, we gotta get going.' He glanced back over the
side. The mass of shadows was growing. 'There is something
so outta whack going on down there.'
Gant strained to get to his feet. It was clear he
....................................... DECIPHER 	725

couldn't put much weight on his damaged foot but he
stood there with dignity and even straightened his uniform.
'Why worry about it? Why don't you get your
buddy here to sort it all out since he seems to know so
much about this place all of a sudden? How do we know
he's not turning into one of them and leading us into
a trap?'
'That's not fair!' Pearce interrupted, but Scott held
up his hand to silence him.
'It's okay,' he said soothingly. 'Look, Major, I'm
plugged into this place. I am in constant communication
with the machine. But I cannot see around corners.
I only know where we're going because I asked. I
only know what to do - because I asked.'
Gant launched himself forward and grabbed Scott
by the throat. 'I have had about as much of this cosmic
riddle as Iean take. Now you tell me what lies ahead,
nerd-boy, or so help me God I'll throw you to those
cute little fishes down there. Now - where - are - we - going?'
The others didn't know what to do, but Scott didn't
seem as phased as he might have been. He indicated
the vast pyramid on top of the four large statues. 'We're
going there; he said. 'That's the control center.'
Gant's grip tightened, 'And what do we do when we
get there?'
'You do nothing,' Scott explained. 'I will go inside and
die.'



SACRIFICE

t Dichard - you step into that chamber and you're
FI
never coming back. What are you even talking
about! What about your daughter? Think about her.'
'Ralph,' Scott smiled serenely, 'unless somebody steps
into that chamber, my daughter will die. All our sons
and daughters will die.' He forced back a chuckle, giddy
with excitement. 'It really is that simple.'
'We have thirty minutes,' Pearce remarked earnestly,
checking his time-piece with unflappable accuracy.
'And this is the best solution you can come up with?
Why do you have to die? I don't understand.' He
grabbed Gant's arm. 'Get your fucking hands off him.
Richard, what gives here?'
'I will have to merge with this thing. The only way
to teach it that we as a species survived the last flood
and have developed sufficiently, is for two of us to
physically join with the machine. Let it know us in
our essence. The machine will connect with me at a
....................................... DECIPHER 	727

subatomic level. It will form a bond like something akin
to fusion. It will strip me of all outwardly visible humanity.
For one brief moment I will continue to be human.
But I will have all the resources and the accumulated
knowledge of thousands of years of human history.
Access to the records of countless civilizations at my
fingertips.
'As the most modern addition to this great repository
of knowledge, my twenty-first-century mind will provide
all the current data about population centers, fragile
eco-systems and any other zones around the earth that
require special protection. I will be able to control and
manipulate each wing within the global network and
reach of this machine and will channel its energies to
the most effective parts. The task this machine has been
assigned is to turn our planet into one gigantic crystal.
The seas, the air, and the liquid inner core of this entire
planet will become one solid mass. Immovable. For one
brief moment this planet will experience pure order in
a solar system of chaos. I will avert our destruction. For
one brief moment... I will be God . .,. and then I'll
be gone.
'There will be no coming back. I will be dismembered,
a particle at a time. I will become part of this
. . . device. I will become history. I will transform into
pure information.' He paused to let them all consider
this, then added: 'We are approaching the time of
Easter, the ancient festival of sacrifice and renewal. It
is written in the very mythology of civilization that
mankind's future is based on the notion of sacrifice.'
He smiled, such a knowing smile that it disarmed any
wavering doubts the 6thers may have had. 'Like I said
in my lecture when you met me for the very first time,


728 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


Ralph and Bob . . . You must tale all of the Bible, not
just parts. And in that vein, I am taking all of the myths
and legends, not just parts. It was written thousands of
years ago that someone would have to die to save
mankind. It may as well be me.'

Hacker narrowed his eyes. 'You said two people must
step into the chamber,' he noted, 'not one. Who's the
second?'

'You noticed that, huh?'

'I notice everything.'

'One man must enter the chamber - and one
woman.' Scott turned to Sarah. Held out a hand. 'What
do you think? Feel like playing Eve to my Adam? Want
a shot at wiping the slate clean?'

Sarah looked at the epigrapher's hand and hesitated
for a moment. But she couldn't help succumbing to
that gnawing, nervous anticipation of giving herself over
to one gigantic explosion of experiential wonderment.

Slowly, tentatively, she slipped her hand into his.
Embraced his warmth, and felt contented.

'Now wait a minuteV Pearce thundered. 'Has everyone
gone insane?'

'Y'know, it's actually funny,' Hackett mused, rubbing
his jaw. 'Studies have proved that suicides experience
something akin to overwhelming joy just hours, even
days before they finally blow their brains out, or slice
up their wrists. It has something to do with the release.
Knowing that everything will finally end. They will have
attained, in their opinion, a solution.'

'Not that!' Pearce exploded. 'Sacrifice? Are you nuts?
If this is about that shit in your leg, Richard, we can
take care of that. We can remove it! Okay, so you might
have to lose your leg, but you'll be alive.'

....................................... DECIPHER 	729


Hackett moved in closer to them. It was obvious he
agreed.

`you don't have to do this,' he pressed upon them
firmly. 'This is crazy. You have everything to live for. I,

on the other hand--'

'You?'

It was harsh, almost accusatory. But Hackett let it
slip.

'Jon,' Scott said softly. 'To you, it's about the puzzle.
The game. To you - it's always been the puzzle.' Scott
looked deep into the physicist's eyes. Admired his friend,
the curiosity and sincerity that burned in that man's
eyes. Yes, friend. In the final analysis, Scott concluded,
he could call this man his friend. 'ion . . . for me, it's
always been about the answer. The ultimate knowledge.
This way, I get it. I get my answer. About who we are.
Where we come from.'

Hackett took it in with humility.

'You wouldn't be content with just an answer,' Scott
concluded. 'You require the riddle.'

Hackett smiled. The same curious smile that had
always so incensed Scott from the very first moment he
had met him. And which now brought so much delight
and gratification. There were a thousand and one questions
rattling around in Jon Hackett's mind. But out of

respect he was asking none of them.

Scott appreciated that.

Instead, all Hackett said, sincerely, was: 'To all things,
there is a rhythm. Maybe this is the rhythm of your life.'

'Twenty minutes,' Matheson announced, looking
down atthe water. 'Folks, we really oughta get the luck
outta here. I do not like what I'm seeing down there!'


730 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


And that was when the water rippled, parted and frothed
as a huge crystal fin cut through it and came toward
them. Followed by another. Then another. Until ultimately
the sheer bulk of the merged single entity below
was revealed before them, its fangs the size of tree
trunks, its crystal scales iridescent and pearl-like.

Like the very serpent from the Book of Revelation
itself- the incarnation of Satan - the vast Goliath-sized
beast of the sea snapped its truck-sized jaws together in
a thunderous clap, slithered its way over to them, reared
up - and roared.

20 MINUTES



mhey ran like they had never run in their lives

before.

The true Leviathan of Atlantis cut through the water
as if it didn't exist, reached over the bridge and when
it failed to connect with its first strike, ducked underneath
and reared its head up the other side.

It screamed in outraged fury and swiped again.

It missed. Its canoe-sized talons swinging just inches
overhead.

It knew that it couldn't strike directly downwards and
swat them like mere insects. And that fact alone frustrated
it even more. It had to be careful too, about its
line of attack. It had to be precise, jabbing its massive
paw between tall spindly columns of Carbon 60 that
seemed to have been placed there purely to foil the
incredible beast.

As the seven ran, the Leviathan turned its swim into


732 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

a back-stroke so it could keep track of its prey while
keeping pace with it.
It lashed with its tail this time, making a whipping
attack across their paths in the hope they would run
into trouble.
But they never did.
Instead, those with sonic devices merely pointed their
weapons in the beast's direction and shouted the sacred
word with all the ferocity they could muster.
Vast dead chunks of crystal fell from the beast's chest
as it took direct hit after direct hit. It finally crashed to
a halt, sending a tidal wave of water swelling into the
shoreline buildings ahead. And as it screamed in agony
the seven did all they could to remain upright and
moving as the backwash swilled along the bridge and
threatened to sweep them over and into the canal.
They headed directly for the continuation of the
Carbon 60 thoroughfare beyond, lined with tall crystal
buildings on either side, and knew instinctively that at
the very least, for this stretch of the journey they would
be safe.
But the Leviathan had other ideas, for as the team
headed off down the main road that was littered with
icy glacial protrusions from where the cavern had still
not truly receded in places, the creature lined itself
up with a granite paved side road and rushed towards
it.
Its razor-sharp blade-like plates and fins aeroplaning
sheets of water up into the air, it roared toward the dockside
and at the last available moment - it shattered.
Tens of thousands of massive shards of crystal chunks
were catapulted up the road. They bounced. Rolled.
And using the momentum to their advantage, trans.......................................
DECIPHER 	733

formed into ten thousand more Golems - sprinting at
full pelt.

Hackett was the first to notice this, as the thoroughfare
leveled out. It was suddenly like taking a trip down a
ghostly version of any downtown Manhattan street, and
glancing over to notice that a horde of ghosts had
decided to run the marathon parallel to them, just the
next block over.
Not only that, they were much faster than the
humans, and in all likelihood were about to head them
off at the pass.
Hackett stared straight ahead, felt the adrenaline
rushing through his veins.
And gulped.

Ahead lay a zigzagging path between glacial deposits.
A route so confusing it was hard to tell at first in which
direction they were going since their line-of-sight view
of the central district, not far away now, was obscured.
And then it happened. The frightening prospect they
had all been dreading and never voiced.
Though the way ahead clearly continued, the C60
path upon which they trod and upon which their lives
depended, disappeared under sheets of ice. Sometimes
the depth of that ice covering could be measured in
mere, frustrating inches. But those inches crucially separated
life from death.
And the Golems knew this.
As the ice undulated up and down in front of them
like the gentle rolling of the countryside, the seven were
confronted with squads of Golem search teams, pouring
out from occasional side streets and meeting them


734 	:.. STEL PAVLOU .....................................


head on, taking up attacking postures on the brows of
the hills.

Zihamtu! Zihamtu! Zihamtu!

The obstructions were removed. But it wouldn't be
long before their luck ran out.

When they reached the second canal, a much narrower
affair than the first, they were relieved to find that
all that ice actually worked in their favor, obscuring
them from view as they journeyed across the wide open
space toward the center.

And so it was with ten minutes to spare before the
sun was due to trumpet its last gravity wave, that the
seven remaining members of the Antarctic Team found
themselves descending into the streets of the inner circle
of Atlantis, passing by the spectacularly vast and imposing
statues, which in turn supported the incredible crystal
pyramid some 200 feet above their heads.

Making their way through the pits of ice that were
glowing violently red, they watched in awe as hundreds
of feet further up, the energy twister of solar plasma cascaded
down and coiled itself around the seven vast crystal
towers.

In the middle of the ice sat a glowing crystal platform.
Square-shaped and of exquisite design, it pulsed
and throbbed with light, like a magic carpet waiting to
take its guests up into the pyramid above.

But there was a problem, because there was simply
no way of reaching the platform.

For standing between them and salvation was an
entire legion of Golems. Waiting patiently. Fully armed.
They knew they did not even need to attack because
time was on their side. Around them stood the curious
hulks and burnt-out strewn wreckage of the Chinese

....................................... dECIPHER 	735

base ]ung Chang. Torn and twisted from where it had
fallen in from the surface, it was the perfect reminder
that they too might yet become part of some macabre
cemetery.

Hackett described it best of all by saying: 'I don't
know how we're going to get out of this one without an
Act of God.'


An Act of God.

That was precisely what they got.


ACT OF GOD


T

he ground shook.

So violent was the earthquake that November was
knocked to her knees. Peals of thunder rang out as the
deep red glow of the nearby volcano descended upon
the whole city.

Matheson panicked. 'Is this it?'

Hackett shook his head. 'No,' he said, 'this is just the
build-up. Pre-tremors before the main event. Minor
gravitational fluctuations before she pops her load completely.'

November
couldn't help it. She started sobbing as
Scott helped her to her feet, and that's when they all
saw it. An intense white-hot glow, darkening to a distinct
yellow then orange as it grew larger in a speckled
effect at random all across the more imposing glaciers
around them.

Suddenly, huge dark shafts of hot volcanic pumice
began blasting out all around them as molten lava ate

....................................... DECIPHER 	737


its way through the Antarctic ice like a hot knife through
butter and cooled dramatically along the way.

The team dived for cover as a sudden protrusion of
rock accompanied by super-hot jets of steam exploded
right next to them. It was ironic, for they fared better
than the Golems who stood stoically waiting for them.
Multiple columns of heavy black pumice seemed to
crisscross uncontrollably and explode out into the crystal
crowd while the foul, choking stench of sulfur
descended upon the whole area.

The ground shook again, more violently than before.
And as these weird, tree-trunk-sized lances of cooling
rock continued to shoot forth through the ice, so
the heavens opened up in a sudden cascade of brimstone.
Hot molten rocks, some still glowing bright yellow
and obviously malleable came hurtling through the ice
cavern above and rained down upon the legion of
Golems. Huge smoldering boulders rolled through the
ice creating instant slush in their wake and knocking
over hundreds of them at a time like skittles.

And Scott saw his chance. It was now or never.
Gently he took his arms from around November's
shoulders and removed her head from his chest. He
delicately brushed her hair from her face and kissed her
tenderly on the forehead.

'I will miss you,' he said.

She looked up into his eyes. So earnest. So comforting.
Tll miss you too,' she replied.

Matheson tapped his watch. 'Go!' he cried. 'We'll try

and cover you! And Richard?'
Scott turned back.
'Thank you.'

Scott was puzzled. 'For what7'



738 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

'For thinking any of us are actually worth saving.'
'Who'd have thought it,' Hackett scoffed. 'Us geeks
really do get to inherit the earth.'
Scott nodded, relinquishing his sonic weapon to the
others.
Neither he nor Sarah would need one where they
were going.
'Take care,' Sarah said as she departed. 'All of you.'

They all moved forward in unison, the five who would
remain behind, each blasting a path through the
Golems to allow Scott and Sarah safe passage to the
glowing platform.
The air was thick with throbbing vibration, as if the
device itself was anxious. Anticipating the moment
when it would fulfill its purpose.
They could all feel the crushing bass tones pound
on their lungs and then Whoosh!
Scott and Sarah had taken their places aboard the
floating skiff and were hurtling skyward, propelled by
forces the others couldn't even contemplate. Within
seconds the flying platform had docked with the pyramid
and they were gone.
Hackett checked his watch. Checked with Pearce.
The CIA agent agreed: 'Two minutes,' he said.
The Colems were closing in all around them, swords
drawn like a multitude of scythes, ready to do the bidding
of the Angel of Death himself.
And then, one by one, the faces of the closest Golems
began to warp and mutate. Until eventually they had
transformed into effigies of men Matheson recognized.
Men Rola Corp. had used in the past. Men who worked
....................................... DECIPHER 	739

as mercenaries in South America. Ruthless, cold-blooded
killers.
Maple, Carver and his entire squad.

Two minutes. Two whole minutes. There was every
reason to believe they would not survive the next two
minutes.



CONTROL CENTER

E

verything was silent.
A peaceful calm had descended once the platform
had locked into position. It was as if nothing could
penetrate in from the outside world.
The room was vast and for the most part featureless.
Though its glypb-covered walls closed in on them like
some incredibly massive cathedral spire, the pyramid,
unlike the ones in Egypt, was entirely hollow.
There were a few more platforms dotted way off up
into the dark night of the obscured pinnacle, and a
few panels and podiums in the exact center. And there
were two human-shaped recesses, one on either side,
into which they obviously would have to place themselves.
This
was it.
Neither of them could breathe. Though they had
shown firm resolve in front of the others it had been a
lie. They had been sharing each other's thoughts for
....................................... DECIPHER 	741

some time now, and each knew that the other one was
petrified.
'I wish I had known you sooner,' Scott ventured.
'I wish that too,' Sarah replied.
They both gulped in unison and closed their eyes.
Then reveled in a moment of exquisite closeness for
one final moment as they took pleasure in the deep and
lasting ecstasy of a kiss.

'Ah, ain't that cute,' Bulger quipped mercilessly.
Scott and Sarah broke from their embrace as across
the expanse of Carbon 60 flooring, walked Jack Bulgerwearing
the boots of a recently deceased marine.
He clanked his way toward them, and grinned.


SURFACE


USS JOHN S. McCAIN DDG-56


F

ortune favors the Brave - that was the ship's motto.
This sixth ship in the Arleigh Burke class of
destroyers was specifically designed to conduct simultaneous
operations against land, air, surface and subsurface
targets. The AEGIS weapon system and its
AN/SPY-ID multifunction radar meant the crew could
track hundreds of potential targets at once.

The McCain had 22 officers and 315 enlisted men
and women aboard; every single one of her 90
Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles was already stored
and positioned for rapid fire in her vertical launching
system.

All she awaited was the word, which wasn't long in
coming.

As the lead ship in coordinating the SaRGE decoy
offensive, crewmen aboard the McCain had positioned
the remote robotic soldiers to draw the Chinese forces
out while old-fashioned tanks, artillery and camouflaged

...................................... • DECIPHER 	743


ground troops outflanked these forces from behind.
Once these forces were in position the McCain would
fire a barrage of Tomahawks at the Chinese incursion
force in an attempt to make them retreat. If the strategy
was successful, they would fall back right into the
lap of the waiting US troops.

It was risky. But then there was always risk. It was
still a sound plan.

On the bridge they waited patiently for word from
the Truman and the other ships in both carrier battle
groups while the clipped confirmation came in that:
'All missiles locked to target, sir.'

The captain, Larry Belvedere, from New Port,
Connecticut, nodded silently as he waited with his
senior officers.

Eventually the call came in from the carrier. All
troops were in position, and Admiral Dower was giving
the orders to the support ships, personally. 'The
President regretfully confirmed some moments ago that
the Chinese are refusing to back down on these matters
and as a consequence we are authorized to fire at
will,' he commanded.


Out on the deck of the McCain, the first wave of
Tomahawks were away. And on the barren ice flats of
Antarctica, the first shots between US and Chinese
forces were exchanged.

War had commenc'ed.


FINAL BATTLE


J

ack Bulger swung so fast and with such power that
when his rock-hard fist connected with Scott's jaw
it propelled the anthropologist through the air, smacking
him against the far end of the control chamber.

'I'm disappointed,' Bulger beamed. 'I was so looking
forward to mashing you some more.' He wiggled his
toes, pleased, because by wearing the boots he was obviously
not in contact with any expanses of Carbon 60
that would deactivate him. 'These boots were made for
walking,' he hummed. 'And that's just what I'll do.'

He swung again, launching himself at Sarah, but she
had already anticipated his attack and moved swiftly to
the side.

"You really think they'll let you live?' she challenged
him.

Bulger shrugged. 'It's not much of an after-life. But
it's still life after death.'
'You're nothing to them,' Sarah countered. 'They're

....................................... DECIPHER 	745


microscopic psychopaths. You won't have a place in
their new world order. You're just a programming tool.
When you've served your purpose they'll discard you.'

Bulger didn't like that, not one bit. Enraged, he
swung again and clawed at Sarah's thick parka, literally
tearing strips off her. He threw her to the ground and
kicked her hard.

All this, while Scott came to at the far end of the
chamber. He couldn't see straight and his jaw was
broken: he could feel the bone moving beneath his
flesh. But in spite of this he staggered over to try and
stop Bulger's attack.


The Golems were closing in.

Those with sonic weapons tried to keep them at bay,
as Gant directed their efforts. But it didn't take long for
the automatons to figure out the error of their attack,
and instead of sending in one or two effigies at a time,

they changed tack - and did what they did best.
They swarmed.

The team loosed their sonic blasts. But those Golems
which had taken the forms of Maple and Carver were
smart. They grabbed their comrades and used them as
disposable shields as they advanced.

November fell back a step, and another, only to find

other concerns to occupy her mind. A spring of water
had started trickling from one of the protruding miniglaciers,
followed by a second spring. Then a third.

She could hear the cracking of ice all around them.
The shaking and violent pounding of swarming Golems
was weakening the structure of the entire ice cavern.
'This place is collapsingt' she cried. 'Look over theret'
She pointed to the far side of the City.


746 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


The entire rear wall of the ice cavern about two miles
away was bowed out where the heat from the volcano
had warped the ice. But it was cracking under the
extreme pressure now and could hold back the reservoir
of water built up behind it no longer.

It creaked and groaned as cracks shot through the ice
until ultimately its brittleness betrayed it. The far wall
explode& unleashing millions of tons of freshwater.

Swiftly, other ice formations began to collapse. Huge
icebergs were starting to rise up in the distance as the
tidal wave headed directly for them. Some hit buildings
and burst apart so ferociously, the ice shrapnel shot
toward both human and Golem like bullets.

Golems to the left and right were decapitated by
flying ice as what appeared to be an entire legion were

washed away in the distance.

'Runt' Gant ordered.

'Run where?' Matheson panicked.

'Anywhere! We've got to get out from under this pyramid
or we drown!'

But as they all broke into a sprint they too were suddenly
swept off their feet as another reservoir of water
roared through its icy confines and burst in upon them.

They were separated, each floating freely in a frothing
lake of freezing water. Hackett smacked into a boulder
of ice with the side of his face and cut his eye open
all the way down to the cheekbone. He shrieked in
agony.

Gant spotted him and swam for the physicist, picking
his way through huge chunks of ice.

'Where are the others?' Hackett asked, clearly having
problems with the cold.

Gant could hear the man's teeth chattering away.

....................................... DECIPHER 	747


Much longer in this water and it would kill them both.
He looked about sharply and eventually spotted something.
'That iceberg!'

Hackett swirled around and saw November fishing
Matheson up out of the water. She had made it onto
an iceberg and was using it as a raft.

They swam over to join them, fighting the forces of
incredible eddies and currents within the swirl of floodwater.
It took every inch of effort their bodies could
muster and soon their limbs felt numb.

But the most distressing thing of all was the enemy,
because the Golems were relentless.


Bulger kicked hard and kicked again, jamming his boot
so viciously into Sarah's ribs that Scott could hear them
crunch. But even knowing he was endangering his own
life, Scott threw himself in front of the Golem and
swung it around to face him.

'You don't see what they're doing, do you?' Scott said
passionately. 'They're not even fighting this war, they're
making us kill each other. Kill ourselves - and for what?
For greed. Tell me something, Jack - what are you going
to do with all this carbon crystal and diamond when
this is over, if there's not going to be anyone around to
sell it to?'

The effigy of Jack Bulger didn't respond, in case it
might weaken his resolve. Instead, he stood back a pace
and produced one of those grim rapiers the other
Golems had used.


The city had flooded to such an extent that a few crystalline
buildings were now completely submerged. But
the water level was rising extraordinarily rapidly. It



748 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................
wouldn't be long before the whole place had drowned
once again.
Gant used all his strength to heave Hacker up onto
the iceberg alongside November and Matheson.
'Don't struggle too much!' Matheson warned,
unsteady on his feet. 'I don't want to give this thing any
excuse to roll over.'
November in the meantime was on her knees, clawing
at the marine, trying to get him to safety as well.
'Get up here now!' she bellowed. 'Move!'
Gant didn't need telling twice. The Golems were
already morphing into grotesque versions of sharks with
hideous oversized teeth. He clambered aboard, digging
frenzied fingers into the ice as he did so, just as two of
the sharks rammed the iceberg with their snouts, causing
it to spin around in the currents and make the team
feel giddy as they were shunted off towards the side of
the cavern.
Gant pulled himself upright. 'Where's Pearce?' he
said breathlessly. 'Anybody seen Bob?'

Bulger swung, aiming to bring his sword straight down
through Scott's head. But his way was suddenly barred
by a slender blue crystal arm that thrust out and took
the blow.
The arm belonged to Sarah.
She had pulled away part of her parka only to discover
that she was changing. She whipped her hand
around, snapped off the blade and threw it across the
room. It connected with the Carbon 60 flooring, shuddering
and melting into oblivion.
Bulger was stunned.
'I've been changing, thanks to you,' Sarah announced.
....................................... DECIPHER 	749

She eyed Scott and revealed: 'I didn't even feel it.'
And that gave Scott the idea. He glanced down at
his own leg. Had he been changing too? There was only
one way to find out. He pulled his leg back and kicked
Jack Bulger.
The effigy shot across the room, propelled by a force
that defied belief.
Scott and Sarah watched, breathless, as Bulger
plowed into the back wall and hung there like a fridge
magnet. He wriggled, panicked - and he screamed.
Finally he was atomized, and all that was left were a
pair of black leather combat boots which clattered noisily
to the floor.

They were overwhelmed. Hackett, November, Matheson
and Gant.
Though they stood their ground bi'avely and fought
the noble fight, ultimately the Golems were simply too
many in number. Too large and too brutish.
Up out of the water the head of Maple arose, attached
to the body of a massive sea creature that was still coalescing
beneath the iceberg. It reached over and grabbed
Gant by the throat and seemed not even to notice the
blows that the marine was raining down on it. Meanwhile,
another nanoswarm casually slapped November with
the back of its massive hand and sent her skidding across
to the water's edge.
As November fought for consciousness she could just
see Bob Pearce being dragged under the surface of the
water, some way off, surrounded by fins.
The Antarctic Team was beaten. And indeed, none
of them even heard it when Hackett's watch alarm
finally beeped to announce - it was time.


PULSAR


God runs electromagnetics on Monday, Wednesday and
Friday by the wave theory.., and the devil runs it by
quantum theory on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.


Sir William Bragg, Co-Winner of the
Nobel Prize For Physics, 1915

ZERO HOUR

p

, ulsars were God's timepieces.
When a star had used up all its fuel it collapsed
down on itself and went one of two ways. It either
became a quantum singularity - a black hole - or it
exploded in a supernova. A pulsar was said to come after the supernova.
All that was left, all the stellar material, would collapse
back down into a star again. But it would form a
very different kind of star. Protons would meld with
electrons to form neutrons. The resulting neutron
degeneracy pressure, the need for the unstable neutron
to blast itself apart, would fight with gravity, the force
keeping the neutron bound together.
Two supreme forces slugging it out in a pressure
cooker until ultimately an equilibrium could be
reached. Enormous magnetic field strengths would be
produced in the 'region of ten to the power of twelve
times greater than the earth's. The neutron star, like
754 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


any star, would start to spin. But unlike the sun, whose
single revolution would last thirty days, a neutron star's
spin cycle could be anywhere from weeks, up to many
times per second. The magnetic field-lines would be
severely entangled, beams of radio waves would be
blasted out across the Cosmos as the star rotated like

beams of light from a lighthouse.

That was the theory.

Which meant this sort of activity could not possibly
be occurring on an ordinary star like the sun. A star
that still had plenty of fuel left, enough to burn brightly
for another 500 million years. It was nowhere near to

becoming a neutron star.
It was a strong theory.
But the theory was wrong.


All stars were pulsars, in one shape or another.

They experienced oscillation, resonance - rhythm.
There was a pattern to the life of all things. An ebb and
a flow. A zenith and a nadir.

There was chaos and there was order.

That was the way of things.

To all things there was a rhythm, measurable, most
assuredly. But to all things there was a timescale by
which it was measurable. The life of a star was a long
and winding one. It lived on a scale that was simply too

large, too incalculable for humans to comprehend.
The sun was a pulsar.

Not in the sense of a neutron star. It did not blast
out radio waves in a beam at regular intervals and spin
wildly, but it did suffer the consequences of warped and
tangled magnetic field-lines. No, the sun's build to ultimate
pulsation may have been a slow one, but like the

....................................... DECIPHER 	755


Hare and the Tortoise, it was just as unstoppable.

As the sun rotated about its axis the twisted knots and
loops of its magnetic field-lines buckled and tangled,
grappled and twisted. Until ultimately the entire surface
of the seething ball of nuclear fusion could take it
no more.

• Once in every 12,000 years, the entire surface of the
sun would peel off like removing the entire top layer
of an onion - whole and unbroken. It would swell and
expand outwards in all directions. Such was the instability
caused by the departing sphere of matter that it
would make the inner mass temporarily wobble and
change shape, thus altering its density and affecting,its
impact on the fabric of space.

Space itself would then undulate, like a rug being
beaten, and the undulation - the gravity wave - would
carry this escaping shell of stellar material with it at
speeds approaching the speed of light.


And one such occurrence was happening right now.



SCOTT AND SARAH

T

hey nestled into the integration receptacles and
waited.
It did not take long for something to happen.
Their minds' were suddenly alive with thoughts and
images. Snatches of ideas here and there. Half-formed
words and concepts. It was like Bang!
Scott couldn't help it. He pulled his head away from
the head-rest and looked around the room with a gasp.
He glanced down at his hands. His body. Already his
fingers had started to melt into the wall. He struggled,
but they wouldn't come away. He was overcome with
panic and grief. And although he couldn't feel a thing,
as the process had obviously already cut the nerve
impulses to his brain, his instinctive reliance on fear
had gotten the better of him.
Sarah had her eyes closed. He could see her physically
....................................... DECIPHER 	757

melting into the wall on the far side of the room. Turning
a pale, pale blue.
The same thing was happening to himself.
And then the feeling passed. He could hear the voices
again, reassuring and generous.
He glanced around at the clear crystal surfaces one
last time, and put his head back.
Closed his eyes.

Sarah had this itch. It was a deep itch, right in her toes.
She tried to wriggle them and felt a sudden sensation
of heat and sand, followed by a deeper sensation of
depth and movement and of liquid.
She realized that she was beneath the earth, in the
molten core of the planet, examining geologic densities,
watching the inner convection currents of the
mantle. The closer to the center of the earth, the denser
the rock. As these inner layers moved, so the effect was
magnified at the surface where the crust lay. Convection
currents in three dimensions were incredibly complex,
yet she seemed to suddenly grasp every nuance, every
facet of the inner workings of the planet. To quasi
crystallize the mantle would require at least seven different
types of standing wave.

Scott was aware of this blinding light offto the left somewhere.
He turned his head to see. At least, he had the
sensation of turning his head. He reached out and
became aware that he was interacting with some kind
of device, in a jungle somewhere. Maybe South
America. He could be no more specific than that.
He reached out with his other hand and knew


758 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


instinctively he was operating a similar device somewhere
in the depths of Russia. Like the crystal constructs
under the pyramids at Giza he had the sense he was
moving entire pyramids of Carbon 60 and shifting them
into position, rearranging beams of crystal to complete
circuits.

A global machine. A global network, on a planetary
scale. It was as if the earth was one entity and he was
part of that now.

He was revealing to Atlantis that he knew of this network,
knew its potential and its capabilities. And in turn,
Atlantis was getting to know Scott. Soon they understood
each other.

Remotely, from the heart of Atlantis, Scott and Sarah
took a light-speed tour of the entire global network. The
more information they requested, the more information
they were given until ultimately, they knew everything.

Like seconds ticking on a clock, one by one the other
fifty-nine languages encoded in the Atlantis glyphs were
revealed to them and the lost history of their own planet
was laid bare. Each language was accompanied with

the collected stories of each civilization that used it.
And the revelation was great.

At the same time, one by one each Carbon 60 device
dotted in subterranean enclaves around the globe was
switched on and made ready. Information was exchanged.
Lost monuments were rediscovered until the entire network
was humming with anticipation.

Finally there was nothing more to do and curiously
it all stopped. Scott and Sarah had fulfilled their fates.
Atlantis's response would be an automatic reflex now,
triggered by whatever actions were taken by the sun.

And equally curiously, it was the sun which Scott

....................................... DECIPHER 	759


and Sarah now found themselves admiring. For they
were standing on a hill overlooking Atlantis as it had
once been, 12,000 years ago. A shining jewel in a lush
valley, in a landscape that was lost to time, if not to
memory.

Standing at the gates to this majestic city, monument
to Man's achievements, were 10,000 well-wishers eager
to greet them and welcome them to their new home.
So as the sun shone down upon the sparkling canals of
that now sunken city, Scott and Sarah exchanged heartfelt
emotional looks, cupped their hands in each other's
- and went down to meet them.


In the control center of Atlantis stood some consoles
and podiums and two empty receptacles.

It was barren other than that. Desolate, except for a
pair of black leather combat boots and a sense of expectation.


STORM FROM THE SUN


p

lanet, from the Greek, meaning 'wanderer'.

The planets were in crisis.

Within two minutes, the tiny ball of superheated rock
known .as the planet Mercury had been entirely engulfed
and overtaken. Since its surface was incapable of sustaining
life or supporting an atmosphere, the damage
inflicted upon this tiny world was difficult to calculate.
Perhaps a slightly altered path in its orbit. A lengthening
of its overall year, or an extra twist upon its axis had caused
a decrease in the length of its day or night. Whatever the
effects, they were inconsequential to the people of earth,
for as planets go there was no comparison.

It was when the total coronal ejection had continued
its relentless expansion throughout the solar system
for a total of five minutes that began to feel the effects,
for the human race it was at this point that the stampeding
cataclysm intercepted the orbit of Venus.

....................................... DECIPHER 	761


It was ironic that a planet named after the Roman goddess
of beauty and love was about as far removed from
those qualities as possible.

Venus's year took 240 days. It spun retrograde about
its axis, meaning in comparison to the earth it spun
backwards making the sun rise in the west at dawn. It
barely had any magnetic field and was almost perfectly
spheroid, suggesting its core was more solid than the
earth's. Its atmosphere was 96.5 percent carbon dioxide,
with sulfuric acid in its upper cloud layers. Its atmosphere
was also 95 times more dense than earth's and
due to all the carbon dioxide, it trapped sunlight to such
an extent the average surface temperature was 480
degrees Celsius, or 900 degrees Fahrenheit. Even on a

cool day on Venus it was hot enough to melt lead.
Other than that, it was just like earth.

And for the purposes of a pulsar ejection impact - it
was identical.

For Venus was a landscape dominated by volcanic
features, faults and impact craters, much like the earth.
But where many of the earth's geological hot spots were
often obscured by life, Venus's volcanoes were her prettiest
feature. In many vast areas of the planet's surface
there was evidence from satellite imagery of periods of
multiple lava flooding with lava flows seen piled one
on top of the other. One higher region, known as Ishtar
Terra, was a lava-filled basin the size of the United
States with the Maxwell Montes Mountain sat at one

end.

And because there was no water and little wind erosion
on Venus, its extensive fault-line network was
clearly visible as a result of the same crustal flexing that
the earth experienced. But since the excessive heat of



762 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

Venus weakened the rock structure, cracking the crust
in multiple regions, it prevented the planet from forming
tectonic plates.
And as a result the huge lava features across the planet
did hint at one other extraordinary feature. From time
to time, vast continent-sized swathes of Venus turned
completely molten, as if the planet was attempting to
turn itself inside out. The mechanism for such an event
was completely unknown.
Or had been, until now.

To call the pulsar wave that hit Venus an exercise in
pure rage was to underestimate the severity of the gravity
wave.
The speed of the wave that hit Venus's upper atmos:
phere could be measured in microseconds. Its impact
was so severe that it immediately took the outer layers
with it, peeling the atmosphere back like taking the rind
off an orange.
I
The resulting compression set what combustible
gases there were in Venus's atmosphere, ablaze, setting
into motion a chain reaction that penetrated up to a
mile down into Venus's atmosphere and causing vast
amounts of carbon dioxide to glow to the point of molecular
collapse. Suddenly the twin atoms of oxygen broke
away from their host carbon atoms and exploded.
The entire outer layer of Venus had been transformed.
It had ignited, and become pure flame.
As the ever-expanding fireball that was the sun's final,
total coronal shell ejection blasted ever outward and
impacted upon the volatile planet, for one whole second
Vemis knew only fire. There was no distinguishing
between which part of the maelstrom Was Venus on fire,
....................................... DECIPHER 	763

and which part of the fire was merely the coronal shell
passing through that part of the solar system.
There was only flame.
But coupled with this, of course, there was the gravity
wave.
It swept through the planet in less time than it took
to give a blink of an eye. And in much the same way
that the series of preceding gravitational fluxes had built
up an oscillation effect within the liquid mantle of the
earth, so too had these same pulses been churning up
geological turmoil across the planet Venus.
If anyone had even thought to correlate the geological
data accumulating throughout the solar system they
would have seen a pattern emerging from planet to
planet. They would have seen that the volcanic and
earthquake crisis on earth was not unique to home but
part of an overall solar-system-wide catastrophe.
But they had not. And by the time the light from
Venus would have reached the earth and given a clue
to the type of experience the people of earth could
expect to face, the wave would have already been and
gone.
For the speed of light was the speed of light. It could
not beat itself in a race.
As a result, no one on earth could actually see the
surface of Venus buckle and bend. No one could see the
county-sized chunks of crust get tossed up into the air
and flipped over like pancakes on a giant conveyor belt.
No one could see whole continent-sized areas of Venus
suddenly heat up within seconds and turn molten. Nor
could anyone see the various chunks of stellar matter
and debris that had been caught up in the wave, rain
down upon the planet's surface like glowing, white-hot


764 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


hailstones, and smash whole new valleys into existence.

From a human vantage point on earth, should they
survive the next three minutes, Venus would appear
more than ten times brighter in the night sky than
normal, for a century, as its molten surface churned and
twisted and settled into its new formations before cooling.


Fortunately
for humankind there was already a force in
existence that did not need to see the catastrophe to
know that it had to do something about it. For the early
warning system that Atlantis employed did not rely on
light. And it did not solely rely on mathematical predication,
but rather quantum gravitational effects. It
detected changes within the very fabric of space itself.
It was based on a type of physics mankind had only just
begun to rediscover - super-string theory and its interaction
with the zero point field. The idea that two points
in the galaxy could be intimately - and instantaneously
- linked.

Atlantis tapped into the short-cuts of the universe.
For it knew that just like a tsunami on earth: ifa person
could see the wave coming, it was already too late.

Atlantis didn't have to see it coming. It just knew.

PHASE I


THE CASIMIR EFFECT


I

t was originally discovered by Dutch physicist
Hendrick Casimir in 1948. A quantum theory that
dealt with virtual particles in a continuous state of flux.

The physical manifestation of this was that if two
conducting plates were placed in a vacuum uncharged,
due to quantum vacuum fluctuations of the electromagnetic
field, the plates would still be irresistibly
attracted to each other despite no power being inputted
to cause this.

The Casimir Effect proved the existence of zero point
energy.

And the odd puzzle as a result of its mathematical
proof was that this effect was plugged directly into the
realm of gravity. Zero point energy was linked directly
to warping effects on space-time. In other words, if the
fabric of space was caused to curl up and ripple it would
have an immediate effect on the ability to unleash zero
point energy.



766 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

In Atlantis that meant one thing. The natural interaction
between zero point energy and gravity through
the fabric of space meant that the very energy source
the city intended to use to save the planet, also acted
as an early warning system to alert the city to an imminent
gravitational attack.
Which was the signal it was receiving right now.-It
double-checked its command center. It had indeed
completed the integration of two new units of information.
The crucial prerequisites had been satisfied.
It could therefore initiate its primary response protocol.
Using all manner of standing waves to effect quasicrystallization
in all types of matter, it was time for
Atlantis to shield earth.
PHASE II

QUASICRYSTALLIZATION



G

ant was close to passing out. The Golem pressed
down on his windpipe and squeezed so solidly that
the marine could feel his tongue being forced out
between his teeth.
He was not alone. All around him he could see the
others in similar predicaments. Utterly helpless. He
didn't even have enough space left in his throat to choke
out a warning to Hackett as the physicist blasted a
Golem to atoms, oblivious to the attacker that was
coming up behind.
And it was then, as Hackett's assailant grabbed him
and swung him around that Gant began to realize that
in the distance, all around the city, there was movement.
Beyond the inner sky-scrapers, out toward the
suburbs of the city - past them, in fact, at the outer
canal - there was a shimmering. A glistening. A kind
of snake-like writhing as the entire contents of the canal,
millions of tons of water, rose up out of their confines

768 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

and started to travel in a vortex-like motion around the
outskirts of the city.
It was as if they all stood in the eye of a twister as
chaos surrounded the city. Higher and higher the water
climbed, while above their heads the energy twister was
building into a maelstrom of its own.
All of this Gant could see, as blood vessels burst across
his eyeballs and oxygen was cut off from his brain.
And then there was a sea change in their predicament.
The
air became thick and syrupy. Motion became
blurred and slow. And there was the rumble. The sensation
that the surrounding area was being bombarded
with a multitude of low-level and high-level sonic waves.
The result was that sound within the ordinary range
of human hearing started to dull and lower itself in
pitch, before finally it was replaced altogether with that
hissing noise which they all remembered from that glass
of Goke which had undergone quasicrystallization back
at CERN.
Slowly . . . excruciatingly slowly . . . everything
stopped. The whole world ground to a. halt and was
frozen. Crystallized.
It was as if Time stood still.

In the middle of the South China Sea a Great White
Shark was battling three dolphins that were viciously
ramming into its side to warn it off when they suddenly
pulled back, their sonar indicating that something massive
and perfectly solid was closing in on them all. The
creatures turned sharply and set about racing away, but
the nemesis, whatever it was, was closing in fast.
A thousand feet below them, the six Chinese sub.......................................
DECIPHER 	769
marines that had set out to support their fleet in the
Antarctic were equally surprised to encounter the same
phenomenon. Ping after ping of the radar system
revealed that a huge mass was approaching, like a wall
that stretched from the sea bed up to the surface of the
ocean and in all directions.
Suddenly, everything froze solid. The sea crystallized
around them. Sea creatures and submarines were all
held in suspension.
Within the lead Han Class warship, the crew cowered
at the odd shrieks from the metal hull as the stresses
and strains of quasicrystallization filtered through. One
crewman put his hand up against the violently vibrating
metal skin and he too froze solid, the effects of quasicrystallization
shooting down his arm and freezing him
where he stood.
The other crewmen turned to flee in panic, but were
stopped in mid-flight as standing waves of multiple frequencies
were pumped throughout the cabin. Glasses
of water midway through spilling, cups of coffee in midair,
plates of half eaten meals that were in the midst of
shattering on impact with the deck - all were caught
and held tightly. Like the sailors themselves.
It was like pausing a movie, yet more so. For this was
in all three dimensions, and at every level, from the
molecular to the mega.

This effect gradually took hold throughout the planet.
The crystallization phenomenon by its very nature
could not travel at the speed of light, but at the speed
of sound. And the density of the material within which
the standing wave was to be produced dictated the speed
at which the sound would travel.


770 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


It was a complex process. But to the human eye it
was instantaneous.

Oceans quickly turned into immense expanses of
crystal, looking-glasses through which an entire suspended
world could be studied. Rivers refused to flow.
Streams ceased to babble and geysers to blast.

All across the surface of the earth there was a
tremendous shuddering. A vibration that seemed to be
approaching critical mass.

And then the effect swept through the air.

Birds simply hung where they were in mid-flight.
Waterfalls became strings of beads. In-flight aircraft
seemed to slow before coming devastatingly and
abruptly to a halt. In the cabins of these craft, the effect
was like smashing into a brick wall. Anything unsecured
was catapulted through the air. Bodies, blankets, books
and toys went hurtling forward only to suddenly become
enveloped in the odd phenomenon that seemed to hold
them effortlessly in the air.

On the battlefields of Antarctica, Tomahawk cruise
missiles hung a hundred feet off the ground, caught in
mid-attack, while waves of infantrymen were caught in
mid-charge - their bullets halted only feet away from
where they had exploded out of the barrels of their guns.

But the effects of quasicrystallization did not end
there.


Deep beneath the surface crust of planet Earth lay a
volatile world of molten rock. A world of density and
of relentless heat measured in millions of years and
manifested in pressure. It was not a place used to living
by the rules of outside influences, but even so it was
not left untouched by the effects of quasicrystallization.

....................................... DECIPHER 	771


Its reaction depended on densities - which layers of
rock were more dense than others. It was a complex
calculation because the conveyor-belt nature of the
three-dimensional convection currents within the
mantle meant rocks were constantly being shifted
around. Some of the denser material was actually being
propelled toward the surface rather than staying at the
level at which it was created.

The quasicrystallization event therefore took the form
of a .repeated bombardment, pumping standing wave
after standing wave at varying frequencies, deep into the
hidden world until layer upon layer finally crystallized
and became solid.

However, there was one feature of the earth's inner
world that could not be crystallized, or stopped for that
matter. Indeed, it was imperative to the workings of
Atlantis that it remain in action: the solid iron inner
core of the planet. This massive central feature rotated
and gave rise to the earth's own magnetic field.
Essentially it was a giant induction motor.

And it would have to contend with the gravity wave
on its own terms.


Complexity was about the interconnectedness of all

things. About making sense of the senseless.
Complexity was about order from chaos.

For one brief moment, order had descended on
planet Earth for the first time in its long history. For
that one brief moment, the earth was at peace. It was
an irony then that conversely, the system in which it
sat, raged around it in a state of utter destruction.


I M PACT


T

hey were in high orbit over North Africa when they
first saw it.
The astronauts aboard the International Space
Station noticed the sun appear to flicker before ultimately
it seemed to brighten.
They rushed to contact Houston but there was a problem.
Houston was not responding. In fact, nobody was
responding. All lines of communication were dead.
There was no radio, no TV. There weren't even any
carrier beacons sending signals denoting the frequencies
were correct even if nobody was broadcasting.
Nothing.
Which was even more problematic for something
seemed odd about the planet below, around which they
were orbiting. It had turned glassy, like some giant marble.
Sunlight, rather than reflecting back off the oceans, actually
seemed to be reflecting back off the atmosphere . . .
But before anyone could even comment on this
....................................... DECIPHER 	773

observation, events from the sun were taking a turn for
the worse.
The sun was expanding. Ballooning outwards.
There followed another kind of wobble and then the
center portion seemed to revert back to being the sun,
while the outer portion assumed the appearance of an
ever-increasing halo.
The crew quickly realized that this was a fireball
type of shock-wave blossoming out toward them. In a
minute and a half they would be on the dark side of
the earth. The planet would shield them from what
was approaching. A minute and a "half- that's all they
needed.
They did not have a minute and a half.

As the International Space Station glided in around the
curve of the earth and headed for twilight, it was hit
from behind by a wall of pure fire which ripped the
craft to pieces and left twisted, burning wreckage in its
wake.
As it engulfed the planet below, the outer atmosphere
superheated and exploded in a much more violent
manner than had occurred on Venus, but because of
the quasicrystallization effect, the event did not chain
react or penetrate deep into the upper atmosphere.
Instead, the resulting firestorm was sucked off and
swept up into the wave of destruction from the sun and
carried off into deep space.
As the gravity wave passed through the earth, the
whole planet seemed to elongate and stretch before snapping
back to its original shape. But due to its quasi-solid
state, the effects on the planet were reasonably benign.
No earthquakes erupted or fault-lines exploded. No


774 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


rivers were dislodged or oceans spilled over. On planet
Earth all was quiet. All was still. All was pure.


On the moon it was a different story. For though there
was no atmosphere to set ablaze, there was enough stellar
debris caught up in the coronal ejection to smash
whole new formations into existence across its scorched
surface in the blink of an eye.

Fiery boulders plowed furrows deep into its dusty
skin, while on the earth these would-be hammers of
destruction simply rebounded.


Within seconds it was clear the earth had survived in
the most spectacular way. And it was as the coronal
ejection continued to exparid and pushed outward past
earth that the sunlight reflected back inwards off the
inner surface of the ever-increasing fireball and lit up
the dark side of the planet.

For several seconds the blue-green glassy marble
hung there in a section of space that knew no stars, and
no night.

An oasis of calm in a sea of fury, it turned on its axis
and weathered the storm..While its moon, too, was lit
up from all angles, a prospect which would have excited
the scientists below if they were in a position to do anything
about it. Because for the first time in 12,000 years
the dark side of the moon was completely illuminated
and revealed itself for all to see. But since all spaceborne
scientific instrumentation had been destroyed,
ironically its features would remain a mystery. A pity,
since they would have raised some eyebrows.

And then, as long as it had taken to reach this point,
it was over.

....................................... DECIPHER ............ 	775


After 12,000 years of build-up, the sun settled back
down to its natural rhythmical cycle and began the
process all over again.

On planet Earth, however, the story did not end there.
For the Atlantis Network had one more job to perform
and it must do it quickly, before the energy that bad
been unleashed across the planet to protect it, ended
by doing as much harm as it had been intended to prevent.



PHASE III

EXPULSION

A

ll across the earth, hidden Carbon 60 tunnels and
structures, resonant to specific frequencies of
energy, began kicking into action like magnets and
drawing in the residual energy left over from the quasi
crystallization process.
Slowly, the seas began to froth and the rivers to flow
once more. The air began to move and creatures within
the biosphere that was planet Earth were able to move
freely again. But it was by no means a return to normality
- merely an accommodation for the next stage
of the process. A process which began in Atlantis.

The shimmering vortex-like wall of water that had
reared up from the outer canal and swept around encapsulating
the entire inner city in a shimmering cycloid
suddenly lost cohesion and collapsed back down into
the canal in a massive explosion of water. Buildings
within Atlantis which had remained dark up until now,
....................................... DECIPHER 	777

suddenly lit up and crackled with new energy. Energy
which seemed to be drawn from the very ground itself
and frazzled through the Atlantis system until it shot
up the seven incredible towers and arced down onto
the central pyramid.
The pyramid sparked and hissed as the mass of fiery
power seethed and convulsed across its surface. Like so
many snakes that had been set ablaze it shuddered until
its final act was for the power to merge and become
one vast energy column which, like the plasma twister
that had come before it, was sent blasting back up into
space. Blasted, through the very hole in which the initial
twister had arrived.
Meanwhile, around the periphery of the city, any
energy that could not be expelled this way was rerouted
and sent down into tunnels that connected back into
the very network which had been used to quasicrystallize
the planet.

Across the earth, incredible lightning-fast tubes of energy
started to criss-cross at seemingly random points. The
waters had parted and created gigantic hollows through
which these ferocious tongues of fire were traveling.
Soon the entire globe appeared as if it had been
wrapped up in some gigantic blazing ribbon. For this
was the invisible network that had once carried nothing
but sound waves; and was now laid bare, serving as
a conduit for pure undiluted power. This was the
Atlantis Network performing its final task.
Off the coast of Yonaguni, a small Japanese island,
a huge underwater monument constructed in around
10,000BC when the ocean levels were much lower, suddenly
lit up. Its six-story-high, great pyramid-length body



778 ......... 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

began to shudder. The enormous channels cut into its
stonework in perfectly straight lines, that needed laser
sights to accomplish their construction, began to fill
with the energy, channel it and store it. While above
the monument a vortex in the water began to rotate and
open up until air touched the monument for the first
time in millennia.
Within micro-seconds, the energy crackling across
the surface of the monument coalesced and became
one almighty thunderous pillar of fire that shot up into
the sky.
Following the principle that the amount of energy
pumped into the earth's system to perform quasicrystallization
needed to be conducted away again lest the
earth be destroyed - so the second of close to a thousand
great energy release valves swung gloriously into
operation. The principle was as ancient as the earth
itself, for it was a little-known fact that lightning, far
from being a strike sent down from the heavens, actually
began life on the ground. Lightning journeyed up.
The sight was awe-inspiring and faultless in its execution.
It
was a different story elsewhere.

In Mexico stood one of the world's tallest active volcanoes.
E1 Popo, or Popocat6petl, was 17,802 feet high
and expelled hot gases, rocks and ash which regularly
mixed with rain and glacial melt water to form lethal
mudflows. The Nahuatl name for this volcano was zencapopocz " 'always smoking'. And throughout the
solar crisis E1 Popo had more than lived up to its
name.
Which left the priests at the Catholic church at the
....................................... DECIPHER 	779

foot of this volcano in somewhat of a dilemma, for their
church was built on top ofa pre-Hispanic pyramid which
sat next to it. Little was known about Tlachihualt6petl,
or 'manmade mountain', except that right now it was
one of the best places to be to avoid dying in a mudflow.
So the villagers had raced up for shelter, but there
was little room for them. And fearing for their own safety
in all the panic preceding the quasicrystallization
process, the priests had only allowed inside its walls the
Mayor, the bankers and the movers and shakers of the
surrounding region.
They were all dead inside ten seconds.
However, the villagers camped outside the church
for their own safety, and who were still caught in this
peculiar stasis effect, were suddenly released from its
hold as reality sped back up to real time. At which point
the ground continued to shake once more. Electricity
filled the air, making their hair stand on end.
And the Catholic church exploded.
A pillar of livid flame shot out the top of
Tlachihualt6petl, obliterating the building that stood in
its path.
The villagers dived for cover, for they had had, as it
turned out, the luckiest of escapes.
All across South and Central America, where
Catholic churches had been built atop monuments of
the past, the buildings were either torched or vaporized
as release valve after release valve expelled excess energy
off up into space.
The eight pyramids ofPini Pini shot columns of energy
out from the rainforest, as did the submerged structures
of Bimini. The Pyramid of the Moon too, along with
The Pyramid of the Sun and The Pyramid of the


780 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


Feathered Serpent also launched three incredible blasts
of raw power up into space. The three pyramids of the
ancient site of Teotihuacan in Central Mexico were significant
too because when seen from the air they were
laid out in the shape of the belt in the constellation of
Orion, matching exactly the same building placement as
the three great pyramids of Giza, in Egypt, which also
blew out streaks of energy off up into space.


In Orlando, Florida, where a Wal-Mart had been inadvertently
built over an ancient Native American burial
mound, the entire home fixtures and furnishings section
was suddenly obliterated as it found it was sitting
atop an ancient release valve. The column of energy
that was unleashed was so powerful it sent many of those
fixtures hurtling up into the air with it. Reports came
in for weeks afterwards of toilet cisterns being found in
fields as far away as Gainesville.

Across Europe, Saxon burial mounds were suddenly
rolling with energy and expelling pillars of flame. In the
county of Kent, in southern England, Kits Coty, an
ancient site on the side of a chalk cliff, obscured by trees
and a freeway, suddenly exploded into activity, causing
half the cliffto break away as it spewed out its fiery tongue.

Release valves exploded into action at the Arctic, across
the Pacific at Angkor Wat, across Africa and the Middle
East. Columns of fire were seen shooting into the sky in
India, Pakistan, and across the ancient sites of China.

For several minutes around the globe, vast fiery
tongues of energy were blasted into space as the quasicrystallization
process dissipated and then, as suddenly
as it had started, the whole process stopped.

The ancient monuments fell silent.

....................................... DECIPHER 	781


e,,:


There was no more.

The earth was safe.

The rest of the solar system would have to take care

of itself.


CODA


Internal analysis of glyph sequences will reveal patterns
of glyph distribution and thereby structure, from which
the nature of the language can be discerned. In doing
this one learns the thought processes and logic of the
society and people from whence the language came.
The inevitable consequence is that all matters in a
people's history will fall neatly into place.


Richard Scott,
Linguistic Anthropologist and Epigraphist,

1970-2012

AFTERMATH


G

ant sucked in a huge lungfull of particulate air as
Maple's hand, which was clamped around his
throat, suddenly turned to dust along with the rest of
his automaton body.

Moments later a whole wave of decay swept through
the entire area as every single nanoswarm effigy was
reduced to so much sand.

The light which had so characterized Atlantis, suddenly
shimmered and went out, leaving them in darkness.
They glanced up at the pyramid above them, now
lifeless, like the rest of the city. Its twinkling life-force
gone, its stellar life-blood all dried up.

Atlantis had returned to its slumber.

November looked around. With the only illumination
coming from the dying red embers of a retreating, calming
volcano it was difficult to make out where to go, so
she turned her flashlight on. It cut through the dust that
clung in the air, like a beacon from a car headlight on


786 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

a foggy night before suddenly dipping and fizzling out.
She smacked it a couple of times as the iceberg they
were all perched on bobbed lazily in the water, but the
device refused to work.
She resorted to shouting: 'Bob!' Indeed, they each
called out his name one at a time, but were only met
with silence.
Soon they emerged out from under the pyramid and
watched as some of those spectacular cathedral-sized
stalactites broke off into the water and bobbed up and
down after splashing down. Some rolled onto their sides
like logs, while others remained flat side up.
And as the iceberg floated up the slope of the pyramid
as the water level rose steadily, they all realized that
unless they found Pearce soon, he would surely die. For
the cavern walls were narrowing. The breathable air
pocket was reducing. Soon, there ould be nowhere else
for all the ice and water to go except back up the massive
hole through which the plasma twister from space,
not long dissipated, had come down in the first place.
'Bob!' November yelled, refusing to give up. She sat
on the edge and looked down at the pyramid below as
slowly, very slowly, its slanted features slipped under icy
waters once again.
And it was once the pinnacle of the pyramid was
completely submerged that November noticed the faint
sparkle under the water. It started off as a slight shimmer
which she thought might be an optical, illusion or
her eyes playing tricks.
But her eyes were not playing tricks.
Faint traces of crackling energy sparked around the
pyramid before growing in intensity and finally coalescing
into some kind of will-G-the-wisp. It was a face, she
....................................... DECIPHER 	787

realized, peering up at her from the confines of the pyramid.
November shifted excitedly, rocking the iceberg.
'Easy!' Gant cautioned.
'Lookt' November exclaimed. 'It's Dr Scott!'
And sure enough, down in the dark, murky depths
of the waters below there had appeared a face, pale and
blue and ghostly, like the souls of the Var. Richard Scott
had indeed appeared as if to bid them farewell. Sarah
came up beside him, followed by another face. Then
another. Thousands of faces. Millions. Each one a twinkle,
a sparkle in a cascade until suddenly, seconds later,
the entire city lit up one last time far, far beneath them,
like a massive floodlight.
And it was only because the city did this that they
were all suddenly able to spot Bob Pearce, unconscious
and floating up toward them.

'Quick, quick! Give him air!' November shouted once
they had dragged the slippery CIA agent up onto the
ice platform.
But Gant did more than that. He cleared Pearce's
airway first, before checking for a pulse and massaging
his heart and giving him mouth to mouth.
A steady stream of water and bile sprang up out of
Pearce's mouth like a whale's blowhole when it was surfacing.
He convulsed in chokes as he rolled onto his
side and spewed some more while gasping for air.
'Let me guess,' Hackett deadpanned. 'You almost preferred
getting shot.'
Pearce said in between retches, 'Where am I?'
'On an iceberg,' the Major explained.
'In trouble,' Matheson added hastily.
'So what's new?' Pearce grumbled as he tried to sit



788 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

up. But the problem was obvious. There was no room
for all the ice.
The icebergs were bunching ogether. Compacting.
Vying for the best position as they jostled around the
ceiling of the ice cavern. About twenty or thirty feet
away, the best candidate for being pushed up the shaft
to the surface was already being squeezed up and out
of the water. Its flat top surface was already clear by a
couple of feet and rising sharply.
'We better leapfrog over there,' Gant commanded.
They set to, jumping from iceberg to iceberg, the
buoyant if unstable surfaces wobbling underfoot as they
went. One by one they clambered up onto the steadily
rising platform. But by the time it was Hackett's turn
the iceberg had reared so far up out of the water, the
top was up near his chin.
He had to jump. He scrambled to get on board but
the sharp movement merely helped force the ice he
was standing on, down, deeper into the water.
It was like trying to clamber onto an elevator that
was stuck in its shaft with the doors open as the iceberg,
crushed together with many others, started sliding
up into the ice shaft leading to the surface.
The others rushed to help him, thrusting out their
hands. 'C'mon! Just grab a hold, we'll pull you up!' But
it was easier said than done. Hackett's feet kept slipping
on the frictionless ice as he panicked in his attempt to
get up.
The ice lurched as the water pressure below started
to build.
'C'mon!'
Hackett jumped again, desperate. Grabbed on, and
this time he was pulled to safety. But his legs were still
....................................... DECIPHER 	789

out over the side as the ice once again shuddered under
the onslaught of building water pressure.
He snatched them in quickly as the iceberg lurched
violently and sped up the inside of the ice shaft.

About a mile and a half above them was daylight, while
all around them, the constantly compacting, constantly
evolving ice shelf groaned with the strain as the pressure
built below.
They all moved to the center of the ice on instinct
as the sides began to scream in that deathly awful
screech that only massive amounts of ice can make
when rubbed together. Their berg lurched again, the
sides of the shaft crumbling as the compacted ice mass
shot up the hole a further ten feet.
There followed another lurch. Then another. It was
like being inside an elevator that was dangling from its
fraying cable, but in reverse, for there was no fear of falling
here, only rising. Like ants stuck on the end of a champagne
cork, it was only a matter of waiting until it went-- Popf
All five of them were knocked to the ground as the
G-forces kicked in. Bang! Gant twisted his head to see
a vast boulder of ice explode on impact as it landed
next to him. He faced the shaft and looked up, only to
realize that the way ahead was as crumbling and unstable
as the cavern had been.
Bang! Another solid mass of ice impacted next to
him. And there were many more on the way.. As each
projectile made contact, every second felt like a minute.
Every minute felt like an hour as they rocketed toward
the top until--
The ice platform jerked to a halt.


790 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

The ice had wedged again, only a few feet from the
surface.


They all stared up at the powder-blue sky and caught
their breath. Laid out on their backs they knew they
should move but were simply too petrified to do so.

But as they lay there, a series of faces began to peer

in all around the rim of the ice shaft.

Soldiers.

On instinct, every surviving member of the Antarctic
Team raised their hands in submission, but were surprised
to find the soldiers tossing down ropes.

Cant was cautious. 'Are you American?' he asked.

'And Chinese,' came the reply. 'I'd hurry if I were
you. I think that thing you're on is gonna blow.'

They didn't need telling twice. But as they got to
their feet and the ice plug lurched again, Hackett realized
the motion had changed.

The ice had started falling back down the shaft.

'I think a vacuum's built up underneath. This thing's
gonna follow the tide.' There were questioning looks.

'Forget it,' he said. 'We just need to get out of here.'
The ice lurched again, falling a couple of feet.

'I see your point,' Gant snapped, grabbing one of the
ropes and starting his ascent.

They all followed suit, all started climbing, and just
in time, for behind them the compacted ice plug began
steadily slipping away until it fell back into the shaft at
least a hundred feet.


There was a whistling noise, just like the sound of an
incoming shell as the Antarctic Team gathered their
wits about them on the surface.

....................................... DECIPHER 	791


'Look out!' came the warning, cry. 'Here comes
another one!'

Everyone dived for cover as a charred-looking
Tomahawk cruise missile fell out of the sky and crashed
across the ice, fortunately failing to explode.

'What the hell's going on around here?' Gant
demanded as he got to his feet. He was referring to the
fact that the Chinese and American forces were, for the
most part, standing around and chatting.

'Some kind of electromagnetic pulse shorted out
most electronic equipment in a fifty-mile radius,' the
young Lieutenant explained. 'We got all sorts of stuff
falling from the sky. Got just one working radio. We
sure as hell can't fight a war.., sir.'

There were units of army men all over the massive
crater that had been lung Chang before the ground
beneath it imploded. And as they all surveyed their situation,
another young soldier rushed over to them brandishing
that only working radio.

'You gotta Professor Scott in your party?'

The team eyed each other, subdued. 'He couldn't
make it,' Hackett offered.

'Pity. Admiral Dower wanted to congratulate him personally.'

The
team remained tight-lipped and headed for the
nearest transport vehicle. Behind them they left a horde
of soldiers as confused and astounded by recent events
as they were, and who were watching the ice shaft in
anticipation as the ground shook all around them.

'It's gonna blow!' came the cries.


And they were right.


EASTER SUNDAY


T

here were going to be plagues.

Of locusts, flies, mosquitoes - and of diseases.
There were going to be all manner of plagues.

It was an inevitable consequence of the scarring
across planet Earth. Of the devastation wrought by
severe volcanic activity in so many areas that entire
stretches of lush farmland the size of small countries
had been decimated. Food supplies had dwindled and
as a result insect populations were predisposed to band
together and swarm. In the past they had been known
to attack even sleeping babies in their cribs when volcanoes
had caused merely minor damage, just to control
the food supply. There was every reason to believe
the situation would be on a much larger scale in this
instance.

On a much more Biblical scale.

And no machine the size of Atlantis could stop that.
Everyone aboard the Seahawk helicopter knew that

....................................... DECIPHER 	793


it was going to take time for mankind to regroup and
rebuild.


It was a peculiar sight to see the massed armies of two
such bitterly opposing nations simply pack and go home.
But there they were - American and Chinese soldiers,
engaged in helping each other stow their belongings. It
wasa far cry from the time when they were prepared to
unleash such a formidable arsenal against each other
that any damage the sun might have caused would have
been inconsequential by comparison.

The earth was experiencing a period of change.
Hacker watched all this and checked his watch.
Habit, he guessed, by now. It was a real rugged out-ofdoors
type of affair with a compass on it which he rarely
used. There was little chance of getting lost on the way
to the bar, after all.

But something about the way the needle was pointing
made him smile.

The engineers on board the chopper had been complaining
about navigational and technical errors on all
electronic equipment in the fleet. They'd put it down
to the final electromagnetic pulse blasted out by Atlantis
- something akin to the detonation of a nuclear warhead.
But Hackett knew different, probably because he
was the only one who had thought to look.

The physicist looked out the window and in his best
formal impersonation of Scott, said: 'Galaxy, from the
Greek "galaxos" meaning milk. The Milky Way...'

Pearce pulled the thick blue blanket tight around his
shoulders as he nursed a hot chocolate, looked over at
Matheson and November and knew they had cocked
their ears to listen.



794 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

'I read about this guy,' Hackett said, 'William Tifft.
Worked out of the University of Arizona until a couple
years ago. For over a quarter of a century he studied the
red-shift of galaxies. Y'know what red-shift is, right?'
'No clue,' Matheson yawned.
'Ira bright object is moving away from us,' the physicist
explained, 'it will appear to be a little more red
colored. If it's coming toward us it will turn a little more
blue-colored. Blue-shift and red-shift. Tifft was studying
the red-shift of stars and 'galaxies. And because of the
Big Bang, the degree to which an object is red-shifting,
in other words how fast those objects are moving away
from us, should be random.'
'Here comes the but,' November sighed.
'But they're not,' Hackett confirmed, unperturbed.
'Tifft discovered that, depending on the type of galaxy,
you got a different kind of red-shift reading even if it
was in the same part of the sky. Spiral galaxies seemed
to have a higher red-shift than elliptical galaxies. And
the increase seemed to go up in quantum-leaps.
Specifically, forty-five miles per second. Galactic red
shifts are quantized like the energy states in an atom.'
Gant rubbed his face and ripped his hat off his head
from where he'd been trying to get some sleep. 'So
what?' he barked. 'Who gives a shit?'
Hackett seemed genuinely hurt. 'I give a shit. Do you
know what that kind of information means? It means the
universe isn't expanding. So it means there was no Big
Bang. It means the entire wealth of twentieth-century cosmology
can be tossed in the trash. If it ain't random, then
it weren't a bang. There's order in the chaos. Complex,
but it's there. And if there was no Big Bang, where did
this whole universe thing come from? You gonna tell me,
....................................... DECIPHER 	795

from God? There is no God, I thought we just proved
that. It was a myth created to save all our asses.'
'What the hell has that got to do with anything?'
Matheson wanted to know. 'What's the point?'
'There is no point,' Hackett sighed. 'Not in the kind
of sense you mean. It's just, all I'm trying to say is...
maybe we all need to get used to the idea that there
are going to be a few changes around here from now
on. Everything we've taken for granted our whole lives
will be different now. It always was different - we just
couldn't see it. But now we have proof...'
He sat up. Eyed his friends in the 'copter. Tapped
the watch on his wrist. 'This thing is a compass too,' he
said. 'And right now it's pointing due north.'
'So?'
'So... ? It's pointing due north - back in the direction
we just came from. North is now at the South Pole.'
The others were surprised, and about all they could
manage was a smile.
'Sarah said the Poles shifted every now and then completely
swapped over. The last time was in 10,400BC
- about twelve thousand years ago. It's a geological fact,'
November added.
'Sarah said a lot of things,' Matheson said. 'She was
like that.'
Pearce held up his solitary cup of hot chocolate in
a toast. 'To Richard and Sarah,' he said.
Exhausted, what remained of the team quietly went
back to looking out the window.
It was Easter Sunday, Hackett realized. The ancient
festival dating from way back before the time of Christ,
symbolizing death, sacrifice and renewal.
Might be nice to try and get an egg, he thought.


796 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


It had taken them the best part of a day to reach
McMurdo again. And several hours to refuel the
Seahawk.

As they flew low over McMurdo, off toward the waiting
aircraft-carrier Truman, a little red speck, the icebreaker
Polar Star had just arrived in the bay.

She was late. If they had stayed aboard her there was
no doubting they would never have made it. But despite
that, in an effort that mirrored the human spirit, unstoppable
in the face of insurmountable odds, it was still a
comfort to see her majestic bright red bow ride up on
the pack ice and crush down on it - forging a new path
ahead.

It has come from its beginning to its end,
like that which was found in the writing.


Ancient Egyptian Wisdom Literature.


BIBLIOGRAPHY


Aldersey-Williams, Hugh, The 'Most Beautiful Molecule: An

Adventure In Chemistry, Aurum Press, London, 1995

Allan, D.B. and I.B. Delair, Cataclysm! Compelling Evidence of a
Cosmic Catastrophe In 9500BC, Bear and Company, Santa Fe,
1995

Allen, I.M., Atlantis: The Andes Solution, The Windrush Press,

Gloucestershire, 1998

Alley, Richard B. and Michael L. Bender, 'Greenland Ice Cores:
Frozen in Time', Scientific American, Vol. 278, No. 2,
February, 1998

Atkins, Peter, The Periodic Kingdom: A Journey into the Land of

the Chemical Elements, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1995
Atzner, Kenneth, The Languages of the World, Routledge,

London, 1995

Baigent, Michael and Richard Leigh, The Dead Sea Scrolls

Deception, Corgi, London, 1992

Bartusiak, Marcia, 'Gravity Wave Sky', Discover, Vol. 14, No. 7,

July, 1993


800 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

Bauval, Robert and Adrian Gilbert, The Orion Mystery,
Heinemann, London, 1994
Bauval, Robert and Graham Hancock, Keepers of Genesis: A
Quest for the Hidden Legacy of Mankind, Heinemann,
London, 1996
Berlitz, Charles, Atlantis: The Eighth Continent, FawcettCrest,
New York, 1984
Betro, Maria Carmela, Hieroglyphics: The Writings of Ancient
Egypt, Abbeville Press, New York, 1996
Brown, Stuart and George Gruner, 'Charge and Spin Density
Waves', Scientific American, Vol. 270, No. 4, April, 1994
Bruner, Paul and Moshe Shapiro, 'Laser Control of Chemical
Reactions', Scientific American, Vol. 272, No. 3, March, 1995
Carsten, Peter, 'Into the Heart of Glaciers', National Geographic,
Vol. 189, No. 2, February, 1996
Cheney, Margaret, Tesla: Man Out Of Time, Bantam Books, New
York, 1981
Clayton, Peter A., Chronicle of the Pharaohs, Thames & Hudson,
1995
Clendinnen, Inca, Aztecs: An Interpretation, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, 1995
Cremo, Michael A. and Richard L. Thompson, Forbidden
Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race, Bhaktivedanta Institute Press, Los Angeles, 1996
Cooper, George A., 'Directional Drilling,' Scientific American,
Vol. 270, No. 5, May, 1994
Coterell, Maurice M., The Supergods, Thorsons, London, 1997
Curl, Robert F. and Richard E. Smalley, 'Fullerenes', Scientific
American, Vol. 265, No. 4, October, 1991
Diamond, ]ared, 'Writing Right', Discover, Vol. 15, No. 6, lune,
1994
Diaz, Bernal, The Conquest of New Spain, Penguin, London,
1963
Ditto, William L. and Louis M. Pecora, 'Mastering Chaos',
Scientific American, Vol. 269, No. 2, August, 1993
....................................... DECIPHER 	801

Drosnin, Michael, The Bible Code, Simon & Schuster, New York,
1997
Eco, Umberto, The Search For a Perfect Language, Fontana Press,
London, 1997
Eiseman, Robert E. and Michael Wise, The Dead Sea Scrolls
Uncovered, Penguin, London, 1993
Faulkner, R.O., The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, British
Museum Press, 1996
Fischer, Steven Roger, Glyph-Breaker, Copernicus, New York,
1997
Flanagan, Ruth and Tom Yulsman, 'On Thin Ice', Earth, Vol. 5,
No. 2, April, 1996
Flem-Ath, Rand and Rose Flem-Ath, When The Sky Fell,
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1995
Folger, Tim, 'Waves of Destruction', Discover, Vol. 15, No. 5,
May, 1994
Gilbert, Adrian, The Magi: The Quest For a Secret Tradition,
Bloomsbury, London, 1996
Gilbert, Adrian, and Maurice M. Coterell, The Mayan
Prophecies, Element, Dorset, 1995
Goodman, Jeffrey, The Earthquake Generation, Turnstone Books,
London, 1979
Green II, Harry W., 'Solving the Paradox of Deep Earthquakes',
Scientific American, Vol. 271, No. 3, September, 1994
Greenbery, Joseph H. and Merritt Ruhlen, 'Linguistic Origins of
Native Americans', Scientific American, Vol. 267, No. 5,
November, 1992
Hancock, Graham, Fingerprints of the Gods, Heinemann,
London, 1995
Hawking, Stephen W., A Brief History of Time, Guild, London,
1990
Hawking, Stephen W., Black Holes and Baby Universes, Bantam
Books, New York, 1994
Herning, Thomas A., 'The Global Positioning System', Scientific
American, Vol. 274, No. 2, February, 1996



802 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................

Heyerdahl, Thor, Daniel, H. Sandweiss and Alfredo Narvaez, Pyramids of Tueume: The Quest For Peru's Forgotten City, Thames & Hudson, 1995
Honan, Mark, Switzerland: A ]'ravel Survival Kit, Lonely Planet,
London, 1994
Hope, Murray, The Sirius Connection, Element, Dorset, 1996
Horgan, John (Senior Writer), 'From Complexity to Perplexity',
Scientific American, Vol. 272, No. 6, June, 1995
Horgan, John, 'Particle Metaphysics', Scientific American, Vol.
270, No. 2, February, 1994
Johanson, Donald and Blake Edgar, From Lucy To Language,
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1996
Kakauer, Jon, 'Queen Maud Land', National Geographic, Vol.
193, No. 2, February, 1998
Kaster, Joseph, The Wisdom of Ancient Egypt, Michael O'Mara
Books, London, 1968
Kovacs, Maureen Gallery (Translator), The Epic of Gilgamesh,
Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1989
Lang, Kenneth R., 'SOHO Reveals the Secrets of the Sun',
Scientific American, Vol. 276, No. 3, March, 1997
Lee, Desmond (Translator), Plato: Timaeus and Critias, Penguin,
London, 1977
Lemesurier, Peter, The Great Pyramid Decoded, Element, Dorset,
1997
Lloyd, Seth, 'Quantum-Mechanical Computers', Scientific
American, Vol. 273, No. 4, October, 1995
Mack, Burton L., The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian
Origins, Element, Dorset, 1993
Matheson, Ralph K., Ecological Controls in Oil Production, USE
Press, San Francisco, 2009
Nesme-Ribes, Elizabeth, Sallie L. Baliunas and Dimitry Sokolott,
'The Stellar Dinamo', Scientific American, Vol. 275, No. 2,
August, 1996
Nicolis, Gr6goire and Ilya Prigogine, Exploring Complexity: An
Introduction, W. H. Freeman & Company, New York, 1989
....................................... DECIPHER 	803

Phillips, Graham, Act of God, Pan, London, 1998
Prescott, William H., The World of the Incas, Tudor Publishing,
New York, 1974
Renfrew, Colin, 'World Linguistic Diversity', Scientific American,
Vol. 270, No. 1, January, 1994
Richmond, Simon, 'The Lost World', Geographical: The Royal
Geographical Society Magazine, Vol. LXX No. 8, August, 1998
Rohl, David, A Test of Time: Pharaohs and Kings, Random
House, London, 1995
Rohl, David, Legend: The Genesis of Civilization, Century, 1998
Ruthen, Russel, 'Catching the Wave', Scientific American, Vol.
266, No. 3, March, 1992
Sanders, N. K. (Translator), The Epic of Gilgamesh, Penguin,
London, 1972
Sattin, Anthony and Sylvie Franquet, Explorer: Egypt, AA
Publishing, London, 1996
Schreider, David, 'The Rising Seas', Scientific American, Vol. 276,
No. 3,' March, 1997
Scott, Richard, Tales of the Deluge: A Global Report on Cultural
Self-Replicating Genesis Myths, University of Washington,
Press, Seattle, 2008
Senner, Wayne M. (Editor), The Origins of Writing, University of
Nebraska Press, London, 1989
Shaw, Ian and Paul Nicholson, British Museum Dictionary of
Ancient Egypt, British Museum Press, London, 1995
Silberman, Neil Asher, The Hidden Scrolls, Heinemann, London,
1994
Spence, Lewis, Mexico and Peru: Myths and Legends, Senate,
London, 1994
Steger, Will and Jon Bowermaster, Crossing Antarctica, Bantam
Press, New York, 1992
Stephens, Peter W. and Alan I. Goldman, 'The Structure of
Quasicrystals', Scientific American, Vol. 264, No. 4, April, 1991
Stevens, Jane Ellen, 'Exploring Antarctic Ice', National
Geographic, Vol. 189, No. 5, May, 1996


804 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


Stewart, Ian, 'Does Chaos Rule the Cosmos?', Discover, Vol. 113

No. 11, November, 1992

Stewart, Ian, Nature's Numbers: Discovering Order and Pattern in

the Universe, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1995

Stone, Gene and Stephen Hawking, Stephen Hawking's A Brief
History of Time: A Reader's Companion, Bantam Press,
London, 1992

Stroyatz, Steven H. and fan Stewart, 'Coupled Oscillators and
Biological Synchronization', Scientific American, Vol. 269, No.
6, December, 1993
Thiering, Barbara, Jesus The Man, Corgi, London, 1993
Waldrop, Mitchell M., Complexity: The Emerging Science At The

Edge Of Order And Chaos, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1992
Wansborough, Henry (Editor), The New Jerusalem Bible, Standard

Edition, Darton, Longman & Todd, London, 1985

Wellard, ]ames, By the Waters of Babylon, Hutchinson, London,

1973

Willis, Roy (Editor), World Mythologies, Duncan Baird, London,

1996

Wilson, A. N., Jesus, Flamingo, London, 1993

Wilson, Colin, From Atlantis To The Sphinx, Virgin, London,

1996

AUTHOR'S NOTE


T

his book required a lot of research, and as a result
I have a number of people to thank. I present here
a list of names in no particular order and thank them
for all the help they afforded me. It is very much appreciated.

Needless
to say, any mistakes are purely my own.


The U.S Geological Survey, the crew of the Polar Star,
the United States Coast Guard and the United States
Navy. Such is the way of things in the 21st Century I
never actually met a single one of you, but a bombardment
of e-mails from myself were all answered without
exception and I am truly grateful for all your efforts.
Rochester and Chatham Public libraries - with special
thanks to Chris Davis in particular. Eric Aitala Ph.D,
the real Dr. Jon Hacker and the only man I know to
state at the bottom of his webpage - This site was made
entirely from re-cycled electrons. Thanks also to Dr. Ken


806 	STEL PAVLOU .....................................


Newport, Professor of Theology at Liverpool Hope
University for his theological guidance, Mark Aldridge,
my partner in crime at Fifty First Films, Angela Wheelan,
Gary Payne, James and David Hooper, Jeff and Gene
Colburn. Martine Brewster for taking the trouble to
interrupt a business trip to do some research for me at
the United Nations in Geneva and CERN. Alexandra
Franke - my very own archaeology chick. Rowland
Wells, James Sprules, Rachel Phillips, John 'Cheesey'
Cheeseman, Ziad Munson, 'Handy' Andy Hayes and
Marsha Levin for her help on Jewish Folklore. Thanks
also to Linda Seifert, Ed Hughes, Jeff Graup and Alex
Goldstone, Sophie Hicks, John Jarrold, my editor, Ian
Chapman, for taking a chance, and all the fine folks at
Simon and Schuster UK.

Special thanks go obviously to my family. Mum,
Maureen, my brother Louis and my sister Christina.
Sadly, just three months before I sold this novel - my
first as it happens - my father, Paul, passed away and
isn't here to see it all happen. It's particularly unfair
since he knew the struggle I had had to write it over
the preceding 5 years. Some people have asked me why
I didn't dedicate the book to him. Well, this book was
always meant to be dedicated to my daughter, Dad knew
this and he would have wanted it to remain that way.
And besides, the next book is dedicated to Dad - and
the reasons for that will all become clear when that
novel arrives.


Thanks again to everyone, oh, and before I forget, special
thanks to the guy at my local Chinese Takeaway
who helped me with the Cantonese. I hope you weren't
swearing at me, because it's in the book now...