Y
EATS COULD HEAR THE FAINT STRAINS
of Mozart beneath the drone of two ventilation fans pumping air inside his compartment as he watched Conrad analyze the data from P4 on his laptop.
Cupping a mug of hot coffee in his bandaged hand, Conrad shook his head. “Nothing ever changes with you, Dad, does it?”
Yeats stiffened. “Meaning?”
“You never taught me how to fly a kite or how to throw a split-fingered fastball when I was growing up,” Conrad said. “No, I had to learn that kind of stuff on my own. With you it was always, ‘What do you think of this weapons system design, son?’ or ‘How’d you like to watch the launch of my new spy satellite?’ And whenever I see you on this stinking planet, the scenery is always the same. It’s always some military base. Always dark. Always cold. Always snowing.”
Yeats glanced out the picture window at the storm raging outside. The whiteout was so bad he couldn’t even see the ice gorge anymore. What was left of the C-130 was long buried by now. He was relieved Conrad had survived the crash, and he was happy to see him. But it was clear Conrad didn’t feel the same way, and that hurt.
“Maybe I bring it with me.” Yeats poured himself a third shot of whiskey and nodded to the laptop data. “Anyway, the analysis dating appears conclusive.”
“For the benben stone only,” Conrad began as another wave of those trainlike shudders passed through the room.
“That was ours,” Yeats said, referring to the drilling being done to
clear the ice around the top of P4 at the bottom of the abyss. “You’ll know the real jolt when you feel it.”
“And you think P4 is causing the earthquakes?”
“You’re the genius, son. You tell me.”
Conrad sipped his coffee and grimaced. “What the hell is this? Diesel sludge?”
“It’s the water. The station’s supply comes from melted snow. The soy-based food is even worse.”
Conrad pushed the coffee away. “Just because P4’s benben stone is allegedly six billion years old doesn’t mean the rest of the pyramid is that old or that aliens built it.”
“Who said anything about aliens?” Yeats tried to maintain a blank expression, but Conrad was way ahead of him.
“Meteorites have been bombarding the earth since the planet was first formed—like that four-and-a-half-billion-year-old Martian rock they found here in Antarctica a few years back,” Conrad said. “Humans could have found a meteorite billions of years later and carved it into a benben stone.”
Yeats downed his Jack Daniel’s. “If that makes you feel better.”
“Well,
somebody
built P4,” Conrad said. “And they built it long before ice covered Antarctica or any human civilization was thought to exist. Whatever else the builders of P4 were, they were advanced, possibly more advanced than present-day human civilization.”
Yeats nodded. “Which means whoever gains access to their technology theoretically could alter the world’s balance of power.”
“Still paranoid about asymmetrical force?” Conrad said. “No wonder you’re willing to risk lives and break international law by fielding a military presence in Antarctica.”
Yeats paused. “You mean Atlantis.”
“Atlantis? You think there’s a city down there?”
Yeats nodded. “For all we know P4 is only the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.”
“Atlantis is just a name, a myth,” Conrad said. “Maybe that myth is based on what you think you’ve found. Maybe not. Maybe it’s our long-lost Mother Culture. Maybe not. A proper excavation of P4 alone would require decades of research.”
That was just like Conrad, Yeats thought. It wasn’t enough to find
the greatest discovery since the New World. No, Conrad had to be “right” about it, lest he be another Columbus who had discovered what had always been there.
“We don’t have decades, son,” Yeats explained. “We have days. I saw one of your TV specials and you said flat out that Antarctica was Atlantis.”
Yeats clicked on his computer and an
Ancient Riddles
promo popped up. Yeats glanced at Conrad, who grimaced in embarrassment.
“Atlantis,” boomed the baritone announcer. “The ancient city of fantastic wealth and military power described by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato in his
Dialogues
in the fourth century
B.C.
An entire civilization swallowed up by the sea in a single day. Its survivors sought refuge all over the world and built the pyramids of Egypt, the ziggurats of South America, and other ruins of unexplained origins. Come explore the unexplained with astro-archaeologist Doctor Conrad Yeats.”
Yeats turned it off. “Well?”
“What I said is that Antarctica is the only place on Earth that
literally
fits Plato’s description of Atlantis,” Conrad explained. “I never said I actually believed Plato’s account was true. Remember, it’s a publish-or-perish world in academia, Dad, and only the wildest ideas garner attention.”
Yeats frowned. “You’re saying Plato is a liar?”
Conrad shrugged. “Plato was simply an idealist who dreamed up a perfect paradise, Atlantis, to express his yearnings.”
Yeats was disappointed in Conrad’s flippant response and narrowed his eyes. “Whereas you have no ideals.”
“Every archaeologist has his favorite address for Atlantis,” Conrad said. “Most think it’s the island of Thíra in the Mediterranean, which sank into the sea after its volcano exploded. That was nine hundred years before Plato penned his account of Atlantis. Others favor the North Atlantic or Troy in Turkey, a city which itself was considered a myth until its ruins were recently discovered. Still others suggest that Atlantis was really the Americas and that the lost city could well lie beneath Lake Titicaca, or Los Angeles for that matter.”
Yeats said, “But none of these were anything like the high-tech civilization Plato insisted was destroyed almost twelve thousand years ago.”
“True.”
“So this could be Atlantis.”
“It could be.” Conrad shrugged. “Look, all I’m saying is that if you throw a dart at a world map you’ll find somebody’s idea of Atlantis,” Conrad said. “Or, if you’re like my show’s producer, you could throw darts at solar systems on celestial charts. The possibilities are infinite. I can’t draw any conclusions until I get inside P4.”
“I can’t promise you’ll get inside, son,” Yeats said. “Not yet. This is a military operation. So if you’ve got a theory about P4, put up or shut up.”
“Fine. Then I’ll take my frequent flier miles and go home.”
“Goddamn it, Conrad.” Yeats smashed his fist into the tabletop. “You’re not going anywhere. And if you want to get inside P4, you better tell me something I don’t already know.”
Conrad stood up and walked over to the window. For a wild moment Yeats worried that Conrad would pick up a metal chair and try to shatter the reinforced glass. But he simply stared outside as the wind howled. The man had learned to master the rage that had consumed him as a boy.
“OK then,” Conrad finally said without turning around. “My best guess is that P4 may well be the original on which the Great Pyramid in Giza was modeled, except on a much grander scale. In other words, P4 is the real deal and the Great Pyramid that Khufu built is an inferior clay replica.”
“Your best guess?” Yeats repeated. “I can’t work off hunches, son.”
“It’s more than that,” Conrad said. “Your own data says the base is aligned at the cardinal points—north, south, east, and west. It’s also sloped at an angle of fifty-one degrees, fifty-two minutes—just like the Great Pyramid. And knowing what I do about the Great Pyramid, up close and personal, I can make some educated guesses about P4.”
Yeats exhaled. “Like what?”
“Like the probability that P4 is a representation of the Southern Hemisphere of Earth.”
“Whereas the Great Pyramid in Egypt is a representation of the Northern Hemisphere of Earth,” Yeats said. “I get it. So what?”
Conrad crossed the floor to the desk and tapped a few keys on
his laptop. “The hemisphere is projected on flat surfaces as is done in mapmaking.” He turned his laptop around so Yeats could see the graphic on his screen. It looked like a German cross. “This is the pyramid if we flattened it out. The apex represents the South Pole, and the perimeter represents the equator.”
“Go on.”
“This is the reason why the perimeter is in relation two pi to the height,” Conrad explained. “P4 thus represents the Southern Hemisphere on a scale of one to forty-three thousand two hundred.”
“Represents the Southern Hemisphere in relationship to what?” Yeats asked.
“The heavens,” said Conrad. “The ancients associated certain meanings with various constellations. Once I determine this pyramid’s celestial counterpart in the skies we’ll have a better idea of its function.”
“Function?” Yeats repeated. “It’s a tomb, right?”
“Pyramids themselves were never designed to serve as burial places, although they were used that way in some cases,” Conrad said. “Their higher purpose was connected to the ancient king’s quest for eternal life. To attain it he would have to participate in the discovery of a revelation that would unveil the mystery of ‘First Time.’”
“First Time?” Yeats stared hard at him. “What’s that?”
“It’s the secret of Creation,” Conrad said. “How the universe was formed, how we got here, where we’re going.”
“Where we’re going? Now how the hell would the builders of P4 know that?”
“The ancients believed that the cosmic calendar resets itself every twenty-six thousand years or so,” Conrad said. “Each epoch of time ends in some cataclysm leading to a new creation or age. Survivors of such global extinction events would naturally want to warn future generations.”
“So this secret goes all the way back to Genesis?”
“Earlier than that,” Conrad said. “According to Aztec and Mayan myths, there have been at least five Suns or Creations. This is allegedly the Fifth Sun we’re living in.”
“What happened to the Fourth Sun?” Yeats demanded.
“Well, according to the ancients, it was destroyed by the Great
Flood,” Conrad said. “Based on the four rings we found on the benben stone, my guess is that P4 was built at the very dawn of the Fourth Sun, just after the destruction of the Third Sun, right around the time the biblical story of Genesis says God created the heavens and the earth.”
“You just told me P4 goes further back than that.”
“That’s because inside the pyramid I expect to find a repository of knowledge from the previous three Suns,” Conrad said. “It might even contain the secret of First Time itself, something older than the known universe.”
Yeats started pacing back and forth, unable to contain his excitement. His bum leg was killing him, but he didn’t care. “You sure about all this?”
“Won’t be until I get inside.” Conrad’s face darkened. “But it’s fair to assume that, whatever else is down there, P4 holds a legacy of knowledge at least as great as our own.”
“Which is why we have to get inside first,” Yeats concluded. “Because it won’t be long before we have company.”
Conrad asked, “You find the entrance yet?”
“I’ve got a drill crew working out of a rig we’ve set up on P4’s summit,” Yeats said. “The top of the pyramid, about fifty feet of it, sticks out of the bottom of the abyss like the tip of an iceberg. The crew has been drilling a hole down the east face toward the base. That’s where the computer models say we’ll find the entrance. We’re about halfway there.”
Conrad said, “You’re drilling in the wrong place.”
Yeats took a deep breath. “OK, then. Where should I be drilling?”
“The north or south face, although with P4 I’d favor the north face,” Conrad said. “Less than a half mile down the drill crew will most likely find the entrance to a large shaft that will take us into the heart of P4.”
“Most likely?” Yeats huffed. “You want me to pull my team off mission just to follow your instinct?”
“Look, if P4 is indeed the original on which the Great Pyramid was modeled, then I suspect we’ll find two shafts radiating from the center of the pyramid out the south and north faces of the exterior.
If the similarities I’m seeing continue to play out, then we can use these shafts to get inside P4 in half the time it’s going to take you right now.”
“And what exactly is the function of these shafts? If they exist.”
“I have an idea,” Conrad said. “But I’d have to get inside P4 to be certain.”
“Naturally,” Yeats grumbled.
“I thought the price of admission to P4 was to tell you something you didn’t already know,” said Conrad when the intercom buzzed. “I just did.”
“What you told me means nothing if we can’t find this shaft you allege exists,” Yeats said.
“You will,” Conrad insisted when the com beeped again.
Irritated, Yeats flicked on his screen. It was O’Dell in the command center. “What is it?”
“One of our long-range patrols just reported in,” O’Dell said. “Looks like Doctor Yeats’s little distress call attracted some attention. We’ve got company.”
T
HE AIR LOCK DOOR SLID OPEN
and a blast of polar air blew in with a flurry of snow. An ethereal figure emerged from the cloud in a green Gore-Tex parka. And even before the fur-lined hood dropped and the ultraviolet glasses came off, Conrad instinctively knew who it was.
“Serena,” he said.
Every man has his own Atlantis, Conrad knew, a part of his past or himself that seems submerged and gone forever. Serena Serghetti was his Atlantis, and now she had suddenly resurfaced.
Serena said nothing for a minute, simply smiled at him and looked around. Then Nimrod trotted up to her and licked her wool mitten. She scratched the appreciative husky’s ear.
Conrad glanced at Yeats, who was standing silently next to him, and at the two armed MPs in freezer suits behind Serena. All seemed to be waiting for some sort of utterance.
Finally, Serena spoke her first words to Conrad in four years. “You have a permit for her?” she asked, petting Nimrod.
Conrad blinked, incredulous. Perhaps he was so lost in the moment he hadn’t heard her correctly. “For the dog?”
Serena nodded. “Huskies have been banned from the continent since 1993, as have any species not indigenous to Antarctica. I think that includes you, Conrad, along with your friends here.”
Yeats stared, jaw open. “You two know each other?”
“Don’t you recognize her?” Conrad said. “This is Serena Serghetti,
aka Mother Earth, formerly the Vatican’s top linguist and now an environmentalist and official pain in the ass.”
“Only if you’re an ass,” Serena said brightly and extended a mitten toward Yeats. “General Yeats, you look warm-blooded in person. Not at all like Conrad described you.”
Conrad looked at Yeats, who let the dig slide. “The Vatican?”
“Actually, I’m here as a representative of the Australian Antarctic Preservation Society and an adviser to the environmental committee of the United Nations Antarctica Commission. This land belongs to Australia, you see, according to Article Four of the Antarctic Treaty, of which the United States is a member. All members are required to give notice of expeditions, stations, and military personnel and equipment active in Antarctica. You haven’t stated your business on our territory, General Yeats.”
Conrad’s mind was reeling, trying to take in her mysterious appearance in this frozen hell, let alone this bizarre exchange with his father about arcane minutiae in international law.
Yeats cleared his throat. “Article Four, while recognizing that some nations lay claim to territory, expressly states that those claims do not have to be honored by other nations,” Yeats said evenly. “In other words, seventy nations instead of seven could have territorial claims here, Sister Serghetti, but the United States does not recognize their validity.”
“Maybe so,” Serena replied. “But there’s no ambiguity to Article One, which clearly and forcefully bans any measure of a military nature, which is tough luck for you.”
“Unless such measures are for scientific purposes.”
“And what purpose is that, Conrad?”
Conrad realized she was addressing him. And he said the first thing that popped into his head. “We’re mounting a salvage operation.”
He studied her reaction as she looked around and took in the command center doors down the corridor and soldiers with polar-protected M-16s.
“You mean for that C-130 that crashed?” she asked. “I saw the wreckage when I landed on your runway.”
Conrad glanced at Yeats, who seemed impressed. Not only was
she Mother Earth. She was also the Flying Nun. No wonder Yeats’s jaw was on the floor. “You landed a plane?” Yeats asked.
“Your base is hard to miss with a fissure as wide as the Colorado River snaking around it. Did you cause that crack?”
“It was already there,” Yeats said defensively.
“Then you won’t mind if I have a look,” she said. “The Antarctic Treaty provides for the right of access and inspection to all bases. Consider us official inspectors.”
She stepped aside and Conrad saw behind her four well-built young men with dark, deep-set eyes. Video and sound equipment rested heavily on their broad shoulders.
Conrad said, “Who are they?”
“My camera crew. As long as we’re making an inspection, I assume we can take pictures?”
“Sure,” said Yeats, who motioned to the MPs to relieve the men of their equipment. “You can inspect everything from the brig.”
Conrad watched Serena and her crew in their respective cells on two monitors in the command center. The men were sitting quietly on the floor like caged foxes. Serena, meanwhile, was stretched across her bunk like Sleeping Beauty.
“You can’t just lock up Mother Earth,” he told Yeats. “The world’s going to find out.”
But Yeats was focused on the other monitors that showed various grainy images of the P4 Habitat and a drill rig atop the flat summit of P4, where a work crew was tunneling down the north face of the pyramid as Conrad had instructed.
“You better pray your hunch about a shaft pays off, son. Or I just might lock you up too. And, frankly, in your case, the world won’t give a shit.”
Conrad opened his mouth to say something when Colonel O’Dell walked up with a file. Conrad caught his disapproving glance and realized he was the only civilian running loose on the base. O’Dell looked itchy to toss him into the brig with the rest of them.
“Here’s that NSA report on Sister Serghetti, sir.”
“Thank you, Colonel.”
Conrad watched as Yeats scanned the file. “The NSA keeps files on nuns?”
“Nuns who develop a universal translator based on the Aymara language,” Yeats said. “The NSA has been trying to get its hands on Sister Serghetti’s system ever since. The Aymara language is so pure that the NSA suspects it didn’t just evolve like other languages but was constructed from scratch.”
“Explain that to us, Doctor Yeats,” O’Dell blurted out.
Yeats shot O’Dell a nasty glare, but Conrad didn’t flinch.
“The earliest Aymara myth says that after the Great Flood, strangers attempted to build a city on Lake Titicaca,” Conrad said. “We know what’s left of it as Tiahuanaco, with its great Temple of the Sun. But the builders abandoned it and disappeared.”
“And just where on earth did these builders come from?” Yeats asked him in earnest.
“According to legend, they came from the lost island paradise of Aztlan. The Aztec version of Atlantis,” Conrad said, staring at his father. “So what are you saying?”
Yeats closed the file. “The Good Sister might know the language of the people who built P4.”
Serena had always pictured Antarctica as a symbol of peace and harmony, a model for how humans could live with one another and all species with which they shared the planet. She had also held similar such illusions about her relationship with Conrad. But now as she looked around her cell inside Ice Base Orion, her dream had melted away to reveal four cold walls, a tiny sink, and a urinal.
There was a hidden camera somewhere, she was sure, and General Yeats and that tosser Conrad no doubt were watching her every move. But they couldn’t read her mind. So she sat on her bunk and pretended to be alone with her thoughts.
As an Australian she felt more kinship with Antarctica than the Americans. So often as a little girl she would look across the sea and know that the great white continent was on the other side. Australia was the closest of the world’s nations to Antarctica and claimed
42 percent of it, including most of East Antarctica and the very ground—or ice over the ground—on which the Americans had constructed this secret facility.
But for all her work in Antarctica—mostly saving leopard seals or minke whales—her experience had been confined to the spectacular landscapes on the fringes of the continent. There the wildlife was wonderful and the auroras glorious. But this mission into the interior snow deserts had proven Antarctica to be an empty continent indeed. Even now within the warmth of this American base, she could sense the barrenness.
Serena also thought she could hear crackling noises from the shell’s expansion joints. Stations built on ice tend to sink under their own weight as the heat they generate melts the surrounding ice. This station, probably days old, was just settling in.
She remembered her capture at the secret airstrip carved out of the ice and her subsequent escort to Ice Base Orion. The Hagglunds tractor in which the Americans transported her had passed a power plant along the way. It was buried a hundred yards away from the living quarters behind a protective snow dune. Too far away to service diesel engines in this cold, she thought. That’s when she realized it was probably a compact nuclear plant. Probably a 100-kilowatt system.
At first she was outraged. How dare the Americans bring nuclear materials onto the continent! she thought. Ninety percent of all the ice in the world was here. Any meltdown could cause global catastrophe. This alone was more than enough to bust the Americans with the U.N.
But now her fury at the Americans for breaking every international law on the books had turned to fascination. However cool she played it with Conrad and General Yeats back at the air lock, she was in fact burning with excitement. There was Conrad, of course. But clearly her mission here involved much more than protecting the unspoiled Antarctic environment from the Americans.
Something momentous had been found down here, she realized, just like the pope said. Something that could turn history—and the Judeo-Christian tradition—on its head. In spite of all this, however,
she felt exhilarated. Of all the candidates His Holiness could have chosen to be his eyes for this historic event, he had chosen her.
She heard the door unlock with a buzz and turned.
When the MP opened the door of the brig and ushered Conrad in, Serena was sitting on the edge of her bunk, sipping diesel tea from a Styrofoam cup. Conrad noted the silver bride of Christ band on her left ring finger that signified her spiritual union to the one and only Son of God. That would be Jesus to her, unfortunately, and not some disreputable scoundrel like Conrad Yeats. He wondered why she was still wearing it. Probably to keep his likes at bay.
“Conrad.” Serena managed a smile. “I figured they’d send you. You always did have odd ideas for a secret rendezvous.”
Conrad saw she was down to her wool sweater now, her black hair falling softly over her shoulders. Underneath she was probably wearing polypropylene inner liners to move sweat away from her skin, or acrylic thermal underwear. As for what was wrapped under that, Conrad didn’t have to imagine, and he realized he was the one sweating.
“What’s so odd?” He reached over and touched her face. “You’re still cold.”
“I’m fine. What happened to you?”
He looked at his bandaged hand. “Occupational hazard.”
“Like Yeats? I would have put you and me together before I ever thought I’d see you with your father.”
“Like you and your
GQ
boys in the next—”
“Cell?” She smiled. “Worried about some competition, Conrad?” she asked. “Don’t be. If I were the last woman on earth and you were the last man, I’d become a nun again.”
Conrad stared into her soft brown eyes. It was the first time they had been alone, face-to-face, in four years, and Conrad secretly felt she looked more beautiful than ever. He, on the other hand, felt old and worn down. “What are you doing here, Serena?”
“I thought I might ask you the same question, Conrad.”
He was itching to tell her about the ruins beneath the ice, that his theories were true. But he couldn’t. After all, they had never dealt with the ruins of their own lives on the surface.
“You’re not just here to save the environment,” Conrad stated. “When you came through that air lock, you weren’t surprised to see me.”
“You’re right, Conrad,” she said softly and put a warm hand to his face. “I missed you and had to see you.”
Conrad pulled back. “You are so full of it, and you know it.”
“Oh, and you’re not?” The floor began to rumble. Serena sat back in her bunk and glanced at her watch. She’s timing the shakers, he thought to himself. Suddenly she said, “When were you going to inform the rest of the world about your discovery?”
Conrad swallowed hard. “What discovery?”
“The pyramid under the ice.”
Conrad blinked in disbelief but said nothing. Still, there was no use fighting the fact that somehow she knew as much as or more than he did about this expedition.
“So what else did God tell you?”
“I’d say the team has been drilling exploratory tunnels in the ice around the pyramid,” she said. “And I’d bet that by now your cowboy father has probably found a door.”
There was a minute of silence. They were no longer locked in their typical give-and-take banter but were fellow truth-seekers. Conrad was glad she was there and angry at the same time. He was worried about her safety and yet felt threatened by her presence, as if somehow she was standing in his way.
“Serena,” he said softly. “This isn’t some oil platform that you can chain yourself to in order to protest the production of fossil fuels. A few dozen soldiers have already died on this expedition, and it’s practically a miracle you and I are even talking.”
A cloud of sober reflection passed over Serena’s face. She was processing her own thoughts. “I can take care of myself, Conrad,” she said. “It’s you I’m worried about.”
“Me?”
“Your father hasn’t told you everything.”
“What else is new?” Conrad shrugged. “Passing along a piece of information for him is like passing a kidney stone. So he’s hiding something. So are you, Serena. A lot more. Look, neither the United States nor the Vatican is going to be able to keep a lid on something this big.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Conrad, I know you’re not this naive, so it must be denial,” she said. “Tell me, how did Yeats lure you down here? Did he promise you credit for the find of the ages? Maybe more help in finding your true parents?”
“Maybe.”
“Trust me, Conrad,” she said, the pain of personal experience in her eyes, “there are some answers you don’t want to know.”
“Speak for yourself, Serena.”