Well aware that she could live within the confines of the resulting budget constraints, Miriam had done all that she could to immediately get the ball rolling. The area on the central California coastline that she wished to concentrate on was well known for its fickle environment. A summer dig would guarantee not only a semblance of decent weather, but also the availability of an experienced, relatively inexpensive crew comprised of her own students.
In what was later to be called a bureaucratic miracle, Miriam had not only assembled the myriad of equipment and supplies needed for a three-month field effort, but had also gained permission from the Department of the Defense to work on Vandenberg.
All this had been accomplished with plenty of time to choose a qualified work force from a long list of anxious students. As the school year had ended, the young professor had closed up her office and readied herself to tackle the type of work that had prompted her to enter the field of archaeology in the first place.
Watching the crew at work, Miriam remembered well her first official dig. It was almost two decades before when she had joined a team of freshmen classmates on a Malibu hillside. There, utilizing the same tedious procedures that they used today, Miriam had gotten her first taste of actual field excavation.
Never would she forget the fateful moment when her rake had made solid contact with an object buried in the dry soil below. How her heart had pounded in her chest as she carefully extracted an exquisite object buried in the earth for almost five hundred years.
The ceremonial knife had been over twelve inches long. It had a handle of dark gray whalebone, and its whitish, sharpened stone tip was bound to the shaft with the sinew of a deer and completely coated with a tar asphaltum. Standing there in the hills of Malibu with this Chumash relic firm in her trembling hand, the impressionable teenager had had no doubt as to the course of her future studies.
Years of intense research had followed. Both an undergraduate and a master’s degree had been soon attained. And now Miriam was well qualified to instruct her own groups of impressionable students in the intricacies of her chosen profession.
Though the knowledge gained during her hours of study was great, her appetite for field work was as insatiable as ever before. Semesters of rote class instruction had done little to satisfy this undying urge.
As befitting her initial discovery, Miriam had devoted the bulk of her research to a study of the Chumash Indians. Completely fascinated by this highly advanced people who for thousands of years had flourished in what was now Venture, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo counties, she had neglected the distracting calls of her friends and family.
By no means unattractive, Miriam had yet to marry or, for that matter, even to have been seriously engaged.
Such a relationship would only divert her from her life’s work.
She certainly hadn’t lacked for interested suitors.
These individuals had been drawn to her natural good looks, which were enhanced by a shining mane of long red hair, glee ming green eyes, high, etched cheekbones, perfect teeth, and a five-foot, nine-inch body kept lean and fit with daily five-mile hikes. The University atmosphere had provided a succession of interested men, yet Miriam had never been ready to share herself with them. Whereas the bulk of her ex girlfriends now had a houseful of children to keep them occupied, Miriam had nothing but her work, and for her it was enough. For the moment, marriage would just have to wait.
A cool breeze blew in from the west, and the thirty six-year-old researcher looked out toward the Pacific from the rock outcropping that she had been standing on. It was turning out to be another ideal day.
Already the customary morning fog was dissipating.
Beyond the scrub-tilled hills, another two miles distant, was the shoreline. From where she stood she could just make out the white, frothing surge of surf as it broke over the jagged rocks of Point Arguello.
Appearing as violent and unpredictable as ever, the ocean provided little haven for boaters or divers.
Possessed as it was by strong undertows and deadly riptides, not even the most expert swimmers dared its currents.
Further out to sea, just visible in the dissolving fog bank, was the outline of a single drilling platform.
This structure was perched like a lonely sentinel, with the sole purpose of tapping the reservoirs of oil locked deep within the continental shelf.
A familiar hollow-metallic tone howled in the distance, and Miriam diverted her glance to her right, where she could just make out a rapidly advancing locomotive. Seconds later, the rest of the freight train was visible as it snaked its way down the coastline southward. Soothed by the sound of the clatter of its wheels on the tracks, Miriam surveyed the valley that lay between the rails and the ridge on top of which she currently stood. Known as Space Launch Complex 6, or Slik 6 for short, it had a series of huge, manmade structures that dwarfed the landscape. It would be from this site — that the first West Coast launch of America’s space shuttle would take place.
Miriam had been given a hasty tour of this complex by an Air Force public-affairs officer upon her initial arrival. Though she had been working beside the series of buildings for a month now, she still couldn’t help but be impressed with their sheer size. Dominating-the complex was the immense white shell of the shuttle-assembly building. Painted on its side was a colossal American flag. Beside this were a number of brightly painted red, white, and gray buildings belonging to various control centers, preparations rooms, access towers, and storage tanks. All this was situated on a gleaming white concrete pad, which the public affairs officer had told her was comprised of the equivalent of a twenty-five-mile-long stretch of four-lane interstate highway.
Of course, all this was quite a contrast to the relatively crude operation that she was currently in charge of. Angling her line of sight back to her left, Miriam studied her crew at work. They were presently concentrating their efforts on a single plot of land, located on top of Tranquillon Ridge, approximately nine hundred feet above and a half mile to the southeast of Slik 6.
The site they had picked was one of those originally discovered by Robert Baray. Though his primary excavation had indicated that a possible wealth of buried relics lay there, little professional excavation had been attempted until their arrival. As in the case of any potential dig site, their first priority had been to carefully survey that portion of land into which they planned to dig. After staking out their initial twenty-by-thirty-foot rectangular plot, they had begun the tedious task of removing the first few inches of covering topsoil.
The dry ground was hard and rock-filled. To complicate matters, a thick ground cover of spiky cactus had had to first be eliminated. Not accustomed to such strenuous work, her students had done their best to ignore their newly calloused hands, strained muscles, and sunburnt skin.
Of irreplaceable assistance had been the strong arms and shoulders of her senior teaching assistant, Joseph Solares. A full-blooded Porno Indian by birth, the twenty-five-year-old graduate student had instinctively taken charge of the primary excavation. With his long, dark hair tied down by a red bandana, and his muscular, bare chest perpetually sweat-stained, Joseph had taken on as much of the heavy work as possible. His tenacious effort alone had allowed them to proceed as scheduled.