“The second book on the plinth.”
“Yes. We were left with one volume of a two-book set, Gail. What they took away was removed from the Library as cleanly as possible, they even scattered dust around the plinth so that nobody could guess anything was amiss. I spoke to Patterson by phone shortly before you entered the Library, and demanded that he tell me what they were hiding. What had been so important that the biggest discovery in living memory was to be spoilt by an agency I knew nothing about? I had trusted him because we had been friends, but on seeing the engineers on site with their damned suitcase, I wanted to know everything.
“Patterson calmed me down as best he could over the phone and told me that I could not see the find whilst still on site. However, before it was shipped to its final destination, God knows where, he promised that I would be able to look at it. He was as good as his word, and on his request I journeyed to Cairo the day after you first entered the Library.
“Patterson met me in this very building, in my old office down the hall. One of the engineers was with him, and they had made space for their case on my desk. I had already signed a document stating I would not divulge anything to third parties about our arrangement, but they made me sign another form before they would open the case. They were quite forceful, but to be honest I probably would have signed anything at that point: my curiosity was more powerful than anything. Then the engineer opened the case and Patterson ushered me forwards.
“I will never forget my first sight of the book, Gail, my first glimpse of the cover. It was exactly the same dimensions as the Stickman volume, except that it was thicker: it probably contained half as many pages again as your volume. Its cover was also wooden, with a bound spine. On it had been engraved a picture, in the same fashion as the Stickman. My God! They would have looked impressive together!”
“Wait,” Gail said. “You said that this so-called agency wanted to stop information from being spread from Amarna to the outside world, and so went to all this trouble to hide one book. But there were hundreds and hundreds of different books in that room, how did they know for sure that they had removed the only one that mattered? What if my book had also contained something important, or what if one of the hundreds of scrolls that we haven’t even looked at did?”
Mamdouh shook his head. “I have no idea, Gail. Somehow, they knew that there was only one book to take care of. They certainly didn’t have time to read anything whilst in the Library. They couldn’t have checked the entire Stickman book in that time, and believe me after having read it myself I can assure you that it makes no reference to the content of the book they took away. Their information must have been well sourced, but I’m at a loss from thereon in. And I have not heard from the agency since that day in my office.”
“What made this book so special then?” she asked.
“In itself, the cover was interesting enough. The engraving showed a human figure holding a long staff aloft, as if in defiance. But it was upon opening the book that the true surprise came. It was mostly illustrations, accompanied by small segments of text, a mixture of hieroglyphs and hieratic. Full page drawings of people living in vast cities that we would classify, even today, as futuristic; filled with flying machines, vehicles of all descriptions, towering skyscrapers, sprawling forest-parks with fountains and paths. It was like looking at a science-fiction landscape. Then there were pictures of farms rolling over hills to the horizon, seascapes showing fleets of strange vessels. The text below, in the little time I had to read and quickly translate it, simply described the illustrations, like an encyclopaedia, with comments like Ancient City with administrative centre or Agricultural Environment. And then suddenly, the mood of the illustrations changed. I turned the page, and it was like a vast hand had been swept across the city from the previous pages. Everything was razed to the ground, people were running in all directions in obvious panic. I barely had time to take the scenes in, however, because as soon as I had turned the page the engineer stepped forward and closed the book, quite forcefully moving me aside. I have not seen or heard from it since.”
“My God, Mamdouh. Professor Hunt would love to hear about this! But even he would never believe such advanced human civilisations from the past,” she said.
The Professor looked her straight in the eyes. “And you think I would? Gail, over the decades I have seen thousands of ancient texts, not just from Egypt but from all over the world. This wasn’t some dream-fuelled flight of fantasy, it was a vision of a future world. It was so real, so tangible, so believable that it can only have come from someone who had witnessed it.
“All of the people in the streets of the mysterious city, the pilots in flying machines, the farmers in the fields and sailors on the strange ships existed. And from the little I saw, it is clear to me that they were wiped out, erased from history.”
Gail could not find the words, her mouth opened and closed slowly like a goldfish.
“When I saw that book I realised what it represented; I knew it couldn’t be shown to the outside world. I don’t pretend to know what wider implications it may have and why the agency would want to cover it up. Whatever religious or political motivations they might have, I simply understood that to reveal it would have been professional suicide. I would have been no better than those who claim that the Great Pyramid of Khufu was built as a landing platform for interstellar spaceships. Here was I, looking at a veritable link between the ancient Egypt I love and something that would destroy everything we think we know about our origins.
“I couldn’t let that happen. As a philosopher, I was frustrated that I would never again be able to see the book, to study and translate its text. But as a man who wanted to earn a living and develop my career, I was relieved that it was being taken off my hands. The responsibility was no longer mine.
“Because of this, I never once felt inclined to reveal this to you, or to anyone for that matter. Over time, I made myself believe that the book did in fact represent little more than a fantasy world. I mean, what will people think thousands of years hence when they discover our libraries full of science fiction? Would they believe that we had really waged war with Mars, that we genuinely conquered the stars or that we could easily travel through time at will?” He paused and let out a long sigh. “That idea helped reconcile my guilt. The belief that it was a work of fantasy got me through the past ten years in one piece.
“Until this morning. When I saw the photos from Mars, it all came back as real as if I had the book in my hands. The smell of the wood, the texture of the pages, the intricate detail of the alien world; none of it was fantasy, it was authentic. That is why I do not think the Stickman on Mars is faked, Gail. I do not believe it is a coincidence. I believe instead that it belongs on Mars, as do the people from the book.”
He stopped talking and they sat in silence for several minutes. He wanted to urge her to respond, but understood that she was overwhelmed by his story and needed time to digest. Eventually, she looked at him.
“Firstly Mamdouh, let me say I do not judge you for what you did. I would probably have done the same as you, otherwise my career as a result would have been entirely different, and I would probably have had to get my doctorate from the Internet rather than from a good university.”
He nodded in reply, as much in gratitude for her understanding as in agreement of her statement.
“Secondly, the photos from Mars prove something else,” she continued.
“What?” he asked. He had not expected her to dwell on the photos from Mars.