“So these ancient builders smothered metal columns in cement—”
“And then, while it was still wet, I’d guess, they drew these symbols, their language, into it.” His heart leapt into his throat. “Just like Xibalba, it’s a record of their entire civilisation.”
“But why’s it glowing? Xibalba didn’t glow.”
That stumped King too. He pivoted in a full three hundred and sixty degree circle, casting his torch beam throughout the entire chamber. Not that he had truly expected to, he found no power source, no battery or generator.
Sunlight pieced the temple, blazing down through holes in the ceiling!
The shafts of light grew narrower, refining to a single laser-like beam until that too was gone.
Darkness.
Such utter darkness.
The flash of memory caused King to look up to the shaft through which they had entered. The beam of weak light, diluted by ninety feet of sea water, was nevertheless evident through the darkness of the temple. It hit the ground directly below the hole, creating a pool of bluish light upon the temple floor — the floor which had been fashioned out of the same metallic, meteoric core as the columns.
“Back at the U.N., when we were examining the fake mask for clues, Nadia commented on how highly conductive the metal was,” he told Raine. “And there was an image back in Xibalba of the High Priest wearing the fake mask, which of course they venerated as the real one, showing some sort of beams or rays emanating out from it. Is it possible that this metal conducts light just like other metals conduct electricity or heat?”
Raine looked at King through the darkness. “I guess,” he said cautiously.
“It makes perfect sense!” King said triumphantly.
“It does?” Raine wasn’t so sure.
“Yes. The Monument lies at 24 degrees, 27 minutes north, one degree north of the Tropic of Cancer. I’m no astronomer but I do know that the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn lie so many degrees to either side of the equator.”
“23 degrees, 27 minutes north and south, respectively.”
King’s jaw hung open as he stared at his friend. “How do you know that?”
“Can’t rely on GPS all the time, Benny,” Raine replied. “It’s important to navigate by the stars, and to navigate by them you’ve got to understand their movements in relation to the earth. The tropics,” he explained, picking up on the archaeologist’s train of thought, “exist because the earth doesn’t spin vertically on its axis. It currently spins at an angle of 23 degrees, 27 minutes. What’s called the ‘obliquity of the ecliptic’ governs the extreme northern and southern position of the sun as it rises along the horizon in the course of the year. When it’s at its northern most declination, summer solstice in the northern hemisphere, the sun is perfectly vertical over the Tropic of Cancer, and casts no shadow. Swap it around and on the winter solstice, the same happens above the Tropic of Capricorn.”
“So, one degree north of the Tropic of Cancer, here, on the summer solstice,” King realised, “the sun would be standing almost directly overhead.”
“Now? Yes, almost directly overhead. But I can do better than that, Benny,” Raine replied smugly, pleased to be teaching King something for a change. “The earth’s obliquity changes minutely all the time — roughly forty seconds of arc every century. So, while today, the Monument is one degree north of the tropic, it wouldn’t have always been so. The Tropics move! The maximum possible obliquity is 24 degrees, 30 minutes and the last time that was reached was about nine and a half thousand years ago. So, the Monument stands at 24 degrees, 27 minutes, three minutes less than the maximum, yeah? So, go from nine and a half thousand years ago, wind the clock forward by roughly three minutes of arc at a rate of 40 seconds of arc a century, gives you about an extra four hundred and fifty or so years.”
“So what are you saying?” King asked, confused.
“It’s annoying when someone who knows more than you spouts off for half an hour, isn’t it?”
“Nate,” King warned.
“I’m saying that, roughly nine thousand years ago, this place would have been sat right smack bang on the Tropic of Cancer, and that at midday on the Summer Solstice, the sun would have shone directly down on this building.”
“Through the three ‘sun-shafts’,” King added.
“The light would have been intense, and funnelled through three little holes it would have been focussed on the corresponding points on the ground.”
“And if I’m right, that light would have been conducted throughout this chamber, illuminating the metal far more brightly than it is now. Nate, this is incredible!”
“Raine, King, have you found that goddamn mask yet?” Gibbs’ voice suddenly cut into their excitement. King had been so caught up in the discovery that he’d forgotten about the objective.
“We’re working on it,” Raine lied.
“Well, you might want to work faster, ‘cause you’ve got company. We tried to stop them but there’s just too damn many.”
Raine and King both felt a sense of dread overwhelm them. Raine pulled a light stick from his vest, broke it so that the chemicals mixed and then threw it into the centre of the chamber.
Like the rays of god bursting forth from heaven, the light illuminated the entire temple, muting out the red glow and highlighting dozens, if not hundreds, of intricately carved columns.
Unfortunately, it also highlighted the silhouettes of dozens of hammerhead sharks as they swam down the access shaft into the newly exposed temple.
“Nate!” King shouted
Raine spun.
And came face to face with death!
Sid walked unsteadily down the grimy corridor, carrying the tube of antiseptic cream she had retrieved from the SOG team’s gear. The ocean swell was getting stronger and she felt the deck heaving from left to right. Her head felt a little fuzzy and a wave of nausea passed through her belly and up her throat. She held it back, ducked beneath a low hanging pipe which crossed the metal passageway from one side to the other, and opened the door to the room in which she had left Nadia minutes before.
“Oh my god,” she gasped. “Nadia?!”
The room was a mess. The bed had been upturned, the cupboards emptied and strewn across the deck. The soldiers had stashed some of their gear here and that too had been thrown haphazardly about the place. But, most disturbingly, a streak of crimson blood was smeared across the window.
That was when she heard the tell-tale whump, whump, whump of a helicopter’s blades cutting through the air above the deck.
Her heart skipped a beat. They had Nadia!
She turned and dashed back out into the corridor. “Nadia!” she cried out and raced down the passageway. Her heart thudded in her ears, drowning out the chopper’s propellers and her own pounding footsteps—
She skidded to a halt beside another open door.
The ‘safe’.
The padlocks had been smashed but then she noticed that the door’s actual lock was undamaged. A key protruded from it. It was what the invaders had been searching for in the SOG team’s gear, she realised. And Nadia must have gotten in their way.