“Feel for more,” McCauley continued.
Katrina found another close to the last. Jaffe added one more beyond it near the end of the surface.
“More coins?” McCauley stated.
“Here,” DeMeo said.
They marked them.
“Any more? Feel all around.”
There were no more.
“Okay, what is it?” DeMeo wondered. From his perspective it looked like a shovel.
“I don’t know, a pot? A crooked broom?” Jaffe proposed.
“A bent flag?” was Katrina’s first thought.
“Interesting how we tend to look for relatable images within even the most rudimentary shapes,” McCauley said. “It’s been something people have done since, I suppose, the dawn of time.”
“You sound like you’ve figured it out?” Katrina said.
“Oh, yes. It’s right in front of me. The most recognizable design ever known. The one that guided travelers and quite likely pointed Galileo to the stars. He was fascinated by it. So of course he recognized it. Father Eccleston would have, too. Ursa Major. The Big Dipper.”
Eighty-five
“What’s the Big Dipper got to do with anything?” DeMeo asked.
“Back to ‘La chiave.’ It’s more than just the key to the lock. The whole sentence,” Katrina explained. “Galileo’s complete thought was ‘La chiave per sbloccare i misteri della paura.’ The key to the mysteries of time.”
“That helps a lot,” DeMeo said facetiously.
“It’s a sign post, a guiding way. The Big Dipper points to Polaris, the North Star, the most identifiable star in the sky,” McCauley explained. “The star that doesn’t rise or set, but remains relatively in the same position above the northern horizon while other stars circle it. It’s all because the axis of the earth is pointed toward it. We’re being pointed toward it.”
“But where?” Katrina wasn’t sure of the position.
“I know.” Jaffe, the army veteran volunteered. “It’s a straight shot up from lower right to the upper right.” Jaffe came around to McCauley’s side. “From the two stars, Merak to Dubhe,” he continued, “and onward. At least that’s what it is in the night sky.”
McCauley thought more about the design. The position of the stars, the meaning Galileo or even Father Eccleston would have recognized.
“The number!” he said aloud. He counted the stars represented by the coins. “Seven. Another prime number.” He looked at the layout, this time as a path. “If I start at the far end of the dipper’s handle and end at, what’s the name of the last star?”
“Dubhe,” Jaffe replied.
“Ending at Dubhe…then? Well, let’s find out.”
Quinn McCauley removed the coin on the last star point and pressed the space. Then he moved in toward the corner, repeating the action. He was pressing on representations of Alkaid, Mizar, Alioth, then Megrez at the upper left of the bucket, down to Phecda, over the base to Merak and up to Dubhe. One after another, all in order. All seven.
Instantly the environment darkened, but not to the deep black. Now a warm blue-black enveloped them. It was punctuated by a bright point of light straight ahead on the wall and in line with the last two stars.
“Polaris,” Katrina gasped.
“Walk toward it,” McCauley implored.
They did, side by side. Without a sense of space, they weren’t sure how far they walked, but soon other areas began to illuminate. Not with a pinpoint of light, but blurry images.
“Like it’s dialing through filters,” Jaffe said.
“Video projections?” DeMeo articulated.
“Right, but I can’t tell what they are,” Katrina replied.
McCauley couldn’t either. The resolution and focus were still adjusting. McCauley stepped forward from the team and looked directly at the Polaris star projecting his own desire for answers. Suddenly a beam of light shot directly into his eyes.
“Quinn!” Katrina screamed.
McCauley was frozen in place for nearly thirty seconds, breathing, but not able to speak. Then it was over. The beam faded but Polaris remained.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.” McCauley shook his head to gather his thoughts. “I felt like my eyes were being examined. Like an ophthalmologist trying out different corrective lenses on me. And I felt things.”
“Felt? What kind of…” Katrina didn’t finish her question. Images suddenly exploded throughout the chamber with the sounds of wind and water.
Now they sharpened, popped up above, below and all around them, expanded in size and then merged into one moving conceptual display which surrounded them. It was an astounding sight — colorful, emotional, overpowering — as beautiful as it was mystifying.
They rotated, looking up, around and down. Katrina was the first to put impressions to words.
“A, a planet forming,” Katrina exclaimed.
“Yes, but not….” McCauley stopped short.
The image now began to spin quickly, form and reform over and over until it slowed and merged again, but this time into one huge landmass surrounded by water. It looked like an inverted L, but thicker on the side than on top.
“Not just a planet,” McCauley proclaimed. He recognized what it was. More than that, he sensed it.
“Pangaea. Or what we know as Pangea. The super continent. Earth from three hundred million years ago. Early Paleozoic.” He spoke with authority, with knowledge, not speculation. Like the idea was implanted within him. “When all the continents were fused as one. Before the continental shifts.”
They continued to pivot, watching the single image morph again into dozens, if not hundreds of different displays.
“Look there and there,” Katrina exclaimed. She pointed to specific moving images. “Those plants and animals; fossils to us. But…”
“Old Earth,” McCauley declared. “We’re seeing Earth as it was.”
“How?” Jaffe asked the question for everyone.
“We’re in a library, an archive. These pictures were recorded for earth’s heirs and pre-programmed for discovery. Somehow the intelligence behind this had the technology to make sure it survived.”
“But, humans didn’t evolve until hundreds of millions of years later,” DeMeo declared.
Katrina watched as the pictures revealed emerging life forms, changing landscapes, undersea organisms and soon animals moving across the land. Then they saw upright creatures, not completely familiar, but not unfamiliar either.
“Quinn, what are they?”
McCauley reached for a memory now ingrained.
“This is what his Inquisitors must have feared. It’s the secret guarded for centuries.”
They watched in awe as lanky people-like bipeds established communities in clans, then families and cities. Cities that were transformed through inventions, and technology unknown today.
They stared at the images trying to make sense of the ancient history that unfolded before them; a virtual other-world that preceded modern times.
Beings. Families. Communities. Births. Children growing into adults. Institutional buildings and even houses of worship. Teachers and students. Scientists and doctors. Heroes and villains. All accompanied by a cacophony of sounds.
“We’re witnessing life that came before us…civilization that existed and flourished…and died.” McCauley now embraced the ultimate realization. “And we’re the reboot.”
Just as the images had sub-divided, they now reassembled into one shocking faster moving master video revealing a staggering saga.
“Oh my God,” Katrina sighed.
Massive earthquakes unhinged the plates. Volcanoes spewed toxins into the air. The giant continent broke apart.
McCauley exhaled. Katrina wrapped her arms around him.