"That is true," Chiun said. "But it is not the honor of everyone to be assassinated by us. Most are unworthy of our talents. Especially foolish females who want to be rescued by machines."
She sat up, flushing. "Look, I was only saying—"
"The next time your life is in danger, we will send you a tractor."
"You two are impossible," she said hotly. "The fact of the matter is—"
"She's all right," Remo said.
"I am talking to you, mister," the woman spat.
"Remo. The name's Remo. This is Chiun. The kid's name is Po. Now introduce yourself like a civilized person, or we're going to leave you right here."
Her eyes flashed. Her mouth opened, ready for assault. But Remo had already turned away. "I'm Elizabeth Drake," she said haughtily.
Remo smiled. "Nice to meet you, Lizzie."
"It's Elizabeth. You may call me Dr. Drake. I'm an archaeologist."
"Oh, yeah. I heard the name. You and your buddy were digging around this place."
"Dr. Diehl?" she asked excitedly. "He's alive?"
"He's alive. It looks like you two are the only ones who made it out of here." He walked over to the wreckage of the Red Cross helicopter and surveyed the damage. No survivors. None on the ground outside the temple, either. The bodies lying beneath and around the fallen rocks were in an advanced state of decomposition. Some of them still showed evidence of strange wounds, huge holes that seemed to have burned clear through their targets.
Diehl was right, Remo thought. The weapons were lasers. He had seen that for himself. And they had attacked the Temple of Magic.
But who had provided the weapons in the first place? It was hard to believe, but somewhere in the middle of one of the most dense, primitive jungles on earth was— had to be— an arsenal of weapons more advanced than any produced by the United States. Advanced, and yet as fragile as spun glass.
Except for the wounds on some of the dead, there was no indication that the group had been attacked by any civilized agents of war. Maybe he would have more luck inside. He began to work at the rocks blocking the entrance. Most of the work had already been done while he and Chiun were seeking a way to the barracuda who permitted herself to be called Dr. Drake.
The inside of the temple was cool and dry in contrast to the sweltering humidity outside. Good, he thought as he dragged the lifeless bodies out into the open. He wasn't looking forward to the prospect of shoveling rotting flesh. These bodies carried the same wounds— gaping, penetrating, inflicted by laser weapons. Except for the archaeologists Elizabeth Drake had identified, they were all Indians, either from the dig's crew or the Lost Tribes. No Russians here.
Remo searched the interior of the temple. What was he looking for? Other weapons, maybe? A scrap of paper, a piece of fabric... anything that would tie the laser attack to someone other than the spear-carrying natives.
But there was nothing. Scattered among the debris on the floor were a few urns and pots. He picked one up and upturned it. Nothing but a fine fall of limestone came out. He tossed it into a corner.
"What are you doing?" Lizzie shrieked. She picked up the pot and cradled it in her arms like a baby. "Don't you know how valuable these things are? It's remarkable that they've even survived the earthquake." She snatched a piece of broken pottery from Remo's hands. "Don't touch these, you monster," she whispered hoarsely.
"It's only a broken piece of clay," Remo explained.
"For your information, this broken piece of clay is more than five thousand years old." She thrust it under Chiun's nose.
"I do not care for modern art," the old man said blandly.
Remo could see the cords standing up around the archaeologist's neck. "Loosen up, Lizzie," he said gently.
"Don't condescend to me!" she stormed.
"Okay, okay. I'm sorry about the pot. It just looked like a pot to me. It didn't look important."
"Not important?" she asked incredulously. She closed her eyes in mock despair. "Look. Maybe I ought to explain something. The branch of archaeology I specialize in is ancient Mayan civilization. I've been studying it for sixteen years, teaching, reading, writing about it. I've spent most of my adult life in this part of the world, where the Mayans originated. And yet I know next to nothing about them. No one does. The ancient Maya are a mystery that's baffled scholars for centuries. All we know about them is what we've been able to piece together from carved stones and ruins of buildings and broken pots, like the one you didn't think was important."
"I get the picture," Remo said wearily. He was tired of being lectured to, especially by someone whose life he just saved.
"No you don't," she persisted. "That's what I'm trying to explain to you. The Mayan civilization leaped, historically speaking, in a single, unexplained bound, from a primitive agrarian society to a complex system of cities that fostered art, sculpture, higher mathematics, advanced astronomy, a 360-day calendar, a complex writing system, and the concept of zero. In other words, they went from root farmers to scientific wizards almost instantaneously."
"What do you guys call instantaneous? A thousand years?"
"Try one day," Lizzie said.
Even Chiun looked up. "What was the day?" he asked.
Remo smiled. "She didn't mean one particular day, Chiun."
"Oh, yes I did," Lizzie said. "The day was August 11, 3114 B. C."
"How do you know that?"
"The date is written in nearly every major piece of Mayan writing discovered. That one date. It's in tombs, on walls, on the stelae monuments the Mayans cut from stone to record other events— everything. It's the beginning of time as the Mava knew it."
She ran her finger along the rim of the pot in her hand. "Something happened on that date fifty centuries ago," she said, almost to herself. "Something so monumental that it catapulted the Maya from the stone age into the future."
"Doesn't it say in these writings you've found?" Remo asked.
"No. It's always used as a reference, the way we use A. D. and B. C. Apparently what happened was so important that future generations just assumed everyone knew what the landmark event was. The earliest known Mayan structure ever uncovered was a ceremonial center at Cuello in northern Belize, dating to 2500 B. C. But that was just an empty room with a stone altar. Buildings don't keep well in this climate. Anyway, that's still more than 600 years after the magic date of 3114, B. C."
"So you still don't know anything," Remo said.
"That's just it. We might have the answer right here. The first team of archaeologists to explore this temple found evidence dating it to 3,000 B. C. or earlier."
She paused, searching Remo's eyes for recognition, then gave up in an impatient sigh. "Don't you see? The Temple of Magic is the most ancient Mayan site ever discovered. Right here in these walls may be the answer to a riddle that's thousands of years old. What happened?"
The boy watched her. Then suddenly he spoke. "It was Kukulcan," he said.
She turned to him. "What?"
"My father told me in the Old Tongue," he said meekly. "In the legends, the white god Kukulcan came to earth in a flaming chariot to build the world."
"Utter rot," Lizzie said. "A useless folk tale."
The boy shrank back. "Take it easy," Remo said. "He's just a kid."
"I am a scientist," Lizzie said, "not a mother telling bedtime stories. Those so-called harmless legends can lead to seriously erroneous thought that hinders the way of real progress. That particular story about Kukulcan, for example, has spurred hundreds of normally sane people to believe that the Mayans were given their knowledge by invading spacemen. Spacemen! Have you ever heard of such lunacy?"
Remo shrugged, trying to keep his patience. People who'd lived through an ordeal like Lizzie Drake's entombment in the fallen temple were entitled to a little crabbiness when the crisis passed, but she was beginning to get on his nerves, beautiful chest or not. "Let's change the subject," he said pleasantly. "Seen any good movies lately?"