An incredible find at a far west archaeological dig takes things to a new level.
Recipe for Civilization
Thor sat down heavily at a table already occupied by his friend and colleague, Zeus, who looked up from the book he was reading and acknowledged Thor with a brief smile.
Thor sighed and said, "Remember that drop we made on that sector 7 planet, the one that didn't open? I think they may finally find it."
Zeus raised an eyebrow and shrugged. He answered, "I don't think it really matters at this point."
Thor pounded on the table and said, "Everything matters."
Zeus shook his head and said, "No matter, never mind."
Thor picked up a mug of ale and downed it, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and said, "That's the trouble with you Olympians. Everything's always a mind game."
**************************************
John Candor sat back on his heels and looked around himself in satisfaction. He'd been born in a town in the Florida Keys, surrounded by water on all sides of the island, but from the first time he opened an archaeology book in school, he'd longed for dry digs in the middle of the desert surrounded with dust. And that's where he was: in the middle of the Utah desert looking at signs of civilization long ago. The walls of the cave he had just exited were covered with some of the most beautiful pictographs he had ever seen. He had discovered what appeared to be an ancient spiritual center that no one had known existed. The walls were covered with mystical artwork, the floors with religious relics. It was awe inspiring, something that he and the graduate students he had with him were uncovering with the greatest of care. He refused to allow anyone to work for long periods of time. He didn't want anything but the most focused of work on this dig. First, it was a career maker, but, even more, it was just too important. The site was just too incredible.
He wandered over to an area outside of the dig site that he’d found interesting for different reasons. It was a ridge that had been formed by a long ago earthquake or maybe more than one earthquake. The earth's movement had pushed older layers of sediment above newer layers so that sediment deposited during the Cambrian and Pre-Cambrian eras, the oldest geologic eras, were accessible. For fun, when he was resting from work on the dig, he had been extracting trilobites and other Cambrian fossils from the ridge. He'd been digging in the most ancient of sediments when he noticed an anomaly that piqued his curiosity. In a spot that had been undisturbed for millions of years, he noticed a totally different type of rock formation, one that didn't fit with the surrounding rock and couldn't be explained by the earth's shifting crust. He'd been slowly working on excavating the black half sphere that lay in a mass of trilobites which appeared to be some kind of metal or metallic laden rock.
John's top grad student, Tom Christy, sat in the shade of a huge orange colored boulder with Eve Nedragala, a local girl who was acting as an assistant for them, as a sort of a part guide, part gofer. Much to Tom's dismay, Eve seemed intent on watching John as he worked. She walked gracefully across the rough canyon floor and stood beside John, looking down at where he was working to painstakingly remove the metallic object from the surrounding sedimentary rock.
He glanced at her and said, "This is something of an anomaly."
She leaned in to where he was working and said, "Why? What do you mean?"
He strained to keep his mind on the object he was releasing from the surrounding layers, but he was very aware of the close proximity of her beautiful face and body. He’d been fighting off an increasing attraction to her, and her interest pleased him greatly, even though he tried to ignore it. She seemed like a very sophisticated and educated woman of the world even though he knew that she was just a local who knew a lot about the desert in this area. He said, “Well, see this sort of half sphere here--it really looks almost like the nose of a rocket--"
"Yes," she said, moving in even closer, the bare skin of her arm like a magnet of femininity pulling him into orbit around her.
He glanced up at her and found his face almost touching hers. She smiled and then looked down toward the dark object around which he’d been digging. He quickly looked back down at the rock and continued, "It seems to be some sort of metal, something that doesn't fit with the rock around it--rock that was deposited millions of years ago. And see how the trilobite fossils are attached to it which makes me think it has been here since before the trilobites."
“Wow, that’s awesome.”
He almost winced and wished her vocabulary matched her looks. Sometimes, young people of the day seemed like a different species to him.
"But the trilobites are below the metal. Doesn't that mean that they were here first?"
"Good question. To answer it, you have to look at the ridge as a whole. See how the strata have split and seem to go in different directions?" he said.
She nodded, the half-smile on her face distracting him from his work.
He tried to focus on the very interesting object and said, "That's because some sort of seismic event moved the layers of rock, lifting some of the older layers above newer layers. The trilobites are actually in a stratum that was created after the anomaly was placed here, at a time when this whole desert was covered with water."
"I can feel the water," she said in a lilting voice that seemed to resonate with the other natural sounds of the desert.
Her words startled John, who involuntarily jerked his head around to look at her, almost dropping the rounded metallic clump that he had finally freed from the surrounding rock. For a second, he was captivated by what he saw. He felt as if he were staring at a goddess. Her blue eyes seemed to have captured the skies in their depths, as if she held the heavens inside of her head. Her face was like a mask that still wore that same haunting half smile which was neither happy nor sad, but perfectly balanced between the two. When she moved her hand, she left a tracer of light and a symphony of birdsong seemed to swell all around them. Then the illusion was gone and she returned to the beautiful, but simple, local woman who was helping them on the dig."
I'll hold that," she said softly, almost insistently, while reaching for the object.
John turned toward her, his eyes questioning, but before he could speak, one of his grad students, Maggie O'keef, ran out of the cave and called, "John, you've got to see what we found in the back of the cave."
John called back, "Be right there,” and walked over to Tom. He handed the object to Tom and said, "Take this into the lab. I want to know what kind of metal this is."
Tom nodded and said, "I was just getting ready to go, but are you sure you want the lab to spend time on this. I mean, with everything else we need to date and test."
John nodded and said, "I don't know-- I've just got a feeling--a curiosity about what that thing is. It could be a meteorite."
Tom nodded and turned to walk to his ATV. John could see that Eve was already halfway to Tom's sturdy desert buggy that they used to make runs into town. He called out impulsively, "Eve, come see what's in the cave with me." He stood, feeling sheepish, as he watched her turn and begin trotting back toward the cave, grinning over her shoulder at him.
When they met at the mouth of the cave, she said, "I wouldn't miss it."
As they entered the cave, John felt a tingle up his spine as he did every time he passed from the bright sunlit desertscape into the cool darkness of the cave. He kept lights on only in the areas where they were actually working so the front part of the cave was dim, lit only by their flashlights and headlamps, but he had memorized every inch of the surface of the cave walls and visualized them each time he traversed this portal into the inner cave. The floor of the cave was smooth and flat, and lining the walls on each side were rows of figurines, intricate statuettes that featured fierce faces, animal heads, and postures that suggested different phases of a ritualistic dance. The walls were painted from floor to ceiling with what looked like a stylized mural starting at the bottom with what looked like realistic waves of water unlike any that John had ever seen or heard of. What made the water look so incredibly spectacular were the fossilized fish that seemed to be peeking from its depths. Above the water were green lines that appeared to be trees blowing in the wind mixed with depictions of animals. When light reflected on the figures of the animals, they seemed to move. Across the ceiling were depictions of the heavens, filled with glorious stars and comets throughout, a sun on one end and an arch showing the phases of the moon on the other end. The far end of the cave was painted with the shape of a huge man wearing a many colored coat, his hands held up, as if pointing at the heavens. There was an opening between the man's legs that led into the next chamber which was dominated by a mural of gods dancing on the surface of the far wall. The other three walls were carved into thousands of niches, each of which contained figurines carved of turquoise, lapis lazuli, red coral and other types of precious metals and rocks. Nothing like this had been found since they opened King Tut's tomb. But this didn't seem like a tomb. More like a place of worship. Whatever it was, there was no question it was a very important site, a place that would have been considered holy to its inhabitants. It had that somewhat eerie feeling that lingers in such places, as if it were super charged with energy and filled with beings who had lived long ago and who sometimes appeared in the corners of your eye, disappearing when you looked too hard.
Maggie gestured to John from the opening between the massive legs of the man wearing the many colored coat. She tried to hide the look of annoyance that crossed her face when she saw Eve behind him. She said, "I think we've finally found the innermost chamber."
John quickened his pace, his interest even more aroused by Maggie's statement. He struggled through the small opening near the back wall of the chamber where he stood, his heart racing with anticipation. Given what he’d already found, he expected only the spectacular. Inside of the opening was a narrow passageway ending in a stairway carved into the rock wall, leading to a balcony above them. He climbed the stairs eagerly and stood before the entrance to the next chamber. Lights were set up in what Maggie had said was probably the last chamber, bringing everything into bright focus. He blinked his eyes to make sure he was seeing correctly. This room was different. He felt almost disappointed after the spectacular finds in the other rooms. Even though there were interesting features, this room was plain and unadorned, the walls a dark muddy color. The thing that was interesting was its perfectly round shape. It seemed as if they stood in a geodesic dome carved into the rock. The acoustics were also like what would be encountered in a geodesic dome. He could hear the voices of the students across the room as if they stood beside him. They were carefully removing a patch of the outside layer of the wall.
Maggie turned back to him and said, "We've removed the covering on the wall in a couple of other places too. Turn off your flashlights. I want to show you something." She nodded at the student closest to the tripod lighting and continued, "Watch this."
The lights went out and they stood in the darkness, only it wasn't completely black as it should have been in a cave deep in the side of the canyon wall. There were patches of light around the room. Maggie whispered excitedly, "The walls are quartz crystal. We are inside of a crystal that is exposed to the outside somehow."
John heard a sound like the flapping of wings and turned toward the entrance way. Eve stood with her lips parted as if in fascination as she looked around the chamber. For just a second, it seemed to John as if her eyes once more held the skies within them. In that same second, a very large bat collided into John and he fell backward into the wall. His head banged against the wall so hard that everyone could hear it. He slid to the floor unconscious.
John awakened to beeping and whirring machinery and the antiseptic smell of a hospital. As he turned his head, he felt and heard the crackle of the plastic that covered the pillow on which his head rested. He opened his eyes and saw Maggie draped across an uncomfortable looking chair, her face buried in a book. He winced with pain as he turned his head.
She straightened in the chair and grinned at him.
"He is risen," she said, her worried eyes scanning his face and seeing his pain.
"I don't know about that," he said wryly as he pulled himself up in the bed. "Where am I?"
"Hospital," she said, gesturing to the machines surrounding his bed.
"Yeah, I kind of got that, but I mean where and how did I get here?"
"You hit your head and we brought you here."
He forgot his pain and asked worriedly, "Who's protecting the site?"
"Don't worry about that. All is well."
"So who's out there?"
"Tom's out there today. We've been taking turns."
"What do you mean taking turns? How long have I been here?"
Maggie gazed into his eyes, the worry for him that she felt evident on her heart shaped face. She said, "I'll bring you up to date, but maybe I should get the doctor first. He said he wanted to see you as soon as you woke up."
John shook his head emphatically and then wished he hadn't. He felt the pain throbbing in the back of his head once again, but he said, "No. Tell me now."
"Well--there's a lot to tell."
"Start from the beginning.”
"Okay, bossman. Where do I start? Okay. Everything was a little crazy after you fell. You cracked your skull pretty badly and went out like a light. We carried you out and I drove you into town with the help of a couple of the students. I left a couple of them there too so don't worry."
"When was this?"
"Three days ago," Maggie said softly. She continued, "Are you sure you don't want the doctor?"
"Oh my god," John said, "I've been out for three days."
"Yes, let me get the doctor."
"No. No. I've lost enough time. So what has happened since?"
“Now, that’s when things get a little weird.”
“Weird?”
John said wryly, "Well, I know a few people know about the dig, but I really don't want word to get out until …"
"It's out. And, yes, the dig will be a part of what will make you a household name--but, you know that metallic blob you sent to the lab, well, that's what has the tabloids spinning."
“What?”
Maggie nodded and said, "You were so curious about that piece of rock and you were right."
"Don't keep me in suspense."
"Well, they scraped the outside at the lab and tested it. It was clearly something that fell from the sky. But get this. Inside of that hard blackened exterior was a golden colored cone shaped object. It was made of a metal we've never seen before--looked like gold, but incredibly hard."
John felt goosebumps rise on his arms. The implications of an unknown metal were far reaching.
Maggie saw the excitement on his face and continued, "You haven't even heard the best part yet." She grinned and nodded her head. She said, "You heard me right. While the lab was examining this incredible object, they noticed a circular node and pushed it. It opened. It is some sort of storage vessel made in a manner that we could not hope to duplicate today."
John's excitement continued to build. What Maggie was saying made him feel like the bump on his head had made him crazy. This was not only the find of his lifetime, it could open up a whole new door to prehistory. He shook his head in confusion, not even feeling the flash of pain. Then he felt a stab of doubt penetrate his excitement. "But how can that be--with where it was? Is someone playing a joke on us?"
Maggie shook her head and said, "No. And, again, it gets better. The cone was filled with a powdery substance--they tested it. You'll never guess what was in it."
"I'm too stunned right now to even make a stab."
Maggie said softly, "It was carbon based."
"Come on."
"Do the words thymine, cytosine, guanine and adenine mean anything to you?" She grinned knowingly watching the shock on his face.
"DNA," he gasped. His mind was reeling. He still wasn't sure that he wasn't dreaming the whole conversation. "But what does it mean …"
Maggie sighed and said, "We may never know for sure. Eve Nedragala stole the box and its contents from the lab and disappeared."
John's heart sank in disappointment both for the loss of the most incredible treasure he'd ever heard of and because he didn't want to think Eve would do such a thing.
Maggie said, "I had a thought about what it might mean …" She glanced at him nervously as if she were afraid to reveal her thoughts. She continued softly, as if unsure of her words, "Remember last year when that scientist in England perfected using synthetic DNA for storage of information. He said you could store everything ever written, every picture ever taken, every movie from the beginning of civilization to now--and it would be the size of a breadbox. All on synthetic DNA. What if that's what it was … a capsule from another world … a sort of recipe for civilization?"
John said fervently, "We've got to find that cone."
Maggie shrugged and smiled. She said, "I don't think we ever will. But at least we got to see it."
**************************************
Thor sat on a bar stool staring into his mug of ale. He’d been moody of late and he was trying to cheer himself up. A beautiful woman sat beside him and he grinned gleefully as he said, "Eve. I was just thinking about you."
She smiled seductively at him and gestured to a leather trunk she had placed on the floor beside her stool. She said, "Mission accomplished."
Thor pounded the bar and cried out, "Vikings rule."
Eve raised an eyebrow and said, "Well, I'm not a Viking, but I did retrieve the fruit of knowledge as you requested."
Thor hung his head sheepishly and said, "Of course not. What you are is the best operative I've ever known. But it took a Viking to send you on the mission."
Eve smiled and said, "Let's celebrate." She turned to the bartender and said, "I'll have an apple martini." She glanced at Thor and said, "You should really try one. They're very good."
I don't see it paralleling my story, but your story does stand alone very well. What it does remind me is of the Ancient Alien saga that was first written into books like Chariots of the Gods and has now become a regular fixture as part of the Ancient Aliens series with many ancient artifacts and sites being considered something either built or influenced by extraterrestrials long ago. Speculating that "they" were here and launched our civilization fits very nicely with the story.
I don't buy it very well, because I think that most of the story is simply the pseudoscience and conspiracy theories that seemed to abound in fiction. Part of it is that ancient artifacts cannot talk to us so we must interpret what they mean. Probably very badly at the moment.
My younger brother, in his exploration of Arizona, has come across many such artifacts and shared them with laboratories in local universities. It will be interesting learning what they find out in future.
Retired! New start! Murder!
Todd, detective lieutenant, has retired from St. Louis, Missouri and has moved to Ford Valley, Arizona. When Todd’s ex-wife is killed in a car accident, Todd fights for custody of his teenage daughter. She has bee
