Imagine that everything you knew or thought you knew about humanity's place in the universe is turned upside down by just a few days spent on the surface of Mars. Jonathan Kraine is a well-known explorer and archaeologist who finds that reality is just as fantastic as myth, and that truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, when he stumbles upon an ancient ruin buried beneath the surface. His life is changed forever when he discovers the answers to some of the greatest mysteries of all time through his friendship with an alien vampire named Andru.

He willed down the pounding in his throat and looked around. By now his eyes had adjusted somewhat to the darkness. He could see alterations in the fabric of it, a pattern of shadows just beyond range of his ability to see them clearly past the veil of dust on his visor. He thought he could see planes and angles too smooth and precise to be natural formations of the cave rock, and something like the vertical curved shaft of a column off to his right. No, you're just imagining things, he thought. Your mind's playing tricks on you because of the shock to your skull. You want to believe they are there.

Jon reached up to the side of his helmet and switched on the single headlight mounted in its crown. Its beam was weak and a short in the circuit made it go on and off at random intervals but the light shone strobe bright in the Martian darkness, bringing the cavern's dark secrets into sharper focus. He was not prepared for the truth of his senses.

The chamber was spacious enough to hold ten rovers with plenty of room to spare. The floor was like a piece of cracked porcelain, smooth and with a hint of polish where the dust and an ancient quake had not damaged it, meeting at right angles with walls now bowed inward toward the center by solid Martian rock. The stone appeared seamless where the rock had not pushed through. Columns formed of the same pale bluish stone supported a slightly vaulted ceiling. They held an uncanny resemblance to the sensibly designed Egyptian columns at Karnak, but there were no hieroglyphs on these, and their capitals were oddly modern. The walls displayed panels carved in abstract symbols something like pictographic script.

Then he glanced to his right and saw it, and his breath caught in his throat. In ceramic mosaic tiles was a figure of a stylized dragon, a reptilian with a long neck and leathery wings upstretched. Jon stared transfixed, mesmerized by the artistry, and almost forgot that he was on Mars. It resembled something Minoan, or Egyptian, or Indian. Or all of the above.

His helmet light shorted one last time and went out. The scene became shrouded once again in darkness.

Jon was taken over by the sheer magnitude of his discovery. Excitement banished his initial apprehension until he couldn't contain it. “Jake!” He fairly yelled into his microphone hoping that the force of his voice could penetrate the interference. “Jake, you've got to come down here and see this! Do you copy? Jake!!”