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Authors: Stel Pavlou

BOOK: Decipher
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AN-YANG SETTLEMENTS—NORTHERN HONAN PANHANDLE—CHINA
 
Inscriptions on Oracle Bones, literally “chai-ku wen” or “writings on [turtle] shell and [animal] bone” date from around 4000 B.C.E. Ching-hua 4 bone from the reign of Wu Ting speaks of a two-headed snake drinking from the Yellow River and there followed a week of bad weather. A rainbow or a snake with heads at both ends is often found in early Chinese literature and is an ominous sign. On the Yi-pien 3380 bone, dating from 1,300 years later during the Han Dynasty, shrine reliefs at Wu-lizng-tz'u, southwest of Shantung show the same thing. A two-headed dragon in a struggle with the spirits of the wind and rain.
 
Excerpt from:
Tales of the Deluge: A Global Report on Cultural Self-Replicating Genesis Myths,
Dr. Richard Scott, 2008
Scott gritted his teeth and bellowed for help as he fought to keep both himself and Roebuck alive. His sunglasses were fogging up. Every time he gasped for breath, steam from his mouth would work its way inside of them and crystallize on the sub-zero surface.
“Help us!” Scott shrieked. “Somebody help us!”
He could hear cracking—a slow metallic sort of cracking and looked down to see the deep indigo ink ooze out from his pen and feather its way through the ice like blood.
“Dr. Scott!” Roebuck yelped, his voice sounding thinner, weaker. “Professor?”
“Hang on in there, Lieutenant!” Scott called back. “That's an order!”
“The transponder,” Roebuck cried feebly. “Sewn into your left sleeve, top pocket! Activate the transponder so they can track us down!”
Left sleeve? Easier said than done. Scott was holding on by his right hand. He couldn't reach his left sleeve. He tried folding his arm up and trying to reach the device with his fingers, but it wasn't happening. He struggled again but all he could manage was a pathetic tickle.
He couldn't tell Roebuck. Christ, he couldn't tell the poor bastard. He shot a look over his shoulder. The chasm that had swallowed up the marine was getting wider. If it carried on like that for much longer the ground beneath him would give way too and they'd both be goners. Roebuck was right, he had to get to that transponder. That tiny little black box was all that stood between survival and death.
Scott tugged the fleece neckband down from around his mouth and went for his sleeve with his teeth. The searing cold burnt at his skin as hurricane-force winds blasted ice crystals into his pores. Clawing the fingers of his left hand deep into the snow his muscles ached as he reached over to
gnash at the tiny device. Once, twice—five times before he finally hit the switch and a tiny red LED lit up to let him know it was transmitting a homing signal.
“Roebuck?” Nothing. “Roebuck, it's on! The transponder is switched on!”
Still nothing.
“Lieutenant, answer me!”
“Uh, Professor, I think you better twist your head and take a look at this,” came the muffled response. “We got company.”
Across the ice chasm, rearing up out of snow-covered hides were two darkened figures in full military fatigues. Thick, snowball-sized clumps of snow fell from their equipment as they slammed clips into their rifles and took aim.
They were Chinese.
 
Roebuck was midway through attempting to take the parachute cords from around his windpipe when he froze. All he could do now was twist in the breeze. He was well sheltered down here, thank Christ. The storm that was sweeping across the chasm overhead was giving the two Chinese soldiers some serious problems, but they stood fast.
They'd been hiding in the snow, these two. Must have crawled up on their bellies to the crevasse. White capes flapped from their shoulders upon which they would have mounded up snow and hidden underneath. One shouted over at them in incomprehensible Cantonese while his partner got on his radio, though try as he might he couldn't seem to get a signal out.
Roebuck could feel the subtle effects of Scott slipping above him, and tried to relax. “How ya doin', Professor—?” he yelled out.
“Not—good!” the epigraphist grunted under the strain.
Roebuck tried to peer through the storm beyond the two Chinese soldiers. A little granite. A lot of ice. “We're in a natural bowl,” he murmured to himself. “They're isolated.”
Roebuck raised his hand slowly, bringing it up to a surrender posture while easing the parachute cords out and away from his neck. But even that slight movement was enough to send the first of the two soldiers into a screaming frenzy.
“Hey!” Roebuck shouted back, trying to appear reasonable. “I'm just gonna set this down, okay? I just need to set this down.”
The Chinese soldier screamed in total frustration as Scott accidentally kicked chunks of ice off the cliff edge. “Hey, what's going on?” he demanded. “What's happening?”
“Nothing you need to worry about, Professor. This guy's just being an asshole. But that's okay, he can see we ain't goin' nowhere.”
Roebuck pointed to the cords in his other hand. “I'm just gonna let these go. Okay? I'm gonna drop 'em. On three, brace yourself, Professor. One, two … three!”
The Chinese soldier tensed as the cords tumbled from Roebuck's hand and let the parachute fall a little freer. But the whole contraption was still attached to Roebuck's back and the slight movement had let a breeze waft in and start to open the material back out. Just like he knew it would.
Almost immediately Scott was screaming.
“I can't hang on!” he yelped. “Shit, I can't hang on! What're you doing down there?”
The Chinese soldier went into fits as his partner continued to try and get his radio to work. He was clearly frustrated. Roebuck held up his hands again.
“It's okay! It's okay! I just need to release these straps on the front here, and the one on my back—fast!” He had no idea if the soldier understood or not and he wasn't waiting around to find out. Instead he just acted on impulse and screamed back at the hollering enemy grunt while Scott bellowed frantically about losing his grip.
One strap to the left, one strap to the right. He reached around to his back, the enemy poised. Tugged at the strap and the parachute fell free …
It fluttered into the ice chasm below and the Chinese soldier breathed a sigh of relief.
Roebuck smiled. The enemy returned the smile. Only to have it drop as he realized the marine had pulled a gun out from behind his back and was aiming straight at—
Bang!
The Chinese soldier's brains splattered in an arc across the sky as the bullet slid straight between his eyes. But not before his partner reacted to what was going on and dropped his radio.
Roebuck went to fire again, but the extreme of hot against freezing cold on his last shot had already breached his weapon—and the Chinese were one step ahead. Their weapons were covered in thermal hoods. Dangling from the tether, Roebuck was a sitting duck; he was riddled with bullets and convulsed from the impacts.
Scott screamed as his grip went and he lurched toward the edge. “Roebuck? Roebuck, are you there?” But the hail of lead continued unabated with one bullet eventually ripping straight through his calf muscle and exploding up into the virgin-white snow. Scott screamed in tormented agony, flailing, tumbling. He was about to drop over the edge when a hand, seemingly from out of nowhere, thrust out, grabbed hold and held him fast.
Scott looked up, terrified, only to realize it was Gant.
The Major raised his finger to his lips for the anthropologist to be silent.
And then just as suddenly as it had started, the hail of bullets ceased.
Silence.
Then a distant voice reported from across the fissure, “Got him, sir.”
Scott glanced over his shoulder just in time to see the second Chinese soldier, his throat slit from ear to ear, tumble over the edge into oblivion.
“Now hold still!” Gant ordered. “Okay, soldier—take your shot.”
Scott was wild-eyed. “What about Roebuck?” he asked.
“The Lieutenant's dead,” Gant explained matter-of-factly. “There's nothing you can do. Damn hothead just turned a minor skirmish into an all-out war. First rule of war, you maim the enemy.
Maim
them, not kill 'em. You want them to expend all their energy trying to get their injured back. They knew what they were doing. That's why he shot you in the fucking leg. Now we're slowed down.” He gave the other soldier the thumbs-up.
The marine across the chasm fired a single bullet, snapping the tether in two. Roebuck's body tumbled end over end into the abyss below, while Gant put his back into it and hauled Scott to freedom.
“Well done, Dr. Scott, I'm impressed. You managed to
keep your head pretty well under fire. Let's get this wound of yours dressed so we can be ready to move out,” Gant suggested, helping him to his feet.
Scott limped a couple of paces before he realized everyone else was already gathered before him. November gave him a grin but he didn't notice as Sarah rushed across to take over from Gant as the human crutch. On impulse they kissed deeply. Passionately.
“I thought we'd lost you,” she said shakily.
“That makes two of us,” Scott replied, accepting the romantic situation as though it were a natural progression. November tried to hide her disappointment as she followed on behind.
“Where are we?” Scott requested, turning back to Gant. “I thought
Jung Chang
was deserted.”
“Reinforcements,” Gant explained. “In this storm we could be in the middle of an entire new camp and never know it. I hope to God they were just scouts.”
Which, as it turned out, was entirely the wrong thing to say.
Gant's radio sparked to life. “Sir, Michaels here, up on point.”
“Go ahead, soldier,” Gant replied, growing increasingly aware that the storm was starting to clear. There were objects all along their left flank. Small in the distance, but not that small. And there was movement …
“Visibility is improving. Over.”
“Great. Let's get moving.”
“Uh, no, that's a negative, sir. We got a problem. You're never gonna believe where we are.”
Gant adjusted his computer-enhanced binoculars over the peak of a ridge of solid snow and ice, while the medic in his unit, a stocky, soft-spoken man from Iowa by the name of John Brandes, tackled the wound on Scott's leg.
Out beyond their position lay a massive Chinese encampment, fully equipped with Armored Personnel Carriers, tanks, anti-aircraft batteries and row upon row of tents. There were troops here. Lots of troops. They even had air support in the shape of four attack helicopters.
Gant gasped: “Fuck me!”
“You had no idea any of this was out here?” Hackett asked, but his gaze was leveled at Bob Pearce, who shrugged. How the hell was
he
supposed to know?
“Not like this.” He ducked down to face everyone. “Well, they don't seem to know we're here. Those scouts didn't get a signal through. That's
one
stroke of luck in our favor.” He returned to his surveillance, accidentally knocking Scott's leg.
“Ouch!” Scott flinched, jabbing a hand over his mouth, realizing belatedly that he had to keep it down. He was still waiting for the morphine to kick in.
“You're lucky,” Brandes told him, wrapping the bandage tightly around Scott's leg. “The bullet went straight in and out.”
“That's some kind of luck, I guess,” Sarah commented dryly.
Scott's teeth were chattering. “Could you just hurry it up?” he asked desperately. “I'm freezing.” He'd had to unzip his clothing and pull his leg out. November had a patch kit and was busy cleaning the blood off the jumpsuit and sticking a waterproof seal over the holes on either side of the leg.
The medic nodded. “All done.” Scott raced to get dressed.
They were all lined up against the snowdrift, keeping their heads down, while Gant was busy shaking his. “I dunno,” he moaned. “What were they thinking, sending you guys in, in standard issue red jumpsuits? I told 'em white, time and again. It's. a goddamn UN color. Richard, can you read Chinese?”
“Some.”
“Well, c'mere. And somebody wrap something white around him, will ya? I don't want him used for target practice again.”
With the white tarp they'd used for covering the warhead draped over his head and shoulders, Scott eased his way up
the incline and cautiously peered over the top. Gant handed him the binoculars.
“Does the glass on these lenses glint?” Scott asked, much to everybody else's trepidation.
“Only if you move 'em.”
Scott was not impressed as he put the things to his eyes. “Where am I looking?”
“Down to the left, where that flag's flying over that larger tent. I saw a couple of banners.”
“I gotcha. Seventh Armored Division. Mean anything to you?”
Gant nodded. “Anything else?”
“People's … Elite Guard.”
Gant slid down behind the snow drift pulling Scott with him. “Aw, shit.” That meant something, all right. Something serious. “They're the best,” Gant advised. “We're up against the goddamn best.” He rubbed his chin, eyeing the bright red suits of the other scientists. How the hell were they going to get past without being seen?
“Okay,” he said. “We need a plan.”
 
“How far are we from
Jung Chang?
” Hackett asked.
They were huddled around in a circle as Gant drew out the situation in the snow. “About three miles.
Jung Chang
is almost perfectly due south. That's a good hour's hike
without
the detour. This encampment ain't directly in our way, but it's as good as. We need to get around the perimeter of this eastern corner, here.”
“What if we cut up the parachutes and tape them over our jumpsuits? Then we'd be camouflaged,” November suggested.
A couple of the marines were intrigued, but Gant was dismissive. “Uh-uh,” he said, “the material's too thin. You'd all wind up pink instead of red.”
Sarah picked ice-crystals from her eyebrows as she took her own look at the Chinese encampment. Why hadn't they gone on to
Jung Chang?
What were they afraid of? And then something else dawned on her. While the others discussed hare-brained theories on how to creep past a Chinese base without getting shot at, something about the way these Chinese
soldiers were acting gave her an idea. They seemed distracted. Though the storm had significantly lessened in intensity, their focus of concern still seemed to be the sky. Unexpected contact with enemy aircraft. Or vehicles approaching on the horizon. They were checking long-range radar data. While two of
them
were dressed in red. Probably civilian support staff, a bit like themselves.
“They're not expecting anyone coming in on foot,” she commented.
Matheson was puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“We're in the middle of nowhere,” Sarah shrugged. “Who the hell walks up to a Chinese base thousands of miles from civilization? Nobody.”
Scott sat up gingerly. “You're suggesting we just
walk
straight through?”
“Why not? All that creeping around is what they're gonna be expecting. You look suspicious, you'll be treated suspicious. Most of these guys are freezing their butts off, and are more concerned with keeping warm. Fuck 'em. I bet if we just march through their base and look like we know what we're doing they'll assume we're one of them, and ignore us.”
“Are you
nuts
?” Pearce sniggered. “That has gotta be one of the most fucked-up pieces of pseudo-psychology I've ever heard.”
Matheson smiled. “Yeah. So they're not gonna expect it. Besides, Richard knows Chinese. We get into any trouble, he can talk us out of it.”
“But!” Scott protested, overruled and ignored.
Hackett was smirking and shaking his head. “That's so far out it might just work.”
Gant was excited. “It's got balls. But it's only half a plan.”
“About this speaking Chinese thing,” Scott tried to interject. “I can read it, but—”
But Brandes was concerned. “Sir,” he said, “if I may … We're wearing standard issue US military camouflage. They'll know immediately who we are if we try that. Our only option is we go around the outer perimeter and meet up with the beakers on the other side. Crawling on our bellies is a fine suggestion, but there's no way a one- , two- , even a
three-man team can do that effectively and still take care of this.” He patted the long black trunk containing the nuclear warhead on its sled. “What do we do about this?”
“That's not our only option, soldier,” Gant said briskly. “Skills … I need skills.” He indicated Scott. “You're good with languages. You can go.” Gant eyed Sarah, then Bob Pearce before finally settling on November. “Honey, take your clothes off.” Then to Sarah: “You too.”
Sarah was incensed. “Fuck you!” she spat.
Gant snapped his head back, unsure how to handle her when she was in firecracker mode as she added: “It's my plan. I'm going.”
 
“So let me get this straight,” Matheson said, jabbing his thumbs under the shoulder strap to his harness for comfort as he heaved forward once more. “The whole world's programmed to end. We're in the middle of a war zone. So I'm about to walk straight through an enemy encampment … dragging a 450-pound nuclear warhead on a sled.”
On the second tether, Sarah groaned as she heaved with him. “That's about the size of it.”
Scott had his head bent, afraid to move it any as he led the way. “Keep it down, will you? They hear we're not speaking Cantonese, we're in trouble.”
“I think maybe you got off lightly getting shot in the leg,” Sarah said, watching Scott up ahead, hobbling ever so slightly.
Gant walked side by side with Scott wearing November's red jumpsuit, checking the coast in a constant sweep with Corporal Hillman and Michaels flanked either side of the warhead, having exchanged jumpsuits with Bob Pearce and Hackett.
None of them had guns. Civilian support staff just didn't carry them. The military men had knives instead. Hidden and sharp.
It would take a super-fit man 100 days to cross all 1,657 miles from coast to coast across Antarctica pulling a 4501b. sled. Matheson was reminded of the history of this place. The expeditions of Scott, Amundsen, Shackleton and Mawson were legendary campfire folktales now—how those heroic men had battled the elements and how Captain
Scott and his team had perished. Was that going to happen again?
They were nervous. They were
all
nervous. Maybe that was why their long walk had developed into a kind of penguin-like waddle as they marched ever onward with slow trepidation.
It was this final approach, the last couple of hundred yards of flat barren ice that posed the greatest immediate danger. If there was a hidden sentry anywhere along here it was about now that he was likely to pop up and open fire.
But there was nothing.
As they drew closer to the first line of plain black tents, all they could hear was the desolate sound of whistling winds and the lonely flapping of canvas and nylon sheeting. It was like a ghost town.
Scott was breathing so heavily now he was becoming aware of a phenomenon unique to Antarctica known as “diamond dust.” The air was so dry and the temperature so cold the snowflakes in the air had formed tiny hexagons. So dissimilar to other snowflake phenomena that when he looked at the sun, it appeared to have a halo around it, with the rays of the sun forming some kind of cross right in its center.
Matheson took a deep breath. Then another. It was getting increasingly difficult to breathe. And it was a shock. He didn't think he was that unfit. Sarah turned to him. “It's okay, Ralph. It's just the altitude. Antarctica's three times higher than anywhere else, on average. We're about three kilometers above sea level right here. You're fighting for oxygen, not just the cold.”
“I feel like my lungs are gonna explode out my chest,” Matheson wheezed.
Scott shot a look for them all to be quiet, double-checking that everyone had their sunglasses in place. After all, one look at their eyes and the Chinese were going to automatically know the game was up.
They passed the first row of tents without a hitch, continuing on their way without stopping to consider if their luck might run out.
Passing the second row of tents soon after, they became aware of foreign voices talking within their enclosures. Low
Oriental voices echoing in and out of further rows of equipment crates stockpiled under snow-covered tarps.
Suddenly, up ahead, two Chinese soldiers ducked out of their tents, rifles slung over their shoulders. Making their way over to a command hut they glanced briefly at the team before going about their business.
Scott faltered, pulling up short, bringing everyone else to a halt.
Sheepishly he crouched down as if to fix the fastenings on his boots and glanced in through the opening of the nearest tent to see three more Chinese smoking and playing cards around a small heater. One of them glared out at him.
Scott nodded.
The soldier closed the flap on their tent, fast.
Scott got to his feet, smacking the snow off one knee. He jerked his head for the rest to follow on and darted a look at the perimeter, hoping the others were still with them, somewhere out there.
They continued on apace, until they reached where Gant intended them to be. Ski-Doos were all lined up behind flapping windbreaks—at least twenty of the things, all gleaming and polished. Next to them was an APC in tracks, while beyond that were the helicopters and beyond them were—
Smack!
Scott rocked on his heels after careening straight into a perplexed soldier who had simply flown out of his tent without looking.
The soldier eyed him up and down disdainfully. Barked something before making a move to be on his way when Scott did something perhaps he shouldn't have.
His lip twitching with fright, he smiled and nodded as if he understood.
The soldier stepped back. Grabbed the anthropologist by a handful of his jumpsuit and snarled something else equally loud and incomprehensible.
Sarah and Matheson exchanged disturbed glances. Why wasn't Scott answering the soldier? Why was he simply smiling and nodding his head like an idiot?
 
Pearce eased forward on his aching elbows and realized something was wrong when the team didn't keep pace with his
movement. Scott and the others, little specks of red moving about the encampment, should have emerged into a clearing some way off while he pulled himself along at a snail's pace.
But they hadn't. In fact, there was no sign of them.

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