The Pyramid Builders (25 page)

“Now that I think about it, it was really boring. Where am I going to get cleaned up?”

Abagale said, “You’re going to start at my house with a bath, and then we’re calling in help. We’re going to need it.”

George laughed, “I suppose you’re right, just look at these nails. What have I been doing?”

Abagale smiled, “Trying to come home. Welcome back.”

Dolly activated her communicator, “We’re ready.”

“How did it go?”

“He’s back.”

“What?!?”

“He’s back and it’s like he never left. By the way, if you think my Mum was tough, wait until George starts.”

“Oh my aching head.”

“Get used to it. That’s what love is all about.”

“I prefer a firefight to this. I stand a better chance.”

“Oh come on and get us, you big baby.”

Dolly saw the carrier descending and smiled at how lucky she was to have found Jeff. Now with George back, progress was going to be made.

She heard Abagale say, “George, your sister has decided to marry an Alpha Agent.”

“She what?!?”

“She’s marrying an Alpha Agent.”

“What’s an Alpha Agent?”

“Glorified Special Forces.”

George tilted his head and said, “Good for her, he’ll need the training to handle her.”

Dolly laughed out loud. Trust George to see the truth immediately.

The alarm went off and Chris shut it off with a quick swipe. Jillian was lying on his arm still asleep, and he gently got up and headed for the shower, “I hope you’re not planning to go without me.”

Chris froze in mid-step, then turned and looked at her, “Ya caught me. Well get up and get moving. We’ll be stopping in an hour, and then the work starts.”

Jillian smiled and stretched, “Work?”

“We’re going to find the proverbial needle in a haystack today. It won’t be easy.”

Jillian furrowed her brow, “Are you confident about finding it?”

“I have no experience in this area to make a guess. According to the Nobel Committee, if the light wasn’t blocked, it should be out here. However, out here is a giant area to search. It’s probably going to take some time, and most of it will be spend in boring activities. If you can sleep some more, you should do it.”

“I want to watch. I’m too excited to sleep.”

“Well then, get a move on and let’s cleanup and get something to eat.”

Jillian jumped up and rushed past him to the shower, “You snooze, you lose.” He chased after her, but she beat him and closed the door.

How can she move that fast? I must still be stiff from that Patent Board Bench. He remembered the experience and winced. Jillian was already singing in the shower.

An hour later the Cheops came to a stop and rotated a hundred and eighty degrees. Chris activated his emitters and released the fields. Then he sat back and watched his screen.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m searching for the light from Earth. We’re seventy million light years out and the fields are expanding from our ship at the speed of light. In an hour they will cover a circle more than twenty six million miles across. If nothing is detected we will jump one light year perpendicular to our current position and try again.”

“There’s a lot of distance between these searches.”

“I know, but we have a huge volume of space to cover. This could take awhile.”

Twelve hours and eleven jumps later, Jillian stood and said, “I’m going down to the landing bay and run a pre-flight check on the Ninja. Call me if you find anything.”

“Jillian, this could take weeks. I’ll let you know if anything turns up.”

Eighteen days later, there was still no success. Jillian was bored beyond her wildest imagination and ready just to call it off. Chris was used to long tedious hours doing searches, but he was also getting tired of the process. He saw Jillian shaking her foot, “Let me suggest something to you.”

“What?”

“I have some very old science fiction novels on my tablet. You might enjoy reading some of them.”

“I’ll do anything at this point.” She picked up his tablet and looked at his collection, “Which one do you recommend?”

“There’s a series in there called the Star Crusades by Michael G. Thomas. There’re five books in it and I think you’ll enjoy them, I know I did. The first book is Siege of Titan.”

“All right, see you later.” Jillian went down to the sleeping quarters and stretched out on the bed. She opened the first book and started reading.

Three days later Chris’ board beeped once. He stared at the place the light had been received, but there was nothing on the board now. Ummm, just a nibble. He hit the side thrusters and sent the Cheops moving toward the signal. He watched as the Cheops picked up speed and moved at one third light speed. After an hour he was about to give up when the alarm went off full blast. He brought the Cheops to a dead stop and stared at his board. There was Earth shining in the middle of it. “Jillian, I’ve found it! Get up here.”

“Can it wait a few minutes? I’m on the last book and I hate to put it down.”

Chris looked at his communicator and couldn’t believe what he just heard. “Are you crazy? Get up here!”

“All right. I’m coming.”

Jillian walked in and looked tired, “What’s wrong with you?”

Jillian shook her head, “I’ve been staying up late reading those books.” Chris gave her a look and she said, “It’s your fault.”

“Look what I’ve found.”

Jillian looked at his display and saw Earth. “It’s still beautiful. The continents look different.”

“That’s because they are different. They move about an inch every year. They’ve moved a thousand miles since this light left Earth.” Chris focused his display, and the Earth began moving toward them at a high rate. Chris said as the view moved in, “I’m going to focus on the Yucatan area of Mexico and see what’s going on in that time.” Chris looked at his display and said, “Good, it’s visible.” The view grew closer and closer and then they were a mile above a broad plain looking down on a huge abundance of life. As the view moved in Chris said, “Uh oh.”

“What?”

“Look over in that tree line to the south.”

Jillian looked and saw two giant T-Rex leaning forward in an obvious preparation to charge a group of large herbivores, “I don’t recognize that dinosaur they’re about to charge.”

Chris stared at the screen and said, “I don’t either but those T-Rex are beautiful. The most dangerous predator that ever lived and we’re the first to ever see one alive.”

Suddenly both of the giant carnivores rushed out on either side of the herd and knocked two of them off their feet. The two large creatures were killed quickly. Chris said, “Jillian, look at the color of the T-Rex!”

“What?”

“When they were in the trees they were a dark shade of green. Now look.”

Jillian stared at the display at the two huge carnivores and saw they were bright green and matched the color of the grasses. “They change color.”

“It appears they do.” Chris backed the view up and he saw numerous large carnivores roaming the area. “We need to move forward, this is too early.”

Jillian stared at the display and said, “Give me a moment. I’ve always wondered what the Earth looked like when Dinosaurs ruled the Earth. This is amazing to see.” Chris began punching keys on his terminal and suddenly twenty red circles appeared on the display. “What are those?”

“I programmed the system to search the view for the color of the blood on the T-Rex’s kill. That’s how many dinosaurs are being killed at this very moment.” Chris focused on each of the circles and in every one a carnivore was feeding. Chris watched the display and said, “Jillian, I’m not so sure about you going into that kind of environment. That’s a dangerous place for anything to live.”

“We’ll just have to make sure I’m careful and well defended.”

They stared at the display for an hour seeing how many species they recognized. Chris said, “This is stunning. The Raptors are incredible the way they hunt in packs.”

“Yes they are. Notice that they steer clear of a T-Rex.”

“There’s no need to take one on with the abundance of prey. There are so many giant dinosaurs. This is amazing.”

Jillian sighed, “Let’s go see what happened to the Jenze ship.”

“We need to move forward in time. I’m going to jump a million years forward and take another look.”

They made the jump and found even more life on the plain. Chris jumped the Cheops three more times and on the third jump the view changed dramatically. Jillian grabbed her throat and said, “Oh my God.”

Chris saw the planet was covered with a thick grey cloud cover. Nothing could be seen through it. “We went too far. I’m backing out a thousand years.”

They jumped and the plain was back with a huge abundance of life. “Ok, we move in smaller jumps from here on.” Chris jumped five hundred years, then two hundred, and finally a hundred years. Jillian watched the display and saw that the planet was still not covered with the grey clouds. The view moved in close and Chris stood up, “It just hit.”

“What just hit?”

“The asteroid; look at the area north of the Yucatan.” Jillian looked at the area that would one day be the United States and saw something moving at high speed across the landscape. “That’s the shock wave from the strike.” Chris moved the view in closer and they saw trees being blown down along a five thousand mile front by winds moving faster than three hundred miles per hour. Right behind the shock wave the heat from the strike rushed in and set everything on fire. The huge forested areas were burning, but then Jillian looked behind the shock wave and saw a huge grey wall moving forward. Chris said, “That tsunami has been estimated to have reached as far inland as Illinois. The front of that wave is more than a mile high. Chris backed out and moved back over the Yucatan and Jillian shouted, “Stop!”

Chris stopped the display and stared at what Jillian must have seen. Then he saw it as well. Two large Moet Ships were in stationary orbit over the site of the impact. “Keep them in view and let’s see what they do.” Chris locked the motion control and watched the horror happening on the planet below. The impact site had thrown huge amounts of rock and debris into the atmosphere that was now falling back to the surface. As they fell through the atmosphere, they ignited and burned all the way back to the planet’s surface. The shock wave was moving faster than three thousand miles an hour and had moved over the land masses around the impact, killing everything in its path. Everything was on fire. Smoke covered the whole northern hemisphere and was spreading south, and soon nothing could be seen on the planet’s surface. High above it all, the two Moet Ships sat in orbit.

Chris looked at Jillian and saw her shaking her head, “You know that if this event hadn’t happened, we would not be here. Mammals stood no chance against the dinosaurs. It was this extinction that happened here, which allowed us a chance to become the dominant species.”

Jillian continued shaking her head, “I know, but the devastation just killing everything is stunning and feels wrong. Did you record all that?”

“Anything that is seen by my sensors is recorded.”

“Chris, I need to see how they delivered that asteroid.”

“Why?”

“Because I believe that they don’t use gravity to move heavy objects.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Why would they send an asteroid from the Ort Cloud toward Earth? And why would they have to wait for it to take its normal trajectory to arrive? With our gravity beams we could just go pick one up, accelerate it toward Earth, fine tune its trajectory, and then return its mass. We could do it in less than a week. They didn’t. I suspect it was because they can’t.”

Chris thought about it and said, “Then if you’re right, this asteroid was going to pass very close to Earth and they nudged it enough to make it hit the target, or it was going to hit anyway.”

“I suspect it was going to hit anyway. I’ve wondered why the Jenze would have a ship on Earth, and it makes sense if they were there to study the effects of the strike. This type of event is rare.”

“What happened to the Jenze? If they knew it was coming, they could have lifted and been safe.”

“That’s the important question and what we have to find out.”

“I’m going to back out two weeks and see what’s happening.”

Jillian nodded absently as she watched the two Moet ships. “Chris, what’s that?”

Chris looked at the display and moved it in closer to the Moet ship. A small craft was coming up and entering the landing bay of the ship on the right. “It appears they had small ships on the surface.”

“Then something happened on the planet that prevented the Jenze’s escape. Let’s go see what happened.” Chris set the stardrive and pushed the button.

H
emon looked at George Sierra sitting across the table from him and had great difficulty believing that he was the same person he had seen in the outback of Australia. He was tall, and now well groomed. His blonde hair was tied back in a pony tail that made him look like a GQ model. He and his sister were striking to view. He was dressed in a sharp business suit that looked like an Armani. Knowing Dolly, it probably was. He tried not to, but kept seeing him as he appeared before this transformation.

They had been discussing how he built the Great Pyramid and George seemed to have an insatiable curiosity. For the last hour they had been discussing the Sheera Stardrive and its capabilities. Some of the questions he was unable to answer, but that didn’t slow George down. While he was asking questions he was turning pages extremely fast on a bound book in front of him. Finally he smiled and said, “Thank you; you’ve been a great help.”

Hemon shrugged, “Why do you say that?”

George looked at Dolly and said, “I was wondering how we were going to communicate with our ships that are light years away from us; Hemon has helped me resolve that issue.”

Hemon and Dolly looked at each other, then Dolly said, “I’m not sure I’m following you.”

“We’ll communicate through subspace or whatever you call it.”

“It’s been named Sierra Space.”