The Pyramid Builders (8 page)

Jillian watched him go and began to understand why he was admired by his students. She knew she was beautiful; she had been fighting off men for as long as she could remember. Her interest in hand-to-hand combat was originally inspired by the overzealous efforts of some of her suitors. Dr. Connor had not made a pass and had been professional in his dealings with her. He had also just corrected a major part of her planning by suggesting a different means of navigating the galaxy. He hadn’t made her feel bad at not seeing the obvious, and had made the suggestion in a way that allowed her to still be the decision maker. He didn’t challenge her authority, and she knew after the way she had been treating him he could have very easily delivered his punches via sarcasms.

They should be ready to leave in a couple of weeks. She actually hoped they would go dancing again in a week. She also noted that Dr. Connor had a very athletic body. But she wasn’t going to tell him how she knew. It surprised her that he was gentleman enough not to question how he was put to bed. She smiled, and then decided that Dr. Morris could handle the change in the navigation system. She left to go work on the Ninja. She hoped she wouldn’t have to use it, but one never knew what would happen. Everything could be lost if she did.

“Have you found out what is being done in that building?”

The large heavyset man lowered his head, “No, Iman. We have not been able to penetrate their security.”

“What readings have been taken?”

“There are radioactive emissions. The building’s walls blocks most of them, but enough are escaping to allow us to see that the substance is highly enriched.”

“What does that mean?”

“Either they have a very powerful bomb or a powerful reactor. The particles leaving are very excited.”

“Ummmm. If it’s a bomb, we could use that for our vengeance.”

“Even if it’s a reactor, we could explode it and do massive damage to the port and the city next to it.”

“Before I send the Mujahedeen to die, I must know for certain that what we need to make the infidels pay for their attack on the Holy Places is there. Get someone inside.”

The large man bowed and said, “Iman, the facility is guarded by Alphas.”

The Iman took a quick breath. He knew that no one could get close to the building unless they passed the Alpha’s scan. If they scanned someone that didn’t show up in their database, they were killed instantly. This was not something he had counted on. However, the only reason that Alphas were there was because whatever was in that building was considered extremely important. This gave credence to Kahale’s readings. “Do we have the necessary weapons to get in?”

“I have gathered our best armor and weapons. This will probably be our last chance to make them pay for the Jews dropping those nuclear bombs on Tehran, Mecca, and Medina.”

“They won’t be dropping anymore.”

“No, but the faith has lost so much, Iman. Not only our holy sites, but the other ten cities that had a billion of the faithful. Who could have known they had so many nuclear warheads? Now many of the faithful hold us to blame for that loss.”

“We will see each other in heaven. This will be our last act, and we will die doing what we know to be right. I will be joining you in the attack.”

Kahale smiled, “I never thought you wouldn’t.”

Chris looked over at Jillian and furrowed his brow, “Jillian, why is this landing bay so large? We could do this with a much smaller ship.”

“I’m taking a smaller ship with us.”

“Why?”

“Against the possibility that something breaks and we need another way to get home.”

Chris thought about it and shrugged, “Ok. I just wondered. How are we going to get this thing into orbit?”

Jillian said, “We’re going to reduce the ship’s mass with the anti-gravity device.”

“What anti-gravity device?”

Jillian stood and said, “Come with me.”

Chris followed her out of the ship’s construction facility to the building holding the tablet. They walked up to the tablet and stopped directly in front of it. Dolly looked down at them from her terminal, and Jillian said, “Would you do the honors?”

Dolly smiled and picked up a small device that looked like a water gun. She aimed it at the tablet and pulled the trigger. Chris watched and didn’t see anything happen. He looked at Jillian with raised eyebrows. Jillian smiled, “Have you ever wondered how the ancient Egyptians were able to build the Great Pyramid?”

Chris nodded, “It has held my curiosity since I was five years old. Why do you ask?”

Jillian placed her hand on the huge tablet, “How much do you think this tablet weighs, Dr. Connor?”

“At least ninety tons.”

Jillian grabbed a small handle on the side of the tablet, lifted it off the floor, and moved it three feet to the right and put it back down. She did it with only one arm.

Chris’ eyes were wide and he sat down on the floor. Jillian said, “Now you know how they did it.”

“How long will it remain at that weight?”

“Until Dolly hits it with the neutral setting on that gun. That is how we are going to lift the ship. A small helicopter or carrier can do the trick.”

Dolly said, “Personally, I’d just attach a couple of weather balloons and let them take it into the upper atmosphere.”

Jillian smiled, “You’re absolutely right. That’s exactly how we’ll do it.”

“I guess if there was any doubt, that device proves that advanced aliens were responsible for the pyramid’s construction.”

“Maybe.”

Chris looked at Jillian, “What do you mean by that?”

“Well, we have the stories of an advanced civilization beyond the pillars of Hercules. It was called Atlantis. How do we know this anti-gravity device didn’t originate there?”

Chris just looked at Jillian through his eyebrows. Jillian continued, “We have too many clues that there was an advanced civilization during that time in history. We can’t just assume it’s not true. Especially in light of what we’ve seen here.”

Chris looked at the tablet, walked over, and moved it back to its original position. It weighed less than a pair of his boots. “Has anyone tried this with an aircraft to see how fast it would fly with little or no weight?”

Jillian tilted her head, “Yes, we tried it with my old Corvette.”

“And?”

“Well, Arnold insisted that we put the car on remote and just send it straight up into the atmosphere. We assumed we could just bring it back down. We set the weight at less than a tenth of an ounce and then fired the thrusters.”

Dolly said, “I’ve got it on video if you want to see it.”

Chris looked at Dolly, and then said to Jillian, “Just tell me what happened.”

“It disappeared. It ran out of the range of the remote control in less than a tenth of a second; that’s why I had to buy a new one. According to our satellite systems it was approaching the speed of light as it flew by the moon in less than eight seconds. The last we saw of it was when it hit Jupiter. There wasn’t much of an explosion because the skimmer’s mass was so small.”

Chris pulled out his calculator and began entering numbers. Dolly said from the raised terminal, “You don’t need to do that. I’ve already run the calculation.”

Jillian looked up at Dolly frowning, “What calculation?”

“Well, if you assume that Vette weighed less than an ounce but was traveling close to light speed, it penetrated Jupiter’s atmosphere so fast that it wouldn’t leave any trace. However, even though it only weighed an ounce, it was twenty eight feet long. At that velocity, it probably left a crater on Jupiter’s surface more than two hundred miles across. We just didn’t see it because of the thickness of Jupiter’s atmosphere.”

Jillian looked at Chris and he nodded. Chris then said, “If we can reduce our mass to less than an ounce, the engines on the Cheops should push us to light speed almost instantly. Reverse thrusters will also stop us just as fast.”

Jillian said, “Well, that’s a good thing.”

Chris shook his head, “Yes and no. You haven’t thought it through. How do we fly a hundred miles or just a mile?”

Jillian thought about it and said, “You’re right.” She looked at Dolly and saw her smiling. “Ok, you’ve thought of something.”

“Am I that transparent?”

Chris said, “Oh yes.”

Dolly stuck her tongue out at him and held up the small gun, “You just put a rheostat on the anti-gravity drive. You set the speed you want to fly and the weight of the ship will be adjusted to the engine’s thrust. The faster you want to go, the lower the weight of the ship. The slower, let’s say a hundred miles an hour instead of a hundred miles a second, you just add weight. I’ve already written the modifications that need to be done to the system and sent them to Dr. Morrison.”

Jillian stared at Dolly and saw Jeff shaking his head next to her. “Dolly, we don’t pay you enough.”

“I know. However, I’m charging you an extra twenty million for the diagram.”

Chris burst out laughing, and Jillian shook her head, “Send the bill to Arnold. I’m sure he’ll be more than willing to pay it.”

“I will, but you’ll need to be careful if you use that device to go light speed for an extended time.”

“Why?”

“Jillian, you know Einstein’s relativity factor and what happens when you get too close to the absolute speed of light.”

Jillian’s face suddenly had a troubled expression, “Time dilation.”

“Exactly. You go really close to light speed and more than a hundred years could pass in less than a minute on board the ship. If you get extremely close to light speed, more than a million years could pass.”

Chris looked at Dolly and said, “That degree of dilation would only happen when you get within a hundred miles a second of light speed.”

“I know. I’ve designed the control on the rheostat to only take the ship up to three quarters light speed. You would have to manually change the settings to go faster.”

“Why would we want to go faster?”

Dolly shook her head, “Someone or something is going to attack us. I don’t want to limit you with the tools you have to use to escape them.”

“If we have to go that fast, we’ll not get back until centuries after the attack happens.”

“True, but you’ll at least arrive alive.”

Jillian didn’t like hearing that, and she noticed Chris felt the same.

Thursday arrived, and Jillian watched as Chris worked on the Cheops’s navigation system. She waited a few moments and said, “Is tonight your dance night?”

Chris stopped working and sighed, “Yes, but I’m not going.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t bear seeing those I’m leaving. I won’t be able to dance out there,” He nodded at the ceiling, “so I might as well get used to it.”

Jillian stared at him and said, “Then it looks like you’ll have to do it here.”

“What?”

“I’ve ordered your special blend and Bob will have it here by tonight. You really shouldn’t stop a longstanding tradition. It could lead to bad luck.”

Chris stared at her saying nothing.

“Yes, I’ll be your partner again.”

“Why, Jillian? I know you don’t like me or anything that I represent.”

Jillian smiled, “That’s true but…” she paused as Chris furrowed his brow, “…you are a great dancer.”

Chris started laughing and said, “Thank you, but tonight I won’t need the brew.” Jillian stared at him. “I don’t want to miss just how beautiful you are.” Chris turned back to the board and continued his work. Jillian felt something warm in her heart, and also went back to work.

Dolly looked at the translation she had completed and shook her head. She had hoped that she would find something in it that would offer some hope of survival, but it only scared her more. She put the document into a super-point display and hit her communicator, “I have completed the translation and I was wondering if those of you involved in the project might want to view it before I send it to the government.”

Jillian looked at Chris and saw him nod at her, “Yes, I know we do. When will you be ready?”

“It’s ready now, Jillian.”

“Contact Arnold Gordon and let him know what’s going on. We’ll finish up here and be there in about an hour with the ship’s engineers.”

“What about the rest of the team?”

“I would rather share it with the command team first. Unless you think there’s nothing in it that would cause a problem.”

“Better make it just the Command Team.”

Jillian looked at Chris and saw his sudden tension, “That doesn’t sound good.”

Jillian shook her head, “No, it doesn’t. Let’s hope for the best.”

Chris turned back to the control board and just shook his head saying nothing. If Dolly was concerned, there was real trouble.

Everyone arrived at the tablet, and Dolly motioned everyone to a row of chairs set up in front of a screen that was up against the tablet. Jeff was sitting with Dolly at the terminal and was wearing full armor. Jillian raised her eyebrows and Jeff shrugged. Something had him spooked. Arnold arrived and Jillian rose and greeted him after she gave him a hug.

“What do you know?”

“No more than you. We’ll see it together.”

Arnold nodded and took a seat in the middle of the row. Dr.’s Levin and Morrison were also present. Dolly said, “What I’ve done is record the translation and set up the screen to highlight the text on the tablet as the voice speaks. The one that wrote the tablet is named Hemiunu the Younger, and he was also responsible for the construction of the Great Pyramid. Is every one ready?” Dolly saw Jillian nod and she started the recording.

G
reetings, and welcome to my little building project. I’m saddened that I have to be the bearer of bad news, but it’s important that I share it with you. I actually don’t know if anyone is going to ever discover my tablet before the Moet attack, but I pray each day that someone will. I am also going to assume that if you have translated my writings that you are probably advanced enough to understand the diagrams I carved on the reverse side. I put those there in hopes that you might build enough starships to save enough of our species to ensure our survival. Our world is going to be destroyed in approximately four thousand seven hundred and fifty four years from now. I know this statement is probably met with some skepticism, but it is true. I’ll explain why later. I am the one who led the construction of the pyramid where you found my tablet. I was able to build it with the help of a species from another world.