Alien's Concubine, The (8 page)

Strange.

She could understand the archeology
team behaving like that toward her—they were convinced she was
quivering on the edge of a breakdown only because she’d spent the
night in the temple alone. But why the natives? She didn’t see why
they would be uneasy about her state of mind.

It was almost as if they knew
something.

Shrugging it off with an effort, she
made her way to the shaft. Two workmen were stationed at the four
legged timber brace they’d built above the hole to rescue her and
help the others down. Like the others, they looked distinctly
uneasy and they barely glanced at her. Instead, they merely nodded
when she indicated she wanted to go down, and averted their
gazes.

Superstition, she told herself,
although she couldn’t imagine what sort of misguided mythological
ideas they might have about this place. No one had known it existed
before Dr. Sheffield and Dr. Oldman had stumbled upon it. How could
there be curses or anything of that nature connected to it that
they might be concerned about?

She arrived in the chamber in the
midst of a discussion regarding the body they’d decided they would
find in the altar cum crypt.

She wasn’t convinced it was a crypt.
Why would there be steps leading up to a crypt?

On the other hand, she supposed it
also defied logic that an altar would be so high.

Unless the people that had once
inhabited the city were giants?

That thought directed her attention to
Anka. It dawned on her after she’d stared at the statue of the god
for several moments that the altar had probably been scaled to
their giant of a god.

Was there any way in hell, she
wondered, that she’d experienced some sort of psychic
event?

She wasn’t inclined to believe in the
supernatural any more than she believed in any other myths or
magic, but she felt as if it hadn’t been a dream at all. Maybe it
had been her subconscious mind interpreting the depictions on the
wall around her?

Whatever it was, she felt as if she
knew what the chamber had been used for and how. She felt strongly
that the dancers she’d seen in that half waking state had been
performing a ritual dance to summon the god and that the altar was
an altar, a place where the woman who was suffering infertility
lay, summoning the god to help her.

That was why the altar had been built
as it was, so that the god, Anka, could come to her and answer her
prayers.

Maybe the slab on top was nothing more
than the consecrated stone settled there?

“
It’s definitely hollow,”
Mark said at just that moment, frowning at the screen on the
sonogram he was using to examine the altar.

That shot down her theory, of course.
Maybe.

“
Assuming there is someone
buried here, possibly preserved, we can’t take a chance on opening
it until we have a container suitable for moving it. We just don’t
have what we need on site right now. If it is mummified, it won’t
last long in this kind of weather.”

Dr. Sheffield nodded when Dr. Oldman
had finished. “You’re right. We’ll send for a container. In the
meanwhile, we can study the chamber itself and focus on unearthing
the remainder of the temple. Sheila was right. Considering the size
of this chamber, we’re looking at an enormous tomb.”

Gaby felt like rolling her eyes. She
could’ve figured out the temple was huge from looking at this one
room and she wasn’t even an archeologist, or majoring in
archeology! It was easily forty by forty feet and near the top of
the temple. The footprint must be staggering!

She stayed to watch, basically, while
they measured, photographed, cataloged, studied, exclaimed, and
theorized. This wasn’t exactly her field, but she still found it
fascinating. She was relieved that she wasn’t the only one who’d
noticed the craftsmanship and artistry indicated a civilization
more advanced than the Aztecs, the most modern of the ancient
civilizations.

It worried everyone, but it was a find
unlike any before and they were determined to follow procedures
carefully so that they wouldn’t have their ultimate theories about
the place shot down in flames by the scientific
community.

The sense of being watched crept over
her from time to time. Each time the hairs on the back of her neck
prickled, she would glance again at the statue of Anka. Finally,
deciding she was rapidly becoming obsessed, she left.

She confined her visits after that to
exploring the ruins slowly being uncovered. A week after her wild
little adventure, the native workers uncovered a third outcropping,
supporting the original theory that the building had been built in
a very similar fashion to the pyramids of the Aztecs.

Within weeks of the first discovery,
Dr. Sheffield had rounded up twice the number of workers he’d
originally hired and the great pyramid began to take shape as yet
another level was revealed.

The container Dr. Sheffield had
ordered arrived at the site nearly five weeks later, flown in and
lowered by helicopter.

Gaby hadn’t realized that this was
what she’d been waiting for. For weeks, she’d been debating whether
or not to return home, chafing at having very little to do beyond
assist the other scientists at their work. She would have left
directly after the accident if not for the fact that she realized
that there was a good chance that rumors would follow her forever
afterward.

No one had even questioned her about
the remarks she’d made in the chamber when she’d disputed the
theories of the other scientists, which made her feel as if,
rightly or not, they were united in an opinion of her that wasn’t
likely to enhance her career. Not that she thought that staying was
likely to change that estimation of her, but she realized she
needed a reason to go that wouldn’t have the appearance of
fleeing.

It would’ve been fortunate if the
Museum had recalled her to her duties there, but they didn’t and
Gaby wasn’t really surprised. In the first place, good fortune had
never followed her. In the second, her assistant, she suspected,
was making hay while the sun shone, making the most of the
opportunity presented to him by Gaby’s absence to try to worm his
way into her position.

The container, though, that was the
break she’d been waiting for. Dr. Sheffield and the others would
set about removing the remains in the crypt to examine it and ship
it off to the states where it could be studied under optimal
preservation conditions.

And she would accompany it, because
that was what she’d been brought for to begin with.

Or rather, she would accompany
him.

Because she knew who had been interred
in the crypt.

Anka, she realized, would finally be
released.

* * * *

No one was more dismayed than Gaby
when the helicopter, after releasing the guy wires supporting the
container, moved to the landing area that had been cleared and
leveled in anticipation of their arrival. Not that the helicopter
itself was any reason for dismay. That had been part of the plan.
They were to remain to airlift the remains out of the jungle once
they had been recovered.

The people the helicopter disgorged
when the engine was cut were another matter.

Gaby knew Dr. Sheffield had been
involved in a good deal of wrangling over the find with the local
government regarding his plan to remove it from the country for
further studies, but he’d indicated that he’d gotten his way. The
government official, minister of antiquities, and anthropologist
who emerged were completely unexpected, and totally unwelcome,
guests.

They seemed to be laboring under the
impression that they would be receiving the mummy Dr. Sheffield
expected to discover, and any and all valuables discovered buried
with him.

Dr. Sheffield’s rage was only
surpassed by Dr. Oldman’s. Though both men managed to contain their
spleen admirably, it was a sullen group that made their way into
the temple and along the corridor that had been discovered leading
to the chamber and finally gathered there to watch the proceedings.
Gaby followed up the rear, wondering if she would even have the
opportunity to see the remains let alone study them.

She hadn’t been inside the temple in
weeks, not since the day after her accident, but she found she
wasn’t at all surprised to discover that even the corridor leading
to the chamber was as richly detailed with mosaic depictions of the
history of the race that had built the pyramid as the chamber
itself. The place was a marvel in and of itself. The only aspect
more amazing than the artistry and craftsmanship of the structure
and art was the fact that it looked virtually untouched by time. If
it hadn’t been so breathtaking in detail and design she might have
wondered if the entire thing was simply an elaborate hoax, but
modern man, quite simply, was not capable of producing anything
approaching the temple and no one with the money to build such an
edifice would have been insane enough to invest it in such an
elaborate hoax.

When they arrived at last in the
chamber, Gaby saw that a support framework had been constructed
over and around the altar, or crypt—she was not going to accept
that it was a crypt until she saw with her own eyes that it
actually was one—to carefully remove the slab of stone that sealed
it.

No one was prepared for what they
found when the slab was finally removed. They quickly discovered,
though, that it did not merely rest on top as they’d originally
supposed. The stone had been cemented to the base with some sort of
mortar that was surprisingly resistant to time and they had had to
wait while tools were brought in to chip it away and break the
seal. Almost more stunning than finding that the slab was cemented
to the base was the discovery once the seal had been broken that
the crypt was a perfect vacuum.

It sucked air in an audible whoosh
when the seal was finally broken and the slab lifted. Gaby felt her
skin prickle all over when she heard the sound, like a giant
inhalation of breath. One glance at the other observers was enough
to assure her that she was not alone. Everyone in the room
exchanged uneasy glances.

It still took an effort to refrain
from surging forward as the stone slowly rose upward and then was
walked sideways and lowered to the chamber floor. No one else
resisted. The rest of the archeology team and the government
representatives stampeded forward, jostling each other for a
position that would allow them to look inside as Dr. Sheffield
illuminated the interior.

A collective gasp of awe rose from the
group staring down into the cavity revealed. Drawn by their
reaction, Gaby moved forward and tried to peer over the shoulders
blocking her view, but she saw fairly quickly that it was a waste
of effort. Short of shoving someone out of the way, she could see
very little beyond the glint of light on bright metal.

It was still enough.

Stunned as she was, she knew it could
only be a sarcophagus.

In South America?

She was carried away again with the
tide that withdrew, reluctantly, as Dr. Sheffield ordered everyone
back so that a couple of the students would have room to work
chains beneath the casket to lift it out.

Gaby found as she was buffeted by the
tide of people moving back that she was shivering. Shock, she
wondered distantly? She lifted her head to look at the statue of
Anka.

It’s you, isn’t it?

From out of nowhere a sense of loss
settled over her. Her throat closed, making it painfully difficult
to swallow.

That was why the statue had been
wrought in such life-like detail. The god, Anka, was no figment of
fertile, primitive imagination. They’d deified a man.

Chapter Five

Had Anka been the god of all things to
them, Gaby wondered dazedly? Was he responsible for the city, the
temple, the amazingly advanced civilization they’d
discovered?

Where had he come from?

Whatever Dr. Sheffield and Dr. Oldman
said to the contrary, the influence of ancient African
civilizations couldn’t be ignored.

Even his name.

Which no one but her, she realized,
believed was actually his name.

But the other things? The temple that
was strongly reminiscent of the tombs of the ancient
Egyptians—that, if they were right, pre-dated those tombs. The
sarcophagus? Granted, she hadn’t actually seen it, but she’d seen
enough to know it had been fashioned of gold.

He was holding an Ankh. Even Dr.
Sheffield had acknowledged that much.

In the back of Gaby’s mind, though,
the only thing of any importance at all was the fact that he was
dead—long gone from her world.

Why did that make her feel like crying
when she’d never really believed he existed at all?

Because she had believed, she
realized.

In spite of every effort to reason the
dream away as nothing but pure imagination, she’d actually believed
she’d felt his touch like a lover. Warmth quivered through her at
the flicker of memory through her mind.