The Secret of the Desert Stone (5 page)

Mobutu came up to the pilot's window and stuck his hand through. “May God grant you a safe journey,” he said quietly.

Dr. Cooper smiled, gripping Mobutu's hand. “See you soon.”

Within minutes, they were flying over the desert and toward the Stone. From the air it was as big as a mountain, and still higher than they were.

Dr. Cooper was watching the altimeter. “All right, Jay, now we'll find out how close your calculations were. We're climbing through five thousand right now. If you're right, another five or six thousand should put us over the top of that thing.”

Soon the Stone filled their vision, rising above the flat desert like an out-of-place, rectangular skyscraper. Dr. Cooper made a slow left turn so they could circle around the south end. The airplane had climbed to nine thousand feet, and they were still below the Stone's summit.

“Take a look at that,” said Dr. Cooper, pointing below. “Rugged cliffs at either end of the Stone make it almost impossible to travel around, and the only road through the desert goes right under it!Half of Nkromo's country is on the other side!”

“Beyond his reach,” said Dr. Henderson.

“Exactly. If he can't reach that part of the country he can't control the people who live there. No wonder he's so upset!”

The plane continued climbing as it headed south. At nine thousand and eight hundred feet, everyone looked out the right side. Since the desert floor was about 1,500 feet above sea level, they had to be within a thousand feet of the Stone's estimated altitude; soon they would see the top.

Ten thousand feet. The Stone still looked perfectly flat. Then the plane rounded the far southern corner and for the first time they could see another side.

“Incredible!” Dr. Henderson exclaimed.

Jay and Lila were both leaning close to the window on the right, staring in wonder at the Stone's south-facing surface. It too was perfectly flat, perfectly smooth. It met the eastern surface at a precise, ninety-degree angle.

“It's shaped just like a big box!” Jay exclaimed, snapping some pictures.

Ten thousand, nine hundred. They could see the top.

“This is impossible!” said Dr. Henderson. “There is no way in the world!”

“It's not a box,” said Lila. “It's a huge block!”

It was all Dr. Cooper could do to keep his mind on flying the plane and his eyes on the instruments. He continued to climb to eleven thousand feet. Below them now, sitting solidly on the desert floor like a brick on a table, was an immense, mountain-sized object that was rectangular in shape: two long sides, two narrow sides, and a flat top, the same color on every side.

They continued circling around to the west side. The western surface looked identical to the eastern, the same smooth, featureless red stone.

“Okay,” said Dr. Henderson, looking through binoculars. “I see the desert road coming out the other side.”

They all looked, and Jay snapped more pictures. There it was, all right, winding along, crossing more desert, then grassy drylands, and finally disappearing into some rugged, wooded hills in the west.

Lila peered through her binoculars and spotted something. “Hey, I think I see a village down there!”

“Where?” Dr. Henderson asked, training her binoculars downward.

“Uh . . . about a mile off the northwest corner, on the other side of the grassland, where that forest begins.”

“Got it. Oh, it's a big one. At least . . . sixty structures.”

“The Motosas,” said Dr. Cooper.

“Right.”

“They've got some fields planted down there,”Lila reported.

“Savages who farm?” Jay wondered.

Dr. Cooper took a long, careful look at the Stone's top. It appeared smooth enough to land on, although lightly frosted with ice. “Well, while we're up this high, I think we should check out that summit.”

“All right! ”
said Jay.

Lila considered how the icy flat top of the stone ended at such a keen, straight edge, and how the vertical sides dropped almost two miles straight down.“Are you sure?”

Dr. Cooper eased the throttle back. The roar of the engine dropped in tone and the plane began to descend. “Everybody check your seat belt. We'll come in a bit high and do a flyover, just to feel how the wind is. If it feels right, we'll land.”

He put the plane into a gentle turn, keeping the Stone's flat, rectangular surface in the windshield. So far the air was smooth, just like the top of the Stone.

“Oooh!” Dr. Henderson cried as the plane gave a lurch like an elevator going up.

“Updraft,” Dr. Cooper said matter-of-factly. “The Stone's heating up the air around it. The air's rising, and we're in it. This could be a little sporty after all.”

He pulled the throttle back to idle as they passed over the straight, sharp edge of the Stone. Suddenly they were no longer ten thousand feet above the ground; the surface of the Stone was only a few hundred feet below them, flat and featureless like the top of a monstrous desk, and lightly dusted with snow that looked like powdered sugar. The plane was bucking a little, tilting and fishtailing in turbulence.

Dr. Henderson cinched up her seat belt as tight as it would go. “I hope you know what you're doing!”

“Aw, this is nothing for Dad,” said Jay.

They were less than a hundred feet off the surface. They could see wisps of powdery snow swirling in lacy shapes along the ground, which helped Dr. Cooper determine the direction of the wind.

“Couldn't ask for a wider runway,” he said as he added a touch of flaps.

As Jay and Lila looked below, the shadow of the airplane grew larger and larger, coming up to meet them. Then it joined them as the tires chirped on the stone and ice. Dr. Henderson threw her head back and released a held breath.

“Okay,” said Dr. Cooper as the plane slowed to a gentle stop, the tires skidding just a little on the powdery ice. “Let's get the work done and get off this thing before the winds kick up.”

“We'll set out the sensors for the seismic experiment,” said Dr. Henderson. “They're in that wooden crate in the back.”

Stepping out onto the smooth, flat surface felt like stepping onto another planet. No desert, no dry lake bed, no other place on earth, could match the perfect, featureless flatness that stretched for miles. Nor was there ever a sight like the lacy wisps of powder-fine ice and snow floating steadily along in 43 ghostly, numberless hordes only inches above the surface. The movement of the powdery ice and snow was so even, so constant, and so vast, that the Coopers and Dr. Henderson couldn't help but feel
they
were the ones moving. It was eerie, unnatural, and spooky. And none of them had forgotten that they were now walking directly on the back of the “sleeping lion.”

The sensors were small, hand-sized transmitters designed to sense vibrations in the ground. Jay carried the wooden crate and Lila did the placing as they made a wide circle around the airplane according to Dr. Henderson's instructions. They were wearing oversized jackets borrowed from the Togwanan army, for at just under eleven thousand feet, the atmosphere was much cooler. Thinner, too. Just a short run could make them pant for air.

From where they stood, the airplane looked tiny and singular, like a gnat or a particle of dust resting on a tabletop. Beyond the airplane were almost four miles of laser-straight flat surface. The sight jarred the senses because it simply did not occur anywhere on the planet. Even the ocean on the calmest of days had a horizon because of the curvature of the earth. But the Stone did not curve out of sight in the distance— it just ended at a sheer, straight edge they could see in all directions. Jay was thrilled at the thought of hiking to the edge to look two miles straight down, but he knew there was work to do and little time.

KABOOM!
Dr. Henderson's seismic blaster was like a small cannon held in a steel frame and aimed at the ground. When Jay pressed the detonator switch to set off the explosive charge, the device actually leaped a foot off the surface with Jay and Lila standing on it—supposedly to hold it down. Dr. Jennifer Henderson sat calmly in the shade of the airplane's wing, her jacket collar up around her face to block the cold wind, tapping away at her portable computer.

“We should get an image in just a few seconds,” she told Dr. Cooper, who was looking over her shoulder. “The blaster sends shock waves through the Stone, and the sensors pick up the echoes. Then the computer interprets the echoes to let us know where the shock waves have been, whether they've passed through rooms or tunnels or different strata of rock. . . .”

The tiny cursor was sweeping back and forth across the computer screen. Line by line, beginning at the top, it was weaving an image like a tapestry. So far the image was one solid field of black. Dr. Henderson started tapping some keys. “Come on, come on . . . don't disappoint me.”

“Woo!” Jay hollered as he and Lila hurried back to the plane. “That blaster was some kind of ride!”

Lila was twisting her finger in her ear. “That thing hurt my ears!”

They joined Dr. Cooper and looked over Dr. Henderson's shoulder at the computer image. The black tapestry continued to form on the computer screen as she tapped a few more keys, muttering to herself and scolding the computer, “Come on, don't give me that!”

Finally, the seismic image was complete. Dr. Henderson leaned back, removed her hands from the keyboard, and sighed. “People, unless the equipment isn't working properly, I'm afraid the results are disappointing. The Stone is solid. No rooms, no tunnels, nothing.”

“Nothing?” Jay asked, clearly disappointed.

Dr. Henderson shook her head, waving her finger over the image on the screen. “See here? Between the top and bottom surfaces there is virtually no change in density. No cracks. No holes. No gaps or bubbles. Nothing.”

“So we haven't progressed much,” said Dr. Cooper.

“We may have fallen back a little. We don't even know what the Stone is made of.”

“But you said it was basalt,” said Lila.

Dr. Henderson shot a glance at the gas-powered core drill lying next to the plane's wheel strut, the drill bit burned and blunted. “While you were setting out the sensors, I tried to drill out a core sample. The drill didn't even make a scratch. If I'm going to be scientific and objective here, I have to admit I don't know what this thing is or what it's made of. I only know it's indestructible.”

“Do you still think it's man-made?” Dr. Cooper asked.

Jennifer Henderson sniffed a derisive little laugh.“I'm wondering what the builder used for a chisel. Even though he, or it, or they, left marks,
I
sure can't.”

Lila turned her back to a cold breeze that had just kicked up. “His Excellency isn't going to like this.”

“Just for my information,” said Dr. Henderson, “now that we have the airplane, can't we just fly out of the country from here?”

Dr. Cooper looked across the vast, tabletop surface toward the distant horizon, barely visible beyond the Stone's sharp edge. “Yes, we can. I'm just not sure how far we can go on the fuel we have left.”

“Far enough to get out of Togwana would be fine with me.”

“But the question is, where can we go? If any of the neighboring countries help us escape, Nkromo would brand them as enemies. I'm not sure they'd want that.”

“Well,” said Lila, “at least we're safe up here.”

As if in response to her words, a disturbing quiver came up through the soles of their shoes.

“I knew it,” Dr. Henderson moaned.

The Stone was quaking, all right. Dr. Henderson's computer almost slid off its little stand before she grabbed it. The airplane began to rock, its wings dipping and jiggling. From deep below and all around, there was a deep rumble, like continuous thunder, as a gust of wind whipped across the Stone, kicking up tiny ice pellets that stung their faces.

Dr. Henderson was already throwing her gear into the plane. “Let's go, let's go!”

Dr. Cooper looked to the east and saw a curtain of snow, ice, and boiling clouds coming their way. “Fair weather's over. We'd better get off this thing!”

Lila looked the direction her father was looking and saw the storm approaching. Even so, she insisted, “But we're safe here, really!”

Dr. Cooper just tugged her toward the plane.“Jay, unchock the wheels!”

Dr. Henderson started running away and he grabbed her.

“I've got to get the blaster!” she yelled over the rumble and the wind. “And the drill, and all those sensors—”

“What about the
airplane?
” Dr. Cooper yelled back. “If it gets damaged, we'll never get down!”

The Stone lurched like a bucking horse. The airplane actually skipped backward several feet, and the Coopers tumbled to the ground. The wind began to whip at them angrily.

Dr. Henderson didn't need any more convincing. With a cry of fear, she struggled to her feet, jerked the door open, and clambered inside.

Jay and Lila jumped in the back, Dr. Cooper in the front. The plane was still dancing and sidestepping along the quivering ground as Dr. Cooper rattled off the checklist, his hands flying from lever to button to gauge to switch. “Fuel tanks both, electrical off, breakers in, prop on maximum, carb heat cold . . .”

He twisted the starter switch and the engine came to life, the prop spinning into a blurred disk in front of the windshield.

A blast of wind, snow, and ice hit them broadside from the right. The plane weather-vaned into it, the tail spinning wildly to the left.

“Okay, we're nose into the wind,” said Dr. Cooper, jamming the throttle wide open.

The airplane lunged forward, the white swirls of snow and ice blowing past them like sheets in the wind. The old Cessna bucked, skidded, swerved, and tilted as the wind tossed it about, slapping against it this way, then that way. It gained speed, began to tiptoe, then skip along the surface. Dr. Cooper eased the control yoke back, and it took to the air.