The Unearthing (2 page)

The Municipal Building was only four storeys high but its lobby could have been that of a more auspicious structure: elegantly decorated with local flora, pictures of area landmarks adorning the walls. Echohawk was about to announce himself to the receptionist when the man he’d come to see came down the hallway and introduced himself.

“Professor Echohawk? I’m Paul Santino.” The Laguna Chief said, extending his hand.

“Mark Echohawk.”

“Pleased to meet you; my office is this way.” Santino led Echohawk down the hall. They were close in age though Echohawk was visibly older, his hair greying slowly through the ponytail hanging down his back. Santino, his hair dark and closely cropped, had the robust features characteristic of an outdoor life in the New Mexico badlands. Echohawk had over the years become an academe, and had lost some the weather-beaten appearance of a field archaeologist. They reached the office. The ground floor corner suite looked out over a spacious park rich in greenery and with a flowing fountain. The blinds were open and the office was alive with rich sunlight. Santino sat behind his desk and pushed a filer across to Echohawk. The archaeologist picked it up and began flipping through the pictures onscreen.

“Tell me again how this was found.”

“A few local kids were tooling around the desert in gas-powered buggies,” Santino replied, “One of the buggies wrecked pretty bad and dug up the tip of the pyramid. When they started digging it up they thought it might be old cowboy loot dropped from a saddlebag. It didn’t take them long to realize it wasn’t. That’s when they came to town to get help. We managed to excavate almost three meters of the thing before we called your people.”

“That was a week ago,” Echohawk said, “Have you managed to unearth any more of the object?”

“We cleared off a second face of the pyramid to a total depth of four meters,” Santino replied, “The damn thing is huge. The size of the excavation’s making it harder to dig up and the soil is rocky around here so the dig is pretty tough.”

“
The land around here’s remained unchanged for tens of thousands of years,” Echohawk said, “Under accepted theories about Native migration across the Continent that shouldn’t be possible. Then there’s the question of just
how
the object was buried. How far is it to the site?”

“It’s almost twenty klicks out of town,” said Santino, “Well past city limits, but still within the District.”

“Any other towns nearby?”

“Ghost towns now; most of the land around here was given up after the war. When White Sands was nuked the fallout blew right through this area.”

“It doesn’t seem to have affected things here.”

“Laguna’s the end product of the first twenty years of the South-western Protectorate civil engineering initiative,” Santino replied, “The town and the Band are old, going back to the Rez era, but after the war this area was pretty badly beaten up. The town’s only looked like it does now for about ten years.” Echohawk nodded gravely. He remembered the battles that had been waged both in the political and personal arenas to establish the American First Nations Protectorates.

“How hot is the dust where the pyramid was found?”

“Remarkably it’s almost clean,” Santino said, “The radiation level is negligible.”

“Can we get out to the site? I’d like to see the object for myself.”

“We can leave right away if you like,” Santino said, rising. Echohawk also got to his feet.

“We’ll follow you in my camper,” Echohawk said, “I want to get out to the site and start setting up a base camp right away.”

“I’ll get my car and meet you around front.” They headed for the door.

They traveled to the site on a dirt path stamped out in the earth by the recent activity surrounding the buried pyramid. This was outback; hilly desert stretching out for miles around them. The dig was visible as a glint on the horizon long before they reached it. Several cars were parked haphazardly around a vaguely crescent-shaped pit, a canteen truck standing guard by the cars while a dump truck waited near the portable toilets as earth and stone was hauled from the arena by wheelbarrow and front-end loader. James pulled the camper up to the other cars as Santino parked his own vehicle close by. Echohawk left the camper, approaching the Chief of the Laguna Band.

“Who’d you get for the dig?” Echohawk asked

“Locals,” Santino replied, “City works crews and high-schoolers looking for summer work.” Echohawk descended into the work pit. The excavation had uncovered two faces of the pyramid. which shimmered in the late morning sun. The work pit was about ten meters wide at its base with a gradually sloping pathway to the surface. They’d moved a lot of earth; the problem with excavating a pyramid was that the further down one went, the larger the pit had to be so that there was enough room to work around the bottom of the pyramid and continue digging. Echohawk studied the dig so far: they had been primarily concerned with hauling away the earth and stone surrounding the pyramid’s two exposed sides. The bad news was anything in the earth of geological significance that had been thus far removed was now lost. The locals had been eager to unearth the structure and in so doing had destroyed many potential clues to the pyramid’s origins. However there was still enough undisturbed land around the pyramid’s two unexposed sides for them to most likely learn what they needed to know.

“I’m going to want to clear everyone out,” Echohawk said to Santino, “We have to proceed carefully and for now that means shutting down the dig.” He turned to James, who was once more on the console link to Peter.

“James, when Peter gets here I want you guys to start taking core samples from around the site,” He said, “We need to establish the geological age of the pyramid. Also, get grids set up on the unexposed sides; thirty square meters of half-meter squares. Then we’ll do Doppler seismography to get an approximation of the site after the geosurvey cores are taken.” James nodded and began relaying the information to Peter who was leading a small convoy of three cube vans and a mini-bus of equipment and crew to the site. Echohawk started down into the work pit and approached the pyramid. Though only two sides were exposed and then only four meters of the structure it was already impressive, imposing. Its golden surface reflected the sunlight brilliantly. The pyramid was nearly perfectly smooth; there was hardly any sign of weathering on its surface: a few scuffs or scratches and almost no dents or pockmarks. Given the tools the locals were using Echohawk had expected there to be some significant scoring on its surface, but there was none. It was almost
too
smooth. He knelt beside the pyramid, running a hand over its surface.

“Excuse me professor,” Santino said, “But I was wondering: you’d mentioned doing a geological survey of the land. May I ask why?” Echohawk stood up, looking around the work pit. Shovels and pickaxes, yet no damage to the pyramid

“A geological survey will allow us to establish, roughly, about how long the structure’s been buried,” Echohawk explained, “As time passes, the ground, surface dust and natural debris changes. Each new surface layer preserves the one underneath. Each layer of earth will be characteristic of a different geological era. Certain types of seed found mixed in the earth could be extinct in the present era or be the progenitor of a current plant. Soil metallurgy changes too, as time goes on. One layer of earth might have a relatively high amount of salt from when this was once an ocean floor. Another could contain high quantities particleized iron or other materials indicative of a nearby meteor impact. The pyramid’s position relative to the local geological history and how the earth around the pyramid settled will tell us how long it’s been here and then hopefully help us figure out who put it here and more importantly, when.” Echohawk became aware that several pairs of eyes were focused on him; some faces suspicious, some hopeful, all expectant.

“Hello, ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “I want to start off by thanking you one and all for the effort you’ve made so far in digging up the pyramid behind me.” And Echohawk was very aware of the pyramid behind him. The Mayan and Incan civilizations had worshipped at pyramids and he easily imagined this object being used as the source of veneration. He wondered when there had last been an elder preaching as a crowd gathered around him to listen. Though he admitted, the smooth lines owed more to Egyptian styling than South American.

“My crew and I were sent here based on the pictures your band council sent to the World Aboriginal Anthropological Society. I can tell you that the discovery of this pyramid is an important one, not just from an archaeological point of view but also as a societal one for us and for all Aboriginal Peoples in the Americas. Because of the need to gather as much information as possible and because of the need to protect the structure, we will have to temporarily cease excavation.” Grumbles and disappointed moans greeted Echohawk’s words. He raised his hands in a stopping motion, calling for silence.

“Folks, please…I said temporarily!” Echohawk called, “This is necessary, because we have to run certain tests in order to properly date the find, study the soil composition and to determine the height of the structure itself. In order to do that, unfortunately, we have to stop digging for a while. I promise that as soon as we are ready to resume digging any and all of you who are still interested in working on the dig will be rehired. And when you are rehired you’ll be working for the WAAS and being paid according to their very generous scale.” This brought smiles and some applause. There were worse ways of kicking people off a dig site.

As the work crew shouldered their shovels and pickaxes, climbing from the work pit, Echohawk returned his attention to the pyramid. He reached out to its golden surface, laying his hand on metal warmed by the desert sun. Except that the metal covering the surface of the pyramid was cool; it certainly was no hotter than air temperature, which on that fine summer morning hovered around thirty-two degrees Celsius. Baking in the sun, the skin of the pyramid should have been much warmer. Echohawk slid his hand along the pyramid, feeling the smoothness of it. He couldn’t find any fresh scratches or gouges despite the equipment that had been used; the damage inflicted on its surface was old. The surface of the pyramid was mottled but that appeared to be a function of design. Echohawk stood and made his way from the pit. This was an unbelievable find and so far the information didn’t make sense to him at all.

♦♦♦

LINX TO: Laura Echohawk

FROM: Mark Echohawk

SUBJECT: Laguna Dig

Dear Laura,

I got your last linx yesterday. I’m glad you like the book; finding a tome on abstract art of the 1980s was difficult. I think you’re one of the few people who actually likes work from that era. I hope the book helps you with your current project. It was also good to hear that you and your room mate managed to work things out; Allison’s a great girl and it would have been a shame if your friendship ended over something as trivial as housework division.

I have news of my own: I have returned to the field! If you can believe it, I finally got a field project interesting enough to pull me out of the classroom: Early last week shortly after I linxed you my last letter the World Aboriginal Anthropological Society contacted me regarding a discovery made in New Mexico on land belonging to the Laguna Band. The Laguna discovered the tip of a golden pyramid buried beneath the desert.

Three things about this discovery have piqued my interest: First, it was previously assumed that the pyramid-building Aboriginal societies hadn’t established themselves any further north than the Mexican Peninsula. Second, the Laguna Pyramid has more in common in design with Egyptian pyramids than it does to its South American cousins: it is flat, not stepped, and covered in gold or some sort of gold alloy and has a pointed peak and smooth sides, as opposed to the plateaued summit and staggered sides of most South American pyramids. Lastly, that the Laguna Pyramid is buried is significant, because the land around Laguna has been unchanged by geological event for thousands upon thousands of years. This means that either the Laguna Pyramid is quite ancient or it was meticulously and deliberately buried. I haven’t been this excited about a project since Doctor Aiziz and I discovered the Quipu repository, in Columbia.

I hope this linx finds you well; I look forward to hearing from you soon. Let me know how things go authenticating those works you discovered in the university’s warehouse. We’ll go out for coffee as soon as I get back to LA.

All my love,

Dad

♦♦♦

Peter Paulson had arrived and gotten his people parked and unpacking. They parked just inside an area marked off earlier by James using orange “CAUTION” tape and aluminum poles. A small army of assistants, graduate students and general help, began unloading crates of equipment and setting up tent-like portable shelters to be used as living quarters and a mobile lab building made from corrugated aluminum sheets and a titanium frame. By the middle of the afternoon Mark Echohawk’s archaeological team had set up their entire base of operations and James and Peter had drilled out their first core samples.

“James!” Peter called, stepping inside the lab. “What have we got going?” James turned his chair away from the workstation and shook Peter’s hand.

“‘Sup, Pete?” he asked, “What we’ve got going is the end-stage analysis of the core samples. Printout?”

James handed a sheaf of paper to Peter.

“This is interesting,” Peter said, reading the report, “It says here there’s a high concentration of iridium in the soil around the structure.”