CHECK COMING.

>UNA0C: ALL STATIONS ON LINE- WAITING.

TO RECEIVE DOWNLINK.

>JPL: SUPERSEDING VIKING LINK TO ALL.

STATIONS.

>VIKING: IMAGING SYSTEMS ALL GREEN.

"You ever wonder why NASA never checked out Cydonia before," Turcotte asked Duncan, "if they could move Viking so easily over it?"

"I looked into that," she replied. "From what I've found out, there wasn't that much fuel to move it around. I think this shift has burned all they have left. They used up the fuel that would have kept its...o...b..t from decaying for a few more years."

"Going over the same route, year after year?" Turcotte asked. "Maybe Majestic- 12 had something to do with that," he suggested. "Maybe they knew more than they let on."

"That's very possible," Duncan said. "But we're looking now."156.>VIKING: ORBIT ESTABLISHED AT DESIGNATED COORDINATES.

There was a pause.

>VIKING: ALL SYSTEMS ON. INITIATING IMAGING.

The screen cleared and then both Duncan and Turcotte leaned closer as the Face on the surface of Mars came into view, the image twice as large as the one they had seen from Surveyor.

"Jesus," Turcotte muttered. "How could they say that's a natural formation?"

There was no mistaking the image.

"Look at the ears," Nabinger said. "The lobes are long, just like the megaliths on Easter Island."

"Well, at least we know what they look like," Duncan said.

"There." Turcotte put his finger on a rectangular object on the screen.

"That's the Fort."

"What's that in the center of the panels?" Lisa Duncan asked.

"I can't quite make it out yet," Turcotte said.

>VIKING: SCANNING IN.

The image began to get larger when suddenly there was a bright light in the center of the solar panels. The light grew larger. At first Turcotte a.s.sumed it was consuming the panels, but then he realized it was getting larger because it was coming toward the camera.

The light expanded until it was the entire image, then suddenly there was nothing but static running across the screen, like the beginning of The Twilight Zone.157.

>JPL: LINK IS DOWN.

>JPL: LINK IS DOWN.

>JPL:ATTEMPTING TO REGAIN LINK.

>JPL: LINK IS DOWN.

>JPL: ATTEMPTING TO REGAIN LINK.

>JPL: LINK CANNOT BE REESTABLISHED.

ZERO CONTACT WITH VIKING.

"It's gone," Turcotte said.

"This wasn't being fed live to the media?" Lisa Duncan asked.

"No, ma'am, NASA was letting it out on a five-minute delay." Wheeler shut off her computer.

"So what do you think happened?" Turcotte asked the others, but there was no reply.

As they headed back to the front of the plane, Nabinger stopped at one of the computer stations. He rejoined them in a few minutes with information. "Cing Ho was a Chinese admiral in 656 B.C. He was commissioned by the emperor to lead an expedition to the Mideast. They traveled into the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf. According to historians, the expedition mysteriously turned back and the Chinese never again mounted any sort of naval exploration."

"So Cing Ho carried the ruby sphere to the Rift Valley, then went home" was Turcotte's take on that information.

"Looks like it."

"I wonder why," Duncan said. "This was thousands of years after the rebellion among the Airlia was supposedly over. What happened in 656 B.C. to make the Chinese undertake such an expedition?"

"Hopefully we'll find out in the tomb," Turcotte158.said. "And after what just happened to Viking, I think it's all the more important we do this."

At JPL they were focused on Viking and asking the same questions everyone else was about what had happened to it. Larry Kincaid knew the answer to the what: Viking II was gone. The how and why were two other questions altogether, with the latter predicated upon there being a deliberate act involved in the former.

He had watched the backup view from the IMS and seen the bolt of light come off the surface of Mars and envelop Viking. When the light was gone, there simply wasn't anything there, as far as the IMS could see.

He sat in the back of the conference room as the JPL bigwigs were still working over what had happened. The most immediate problem was what to do with the tape of the incident. It had not been made public yet, and the networks were screaming b.l.o.o.d.y murder as they'd had to extend their programming preempt waiting for the first pictures of the Airlia Cydonia compound from Viking II. So far the only decision made had been to hold the tape and issue a statement saying there had been equipment malfunction and that they would have to wait until Viking II completed another orbit and was over the site again in three hours. The networks weren't happy with that, but at least they could put their shows back on.

It took the top JPL people another fifteen minutes of arguing before they did what they usually did and turned to Kincaid. He'd spent that time159.

pondering the other aspects of the incident that preyed upon his mind.

"Viking II is gone, gentlemen," Kincaid said when finally asked. "Whether it has suffered a severe malfunction or no longer exists doesn't matter, as we have lost all telemetry with the probe. Even if it is still up there in orbit and does go over Cydonia, it won't do us any good.

"Our instruments from Earth and in s.p.a.ce, including the Surveyor IMS, recorded a bright flash of light from the center of the solar panel array at Cydonia just as Viking pa.s.sed overhead."

"What was the light?" someone asked.

"I don't know," Kincaid said.

"Your best guess?" the head of JPL asked.

"My best guess is that it was some sort of power discharge," Kincaid said.

"The key question is whether it was incidental or intentional."

The JPL head frowned. "What?"

"It could have just been a release of excess energy from the panel's processor, which logically would be in the center of the array. Such a burst would be like that which comes off the sun occasionally, although on a much smaller scale. The electromagnetic pulse would have been more than enough to fry every circuit on Viking. If it was a very strong pulse, then it could have physically destroyed the probe. If this is the case, then it was simply bad luck that Viking was pa.s.sing overhead when that occurred."

"And if it wasn't?" a new voice asked from Kincaid's right. He turned. A man with white hair stood there. His face was unlined, making his age indeterminate.

He wore sungla.s.ses despite being indoors and he was dressed in black pants, shirt,160.sport coat with no tie, and the collar b.u.t.toned at his neck. He had an access badge clipped to his coat, the color of which told Kincaid the man had the highest clearance available.

Kincaid chose his words very carefully. "If it wasn't coincidence, then the destruction of Viking was deliberate."

The room burst out in pandemonium at that statement.

"Hold on!" The head of JPL finally got everyone's attention. "Let's not go off half c.o.c.ked here. It was most likely just coincidence. But even if it wasn't- even if it wasn't," he repeated over the low roar that produced, "we have to remember that the message we received from Mars was from a guardian computer, not from Aspasia himself. The message said that Aspasia would be waking up, not that he was already conscious.

"And what does a guardian computer do? It guards. Perhaps there was some sort of defensive system that was brought automatically on-line when the pyramid opened and the solar panels were exposed? And what if Viking flying overhead triggered that system? I do not believe this was a deliberate act, and that is the position I will take with the President.

"As far as the media are concerned, we will continue to tell them we have an equipment malfunction, which is basically the truth. We'll tell them the malfunction was caused by moving Viking's...o...b..t."

Which is a lie, Kincaid thought but he kept his tongue still. He'd worked at JPL too long to say anything out loud. Besides, the strange white-haired man who was standing in the back of the161.

room bothered Kincaid. The man was looking at Kincaid's boss with just the slightest trace of a smile on his pale lips.

"We will also tell the media that the malfunction was so severe," continued the head of JPL, "that we will not be able to receive any incoming transmissions from Viking." The man broke off and looked at Kincaid. "Is there anything we can do?"

"We have Mars Surveyor," Kincaid reluctantly said.

"I thought you had no control over Surveyor."

"We're working the problem," Kincaid said. "As you know, we've been using the IMS as backup to Viking."

"How long until Surveyor achieves stable orbit?"

"It will take us a few days," Kincaid answered. He glanced to his right, feeling the intense pressure of the white-haired man's gaze burning into him.

The man turned and walked out of the room as abruptly as he had come in.

"That is all, gentlemen."

As the other administrative and bureaucratic members of JPL's hierarchy walked out of the room, Kincaid remained seated. He had a feeling the white-haired man might be waiting in the hallway, and Kincaid had no desire to get any closer to the man. Plus he didn't want to run into any of the press, some of whom he pa.s.singly knew, who were also waiting outside, and be forced to lie to them.

So instead, he simply sat there and thought, and the more he thought the unhappier he became.162.

Chapter 15.

The going was very slow, but Che Lu couldn't blame Ki for taking his time. The image of Taizho being cut in half was ingrained on everyone's mind. They had turned left at the four-way intersection. They could have just as easily turned right, but Che Lu had acted on instinct and also the fact that right went deeper into the mountain. If she was hunting for the emperor and empress's tombs, she would have gone that way, but the priority now was to get to daylight.

The tunnel had gone level for almost a quarter mile, as near as she could tell, then it had begun going up and very slowly turning to the right. Che Lu had a feeling they were following the outer contour of the mountain tomb, but at least they were going up. They had encountered no beam like the one that had killed Taizho, nor any holographic alien images.

Ki suddenly stopped, drawing Che Lu out of her thoughts. "What is wrong?" she asked.

"I must rest for a little bit," he said. The stress163.

of being point man in the dark tunnel was getting to him. Che Lu looked over the other students, then took the bamboo pole from Ki's hands. "We will rest," she said. "Then I will lead."

"The word arctic comes from arktos, which is the Greek word for 'bear,'

referring to the northern constellation Ursus Major, the great bear, more commonly known as the Big Dipper." The old man paused, regaining his breath with the aid of an oxygen mask his withered hand pressed down over his face.

Major Quinn kept his face pa.s.sive, not allowing his feelings about Werner Von Seeckt to surface. Quinn knew all about the German from the cla.s.sified files in the Cube and from working with him ever since Quinn had been a.s.signed to MJ-12.

Von Seeckt had been born in southwest Germany in 1918. He'd grown up in the turbulent years after the First World War. Von Seeckt had been studying physics in a university in Munich when the Second World War started and he'd been recruited by the SS to be part of an elite scientific cadre, studying better and more efficient ways to make war and kill people.

Quinn knew that Von Seeckt had been working at the rocket base in Peenemunde when he'd been recruited to go on a special mission to Egypt: the mission that had uncovered the Airlia atomic weapon under the Great Pyramid. Unfortunately for Von Seeckt, but fortunately for the Allies, Von Seeckt and the bomb had been captured by a British patrol. The scientist and his strange box had made their way to America and fallen under the164.

jurisdiction of a cla.s.sified program called Operation Paperclip.

Quinn also knew much about Paperclip; it was a program set up by the U.S.

Government to bring what were considered valuable Axis scientists to the United States to "give" their expertise to America. The program was illegal, but that didn't bother those who implemented it. In this manner rocket scientists from the Third Reich, chemical and biological experts, including some of the men who invented the gases used in the concentration camps, all were given safe pa.s.sage to the United States and spent the rest of their years working for that government.

But Quinn knew Von Seeckt had been one of the very first brought in under Paperclip, captured while the war was still going strong. When the casing surrounding the atomic weapon had finally been breached, Von Seeckt had been a.s.signed to work with the Manhattan Project, which was given a large boost by being able to examine the Airlia bomb. He was then a.s.signed to the newly formed Majestic-12 and had been with it ever since. Quinn knew Von Seeckt should be in Washington with the other surviving members of MJ-12, standing trial, but in the last few weeks Von Seeckt's physical condition had weakened to the point where his permanent residence was the intensive care ward at Nellis Air Force Base. On the old man's side there was also the fact that Von Seeckt had aided Lisa Duncan and those with her in thwarting General Gullick.

The reason Quinn was here was because he knew that some of the bouncers had been found in the fifties in Antarctica and he also knew that165.

Von Seeckt had actually been there for the recovery. When Quinn had asked the scientist about Antarctica, the old man had launched into his etymological explanation of how the continent got its name. Quinn patiently waited, letting Von Seeckt work his way into useful information.

Von Seeckt pushed aside the oxygen mask. "On Earth, the region surrounding the north pole is called the arctic region on all maps. When the prefix ant, meaning 'opposite' or 'balance,' is added to arctic, the word becomes Antarctica, which means 'opposite the arctic,' or literally 'opposite the bear.'"

Von Seeckt closed his eyes in thought. "I have studied this subject at great length. After all, I traveled there in the search for the bouncers. Even more than the wilds of the Nevada desert and the remoteness of Easter Island, Antarctica is isolated from the visitations of humans. No one goes there unless they have a specific purpose, and survival is difficult.

"Based on Airlia information we found in the mothership cavern during World War II, Majestic was the instigating force behind Operation High Jump, which ran from 1946 through 1947, looking for the Airlia artifacts we knew were hidden in Antarctica. We managed to locate the site but it took over eight years, until 1955, before an expedition could be mounted to try and recover the cache.

"That was when we had Operation Deep Freeze mounted. It was led by explorer Admiral Byrd. While the press release touted the eight bases built and the explorations made on the icy continent, a ninth, secret base, code-named Scor-166.

pion Base, was established over the site of the Airlia cache.

"In 1956, after four months of drilling, the men at Scorpion were able to reach the cache buried under a mile and a half of ice. They found a chamber hollowed out of the ice and seven bouncers inside."

Von Seeckt's body twitched under the white sheets. "With the bouncers recovered, Majestic ordered the closure of Scorpion Base and the entire operation was cla.s.sified at the highest levels. I have heard no more of any operations in Antarctica."