Time Trial td-53 Page 6

  "We don't need them."

  Crackpots. Her life was being entrusted to two lame-brains trying to dig her out with their bare hands. Graduate students, probably.

  "Look, don't do me any favors by giving me a swift death. I'll hang on. Go into Progresso and get some pulleys or something. Maybe a crane, if there is one. I'll hang on."

  "I told you, we can get you out," the American said. He sounded annoyed. Well, she had a hell of a lot more to be annoyed about than he did, the punk.

  "And I told you to get some pulleys. Damn it, do this right, you fog-headed baboon."

  "Come, Remo. We will leave this ungrateful wench."

  "No," Dr. Drake gasped. "Don't leave. Please don't leave."

  "Do you promise to be nice?" came the taunting American voice.

  I'll be nice, she thought. Whoever that weirdo named Remo is, he'll see how nice I can be. With a nice kick into his nice nuts. "Just get me out of here," she said levelly.

  Not that they could do it. No machinery, no levers. It was just her luck to be discovered by two macho male chauvinists who thought they could move a mountain of rock unassisted.

  She settled back. Wonderful. This was just great. She couldn't be allowed to die quickly, by the guns the natives carried, oh, no. She couldn't die in the earthquake. The rocks that crushed the maggot-eaten thing on her right had to miss her. She wouldn't die of starvation. No. In the bizarre twists that fate had offered, she would survive all of those things so that she could be murdured by two half-wits trying to rescue her.

  Well, fine. So be it. She was too tired to argue anymore. And the Valium was giving her a little buzz— not much, just enough to take the edge off a violent death. Screw it. She was going to lean back and get some sleep. It would be nice if the end came while she was unconscious. She'd always hoped to die in bed.

  Then, just when things were swirling around her head nicely, the back fell out from behind her. She tumbled backward into fierce light. It took her eyes a few moments to adjust. The air was fragrant, moving. Sounds of wild creatures were everywhere, chirping, croaking, calling. She even thought she could hear the river. And the light, once she got used to it, was not blazing sunlight at all, but the soft, diffused light of the deep jungle. She smiled. Overhead were the fat leaves of eucalyptus trees and jungle rushes and... people. Two faces were staring down at her, one dumb-looking skinny young guy and an Oriental so old, he looked as if he were going to crumble to dust any second. And now a third face entered the strange picture above her, framed against the black foliage and the blue sky: a child. Native, Mayan stock. Huaxtec, probably, judging from his build and facial characteristics. A resident of the Quintano Roo region, most likely.

  "Are you archaeologists?" she asked.

  "We are assassins," the old one said.

  That was it. Even valium wouldn't help now.

  "What'd she start screaming for?" Remo shouted above the woman's wailing.

  "Because she is female," Chiun said.

  "Is she hurt?" Remo quickly pulled her out through the opening, prodding her ribs and limbs. The screaming continued unabated. "Do you think she's in pain?"

  "Who can say?" Chiun said, shrugging. "Women always feel pain, whether it exists or not."

  "Let's get her over here, in the shade." Remo pulled her under a tree. "Now calm down, lady. You're all right."

  Dr. Drake stopped screaming abruptly and looked up at him. "You're going to kill me, I suppose," she said.

  Remo looked over to Chiun, then back at the woman. She was beautiful, lean and tall, with green eyes and blonde hair pulled up into an unkempt knot. It was the kind of thick Nordic hair that, under better circumstances, would be spilling over bare shoulders and onto her firm, big breasts between expensive sheets. A classy woman, lots of style. But nuts.

  "Now, would you mind telling me why I'd go to the trouble of saving your life if I wanted to kill you?" Remo asked, exasperated.

  "He said you were assassins," she said, looking warily at Chiun.

  "That is true," Chiun said. "But it is not the honor of everyone to be assassinated by us. Most are unworthy of our talents. Especially foolish females who want to be rescued by machines."

  She sat up, flushing. "Look, I was only saying—"

  "The next time your life is in danger, we will send you a tractor."

  "You two are impossible," she said hotly. "The fact of the matter is—"

  "She's all right," Remo said.

  "I am talking to you, mister," the woman spat.

  "Remo. The name's Remo. This is Chiun. The kid's name is Po. Now introduce yourself like a civilized person, or we're going to leave you right here."

  Her eyes flashed. Her mouth opened, ready for assault. But Remo had already turned away. "I'm Elizabeth Drake," she said haughtily.

  Remo smiled. "Nice to meet you, Lizzie."

  "It's Elizabeth. You may call me Dr. Drake. I'm an archaeologist."

  "Oh, yeah. I heard the name. You and your buddy were digging around this place."

  "Dr. Diehl?" she asked excitedly. "He's alive?"

  "He's alive. It looks like you two are the only ones who made it out of here." He walked over to the wreckage of the Red Cross helicopter and surveyed the damage. No survivors. None on the ground outside the temple, either. The bodies lying beneath and around the fallen rocks were in an advanced state of decomposition. Some of them still showed evidence of strange wounds, huge holes that seemed to have burned clear through their targets.

  Diehl was right, Remo thought. The weapons were lasers. He had seen that for himself. And they had attacked the Temple of Magic.

  But who had provided the weapons in the first place? It was hard to believe, but somewhere in the middle of one of the most dense, primitive jungles on earth was— had to be— an arsenal of weapons more advanced than any produced by the United States. Advanced, and yet as fragile as spun glass.

  Except for the wounds on some of the dead, there was no indication that the group had been attacked by any civilized agents of war. Maybe he would have more luck inside. He began to work at the rocks blocking the entrance. Most of the work had already been done while he and Chiun were seeking a way to the barracuda who permitted herself to be called Dr. Drake.

  The inside of the temple was cool and dry in contrast to the sweltering humidity outside. Good, he thought as he dragged the lifeless bodies out into the open. He wasn't looking forward to the prospect of shoveling rotting flesh. These bodies carried the same wounds— gaping, penetrating, inflicted by laser weapons. Except for the archaeologists Elizabeth Drake had identified, they were all Indians, either from the dig's crew or the Lost Tribes. No Russians here.

  Remo searched the interior of the temple. What was he looking for? Other weapons, maybe? A scrap of paper, a piece of fabric... anything that would tie the laser attack to someone other than the spear-carrying natives.

  But there was nothing. Scattered among the debris on the floor were a few urns and pots. He picked one up and upturned it. Nothing but a fine fall of limestone came out. He tossed it into a corner.

  "What are you doing?" Lizzie shrieked. She picked up the pot and cradled it in her arms like a baby. "Don't you know how valuable these things are? It's remarkable that they've even survived the earthquake." She snatched a piece of broken pottery from Remo's hands. "Don't touch these, you monster," she whispered hoarsely.

  "It's only a broken piece of clay," Remo explained.

  "For your information, this broken piece of clay is more than five thousand years old." She thrust it under Chiun's nose.

  "I do not care for modern art," the old man said blandly.

  Remo could see the cords standing up around the archaeologist's neck. "Loosen up, Lizzie," he said gently.

  "Don't condescend to me!" she stormed.

  "Okay, okay. I'm sorry about the pot. It just looked like a pot to me. It didn't look important."

  "Not important?" she asked incredulously. She closed her eyes in mock despair.
"Look. Maybe I ought to explain something. The branch of archaeology I specialize in is ancient Mayan civilization. I've been studying it for sixteen years, teaching, reading, writing about it. I've spent most of my adult life in this part of the world, where the Mayans originated. And yet I know next to nothing about them. No one does. The ancient Maya are a mystery that's baffled scholars for centuries. All we know about them is what we've been able to piece together from carved stones and ruins of buildings and broken pots, like the one you didn't think was important."

  "I get the picture," Remo said wearily. He was tired of being lectured to, especially by someone whose life he just saved.

  "No you don't," she persisted. "That's what I'm trying to explain to you. The Mayan civilization leaped, historically speaking, in a single, unexplained bound, from a primitive agrarian society to a complex system of cities that fostered art, sculpture, higher mathematics, advanced astronomy, a 360-day calendar, a complex writing system, and the concept of zero. In other words, they went from root farmers to scientific wizards almost instantaneously."

  "What do you guys call instantaneous? A thousand years?"

  "Try one day," Lizzie said.

  Even Chiun looked up. "What was the day?" he asked.

  Remo smiled. "She didn't mean one particular day, Chiun."

  "Oh, yes I did," Lizzie said. "The day was August 11, 3114 B. C."

  "How do you know that?"

  "The date is written in nearly every major piece of Mayan writing discovered. That one date. It's in tombs, on walls, on the stelae monuments the Mayans cut from stone to record other events— everything. It's the beginning of time as the Mava knew it."

  She ran her finger along the rim of the pot in her hand. "Something happened on that date fifty centuries ago," she said, almost to herself. "Something so monumental that it catapulted the Maya from the stone age into the future."

  "Doesn't it say in these writings you've found?" Remo asked.

  "No. It's always used as a reference, the way we use A. D. and B. C. Apparently what happened was so important that future generations just assumed everyone knew what the landmark event was. The earliest known Mayan structure ever uncovered was a ceremonial center at Cuello in northern Belize, dating to 2500 B. C. But that was just an empty room with a stone altar. Buildings don't keep well in this climate. Anyway, that's still more than 600 years after the magic date of 3114, B. C."

  "So you still don't know anything," Remo said.

  "That's just it. We might have the answer right here. The first team of archaeologists to explore this temple found evidence dating it to 3,000 B. C. or earlier."

  She paused, searching Remo's eyes for recognition, then gave up in an impatient sigh. "Don't you see? The Temple of Magic is the most ancient Mayan site ever discovered. Right here in these walls may be the answer to a riddle that's thousands of years old. What happened?"

  The boy watched her. Then suddenly he spoke. "It was Kukulcan," he said.

  She turned to him. "What?"

  "My father told me in the Old Tongue," he said meekly. "In the legends, the white god Kukulcan came to earth in a flaming chariot to build the world."

  "Utter rot," Lizzie said. "A useless folk tale."

  The boy shrank back. "Take it easy," Remo said. "He's just a kid."

  "I am a scientist," Lizzie said, "not a mother telling bedtime stories. Those so-called harmless legends can lead to seriously erroneous thought that hinders the way of real progress. That particular story about Kukulcan, for example, has spurred hundreds of normally sane people to believe that the Mayans were given their knowledge by invading spacemen. Spacemen! Have you ever heard of such lunacy?"

  Remo shrugged, trying to keep his patience. People who'd lived through an ordeal like Lizzie Drake's entombment in the fallen temple were entitled to a little crabbiness when the crisis passed, but she was beginning to get on his nerves, beautiful chest or not. "Let's change the subject," he said pleasantly. "Seen any good movies lately?"

  The archaelogist reddened. "Whose idea was it anyway to send you down here instead of a decently educated team?" she said through clenched teeth. "The nerve. The greatest archaeological find in history, and I've got nobody except an ignorant child, the oldest man in the world, and a buffoon in a T-shirt!"

  "Look, lady. For what it's worth, this buffoon just saved your life. Which, from what I can see of your sparkling personality and charm, wasn't worth a fart in a bottle to begin with."

  She rolled her eyes and made disdaining clucking noises with her mouth.

  "If you weren't a woman, I'd smack you," Remo said, realizing that he was shouting, but not caring.

  "Go ahead," Lizzie shrilled. "Prove what a male chauvinist hotshot you are. You men, with your little peckers, your little fists—"

  "Your little red ass," Remo muttered, walking toward her. She screamed.

  "Stop, stop," Chiun said, clapping his hands over his ears. "This bickering is unbearable for one of my years. Shouting. Arguments. There can be no serenity where there is discord such as this. I must have tranquility in the twilight of my life." He smiled sweetly to Lizzie.

  "Then go back to the old folks' home where you belong," she yelled.

  Chiun's jaw clamped shut. "Remo, this woman," he whispered.

  "Yeah, I know. She brings out the best in a guy, doesn't she?"

  "Remo! Chiun!" Po shouted from the far corner of the temple. The corner was piled high with fallen rock. The boy's head peered out from an opening between them. "Come here. Look."

  "This is no place for children's games," Lizzie said, passing Remo en route to the boy. "He might damage something. It's bad enough to have two grown-up fools in here, but a child..."

  Remo followed her, step for step, speaking directly into her ear. "I've had just about all the lipping off I'm going to hear out of you," he began. "I know how to shut you up." He reached a hand toward her throat, then noticed that Chiun had disappeared between the rocks. Po waited at the entrance, beckoning. He entered into a narrow passageway between the rocks when Remo arrived.

  "What is it?" Remo asked.

  "This way," Chiun's voice echoed from within the rubble.

  The passageway through the rocks was low. Remo got on his hands and knees and felt his way through the darkness.

  "I'm not going in there," Lizzie called from outside the tunnel of fallen rock.

  "Good," Remo said.

  "But I'm alone out here," she shouted. "What if those maniacs with the guns come back?"

  "Maybe they'll shoot you," Remo said. "Death is just another way to get peace and quiet."

  His heart sank as he heard the scuffle of hands and feet behind him. "Watch. Now we'll all be trapped," Lizzie complained, her voice echoing around him like a bad odor. "Some rescuers."

  "Here it is," Po said in the darkness.

  Chiun answered, "Ah, yes."

  Remo's eyes adjusted automatically to the darkness in the tunnel. At the end, he saw Chiun and the boy standing in front of what looked like a refrigerator.

  "What's this?" he asked, touching its surface as he rose to full height. It cracked beneath his fingers.

  The object was oval, about five feet high, and metal. Metal that crushed on contact. On its left side was a handle of some kind. "I think it's a door," Remo said. He reached for the handle, then jumped back in surprise when it was suddenly bathed in a circle of light.

  The light jiggled. Remo whirled around.

  "Flashlight," Lizzie said. "Naturally, I'm the only one who remembered to bring one."

  "You are the only one with eyes so weak as to need one," Chiun said. He brushed Remo's hands away and opened the metal door. Remo, Lizzie, and the boy followed him into the chamber beyond.

  Inside, the flashlight's bobbing circle illuminated a strange sight. It was an aisle, made of linoleum, it seemed, only glossier, sturdier. The ceiling of the structure was rounded, as if they were standing in a long tube, and made of the same material. Everything looked crisp and ne
w except for the sides of the structure. Along the walls, for some reason not apparent to any of them, hung ghostly gray layers of thick, rotting cloth, as fragile as cobwebs.

  Remo squeezed past Lizzie back to the oval door and pushed on its rim with the heel of his hand. It disintegrated under the moderate pressure. "This is the same metal the laser guns were made of," he said. "But the floor's plastic." He moved to the cobwebby hangings suspended from the ceiling. "And these things..."

  "Don't touch anything!" Lizzie bellowed. "We don't know how old this is."

  "Oh, come on," Remo said. "This metal isn't even rusted."

  "Some of these temples contain tombs that are nearly airtight," Lizzie said huffily. "At Palenque, for example—"

  "It's a plane of some kind," Remo interrupted. "It's got to be. The aisles, the airlock door, the..."

  His eyes automatically followed the light from Lizzie's flashlight. It was quivering on the far end of the tubular structure they were standing in.

  "God, what's that?" Lizzie whispered.

  The light rested on still another door. But this one was round and made of hard white plastic. The surface it rested on was a sphere. A giant plastic ball.

  "Don't tell me that's five thousand years old," Remo said.

  "Oh, God. Not the spaceman theory. It can't be." Lizzie's hands shook as she walked toward the white globe. She opened the door.

  The spheroid interior was heavily and uniformly padded with some kind of springy orange plastic. Six sets of seat belts dangled from the walls as if the pod were a ride at an amusement park, a luxurious, expensive version of the Tilt-A-Whirl.

  Chiun and the boy explored the round, soft chamber as Lizzie fingered the seatbelts. Could this have been the discovery that the first archaeological team had written to the university about— the thing that was so important that they dared not put it down on paper? The thing the naked tribesmen were willing to kill to protect?

  Her mind was racing. She had not seen the vehicle when she first arrived at the Temple of Magic. Apparently a wall had been erected around it. The Mayans did that; it made sense. The temple within the temple.

  "I'm going to take a look at the other end," Remo said.