Читать книгу Polar Quest - Alex Archer - Страница 11

Zach took a long pull on his beer bottle and then slapped it back down on the table. “As I said, I’ve found something.”

Annja sipped her drink. No one was paying attention to them anymore, which made her feel at least somewhat protected from prying eyes. “All right. What did you find?”

Zach put his hands to his neck and reached inside his turtleneck. With a great deal of maneuvering, he managed to slide a necklace over his head. He rested it on the tabletop in front of Annja. “This,” he said simply.

Annja looked at it. It was a simple design of three snakes lying parallel to each other, the curves in their backs suggesting motion. She could see the elaborate work done to denote scales, eyes and parts of forked tongues. She reached for it, but looked at Zach first. “May I?”

“Of course.”

Annja hefted the piece and found it surprisingly heavy. “I thought it looked like a piece of aluminum almost, but it’s far too heavy.”

Zach nodded. “Exactly. And you see how thin it is?”

Annja turned it over. It had the thickness of a soda can. “Incredible. Is it lead or pewter or something?”

“No. We ran it through a battery of tests. We can’t figure out what it is. The metal doesn’t register.”

Annja eyed him. “You’re telling me this has no basis in science?”

“Yes.”

She turned it over in her hands. The metal seemed to catch any available light and change colors as she moved it in her hands. The illusion made her think that the scales on the snakes could actually ripple. “This is incredible,” she whispered.

“I thought you’d say that.”

Dave looked over her shoulder as she studied it. Annja passed it to him. He was as shocked as she had been at its weight. “Wow.”

Annja looked at Zach. “How old is it?”

“That’s the other curious thing.”

Annja leaned forward. “Well?”

“According to the carbon dating we did, it’s over forty thousand years old.”

No one spoke for a moment. Annja was acutely aware of the silence hanging between them all. She heard the clinks of glasses and the low murmurs of conversation at other tables. Even the music that had resumed playing seemed hushed now.

“Forty thousand?”

Zach held up his hand. “I know. It seems crazy.”

“It seems impossible. There’s no way humans could have made this forty thousand years ago. I mean, I’m not a metallurgist, but this is pretty complicated stuff. It would take some seriously skilled people to pull this off given what conditions were like on Earth back then,” Annja said.

Zach didn’t say anything but kept staring at her as if he wanted her to take the next leap on her own. Annja took another sip of her gin and tonic and felt the liquor slide down her throat.

After a moment she set the glass back down. “You’re not, no, there’s absolutely no way…”

Zach’s eyebrows waggled. “Why not?”

Dave handed the necklace back. “Why not what?”

Annja sighed. “Extraterrestrial? You can’t be serious.”

“It’s possible, though, you have to admit,” Zach said, sounding excited.

Annja shook her head. “I’m not admitting anything. You’ve got something curious here, sure, but to think little green men from Mars planted this here is a bit far-fetched, don’t you think?”

Zach frowned. “If you’ve got any better theories, I’d be more than willing to entertain them.”

“I don’t have any theories. I just got off a plane. I can use some good sleep. Maybe a few pleasant dreams. And in the morning, maybe we’ll be able to look at this in a more logical light.”

Dave pointed at the necklace as Zach slid it back on. “Where in the world did you ever find that?”

“I’m on a dig at the base of Horlick Mountain.”

Dave whistled. “You’re out on that one, huh? I heard some whispers that some sort of secret dig site was going on somewhere in the Transantarctic Range, but no one had any idea where it was.”

Zach nodded. “Well, do me a favor and don’t tell anyone now that you know. We don’t need the publicity.”

They took a moment to get their order of wings from the bar. Annja tore into one of them and her mouth watered as the hot sauce hit. She wiped her mouth on a napkin and then glanced around. “Why no publicity? Have there been problems?”

Zach shrugged. “Sort of. Down here, you’ll find a lot of different camps on the whole idea of how Antarctica should be used. The scientists want to study it because it’s a fascinating look back at our own history. We can learn a whole lot from this place. Antarctica used to be warm and lush, connected to Africa, India and Australia through the Gondwana supercontinent. When the continents broke apart, the land started to cool, which is why we don’t have fossil records dating later than twenty-five million years ago.”

“Too cold,” Annja said.

“Exactly. Earlier than that, we’ve got reptiles, plants, all sorts of connections to those continents I just mentioned.”

Dave frowned. “Which is why I’d guess your discovery of this necklace has made such an impact on you, huh? It’s from a time when there was supposed to be nothing much here.”

“Right. Meanwhile, the business folks come down here and see the natural resources this place has—all the coal, copper, chromium—and start seeing dollar signs. If it was up to them, they’d rape this place and leave it for dead.”

Annja sighed. “Wonderful.”

“And then you’ve got the various political machinations at work. No one is supposed to lay claim to any part of this great land, but they do so subtly anyway. Specifically, the U.S. and Russia. They’ve reserved the right to stake claims here. It’s ludicrous.”

“What else?” Annja asked.

Zach sighed. “Then you’ve got the people who have forgotten there’s another world outside this place. They’ve been here far too long. They get snow crazy. Think of themselves as protectors of this frozen paradise. They can be real nuts.”

“Did we just meet a few of them?” she asked.

Zach grinned. “I think they work for another faction.”

“Oh, great.”

“In the meantime,” Dave said, “you’d obviously like to figure out where your necklace came from.”

“You got it, pal. We’ve got a mystery here.”

Annja smiled. “So you called me.”

“I don’t know very many other archaeologists who can drop what they’re doing and fly down here at the last minute.”

“Well, technically, I’m not one of them, either, but your friends in the black suits had a very persuasive way about them.”

“Which brings me to the other part of this whole thing,” Zach said.

“That being?”

Zach leaned closer to her. “The government wants this investigated and kept strictly hush-hush.”

“Why?” Annja asked.

Dave smirked. “Every other country on the planet has basically come out and confirmed that they’ve been buzzed by flying saucers, and our government still tries to con the public with stories about weather balloons.”

Annja frowned. “Well, in some ways, you can’t blame them.”

“Why not?” Zach asked.

“Look at the timing of when we started hearing reports about extraterrestrials—right around the end of World War II. Right after we exploded the first nuclear weapons.”

“You’re saying there’s a connection?”

“I don’t know,” Annja said. “But we’d just finished demolishing Japan and ended the war. Then the Soviet Union entered the Cold War arms race with us, each nation trying to protect itself. And all of a sudden, oh, by the way, there are aliens, too?”

Zach smiled. “I’ve always loved the way you’re able to break everything down to the simplest terms possible.”

“Well, look at it from their perspective. Acknowledging the existence of space invaders would have sent the general public into absolute hysteria. As if it wasn’t bad enough we had to deal with the Soviets, we’ve got flying saucers prowling the skies? And we didn’t have anything technology-wise that could compete with them. The government had to make sure that the public felt we could protect ourselves,” Annja said.

Zach finished the last drops of his beer. “I suppose that makes sense, but I still don’t like the way they’ve continuously lied to us all these years.”

“Agreed, but you can at least appreciate their need to do so,” Annja said.

“I can appreciate it during the 1950s. I can’t understand it now when the Cold War is a thing of the past,” Zach said.

“Old habits die hard,” Dave said. “And some of those guys in the power circles of Washington look older than dinosaurs. Maybe we’ve been infiltrated.”

Annja laughed. “Next time say it without that smile and you might be more convincing.”

Zach patted his chest. “So with all that said, we’ve got ourselves a real interesting conundrum here.”

Annja leaned back. “So you found the necklace and told the government about it?”

“Not quite. I was on a small team at the dig site, and one of the people on the team was a government plant.”

“A plant? Why would they have a plant on a dig site in Antarctica? Last I heard, there were no weapons of mass destruction here,” Annja said.

Zach grinned. “Yeah, well, that was my fault for trusting people I thought were scientists when in fact they were scummy agents with the intelligence community. No sooner had I unearthed the necklace than I had a visit from some people who called themselves concerned representatives.”

“These the same folks who drafted me?” she asked.

“Probably.”

Annja glanced at Dave. “Lovely folks. Truly. Real warm-hearted souls.”

Dave smirked. “I’ll bet.”

“So they told you what?” Annja asked.

“That I had to figure it out. That I had to go back on the dig and see if I could unearth anything else. They sent me down some gear for the job and told me I could have a crew of whoever I wanted.”

“Guess that’s where I come in.”

“Yeah.” Zach sighed. “In the meantime, the dig site has been declared an environmental emergency.”

“What?”

“It’s how they’re containing it. They’ve claimed we spilled some sort of chemical compound there that they’re cleaning up. No one buys it, of course, but it gives the U.S. the right to put security people in place so they can control access.”

“Good grief, this is starting to sound like something out of a science fiction movie.” Annja craned her neck, trying to relieve some of the tension she felt starting to creep in.

“It’s getting out of hand,” Zach said. “I figured the least I could do was bring in some people I actually trust, so I don’t have to work exclusively with professional liars.”

Annja nudged Dave. “I take it you’re on the team?”

“Yep. Just the rocks, ma’am.”

Zach looked at Annja. “So what do you say? Are you in?”

“Could I ever get out?” Annja smiled. “I’m basically stranded here now, anyway. I guess my choices are pretty limited. Besides, I’m more than a little intrigued by what you’ve told me so far. I’d like to check it out.”

Zach clapped his hands. “Awesome. Thanks, Annja. I really owe you for this.”

“Oh, I’ll collect. And I’m sure you’ll regret it later, but what the hell. When do we leave for the dig site?”

“Tomorrow morning. First thing,” Zach said.

“Dawn?”

Zach shrugged. “You can call it dawn, but it won’t be very light out when we leave. We’re entering the dark times around these parts. Sunlight won’t be a frequent visitor for a number of months.”

“Okay, so I’ll see you at what time?”

Zach checked his watch. “We leave at four o’clock.”

“Ouch.” Annja finished her drink and stood up. “That barely leaves enough time for a decent sleep.” She smirked. “But that’s cool. I’m going back to my luxurious digs now and taking a nice hot shower.”

“You mean a lukewarm bath,” Dave said. “Uses less hot water, which, as you might have guessed, is a bit of a premium in these parts.”

“Bath, then.” Annja smiled. “I’ll see you gents in the morning.”

“Wait,” Dave said. “Don’t you want a lift?”

Annja shrugged. “Back that way two blocks and up one on Main Street, right?”

“Yeah, but it’s probably twenty below out there,” he said.

“I can use the fresh air,” Annja said. “But thanks anyway.”

“Annja, your skin can freeze inside of two minutes if it’s exposed to the frigid air,” Zach said.

“Well, I guess I’ll have to make sure I don’t expose myself on the way back to my room. Good night.” She walked back to the front door of the bar, slid into her parka and zipped up. In another moment, she eased out into the dark cold.