Oracle (6 page)

Jade grinned.
“Now I remember why I liked having you around. Gentlemen, let’s go find our planet.”

They spread out in a picket line and began walking, continuing in a clockwise direction. They found the next sphere, a blue green orb similar to the Venus stone and just a little bigger, in the three o
’clock position. Jade had just reached it when Professor pointed to something about thirty feet farther along. “Jade, is that what I think it is?”

She followed the beam of his headlamp and spied what looked like a heap of rags.
“Depends. Do you think it’s a body?”

He nodded sagely.

“Let’s have a look.” Finding the mummified remains of one of the ancient inhabitants of the city, while not completely unexpected, was nevertheless a major coup. “Odd that they would just leave him lying out in the middle of…well, space. Do you think maybe he was the last priest left down here?”

“
Sorry to disappoint you,” Professor said, kneeling down beside the desiccated corpse, “but it looks like this fellow is a more recent addition.”

Jade couldn
’t believe her eyes. Although it was impossible to draw any conclusions about the ethnicity of the man from the dark leathery skin drawn pulled tight across his skull, his clothing was most certainly not of a style worn by the original people of Teotihuacan or  anyone else who would have been alive when the Pyramid of the Sun was being built.

Professor reached into the folds of the man
’s doublet and withdrew a leather bound book. He opened it and confirmed what Jade already suspected. “It’s in Spanish. This guy’s handwriting is almost illegible, but there’s a date: October 23, 1593.” He looked up. “Sorry to break it to you, but it looks like we’re not the first to discover this cavern.”

Jade quickly overcame her dismay. This wasn
’t the first time she’d ‘discovered’ a looted site, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. That was one of the endemic hazards of archaeology. “Well he didn’t come in the same way we did. There must be another entrance somewhere.”

“
Jade!” Sanchez called out. He and Dorion were on hands and knees, shining their lights at the underside of the Earth stone. “You have to see this!”

“
I guess it can wait,” she muttered. “Let’s go see what the kids are so excited about.”

Professor chuckled and tucked the book under one arm.

When she reached the blue sphere, she knelt down to see what had so arrested the attention of the two scientists. “Well, what have you got for me?”

Sanchez
’s customary enthusiasm seemed amplified by an order of magnitude. “You won’t believe this, Jade. The sphere is moving!”

“
Moving?” She looked at the sphere, but saw no evidence to support the claim.

“
It’s barely perceptible, but watch.” He took a pen from his pocket and held its tip close to a dark spot on the sphere’s surface near what would have been its equator. Jade stared at it intently, and even though she couldn’t see any change in the position of the orb, after a minute or so, the point of the pen was no longer above the spot. “It’s rotating,” Sanchez said, excitedly. “And I’d be willing to bet that its rotational period is exactly twenty-four hours. Jade, this isn’t just a map of the solar system; it’s an orrery! A functioning model that simulates the rotation and orbits of the planets.”

“
That can’t be right. Is there some kind of mechanism underneath this thing?” Jade dropped down to where Dorion was peering at the underside of the sphere.

“
No mechanism,” Dorion replied. “In fact, I don’t think it’s actually making contact with the floor at all.”

She directed her light at the spot where the curve of the sphere met the floor. Dorion was right. The sphere appeared to be
hovering a hair’s breadth above the floor.

Professor just shook his head.
“So much for straightforward archaeology.”

Brian Hodges listened
intently as Jade’s voice issued from the speakers of his laptop. Beside him, Acosta was hanging on her every word.

“
A Spaniard you say? Have you read the journal?”

“
Not yet,” replied Jade’s voice over the radio relay. “We got a little distracted by something else. It seems the ancients built a working model of the solar system down here.”

“
A working model?” echoed Acosta. “What does that mean?”

“
Exactly what it sounds like. There’s an enormous golden sphere to represent the sun, and surrounding it are smaller spheres that represent the planets. We’ve found four of them so far; one for Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. We haven’t looked past Mars yet, but I’m betting we’ll find Jupiter and Saturn as well. But here’s the really weird part. The spheres are actually rotating and orbiting the sun just like the actual planets.”

Hodges felt a dry lump rise form in his throat. This was exactly the kind of thing he
’d been worried about.

“
We didn’t notice the movement in Mercury and Venus,” said Pete Chapman’s voice, “because they rotate so slowly. In fact, Mercury’s day is longer than its orbital year. But we’ve confirmed that the spheres for both Earth and Mars are rotating at a rate that corresponds exactly to the rotation of the actual planets.”

“
This is amazing,” Acosta exclaimed.

“
From what I can tell,” Chapman continued, “the present arrangement of these four spheres corresponds exactly to the position of the planets in the sky. I’m not sure what makes this thing tick, but it’s pretty uncanny.”

Acosta nodded vigorously, evidently forgetting that the people on the other end of the line couldn
’t see him. “I need to see it for myself.” He turned to Hodges. “Can you help me get down? I’ve never done that sort of thing before.”

Hodges managed an eager smile to hide his growing sense of alarm.
“Sure thing. The more the merrier.”

Jade leaned close
to watch as Professor slipped the long blade of his knife into the gap between the bottom of what she was now calling the “Earth stone” and the floor of the cavern.

“
Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“
No,” he admitted. “So maybe you should take a step back.”

She frowned but did not retreat. He edged the blade in slowly, as if probing a landmine,
then with just as much caution, drew it back out.

“
Well,” he said, “there’s no magnetic field. And the sphere is definitely not making contact with the ground. I’m stumped.”

Dorion cleared his throat.
“I may have an idea about what’s at work here.”

Jade faced him.
“We’re all ears.”

Dorion took a breath as if gathering his courage.
“Are you familiar with dark matter?”

Professor stood.
“It’s a theoretical substance thought to account for more than eighty percent of the total mass of the universe.”

Dorion nodded.
“Dark matter particles have no electrical charge and are therefore completely undetectable.”

“
If they exist at all,” countered Professor. He turned to Jade. “The dark matter hypothesis was formulated to account for the fact that the universe doesn’t seem to behave the way it should, mathematically speaking. But there’s a growing belief that maybe the problem lies with the math or with our fundamental understanding of the laws of physics.”

“
Back up,” Jade said, turning to Dorion. “How would dark matter explain this?”

“
Everything we can see and touch, or measure with our instruments, relies upon the interaction of positive and negatively charged particles. All matter—light matter, if you will—is made up protons and electrons, which create atoms. Of course, many atoms also contain neutrons, which have mass but no electrical charge, but are nevertheless bonded by atomic force and surrounded by an electron shell. We are able to see matter because light energy bounces off the electron shell of these atoms. And we are able to touch and interact with matter because the electron shells of the atoms in a given object and the electron shell in the atoms in our bodies oppose each other, as negatively charged particles will do.”

“
Negative charges repel each other the same way that the poles of a magnet will,” added Professor. “But were talking imperceptible distances, measured on a subatomic scale. The distance between opposing electron shells is less than the thickness of an atom. It’s certainly not enough to levitate an object.”

“
That’s not what I’m suggesting,” countered Dorion. “Rather, I believe there may be a field of dark matter particles surrounding these spheres, acting as a cushion between the electrons. These particles are known as Weakly Interactive Massive Particles—”

“
Wimps?” said Jade with a chuckle.

Dorion smiled.
“Physicists have a unique sense of humor. Yes, these WIMPs have mass and gravity but are not affected by electro-magnetic radiation or by nuclear force. Gravity may hold them together, but we would not be able to see or feel them.

“
Think of them as the packing material of the universe. If you have a box filled with foam pellets and you place something heavy inside, some of the pellets will be displaced, but not all.”

“
You said these WIMPs don’t have a charge. Wouldn’t they pass right through the atoms?”

Professor nodded, evidently impressed by Jade
’s quick grasp of the concept and the flaw in Dorion’s hypothesis.

“
They should,” admitted the physicist. “We know very little about the behavior of these particles. As I said, it’s only an idea.”

Jade turned back to the Earth stone.
“Let’s say for argument’s sake that’s what’s going on here. Is it dangerous?”

“No more so than the cosmic rays that constantly bombard us from outer space.”

Dorion
’s slight hesitation before answering was just enough to make Jade wonder what he wasn’t telling her, but Professor nodded. “If they exist,” he repeated.

Jade considered the hypothesis.
“You say that we can’t interact with the WIMPs at all. How did the ancients manage to do it? How did they make all of this?”

Dorion shrugged.
“They may not have understood what they were observing. It must have seemed like magic to them.”

Professor playfully elbowed Jade.

“It would not be the first time an ancient civilization made use of physical forces beyond their comprehension,” interjected Sanchez. “But let’s not overlook the fact that this is an astonishing model of the heavens. It reveals an unprecedented knowledge of the astronomy.”

“
Speaking of which,” Jade said. “Have you noticed that something is missing?”

“
We haven’t finished exploring the cavern yet. I’m sure we’ll find more planets as we move out.”

“
I’m not talking about the planets. Where’s the moon?”

The other men stared at her, dumbfounded and slightly embarrassed at having missed something so obvious.

“The moon was almost as important to the ancients as the sun. It was their clock for measuring the seasons. Are we supposed to believe they just forgot to include it in this map?”

“
Perhaps they weren’t able to make a functional Moon stone,” suggested Dorion.

Jade thought even he sounded doubtful, but given the astonishing properties of the model, it was a possibility that couldn
’t be ignored.

“
Maybe someone took it,” suggested Professor, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the mummified remains of the Spaniard.

“
Why take the moon and leave behind the golden sun?”

“
I can think of tons of reasons, literally.”

“
It’s a big ball,” said Jade. “They could have just rolled it to the door.”

“
Maybe it wouldn’t fit.” Professor looked down at the Earth stone. “Maybe it’s not as easy to move these things as it looks. Maybe the WIMPs or whatever makes the solar system model work is also holding them in place.”

“
Now there’s a hypothesis we can actually test.” Jade took a step forward and placed her palms against the exterior of the sphere. She thought she felt a slight tingling through the padding of her gloves, but chalked it up to her imagination.

“
Jade, are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“
No,” she replied grinning. “So maybe you should—”

Darkness swept over her so quickly she didn
’t even have time to cry out.

Professor rushed forward
and caught Jade before she could fall. He braced himself for a hit of whatever had knocked her out, but nothing happened. He pulled her back several paces before easing her unresponsive form to the ground and checking for a pulse.

“
She will be all right,” Dorion stated, confidently. “The effect will last only a few seconds at most.”

“
Effect?” snarled Professor. “Are you saying you know what this is? You said it was harmless.”

“
It is,” Dorion insisted. “She has not been…harmed.”

There
’s that pause again,
thought Professor.
This guy knows more than he’s telling.

Jade
’s pulse and breathing were strong, and there was no sign of injury. To all appearances, it was a simple fainting spell, but what had caused it?

Professor took the radio from his belt.
“Brian do you copy?”

There was a long silence—
too long
, Professor thought,
but maybe that’s just because I’m worried
—then his partner’s voice came back. “Copy, Pete. I was just helping Dr. Acosta with the rappel. He should be heading your way in just a few.”

“
Acosta…? Jade just collapsed. We need to evac her and shut this place down.”

“
Shut it down? Pete, what’s going on down there?”

Professor bit back an irritated retort. In Hodges
’ place, he would have been curious, too. “Something happened when she touched one of these spheres. I don’t think she’s injured, but until we know more about what we’re dealing with, I don’t want anyone getting close to these things.”

“
What
are
we dealing with?”

Professor heard the unasked question. While Hodges had not been involved with the Myrmidons during the Atlantis crisis, he had been fully briefed on the strange Atlantean
technology the Dominion had used to destroy Key West and Norfolk and he knew that there were probably even stranger things in the world yet to be discovered.

“
I’m not sure, but….yeah, I think this is going to be one for the X-Files. Tell you all about it when I get topside.”

As he signed off, he spied Acosta ambling in their direction, completely unaware of what had just happened and bursting with excitement. Professor turned his attention back to Jade. He considered simply scooping her up in his arms and carrying her back to the center, but decided that would probably be unnecessarily dramatic. If, as Dorion suggested, she had merely fainted, then she w
ould probably wake up shortly.

He grasped her shoulder and gave her a gentle shake.
“Hey, sleepyhead. Wake up.”

Jade
’s eyelids fluttered then opened completely. She stared back at him for a moment and then started as if she had received an electrical shock. She looked around with an almost feral expression.

“
Hey, you’re okay. It’s okay.”

Her eyes continued to dart from face to face for a moment,
then she gave a relieved sigh. “Oh, thank God. It was just a…” She shook her head. “What happened?”

Before Professor could answer her question, Dorion knelt and gra
sped her other shoulder. “Jade, tell me. What did you see?”

“
What did I…?” Her expression darkened. “How did you know?”

“
You saw something happening to us didn’t you? A premonition?”

She shook her head again.
“It was just a dream.”

“
Jade, you must tell me what you saw. It’s important.”

Her gaze flitted from face to face.
“I think we all died.”

Professor stood abruptly.
“That’s it. We’re out of here now. Everybody, head back to the Sun stone.”

For once, Jade did not argue with him or challenge his decision. Nor did any of the others; even Acosta seemed to understand that now was not the time for questions. Professor oriented on the distant golden sphere, faintly glowing with the reflection of Shelob
’s light, and headed out at a brisk pace. Jade, evidently fully recovered, matched him step for step.