Nothing new under the su.., p.3
Nothing New Under the Sun, page 3
Later, with a mug of espresso in hand, they retired to the library where Will brought up the images of the hummingbird on the computer screen. “These photos are remarkable.”
Since Will had devoted himself to studying the archeology of the unexplained, he’d assembled one of the best personal libraries in the world on the subject. Although the Internet made private libraries less important for research, he still had many books and manuscripts not found anywhere else, spending large sums of money to have them authenticated. He was fooled once and only once when someone sold him a fake papyrus that showed the journey of an Egyptian Pharaoh of the New Kingdom to North America. It never happened again. Since then he had several experts on retainer to authenticate any book or document of interest to him.
“You think this might come from the Lost Garden of Gold?” His grandfather asked while scrolling through the pictures.
“I’d have to know more about its origins. There was nothing on the packaging other than a postage stamp from Peru. It could have come from anywhere in that country. Tracing it back would be almost impossible. Someone didn’t want me to know where it was shipped from.”
“I tell you, if this is a fake, it’s the best one I’ve ever seen. Look at that one; you can even see the cut marks on those feathers.” Will scratched his gray beard and looked at the pictures some more. “Think this might be an Oopart? Even if it’s only a few hundred years old, you still have an important find.”
“Grandfather,” Carter smiled, “I know you keep trying to find Atlantis and the Seven Cities of Gold, but really, most of those things have reasonable explanations. I’m just as interested in lost civilizations as you are, but in my position, I need hard physical evidence. I respect all the work you did at Skara Brae, but I need more verifiable evidence than you do to keep me out of trouble in the scientific community.”
“If anyone ever uncovers it,” Will continued while looking at the pictures, “It will be you.” He turned off the slide show.
“So, pray tell, you did lock this hummingbird up before you left?” Will looked at him with raised eyebrows, “I’d hate it to turn into another Thunderbird photograph.” He referred to the famous cryptozoology photograph of cowboys holding up a dead flying dinosaur from the 19th century. Many people claimed to have seen it or a reprint in the 1960’s, but the photograph was never found.
“It’s in a safe in the security department,” Carter told him. “The security people don’t even know what’s in the box. I told them I had an artifact I suspected of being coated with gilded mercury. They were told it might be toxic if it was, so no one will go near it.”
“It’s not good to tell lies, son,” his grandfather smirked, “but if it keeps the hummingbird safe, maybe, this time, the end justifies the means. So, do you want to go see Ahote and Bly? They’ve been asking about you.”
The electric cart swiftly took them to Ahote and Bly’s cabin at the edge of the estate. Ahote had a horse barn behind his cabin where he kept the animals; a few of them belonged to Will and Carter.
Ahote and Bly were out on the steps to greet them as they pulled up to the front of their beautiful cabin built out of local wood. Ahote strode out and embraced him.
“Welcome back, Dr. Gates!” he shouted while patting Carter on the back. ‘Dr. Gates’ was the nickname Ahote gave him after they’d discovered the Viking gold off the coast of Florida. It referred to the main character Ben Gates from the popular movie series ‘National Treasure’. Ahote swore Carter was born under a lucky star and that everything he did turned into gold. After kissing Bly, they walked into the cabin and sat down to the dinner prepared for them.
They talked for a long time. Naturally, the subject of Ooparts came up right after dinner. Ahote mentioned the Viking ship - it was foremost in his mind as something that wasn’t supposed to be where they found it.
Bly had little interest in archeology or ancient civilizations. She was happy enough to get out of the Louisiana Cajun town where she’d come of age before going to work for Ahote. Bly, a stunning beauty in her young days, hired on as a cook for the crew, but soon ended up taking care of more than just Ahote’s breakfast in the morning. After three months of her careful ministrations, Ahote found out he’d put a bun in the cook’s oven and married Bly two months before baby number one arrived. Numbers two and three arrived three and four years later, but by then they had found the lost Viking ship, and money wasn’t the problem it had been at one time. The kids stayed at boarding schools most of the year and journeyed north to stay at the cabin, where there was plenty of room when school wasn’t in session. Pictures of the family, friends, and Hopi artwork, including an entire display of Kachina dolls, decorated the cabin.
“If anything ever made me wonder about the origins of humanity,” Ahote told them, “it was the Viking ship. Did you ever figure out how it got there?”
“No,” Carter answered. “It never made any sense. Why would a Viking longship be at the bottom of a gulf reef in shallow water when the map I found listed it as a Spanish treasure galleon? No one has figured it out yet.”
“And that’s not all,” Grandfather Will brought up, “there are these spiral metallic gold objects which were discovered in Russia over 20 years ago….” As his grandfather continued talking about his favorite subject, Carter drifted off thinking about the stunning woman he sent flowers to before he left. He prayed she didn’t take it the wrong way. There were stiff rules against any sort of harassment at the University. Nevertheless, the vision of a red hair goddess kept appearing in his mind.
Sabrina, the diver, was not his first sexual encounter. Carter had been all over the world; he cut a fine profile to the women and had his share of dalliances. He knew he was considered a ‘catch’ at the University since his position was secure and his reputation firm. Most of his colleagues knew about the Viking gold discovery but didn’t talk about it. He remained humble with the knowledge that he’d been privileged most of his life. The exception was the loss of his parents, which turned him into an orphan. How many men had been through similar incidents and had no rich relatives to fall back on?
“Will told us you may have a woman in your life?” Bly probed.
Carter, summoned back to Earth, turned to his hostess. “He told you? Gramps is there anyone who doesn’t know by now?”
“Her parents … and most of the people outside your department, with the exception of hers. Son, I’ve seen her photograph. She has a profile and pedigree Hollywood couldn’t dream up. Why she isn’t on the big screen is a loss to humanity.”
Carter shook his head in amazement. He knew Grandfather Will had plenty of connections at the University. He endowed all kinds of funds connected with the college. When gramps made an appearance, he received the red carpet treatment. So it didn’t surprise him he had every man and his dog looking out for his grandson.
Later, when they returned to the cabin, Carter had plenty of time to think. He went through some tai chi poses without the use of the sword, focusing instead on the openhanded techniques he had worked so hard to internalize. As he’d predicted, Master Hong frowned when Carter told him about smashing into the young adjunct instructor at the college.
“She must have been there to balance you out,” he told him in his broken English, referencing the Chinese philosophy of Daoism where all things were kept in harmony.
After the long day, he went to bed and was soon asleep.
***
The next morning Carter took himself off for a trek with his horse. He rode through the forests and mountains of his youth where many times he’d spent days camping out in the wilds, smelling the pine of the trees and rejuvenating.
Will’s orders were; “You’ve been in the city too long for your own good, take a day out and go live a little. I’ll be here when you get back.”
He left, wandering the tracks of the animals, seeking what was hard to find, reaching deeper and deeper into his own being as he trekked further and further afield.
Before long, winter would be upon them, and the ground would be white. Bears would hibernate and wolves with their coats winter white would roam in search of food. For now, autumn hesitated over the land, slowly turning the leaves to yellow, red and gold, reminding him of the days when he’d come here alone.
Once when he’d stayed too long, he had been trapped by a sudden snowstorm and had to wait a day before he could make his way through.
Of course, there was no panic. Will and Ahote taught him everything he knew, and he gleaned even more from his own experiences; it would be a rare moment that Carter might find himself lost or trapped.
From his vantage point where the climb eased out, it was possible to look down on hills that melted into a broad old glacial valley and river.
The water was sparkling in the sunlight as it rippled over rocks. Trees were changing color from dark green to gold, red, and yellow. They swept up and over the ranges like paint pots spilling their colors down the hills.
Far away, he could make out a couple of wolves traveling up and away from the water, maybe having caught the scent of prey.
In the city, time was controlled in regulated segments of breakfast, lunch, and dinner, time to work, and time to go home. Here it was one continuous rhythm measured in sunrises and sunsets, full moons, and distant dark nights scattered with stars.
His mind turned to green eyes and red hair. She was beautiful, and she was haunting him. He’d have to do something about that when he returned.
Chapter 3
The next phase
On the way back from Canada, Carter had a lot of time to think about the conversations he had with his grandfather. The old man had some thought-provoking ideas about human history, this was for certain, and he did have a point - we know a lot less about the history of civilization than anyone is prepared to admit.
There were many of the Oopart discoveries out there that Carter didn’t buy, and were easily explained. Such as the old pictures floating around on the Internet that was supposed to ‘prove’ the possibility of time travel. It showed a woman talking into something, which appeared to be a cell phone, as she strolled down the street in the 1930’s. People claimed it was a cell phone, which wouldn’t be used for another 50 years. Carter wondered where was the transmission tower located if the woman was using a cell phone in the 1930’s. Without physical evidence, what did you have? Nothing but speculation.
However, as a student of archeology, he was well aware of the way knowledge could change over time. Throughout human history, there were periods when knowledge would grow and decline like the ebb and flow of the sea. The knowledge that once existed gets lost in time, sometimes for centuries, even millennia before being rediscovered, and some of it is often lost forever.
Greek fire, an incendiary liquid substance that water could not douse, was used as a weapon during the peak of the Byzantine Empire. By the 10th century, the knowledge of its composition was lost. To this day, no one knows the recipe for Greek fire. It took more than nine centuries, until the 1940’s, before napalm, the closest counterpart of Greek fire, was developed.
More than two millennia ago, the Maya, who closely studied the movement of the planets and the stars, created a calendar so precise it had not lost a single day in over 2,500 years. They calculated the length of the solar year to 365.2422 days; our civilization only recently calculated it as 365.2420 days - almost no difference.
It was with a tinge of sadness that Carter’s thoughts turned to the catastrophic loss of knowledge when the legendary Library of Alexandria in Egypt burned to ashes in about 48 B.C. The library, a massive repository of knowledge reported to have held over a million scrolls, dated back to about 300 B.C. The cause of its destruction remains shrouded in the smoke of history. Some blame Julius Caesar while others assigned blame for its ruin to marauding Arab conquerors. Regardless the culprit, it did not negate the fact that those flames forever destroyed a treasure-trove of knowledge, gathered from across the ages.
Carter found some solace though, in the realization that some knowledge refused to be buried or destroyed, such as those gold spirals found in Russia, the Viking longship off the coast of Florida, and the golden hummingbird from Peru. Enough remained to make him realize that Charles Fort, the great prophet of ‘The Unexplained’ might have been onto something. Every year new finds force the archeological community to rethink its standpoint. Perhaps the scientific world is on the verge of another discovery about the distant past.
He landed the plane at the private airport outside Boston and finished checking in with the flight deck a few minutes later. Customs didn’t give him as much trouble as he feared because the same officer was there to inspect his luggage and plane as the last time. He showed her his passport and continued to the parking lot to his car. A few minutes later Carter was on his way back to Boston and the latest round of college classes he taught.
He thought about his vision in red, Mackenzie Anderson. The roses were sent just before he left so she would have received them the previous Friday, which meant she’d had four days to think about him. Perfect. It was time to move this operation into the next phase.
The following morning, he was in a coffee shop waiting for his friend Pete O’Connor to arrive. He’d known Pete for years. Pete worked for the University in the IT department as the senior network engineer. He’d done a few special favors for Pete in the past, and Pete had done some for him. Sometimes Carter needed information available only to those on a restricted list. Pete had found ways to add his name to a few lists, and the information he gained from them was valuable. In return, Pete had enjoyed a few special favors from Carter. Now Carter needed another one of those special favors but wasn’t sure who owed whom right now.
Pete lumbered into the coffee shop, ordered a latte, and sat down in front of Carter. He had the appearance of a used dust mop, the uniform of advanced IT workers. He struggled to get the steaming mixture past his bearded lips as he greeted Carter, who smiled and wondered if Pete had any other clothes besides the t-shirt and jeans he always saw him wearing.
“So what is it this time, Doc?” he asked. “You need to get into the catalog of a museum? Afraid someone is trying to sell your grandfather another piece of the True Cross?”
“A little different this time, Pete,” Carter smiled. “You can access the electronic schedules and calendars of everyone in the university, can’t you?”
“Well, yes,” Pete said with a suspicious frown while slurping his coffee. “Hypothetically, but if the person you’re interested in doesn’t use the university system to do their scheduling, it’s going to be a lot harder. What do you need done?”
“I want to set up a coffee date with a lady who works as an adjunct researcher in the Genetics Department. However, I want it to appear that she sent me the invite from her computer, and I am the one accepting it.”
Pete closed his eyes and frowned. The background chatter emitting from the coffee shop was bothering his concentration. A few seconds later a police cruiser roared down the street, siren blazing. Carter could tell the noise was not making it easy for his friend to think.
“So let me get this straight,” he said, “you want me to hack this lady’s computer, a computer on the university network, and place an appointment to meet you for coffee? And then you’ll accept the invitation once she’s sent it out?”
“Yep, that’s the size of it,” Carter affirmed with a grin.
“This one is going to cost you, Doc,” Pete told him. “I could lose my job if they ever caught me doing this. If I trip an alarm I don’t know about, they’ll be showing me the door the next day.”
“Pete, I wouldn’t have asked you if I couldn’t pay.”
“Six months’ free beer,” he told Carter, “and you have to set the tab up at Kilkenny’s over on Dou Street. I’ll be going over there tonight, so you’d better get the arrangements made today. I no get free beer tonight; you no get the date.”
“Agreed. But only one beer at a time and no buying rounds for your buds.”
“No problem, Doc,” Pete agreed. “Bastards can pay for their own beer. Well, give me the particulars because I have to head over to the office. A bunch of smart-ass kids tried to breach the firewall around some professor’s grading chart. The university will have a few less students this time tomorrow.” Carter handed him a piece of paper with Mackenzie’s information and watched his friend walk out of the coffee shop with the paper cup in his hand.
***
The next morning Mackenzie had just finished arranging the desk in her cubicle the way she liked it to appear. Not being a full-time instructor or member of the staff at the University meant she didn’t warrant her own office. She did have one lab bench where she staked out her territory and a small cubicle in a large room full of them. She liked to arrive promptly, before the custodians, to make sure she had everything ready for the day. She did this right after her workout routine at a small gym near her apartment.
She scrolled down her electronic schedule to the class she was teaching that day to see who her teaching associate would be. They’d given her another ‘intro’ class; she gritted her teeth in preparation. At least it beats trying to explain the basics of genetic determination at the community college. She made certain her syllabus was up to date, and everything she needed to take to the lecture hall was on the flash drive.
Mackenzie chuckled over a story one of the senior professors in her department had told the other day. He found the latest advances in technology to be better than the older ones. One day in the 1970’s, he taught a class in biochemistry and had to endure the latest fad in note taking - the multi-colored pen. Some genius had produced a cheap pen where you could trigger a different color with a new stem every time a plastic lever was depressed. All he had to say was “Now this is very important” to hear the ‘clack-clack-clack’ of hundreds of red points being depressed.
