“Ethan?” she called out, her voice hoarse.
In the low light, with the surrounding forest of tiny lights and digital readouts, the room seemed strange, almost exotic: a mosaic of red and yellow and green, as if the gods had laid a skein of jewels across a night sky, transforming normally white stars into brilliant colors. Jennifer blinked, then blinked again, uncomprehending. And then her gaze fell on something familiar: the ancient silver amulet, left hanging by Ethan Rush on its chain from a nearby monitor.
Jennifer’s brow furrowed.
The amulet showed a crude depiction of one of the most famous scenes of Egyptian mythology: Isis, having assembled the fragments of the dead and butchered Osiris, reanimating his body through a magical spell and transforming him into the god of the underworld.
The amulet gleamed fitfully in the lambent light of the instrumentation. As she stared, Jennifer’s body grew increasing rigid. Her breathing slowly became more shallow and ragged. Suddenly—with a faint expelling sigh, like air escaping from a bellows—her jaw sagged, her pupils rolled up into her head, and she collapsed back onto the bed.
Ten, or perhaps fifteen, minutes passed in which the examination room remained silent. And then Jennifer Rush sat up again. She took a shallow, exploratory breath, followed by a deeper one. She closed her eyes, opened them again. Then she licked her lips gently, almost experimentally.
And then—with a single, mechanical motion—she swung her legs over the side of the bed and let her feet slip to the cold, tiled floor.
She took a step forward, hesitated, stepped forward again. The pulse-oximeter clamp brushed against the nearest bank of instruments and fell away from her little finger. She reached up, felt the network of leads attached to her neck and forehead, and pulled them away like so many cobwebs. Then she looked around. Her eyes were cloudy but nevertheless focused.
The door lay ahead. She made for it, then stopped, her progress once again arrested. This time the culprit was the intravenous line, running from the saline bag to the catheter. Jennifer tried walking forward again, watched the saline rack tip forward; glanced along the IV line to her wrist; then grasped the catheter and pulled it roughly from her vein.
This time, when she moved toward the exit, there were no further difficulties.
Leaving the medical suite and stepping into the central hallway of Red, she glanced first left, then right. The corridor was empty: most off-duty personnel were either in their quarters or in the public rooms, eagerly awaiting word from chamber three.
Jennifer hesitated in the doorway for a moment, perhaps getting her bearings, perhaps simply regaining her equilibrium. Then she turned left and proceeded down the hall. At the first intersection, she turned right. Her eyes remained cloudy, and her gait was halting—like somebody who had been off her feet for a long, long time—but as she walked her gait improved, her breathing became more and more regular.
She stopped at a door marked HAZARDOUS MATERIALS STORAGE. EXPLOSIVE AND HIGHLY VOLATILE—ACCESS RESTRICTED. She turned the knob, found it locked. But the identity card around her neck—so crisp, so light, such a shiny shade of blue—slid easily through the reader beside the door; the lock sprang open; and she slipped into the room and out of sight.
50
Chamber three had fallen into a shocked, confused silence. As Logan watched, Porter Stone slowly sank to his knees before the large onyx chest—whether from weariness or disappointment, or some other emotion, he couldn’t be sure. Wordlessly, Stone let the two objects slip to the floor.
Logan peered around the chamber, its black surfaces gleaming dimly in the reflected glow of the flashlights. He glanced at the bundles of ancient hemp, scattered around the floor in a corona of disarray. He glanced at the low bed at the rear of the chamber, almost too faint to make out, with its once-beautiful coverlet and pillow. He glanced at the gold-framed table, covered with carefully arranged papyri. He glanced at the small golden boxes, once sealed but now spilling their contents: curlings of copper, a spike of meteoric iron, filaments of gold. Finally, his eye came to rest on the two devices—he could think of no other word for them—that sat beside Stone: the white, bowl-like implement and the concave apparatus covered in red enamel. They rested upon the bags of woven gold that had held them: five-thousand-year-old enigmas, practically daring the onlookers to parse their secrets.
It all seemed impossibly strange.
From the beginning, everything about Narmer’s tomb had been unusual. It had been similar to those of the kings who had followed him centuries later—and yet, in many ways, so very unlike. His mummy had been found in the second, not the third, chamber: reason dictated the final chamber would contain something even more critical, even more important, for the afterlife. And yet, as Logan glanced around at the scrolls and bits of metal, he could not begin to imagine what it was.
He stared down again at the two devices. One red, and one white—just like the old crowns of upper and lower Egypt.
“Crowns,” he murmured.
His was the first voice to break the silence. A half-dozen heads swiveled toward him. Stone’s was not among them.
“Yes?” Stone murmured, his back to Logan.
“Those two devices. We know that, whatever they are, they’re meant to be worn on the head. After all, that’s the depiction in the painting, back in chamber one.”
Stone didn’t answer. He merely shook his head.
“There’s nothing else they can be but crowns,” Logan went on. “They’re red and white—the proper colors. They even vaguely resemble the elements of the double crown, based on the depictions we’ve all seen.”
“These aren’t crowns,” Stone said. His voice was low, distant. “These are the tinkerings of a mad king, indulged by his priests: toys, nothing more. No wonder his descendants broke with his ways.”
“They’re bizarre, I admit,” Logan said. “They’re not crowns in any decorative or stylized sense. But they must have value—and great value, at that. Otherwise, why place them in the most holy chamber of the tomb? Why seal them in enclosures of such magnificence? Why set such a terrible curse upon them?”
“Because Narmer went insane,” Stone said bitterly. “I should have guessed it. Why else would he have himself buried out here, in this godforsaken place, many miles from his own kingdom? Why break with a tradition that would endure for a thousand years?”
“Narmer was the tradition,” Dr. Rush said quietly. “It was those who followed that broke with him—not the other way around.”
During this exchange, Tina Romero had returned to the gold-framed table and was again glancing from one papyrus to another with rapt concentration. All at once she straightened, turned back to the group. “I think I understand,” she said.
All eyes swiveled toward her.
“I’ve said before that the ancient Egyptian pharaohs were interested in near-death experience,” she went on. “What they called the ‘second region of night.’ But if I understand these texts, they were more than just interested. It seems they—or at least Narmer—practiced them as well.”
“What are you saying?” Stone asked. “How can you practice a near-death experience?”
“I’m simply telling you what the scrolls tell me,” she replied, lifting a papyrus as if to hammer home her point. “Again and again, ib is mentioned here. Ib—the ancient Egyptian word for heart. The Egyptians believed it was the heart, not the brain, that was the seat of knowledge, emotion, thought. The heart was the key to the soul, critical to surviving into the afterlife. But ib, as written in these texts, isn’t being discussed in religious terms. It’s described in more like …” She hesitated, searching for the right word. “More like clinical terms.” She put down the scroll. “I said before these read more like instructions than incantations.”
“Instructions?” Stone said, his voice dripping with skepticism. “Instructions for what?”
This was met by a brief silence.
“It sounds like a paradox.” Logan turned t
o Romero. “You say the ancient Egyptians believed the heart was critical for surviving in the next world.”
Romero nodded. “Once in the netherworld, the pharaoh’s heart would have been inspected, tested by Anubis, in a ceremony known as the Weighing of the Heart. At least, that was the belief of later Egyptians.”
“But death occurs when the heart stops. How could a stopped heart be of any use to Narmer in the next—” Logan paused abruptly. “Wait. What was it you said earlier? You said that this entire tomb seemed to be almost a rehearsal for Narmer’s death, for his passage to the next world. A dry run, so to speak. Right?”
Romero nodded.
Logan looked from her, to the contents of the tomb, and then back to her again. All of a sudden—with a flash like a thunderstroke—he understood.
“Oh, my God,” he whispered. “The Baghdad Battery.”
For a moment, nobody moved. Then—as slowly as he had dropped to his knees—Stone stood up again, turned, and faced Logan.
“Just before the Second World War,” Logan continued, “some artifacts were found in a village just outside Baghdad. The artifacts were very old, and their purpose was unclear. A terracotta pot; a copper sheet in the shape of a cylinder, topped by an iron rod. A few others. They were ignored until the director of Iraq’s National Museum stumbled onto them in the museum’s collections. He published a paper theorizing that these artifacts—when properly filled with citric acid, or vinegar, or some other liquid capable of generating electrolytic voltage—originally functioned as a primitive galvanic cell. A battery.”
Everyone remained silent, all eyes on Logan.
“I’ve heard of all this,” Stone said. “That battery was small, weak, perhaps used for the ceremonial electroplating of objects.”
“True,” Logan said. “It was weak. But it didn’t have to be.”
“Jesus.” Romero pointed to the objects sitting at Stone’s feet. “Are you implying—”
Carefully, Logan picked up the red-enameled object, topped by the iron rod and the curled piece of copper. Next, he picked up the bowl-shaped marble object, the long filaments of gold trailing. Very gingerly, he placed the red device atop the white one. They fit together perfectly.
“The double crown,” Romero said.
“Exactly,” Logan said. “But a ‘crown’ with a very special—even divine—purpose. Note the elements it is composed of. Copper. Iron. Gold. Add lemon juice or vinegar, and you’d have a battery—but potentially much stronger than the one found buried in Mesopotamia.”
“That urn in the corner,” Romero said. “It smelled like vinegar.”
“And those gold filaments,” Dr. Rush added. “You’re guessing they could serve as … electrodes?”
“Yes,” Logan said. “Properly placed on the chest, they could be used to stop the heart.”
“Stop the heart,” Stone repeated. “A dress rehearsal for death.”
“Perhaps more than one rehearsal,” Logan said. “Look at the extra materials stored in those golden boxes.”
Stone held out his hands. Logan carefully passed over the crown apparatus.
“A dress rehearsal for death,” Stone repeated. He gave the crown a brief, almost loving caress.
“It might be even more than that,” Romero said. “Remember the tremendous importance the ancient Egyptians placed on the heart. By stopping the heart—and then restarting it—it might not only be a preparation for King Narmer, but a validation of his divinity as well.”
“Of course,” said Stone. “A way to establish, prove, his divinity—and the divinity of his line.”
Logan looked at the expedition director. Over the last few minutes, Stone’s voice had grown a little more excited, his movements a little more animated. True, this discovery was no jewel-encrusted crown—but in some ways it was even more remarkable.
“And that would explain why the ‘crowns’ were kept here,” Romero said. “In the most sacred and secret place in the tomb, the holy of holies. It explains why such a dreadful curse was placed on the third gate. Narmer must have feared that, if anyone else were to get his hands on the crown—if anyone else were to experiment with making the journey to the next world—he might gain his power, perhaps even supplant him … both in this world and the next.”
Logan stared at the double crown in Stone’s hands. What was it Jennifer had said, during her final crossings? That which brings life to the dead … and death to the living.
How could she possibly have known about that?
He cleared his throat. Something had just occurred to him—something he almost did not want to mention.
Stone glanced toward him, his hands still grasping the double crown. “Jeremy?”
Logan shrugged. “I can’t help but wonder. If this device was an invention of Narmer’s, for the pharaoh to use as a trial run for what he’d experience after the death of the physical body, a way of preparing himself for the next world …” He stopped. All eyes were on him.
“Given the beliefs of the ancient Egyptians,” he went on. “About the nature of the soul, I mean … might they not have believed that such a device could release the soul, the life force, from the body—and in so doing, achieve instant immortality?”
The silence that followed this was interrupted by a harsh squawk. One of the security guards plucked a radio from his belt; spoke into it for a moment; listened to the reply, awash in static. Then he held the radio out toward Stone.
“Dr. Stone?” he said. “A message from the surface. They say it’s important.”
51
Cory Landau sat in the Operations Center, feet up on one of the consoles, swigging from a twenty-four-ounce plastic bottle of Jolt Wild Grape. He’d recently finished reading The House on the Borderland and was now well and truly freaked out. His shift wouldn’t end for another four hours; he’d brought nothing else to read; and the still, tomblike atmosphere of Operations was getting on his nerves. As a distraction, he’d begun running through video feeds from various locations around the Station, but things were depressingly quiet. There was a lot of activity at the Staging Area, but it consisted mostly of people monitoring various consoles or standing around the Maw. As for the tomb itself, the cameras had been turned off in chamber two—apparently at Porter Stone’s request—so there was nothing to see down there, either. A few minutes earlier, there had been some excitement around the archaeology labs in Red, but that seemed to have settled down as well. Basically, the entire Station felt as if it was in a holding pattern, awaiting word from the party that had recently entered chamber three of the tomb.
He took another deep swig, sighed, twirled his Zapata mustache, and cycled through a fresh set of video feeds as if channel-surfing a television. He did not notice Jennifer Rush silently enter the Operations Center. He did not notice as she slowly approached a bank of consoles, then hesitated several moments, seemingly studying them. He did not notice when she lifted a red plastic protective shield on one of the consoles, then snapped the toggle switch beneath it from the on to the off position. He grew aware of her presence only when she turned from the console and, walking away, stumbled into a rack of diagnostic equipment, knocking some loose cabling to the floor.
“Whoa!” Landau said as he wheeled around, Jolt sloshing over his hand. Then he smiled as he recognized Jennifer, the doctor’s wife. She was, he’d already discovered, a real babe, but standoffish, with a reserve that had always completely intimidated him. Oddly enough, she was dressed in a hospital gown, but Landau didn’t mind—it was, he noticed, quite revealing.
“Hi, there,” he said. “Your husband’s down with the expedition team, isn’t he? You here to watch the return of the conquering heroes? I’ve got the best seats in the house.” And he gestured at an empty chair not far from his, overlooking the central bank of monitors.
Jennifer Rush didn’t answer. Instead, she walked toward him, then past him, and then out the far door. She was cradling something in one of her hands.
At first, L
andau assumed she was preoccupied, or just plain rude—he’d rarely seen her talk to anybody—rarely seen her, period. Then he’d noticed her opaque, cloudy eyes; her strange, shambling, almost robotic gait, as if the act of walking itself was a novelty.
As her form disappeared down the corridor, he nodded knowingly to himself. “Plastered,” he murmured. Not that he blamed her—being stuck out here at the ass end of nowhere was enough to start anybody drinking.
——
Jennifer Rush continued on slowly, a little unsteadily, past a series of conference rooms, until she stood before the barrier that gave onto the pontoon-supported access tube leading to Maroon. She turned and opened the final door before the barrier, a heavy hatch with a label that read POWER SUBSTATION—WHITE.
The interior was cramped, a forest of thick tubing and small, blinking lights. Along the far wall were rows of dials and gauges, and a technician stood before them, peering curiously at a few, while making notations on a clipboard. At the sound of the hatch opening, he turned. The light was dim, but the technician recognized the woman standing in the hatchway.
“Oh. Hello, Mrs. Rush,” he said. “Can I help you with something?”
Instead of answering, Jennifer Rush took a step inside. The faint lighting made her features indistinct.
“I’ll be with you in a jiffy,” the technician said. “Just let me finish inspecting these controls. It’s my duty shift in Methane Processing, and a few seconds ago I started to get some weird error messages.” He turned back to the gauges. “Almost as if the safety protocols had been disengaged. But that’s impossible, you’d have to deliberately—”
Hearing another sound behind him, he turned back once again. Immediately, the smile on his face vanished, his expression turning to surprise and concern. Jennifer Rush had placed the items she was carrying on the floor, knelt over a bank of heavy valves, and was—once again, movements slow and awkward, but deliberate—turning one of them.