“Really?”
“One of the cards is dated this year, so it looks like she’s still alive.”
“Let me see…”
There could be little doubt about it. It seemed that we had received signed pictures of the Princess of Wales, and several invitations to various functions over the years – including her Wedding!
“Oh-my-god! She’s married that surgeon she dated!” exclaimed Nik.
“What surgeon?”
“Don’t you remember? When we were researching her life, we discovered she was secretly seeing a Pakistani doctor.”
“Oh yes! Dr Hasnat Khan. Well I’ll be…”
I couldn’t resist checking the internet for news of Diana’s life since 1995. Everything had been pretty much the same as the history we knew until August 1997. The Princess of Wales still gave her interview on BBC’s Panorama programme, but the content was rather different – more toned down you could say. After that, things changed: there was no crash in a Paris tunnel in 1997 for Diana and Dodi.
*
We’d just finished a late lunch, and were relaxing outside when Niki received a text from Smirnoff. He wanted to see us as soon as possible, and was checking if we were home.
“Well, so much for his ‘never the same place twice’ rule,” I said wryly.
“Smirnoff has no rules,” Niki replied. “I wonder what’s so urgent?”
We found out soon enough. Smirnoff entered the house almost dancing on air. He was carrying a couple of bottles of red wine, Russian vodka, a bouquet of flowers and chocolates.
“For Nikita, my Chinese Princess,” he said pushing the flowers and chocolates into Niki’s hands and kissing her on both cheeks. “Joe, I don’t know what to say… thank you!” He gave me a big bear hug, almost suffocating me. I quizzically looked at Niki, who returned the same surprised look.
“Well, you helped us,” I said at last, “we couldn’t have saved Diana without you.”
“Diana? Who cares about Diana… I’m talking about mama!”
“Oh, well you’re welcome – I’m glad you had the opportunity to see your mother before she died.”
“Mama is alive!”
“Your mama – she’s alive, now?” Niki was incredulous.
“I don’t know how you did it, but thank you, thank you!” he hugged Niki warmly.
“Whoa – wait a minute! Are you saying that at the current time, not 1995, your mother is not dead?” I said.
“Listen to him!” Smirnoff said to Niki. “Such a modest man. You guys say you go to St. Petersburg, but now I know what you were really doing.”
“I think we need to talk Smirnoff,” I said ushering him to an armchair.
“Okay, first of all, if your mother is alive…”
“There’s no ‘if’, Joe… I spoke to her this morning, on the phone. She talks as if her death never happened.”
“Right. Then I have to tell you that although Niki and I are very, very happy about this, we did nothing knowingly to make this happen.” Niki nodded her confirmation.
“Then, how can this be?” the Russian asked. We sat in deep silence for a moment.
“I think I know,” Niki said at last. “But it might be a little difficult to accept.”
Smirnoff’s mother undoubtedly had a very special connection with the Princess. What if, Niki suggested, that connection was at a deep spiritual level – what if they are actually part of the same Soul? In which case, when one leaves the Earth, the other follows–and if one stays, they both stay. This was clearly difficult to take this in.
“Well, I know nothing about spiritual things, but mama is a strong believer in this–so I suppose it’s is a possibility. Mama and Diana were certainly close on more than just a physical level. But then what about Dodi Al–Fayed? From what you say, he was not involved in the car crash in Paris – what’s happened to him?”
Niki told Smirnoff about Diana marrying the Pakistani surgeon, whilst I did a quick check on the Internet. Dodi was very much alive, and now the new boss at Harrods in Knightsbridge. It seemed to be consistent with Niki’s hypothesis, though I had to admit it was difficult to go along with her spiritual/Soul idea. But whatever the reason, the fact was that Diana, Dodi Al–Fayed, and Smirnoff’s Mama were now once again living and breathing on planet Earth. We opened one of Smirnoff’s bottles of wine to celebrate the return of Mrs Smirnoff.
“You never did tell us your mother’s name,” I said to Smirnoff. “We can’t just call her ‘Mrs Smirnoff.’”
“Oh, I get it. You think I’m in a good mood now, and yes I’m very happy. So I tell you her family name, and then you know mine. Is that what you want?”
“I’ll think about it,” I replied.
“Well think fast, my friend, because if I tell you my name, then I have to kill you. Na zdorov’ya!”
“Na zdorov’ya!” we repeated, toasting drinks with Smirnoff.
“And and I guess that means cheers in Russian,” I said.
“Actually, it means ‘good health’. Look after yours my friends.”
***
Thirty
After our ‘Russian Adventure’, as it became known, Niki didn’t want to change history or save people’s lives for a while. She just wanted to take a break and go on holiday.
“Okay, good idea,” I said as we were having breakfast a week after returning from Moscow. “Where would you like to go?”
“Ancient Egypt.”
“Ah! I wondered when that would come up.”
Niki had studied History and Archaeology as minor subjects at university, and both ancient Egypt and ancient China still held strong fascinations for her. She was particularly interested in the Egyptian pyramids, situated on the Giza plateau just outside modern day Cairo. Unlike the tombs in the Valleys of the Kings and Queens in Luxor, where the mummified bodies and treasures of Tutankhamen and other pharaohs had been discovered, the Giza pyramids had never revealed any signs of any bodies or treasures. Consequently, it was Niki’s belief that the pyramids had been constructed for some other, unknown, purpose.
Both Niki and I were also interested in learning how the ancient Egyptians had managed to construct such magnificent structures. The large building blocks were made of immensely heavy and incredibly hard granite, and with just simple hand–tools at their disposal, it was difficult to understand how the blocks could be cut, transported and then set in place so precisely. Yes, there were theories about how this was done – but modern day attempts to replicate the construction had always ended in failure. (One such attempt resorted to using a modern JCB tractor to make just a small–sized pyramid).
According to Nik, archaeologists generally agreed that the Giza pyramids were built during the Old Kingdom, probably between 2589 and 2504 BC – which meant around 4550 years ago. Our plan, therefore, was to travel to Egypt and then jump back to 2500 BC. After taking a look at the pyramids – snapping a few photos of course – we would return home before we’re noticed. No changing history this time – just Niki and me as time tourists.
So one spring morning, we took a flight to Cairo out of Heathrow, having booked a room in a local hotel close to the Giza plateau. Our hope was to witness the construction of at least one of the great pyramids – we could not have imagined what we witnessed.
This was the first time either of us had travelled to Egypt – and the first time we’d gone this far back in time. Before we made the trip, I played around with the phone to see if I could actually change to 2500 BC. I had been using a mobile application to easily and quickly change the date on my phone (developed by a friend of Niki’s) – instead of laboriously scanning through the years. But the app wouldn’t let me enter BC dates. I mentioned this to Niki.
“No problem, Micky in Shanghai will fix it.”
“What, tonight?”
“I’ll email him now.”
The next morning, I had an update to my app waiting for download when I woke up. Good old Micky! It worked great – h
e’d factored in all sorts of changes to the calendar made over the centuries, taking into account the Roman and Greek versions, and including the Julian calendar. He said it wouldn’t be perfect, but if we were really only interested in years, not specific days, it would work well. This meant no need for any of that scrolling business – just enter the year and press go.
I was dying to try this out (better to make sure it worked in London before flying to Egypt), and whilst Niki was busy cooking dinner that evening, I changed the phone’s date to 2500 BC. I got a hell of a wobble, and found myself sitting on damp grass in some sort of countryside area (rather than our sofa in suburban London). This seemed to indicate that I must have travelled backwards in time. In the distance, I could detect some movement, so I changed the date back to the present as quickly as I could. I didn’t particularly want to get stuck in 2500 BC England on my own just then – even though I’m sure it would have been rather interesting.
When I jumped back Niki was in the lounge, looking very stern.
“Joe – where have you been?”
“Ah… just experimenting – making sure the app worked.”
“And did it?”
“Four thousand, five hundred year old grass,” I showed her, holding up the wet strands in my hand.
Niki wasn’t too pleased that I’d experimented on my own, but she was glad to hear the app worked. She also thought it would be a good idea to take a look at England in 2500 BC sometime – and maybe discover what Stonehenge was really used for.
Having confirmed that we could indeed jump so far back in time, we took the express train to Heathrow two days’ later, and boarded our flight to Cairo. Travelling first class is definitely the way to go if you’ve got the money (or know how to win it) – and it was a very relaxed five–hour flight to the capital of Egypt. With all the recent troubles in the country, we didn’t want to hang around the city, so we took a taxi from the airport directly to Le Meridien Pyramids hotel in Giza on the outskirts of Cairo. We had an amazing view of the huge structure from our bedroom window, and couldn’t wait to take a closer look.
The next day, we took the hotel shuttle bus to the pyramid plateau. We were both awestruck by the sight. The three Giza pyramids and the Sphinx had gone through much weathering over the years, and the pyramids had lost the vast majority of the limestone covering that once adorned their entire surfaces. However, they were still an amazing sight, and we took some great photographs (which would be the ‘after’ in our before–and–after set).
That afternoon, we thought it best to move a little bit away from the monuments before leaping to the future – just in case we found ourselves in the middle of a building site. We discovered a secluded spot close to the hotel and set the date to 2500 BC. I looked at Nik.
“Ready to fulfil your dreams?” I asked. She nodded, and I pressed the button.
“Oh!” she gasped. We felt the big wobble I’d experienced in London – the first time for Niki. It was far greater than any other trip we’d been on. The hotel had gone (naturally), but the pyramids were still there… and they looked amazing! Coated in a glistening white shell, they looked other worldly – as if put there by aliens. Some people nearby soon noticed our presence and started walking towards us, so we quickly went back in time a further fifty years. Still no change to the structures, which wasn’t a big surprise… we were expecting them to be built between 2500 and 2600 BC. So another fifty years – and then another. Still no change. Okay, so the figure we had was just an estimate – an educated guess at best. We added one hundred years, then another, and another. The pyramids looked even more magnificent, but still no signs of any construction work. We began to jump in five hundred year blocks, and by the time we’d gone back to 5000 BC, Niki and I just looked at each other with puzzled looks.
“This is crazy,” I said, “it doesn’t make sense. We’ve gone back more than seven thousand years in time... I thought the Egyptian civilisation started five thousand years ago!”
“Yes, it did! The early dynastic period began around three thousand BC. Before that, from around 5500 BC, there were just small tribes in the area, such as the Badari. They were known for their high quality ceramics, stone tools and use of copper...”
“But not for their pyramid building?”
“Not that I’ve heard of,” smiled Niki. “Before 5500 BC there was nothing – no Egyptian civilisation.”
“So what now… where do we go from here?”
“We go further back… to find the people who actually built the pyramids.”
“But I thought you said there was nothing before 5500 BC!”
“If you study the standard history books, there is nothing. But if you read Hancock and Bauval, there’s another possibility.”
Niki explained Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval’s theories regarding the Giza pyramids and the adjacent Sphinx. Both men believed that two things pointed to an earlier date for the construction of these monuments. The first was the deep erosion marks on the side of the Sphinx, which the authors identified as being caused by a thousand years of heavy rain. Such conditions last existed in Egypt around 10,000 BC, meaning that the Sphinx could be more than 12,000 years old (not the accepted 4,500 years). Their other idea was that the pyramids and structures around them were built to align with and replicate the night sky of 10,500 BC, with the three great pyramids representing three stars in the constellation of Orion (Orion’s belt). So both the Pyramids and the Sphinx could have been constructed around 12,500 years ago. I had caught something about this on a TV documentary several years ago, but dismissed it as a crackpot theory – like the idea that the Apollo Moon landings were faked.
“So are you saying that some sort of lost civilisation built the pyramids? The people of Atlantis perhaps?”
“I’m not sure about Atlantis… but yes.”
We were standing in 5000 BC discussing something that had happened more than 5000 before that. I had a feeling for Ancient Egypt having seen all the Egyptian mummies, artefacts, and pictures of Old Egyptian life in the British Museum. But a lost civilisation in 10,000 BC was right outside my ken. We agreed to call it a day, and make the longer jump in the morning when we felt fresher. It was very hot and dusty where we were, and we both needed a drink, some food and a shower. So we headed back to the hotel to plan for the next day.
*
After washing away the desert and having a bite to eat, we sat in the hotel bar to talk about our next step. The plan was to jump back twelve and a half thousand years to try to witness the building of one of the great wonders of the civilised World… well, at least the civilised World we knew. Whilst I’d read stories of Atlantis, and heard the name Lemuria, I must admit I regarded them as fables – far less believable than the stories of King Arthur or Robin Hood. Now my mind was changing, and I was eager to discover the race of people who had constructed these giant pyramids. Niki surprised me with her knowledge of this alternative theory regarding the age of the pyramids, and if the theory was correct she was right about one thing: they were not used as tombs for the deceased Egyptian Pharaohs, who would not be around for another six thousand years. What then was the purpose of the three pyramids at Giza? We were about to find out.
The next thing was to decide what we should do when we reached our destination. Although I always like to plan trips to the nth degree, Niki prefers to do things when she gets there – see the lay of the land, and act accordingly. It’s the cause of a little friction at times.
***
Thirty–One
Niki and I returned to the jump area we’d used the previous day. But this time, a tour group was occupying the area, so we moved a little further away from the pyramid plateau. It was a good thing we did. I opened Micky’s updated app, set the date to 10,500 BC and pressed the button. This time, the wobble knocked us both to the floor. It lasted several seconds – at least ten – and we discovered later that we could expect a one second wobble for each 1000 years travelled.
&n
bsp; “Are you okay?” I whispered as we lay on the ground, within what appeared to be a small park. She confirmed she was. We hid from view behind some bushes, which still afforded a view of the plateau. We were certainly no longer in a desert area. All around were trees and rich vegetation, and it felt more like a green park in England than a sandy wasteland. When we stood up, the sight that met our eyes was out of this World. The area around the plateau was a Metropolis with the pyramids the central point. There were also other large constructions adjoining them.
“What are all those people doing?” Nik asked me.
People were arriving and departing the area regularly, disappearing inside one the structures as they arrived. Just then we could hear a high pitched noise close to the great pyramid. We decided to get closer to see what was happening – which was a little risky, but we just had to find out more. Suddenly, there was a whooshing sound, and to our complete and utter amazement, some sort of small aircraft shot into the sky from one of the slopes of the great pyramid.
“Tian a!” Niki gasped. I was totally speechless.
Using the side of the pyramid as a take–off ramp, the craft shot into the sky at a forty–five degree angle and then veered off into the distance, soon disappearing from view. It was one of the most incredible things I had ever witnessed. The machine seemed large enough to hold maybe three or four people at the most. There was no smoke plume, and I’d no idea how it was powered.
“What was that?” I exclaimed.
“I think, Joe, it was a wake–up call.”
Niki was right. If we think that we, in the twenty–first century, are the only technologically advanced civilisation that has ever inhabited the Earth, we have to think again. Someone else has been here before – and done air travel.
“Where do you think it’s going?” Nik asked.
“I dunno. Heathrow perhaps?” I joked.
“Or China?” replied Niki. “If you think about it, there are pyramid structures all around the globe – Egypt, Asia, Europe, Central and South America…”
“Are you saying that other pyramids are like these could also be take–off ramps for some sort of flying machines?”