must be set in place during the Titanic Rising just before dawn tomorrow, the 10th of December. The second Pillar must be laid a week from now, on December 17, again during a Titanic Rising.”
“Can you be absolutely sure of your calculations?” Robertson asked.
Tank said, “Yes, the Mayan calendar has long been synchronized with our own. It is one of the easier primitive calendars to calculate.”
“What about the other four dates?” Robertson asked.
“They are all some way off,” Wizard said, “three months from now, clustered around the ten days immediately before the Return itself in late March 2008. It seems we face two separate periods of intense activity, one now, one later. If we survive the placing of the first two Pillars over the coming week, we get a period of relief, a hiatus, before in three months’ time we face another flurry of activity requiring the placing of four Pillars in the space of ten days.”
Jack said, “So unless we get it right this week, we don’t even get to play next year?”
“That is correct,” Wizard said.
There was a silence as everyone present took this in.
“Okay, then…” Jack said. “Our next step is to cleanse the Pillars we have. Which brings us to the last lab.”
THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE
LAST OF ALL,the group moved into Lab 1, where the Philosopher’s Stone sat proudly and silently on its workbench.
Once again, the larger group remained in an observation room while Wizard, Vulture, and Stretch entered the lab itself: Wizard carrying the Firestone; Vulture bearing the velvet case containing the Saudi Pillar; and Stretch carrying Iolanthe’s velveteen case with the British Pillar.
Again, cameras recorded everything.
And although no one noticed it, a security camera inside the observation room was observing them.
In a darkened room elsewhere on the island base, others were watching.
In the lab, Vulture opened his velvet case and placed his family’s Pillar on the workbench. Stretch did the same with Iolanthe’s, so that the two Pillars stood side by side.
They were almost identical: two brick-sized blocks of uncut diamond, extraordinary in size, hazy and translucent.
As Jack knew, all diamonds looked this way until they were cleaved by an expert and polished to sparkling brilliance.
He also knew that these two raw diamonds far exceeded any diamond previously found on Earth.
The largest diamond ever found was the Cullinan, a huge gem found in South Africa in 1905. Cut into nine smaller gems, labeled Cullinan I to IX, its largest gem—the Cullinan I—was the size of a baseball and now formed part of the British Crown Jewels.
It was only then that Jack noticed something else about these Pillars. Most peculiarly, each of the Pillars possessed an oval-shapedvoid in its core, a little round chamber that appeared to contain a liquid of some sort.
A clear, colorless liquid.
“But how can that be—” he whispered.
“It can’t be explained,” Iolanthe said from beside him. “It defies explanation.”
“What can’t be explained?” Lily asked.
Jack said, “Diamonds are made from carbon that has been crystallized under intense pressure and heat. This makes a diamond one of the hardest and most dense substances known to man.”
Zoe added, “The word ‘diamond’ itself comes from the Greek,‘adamas,’ and its equivalent in Latin,‘diamas,’ meaning—”
“Unconquerable,” Lily said.
Jack said, “Which means that a true diamond, so violently compressed during its formation, should never have any kind of void inside it, let alone one that’s filled with liquid.” He keyed the intercom. “Vulture. Do you have any idea what kind of liquid is inside the diamond?”
From inside the lab, Vulture replied: “An analysis by our scientists suggests that it is a form of liquid helium known as helium-3, He-3.”
Lachlan Adamson whispered, “A substance not found on Earth. Although it was found in solid form on the Moon.Apollo 15 brought some back.”
“Very curious,” Jack said.
There was one other thing about the two Pillars that he noticed. On each one’s uppermost flat end was a marking.
On Vulture’s it was a single horizontal line:–
On Iolanthe’s, there were four.
Even Jack could count in Thoth: these were the First and Fourth Pillars.
Inside the lab, Wizard approached the Philosopher’s Stone, carrying the Firestone. Then, reverently, he slotted the Firestone into the flat square section on top of the Philosopher’s Stone’s lid.
