pyramids and monuments.
Nazlett el-Samman lay at the foot of the plateau, facing the Sphinx, and for decades sewage from the village had been thought the chief cause of the Sphinx's deterioration. A U.S.-financed sewage project had been undertaken, closely monitored by Egyptologists because of the proximity of the monuments and the probability of uncovering antiquities.
They were soon unearthing mammoth granite and limestone blocks, flint knives, Roman brick walls and other relics. By the middle of the first month more artifacts and remains were turning up, and finally the main prize--a fifty-nine-foot-long row of basalt rocks. Dr. Mamdoud immediately identified it as the floor of Cheops's Valley Temple, and Dr. Patel gave her instant agreement. Basalt was reserved for royal use as flooring in sacred places.
The Egyptian Antiquities Organization moved in quickly, taking charge, overseeing every detail. By the time that Stroud had become involved, the dig was out of the hands of Mamdoud and Patel, yet they remained for their own reasons and as a go-between with the Americans on site. When one American left abruptly, Dr. Stroud was asked by the University of Chicago Museum of Antiquities if he would care to fill in. He had jumped at the chance, turning down a trip to Russia in the bargain.
Stroud had come on the scene rather late in July and now it was almost nine months he had labored under the close scrutiny of the Egyptians. This alone was enough to drive a man insane, but the way that Dr. Mamdoud and Patel withstood the assaults on their integrity was inspiring, and each in his and her own way kept the prime objective clearly in view at all times. It was harder for an American, Stroud knew, to work under circumstances in which one's expertise was being paid for, but one's advice and motives were constantly called into question. Of course, Egypt had been robbed and plundered by archeologists in the past, and if Egypt had anything, beyond the great monuments of the pharaohs, it was a long memory.
The newly found ruins lay some fifteen feet below street level, and had been partially covered with sewage, which had had to be pumped out and disposed of. The dig had gone slowly, bogged down at first by the sewage and later by red tape, not to mention the fact it was in the center of a thriving Egyptian city in which two earlier digs were going forth for Roman-era artifacts. They had to work in an alley only a few feet from the doorsteps of houses. Archeologists had had to contend with children at play, passing carts and donkeys, as well as angry, suspicious villagers worried that antiquities officials might at any time invoke their legal authority to force them out and begin excavating below their homes.
When Stroud had arrived, one such home had already been confiscated for the purpose, with plans for a second. The stress and pressures these kinds of incidents applied to the dig were nothing like Stroud had ever dealt with in the typical, rural dig he was used to. He had expected tents and desert winds and sand; what he got was an alley reminiscent of the worst in Chicago, where he had once been a policeman for some thirteen years, earning rank as detective before returning to his first love, archeology, gaining his degree from the University of Chicago.
His field laboratory consisted of a Tensor lamp on a wobbly, wooden table that'd been provided him--his desk.
Cheops himself had been removed for 'security' reasons long before, as had most of the richest artifacts, each as soon as the archeologists had claimed, cleaned and catalogued it. There might be some truth in the security measures nowadays, because the community was getting rather noisy lately about their rights, and allowing the dead their peace and sanctity. Superstitions also abounded, and often Stroud found symbols written in blood on the door when he entered in the morning.
In the field laboratory where he had labored the entire night, not stopping for so much as a cup of coffee, knowing that his presence in the country was no longer required or needed, Abraham Hale Stroud documented what he could of the final cataloguing of artifacts to come out of perhaps the greatest archeological find of the century. He looked closely again at the ancient relic he slowly turned in his massive hands, cradling the onyx skull of perhaps nine centimeters in diameter and less than that many pounds in weight. The jeweled eyes stared back at him like two flaming embers, the red rubies mocking him with their mystery. The find was by no means the most important to come out of the exhaustive dig at Nazlett el-Samman in Egypt, but for Stroud it held in its curves and smoothness and essential mystery all the world's wonders. It was the reason he was here, living in a strange admixture of dirt and fascination that made him both cough and catch his breath in the same instant.
Both Patel and Mamdoud were nearby, but when Stroud lifted another of the skulls, a beautiful crystal one, he knew they did not see in it what he saw. In fact, he doubted that any two people on earth would see the same thing in the crystal skull, that somehow it radiated back some subconscious core of stored information, perhaps aspirations, perhaps wonders, perhaps a man's fears. It was impossible to say for certain. But now, in the myriad pools of dancing light, Stroud saw a stranger to him, a man standing poised on the brink of an enormous pit that seemed to surround and engulf him. Something else he saw--an iridescent green light rising from the earth to engulf the man. He didn't know who the man was, but he saw him turn around and look out of the crystal into Stroud's eyes, but the man had no eyes and nothing whatever behind the eyes. Stroud sensed that he was some sort of lost soul ... a zombie of some kind. And then beside him stood a second man with the same blank stare and careless eyes. And then they were both gone. It had occurred within the space of an instant.
Stroud didn't know what this represented or what it meant. He only knew he could not write about the event in his scientific journal. But while it was the only time that he had seen two men in this particular skull, it was not the only time that Stroud had seen the face of the first man, a man he somehow knew was named Weitzel. None of it held any particular meaning to him, yet something about the man, the way he stood, the way he moved and the way he looked but did not see; it all cast an overwhelming sense of panic and plague in Stroud's mind--so much so that rather than sleep or eat, he had worked, thinking work would stave off the panic he felt creeping into his being.
The others, particularly the sensitive Dr. Patel, felt his recent change, the obvious no-longer-at-ease stance he had taken. The others believed that he was beginning to worry about the locals, rightly afraid for his life, and likely wondering why he, an American, and a wealthy one at that, should have bothered exiling himself in this way from his homeland.
'Dr. Stroud, you must get some rest,' Ranjana said to him, making him look away from the skull and into her jet-black eyes. She was a small woman, middle-aged, always a smile of reassurance on her face. 'You must be tired.'
There were a few cots at the back, but he could also go to the Hilton on the other side of town where he had kept a room that he had used very little in all his days here.
'Yes, perhaps you're right. I think I will take some time.'
'The work will be here when you return, I assure you,' agreed Dr. Mamdoud, a lusty, well-built Arab who was lighter-skinned than most Arabs. The Egyptians often treated him rudely, even those in the Antiquities Organization. He had had an American education, and he was considered by the Egyptians as an American since it was Mamdoud who had organized the U.S. financing of the sewage project at the outset. Consequently, the Egyptians didn't trust him much more than they trusted Stroud or other Americans on the project. Mamdoud wore soft-soled oxfords and the coat and tie of a professional, even in the Egyptian heat at noonday. The locals considered him quite mad.
Stroud said at the door, 'I'll be back.'
Within an hour after arriving at the Hilton, showering and shaving and having a light snack tray sent up, Stroud knew he would not be going back to the dig. His door was knocked on and men with guns stood outside, the Egyptian police. They held him at gunpoint while searching his room, ostensibly for stolen artifacts. Some earlier people working on the dig had made off with a few incidentals, knives, stone pieces, jewels--or so the Egyptians claimed. His sudden departure from the dig had worried someone high up in the Ministry of Antiquities, Stroud supposed. He let them search. And they did so with abandon, angering Stroud, who stalked and shouted at the police when they began to toss things about.
'Come on, take it easy with that!' he yelled when they hurled open a briefcase filled with papers.
'Here, here it is, Captain,' shouted one of the young officers to his commander, holding up a small, bejeweled bracelet.
Stroud knew instantly he was being hustled, and that the bracelet had not come from the Cheops burial temple. 'All right, so your boss wants me off the dig.'
'You are in serious trouble here, Dr. Stroud,' said the smiling Egyptian commander, a curl lifting his cheek. 'I think very bad trouble for you.'
