pocket of the jacket he had been carrying over an arm and proffered the papers Jacob had translated. 'I'd like your thoughts on this. Dr. Shaffer said you might be able to help.'
Lang never saw the switch, but a light from the ceiling suddenly beamed down onto the table in front of his host. Bin Hamish read, his eyebrows coming together in a near scowl. When he finished, he began again.
At last he looked up. 'Where did you find this?'
'Hidden in an old radio,' Lang said, and explained what had happened.
Wordlessly, bin Hamish rose and went to the wall at Lang's back. Soundlessly a panel slid back, revealing nothing but dark space. It suddenly became ablaze with such light Lang had to shield his eyes after the dimness of the rest of the house.
When he moved his hands from his face, he was looking at a laboratory of glass and stainless steel. A number of machines occupied the single counter, some of which he recognized from Georgia Tech.
They entered and the door silently slid back into place.
'I thought you were with some university,' Lang said.
'I was until… Well, as you Americans say, that is another story.'
He walked over to a box about the length and width of those Lang's cigars came in, but much thicker and made from a shiny metal. 'The Ark in your document, Mr. Reilly, has certain dimensions. This has proportionately the same.'
Lang waited for him to continue.
'You will note that, like the Ark, this is made of gold and wood.'
Lang waited again.
'Are you familiar with superconductors, Mr. Reilly?'
Lang stepped closer to take a better look. 'Only that it's some kind of new theory of physics.'
Bin Hamish sighed, disappointed. 'Superconductors are no longer only theory. Among other things they can create a highly conductive path along certain molecules or even DNA strands. The medical implications for treatment of cancer and other diseases are endless.
'Additionally, in a superconductor, a single-frequency light flows at less than the speed of light but absorbs magnetic energy, enough to repel both positive and negative poles…'
Lang thought he remembered something from long- ago physics classes. 'But if both poles are repelled…?'
'Then the superconductor can cause material to weigh less without losing mass.'
'Levitate?'
'Exactly.'
'Good. That's about all the science I can call up from high school.'
Bin Hamish seated himself on a long-legged stool in front of the counter and motioned for Lang to take the one remaining. 'I will try to keep it simple. Much energy either loses potency over space or is conducted by some means. Electricity, for example, is conveyed by wires. A superconductor has no such limitations, so…'
Lang held up a hand. 'Whoa! Electricity, superconductors-we're talking about 1500 or so b.c. They didn't have such things.'
Bin Hamish wagged his head dolefully. 'Of course they did, Mr. Reilly. Electricity was not invented; it was discovered. The same with gravity. The physical laws of the universe were in effect long before the pharaohs. The ancients were aware of many and knew how to use some. Much of that knowledge was lost during the Dark Ages. A lot of that wisdom remains to be rediscovered.'
Lang had a hard time taking his eyes from the gilt box. 'That's what you do, rediscover ancient secrets?'
'I suppose you would call me an archeological physicist. At least, that was the subject I taught at the University of Cairo until…'
Lang waited.
'Until the government uncovered my secret.'
Lang leaned forward, the box momentarily forgotten. 'Which was…?'
Bin Hamish inhaled deeply, a man about to dive not into water but the past. 'Would you be surprised if I told you my real name was Hamish, not bin Hamish?'
'You're Jewish?'
Bin Hamish nodded. 'Once that was discovered, I was removed from my teaching post lest I contaminate Muslim youth.'
'But I thought Egypt and Israel settled their differences.'
Bin Hamish snorted sardonically. 'After Israel seized the Sinai, bombed the Egyptian air force into oblivion, and destroyed almost all the Egyptian tanks, it was very easy to make peace. Your President Carter could broker the Camp David Accords because Egypt had essentially lost the war and had no means to continue or get its territory back. The Arabs' hatred of Jews, though, continues and will continue as long as one of each is left on this earth.'
He paused and swallowed. That is why I am under constant surveillance, also. At any time the government could have me arrested as an agent of a foreign power.' He laughed bitterly. 'All Jews in Egypt are agents of a foreign power, particularly those whom the government suspects might be useful.'
'Useful?'
He was inspecting his hands as though looking for flaws. 'Before I was forced to leave the university, I published a number of papers in archeological and scientific journals dealing with ancient and lost sciences.'
'So, why not leave? I'd bet one of Israel's schools would love to have you.'
'Not that simple,' he said dully. 'My specialty is ancient Egypt. Once I left, the Egyptians would always find a reason to deny me reentry. Besides, my wife is Arab and has no desire to leave her native land.'
The soft footsteps?
'But I stray,' bin Hamish said. 'We were talking about superconductors.'
'I still have a hard time believing such things existed.'
Bin Hamish rubbed his chin and got off the stool. 'Very well. Please indulge me.'
He left the room, the door sighing closed behind him. A minute later he returned, a manila folder in hand. Opening it, he placed several photographs in front of Lang.
At first Lang was uncertain what he was seeing. He recognized the stylized Egyptian figure of a man, face in profile, torso in frontal view. He squinted and picked up the picture.
'It's a photograph of a relief from the temple of Hathor in Dendra, dating back about forty-five hundred years,' bin Hamish informed him.
'But what does…?' Lang stopped in midsentence, suddenly aware of what the figure was holding. 'Looks like an elongated lightbulb with a snake for the filament.'
'Not a lightbulb, a cathode tube.'
'Or a vacuum tube.'
Bin Hamish was puzzled. 'A vacuum tube?'
'As in old radios.'
Like Dr. Yadish liked to tinker with.
Lang picked up another picture, this one of several large jars. One had been cut in half vertically. Inside, a rod of some sort had been inserted, held by a stopper.
He held it up. 'And this?'
'Look closely, Mr. Reilly. That jar is in the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad. A copper cylinder was inserted into the neck of a clay jar and fixed with tar or asphalt and topped with lead. In the middle of the cylinder was an iron rod. That particular jar and a number like it have been dated to 1200 or so B. c.'
Lang thought a moment. 'I was never a science whiz. What's the significance of the jars?'
Bin Hamish spoke slowly, as though addressing a dull child. 'A battery, Mr. Reilly. A battery or electric cell.'
'But how…?'
'After the Second World War, a man named Willard Gray of General Electric's Pittsfield, Massachusetts, plant built an exact replica of what you see, using nothing more than the material I've described. With only a little citric acid-the acid in, say, a lemon-the jar produced two volts of electricity. If you doubt me, check the April 1957 issue
