The Covenant of Genesis

third man going with them.

Nina and Chase exchanged looks. If the occupants of the ruin left it as well, the way would be clear for them to climb down and go inside . . .

Ribbsley’s muffled voice kept talking, pausing occasionally as the others asked questions. After several minutes, there was movement. Vogler climbed out of the hole, followed by the two other Covenant leaders, then Ribbsley. He made a show of brushing dust off his suit as the white-haired man emerged behind him. ‘So you can translate the full thing, right?’ he asked Ribbsley. His accent was American.

‘Of course I can,’ Ribbsley replied sniffily, adjusting his hat. ‘I recognised most of the symbols on sight, and once I check my notes on my laptop I’ll be able to identify the others quickly enough. The numbers will be a nuisance, but now that I know they follow the Atlantean system it’s just a matter of converting them to base ten.’

‘Could this lead us to the origin of the Veteres?’ asked Vogler. Nina frowned at the odd word.

‘Possibly. But it won’t be as straightforward as finding this place. There are no bearings, no directions - it’s not a chart, like the object you obtained in Indonesia. It seems to be more of a record, a historical account left by the Veteres.’ Now dust-free, Ribbsley tugged imperiously at his lapels. ‘But I’ll crack it, I assure you. Now, I suggest a recess for supper; then I’ll get my laptop from the camper and return to work.’

‘Why waste time?’ demanded the bearded Arab. ‘Get it now.’

Ribbsley looked down his nose at him - an expression Nina remembered. She wasn’t the only person to whom he considered himself superior. ‘You may be willing to work all night on an empty stomach, Mr Zamal, but I’m certainly not.’ He set off along the trench, Vogler and the second of the Covenant members flanking him. Zamal and the white-haired man exchanged looks that made it clear they shared the same low opinion of the professor, then followed.

‘The bloke with white hair,’ said Chase once they were out of earshot, ‘I know him from somewhere.’

‘You too?’ Nina asked. ‘Any idea where?’

‘No. But I definitely recognise him.’ He shook his head. ‘Doesn’t matter for now. Soon as they’re out of sight, we’ll climb down.’

‘How long do you think we’ll have?’

‘Could be half an hour, could be five minutes. Depends how fast they eat.’

‘Somehow, I don’t think Ribbsley’s the kind of man who rushes his food,’ said Nina. She looked after the retreating men, puzzled. ‘Veteres . . . why would they use that as a name?’

‘You know what it means?’

‘Yes, it’s Latin - “Ancients” would probably be the closest translation. But the context it’s used in usually relates to family, like distant ancestors. I’ve never heard it in an archaeological sense.’

The group passed from view along the trench. Chase stood. ‘Maybe you’ll be able to figure it out once we’re inside. Come on.’

He lowered her down, then jumped to the bottom of the trench. Nina moved to the hole in the wall and glanced warily into it. It seemed empty - of life, at least.

But the answers to many questions waited within. She stepped inside.

14

The buried structure’s interior was dome-shaped, the design and construction practically identical to the ruin at the bottom of the Java Sea. But this was intact; apart from the section broken open by the excavator, the only damage was at the far side of the room, where a tall doorway was blocked by rubble.

The contents of the room had fared less well, though. From the dust covering everything, Nina knew it hadn’t been the result of the Covenant’s work. Whatever had caused everything to tumble and scatter across the floor had happened centuries ago, even millennia. It appeared more like the result of an earthquake than deliberate destruction.

The chamber seemed to have been a storage area, shelves of brick and long-corroded wood toppled and broken, contents smashed on the ground. Stark shadows radiated outwards from the two lamps at the chamber’s centre, bringing the debris into sharp relief. As Chase kept watch on the trench, Nina knelt to examine the dusty artefacts. ‘This is like the one we found underwater,’ she said, holding up a broken clay cylinder. This too had a closely wound groove spiralling up its length. There were others nearby, most also damaged, but she spotted one that was intact and picked it up. One end had a hole at its centre, while the other had a short inscription in the unknown language running around it.

‘What is it?’ Chase asked.

‘No idea.’ A perusal of other cylinders showed that each inscription was different. She put down the object, then moved to the lamps . . . and saw what they had been brought to illuminate. ‘Oh, my God. Eddie, look at this.’

Chase crossed the room, debris crunching under his boots. ‘Okay, so now we know what that lot were looking for.’

A section of the wall had been covered with a layer of plaster, creating a smooth surface. Parts were cracked, and some sections had broken off . . . but most of it was still intact, revealing line after line of ancient writing.

Nina recognised numbers within the text, and a handful of symbolic characters, but the rest of it was as impenetrable as the words on the clay tablet. Excited, she took out her camera.

‘Careful with the flash,’ Chase warned. ‘We don’t want anyone to see it.’

She switched off the flash, then started taking pictures. ‘This is amazing,’ she said. ‘A record of an unknown race . . .’

‘If there’s a little picture of a UFO in there,’ said Chase, stepping past her to look more closely, ‘then I’m right, and they’re aliens.’

‘They’re not aliens.’ She used the zoom to capture images in more detail. ‘Eddie, your shadow’s in the shot.’

‘Sorry.’ He backed away, the rubble filling the doorway catching his attention. ‘Hey, check this out. This didn’t collapse. Somebody blocked it off.’

Chase was right, Nina saw; the large bricks in the opening were too regularly aligned to have been tumbled there by any natural means. She turned in place, examining the rest of the chamber. ‘There’s no sign of any bodies. It must have been sealed from outside.’ A thought occurred, and she went to the inscription on the wall. ‘This might be a final record, a sort of time capsule. Something they left for others to find after they moved on.’

‘Question is, does it say where they went?’ Something caught Chase’s eye, a glint of metal across the room, and he went to pick it up. ‘Oh, ’ello. This look familiar?’

‘It does.’ It was a cone of copper sheet, scratched and dented, but unlike the flattened one they had found in Indonesia this one still had its shape. ‘Any sign of what it might have been used for?’

He prodded at the shattered objects on the floor. ‘No. Everything’s wrecked.’

‘See if there’s any more of them.’ Nina ran a fingertip along the ancient plaster, surprised at its even application and smoothness. Like the building itself, it had been made with a precision and care that was rare in early civilisations - and unknown in the era of pre-history from which it seemed to have come. Who had built it? Who were these people . . . and why was the mysterious Covenant of Genesis so determined to conceal them?

‘I don’t see anything,’ Chase said from the other side of the room. ‘There’s more of those cylinders, and some clay tablets, but they’re all broken.’ He picked his way back to the hole, glancing out at the trench - then retreated sharply. ‘Shit! They’re coming back! Hide, hide!’

‘Where?’ Nina gasped, looking round in panic as Chase vaulted a pile of bricks and hunched down in the deep shadows behind it. Pinned in the light from both lamps, there was no way she could cross the chamber to join him without being seen by the approaching men, and none of the fallen shelf stacks appeared to offer enough cover to hide behind.

No choice—

She hopped over the closest and flattened herself along the length of its shadowed side - and clapped both hands over her mouth to hold in a yelp of pain as something stabbed into her left buttock.

Vogler entered the chamber first, Ribbsley following - and complaining. ‘This is ridiculous. For the supposed guardians of civilisation, you’re remarkably lacking in it. How’s a man supposed to work without getting a decent