The Covenant of Genesis

religion, sharing control. Vogler represents Christianity, specifically the Roman Catholic Church. Hammerstein is an Israeli, representing Judaism. And Zamal, a Saudi, comes from the fount of Islam. Between them, they have one mission - to suppress all knowledge of something that threatens everything they believe in.’

Chase leaned closer, intrigued. ‘Which is?’

‘I, ah . . .’ Sophia hesitated. ‘I don’t actually know.’

‘You don’t know?’ Nina snapped.

‘Gabriel wouldn’t tell me,’ said Sophia, folding her arms huffily. ‘That was something I couldn’t get out of him. I was only helping him with the translations. All I know is that it’s very old, it involves people he calls the Veteres, and that the Covenant is using him to locate all traces of them - so they can be destroyed.’

‘How long’s he been working for them?’

‘A long time; longer than I’ve known him. At least fifteen years. But the Covenant’s been around for a lot longer, more like fifty years.’

‘That means that whatever it is they’re trying to hide, they’ve been very good at it,’ Nina realised.

‘Very good - and very ruthless. They kill anyone who finds any evidence of the Veteres. I was with Gabriel at a site in Oman about eight years ago; I didn’t know what was going on at the time, but now I’ve realised that the Covenant must have destroyed it, and killed the people who discovered it.’

‘Doesn’t sound very religious,’ said Chase. ‘What happened to the whole “Thou shalt not kill” thing?’

‘I imagine they pay it about as much attention as we do.’

‘Hey!’ Nina protested. ‘I haven’t killed anyone!’ Chase and Sophia looked at her. ‘Well, not deliberately . . . And they were all trying to kill me!’

‘I’m sure Saint Peter will accept that as an excuse,’ said Sophia.

Chase put a reassuring hand on Nina’s back. ‘So now what do we do? If three really powerful religions want us dead, and now the President of the United bloody States wants us dead too, then we’ve got a big problem!’

‘The way to stop Dalton is simple enough,’ said Sophia. ‘Go to Switzerland, get the recording, and release it to the media. He’ll be out of the White House within a week.’

‘There’s an easier way,’ Chase said. ‘You just walk into the nearest TV studio and say, “Hey, guys, I’m still alive! You’ll never guess who let me out of Guantanamo . . .” ’

She frowned. ‘Just one slight problem with that plan, Eddie. I’d be arrested. And then I’d be killed. Getting rid of Dalton doesn’t help me if I’m dead.’

‘I dunno,’ said Nina, ‘I don’t see any downsides.’

Sophia glared poisonously at her as Chase chuckled. ‘Even if we get the recording,’ he said, ‘and get rid of Dalton, that still leaves the Covenant. How do we get them off our backs?’

‘The same way as Dalton,’ said Nina decisively, sitting upright. ‘We find what they’re afraid of before they do, and expose it to the world.’

‘That simple, hmm?’ Sophia said, raising an eyebrow.

‘That simple,’ Nina repeated. ‘We’ve got the photos I took of the inscription; we’ve got your knowledge of the language; we’ve got . . . whatever the hell this is,’ she added, taking out one of the grooved clay cylinders and holding it up to the light. ‘That’s just as much as the Covenant.’

‘Gabriel will still be able to translate the text,’ said Sophia. ‘I was only assisting him - he knows much more than me.’

‘You mean you’re actually admitting to an inadequacy?’ Nina scoffed, leaning back in her seat - only to jump in pain. ‘Ow!’

‘What?’ Chase asked.

‘Son of a . . . I just sat on where that needle jabbed me in the ass!’

‘So it wasn’t a bite from a funnel-web spider?’ asked Sophia. ‘What a shame.’

There was another crackle from the jukebox as the record changed again. ‘A funnel-web?’ Nina growled, rubbing her aching backside. ‘I’d have thought your kind of spider was a black . . . widow . . .’ She tailed off, holding up the cylinder - then whirling to look at the jukebox. ‘Jesus!’

Chase followed her gaze as the next song started. ‘Is that “The Safety Dance”? Bloody hell, I haven’t heard that in years.’

‘Not the record!’ Nina exclaimed, staring with growing excitement at the cylinder. ‘I know what this is!’

‘You do?’ Sophia asked.

‘Yes! But I need somewhere I can work - we’ve got to find a motel, get a room.’

‘Three in a bed, eh?’ said Chase suggestively.

‘Eddie! And we need something else.’ She called across the room to the waitress. ‘Excuse me - can you tell me how to get to the nearest hardware store?’

Travelling south towards Perth, they reached a small town that was home to a motel - and a hardware store.

Nina worked at their motel room’s small desk, which soon resembled a cross between a craft fair disaster and a mad scientist’s lab. The trip to the store had resulted in the purchase of several sheets of card, duct tape, a length of wooden dowel, a lamp stand, an electric screwdriver . . . and a set of large needles of the kind used to repair canvas and other heavy fabrics.

‘You think it’ll work?’ asked Chase.

‘Soon find out. I’m almost finished.’ She tore off a piece of tape and used it to fix the screwdriver to the side of the desk with its empty chuck pointing upwards, then pushed a short piece of dowel on to one of the screwdriver’s bits, having previously drilled a hole into one end. When it was on as far as it would go, she used another piece of tape to secure it, then inserted the bit into the chuck. Switching the screwdriver to its lowest setting, she experimentally pulled the trigger. The dowel spun with a low whirr.

‘Okay,’ she said, ‘that part works. Now, let’s see about the rest . . .’

She picked up a cone made from a sheet of card, taping it to the metal stem of the lamp stand by its narrow end. Once it was in place, she took one of the needles and carefully inserted it eye-first into the point of the cone before using more tape to hold it there. Then she slid the lamp stand across the desk, poising the needle above the piece of dowel . . .

‘All we need’s a dog,’ said Chase, with some pride at what Nina had managed to assemble, ‘and we’ve got His Master’s Voice.’

Sophia regarded the construction incredulously. ‘You’ve built a gramophone?’

‘That’s right,’ Nina replied, picking up the cylinder. ‘That’s what this is - it’s an audio recording! The groove’s like the one on a record, or more like an old wax cylinder, I suppose. There have been examples of pottery accidentally recording ambient sounds while they were being inscribed with a stylus on the potter’s wheel - I think the people who made this developed the technique into something with practical applications.’ She indicated the cone. ‘They used copper rather than cardboard, but the principle’s the same - the cone’s used to pick up the vibrations of sounds and transmit them through the needle on to the soft clay when the recording’s being made, and then amplify them like a loudspeaker when the fired, hardened cylinder is played back. And I know the size of the needle they used because, well, I got one stuck in my butt.’

Chase peered at the second cylinder on the desk. ‘So what did they record on them?’

‘Voices, presumably. Religious sermons, speeches by their leaders . . . maybe even songs.’ Nina carefully lowered the cylinder on to the makeshift turntable, sliding the dowel into the hole at its base. ‘Soon find out.’

For once, Sophia actually seemed unsettled. ‘So you’re saying that if this works, we might hear a hundred- thousand-year-old voice?’

‘A hundred and thirty thousand, if my dates are right. That’s well over half as long as humans have even existed.’

Chase grinned. ‘Who says it’s human? Maybe it’s aliens talking.’

‘It’s not aliens,’ said Nina in professional exasperation. She moved the lamp stand until the needle’s tip lightly touched the start of the groove near the cylinder’s top. ‘Okay. Here we go . . .’

Holding her breath, she switched it on.

The cylinder rotated, the screwdriver’s motor whining and grumbling at the extra weight . . . but even over