before it was lost.” She sighed. “Investigators have repeatedly asked why we don’t just send a lander down to Cydonia to answer the question of the Face and pyramids once and for all, and NASA has cleverly dodged such requests by stressing their process, and looking for water in other areas, and throwing off attention by all that fuss about microbes in a Martian meteorite, but the truth is—we can’t go back to the Cydonia region because
Temple stood up, looking grim. “And this is where it all comes together. Where you fit in, why we need you. Calderon and his team… they’re the inheritors of Hitler’s Black Lodge. They found what Hitler had been looking for. Made contact with these Custodians—or one branch of them. What appears to have happened is that whatever great war raged in the heavens millions of years ago, the most recent was waged between bases on the Moon and Mars.”
“Thoth and Marduk,” Phoebe said. “The moon was Thoth’s…”
Temple nodded. “And Mars belonged to Azazel, Marduk, Apollo. Call him what you will. What we’re talking about here is more likely a group of beings rather than an individual. Factions with a common purpose. But yet, that was our conclusion too, that the faction most concerned with humanity, the ones who believed—according to all the myths—that we could aspire to their level, they’re the ones on the Moon. And some are here, apparently, in Tibet and possibly we hope, here in Shasta. They’re the Watchers. Watching over us but not really getting involved.”
“The Custodians,” Phoebe whispered. “But… the one I saw… he said they needed us. To save them.”
“The war has begun again,” Temple said. “If it ever really ended. Many times before, Marduk’s followers have attempted to wipe out humanity. The Flood. The Tower of Babel. I’m sure if we keep looking, other disasters might be pinned to them.”
“The Black Plague,” said Orlando, then shrugged. “Just a thought.”
Temple nodded. “And each time, apparently at the last moment, these Watchers intervened. Giving Noah warning, saving a select few here and there. Secreting away knowledge of the world—astronomy, farming, maybe even genetic material. All so they would be able to restart civilization in new places after the devastation had subsided.”
“Which,” Phoebe said, “explains a lot of the sudden appearances of civilization in areas like Egypt and Peru and others.”
“So how does the Tablet fit in?” Orlando asked. “And why does Calderon need it?”
“That,” said Temple, “is your objective number one. Probe the Emerald Tablet and question its relationship with Cydonia. There’s something there. What it is, we’re entirely in the dark about.”
Diana cleared her throat. “We know Mars once had a thriving ecosystem, a habitable environment, before its devastation. And now, knowing what we know about the real history of Earth, I believe we’re in a position to answer one of the great mysteries of evolution. Where we came from, and how we ‘evolved’ so fast, without a discoverable missing link.”
“How?” Orlando said, then trembled.
“Wait,” said Phoebe. “A cataclysm on Mars. The red land that sunk. Out beyond the Pillars of Hercules.” Phoebe looked at Diana and saw the agreement in her eyes. “That’s where Plato put it.”
“Put what?” asked Orlando
Diana smiled. “Atlantis. I believe Mars was Atlantis, and it’s why no one has ever found it.”
“Looking in the wrong spot,” Phoebe said. “But so many legends speak of it. Mayans, the Phoenicians, a lot of cultures, not only associated Mars and the color red with war and violence, but with their origins. Egypt, with its ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ land. The lower world, or the Underworld being red… The place where they came from. The place…” She gasped.
“The place where they would go again. Once they died.”
She stared at Orlando. “Oh my god.”
“What?”
Temple frowned. “What are you thinking?”
Phoebe closed her eyes. “I’m thinking I’m nuts to say this, but it might explain it all, especially what Calderon is after.”
“What?” Orlando asked again, insistent.
“What’s the great mystery of many religions, and especially Christianity?”
Orlando shrugged. “The resurrection?”
“Close,” Phoebe said. “How about this—that in order to receive eternal life, what do you have to do first?”
“Besides all that, do good deeds, give to the poor and believe in Him?”
“Think more obvious,” Phoebe said. “First, before your soul can live forever, you have to die.”
“Die…” Orlando’s eyes clouded. “Oh, I get it.”
“Explain please,” Diana said, leaning forward. “Does this have to do with the Emerald Tablet?”
“Oh yes,” Temple said. “If it’s truly the Tablet of Destiny, like in the Babylonian creation epic, then it has the power of the universe. A power to harness energy and create a weapon. Maybe it’s been used in the past like upon Mohenjo-Daro.”
“And in the Great Pyramid,” Phoebe said at once. “I think Thoth had it, and used it as a retaliation or preemptive strike, maybe on the remnants on Mars, or somewhere else here, as the two sides squared off over our fate.”
“But the Tablet has another power,” Orlando said.
Phoebe nodded. “For eternal life, you need to die first… but I’m guessing that first, you need to be prepared. Ready, like all those instructions on the walls of the Pharaoh’s tombs. They were trying to give the soul directions, a way to get somewhere and be reborn. But to do that…”
“You had to have control over your soul.” Orlando’s eyes flashed. “The Emerald Tablet—it somehow acts to free your consciousness from your body. And keep it under your control.”
“I know,” said Phoebe, “my dad could do it. Even after he died, he kept appearing to us. And Xavier… it seems he learned how to leave his body for a time.”
“And now,” said Temple, “Calderon’s got it. Maybe he plans to use it just for himself, but my guess is that he’ll extend that ability to people in his cabal, his lodge or whatever. And then, with HAARP as his tool and the Tablet’s power to enhance its ionizing beams…”
“He’ll destroy the Earth,” Orlando whispered. “I wondered why he would just commit suicide, just for revenge—and wipe us all out. But now I know.”
Phoebe nodded. “Wow, just like those Heaven’s Gate cultists back some years. They killed themselves and hoped their spirits would hop aboard some passing spaceship on a comet.”
“Looks like they may have gleamed a bit of the truth,” Orlando said.
“Or at least, what Calderon believes is the truth.”
“So we’ve got to stop them,” Phoebe said. “But how? He’s got the Tablet. Probably the keys and the translation as well. They could be on their way to Alaska now. We’re out of time.”
“Not necessarily,” Temple said. “There’s still Mars. If you can find out what’s there, maybe it’s something we can use or threaten Calderon with.”
“And if we can’t?” asked Phoebe. “Don’t they have shields there? I’m guessing they do.”
“Yes,” Temple said. “But you’ve shown you can get past them by looking for creative end-arounds. I trust you.”
“Not to sound like a broken record here, but what if we can’t?” Orlando asked.
Temple’s expression turned rock-hard. “Then we can only hope for aid from an unlikely source. That the Watchers get off the sidelines and rejoin the fray.”
12.
