The guard raised the radio to his lips. “Eppers here.”
“Sensors are picking up a pressure spike in the Umbilicus, at waypoint nineteen. We’d like you to climb up and do a visual before we send a repair team down.”
“Copy that.” The guard snugged his radio into his belt, then turned toward the metal rungs and climbed out of sight.
Carmody watched him disappear. Then he looked around the chamber. As he’d already pointed out, it had been cleared of most of the easily transportable items. Beyond the gilt box and a scattering of grave goods, only the furniture and the huge guardian statue, covered by a tarp, remained.
His eye settled on one of the chairs: intricately carved, decorated with gold filigree. “Watch this,” he said. He walked over to the chair and sat down in it with an air of mock gravity.
Whistler looked at him with a mixture of surprise and horror. “What the hell are you doing? Get out of there! It hasn’t been fully curated-you could damage it!”
“No way. This stuff is solid as a rock.” He folded his hands over his chest. “King Narmer speaking. Bring me the virgin du jour.”
Whistler looked worriedly up at the security camera. “They’re going to see you. Stone’s going to have your ass.”
“Calm down. Paxton’s manning the desk this afternoon-he’s a buddy of mine.” Carmody got out of the chair, looked around to make sure the guard was still out of sight, then walked over to the massively constructed royal bed. While the legs, posts, and canopy were dense with inlay and gold leaf, the bed surface itself was of plain, unornamented wood. He tested it with his fingers, pressing, and then-satisfied-lay down on it.
“Carmody, you’ve gone frigging stir-crazy,” Whistler said, his voice low and serious. “Get out of there before the guard sees you.”
“I’ll just take a quick forty winks first,” Carmody replied. He raised his head, made a show of looking around the chamber. “Hey, Cleopatra, get your ass over here, I’ve got a royal scepter that needs polishing-”
There was a sudden, sharp cracking noise; the entire frame of the bed vibrated, then gave a violent shear. Before Carmody could move, there was a little puff of displaced air and-with a second, even louder crack-the massive wooden canopy overhead broke loose from its anchors and hurtled down onto his prostrate form.
A flash of brilliant white-a moment of unspeakable, crushing pain-and then nothing at all.
41
When Logan entered the forensic bay of the Station’s medical suite, Dr. Rush was just pulling a green shroud over Robert Carmody’s crushed and broken body. Hearing footsteps, the doctor looked over, caught sight of Logan, and shook his head.
“I’ve never seen a body so thoroughly destroyed as this one,” he said.
“They’ve finished the preliminary investigation,” Logan told him. “The gold bolts holding the canopy bed together appear to have been deliberately loosened.”
Rush frowned. “Loosened? You mean, as in sabotage?”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps in preparation for being pocketed by somebody. They’re solid gold, after all, each one as big as a railroad spike.”
Rush was silent a moment. “What’s the mood?”
“More or less what you’d imagine. Shock. Grief. And anxiety. Talk of the curse has spiked again.”
Rush nodded absently. He looked pale, and there were dark patches beneath his eyes. Logan recalled what the doctor had told him on the plane: I trained as an ER specialist. But somehow, I could never get used to the death. Oh, I could handle natural causes all right. But sudden, violent death… He wondered if this was the right time to talk to Rush; decided there wasn’t likely to be a better.
“Do you have a moment?” he asked quietly.
Rush glanced at him. “Let me just finish up here, make a few notes. You can wait in my office if you like.”
Ten minutes later, Rush came into the office. He appeared to be more composed, and the color had come back into his face. “Sorry for the delay,” he said as he took a seat behind his desk. “What’s up, Jeremy?”
“I’ve spoken with Jennifer,” Logan said.
Rush sat forward. “Really? Did she tell you about her NDE?”
“We basically relived it together.”
Rush looked at him for a moment. “She’s never spoken of it in detail at CTS. It’s rather awkward, really, given my position there.”
“I think she needed to speak about it to somebody who was completely objective,” he said. “Somebody with experience dealing with-the unusual.”
Rush nodded. “What can you tell me?”
“I suppose I should get her permission before I go into details with anyone-even you. I can tell you that the first part of the experience was relatively textbook. But the last part-where she was ‘over’ longer than anyone else in your database-was the opposite of textbook.” Logan paused. “It was… horrible. Terrifying. It’s no wonder she doesn’t want to speak of it to anybody-let alone relive it.”
“Terrifying? Really? I suspected there was some unpleasant aspect, given her unwillingness to confront it, but I had no idea…” Rush’s voice trailed off for a moment. “Poor Jen.”
For a moment, the office fell into silence. It was on the tip of Logan’s tongue to say: There’s something else. I can’t say why-but Jennifer’s description of her NDE, of the horror near its conclusion, reminds me strongly of King Narmer’s curse. But he could not explain why; it was just a feeling, like the seed between one’s teeth that wouldn’t go away. Nothing would be helped by mentioning it. But maybe… maybe… there was another way he could help.
He cleared his throat. “I strongly recommend that she have no more channeling sessions. They’re upsetting her and may even be psychically damaging.”
“I mentioned as much to Stone,” Rush said. “He’s agreed to dial back the number of future sessions to just one or two more. He wants me to ask her about the third gate and what lies beyond. Also, what she meant about that odd tomb painting: ‘That which brings life to the dead, and death to the living.’ ”
“It’s a bad idea,” Logan replied. “And the sessions I’ve witnessed haven’t provided you with anything material.”
“Actually, the last session did. Tina Romero’s been studying some of the utterances-and she finds them to be very intriguing, given the context of what’s known about the stability of ancient Egyptian texts.”
“You asked me to see Jennifer-and I’m giving you my recommendation.” Logan took a DVD case out of his pocket, placed it on the desk, and tapped it with a finger. “Here’s the data you provided me with from your CTS files. I’ve been going over it.”
“And?”
“And I want you to answer a question-please answer it honestly. Has Jennifer been acting differently since her NDE? Is she in any way a changed person?”
Rush looked at Logan but did not respond.
“I’m no expert in such matters. But based on what I’ve read in these files, from what you’ve already told me about your changed relationship with your wife, and from what she’s said herself-not only was Jennifer’s NDE very different from other people’s, but I believe her behavior in its wake has been different from the others you’ve studied at the Center.”
For a long moment, Rush remained silent. Then, at last, he sighed. “I haven’t wanted to admit it-even to myself. But it’s true. More than just our relationship has changed.”
“Can you qualify the change for me?”
“It’s subtle. At times I think it’s more me than her, seeing things that aren’t there. But she seems… remote. Detached. She was always so warm, so spontaneous. I don’t sense that as much in her these days.”
“That doesn’t necessarily have to do with her near-death experience,” Logan said. “Those could be manifestations of depression, as well.”
