Stephen Berry - The Biofab War

As he ascended, the trail quickly turned into a rocky defile, the undergrowth becoming sparser with each step. Passing between two boulders, he heard the soft snick of a well-oiled gun bolt sliding home. Taking a chance, he called, "Zahava! Don't shoot. It's kindly old Professor McShane."

Lowering her Uzi, she stepped from behind the right-hand boulder, all contriteness. "Bob! Are you okay? I hope I didn't frighten you."

"I am. You did not. When I was about your age, I was on a bloody isle called Tarawa. Nothing's frightened me much since then.

"Where is everybody?"

"Up ahead, in a maze of boulders. Greg…"

"The geologist John mentioned?"

"Yes. Greg's trying to find a particular rock."

"Appropriate for a geologist. Lead on."

They found the trio (Cindy having been ordered off to work, lest her absence arouse suspicion) on a shoulder of the hill, walking behind Greg as he slowly followed a map through a great tumbled-down pile of boulders. After quick introductions, he returned to his task as Bob quizzed John.

"Why in God's name did you drag me up here? I barely had time to finish at Harvard."

A triumphant "Eureka!" made them turn toward Greg, who was dancing an impromptu jig before a large, oblong outcropping that fell from the hill's brow to their feet.

"What's so unusual about that piece of granite?" demanded the professor, walking over to tap the rock with his stick.

"Several things," the geologist said with a smile, fondly stroking the outcropping. "One, it shouldn't be here. Granite in this quantity shouldn't occur on transient geological structures like this sandy peninsula. But we could probably explain it away, except that it isn't granite. Actually, it's not even rock. And I don't believe any of the hill is."

"Feels like rock," observed Bob, touching the surface.

Bowing, Greg extended his pickax. "Then perhaps you'd care to chip off a sample for analysis?"

Rising to the bait, Bob took the tool and swung hard at a rounded edge. There was no visible effect. Mumbling, "Obdurate matter," he handed his stick to John. Seizing the pick with both hands, he braced his legs, aimed carefully, and swung at the offending rock with all of his not inconsiderable bulk. The pick rebounded, resonating. Yelping, Bob dropped the tool, hands still stinging from the shock. His target shone unblemished in the morning light.

"I yield," he said with more humility than either John or Zahava had ever heard. "What is it?"

"Well," said Greg, recovering the pick, "according to spectrum analysis of a small portion-which I got after three hours' work with a laser torch-it's an alloy with the density of titanium, but ten to the fourth times titanium's tensile strength.

"I have no idea what it is, though. Nor does the lab that ran the tests.

"But now for the piece de resistance." He took a flashlight from his small day pack. "I stumbled onto this while playing the laser over the surface." Flicking on the beam, he flashed it onto a dark upper corner of the outcropping, a spot the sun never touched. A tiny green flash responded.

The lower quarter of the outcropping noiselessly detached itself from the rest of the great slab, swinging aside. A neatly finished opening, the width of two men, lay before them. Dust-laden stairs dropped into the hill's Stygian interior. Two sets of bootprints, one up and one down, spoke of recent entry.

For a long moment only the sound of wind and surf playing against the weather side of the hill was heard.

"The implications of this find, if it's what I believe, are so vast, so sweeping…" Bob said, a quiver in his voice.

"You ain't seen nothing yet," drawled Greg.

"Yours?" John asked, pointing to the bootprints.

"From the day before my banishment. Care for a tour?"

"Someone should stand guard." John carefully avoided Zahava's glare. "Hate to get trapped down there."

Relenting only after heavy pleading, she went-pouting- to a point commanding the trail.

Greg led the way with his flashlight, followed by McShane. John brought up the rear.

Harrison counted 150 steps down. Then the rock-hewn passage turned sharply right, widening into a vaulted chamber, its center dominated by a rough stone altar. The walls tiered upward into equally rude stone benches. In all, John guessed, the small chamber might have held fifty people.

"Do you know what this is?" asked Greg, his tone implying they didn't.

"It would appear to be an altar chamber sacred to Bel of the Celtiberians-the Celtic peoples," Bob said evenly. He played his own light, suddenly materialized from a baggy tweed pocket, over the oval altar stone.

"I expected something like this, Greg-I've been doing some reading. This chamber could probably be dated around 100 A.C.E., if certain conflicts didn't exist."

"Such as?" asked John, knowing of at least one: sophisticated technology guarding the entrance to a rude temple contemporary with Christ.

"Principally this," said Bob, holding up the stone fragment John had last seen disappearing into Sutherland's briefcase. "I had to sign my life away to get this from Bill. As we know, it's Egyptian of the Middle Kingdom. It fits perfectly, I'll bet, into that freshly carved niche over the outside entrance way. Your work?" he asked Greg.

"Yes." The geologist nodded. "I gave it to Joe Antonucchi the night before I was shipped out. I see he managed to get it off before he was killed.

"A killing, by the way, I only heard about from Cindy a week after it happened."

"You're clean," said John. "The FBI placed you in Shreveport that day.

"So, you think this is what got Antonucchi killed?"

"Sure do," Greg said. "Once this find was announced, no port facility, no more Royal contract. Would've put a crimp in Freddy's life-style."

"Wrong," said Bob. "If I were Langston, I'd give my right hand to have found this. I'd be honored by my colleagues- once they got over the shock. Any university in the world would have had me, on my own terms." Silhouetted by Greg's powerful light, he leaned against the altar.

"Besides," John added. "Royal wouldn't cancel Leurre's contract. They'd just move the docking facility to New Bedford and bask in the sheen of Langston's reflected glory. Think of the PR."

Greg nodded. "I see your point."

"Any thoughts on the doorway?" asked McShane.

"A million." Farnesworth grinned. "All culled from Saturday sci-fi reruns. I do have an observation, though. Even under a magnifying glass, there's no visible separation between rock and door. They seem melded together-maybe on a sub-molecular level."

Bob cleared his throat. "I see. Well, that does steal some of my thunder."

"We interrupted you," said John. "I'm sorry. You were saying about the fragment?"

"I was saying that the fragment is in a language whose peoples were dust five thousand years before the Celts of Europe. There are lucid arguments for the existence of ancient trading routes to the New World from the classical-Egypt, Tarshish, Carthage. Dead Mediterranean languages have been found carved into rocks throughout North America, especially New England. But this is the first evidence that allegedly unrelated, loose trading confederations not only were established on these shores, but overlapped, interacting with each other down through time. To believe that two people so far separated in time and origin as the Celts and the Egyptians occupied the same concealed site-concealed, mind you!-fifty centuries apart through coincidence… well, I can't accept it. The little green light and its wondrous door only fuel my skepticism."

Machine-gun fire echoed thinly through the temple.

"Zfhava!" cried John, leading the rush for the stairs.

Stephen Ames Berry

The Biofab War