David Sakmyster - The Cydonia Objective

The first vision rises up: A great workshop. Enormous sheets of bronzed copper rest on tables. A giant’s shoulder, partially completed, and an arm gripping an enormous tablet in its huge hand. A dozen men stride through the chaos, barking orders, assisting at different stations; hammering the copper sheets into the wooden framework.

Another glimpse: a different warehouse floor, this time with the enormous head resting on the floor, two men standing before her melancholy eyes, admiring the workmanship. They’re pointing to the crown of spikes, whispering and nodding their heads…

Is that it? Caleb wondered, briefly returning to the world of light and wind and sound. The ferry rocked gently on the waves as it sailed toward Liberty Island. Is it inside one of the spikes? Signifying the seven continents and seven seas, maybe there was a riddle to solve, a way to determine which held the treasure by the location of its designated continent? Then he cringed, imagining having to crawl up onto the head and fight the winds and the view almost three hundred feet above the base.

Keep looking, he urged. He had to consider everything, and this was free-viewing, a brainstorming session. Next, he saw a huge fairground, great crowds dressed in late-1800 fashions. Women with umbrellas and long dresses, men in top hats and canes, all strolling the grounds despite the heat and humidity, the flies and the refuse bins overflowing with trash faster than the workers could empty them. A long banner reads: 1876 Centennial—Philadelphia. Past the tents and display stands, invention stands and horticulture exhibits, to a line snaking around and around, where people wait to pay their fifty cents to enter the immense outstretched right arm and ascend into a huge copper torch. Along the balcony around the torch’s simulated flame, people are crammed in, waving to their friends below and marveling at the sights.

“Just another month,” says the promoter at the tent’s entrance. He spins a cane up and down, pointing at the gaping spectators as the sweat pours down his face and soaks his black suit. “Before this engineering wonder will make its way to New York, to Madison Square Garden, before it’ll be shipped back to France, and then… You’ll see the whole thing, the new colossus—Lady Liberty—assembled in a few short years in New York’s Harbor. But here, and only right here, you get to climb inside what will be the highest point. Imagine the view, imagine the spectacle! Just fifty cents! Get inside and see for yourself this marvel of the modern world!”

The vision swells, money changes hands, then a blur and now the interior appears. A winding staircase, a tight fit cramped with people on every side, going up and coming down. Then, up on the balcony. Others looking out at the scene, but the vision continues to study the flame. Moving around the torch from all angles, looking for any obvious seams or compartment entrances, not finding anything, but still…

Makes sense, Caleb thought dimly, part of his mind still lucid. Just like at the Pharos… which the Statue of Liberty was modeled after, in part. The treasure, the wisdom, was secured in the light, or in actuality, its mirror reflection below…

As above so below…

Caleb’s eyes snapped open. They were very close now, circling around Liberty Island and veering toward the docking point. But the statue was there, rising like a giant in all her splendor. Caleb immediately focused on the pedestal and again had to marvel at how closely it resembled the Pharos’ structure as he had seen it in his visions. If not for Liberty standing upon it, this could be the Pharos itself, it was that similar. Instead of a small statue of Poseidon gracing the top of the Pharos, this monument had the massive goddess of wisdom and justice—originally intended by Bartholdi to be a representation of Isis.

But in all other senses, both were beacons of truth and hope. And, Caleb recalled, both were lighthouses. The Statue of Liberty’s torch had been meant to provide illumination for the harbor, to guide ships in during the darkest of nights. But…

Show me, he thought. Maybe that was the direction to search.

New York harbor, filled with ships. Spectators and business vessels alike. Anchored and watching the dedication. The scaffolding removed, the gleaming statue stood revealed in all her towering splendor. Fireworks blasting into the sky, exploding in brilliant reds and blues with showers of white stars pinwheeling over her crown. But the lights on the torch, eight lamps around the base, barely provide enough illumination to compete with the pyrotechnics display in the sky.

A flash, and later… Engineers are working on the torch, cutting into the flame, creating two rows of portholes and inserting lamps. Below, a steam-powered electric generator powers the lamps, but… Shift to Manhattan Island, and a gray-bearded man with an armful of designs stares out at the statue and mutters, “It’s the light of a mere glowworm.”

Another shift… A cool fall day, and again several engineers are at work along the torch’s balcony… A thick belt of glass replaces the portholes, and an octagonal pyramid-shaped skylight is fitted as a skylight on top. An oil-powered generator replaces the old one. From the crown, the same bearded man looks up through the windows and frowns at the fractured, mutilated light that still fails to perform as expected.

Again a shift ahead… And a man in a brown suit stands on the deck of a yacht, with American flags waving around him, and a crowd of reporters and aides. It’s night, and the harbor is dark, with stars blinking overhead, and a fleet of ships all around. Ahead, the black shape of the enormous goddess stands mutely in the dark. “President Wilson,” says an aide. “You may now light it.”

Grinning, he gives the signal.

And from high above, the torch springs to life. Different again, now fitted with six hundred small windows of yellow-tinted glass and fifteen gas-filled electric lamps.

The reaction is anything but spectacular. Wilson bites his lips and listens to the muted applause before turning around and heading down below.

It never quite worked as a lighthouse, Caleb knew. Even though it was retrofitted along with technology advances every couple decades. But certainly the torch was now hollow and could serve as a hiding spot. But technicians who changed the bulbs would surely have discovered anything like a slender ancient blade hidden inside. Wouldn’t they?

Caleb shook his head. They were approaching the dock. People were getting up, heading down the stairs to get in line to get off the ferry.

He still had time.

Time to keep looking. To go back to something else he had seen. The dedication day. The ceremony…

A small group of men in full Masonic garb stand before the base while behind them, a great procession approaches, led by the Grand Master, all in attendance for the rite. A pastor gives a benediction, speaking of this statue as a symbol of freedom… And then the dedication. A copper box set into a space in the cornerstone and overlaid with a plaque. The box… containing among other items a copy of the Constitution, bronze medals earned by the Presidents, city newspapers, a portrait of Bartholdi and a list of Grand Lodge officers.

The box…

Caleb shivered with excitement. Was it possible? It could have been opened up, the spear placed inside, then reset into the cornerstone, guarded and most importantly, hidden in plain sight.

He stood up, feeling the rocking of the boat as it was finally secured. He was alone on the top deck, and felt the first sprinkles of rain. The heavy clouds now swirled over the statue, as if they’d followed him. It seemed the torch was in danger of being devoured by the ominous weather.