Doc’s blue eyes went wide. “You met Akhnaton? What kind of man is he?”
“Hey! Newcomers!” Shukeli’s braying voice bawled from the door to the barracks room. “Get ready to go on shift! You! Old one! Go back to your station! You’re impeding progress!”
The three of them exchanged grim glances and did as they were told. J.B. carefully slipped the ankh into an inner pocket of his apron.
Chapter Twenty-Three
It had taken most of the shift to lay down the casing blocks that would serve as the foundation and support pedestal for the pyramid’s capstone. They were told that the following day, the morning shift would raise the roller rails in order to convey the pyramidion to the apex of the monument.
Ryan had given up on the idea of sowing the seeds of discontent among his fellow laborers. First, there was little time to get the idea percolating. Second, most of them still retained vivid memories of the aborted uprising of nearly two years before.
And third, if they were indeed in bondage, they didn’t find it particularly difficult to bear.
When their shift was over and the workers were back in the dormitory, J.B. and Ryan went to the shower room. Doc was waiting for them there, a tool belt girding his bony waist. He pretended to be examining one of the water spouts, tapping on it with a small hammer.
Ryan and J.B. stood under the adjacent spout and showered, the sound of running water and the murmurs of the other men muffling their conversation. To their questions about Krysty, Jak and Mildred, Doc responded with doleful negatives.
J.B. gritted his teeth. “This is ridiculous. There’s nothing to stop us from just strolling out of here.”
“Stroll out to where?” Ryan snapped in a tone harsher than he intended. “The only place to go is Fort Fubar. And if we don’t stay there and strike out on our own away from the redoubt, how can we carry enough food and water? We won’t have our blasters and we won’t have Krysty, Mildred and Jak.”
“We know where Mildred is,” the Armorer muttered. “And we’ve got a good idea of where Krysty is being held.”
“It is my suspicion that Nefron plans to stage our escape during the pyramid ceremony,” Doc said quietly. “From what I’ve heard, all of Aten will be caught up in the festivities.”
J.B. dried himself with a ragged scrap of cloth serving as a towel. “I still don’t understand this whole deal about the pyramid.”
“Not even historians or Egyptologists really understood it,” Doc replied. “In my day, there was a great deal of speculation regarding the Great Pyramid of Cheops. How old it was, what secrets it contained and, most important, how it was built.”
“We know now how it was probably built,” Ryan said wryly.
Doc smiled. “There was a lot more to the pyramids than most scientists wanted to admit. A correlation was found between some of the pyramid measurements and the circumference of the world and the value of pi.”
Ryan and J.B. exchanged puzzled glances.
“That’s all speculation, however,” Doc continued. “What is known is that in order to get the great pyramids built, Egyptian society was made repressive to increase the efficiency of the human laborers. The historical Akhnaton was obsessed with gaining spiritual knowledge through a mystic power created by the pyramids. Evidently, his red-eyed namesake shares the same esoteric objective.”
“The main difference,” Ryan said grimly, “is that the first Akhnaton didn’t hold Krysty as a hostage.”
Doc nodded sagely. “In which case, we need to assure ourselves she is acting under some sort of psychic duress.”
Ryan fixed him with a cold, blue-eyed glare. “You think she’s not?”
“There’s only one way to find out for certain. Get an ankh to her.”
J.B. nodded, patting the pocket of his apron. “I’ll see what I can do about that tonight.”
Doc smiled wanly. “Good. I shall try to contact you tomorrow.”
Ryan watched him leave, saying to J.B., “Let’s go to the workroom and get started. We’ll brazen it out.”
Most of their workers were having their evening meal, so the room was deserted. While Ryan stood watch by the door, J.B. hunted through the metal scraps in the bin, comparing them with the composition of the ankh. He found several wafers that seemed similar and he traced the outline of the amulet with a piece of soapstone.