“What’s the point of this?” Rudi asked with a trace of irritation after it had gone on for a while. “This kind of thing is mainly fanciful imagination and wishful thinking. How is it supposed to help us in our present situation?”
“I’m not sure yet. Just some thoughts I’m toying with,” Kieran replied vaguely.
Trevany hesitated for a few seconds. “There is another story that goes back to the 1960s,” he said finally. “I’ve never had reason to check the details personally, but it involved an American physicist called Louis Alvarez. He set up a cosmic ray detector inside the Khafre Pyramid at Giza in an attempt to locate hidden chambers containing archives of scientific records that were supposed to exist. Penetrating radiation should show a greater intensity if it encounters hollow spaces than if it goes all the way through solid rock. By analyzing the patterns from many different directions, he hoped to map the internal structure. But the results were so garbled that nobody could make sense of them. Even the outer faces and edges couldn’t be distinguished. It was as if some other source inside or under the pyramid was interfering with the readings. The equipment was taken outside, dismantled and checked, and worked just fine. But back inside again, it did the same thing. As far as I know, no one has ever been able to explain it.” Trevany looked at the others to invite dissent. They shrugged or shook their heads.
His remarks prompted Juanita to follow. “There’s another strange thing that they found at Teotihuacan.”
Kieran thought back over the things he had heard in the previous few days. “That was . . . the City of the Gods, in Mexico, right?”
She nodded. “A little north of Mexico City—supposed to be Quetzlcoatl’s capital. One of the structures there is known as the Pyramid of the Sun. Back in the early years of the twentieth century, they found a thick, continuous sheet of mica sandwiched between two of the upper levels. What it was doing there was never established. It was stripped out and sold before anyone got a chance to examine it properly.”
“Mica? That’s what’s used for capacitors and high-voltage insulation,” Kieran said.
“Yes, exactly.”
“As a moderator in nuclear reactors too,” Dennis added. “It’s opaque to fast neutrons.”
Harry Quong looked dubious. “Too convenient,” he commented. “Stories about things that vanish like that make me wonder if they ever existed at all.”
“Weren’t there more, though?” Trevany said to Juanita. “There’s one somewhere that’s called the Mica Temple, isn’t there?”
She nodded. “It’s another building in the same place. Two massive sheets of mica are laid one above the other under a floor paved with heavy rock slabs.” She shot a look at Harry. “And yes, they’re still there: each ninety feet square, carefully cut and laid—and that takes a lot of skill.”
“Nobody’s figured out their purpose?” Kieran said.
Juanita shrugged. “They have no decorative function—and were out of sight anyway. . . . But the strange thing is that mica from different places varies in trace element composition and is fairly easy to identify. This particular type occurs only in Brazil, two thousand miles away. It seems that the builders had some definite need in going to the trouble of bringing it there. Other varieties are available locally.”
“Interesting,” Kieran mused. Just at that moment, he had nothing to add.
“What’s the point, though?” Rudi asked again. “Are you wondering if it might be possible to scare those Zorken people off with legends and fables?”
“Maybe,” Kieran said.
“No chance!” Rudi shook his head and jabbed a finger in the direction where the Mule was parked outside. “You’ve seen the kind of person Banks is. He’s never going to believe anything like that.”
“That isn’t the point,” Kieran replied evenly. “Think of him as a conduit back to their big chief in the head office, who’s a very different kind of person. The object is to get to him. It’s what he believes that matters.” He gazed around the circle of curious faces. “I don’t know where this will lead, but it’s the best I can think of that might be worth a try. You’re all at a stop for the time being, and that might be good because it will involve enough work to keep all of us busy.” He looked toward Hamil for endorsement. Hamil stared back at him for a moment, then returned a consenting nod. Kieran, it seemed, was becoming the de facto leader of the group.