Earth Before Man Read online

  “It’s clean. I have a reading of 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen with traces of water vapor”

  “Good, you don’t need the oxygen masks then. There is always a degree of moister in the air anyway. However, take the portable oxygen tube with you just in case.”

  Happy not to be encumbered with air tanks, he went to the D-wing and said,

  “I’ll get the pogo stick.”

  Returning with what looked exactly like a pogo stick, he prepared to get on and jump into the hole. She warned,

  “It’s only been tested in the lab so go slow with it.”

  He commented,

  “I know, from our laboratory in Brazil, right?”

  “No, actually from our lab in Switzerland. We managed to recover a seriously damaged D-wing and salvage its gravity deviation frequency module. But all they could create from it was three of what they appropriately named pogo sticks.”

  When Kirk jumped on, it lifted about a foot off the ground but did not come back down. Carefully leaning forward, he skillfully maneuvered it over the shaft and hovered. He worked the handle bar much like an accelerator on a motorcycle but instead of speed, it was an up or down control lever. As he slowly lowered into the shaft, she couldn’t help herself and said,

  “Be careful.”

  “I will report every two minutes.”

  “Make it every one minute.”

  A moment later, she heard through her earpiece,

  “It’s a little hard to keep stable but works fine.”

  Then, one more anxious moment later,

  “Yikes, I just landed on top of all those bones the drone had spotted.”

  She commanded,

  “Get off the pogo stick and push them to the side. I don’t want those disgusting bones scattered all over the chamber.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  Another moment later,

  “I cleared a landing spot. It’s all good. I’m walking through the horizontal tunnel toward the chamber now.”

  As he followed the tunnel, he kicked up a lot of dust and commented,

  “For sure nobody has been in here for hundreds of years, maybe even thousands. We will need a vacuum cleaner or something to clear up all this debris and dirt.”

  His night vision helmet worked flawlessly. In complete darkness, he saw everything clearly. When he entered the cavern, Maria heard,

  “Wow! It’s a lot bigger in person.”

  Her eager voice came back,

  “Describe everything to me.”

  “No, that’s not going to work. I’ll program the helmet to transmit the images of what I see to your visor. It will be just like you are here with me.”

  She could not help herself. Curiosity had wrapped tightly around her creating a strong desire to get down there and have a look for herself. Understanding that it was safe, she grabbed the other pogo stick and with the remote control, sent the D-wing thousands of feet into the sky to wait in a holding pattern for a command to return. Jumping onto the pogo stick, she lowered into the shaft just deep enough to reach up and pull the trap door shut. Santo had always taught her, ‘cover your ass’ and for that reason, she jammed a stone into the mechanism so it could not open from the outside.

  Kirk was true to his word about clearing the bones away making a safe spot to land. After leaving the pogo stick and walking through the tunnel, she stood at the entrance to the main cave. After a quick scan, she saw Kirk in the distance with his back to her seemingly concentrating on something. She walked up to him and asked,

  “What do you think it is?”

  Kirk, thinking that she was asking clarification from the image he was transmitting to her helmet camera up top, his reply was composed,

  “I don’t know. I’ll transmit different angles so you can see it better.”

  Still standing behind him, she stretched her arm into his field of vision and said,

  “Let’s clear the dust off that one so we can see it better.”

  When her arm came into his view, he practically jumped out of his skin. Snapping around to see her, he caught his breath and shouted,

  “Jezz woman. What the hell? You can’t sneak up on a guy like that.”

  She knew she should have warned him of her presence but was overwhelmed by what she saw. Her apology was weak.

  “What’s the matter? Did you poop your pants?”

  It was an indignant reply.

  “Yeah, I think I did.”

  She looked at the table that held his attention, lifted her visor, and explained,

  “Judging from the configuration, it’s an operating table.”

  It was then that he noticed she had lifted her night vision visor. Confused, he asked,

  “Can you see it?”

  “Of course, why are you asking?”

  “Your night vision visor is up.”

  “And why is yours still down?”

  Curious, he lifted his visor and saw no perceivable difference in the light. The whole chamber was aglow with an unknown source of light. Although he knew it was not possible, he commented,

  “Wow, talk about long lasting batteries.”

  Her deduction was more plausible.

  “The lights must be powered by a connection to solar energy from above or some sort of nuclear energy lasting thousands of years. Clearly the lights operate on a motion detector system.”

  As Kirk wandered around checking all the tables and equipment, he voiced an observation.

  “Everything is dusty but certainly not to the degree one would expect after all these years.”

  Maria had the same thought and proposed a reason.

  “I think it’s because of an ingenious air filtration system. Because of the air drifting upward in the bigger shaft, it implies that there is another smaller air intake tube around here somewhere. The difference in the air pressure creates a draft. It’s ingenious yet simple.”

  She then added,

  “We really should try to locate that second shaft.”

  For the next while both silently explored the cave and equipment. Maria reached high and opened a cupboard door to discover odd looking but recognizable medical paraphernalia. While looking high up in the shelf, a thought came to her. Slowly turning around and scanning the cave, she commented to Kirk,

  “Did you notice how high the tables are? And look how high up this cupboard is. It implies that whoever used this equipment was really tall.”

  For the first time Kirk too noticed everything made them look small. The table came up to his chest.

  Although not standard in appearance, she recognized diagnostic equipment as well as radiology and toxicology equipment. She called over to Kirk,

  “At first I thought this was a laboratory but upon closer inspection, everything here implies that it’s a hospital.”

  Kirk nodded his agreement and added to the mystery.

  “Yea, but for whom? Certainly not for humans.”

  That was her thought exactly. She asked,

  “Did you bring the radiometric instrument down with you?”

  “Yeah. Are you wanting to date some of this stuff?”

  “Exactly.”

  She swiped the instrument over the tables and equipment as well as the cavern walls. Looking at the readouts, she asked Kirk,

  “How old did you think this place is?”

  “Well, it’s a little confusing seeing all this modern looking medical equipment but judging by the amount of dust blown into the tunnel, I’d say at least a few hundred years.”

  “Yeah? Try thousands of years.”

  “No way.”

  “Yes way. According to the rate of radioactive decay, the dating reads as six thousand years.”

  He whistled his astonishment and added,

  “Well that excludes a human connection.”

  She added,

  “Yes, it certainly does. Taking into account the size of things, this place implies it was a hospital for tall aliens.”

  Upon that realiza
tion, a tinge of excitement tickled through her. It was near impossible but she clung to an unimaginable hope. Excitedly she asked,

  “Regarding aliens, who do we know was in this area six thousand years ago and tall?”

  He didn’t know and responded,

  “Hey, that’s your department. You’re the alien authority.”

  She shouted excitedly,

  “The Anannaki. Everything points to them. The date, the tall tables, and even being here in this part of Turkey. At that time, this was part of Mesopotamia, Anannaki territory.”

  Kirk remembered what Zak had told him about the Great Earth War. True, the date and location fit. He uttered his own observation,

  “Then if this is a hidden hospital it implies that it’s a war hospital, like a MASH unit.”

  “Yes, and the reason it is hidden from the enemy, the Rama Tribe. Plus being underground was protection of the atomic weapons they used on each other.”

  With added vigor, they spent a few hours photographing and inspecting everything with a new perspective, an Anannaki war hospital. Maria could not believe her luck. Of all the things she desperately needed in her research, it was Anannaki DNA. More to herself, she said aloud,

  “This is a DNA goldmine.”

  Then the disillusion hit. She had not thought to bring her DNA recovery kit. As she walked up to Kirk, he heard her mumble,

  “I’m coming back here with everything I need.”

  Kirk was scrutinizing the cavern looking high and low when Maria noticed his curiosity and asked,

  “You are looking for?”

  While still slowly looking around, he said,

  “Some of this equipment is pretty big. There is no way it got here through that air vent we just came down in.”

  Catching on to his point, she too looked around while saying,

  “And we still haven’t found the second air vent.”

  Kirk added,

  “There has to be a bigger entrance. Maybe we should concentrate on locating those two hidden chambers the ground penetrating satellite located.”

  Maria nodded her agreement and said,

  “I’ve already looked hard at the north wall where the imagery indicated the cavity was but it is solid rock. Maybe it was just a ghost image or reflection of the scanner.”

  Without responding to her unlikely explanation, he removed his backpack and took out an instrument about the size of a cell phone. Facing the north wall, he pointed to it and started scanning. Wondering what he was doing, she asked,

  “What’s that, an x-ray?”

  Still scanning he answered,

  “No, it’s a thermal camera used to image heat. I’m scanning the wall temperature with a radiometric infrared fusion technology. Any difference in even miniscule heat will indicate density variances in the stone and possibly a hidden room on the other side.”

  Only a moment later, he added,

  “And there it is.”

  She looked down at the screen on the instrument and saw a large section of the stone in gray. However, in the middle of the screen was what looked like a darker shadow, as if a large door imprinted on the wall. He explained,

  “Because the room on the other side of the wall is air filled, it has a different temperature reading than the surrounding stone wall and that is what this thing is indicating.”

  She said,

  “Okay, so satellite reading was correct, there is a room back there.”

  She then turned to the main chamber and added,

  “There has to be a lever or some sort of electrical switch around here to access that chamber. I’ll have a look around.”

  Kirk scanned the other wall and got the same reading. He then wondered over to a large vacant area of the cave.

  In the far corner of the cave, he saw what appeared to be a large depression in the floor. If it was filled with water, he reasoned that it would have been the size of a public swimming pool. Down at the end of the depression, in the floor was a hole taking up at least a third of the area. At the edge of the depression, to his left, cut into the stone were five steps leading down into it. As he maneuvered the steps, he said,

  “Jezz, these steps are high. They really were meant for tall aliens.”

  Curious, Maria came to the edge of the pool and looked down into it. She saw him walk over to the large hole in the floor and intently look into it. She yelled down to him,

  “What is it? What do you see?”

  While looking deep into the hole, he yelled back up,

  “Nothing. It goes down at an angle but I can hear splashing water somewhere down there.”

  Water? Suddenly she had a thought and yelled back down at him,

  “That Professor friend of yours said there was a mountain lake down in the valley. Do you know how far down from the field up there that might be?”

  He yelled back up,

  “No, but if you want an estimate I’d say maybe 350 meters.”

  “So, if we are 300 meters under that shrub up there, it could imply that the floor of this cavern is perhaps even or slightly above the lake surface.”

  Not understanding her thought, he simply nodded. She suddenly added,

  “I know how this equipment got in here. Come back up, I have a mission for you.”

  Chapter 18

  After Maria explained what she wanted him to do, he returned to the horizontal tunnel and trudged through the grim until reaching the scattered debris of bones. As arranged, so that they could communicate, both donned their helmets. Retrieving his pogo stick, he jumped on and gently turned the handle for a slow ascension up the tube. At the top, under the flip lid, he pushed hard but nothing happened. After a second unsuccessful try, he spoke to her through the communication system,

  “The lid is stuck. It won’t open.”

  Her reply was dressed in slight embarrassment,

  “Oh, I should have told you. I wedged a rock between the levers. Just poke it out of there.”

  With an annoyed thought that it was something she should have told him, he did just that. Slowly lifting the lid just a little bit, he scanned the field making sure the coast was clear. Suddenly the lid slammed closed and he whispered back to her.

  “The coast is not clear.”

  She snapped her attention from the curiosity in front of her and asked,

  “What’s the matter?”

  “It’s almost morning, sort of twilight out there and there are at least ten armed soldiers searching around for something. One of them is standing right beside the shrub.”

  She reasoned,

  “Those kids must have run back to the village and reported to the soldiers. No doubt they are looking for black spirits.”

  She then added,

  “Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to scare them huh?”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  Because she had sent Kirk on a mission based on nothing more than a suspicion, she decided not to risk discovery and called him back. Kirk heard the request to return but whispered back to her.

  “No, wait. Something is happening. I hear them yelling.”

  He dared to lift the lid again and reported what he saw to her.

  “It’s Professor Asker. He’s standing up on the far knoll yelling at the soldiers that he saw the black spirits over the other hill. They are all running over there.”

  When the soldiers disappeared over the hill and out of sight, the Professor tuned and waved at the shrub. Kirk yelled down to her,

  “Good old Professor Asker. He obviously saw me tilt the shrub and understood I wanted to come out but couldn’t with the soldiers in the field. It’s clear now.”

  Now outside and crouched low beside the shrub, he signaled for the still camouflaged D-wing to return from high in the sky. He scrambled into it and in a flash, shot high off the knoll. A moment later, he was hovering over the lake far below. Following her instructions, he plunged the D-wing deep into the lake sending a plume of water upward as if there was a small fountain in the
middle of it. Ripples gently rolled to the far shore. Although Professor Asker saw the water spout, he did not know what caused it. Now about fifteen meters under the water and safely out of sight of prying eyes, he reported to Maria,

  “Okay, now what?”

  From inside the cave she instructed,

  “Scan through the rock for my location. Can you see me?”

  “Yes, but you are just a heat signature.”

  “That’s good enough. How is your underwater visibility?”

  “Murky.”

  “Okay, then turn on the search lights and scan the cliff for an opening in the wall.”

  From up on the other hill, two soldiers were looking at the mountains in the distance. They saw the lake far below but did not hold any interest to them. That is until deep in the lake, Kirk turned on the underwater searchlights. Both saw the underwater glow slowly moving around like a bright fish hunting for food. The first one to emerge out of his stunned stage said,

  “It is just like the ancient stories have always said. The black spirits live under the lake.”

  The other uttered,

  “It truly is haunted.”

  After agreeing not to mention this to their superior, they turned and walked away.

  Not far from them, just fifty yards away and veiled by the twilight of the morning, Professor Asker also stood on the knoll. He too was looking at the lake and the dim meandering light deep under the water. Although he did not know exactly what it was, he was not willing to accept the legends of dark spirits. He knew it was the House of the Nazarene looking for something under the water. He also drew the correct conclusion that he had discovered something of importance. He continued to look at the lake.