Lo Fa still had one of the bones in his hands. “What do these tell you?”
Che Lu leaned close. “They give hints. Of Shi Huangdi. The First Emperor. The Son of Heaven who unified China and pulled together the Great Wall.”
Lo Fa nodded. “You said earlier he might be buried here in the tomb, even though Gao-zong was of the Tang Dynasty, well after Shi Huangdi.”
Che Lu simply waited. She knew Lo Fa was much smarter than he appeared, or else he would have died long ago plying his chosen profession.
Lo Fa’s eyes widened. “Do you think the alien Artad could have been Shi Huangdi… the founder of the First Dynasty?”
“I told you of the legends surrounding Shi Huangdi. It is written that when he was born there was a great radiance in the sky, coming from the direction of Ursa Major. But the word ‘born’ can have different connotations. It could also mean when he arrived.”
“From the stars,” Lo Fa filled in.
“Or simply from the sky in one of the bouncers the Americans have, or even the mothership that is now floating in orbit around our planet.
“The stories say that when Shi Huangdi met the Empress of the West in the mountains of Wangwu, they invented something. But again, invented could be used to explain something no one had ever seen before. The best the storytellers could describe it was twelve large mirrors mounted on tripods that pointed to the sky. These devices were supposed to be able to manipulate gravity. When they were operated they emitted loud noises. They were also supposed to be able to look at the stars.
“And there is Chi Yu, the Lord of the South who fought with Shi Huangdi.” Che Lu was excited, and some of it was rubbing off on Lo Fa. “There was indeed a chance that the old legends were stories of fact.”
“Maybe Chi Yu was Aspasia… or someone from Aspasia’s camp,” Lo Fa interjected.
Che Lu nodded. “Yes. While Shi Huangdi ruled in the north of ancient China, Chi Yu ruled in the south. And Chi Yu was said not to be a man but a machine. A metal beast which could fly about.”
Lo Fa looked about. “If Artad sleeps here, perhaps Chi Yu still exists. Perhaps the metal beast is hidden, waiting to come alive and attack us.”
Che watched as Elek strode across the chamber once more. “You might be right that awakening whatever is below might be a very bad thing.”
The leopard moved stealthily through the high grass, then paused. Nostrils flared wide as it drew in the scent borne on the breeze. Ears twitched and the head turned back and forth. It smelled fresh earth, which was strange, and, stronger than the dirt, the scent of the two-legged creatures, which was also rare here, deep inside Ngorongoro Grater.
The leopard had experience with the two-legged ones from its time on the Serengeti Plain to the west. It knew they were to be avoided. The leopard loped to the north, circling around the area.
Downwind from the leopard, Mualama looked up from the shovel in his hands. “Hush!” he hissed at the other man in the hole with him.
After a moment’s hesitation, Lago stopped digging and slumped down, wiping the sweat from his brow. “What?”
“Shh.” Mualama held a long black finger to his lips. “There is something out there in the bush.”
Lago sank down to sit on the edge of the pit they had excavated. After the climb down Mount Speke, the trek to the airfield, and the return to Tanzania, the last thing he wanted to do was come here and dig, but his uncle had been insistent.
“It was a leopard,” Mualama finally said as he heard a growl. He turned his attention back to the hole.
“A leopard?” Lago repeated, his eyes darting about the thick, four-foot-high grass that surrounded their location. “Will it attack?”
“It is more concerned that we leave it alone,” Mualama said. He found his nephew amusing. The young man would climb mountains and scuba-dive for fun, but the wonders of nature on his own continent held little interest for him.
They were in the northern part of Ngorongoro Crater, a remote spot in north Tanzania. Ngorongoro was the second-largest crater on the planet. Over twelve miles wide, it encompassed more than three hundred square miles. The crater was twenty-two hundred meters above sea level, well over a mile in altitude. Geologists claimed it was the remains of a huge, ancient volcano that had been worn down through erosion. Mualama was not sure how much stock he put in the geologists’ claims. All he had to do was look to the east from the rim of Ngorongoro and he could clearly see the snowcapped summit of Mount Kilimanjaro a hundred and twenty miles away. Being a logical man, he had to ask why that ancient volcano wasn’t worn down as far as this one. They were equally old and experienced the same weather.
There was no doubt the crater was a spectacular and remote place. It was difficult to get to with only one, often washed out, dirt track covering the last fifty miles to it. Once the dirt road reached the rim of the crater, it switchbacked down the steep rim, in places so narrow that even Mualama, who had been here before, had feared for the ability of his old Land Rover to stay on the road.
The land inside the crater was mostly open grassland with intermittent thick bush, although near the rim there was thick forest. Soda Lake, which filled the center, was a broad expense of water, but it was not deep, less than four feet in most places. Because of its isolation, difficult access, and the resulting lack of human intrusion, the crater teemed with wildlife.
At the edge of the pit they were digging, a surveyor’s scope rested on a tripod. This morning, Mualama had used it to make his final measurements, incorporating the data from the drawing in Burton’s manuscript. This spot had been triangulated to within ten meters. But ten meters was still a large area when one had to dig using only two shovels, and it was uncertain how deep the object sought was.
“Are you sure something’s here?” Lago asked, a question he was asking with increasing frequency the more dirt that was removed.
Mualama paused. “We are never sure until we find what we are searching for.”
Lago waved his hand about, taking in the entire crater. “This is a big place. Why here? This specific spot? How did you know the drawing referred to the crater?”
“I’ve been here before,” Mualama said. “I have information from other sources. Burton’s drawing was just the final piece. Even he didn’t know the exact location… he just knew something was somewhere and he had some clues. Years ago I found the first sign there.” Mualama pointed to the crater wall, two miles distant.
Lago looked, confused. “What?”
“The dragon,” Mualama said. “Do you see its head?”
Lago squinted. “That rock outcropping?”
“Yes. With a little imagination, it could be the profile of a dragon. That was the first sign. Drawn on a piece of ancient parchment, carefully preserved by monks, who themselves did not know what they were guarding or where the dragon sign was to be seen.
“Of course I… like Burton… didn’t know where to look for the sign, or the other signs I learned about. It was only last year that I learned that it was in Ngorongoro Crater that I could line up the signs. And now I have the last piece of alignment.” He pointed. “The notch there in the crater wall matches the drawing we just found. Where Burton found that, I do not know, nor does he say. And that, Nephew, is why we are here.”
“If it wasn’t from Burton’s manuscript, how did you discover that it… whatever it is… would be in this crater?” Lago wanted to know, not satisfied with his uncle’s vague answers.