Raising Atlantis Read Free Page B

it’s not enough for me to suggest that aliens who could travel across the stars probably didn’t need airstrips?”
    “No.”
    Conrad sighed. It was hard enough for him to contend with the sands of time, foreign governments, and goof-ball theories in his quest for the origins of human civilization without ancient astronauts eroding what little respect he had left in the academic community.
    At one time Conrad was a groundbreaking, postmodern archaeologist. His deconstructionist philosophy was that ancient ruins weren’t nearly so important as the information they conveyed about their builders. Such a stand ran against the self-righteous trend toward “preservation” in archaeology, which in Conrad’s mind was code for “tourism”
    and the dollars it brought. He became a maverick in the press, a source of bitter jealousy among his peers, and a thorn in the side of Near East and South American countries who laid claims to the world’s greatest archaeological treasures.
    Then one day he unearthed dozens of Israelite dwellings from the thirteenth centuryB .C. near Luxor in Egypt that offered the first physical proof for the biblical account of the Exodus. But the official position of the Egyptian government was that their ancient forefathers never used Hebrew slaves to build the pyramids. Moreover, only the Egyptian government had the right to announce discoveries to the media. Conrad didn’t discuss his find with them before talking to the press, thus violating a contract that every archaeologist working in Egypt had to sign before starting a dig. The head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities called him “a stupid, lazy jerk” and banned him forever from Egypt.
    Suddenly, the tables had turned, and Conrad the iconoclast had become Conrad the preservationist, demanding international protection for his “slave city.” By the time Egypt allowed camera crews to the site, however, the crumbling foundations of the Israelite dwellings had been bulldozed into oblivion to make way for a military installation. There was nothing left to preserve, only a story nobody believed and a reputation in tatters.
    Now he was worse off than ever. Stripped of his stature.
    Strapped for cash. In the arms of Mercedes and her crazy reality TV show that peddled entertainment, not archaeology, to the masses. He couldn’t go back to Egypt, and soon the same would be said of Peru and Bolivia and a growing number of other countries. Only the hard discovery of humanity’s Mother Culture could rescue him from ancient astronauts and this purgatory of cheap documentaries and even cheaper flings.
    Concern clouded Mercedes’s face. “We could blow a whole day just getting a crew up here for your stand-up,” she said, brooding for a moment before her face suddenly brightened.
    “Much better to stick with an aerial from the Cessna and a voice-over.”
    Conrad said, “That kind of defeats the purpose, Mercedes.”
    She shot him a quizzical glance. “What are you talking about?”
    “I see it’s time we perform a sacred ritual,” he told her, taking her hand. “One that will unleash a revelation.”
    Conrad dropped to his knees, pulling her down next to him. Mercedes’s eyes sparkled in expectation. “Do as I do, and behold a great mystery.”
    Mercedes leaned next to him.
    “Dig your fingers into the dirt.”
    They slowly dug their fingers through the hot, black volcanic pebbles into the cool and moist yellow clay beneath.
    “This in your script?” she asked. “It’s good.”
    “Just rub the clay between your fingers.”
    She did, and then lifted a small clump to her nostrils and smelled it, as if to experience some cosmic epiphany.
    “There you go,” he told her.
    A look of confusion crossed her face. “That’s it?”
    “Don’t you see?” he asked. “This ground is too soft for the landing of wheeled aircraft.” He smiled at her in triumph. “So much for your fantasies of ancient astronauts.”
    He should have known