Except for the wounds on some of the dead, there was no indication that the group had been attacked by any civilized agents of war. Maybe he would have more luck inside. He began to work at the rocks blocking the entrance. Most of the work had already been done while he and Chiun were seeking a way to the barracuda who permitted herself to be called Dr. Drake.
The inside of the temple was cool and dry in contrast to the sweltering humidity outside. Good, he thought as he dragged the lifeless bodies out into the open. He wasn't looking forward to the prospect of shoveling rotting flesh. These bodies carried the same wounds— gaping, penetrating, inflicted by laser weapons. Except for the archaeologists Elizabeth Drake had identified, they were all Indians, either from the dig's crew or the Lost Tribes. No Russians here.
Remo searched the interior of the temple. What was he looking for? Other weapons, maybe? A scrap of paper, a piece of fabric... anything that would tie the laser attack to someone other than the spear-carrying natives.
But there was nothing. Scattered among the debris on the floor were a few urns and pots. He picked one up and upturned it. Nothing but a fine fall of limestone came out. He tossed it into a corner.
"What are you doing?" Lizzie shrieked. She picked up the pot and cradled it in her arms like a baby. "Don't you know how valuable these things are? It's remarkable that they've even survived the earthquake." She snatched a piece of broken pottery from Remo's hands. "Don't touch these, you monster," she whispered hoarsely.
"It's only a broken piece of clay," Remo explained.
"For your information, this broken piece of clay is more than five thousand years old." She thrust it under Chiun's nose.
"I do not care for modern art," the old man said blandly.
Remo could see the cords standing up around the archaeologist's neck. "Loosen up, Lizzie," he said gently.
"Don't condescend to me!" she stormed.
"Okay, okay. I'm sorry about the pot. It just looked like a pot to me. It didn't look important."
"Not important?" she asked incredulously. She closed her eyes in mock despair. "Look. Maybe I ought to explain something. The branch of archaeology I specialize in is ancient Mayan civilization. I've been studying it for sixteen years, teaching, reading, writing about it. I've spent most of my adult life in this part of the world, where the Mayans originated. And yet I know next to nothing about them. No one does. The ancient Maya are a mystery that's baffled scholars for centuries. All we know about them is what we've been able to piece together from carved stones and ruins of buildings and broken pots, like the one you didn't think was important."
"I get the picture," Remo said wearily. He was tired of being lectured to, especially by someone whose life he just saved.
"No you don't," she persisted. "That's what I'm trying to explain to you. The Mayan civilization leaped, historically speaking, in a single, unexplained bound, from a primitive agrarian society to a complex system of cities that fostered art, sculpture, higher mathematics, advanced astronomy, a 360-day calendar, a complex writing system, and the concept of zero. In other words, they went from root farmers to scientific wizards almost instantaneously."
"What do you guys call instantaneous? A thousand years?"
"Try one day," Lizzie said.
Even Chiun looked up. "What was the day?" he asked.
Remo smiled. "She didn't mean one particular day, Chiun."
"Oh, yes I did," Lizzie said. "The day was August 11, 3114 B. C."
"How do you know that?"
"The date is written in nearly every major piece of Mayan writing discovered. That one date. It's in tombs, on walls, on the stelae monuments the Mayans cut from stone to record other events— everything. It's the beginning of time as the Mava knew it."
She ran her finger along the rim of the pot in her hand. "Something happened on that date fifty centuries ago," she said, almost to herself. "Something so monumental that it catapulted the Maya from the stone age into the future."
"Doesn't it say in these writings you've found?" Remo asked.
"No. It's always used as a reference, the way we use A. D. and B. C. Apparently what happened was so important that future generations just assumed everyone knew what the landmark event was. The earliest known Mayan structure ever uncovered was a ceremonial center at Cuello in northern Belize, dating to 2500 B. C. But that was just an empty room with a stone altar. Buildings don't keep well in this climate. Anyway, that's still more than 600 years after the magic date of 3114, B. C."
"So you still don't know anything," Remo said.
"That's just it. We might have the answer right here. The first team of archaeologists to explore this temple found evidence dating it to 3,000 B. C. or earlier."
She paused, searching Remo's eyes for recognition, then gave up in an impatient sigh. "Don't you see? The Temple of Magic is the most ancient Mayan site ever discovered. Right here in these walls may be the answer to a riddle that's thousands of years old. What happened?"
The boy watched her. Then suddenly he spoke. "It was Kukulcan," he said.
She turned to him. "What?"
"My father told me in the Old Tongue," he said meekly. "In the legends, the white god Kukulcan came to earth in a flaming chariot to build the world."
"Utter rot," Lizzie said. "A useless folk tale."
The boy shrank back. "Take it easy," Remo said. "He's just a kid."
"I am a scientist," Lizzie said, "not a mother telling bedtime stories. Those so-called harmless legends can lead to seriously erroneous thought that hinders the way of real progress. That particular story about Kukulcan, for example, has spurred hundreds of normally sane people to believe that the Mayans were given their knowledge by invading spacemen. Spacemen! Have you ever heard of such lunacy?"
Remo shrugged, trying to keep his patience. People who'd lived through an ordeal like Lizzie Drake's entombment in the fallen temple were entitled to a little crabbiness when the crisis passed, but she was beginning to get on his nerves, beautiful chest or not. "Let's change the subject," he said pleasantly. "Seen any good movies lately?"
The archaelogist reddened. "Whose idea was it anyway to send you down here instead of a decently educated team?" she said through clenched teeth. "The nerve. The greatest archaeological find in history, and I've got nobody except an ignorant child, the oldest man in the world, and a buffoon in a T-shirt!"
"Look, lady. For what it's worth, this buffoon just saved your life. Which, from what I can see of your sparkling personality and charm, wasn't worth a fart in a bottle to begin with."
She rolled her eyes and made disdaining clucking noises with her mouth.
"If you weren't a woman, I'd smack you," Remo said, realizing that he was shouting, but not caring.
"Go ahead," Lizzie shrilled. "Prove what a male chauvinist hotshot you are. You men, with your little peckers, your little fists—"
"Your little red ass," Remo muttered, walking toward her. She screamed.
"Stop, stop," Chiun said, clapping his hands over his ears. "This bickering is unbearable for one of my years. Shouting. Arguments. There can be no serenity where there is discord such as this. I must have tranquility in the twilight of my life." He smiled sweetly to Lizzie.
"Then go back to the old folks' home where you belong," she yelled.
Chiun's jaw clamped shut. "Remo, this woman," he whispered.
"Yeah, I know. She brings out the best in a guy, doesn't she?"
"Remo! Chiun!" Po shouted from the far corner of the temple. The corner was piled high with fallen rock. The boy's head peered out from an opening between them. "Come here. Look."
"This is no place for children's games," Lizzie said, passing Remo en route to the boy. "He might damage something. It's bad enough to have two grown-up fools in here, but a child..."
Remo followed her, step for step, speaking directly into her ear. "I've had just about all the lipping off I'm going to hear out of you," he began. "I know how to shut you up." He reached a hand toward her throat, then noticed that Chiun had disappeared between the rocks. Po waited at the entrance, beckoning. He entered into a narrow passageway between the rocks when Remo arrived.
"What is it?" Remo asked.
"This way," Chiun's voice echoed from within the rubble.