Blackbird

Chapter 13: The Mothership

The little boy who stood by the door gighled in amusement. Apparantly Patrick's language sounded funny to him.

The lady politely went up to him and checked his bandages. She then said that he's healing quickly. Patrick didn't understand a word and simply looked at her.

"Um...can you understand me? Can you tell me how I got here?", asked Patrick again , this time slower but the lady simply looked at her and told him to rest for a while.

"Damn! where am I ? ", said Patrick in frustration.

The lady then said something and walked out of the door with the kid. Patrick surmised that she was simply asking him to rest. But how could he rest? After all Hans had almost tried to kill him. And the doorway?The myth of Anki?

"Wait! Did it work? Did the gateway actually brought me here? , thought Patrick as he began to remember that dreadful night.

He immediately got up and opened the door to take a look outside. What he saw left him awestruck.

He was in some kind of a village in the middle east- there were clay huts everywhere and people were busy going about their daily lives. He was in a barn that was constructed a few feet from the ground with bamboo and hay. From this elevated position he could see the entire village. Some men wore white gowns and were mostly busy herding camels and goats, some men were busy making tools and pottery. The elderly women wore beautiful gowns with their faces veiled and they too were busy carrying clay pots of water and attending to little kids. There were palm trees everywhere and even little bushes of exotic flowers in some places.

Patrick saw lines of houses as far as the eye could see. The village stretched on for miles in all directions but one particular image surprised him the most. From where he was standing he saw four huge pillars and a dome far away in the desert. The dust and sand made it quite blurry but he could still make out a gold and white coloured shiny dome a few kilometres from the village. He was amazed and confused. Where on earth was he? Did the gateway actually work??

It was midnight and Hans Geissler was scrolling through an old ruined map. He had been digging for three days and had barely come up with something worth a few bucks. He had set-up camp in this god forsaken desert with his band of mercenaries and was losing valueable time and money. The desert heat and sand had ruined the health of this 45 years old shrewd ex-diplomat and he was getting desperate to find 'the object' by any means. This whole archaelogy thing was not his cup of tea but he was only holding on because he knew that the site held a powerful secret that it won't give up so easily. The only clue he had was this 3000 year old ruined papyrus map written in a lost language and marked with strange symbols.

In his 12 years as a secret operative working for the C.I.A. he was never so anxious to find any ancient artifact- he knew it was no ordinary piece of artifact but for three days all he found was dust and rubble.

The generator was broken and some men were trying to fix it while Hans toiled inside the makeshift tent in darkness and heat under the light of a hurricane lamp.A big strong man enters the camp strapped with a sidearm and a knife on either side of his waist. Hans was still stooped over the map with both of his hands on the table.

"We need him Rocko...we need the expert.", said Hans looking at the man.

"The Archaeologist sir?",asked Rocko.

"Yes him...or else we will be digging holes in this desert for weeks...I need someone to interpret this map ...", said Hans sitting down on his chair.

"But that would expose this project...we agreed to keep quite Sir...", said Rocko walking upto the table.

"I know what we agreed upon...pay him, pay him a s**t ton of money and tell him to be shut his mouth...and bring him here asap..", replied Hans annoyed at being questioned about his decision.

"Heh..ok...I know how to keep him quite Sir..I will inform Hanna.." , said Rocko tapping his sidearm.

"Remember we need him asap...we only have a few days here or else people are going to notice....and tell the men to fix the generator now... ", said Hans in a commanding voice while picking up his glass of whiskey.

"Yes Sir ..." said Rocko and exited the tent.

He wondered why would anyone write such a poem- instructing exactly where to look and how to get there. Furthermore the Turkish word "Hoyuk" that was smudged out puzzled him too. The very existence of this word on an ancient text meant that someone in the modern world knew what this poem meant and had this text in his or her possession. Who knew that this old piece of ruin would hold so much mystery.

He drew a deep breath and rubbed his eyes and began to wonder what the text meant -

"The final place of the ancient must indicate one of the Tepes like the one here… but follow Orion? As in sky?", thought Patrick trying hard to make sense of the words.

He looked at his watch again- it was midnight-12 a.m. He wasn't feeling sleepy anymore, so he decided to take a walk outside.

"Is there really 'a gateway to anywhere'? But that would mean that there existed some kind of time portal in the ancient days…",

he kept thinking as he walked towards the excavated mound. He looked around, the entire camp was silent and the security guards were patrolling the perimeter. Hans' tent was dark -

"Old fox must be sleeping soundly now that I'm here to do his dirty work…", thought Patrick walking in the darkness towards the excavation site.

Far away he could here the howling of a wolf in the barren mountains.

He began to feel a strange kind of anxiety as he got closer to the mound. It was left unguarded with a single lightbulb hanging on a pole. He stopped for a brief moment and looked up towards the dark starlit sky. There was no moon that night and the constellations shone brightly.

"Hmm.. Orion….Oh! I get it now ..the constellation…. ", whispered Patrick to himself.

"Where is it? Ugh… " , he began to scan the night sky with his bare eyes.

After a minute of looking, he saw it right above his head. It was shaped like a belt- which is why it was known as Orion's belt.But Patrick had to find out how the constellation would lead him towards the gate.

"As in heaven, so on earth… hmm… heaven, earth… follow Orion… maybe I should find the pattern of Orion on land… but how? ", thought Patrick wondering if his assumptions were correct.

"Ah!What the hell? White stones!", exclaimed Patrick as he noticed some bizzare stones on the entrance of the mound.He began to run towards the excavation site.

"There it is… the stones are the markers on land… ", thought Patrick as he reached the entrance of the mound. Patrick had never seen anything like this ever. Small stones about the size of the human palm were lying perfectly arranged one after the other in a curved line like a road leading straight into the exacavated mound.

It was a bizzare sight to witness the stones lighted up dimly on the ground amidst the ruins. Patrick followed them but after five stones the trail ended.He kneeled down and began to remove the dirt with his hand trying to find the rest. Sure enough he found another buried under the layer of sand. He kept doing this until he found another and then another. He kept following the trail until he stood inside the mound. There were no more stones to uncover.

"Holy Christ! The text is indeed true… But what next?", thought Patrick as he looked around the site.

It was dark and silent inside the mound. The lightbulb was a few meters away in the entrance. He suddenly began to feel cold as light breeze began to blow.It was getting creepy but Patrick was excited to uncover the rest of the mystery.

He looked ahead and stretched his hand forward in the darkness trying to grab a pillar in front of him.He could barely see anything.

"Damn I should have brought my flashlight!", he thought, immediately regretting his decision of being there at this ungodly hour.

As his hand touched a pillar it felt warm. He raised his other hand behan to feel the ancient rock pillar. The warmth soothed him. He almost felt like hugging it!