The Destroyer 053 - Time Trial by Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir

Author:Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir [Murphy, Warren & Sapir, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Pulp Action
ISBN: 0-7408-0576-2
Publisher: PINNACLE BOOKS
Published: 2010-03-19T14:52:26.119000+00:00

Chapter Seven

They were led to a huge low build­ing near the great wall sep­arat­ing the city from the farm­land out­side on the out­skirts of the end­less jun­gle. Like the tem­ple, the wall was con­struct­ed of stones ce­ment­ed by mor­tar and rub­ble and coat­ed with bright white stuc­co. Or­ange tiles cov­ered the vast roof, and a lush gar­den of trop­ical flow­ers out­lined the fan­ci­ful walk­ways lead­ing in­to the build­ing’s canopied en­trances.

In the stone foy­er was a stat­ue like the one in the tem­ple, de­pict­ing the fig­ure of a man topped by a blank sphere in place of a head. The priest led them silent­ly past the bronze-​col­ored guards dressed in white loin­cloths, their heads and spears fes­tooned with or­na­men­tal quet­zal feath­ers, up an el­egant curv­ing stair­case of stone. They walked through a long hall­way whose walls were bright­ly paint­ed with scenes of men play­ing ball. Fi­nal­ly they en­tered a large airy room filled with price­less pot­tery en­crust­ed with gems. Its high ceil­ing was dec­orat­ed with paint­ed mold­ings and round­ed arch­ways lead­ing to ad­ja­cent rooms.

In the cen­ter of the main room where they stood were three stat­ues. Two small­er plas­ter fig­ures, around six feet tall, flanked a larg­er cen­tral stat­ue. The cen­tral fig­ure was, again, the ev­er-​present man whose head was a blank sphere.

“I rec­og­nize the two small­er ones,” Lizzie said. “The one on the left is Ah Kin, the Mayan God of Light, and that’s Ah Chac, the Rain God, on the right. But I still can’t fig­ure out the one in the mid­dle. That stat­ue seems to be ev­ery­where, and yet I’ve nev­er seen one un­earthed.”

“I guess he’s some kind of lo­cal big deal,” Re­mo said dis­tract­ed­ly. He couldn’t care less about some bub­ble-​head­ed stat­ue. He walked over to Chi­un, who was look­ing serene­ly out one of the room’s big win­dows.

Out­side, past the city’s walls, were small thatched-​roof hous­es made of poles and stuc­co. Wom­en crouched in the dirt court­yards around the rough dwellings, weav­ing on hip looms and car­ry­ing loaves of bread to big stone ovens. Be­yond them were the farms, the earth ter­raced and stepped to pre­serve the soil from ero­sion. Tall corn waved gen­tly in the breeze, and red dots of toma­toes and pep­pers bright­ened the peace­ful land­scape in front of the jun­gle.

“This is a good time,” Chi­un said.

“How can you say that?” Re­mo snapped. “We’re trapped some­time in pre­his­to­ry. There isn’t even a phone here.”

The old Ori­en­tal shrugged. “A man is trapped on­ly by the lim­ita­tions of his mind,” he said.

“Great. I’ll re­mem­ber that while I’m in­vent­ing the wheel.”

“Don’t be fool­ish, Re­mo. This is a civ­ilized place. Look at it. There is agri­cul­ture here, and art, and peace. There are no guns or cars or ra­dios grow­ing out of the necks of knife-​wield­ing dolts.”

“I can’t be­lieve it,” Re­mo said. “You don’t care. You re­al­ly don’t care whether we get home or not, do you?”

“Be pa­tient, my son. I do care. But I do not wor­ry need­less­ly.”

“Need­less­ly? We get thrown back in time by some fluke–“

Chi­un held up a re­strain­ing fin­ger.

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