The Parallax Tablet: An Alien Artifact Thriller by Douglas Michaels

Author:Douglas Michaels [Michaels, Douglas]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Published: 2021-04-08T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

“Siwa,” I repeated. “I think I remember what you told me. It’s an urban oasis.”

“Yeah,” Selene replied. “Where the Great Sand Sea is.”

As we tracked the Mediterranean coast, the dark, foaming ocean close by, the temperature was falling. According to the gauge, the outside air was hanging at fifty-two degrees but I knew it could get even cooler before the sun rose. Palm trees shivered in the sea breeze, and desert clouds blew inland. The stars were bright and traced like a path we could follow. If all else failed, I wondered where it might take us. I thought of those earliest civilizations wandering this same road as they tracked the same constellations.

I smiled to myself as I realized the irony of it all. For all our sophisticated, modern-age advancements, those people, all those thousands of years ago, would likely have better luck with this tablet than me.

“How do we get there?” I asked. “Where is it?”

Selene lifted her head from the window and looked at me. I noticed that her yellowish eyes glowed like little embers stoking a fire.

“Siwa is close to the Libyan border,” she said. “I know, I know, but you don’t have to get close to the border. It’s an urban oasis, located about three-hundred-and-fifty miles west of Cairo.”

“Bang in the middle of nowhere?” I guessed.

“It’s tricky to get to even by our modern standards,” Selene replied. “It’s a twelve-hour bus journey from Cairo.”

“And Akhenaten managed it?” I asked. “How did he do that?”

Selene glanced out of the window again as though she was looking for something.

“With great difficulty,” she replied. “So he must have felt that it was necessary.”

“How do we get there?” I asked again.

“There’s a direct route from Marsa Matrouh,” the Brit replied. “From there, we head south for three hours. I think around eight hours in total.”

My body ached in anticipation of all those hours driving. I wasn’t used to sitting for so long anymore. It was nearing ten p.m., and I tried to work out how long I’d been awake for, but I got lost in the time zones. I instinctively yawned, and Selene smiled in sympathy.

“We can drive in shifts,” she said.

“Are you sure about this?” I asked. “It’s such a long way. Is it worth it?”

Selene rubbed her forehead.

“If we want to unlock the secrets of this tablet, then I think we have to go on the same journey,” she replied. “We have to retrace their steps. Go back to the beginning, as I said.”

“But what are you expecting?” I asked. “Some sort of National Treasure hunt in Siwa?”

“Anything,” she replied with a forced shrug. “I can’t let this go, Chris. I have to know how this ends. I can’t go home and leave this lingering question, and besides, we have nothing else to do.”

Unfortunately, that was true. Until I made contact with my people, I was trapped, and going to another city, finding another Embassy, well, that felt like a suicide mission, and I’d only be putting another group of locals in danger.

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