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Pitt didn't debate further with Hatfield. He turned and walked behind the stone chairs still holding the mummies and stared at a large curtain of sewn animal hides that covered the far wall. Very gently, he lifted one corner of the curtain and looked under it. His face took on a mystified expression.
"Careful," warned Hatfield. "That's very fragile."
Pitt ignored him and raised the curtain in both hands until it had curled above his head.
"You shouldn't touch that," Hatfield cautioned irritably. "It's a priceless relic and might crumble to pieces. It must be handled delicately until it can be preserved."
"What's under it is even more priceless," Pitt said in a impassive voice. He nodded at Giordino. "Grab a couple of those spears and use them to prop up the curtain."
Hatfield, his face flushed crimson, tried to stop Giordino, but he might as well have tried to halt a farm tractor. Giordino brushed him aside without so much as a sideways glance, snatched two of the ancient obsidian spears, planted their tips on the floor of the chamber, and used their butt ends to hold up the curtain. Then Pitt adjusted a pair of floodlights until their beams were concentrated on the wall.
Pat held her breath and stared at the four large circles carved into the polished wall, with strange diagrams cut within their circumferences. "They're glyphs of some kind," she said solemnly.
"They look like maps," spoke up Giordino.
"Maps of what?"
A bemused smile spread Pitt's lips. "Four different projections of the earth."
Hatfield peered through his glasses over Pat's shoulder. "Ridiculous. These glyphs don't look like any ancient maps I've ever seen. They're too detailed, and they certainly bear no resemblance to geography as I know it."
"That's because your shallow mind cannot visualize the continents and shorelines as they were nine thousand years ago."
"I must agree with Dr. Hatfield," said Pat. "All I see is a series of what might be large and small islands with jagged coastlines surrounded by wavy images suggesting a vast sea."
"My vote goes for a butterfly damage
d by antiaircraft fire on a Rorschach inkblot test," Giordino muttered cynically.
"You just dropped fifty points on the gray matter scale," Pitt came back. "I thought that of all the people, I could count on you to solve the puzzle."
"What do you see?" Pat asked Pitt.
"I see four different views of the world as seen from the continent of Antarctica nine thousand years ago."
"All jokes aside," said Giordino, "you're right."
Pat stood back for an overall view. "Yes, I can begin to distinguish other continents now. But they're in different positions. It's almost as if the world has tilted."
"I fail to see how Antarctica fits into the picture," Hatfield insisted.
"It's right in front of your eyes."
Pat asked, "How can you be so dead sure?"
"I'd be interested in knowing how you reached that conclusion," Hatfield scoffed.
Pitt looked at Pat. "Do you have any chalk in your tote bag that you use to highlight inscriptions in rock?"
She smiled. "Chalk went out. Now we prefer talcum powder."
"Okay, let's have it, and some Kleenex. All women carry Kleenex."
She dug in her pocket and handed him a small packet of tissues. Then she fished around in her tote bag through the notebooks, camera equipment, and tools used for examining ancient symbols in rock, until she found a container of powdered talc.
Pitt spent the short wait wetting the tissue with water out of a canteen and dampening the glyphs carved on the wall so the talc would adhere in the etched stone. Then Pat passed him the talc, and he began dabbing it on the smooth surface around the ancient art. After about three minutes, he stood back and admired his handiwork.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Antarctica."
