***
“She is absolutely fascinating,” Pete Reynolds declared to the other men around the meeting table. “I have learned a lot from listening to her.”
“Wait until you meet her in the flesh,” the CIC said. “After three hours, two toilet breaks, and one meal, I was hoping you would have learnt just a tad,” he added sarcastically. He was due to go home on a week’s leave, and now this had all cropped up in his face.
“She has provided all this information, most of which we all know. I still believe she is a phony, and someone in our organization has leaked this to her,” Isaac Mason contributed, trying to take a more pragmatic approach. However, in this situation he could not get a handle on what was happening. “She still has not told us where she got the transmissions from.”
“Hey, has anyone considered she could be a Trimadian spy, as no one would suspect a female?” Tremaine declared.
“Aha!” Reynolds exclaimed to no one in particular. They all stared at him. Reynolds was sifting through a huge pile of books—Ancient Egypt, the Americas, World Artifacts. Some were from Earth, and one or two were not.
“I know it’s in here somewhere!” he declared, while still half occupied amongst the pages. He glanced up and gestured for them to keep talking. “I’ll show you what I’m after, when I find it.”
Tremaine frowned at him. “Fickle,” he murmured under his breath.
“Well,” Pilcher exclaimed. “While we are waiting for Dr. Reynolds to shed some light on the situation, and maybe on his situation. We need to know how to approach Kate. Do we bring her into this, or do we get her to sign our secrecy disclosure documents and send her home? If we do that and she decides to go to the press, we can easily discredit her, as she really is a nobody.”
“Ahh, I think you had better retract that statement you just made, sir.” Dr. Reynolds interjected, studying a page. “My father gave me this book, er, passed on by his father, and God knows where he got it. Well, look at this and tell me what you see.”
He turned the book over toward the curious men who stared at an ancient drawing that was detailed and well preserved for its age. The artist had a skill that would make fun of Renoir. The artwork of the ancient blurb that went with the drawing would put a master calligrapher in awe.
But all that skill was second to the face on the page.
It was a picture of Kate Willard!
After the debriefing, Pete Reynolds pored over the book to find more details on this masterful drawing. The script under the drawing stated she was a royal, a queen. The likeness to Kate was remarkable, like an identical twin. The shape of the face, the eyes, it was a sight to behold. Reynolds, with painstaking precision had begun translating the text into English. However, upon closer inspection, his heart leapt. There were many extra symbols he did not recognize, which left him at a loss. He had not come across this personally or from any other book. He classed this piece as hybrid hieroglyphics. Distinctly a form of very ancient Egyptian, but with “irregular” symbols that he could only guess the meaning.
He had studied his photos of the scriptures inside the Junghis Temple, and some similar symbols were on the walls. Pete had made an educated guess that it was the Trimadian language. Unfortunately, he had nothing to back it up.
It was strange, and somewhat sad how the book only dedicated a small portion to this ancient, somewhat attractive queen. But it still left Pete stunned.
What he managed to translate stated Queen Leah and her family before her had ruled over The kingdom of the Old World for several generations, around 4000 B.C., before the Egyptians ruled. She was very popular and judging by the hieroglyphics, was known as the Golden Queen. The people of the day worshipped her for her generosity and kindness. It was rumored that one of the “gods” from the heavens fell in love with her. He would take a human form and visit her in secret. Everything was fine until he was discovered, and what he was doing was forbidden according to the gods’ rules. Gods are not meant to get involved with their subjects. The Elder Gods, issued him an ultimatum–he could live with her as her human husband, but he must forsake his immortality. Or, shun her and return to his proper home and keep all his powers. The evidence pointed that he chose the first. They called him Sidonio.
And that was it, finito!
There were no further details, nor any reference to the facts of the time–weather, natural disasters, anything significant that had happened in that era–which made it hard to ascertain the story’s authenticity due to its infernal lack of factual detail. In all his other books, there was no mention whatsoever of this queen around this era.
Dr. Reynolds speculated that maybe the story was written like a romantic bedtime story in order to hide the truth. But what truth? Why was this queen, and her life hidden? What was Kate’s connection with all these visions? It was damn frustrating.
He needed to show this to Sataal, who may be able to shed some light. Pete emphasized this in his reports. If they wanted to find out all they could, the Cantals may be able to help.
However, he was shut down by red tape. Pilcher advised all the OBF teams that Kate Willard, being classified top secret, was not to be exposed or mentioned to anyone, including and especially aliens, until further notice.
Pete was sure he had glanced though this book many years ago and simply had forgotten all about it until Kate had shown up on the scene. Her face jolted his memory, but trying to relocate the book was a task in itself. He had spent a few hours going through his vast collection of books and journals and could not find it. He had lied about having it passed through his family. He did not have a clue how it ended up in his possession. He had frustratingly gone to the coffee machine half a dozen times, until on the sixth, he walked back into his study and the book was on top of a small pile beside his desk. He could not recall putting the pile there at all!
That’s it with the caffeine!
Chapter 7—Heating up