Domain by Steve Alten Page A

thing!”
    “Just calm down a second. Before we end up looking like the Stooges of the new millennium, get on-line and start confirming the signal. Start with the VLA in New Mexico. I’ll contact Ohio State—”
    “Arthur—”
    Krawitz turns to face the video com. “Go ahead, Jeremy.”
    A half dozen technicians have crowded around a pale-faced Dr. Armentrout. “Arthur, we just confirmed the signal.”
    “You confirmed—” Krawitz feels light-headed, like he is living in a dreamworld. “Have you targeted a source?”
    “Still working on that. We’re running into a lot of interference because of the—”
    “Arthur, I’ve got a preliminary trajectory!” Kenny is on his feet, very excited. “The signal’s originating from the constellation of Orion, somewhere in the vicinity of Orion’s belt.”
     
    Chichén Itza Yucatan Peninsula
     
    4:00 P.M.
    The ancient Mayan city of Chichén Itza, located in the lowlands of the Yucatan Peninsula, is one of the great archaeological wonders of the world. Several hundred buildings occupy this twelve-hundred-year-old jungle-enclosed site, including some of the most intricately carved temples and shrines in all of Mesoamerica.
    The actual origins of the city known as Chichén date back to A.D. 435. After a period of abandonment, the city was rediscovered by the Itzaes, a Maya-speaking tribe who occupied the region until the late eighth century, when the Toltecs migrated east from Teotihuacan. Under the tutelage and leadership of the great teacher, Kukulcan, the two cultures merged, the city flourishing to dominate the region as a religious, ceremonial, and cultural center. Kukulcan’s departure in the eleventh century would lead to the city’s fall, its people lost, their depravity leading them to diabolical forms of human sacrifice. By the sixteenth century, what little remained of the culture had quickly fallen under Spanish rule.
    Dominating Chichén Itza is arguably the most magnificent structure in all of Mesoamerica, the Kukulcan pyramid. Nicknamed El Castillo by the Spanish, this towering, nine-terraced ziggurat rises nearly a hundred feet above an open expanse of short-cropped lawn.
    The Kukulcan is far more than just a pyramid—it is a calendar in stone. Each of its four sides possesses ninety-one steps. With the platform, the total equals 365—as in the days of the year.
    To archaeologists and scientists, the blood-red pyramid remains an enigma, for its design exhibits a knowledge of astronomy and mathematics rivaling that of modern man. The structure has been geologically aligned in such a manner so that twice each year, on the spring and fall equinoxes, strange shadows begin undulating along its northern balustrade. As the late afternoon sun sinks, the enormous shadow of a serpent’s body begins slithering down the steps until it meets up with its sculpted head, which rests at the base of the structure. (In the spring, the serpent descends the balustrade, in the fall, the illusion is reversed.) Sitting atop the pyramid is a four-sided temple, originally used for worship, and only later, upon Kukulcan’s departure, for human sacrifices. Believed to have been erected in A.D. 830, the Kukulcan was originally constructed on top of a much-older structure, the remains of which can only be accessed by way of a gated entry located along the northern base. A claustrophobic passage leads to a narrow stairwell, the limestone steps of which are slick from the humidity. Ascending the staircase, one finds two cramped inner chambers. The first contains the reclining figure of a Chac Mool, a Mayan statue supporting a ceremonial plate designed to hold the hearts of its sacrificial victims. Behind the security fencing of the second chamber sits the throne of a red jaguar, its jade eyes blazing green.
     
    Brent Nakamura hits the steady-cam switch, then pans across the sea of sweltering bodies with his SONY video recorder. Christ, there must be a hundred, thousand people