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“So what was the story you found?”
“It's hard to know exactly, and even if someone got it right, not everyone would agree, since some parts could go in different directions. My guess was that the tale was almost entirely political and not a philosophical lesson. It might make more sense to call it a philosophical tale though, to the ancient Greeks, they were sometimes the same thing, and here it was like they were making more of a political point, at least by today's standards. The narrative phrase that kept coming up was 'a mind like stone becomes like stone'. So it invoked the story of Medusa, but this wasn't the story as we'd ever heard it before.”
“Any idea what the phrase meant?”
“Well, it wouldn't make any sense to repeat them selves, so they were obviously using two different metaphors for 'like stone'. It didn't take long for us to come up with a few ideas, but we didn't want to put words in their mouths either. So after a few more weeks of continued study, I was able to settle on what I think they meant. And that is, for the first part, 'a mind like stone' is someone that is in a set way of thinking, that your reality or beliefs are what they are and you can't grasp any other picture. You see?”
“I suppose it makes sense, but as you say, not everyone would agree it's the only possible explanation.” he replied.
“Yes, as I said. Now if my conclusion of the first part was correct and fit all the carvings throughout the site, I then had to find another metaphor for 'like stone' that fit the first part, the carvings, a political or philosophical idea, and could be seen as leading to a different version of the story of Medusa.”
“I see.”
So in a way, those three guidelines made it hard to come up with an answer, but at the same time would make it easy to be sure if I came up with the right answer to the riddle.”
“I'm assuming you came up with, or discovered something, something dangerous even? Had you not, there never would have been the call for help that lead us to where we are now.”
“I see what you mean. I really don't know what went wrong as you say, but something must have or we'd still be at a dead end as far as the message went.” I said, as much to myself as to them. It was a little hard to think too, the itch was growing stronger, I had a need for something, but what? He must have noticed it too.
“We've been at this a long time. Are you hungry? Would you like something eat or drink?”
“Hmm, yes. That sounds good. Could I get this jacket removed though, so I could feed myself?”
“Very well. But lets replace the jacket with some travel restraints. Give her half a meter of chain total so she can manage.”
And with that he walked out of the room. Another pair of guards came in shortly thereafter with chains jingling in their hands. They removed my straight-jacket and put them on me. With less than half a meter of chain from wrist to wrist, I could slide the chain through a ring at my waist and reach out a little with both hands, or a fair amount with just one.
Lunch itself wasn't much, just a grilled cheese, some tomato soup, a jug of water, a glass and a cup of jello on a metal tray, with a napkin and some plastic-ware of course. Not very Greek, maybe they were trying to give me typical American food?
I tried to think of more as I ate, but nothing much came immediately to mind. Something big must have gone wrong or we would have just gone home empty handed. Nothing new there really. While such expeditions generally add to the overall body of knowledge, we often don't find many answers to the questions we really want to know. Like what's really behind door number one to history. Wait, the door! Did we ever get it open? Think. Think. We must have, but if we did, why can't I remember? What ever took place must be due to what we found, because everything else is clear enough and nothing to cause all this trouble.
So if we did open the door, what did we find beyond it? Room? No. Hall? No. Cavern? Yes. That's where we found the altar though. So I remembered the altar, but I thought we found it outside the door? Okay, so what was around the altar then? After thinking hard, I could remember a pit and a huge sculpture over it. Engels and Hastings worked on the altar while the rest of us were occupied with the sculpture, right? We checked the pit out first. It went down further than we could see with any light, and we had no other means on hand to check its depth. We did send away for some equipment, but that would take awhile. The sculpture however...
It was huge and straddled the pit on three legs. It had an art deco feel to it, stretched like taffy, four bluntish legs, three going downward and one straight up. The whole thing was only vaguely symmetrical, with cone shaped holes facing towards the altar on the leg nearest it. We measured the pit at nearly ten meters across, the sculpture was then a few more than that and about twenty-five meters high. We had no idea how it was brought in to the cavern or even in put place though. The sculpture itself was made of limestone, a substance that in recent years had been discovered to diminish lower frequencies while leaving higher ones unaffected, solving the mystery of the acoustics at the Greek theater at Epidaurus. We wondered if maybe it was meant to be an acoustic microphone and receiver, picking up sounds and voices from far below? Maybe there was another such sculpture at the bottom of the pit for two way communication? But the knowledge, engineering, and purpose seemed far beyond what anyone could have conceived, let alone actually built, thousands of years ago.
I mulled it all over as I ate. Strange that it all came to mind so easily after being unable to remember anything at first. Maybe I just needed a rest and something to eat. Speaking of which, now after eating a bit, the itch from earlier was returning. If I could just get this helmet off. There was no mirror in the room, but maybe...
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