I froze in place. Then I raised my wristcom and pointed it at the boxes with the lids. It bleeped loudly. I walked across the room and touched the nearest one with the toe of my boot. It was only made of light plastic, but it didn't move. There was something heavy inside it. I pulled the lid off. There was a slight hiss as the air seal broke.
"Darwin!" said Megan.
"I know," I said.
The box was filled, almost to the brim, with Mayan artefacts.
_ _ _ _ _
"By Kukulkan!" said Domingo Xibalba. "Yes. Definitely. They're all from Tutal Xiu. I think I even recognise some of them."
It was two minutes later. Megan had fetched everyone else and I had opened the other sealed boxes. There were twelve of them in total, and they were filled all with Mayan treasures that could only be here because they'd been stolen from Tutal Xiu. Jewellery, wood and stone carvings, statues, headdress decorations, necklaces and more obsidian bladed knives and spearheads, though none as finely decorated as the jaguar knife. There were also more ordinary things, including bowls, spoons and cups, but that made sense as some temporal tourists prized everyday items more than valuable ones. It created the impression with dinner guests that you were academic enough to appreciate what was really important in history.
"This explains the other backsteps to the project destinations," said Anubis, who was comparing the screens of two different boardcoms. "Someone's smuggling artefacts. It must be for the black market. Take a look, Detective."
He tapped the serial number on the first crate I'd opened with the toe of his shoe.
"34257. That was last week's delivery," he said, showing me both the delivery manifest receipt on one screen and the backstep records on the other. "Whoever it is backstepped the next day. This has got to be it."
I had to admit it was a fairly clever part of the smuggler's scheme. Where better to hide the loot than in discarded boxes waiting to be thrown out that everyone else thought were empty? Provided you made sure to throw them out yourself, probably using gravity gloves to conceal that they were heavier than they should be, you'd be fine.
"Whoever is behind this is either is going to be sacked or expelled," said Baldr.
"Twice in one day, we agree on something," said Ra.
"I think I actually ate out of this one," said Xibalba, who was examining one of the wooden bowls. He looked up at Ra. "And how do we know it wasn't one of you?"
"What? I beg your pardon?" said Baldr.
"What on Earth makes you think it could be?" said Ra.
"You've already made off with my people's music for your own benefit," said Xibalba to Baldr. He looked at Ra. "And you haven't been back to the past in weeks. You used to come on every backstep with us. Did they realise you were a thief? Can you not risk showing your face in Tutal Xiu?"
"No, they did not," said Ra. "And I haven't." He sighed. "If you must know, I've rather lost my enthusiasm for it since Andrew. But I have not been stealing from our hosts."
"Actually, it can't be him," said Anubis, who was still comparing the boardcoms. He typed in another of the serial numbers on the crates. "This one was only delivered on Monday. Someone else must be doing it."
"Well, who is it then?" said Isabel Chernobog, as Xibalba continued digging through the crate. "If you're going to polygraph us all again, get on with it because..."
"Wait a moment. This wasn't made by us," said Xibalba. He drew a shoe out of the box. It was water stained and covered in dry mud, so it took us a few seconds to work out the partly chewed logo on the side of it. It was a 30th century Venusian made brown leather loafer, in what looked like a size twelve.
There was a long pause. Then we all looked around at Bernard Baal. He had been standing very quietly at the back of the group, keeping as low a profile as possible. I just had time to notice that he was sweating before he turned around and bolted for the doors to main room.
_ _ _ _ _
"Erik! Go!" yelled Mirabi.
"Going!" I shouted. I was already sprinting after him.
Baal was in surprisingly good shape for someone so short and rotund. I failed to catch up with him as we ran down the length of the main room, out the doors and up the stairs. Hiding his cargo in the empty boxes was not the only way he'd been planning ahead. As he ran, he pulled back his sleeve and started doing something to his watchcom, ignoring all my shouts for him to stop. As soon as I skidded around the last corner on the second floor, I saw why. The teleporter was powering up. He had a remote link set up to it.
"Stop!" I yelled, as Baal raced down the corridor and flung himself into the swirling white light. I ripped out my Unigun, flipped the selector to stun and fired twice, but he dematerialised in time and the bolts cut through empty air.
I skidded to a stop beside the teleporter controls and immediately thrust out my wristcom.
"ChronOps emergency override! Recharge and reset!"
The teleporter immediately started powering up again as I stepped onto the pads, preparing to transport me to the exact same co-ordinates Baal had just escaped to. I quickly knelt down, just in case he was waiting to ambush me when I arrived, and looked at my wristcom to see exactly where I was going. I glimpsed the co-ordinates of Tutal Xiu, but not the date and time before the white light swirled up in front of my eyes and I teleported.
_ _ _ _ _
I arrived in the middle of Hades's archaeological camp. I blinked and looked at my wristcom. Had Baal left some kind of diversion programmed into the controls? But the date and destination were the same as his; the site of Tutal Xiu in the present.
No one shot at me or swung anything heavy at my head as I stood up. I was in the middle of the tents and there was no sign of Baal. It was late afternoon in Yucatan by now and the sun was setting. I looked around, but the ground was too compacted and dusty to take clear footprints. I picked a direction at random and started running, keeping my Unigun out and ready. The dig was in the middle of nowhere, so unless Baal planned to escape into the jungle, he had to be aiming to steal one of the archaeologist's vehicles or at least stowaway in one...
"Detective Midgard?"
I spun around, almost raising my Unigun. The nearest tent had its front flaps pinned open and Hades was sitting at a desk made of a folding table and chair inside it, working on a map of the site.
"Have you seen Bernard Baal?" I said.
"What? Who? No," said Hades, sitting up. "No. No, I haven't. Why would I have?"
"I thought he was cataloguing artefacts for you at the weekend," I said. At the back of my mind, something else clicked.
There was a sudden ripping sound. Hades looked around and I stepped into the doorway of the tent as a pair of scissors were thrust through the side wall at the top and pulled all the way down to the bottom. The long slit was pulled open and Baal almost fell through it.
"Doctor! They're onto us!" he gasped. Then he looked around and noticed me. "Oh, Hax!"
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