Behind The Sun

Mystical Suspense-Thriller Chapter One

Good luck,

Is the science

Not yet classified:

Just as the supernatural,

Is the natural

Not yet understood.

The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard

 [1922]

THE LEGEND

The Earth was scattered throughout the Universe, in giant patches of lightness and darkness, fire and ice, current and calm.  Islands of awareness not yet aware - half not yet whole.

The planet came together not in the way of thunder, but in the way of the Flow like the silken mesh of an orchestra - for the Conductors understood Its' Sounds and Its' Colors. The Conductors then merged the sounds and the colors with the Earth - and the Rainbow gave forth a Perfect Life of Perfect Sound, Perfect Color and Perfect Vibration.

Delighted with the weave, for a time the Conductors lived on Earth and in the Universe.  Some grew more fascinated by the expanding planet than their peers and in time spent more and more of their Energy there.

Thousands of centuries of Earth time, clouded by shadowing the light of Universal Memory for millions of Conductors. For these Conductors, amplifying energy from soul then reducing energy to body and returning became an increasingly arduous cycle, until one by one the Conductors of Earth no longer made the effort.  Their souls became Earth-bound, trapped inside a physical body until the flesh gave way.

Other Conductors still composed of Universal Light - those who had not played with Earth as a toy - sought to ease the burden of their Mates, so "visited" Earth and "walked" among them to ensure Soul-Memory was not lost. With the passage of millions of Earth years, more and more Mates were able to return to the Universe, resuming their form as Conductors - their cycle of Earth lives complete.  Having freed their souls, they were then charged with returning briefly to assist – reaching back through the Dimensions to support and guide others...

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC Volume lV  April, 1976

The findings of archaeologist Dr. Guy Williams’ corroborated the conclusions of three noted Dutch geologists who had ventured on a similar puzzle-piecing quest in search of a highly advanced ancient culture.

Both the Dutch and Canadian scientists studied the log from a salvaged two-century-old wreck of the Portuguese merchant ship the Blue Queen. The log entry that sparked immediate global controversy made a positive, but disjointed description of a similar sub-civilization that an expedition of Dutch industrial geologists claimed to have met and conversed with at length.  The geologist's sighting occurred after their field party ventured into the Atlas Mountains in northern Africa in search of specific mineral deposits.

The truly unsettling aspect of the mysterious culture alluded to in the surprisingly well-preserved ship's log, found in a metal box with its edges sealed in wax, was that the Blue Queen went down in a storm off the coast of Mauritania in the spring of 1783.  The Dutch exploration team returned from the Atlas Saharien area with their incredible story in the fall of 1971.

Reference to this same civilization or similar culture was discovered at the digs of no less than five separate archaeological sites in Crete, Egypt and Mexico.  The scattered references found at these digs were so casual in nature as to appear at first glance insignificant.  However, Dr. Williams believes this sub-culture was and may still be anything, but insignificant.

Williams noted that evidence of the culture did not reappear until after the crucifixion and disappearance of the Nazarene when these people were then seen by merchants from Greece.  The account of those merchants parallels the experiences recorded in the log of the Blue Queen and of the Dutch geologists.

PART I... The Quest

Where do I stand,

What place is this

That makes me want to run?

I want to leave,

Yet need to stay

On this other side of the sun. s.t.b.

CHAPTER ONE

Jack Sutter leaned back in his desk chair then stretched his arms above his head.  With one foot he pushed against the floor and swung his desk chair around to face the wide stretch of glass behind him. With his hands behind his head, he rested his gaze over the familiar campus skyline.

Eight floors below his office window he watched the weaving activity of hundreds of students. They hurried along dozens of sidewalks and pathways that crisscrossed the 314-acre campus like strips of crisp bacon connecting twenty-six office buildings, lecture halls, and dormitories.

He rubbed his temples, slowly willing a tension headache that hovered behind his eyes to dissolve.

September had always been Sutter’s favorite month, fall his favorite season.  The smells were crisp almost sweet, the colors were bracing.  In fall Nature bestowed a grand finale of turning leaves in rich tangerine or lemon - taking a bow before the final curtain of winter’s powdered sugar.

Generally, the beginning of a new term was precisely the therapy he needed.  Once lost in revising lectures and caught up in the whirlwind energy of students with their needs - he coped.

He read again the typed lines of his opening notes to the first-year students.  Fundamentally it was the same material printed on recipe cards every year, with slight alterations to curb his monotony.

This year he would no longer give full class lectures to first, second-, and third-year students. As the new dean of the Department of Archaeology at the University of Calgary, the extent of his future contact with the vast majority of those young people would be the ten-minute opening pep, then the more demanding challenge of fourth year and the graduate students.

Sutter eased out of the high-back chair and paced his office.  He glanced at his watch.  Just another thirty-two minutes before he met Pete Roberts then gave the opening introduction to Robert's class.

Jack was restless.  Frustrated by a vast accumulation of circumstances of which he was well aware and much more he could not yet define.

Dr. Aaron Fisherman's untimely stroke took the department by surprise.  Jack had been hastily shuffled into his place temporarily.  Then the university received word that Dr. Fisherman's full recovery was in doubt.

At first Sutter was proud of his appointment as department head the previous spring.  But his sense of achievement at securing the appointment slowly began to erode.  Intermittent depression fixed like fog to more and more of his days, until his work ceased to be the haven of security in which he relied for refuge and escape.

The phone on Sutter's desk broke rudely into his thoughts.  He stood for a moment glaring at the intruding technology.  On the fourth ring he finally picked up the receiver.

"Yes?"

"Dr. Sutter, Dr. Roberts just called.  He asked if you could meet with him in the lecture room earlier than ten to nine."

"How much earlier, Grace?"

"Is now possible?"

"Did he say what he wanted?"

"Not in great detail.  Something about a guest lecturer, sponsored by the Glenbow Museum, a Dr. Guy Williams."

"Okay.  Thanks Grace.  You needn't call Pete back.  I'll go down right away.  Oh, and I won't return until one thirty so just take messages this morning.  Hopefully I can get back to everyone after lunch this afternoon."

As Sutter replaced the receiver he thought of Grace Fleury.  How appropriate that someone like Grace should be secretary to the head of archaeology.  She was nearly as old as the Province of Alberta and better than any computer.  All pertinent data was stored and cross filed in Miss Fleury's delicate head, securely topped by an unruly shock of naturally curly hair the color of raw cotton that reminded Sutter of unraveled wool.

The slim, bird-like lady had never missed a day due to illness and was punctual with the precision of a finely crafted French clock.

Grace had been secretary to the late Dr. Joseph LaRose when Jack struggled through his first four years as an undergraduate, at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.  She later became secretary to Dr. Fisherman in Calgary when Jack was a graduate student working on his master's thesis.  He had known Grace Fleury for twenty-two years and marveled that time had not touched her.

Dr. Sutter made his way to the central bank of elevators.  The lecture hall occupied a quarter of the space on the fifth floor of the Earth Sciences Building, with some laboratory facilities available on the same floor and in the basement.

He walked through the open doorway and down the carpeted steps that lead into the vast pie-shaped room.  It had capacity seating for two hundred, though Archaeology 101 could never boast that many committed first year electives.  By the second year, usually about sixty had selected ancient sciences as their major and that number remained constant to graduation.  But less than one third of the graduates went on to complete further specialized studies of field training.

Pete Roberts sat on the corner of the table at the center of the lecture podium.  He was reading intently and hadn't noticed he wasn't alone in the room until Dr. Sutter stood directly in front of him.

"Jack.  Good morning, didn't expect you this quick."  He lowered the National Geographic that had so absorbed his attention greeting his one-time professor and thesis advisor.

Pete looked a full ten years younger than thirty-eight.  His sandy blonde hair cut short, never varied in style.  The deep blue eyes that hinted of mischief had turned many a female head on campus.  Sutter suspected the younger man would retain his friendly, boyish good looks well into his retirement years.

"Grace seemed to think it was important.  And our new crop will be arriving in less than fifteen minutes so I thought it best to hustle on down.  What's up?"

"Have you seen this?"  Pete held up a thirty-five-year-old edition of National Geographic.  It was open to the first of four feature articles.  He handed it to Sutter.

Jack quickly scanned the first two pages.  "No, not this article in particular, but I know Guy Williams' work.  He's one of the best-known archaeologists in the world.  Most of his field of study was in South America before he had to stop working at dig sites.  Apparently, he suffered from severe outbreaks of arthritis."

"He was lecturing at McGill for a time."  Jack paused and flipped back to the cover, then frowned.  "1976? Williams must be around eighty by now."

"Eighty-four to be exact.  And he is the same Dr. Williams Catherine has booked to speak at the Glenbow next month."

"I didn't think he was still working."

"Well, he isn't, officially.  However, occasionally since retiring from McGill he’s done some guest speaking when he felt up to it.  Catherine has her fingers crossed he doesn't become ill again before he is slated to speak here."

"And so, she should.  I never met him personally, but Aaron did.  In fact, he worked under Williams as a doctorate student three years prior to the last dig Dr. Williams organized.  I cut-my-teeth on a number of Williams' published papers.  What's to be his topic?"

"This."  Pete tapped the periodical with his first finger.  "Apparently this illusive culture has been one of his pet subjects for half his life.  But other than a small party of Mauritanian government officials who attempted without success to duplicate the route taken by the Dutch, Dr. Williams had no success convincing anyone to part with the money he needed for another, more intensive search."

A familiar buzz sounded, first bell.  The two men looked up to see close to a hundred students already seated with more filing in through the open double door to fill the rows of stepped seats.

"It’s nearly curtain time."  Pete smiled.  He made a last-minute check of his projector, while Sutter arranged his note cards across the table.

The doors were closed after the second bell and three stragglers hurried to vacant seats.  Dr. Roberts joined Dr. Sutter on the podium.  He introduced himself as attending professor then his friend and department head.

"Good morning and welcome to our past."  Dr. Sutter began.

"History, the maintained written record of mankind's accomplishments and failures, is little less than three thousand years old."

"Writing itself has existed just over six thousand years.  The major slice of our distant past, however, was not recorded in any written form, but based on legend, tradition, or simple drawings."

"There would exist a great void in our present knowledge of evolution were it not for archaeology.  One of the most interesting aspects of this form of science has been to bridge the stories, handed down by word-of-mouth generation to generation, from undisputed fact or unquestionable fiction.  A perfect example of that was found in Homer's account of Troy and the ancient Greek heroes of the Trojan wars along with his classic poems.  Virtually all of this material remained unsubstantiated until the excavations in Greece and Asia Minor showed that what Homer wrote had a foundation by evidence."

As Jack scanned the faces scattered before him, he knew he didn't have his audience leaning on the edges of their seats tense with anticipation, but they weren't staring at him glassy-eyed, or down at the floor either.

"Because of archaeology civilizations long-extinct, lost cities and forgotten ways of life have surfaced.  It was archaeology that discovered startling evidence from tablets found in the Near East that much of the legal code much of the human race follows today, can be traced back over four thousand years to its origin in one of the earliest civilizations - the Sumerians."

"Considering how important archaeology has become in adding to our knowledge it is, but an infant among the sciences."

Only within the last one hundred years has it grown from a hobby of the academic amateur into a recognized scientific profession.  It was only early in the Twentieth Century that historians reluctantly came to acknowledge the relevance of archaeology.  Then as the decades past the work gained greater momentum with each new discovery that exposed new information acquiring critical importance."

"It is hoped by me and this entire department that not only will the majority of you seated here today complete the next four years, but due to the volume of detailed knowledge necessary within the general framework of archaeology, will go on to specialize in one of the many tributaries of investigation associated with ancient studies."

"The successful archaeologist must possess a vast reserve of patience with perseverance, a flair for discovery, a serious regard for the truth, and a slice of genius for interpretation."

With that, Dr. Sutter ended his annual opening remarks.  The new students clapped as he ascended the same stairs to the back of the lecture hall, then out the same double doors he had entered half an hour before.

The fresh new faces had seemed attentive enough.  But this fall he felt deflated with hypocrisy.  He had become a textbook scientist.  He spoke to bright, alert minds about the digs and discoveries made by others.  He had once possessed just the flair he had spoken of - shelved so many years ago.  He hadn't picked up a brush or a spade in years for anything more startling than a demonstration of the proper handling and technique.

Sutter rode the elevator to the main floor then left the building by a side entrance.  He followed a narrow cement path to the staff parking lot at the rear of the eight storey red brick building.  He unlocked the driver's door of his jeep tossing his notes over the back of the driver’s seat.  The cards fell like leaves in a litter on the rear floor as he got in behind the steering wheel.

With the homing instinct of a wounded animal seeking refuge, he drove south to the center of the city, an almost overnight collection of towering glass and concrete that hadn't existed when he was in elementary school.  Driving east on fifth avenue, he turned right on fourth street, threading his way through the mid-morning traffic south again all the way to the river along Elbow Drive.

The old familiar neighborhoods of Glencoe, Rideau Park and Roxboro that branched off of Elbow Drive always gave him solace.  He often walked their streets for hours never tiring of the vintage architecture that had remained unchanged for over ninety years.

These areas were still as he remembered growing up in Calgary.  So far they hadn’t suffered the crass indecencies of instant devastation at the hands of a trigger-happy developer.

Storm clouds were building inside of him.  Sometime soon, he feared his fragile charade would crumble, fracturing his carefully sculptured life into ruins.

He braked then parked by the curb along Roxboro Road.  The houses were built flanking the south, wide grassy boulevard overlooking the Elbow River that bordered the north side of the street.

Sutter left his car and stood for several minutes absorbing the venerable peace and serenity of the neighborhood.  Directly across from where he parked stood a sizeable brown brick bungalow with wide hanging eaves, and an imposing square pillared veranda that spanned the front of the house.

He turned away from the house and walked toward the gently swaying river.  He allowed the rhythmic rippling to hypnotize him until he felt relaxed, tension melted away like snow in a Chinook.

Jack Sutter did not match the stereotypical notion of an archaeologist or indeed the hackneyed perception of a university professor.  No corduroy pants, or tweed jackets with suede leather patches at the elbows.  He appeared for all there was to see at first glance, a banker, an insurance broker, or business executive.

He looked somewhat out of place as he stood dressed in his three-piece, custom cut grey wool suit, on the same river bank that one hundred years before had sheltered a small camp of Sarcee Indians who had come to trade at Fort Calgary.

Despite the shaded grass and leaves still damp from the cool fall night and the price of his suit he sat cross-legged on the ground.  His thoughts drifted to his First Nations heritage.

Had any man from the band of his great grandfather's people faced a similar self-crisis? Somehow, he doubted it.  Indians of that time were true realists.

His paternal grandmother had married an officer in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.  Together, they had crisscrossed Canada a dozen times in the course of his police career, packing three sons and a daughter from province to province.

Calgary, Alberta made an indelible impression on Jack's father as a boy.  The emerging cosmopolitan excitement of the fledgling oil industry blended with the small-town ranching friendliness, framed to the west by the northern Rocky Mountains, said home to him. Jack's father headed west after graduation and taught high school his entire working life in the sprawling foothills city - history his passion and specialty.

Many of Jack's summers had been spent visiting his uncles and aunt, who like Jack's father, found a special place among the many cities and towns they had lived in throughout their growing years. Those summers had also included Nova Scotia, the Maritime province of his grandfather's birth where his grandparents finally settled at retirement.

Jack had never tired of the stories his grandparents told of the early settlement years in Western Canada.  From his grandmother he learned of the land-wise natives who helped early settlers to survive their first winters.

From Jack’s grandfather he learned of the RCMP and the people of the Maritimes - fishermen, miners and farmers. From his father came the history of Europe.  The seeds of the past became deeply planted.  As he grew so did they until they matured into a feast of ancient knowledge for which he continually hungered.

But something else had grown within his as well - something dark.

He closed his grey-brown eyes, a legacy from his paternal grandmother.  Then bowed his prematurely greying head, a legacy from his maternal grandfather - and prayed to Niska Ku Luk Li - as his Sarcee Tsuu Tina grandmother taught him.

He prayed for a miracle.

He prayed for release.

………………

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