Evil Star

Anyway, obviously the Nazca people didn't have airplanes. So the question is: Why go to all the trouble of making the lines and the pictures if they'd never be able to see them?
    "There have been all sorts of theories," Professor Chambers went on.
    "One writer believed that the lines were some sort of airport for spaceships from another planet. It's true that one of the pictures does show a man with a round head, and some people believe it to be an astronaut. A lot of people think they were drawn for the benefit of the ancient gods. They'd be up in the sky, so they'd be able to see them. My own feeling has always been that they are in some way connected to the stars ... perhaps they were used to forecast stars. Or perhaps..." She paused. "I've often wondered if they weren't put there to warn us about something."
    Her cigar glowed red. Smoke crept up the side of her face. She seemed to be deep in thought. But then, abruptly, she sat down again.
    "Many theories. But the point is — nobody knows for sure."
    "Is the place of Qolqa in the desert?" Matt asked.
    "Yes, it is." Chambers nodded. "Once again, you should have seen it from the plane. Qolqa is a word in Qnecha, the ancient language of Peru. It means 'granary.' And it’s the name given to the great rectangle we flew over this morning."
    '"Before the place of Qolqa . . ."' Matt read out the sec-ond line of the poem. "That means the gate must be in front of the rectangle!"

    Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star
    "It may not mean anything of the sort!" the professor snapped.
    "There is no gate in the desert. That is to say, there are no standing stones, no markers, no buildings. There's just the sand and the lines."
    "But there's a platform," Matt returned. "Salamanda said he needed to find the platform."
    "Well, good luck to him. I've been into the desert a thou-sand times and I've never seen a platform." Chambers tapped ash into a saucer on the table. "Mind you, it could be bur-ied," she muttered. "I suppose that's always a possibility."
    "Are you sure there's no swan?" Richard asked.
    Professor Chambers slammed her cigar down, extin-guishing it.
    "Mr. Cole!" she exclaimed. "The day I started studying the lines, you were still in diapers. How dare you suggest.. . ?"
    Matt thought she was going to throw something at the journalist, but she forced herself to calm down.
    "I'm sorry," she said. "But you have to understand. The Nazca Lines are my life. I've devoted my whole life to them. I visited them for the first time when I was twenty-three years old, and since then they've never let me go. Can you understand that? There are so few things left in the world that we don't know. Science has explained almost everything away. And yet here we have one last, great mystery. A whole desert filled with drawings that nobody understands. It's been my life's journey to solve the mystery before I die.
    "And the fact that you should walk into my life right now —just three days before Inti Raymi — is mysterious as well. You come with your extraordinary story and maybe what you've told me will finally unlock everything. I've been waiting for this for more than Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star thirty years. So I mustn't quarrel with you. You have to let me think about what you've had to say."
    "Inti Raymi. . ." Richard muttered.
    He was remembering what the Inca had said.
    Before the sun had risen and set three times . ..
    "That's right, Mr. Cole. That's the one thing we do know. We have less than forty-eight hours. At midnight, two days from now, the gate is going to open."

    Chapter 17 Night in the Desert
    They drove out of Nazca as the sun began to set. Professor Chambers was behind the wheel. Richard was next to her, while Matt, Pedro, and Atoc were in the back. The car was a soft-top Jeep.
    They were planning to go off road. But it was an uncomfortable journey for the two boys. The vehicle had little suspension and they felt every bump and crack in the road. Although the windows were closed, dust came in underneath the flaps and it was often hard to breathe. The engine was deafening and made the seats vibrate. It was like traveling in an oversize washing machine.
    "I'd much rather do this by day," the professor shouted. "But all things- considered, it looks as if we may be a little short of time.
    And anyway, we may find it easier to sniff around without planeloads of tourists buzzing over our heads every ten minutes."
    "Won't there be guards?"