Evil Star

Primus stove.
    Matt heard the hiss of gas and then the pop of the flame as she lit it and began to boil some water for tea. She clearly had no fear of being seen — but then, the stove let out only a tiny pinprick of light in the great emptiness of the desert, and it was highly unlikely there was a guard anywhere near.
    Atoc's spade hit something with a loud clang. "Here . . ." he said.
    Richard and Matt stopped and went over to where he was working.
    He had struck some sort of brickwork.

    Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star
    "Be careful!" Professor Chambers called out. Was she afraid of what they might find? Or was it that she didn't want them to do any damage to something that might be of archaeological interest?
    Quickly, the three of them began to scoop away the earth, using the side edges of their spades. Professor Chambers came back over, adding her flashlight beam to Pedro's. Something flat and square had been revealed. She swung the light over it and saw a brick platform, decorated with a design in the center. As they scraped off the last of the earth, more of the design was revealed. At last they could see it.
    Professor Chambers looked down and frowned. "I take it that this is the sign that you described to me," she said. "The sign of the Old Ones."
    “Yes," Matt whispered. He shivered. The heat seemed to have evaporated. "This is the sign."
    "But what is this thing that it's on?" Richard asked.
    "It's a platform." The professor peered more closely at it. "About five meters square, I would say. The bricks are made of andesite.
    Nothing unusual about that. But the design! Arrows and squiggly lines. That's quite wrong!"
    Pedro asked a question. Atoc translated. "What is it doing here?"
    "Do you know?" Matt asked.
    "As a matter of fact, I do have a pretty good idea." Professor Chambers ran the flashlight over the surface one last time. "Let's have some tea before we cover this back up," she suggested. "And while we're sitting down, we can have a talk."
    They went back to the stove, and Professor Chambers filled five mugs with hot, sweet tea made with mint leaves she had picked from Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star her garden. Apart from the hiss of the gas, all was silent in the great emptiness of the desert.
    "I'll try to keep this simple," she began. "Although it isn’t. It’s
    actually bloodwy complicated. But I've told you about the mystery of the Nazca Lines. Now I've got to explain to you my solution to the mystery. I actually wrote a book about it a while ago, although not many people believed me." She fell silent for a moment. "Maybe Salamanda read it. Maybe I'm partly responsible for every-thing that's happened. I'll try to explain.
    "As I told you, I've studied the lines for most of my life. I was fascinated by them, the moment I first saw them. At the time I thought it was because they were so beauti-ful.. . so very perfect.
    But as the years went on, I realized that I was wrong. I can't explain how it happened but I began to believe that they . . . that there was something evil about them. The pictures of the animals are wonderful. I don't deny it. But it crossed my mind that to the ancient Nazca people two thousand years ago, they must have been terrifying, too. Huge spiders. Monstrous whales. Even the monkey is grotesque, reaching out with its spindly arms. It has only four fingers on one hand. Why do you think the people who drew the lines gave it one finger too few?"
    "Maybe they couldn't count," Richard said.
    "No, no. They could count perfectly well. But, you see, in primitive societies, deformity is something to be feared, a bad omen. Maybe that's the point. All the animals could have been drawn simply to scare people."
    She took out another cigar and lit it. The smoke shone silver against the black night sky.

    Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star
    "Most people now agree that the Nazca Lines have something to do with the stars," she went on. "I actually studied astronomy at university a long time ago, and from the very start it was my opinion that the lines were nothing more or less than a huge star map.
    "This is how it would work. A line would point to a star at certain times of the year. That is to say, you'd stand on the line and look down it and if you saw a star rising up over the horizon right in front of you, you'd know it was April fifth and time to start planting the grain or what-ever. Easy enough! But later on, I started to