When Aaron heard the kitchen door slamming, he knew his son was off to school and smiled at the normalcy of it. He heard Desta's footsteps overhead, as she walked across the kitchen floor, and her voice in the doorway above.

"Can I make you some breakfast, Aaron?"

"No thanks, dear. I ate something before you got up." He lied. He was too preoccupied to even think about eating.

"Okay. I'm going down to Rico's." A moment later he heard the kitchen door close again, this time more gently, as she left the house.

For the first time, he was alone with the urn. He stood in front of it, trying to decide what to do first. It was either the most magnificent discovery in the history of archaeology and anthropology, or turn out to be a crushing deception. He moved the floodlamp closer to the urn. The lamp had worked well for his amateur photography, but it was old and gave off too much heat, even smoking at times. He would only be able to use it for a few minutes before he had to turn it off.

Leaning over the urn, he took a small magnifying glass out of his shirt pocket and started to inspect the lid and its odd collection of cuneiform and Sanskrit characters. After studying them for a minute or so, his attention wandered to the black wax seal running along the lid's edge. He imagined a shadowy figure, hovering over the urn eons before, pouring the clear molten wax slowly around the circumference, forever shutting it off from the corruption of air. And then he imagined torch-bearing, robed figures carrying it deep into the tunnels and, finally, the cave, for its entombment. He had never seen or heard of any religious artifact being so carefully concealed and preserved. On the contrary, nearly all had been openly displayed for veneration, bringing authority and respect to those who possessed them.

A few feet away, lying open on his work table, was a recent English edition of the Rig Veda. He had carefully studied the translation of Book X, the Vedic Creation Hymn, and it was there he learned more about Purusha, the Supreme Being of the cosmos, whose sacrifice created everything that eats and eats not. According to the Veda, the various parts of the cosmic giant's body gave substance to the Universe. From his eye the sun had birth-- and-- the sky was fashioned from his head. All of the subsequent gods, the gods of old, dwelled in heaven, which was the unmanifest portion of Purusha's body.

But there was a provocative contradiction Aaron never fully understood. According to Book X, Purusha possessed a thousand heads and a thousand eyes, yet there was only one Sun and one sky in the Hindu tradition. Did each eye and head produce its own sun and sky? And did that mean the ancient Hindus knew the Sun was a star? Furthermore, how could what looked like a ancient funereal urn contain the remains of a being who was, essentially, the progenitor of everything?

None of it made sense, but Aaron was convinced the urn's secret could be found in the cryptic inscription on its lid. Maybe Marty had been right. There might be more writing on the thick edge of the lid or its underside revealing why anyone opening the urn would become this Purusha, the cosmic giant.

He took a small pen knife from his back pocket and selected a small area at the base of one of the elephant's feet. A mastodon is a kind of elephant, he thought. He opened the stainless steel blade of the knife and, holding it close to the point, attempted to make a small scratch in the ceramic surface with the broad edge. The steel blade glided smoothly over the shiny material, until its edge caught on a small fold in the elephant's hide. Fur, he wondered? He re-positioned the knife in his hand so the sharpened point barely protruded between his forefinger and thumb, then tried to scratch the same place once again. He repeated this in several different areas of the urn and finally slumped back in puzzlement. A glazed ceramic surface, especially one this old, should have been easily scraped or fractured.

He moved to the metal lid, which looked like heavy, soft gold, and got the same result. When not even the finest shavings came away on the edge of the knife, he wondered if anything could pierce the surface of this increasingly mysterious object. Hadn't Marty described its x-ray as looking as "dense as wood"? Then something about the seal caught his eye.

Under the intense light of the floodlamp he could see a subtle crack in the ancient wax running its entire length. If the angle of the light hadn't been just right, he would never have noticed it. Perhaps the heat of the lamp had expanded the material, widening the hair-thin line enough to make it visible.

He took a small, clear plastic bag from his work table and carefully scraped the material from around the rim of the lid, placing the pieces into the bag for later analysis. After wiping the lid clean of the remaining residue, he grasped the small crown-shaped handle between the thumb and two fingers of his right hand. Steadying the urn with his other hand, he tried to turn the handle, to see if the lid would rotate in place. No luck. It held fast. Bit by bit, he added more torque. Still no movement. Fearing he would break the delicate looking handle, he let go and took his first breath since starting the tedious process. He laid the wiping cloth over the lid, then gently tapped the opposite sides of the rim about a half dozen times with the blunt end of his pen-knife.

The floodlamp's heat caused him to sweat profusely, and he stopped to wipe his forehead and neck. Then another deep breath. He removed the cloth from the lid and, grasping the small handle, gradually increased the pressure.

Just a little more should do it, he hoped. Then, just as he was about to give up for the second time, the lid gave under his fingers. Afraid it would freeze up on him again any second, he continued turning slowly in a clockwise direction for a full revolution before letting go.

Now he used his small magnifying glass to inspect the lid one more time. They never completely translated the circular inscription, other than identifying a few key words, and the admonishment to leave the urn sealed. He hoped Yamashita was right about the possibility of additional symbols or writing being on the underside and edge of the lid, and was intensely curious about the nature of the interior surface, which appeared so perfectly spherical in the x-rays. But what Aaron thought was even more unusual was that they had gone to so much trouble to seal it? Why the complicated pin mechanism? It was the hundredth time he asked himself the question.

The floodlamp directly over his right shoulder was unbearably hot, and he planned to move out of its way as soon as the lid was in his grasp. Reaching for the handle, he noticed a wisp of smoke rising from the lamp's metal shade. Cursing, he vowed to invest in a new light the moment he was finished with the urn. He grasped the handle once more and lifted as slowly as he could. Because it had been tooled with such precision, the surprisingly light-weight lid came up quite smoothly, and the sheered-off contour of a locking pin came into view. The fracture was smooth and perfectly flush to the side of the lid. He had raised it nearly an inch before he saw the dark, crescent-shaped gap appear along the bottom edge. He took the sides of the lid in both hands and, as if removing the detonator from an unexploded bomb, lifted even more slowly. Bending both of his knees, he looked carefully for any additional markings on the side, but saw nothing.

Tilting his head to avoid blocking the light, he leaned even closer to the opening, trying to peer inside. Even though the skin of his neck was thick and tanned from the Arabian sun, it was still vulnerable to the light's intense heat. The floodlamp was only a foot or so above his head and when he wiped the sweat from the back of his neck, he could feel the small blisters forming there. Despite the stinging discomfort, he was so intent on looking into the urn he paid little heed to it. Aaron held the lid as still as his perspiring fingers would allow, and quickly checked to make sure he wasn't casting a shadow. Slowly, his eyes began to accommodate to the darkness inside the urn.

At first, he could only make out a black, spherical object. Unreflective, it seemed to absorb the light from the floodlamp, so he squinted his eyes shut a moment, trying to help them adjust to the darkness inside the urn. When he opened them again he could see the object's surface was alive with swirling wisps of vaguely prismatic colors. The roiling clouds glimmered unevenly, disappearing into the object's depths and then resurfacing. Not much larger than his closed fist, the object was the most fragile, magical thing he had ever seen, and it seemed to grow brighter as he observed it. So mesmerized, Aaron continued to stare into the small opening even while the heat of the lamp hammered at the back of his neck.

Suddenly, a voice emerged from the depths of the black orb. No. Not a voice. There was no sound. It was a thought. A telepathic, alien thought penetrated his mind. Then, an instant later, it was followed by an overwhelming tide of thoughts, too numerous to comprehend. He had trouble sustaining his sense of self-awareness as wave after wave surged upward, through the harsh, burning light of the floodlamp, into his consciousness. In the next instant, their meaning struck him like a sledge-hammer. These are prayers, he thought. Countless multitudes, crying out in a common language of thought, begging for deliverance from some terrible calamity. Pleas to God for divine intervention.

Then he heard a voice. Yes, it was a voice this time. Not a disembodied thought, like the others. Loud and close, it seemed to come from behind him and he jerked to his left, expecting to see someone standing there at his shoulder. But no one. He was sure he had heard it. The tone was controlled and deliberate, without the panic and terror he sensed in the thoughts. And its content was anything but prayerful.