Inca Gold (Dirk Pitt 12)

"There it is, gentlemen," he sighed with relief. "Now we have to soak the strands in a very mild cleaning solution to remove stains and corrosion. This process will then be followed by a chemical preservation procedure in our lab."

"How long before you can return it to Yaeger for study?" asked Sandecker.

Straight shrugged. "Six months, maybe a year."

"You've got two hours," said Sandecker without batting an eye.

"Impossible. The metal coils lasted as long as they did because they were sealed in a box that was almost airtight. Now that they're fully exposed to air they'll quickly begin to disintegrate."

"Certainly not the ones spun from gold," said Pitt.

"No, gold is practically indestructible, but we don't know the exact mineral content of the other tinted coils. The copper, for instance, may have an alloy that crumbles from oxidation. Without careful preservation techniques they might decay, causing the colors to fade to the point of becoming unreadable."

"Determining the color key is vital to deciphering the quipu, " Gunn added.

The mood in the room had suddenly turned sour. Only Yaeger seemed immune. He wore a canny smile on his face as he gazed at Straight.

"Give me thirty minutes for my scanning equipment to measure the distances between the knots and fully record the configuration, and you can keep the thing in your lab until you're old and gray."

"That's all the time you'll need?" Sandecker asked incredulously.

"My computers can generate three-dimensional digital images, enhanced to reveal the strands as vividly as they were when created four hundred years ago."

"Ah, but it soothes the savage beast," Giordino waxed poetically, "to live in a modern world."

Yaeger's scan of the Drake quipu took closer to an hour and a half, but when he was finished the graphics made it look better than when it was brand new. Four hours later he made his first breakthrough in deciphering its message. "Incredible how something so simple can be so complex," he said, gazing at the vividly colored simulation of the cables that fanned out across a large monitor.

"Sort of like an abacus," said Giordino, straddling a chair in Yaeger's computer sanctuary and leaning over the backrest. Only he and Pitt had remained with Yaeger. Straight had returned to his lab with the quipu while Sandecker and Gunn went off to a Senate committee hearing on a new underwater mining project.

"Far more complicated." Pitt was leaning over Yaeger's shoulder, studying the image on the monitor.

"The abacus is basically a mathematical device. The quipu, on the other hand, is a much more subtle instrument. Each color, coil thickness, placement and type of knot, and the tufted ends, all have significance. Fortunately, the Inca numerical system used a base of ten just like ours."

"Go to the head of the class." Yaeger nodded. "This one, besides numerically recording quantities and distances, also recorded a historical event. I'm still groping around in the dark, but, for example. . ." He paused to type in a series of instructions on his keyboard. Three of the quipu's coils appeared to detach themselves from the main collar and were enlarged across the screen. "My analysis proves pretty conclusively that the brown, blue, and yellow coils indicate the passage of time over distance. The numerous smaller orange knots that are evenly spaced on all three coils symbolize the sun or the length of a day."

"What brought you to that conclusion?"

"The key was the occasional interspacing of large white knots."

"Between the orange ones?"

"Right. The computer and I discovered that they coincide perfectly with phases of the moon. As soon as I can calculate astronomical moon cycles during the fifteen hundreds, I can zero in on approximate dates."

"Good thinking," said Pitt with mounting optimism. "You're onto something."

"The next step is to determine what each cable was designed to illustrate. As it turns out, the Incas were also masters of simplicity. According to the computer's analysis, the green coil represents land and the blue one the sea. The yellow remains inconclusive."

"So how do you read it?" asked Giordino.

Yaeger punched two keys and sat back. "Twenty-four days of travel over land. Eighty-six by sea.

Twelve days in the yellow, whatever that stands for."

"The time spent at their destination," Pitt ventured.

Yaeger nodded in agreement. "That figures. The yellow coil might denote a barren land."

"Or a desert," said Giordino.