Free Alien's Concubine, The by Kaitlyn O'Connor

could
only be a sarcophagus.
    In South America?
    She was carried away again with the
tide that withdrew, reluctantly, as Dr. Sheffield ordered everyone
back so that a couple of the students would have room to work
chains beneath the casket to lift it out.
    Gaby found as she was buffeted by the
tide of people moving back that she was shivering. Shock, she
wondered distantly? She lifted her head to look at the statue of
Anka.
    It’s you, isn’t it?
    From out of nowhere a sense of loss
settled over her. Her throat closed, making it painfully difficult
to swallow.
    That was why the statue had been
wrought in such life-like detail. The god, Anka, was no figment of
fertile, primitive imagination. They’d deified a man.

Chapter Five
    Had Anka been the god of all things to
them, Gaby wondered dazedly? Was he responsible for the city, the
temple, the amazingly advanced civilization they’d
discovered?
    Where had he come from?
    Whatever Dr. Sheffield and Dr. Oldman
said to the contrary, the influence of ancient African
civilizations couldn’t be ignored.
    Even his name.
    Which no one but her, she realized,
believed was actually his name.
    But the other things? The temple that
was strongly reminiscent of the tombs of the ancient
Egyptians—that, if they were right, pre-dated those tombs. The
sarcophagus? Granted, she hadn’t actually seen it, but she’d seen
enough to know it had been fashioned of gold.
    He was holding an Ankh. Even Dr.
Sheffield had acknowledged that much.
    In the back of Gaby’s mind, though,
the only thing of any importance at all was the fact that he was
dead—long gone from her world.
    Why did that make her feel like crying
when she’d never really believed he existed at all?
    Because she had believed, she
realized.
    In spite of every effort to reason the
dream away as nothing but pure imagination, she’d actually believed
she’d felt his touch like a lover. Warmth quivered through her at
the flicker of memory through her mind.
    Shaken at last from her
self-absorption by a shoulder buffeting hers, Gaby realized she was
still in the way of the workers trying to secure the coffin and
raise it. After looking around the chamber a little dazedly, she
moved away from the other observers and found a position near the
doorway that led into the chamber.
    The edges of the doorway were ragged
with broken rock from where the team had hammered down the stones
that had sealed it, but she scarcely noticed the jagged stones
digging in to her as she leaned against the frame for
support.
    It came to her that she’d expected
they would find Anka entombed here, even while she’d tried to deny
it.
    Why?
    Did she actually know the things she
thought she knew? Or was it just … trauma from her experience
combined with a gradual mental breakdown from the harsh conditions
she’d endured here for so many weeks?
    And if she did know, how did she
know?
    She wasn’t psychic.
    She didn’t believe it was just a
matter of having denied something she’d known all along about
herself because it defied reason and she was a scientist. Maybe
such things did actually exist, but not within her.
    She found herself hoping the
government people would relieve them of the mummy. If they didn’t,
she would have to examine the remains and she didn’t think she
could be professionally detached about it.
    Her heart was in her throat when they
at last secured the chains and began to slowly and carefully lift
the sarcophagus from the crypt. Like everyone else, she suspected,
she held her breath, but she doubted it was for the same
reason.
    She stepped aside as the container was
brought in and moved into position to receive the sarcophagus. By
the time they’d shouldered past her and she could resume her
previous position, the casket was clear of the vault, gleaming in
the beams from the flood lights.
    She stared at it unblinkingly, holding
her breath as they moved it over the container and began lowering
it, as if by doing so she was somehow