Free The Pyramid Builders by Saxon Andrew Page A

this tablet weighs, Dr. Connor?”
    “At least ninety tons.”
    Jillian grabbed a small handle on the side of the tablet, lifted it off the floor, and moved it three feet to the right and put it back down. She did it with only one arm.
    Chris’ eyes were wide and he sat down on the floor. Jillian said, “Now you know how they did it.”
    “How long will it remain at that weight?”
    “Until Dolly hits it with the neutral setting on that gun. That is how we are going to lift the ship. A small helicopter or carrier can do the trick.”
    Dolly said, “Personally, I’d just attach a couple of weather balloons and let them take it into the upper atmosphere.”
    Jillian smiled, “You’re absolutely right. That’s exactly how we’ll do it.”
    “I guess if there was any doubt, that device proves that advanced aliens were responsible for the pyramid’s construction.”
    “Maybe.”
    Chris looked at Jillian, “What do you mean by that?”
    “Well, we have the stories of an advanced civilization beyond the pillars of Hercules. It was called Atlantis. How do we know this anti-gravity device didn’t originate there?”
    Chris just looked at Jillian through his eyebrows. Jillian continued, “We have too many clues that there was an advanced civilization during that time in history. We can’t just assume it’s not true. Especially in light of what we’ve seen here.”
    Chris looked at the tablet, walked over, and moved it back to its original position. It weighed less than a pair of his boots. “Has anyone tried this with an aircraft to see how fast it would fly with little or no weight?”
    Jillian tilted her head, “Yes, we tried it with my old Corvette.”
    “And?”
    “Well, Arnold insisted that we put the car on remote and just send it straight up into the atmosphere. We assumed we could just bring it back down. We set the weight at less than a tenth of an ounce and then fired the thrusters.”
    Dolly said, “I’ve got it on video if you want to see it.”
    Chris looked at Dolly, and then said to Jillian, “Just tell me what happened.”
    “It disappeared. It ran out of the range of the remote control in less than a tenth of a second; that’s why I had to buy a new one. According to our satellite systems it was approaching the speed of light as it flew by the moon in less than eight seconds. The last we saw of it was when it hit Jupiter. There wasn’t much of an explosion because the skimmer’s mass was so small.”
    Chris pulled out his calculator and began entering numbers. Dolly said from the raised terminal, “You don’t need to do that. I’ve already run the calculation.”
    Jillian looked up at Dolly frowning, “What calculation?”
    “Well, if you assume that Vette weighed less than an ounce but was traveling close to light speed, it penetrated Jupiter’s atmosphere so fast that it wouldn’t leave any trace. However, even though it only weighed an ounce, it was twenty eight feet long. At that velocity, it probably left a crater on Jupiter’s surface more than two hundred miles across. We just didn’t see it because of the thickness of Jupiter’s atmosphere.”
    Jillian looked at Chris and he nodded. Chris then said, “If we can reduce our mass to less than an ounce, the engines on the Cheops should push us to light speed almost instantly. Reverse thrusters will also stop us just as fast.”
    Jillian said, “Well, that’s a good thing.”
    Chris shook his head, “Yes and no. You haven’t thought it through. How do we fly a hundred miles or just a mile?”
    Jillian thought about it and said, “You’re right.” She looked at Dolly and saw her smiling. “Ok, you’ve thought of something.”
    “Am I that transparent?”
    Chris said, “Oh yes.”
    Dolly stuck her tongue out at him and held up the small gun, “You just put a rheostat on the anti-gravity drive. You set the speed you want to fly and the weight of the ship will be adjusted to the engine’s thrust. The faster you want