Touchstone (Meridian Series) by John Schettler, Mark Prost

German excavation site of the ruined city
of Bubastis, a once important religious and political center 90km north-east of
modern-day Cairo.’ (1)
     
           Yes, he remembered taking more than a
passing interest in this find, as it was just like the Rosetta Stone, a
possible key to translating the hieroglyphics. His hopes sank as he read on:
          
           ‘The
inscription consists of 67 lines of Greek text and 24 lines of Demotic along
with traces of Hieroglyphs that were so degraded they could barely be read.
           “It’s
unfortunate,” said chief Egyptologist
Dr , Christian Tieze.
“If the Heiroglyphs had been better represented on this stone, we may have had
an opportunity to decipher them.”
           Archeologists
remain baffled to this day by the ancient Egyptian writing, which has
confounded cryptologists and historians alike.’
     
           Nordhausen began to panic. Something had happened, and he
had no idea of the consequences at this point. He began to search, desperately: HEIROGLYPHICS…
TRANSLATION… INTERPRETATION… DYNASTIC EGYPT … BOOK OF THE DEAD … he typed in the names of
Pharaohs, archeological sites, museums with noted collections…But it was all a
fruitless effort.
           Nowhere was there any indication that there was any
translation of Hieroglyphics. Except… In his head! He thought hard for a
moment, conjuring up the image of the cartouche he had seen on the statue of Horus.
He could clearly see the carved figures in his mind, and he remembered how the
little girl had traced her finger on the stone…”Ra-me-ses.” He knew how to read
them! They all made perfect sense in his head. He had taken a class in graduate
school thirty years before, and had been able to transliterate without
reference help of any kind. While a student, he had actually kept a journal
using hieroglyphics instead of Roman letters! It had been a fun project, and
helped him to learn, but that was thirty years ago.
           He heard the door behind him open, and he hurried to close
the screen he was watching, his guilt reflex overcoming his better judgment. He
spun around to see Paul Dorland regarding him with a curious look on his face.
           “Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you! Did you
get the alert call?” Paul gave him a frustrated look.
           “What? Why yes, of course. It was my shift. I was just down
looking over the Arch to see if it was all in order...   got here as soon as I
could… been right here…working,” Nordhausen lied, feeling terrible about it at
once.
           “Well, I was just here ten minutes ago,” said Paul. “The
consoles were humming at full tilt and Kelly’s Golems were running wild. But
you were nowhere to be found.”
           “I went down to check on the Arch, I tell you… and to the
bathroom, if you don’t mind. If you had waited for me here, you would have seen
that I came right back.”
           “Mmmmhmmmm,” Dorland replied. He made no effort to hide his
skepticism. “Anyway, here’s what I’ve managed to find out. The alert call went
out at three past
four , and we’ve
got a preliminary spatial locus somewhere in the Middle East . Nothing hard yet. The Golems are doing a data comparison with
the RAM bank now, but, as you can see, there hasn’t been much to report,” he
flipped through some pages on a clip board he held. “It’s a bit early, but we
should be getting something soon. I’m surprised you didn’t have this ready. It
was your shift.” He looked up, suddenly perplexed by his friend’s demeanor.
           “Robert, what is it?” He had caught a look of misery on
Nordhausen’s face, so at odds with the man’s normal easy going nature, that he
was struck by it.
           “Oh, Paul,” Nordhausen moaned.
           “What?” Dorland was now alarmed.
           “Oh, Paul, something has happened…”
           “Robert,