Göbekli Tepe Turkish: [2] (“Potbelly” or “Home Hill” [3]) is a Neolithic (Stone Age) hilltop sanctuary erected at the top of a mountain ridge in the southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey. It is the oldest known wholly human-made religious structure and also the oldest observatory believed to have been constructed by the proto-religious tribe known as the Mala [4] c. 11,000 years ago – pre-dating its more famous British counterpart Stonehenge by around 8,000 years.
‘God damn,’ Franklin said, ‘another observatory.’
The site contains 20 round structures that were deliberately buried sometime in the 8th century BCE. Four have so far been excavated. Each has a diameter of between 10 and 30 meters (30 and 100 ft) and is made up of massive limestone pillars arranged in the exact shape of certain constellations.
Shepherd clicked on the Images option and a selection of thumbnails cascaded down the screen. Most showed an especially large stone monolith capped by a smaller one to form the unmistakable shape of an elongated letter T.
The T
Shepherd checked back through the notes and there it was again on the first list CARBON had found on Kinderman’s drive. He returned to the Google search and clicked one of the images, opening it up large so the carvings on the main column were now visible. There was a snake, a scorpion, and a bull on the side of it – constellation signs – but it was the caption beneath that caught Shepherd’s eye.
The main pillar, or Home Stone, is the largest monolith and also the only one that does not correspond to an existing star.
Home
Shepherd stared at the screen, his eyes flicking between the various open windows – the Home Stone, Cooper silently preaching from the live feed and gesturing out of the window at the flotilla of ships in the harbour, Smith’s last message with the word “Home” highlighted.
‘Home,’ Shepherd said. He sat up in his chair as the idea took hold. ‘That guy who picked us up from the airfield said the sailors were all saying the same thing – that they just needed to get home. So if there is some extraordinary event happening out there in space, some kind of game changer, maybe Dr Kinderman and Professor Douglas felt it too.’
‘But we checked Kinderman and Douglas’s homes already.’
‘Did we though? If I say “home” what does it mean to you?’
‘Where my family is, I guess.’
‘Exactly. Only Kinderman doesn’t have any family and neither does Douglas. So home for them must mean something else. Probably the place where they were born.’ Shepherd sat bolt upright in his chair.
‘I think I know where Professor Douglas is,’ he said.
53
Sergeant Beddoes drummed his gloved fingers on the wheel of the cruiser. He was parked behind a billboard on the verge of the main road into town, waiting for speeding cars, not that he expected any today.
The snow had taken everyone by surprise. They were used to it up here in the mountains, but not like this and not without warning. It had come down so fast that he hadn’t had time to put the snow chains on his car and twice now he’d nearly slid off the road. On top of that the world had gone crazy overnight. He’d been called out to a near riot at the Wal-Mart on the edge of town after people started panic-buying everything in the store. He’d gone in to help break it up and seen people who’d known each other all their lives, fighting over bottled water and canned food. He’d had to pull his gun at one point, but at least he hadn’t had to use it. He’d heard stories of full-scale riots in some of the bigger cities, police firing on civilians, law and order breaking down as the gas pumps ran dry and the stores ran out of food because the delivery trucks had stopped rolling. It had made him wonder if Reverend Parkes had been right and that judgement day was just around the corner.
For the last few months the Reverend had preached nothing else, telling his small, devoted congregation how a new Tower of Babel had brought it all about and that demons were already walking the earth in the shape of men to cause chaos and inspire sin that they might be damned and claimed by Satan when the time came. He had told them to stockpile food, batteries and water – and he had been right. He had also talked to him in private, telling about the