Tharsis Plateau, Mars, May, 2539

 "Miss Summerfield, would you please hold the flashlight steady?" Professor Hopewell snapped.

 Benny's whole body tensed. "Umm, sorry, Professor," she stammered.

 The Professor looked back at her and smiled briefly before returning to the symbols on the cavern wall. "It's all right, Bernice, but we must get this done tonight. Much better. Now one rune to the right, please."

 Benny relaxed and moved the light, grinning to herself. In many ways, the Professor was a lot like how she pictured her father, only heavier and balder. And she could never imagine her father having such a thick Texas drawl. The Professor clearly had something of a soft spot for her as well. He not only let her join this expedition despite her poorly forged credentials, thus letting her participate in what was now sure to be one of the biggest archaeological finds of the century, but he also took it upon himself to give her private lessons on Martian and, more recently, Osiran culture.

 "Bernice," the Professor said, "you've been studying Osiran script. What can you tell me about this symbol?"

 Benny squinted at the pictograph. "It looks like maybe a life symbol," she answered, her voice losing certainty along the way.

 "Always speak with conviction, Bernice. In this case, however, you are wrong. That line there is a negation; it's a death rune."

 At that moment, Albert waddled back into the cavern with a lantern and a camera. "S-sorry I'm late." He held up the light. "I couldn't find any charged solar cells for this in the storage tent, so I had to swipe some from Jeanne's stereo."

 "Suits me," Benny said, turning off her torch. "Can't stand that noise she calls music."

 Professor Hopewell laughed. "I don't know; it grows on you. Albert, you're just in time. Start taping, please." Once the camera was rolling, he stood back from the wall and traced the death symbol with his finger. Dust fell from the cavern ceiling as a section of wall started to slide back.

 "You two are witnessing a seminal moment in history. This Osiran tomb has been sealed for over seven thousand years. We'll only have a few hours to document as much as we can before the bureaucrats come swarming in the morning."

 The wall ground to a halt, leaving a wide doorway. The professor took the lantern and stepped through it. Bernice and Albert followed right behind and nearly walked into his back.

 The lantern's light was reflected and refracted for metres in every direction by the thousands of gleaming golden artefacts and glittering gemstones which filled the spacious chamber, giving the room an eerie glow.

 "It's astounding!" Professor Hopewell chortled as he weaved through the narrow spaces between artefacts. As he moved, carrying the lantern with him, the pattern of light changed constantly.

 After a moment, the two students began making their own paths through the room, taking it all in. Soon, though, Benny stopped. "Professor, check this out!"

 The professor and Albert made their way to wear Benny stood. "Are you sure," she asked, "that we're the first people in this tomb in millennia?"

 "You have reason to think otherwise?"

 She pointed at a golden statue of some catlike creature and at the brown felt object resting atop it. "Oh yeah."

 Professor Hopewell peered at the anomalous object. "How could a fedora get in here?"

 Benny adjusted the tilt of the fedora, then marched into the console room.

 The Doctor sat on the far side of the room, reading a seventeenth century book on physics. "Nice hat," he said without looking up. "I used to have one a bit like it."

 "Sorry, this one's mine. It was given to me when I was about twenty-three." She told the Doctor about the Osiran tomb excavation. "The next day, the government swooped in and hauled everything valuable to museums. When they refused to believe this wasn't something we'd brought in with us, Professor Hopewell let me keep it."

 The Doctor, who had set his book aside, stood and crossed to the TARDIS console. "Fascinating. No evidence of a time corridor, I presume?"

 "Not that we found, though if it'd been destroyed..."

 "Of course." He chuckled as he began adjusting controls. "How about we solve this little mystery?"

 "It'd make a nice change of pace." She looked past the console at the hatstand near the doors. She took off the fedora and tossed it across the room. The hat sailed over the time rotor....

 The fedora spun once, twice, three times around one hook, then bounced up, snagged a second hook, spun once, and was still. He hadn't intended to make a trick throw, but Indiana wasn't going to let that stop him smiling like he had. Now if only someone else had been there to see it.

 But they hadn't been, so he sat at his desk and began staring at the typewriter. Since it was summer, he didn't have to deal with the large undergraduate courses he taught most of the year, and he intended to use the opportunity to finish a textbook. At least that's what he'd told himself two months ago. Maybe he needed to hire a grad student or ten.

 He was rescued by a knock at the door. "Marcus Brody is here to see you," Irene said through the frosted glass. Seconds later, the door opened, and a man Indy had known since childhood shuffled into the room.

 "Indiana, how's the book coming along?" Indiana scowled. "That well?" He chuckled lightly, and Indiana changed the subject.

 "What brings you up from the museum, more pieces for the anniversary display?"

 "Of course. I brought along some of your own generous contributions from these last few years as well as some of the Egyptian artefacts the late Professor Dobtcheff uncovered late in the last century. I was hoping you'd help me check the security arrangements. Unless, of course, you're busy."

 After passing through a short foyer, the two men pushed open the doors to the building's central rotunda, and Indy immediately shoved Marcus back. Inside the rotunda, a lone figure was moving amidst the prone bodies of guards and display arrangers, examining one of the glass cabinets lining the walls. As soon as the doors opened, the figure had turned, and two darts lodged in them just as Indy closed them again.

 Cautiously, he peeked through a small window in the door and saw that the person, a tall, slender man (or so Indy guessed) completely hidden by a long black coat and a black hat, was still looking at the cabinet. He ducked back down, and signalled for Marcus to sneak back out of the building. Without a word, the smaller man nodded and crawled away.

 As soon as he was gone, Indy risked another look. The man raised a gloved hand and brought it down on the cabinet, shattering the glass. In that instant, Indy rushed through the door and raced at him. The man had pulled a necklace from the display and didn't notice Indy until he was less than ten metres away. Indy ducked under the inevitable dart and shouldered the man in the gut.

 To Indy's surprise, the man's feet left the ground, and Indy carried him several metres. When Indy stopped running, the man flew backwards several metres, stopping only when he hit another glass cabinet, which collapsed under him. As Indy marched toward the figure, she swore in Portuguese. Indy paused, shocked for a moment, and the woman slid across the floor, slamming feet-first into Indy's legs and rolled aside as he toppled forward. Just before hitting the floor, Indy reached out and grabbed her hat, which came away, revealing red hair, a surprisingly young, freckled face, and a reed blowgun. The woman seemed not to notice that she'd lost the disguise as she leapt to her feet and, after checking that she still had the necklace, ran nimbly away through the nearest exit.

 Indy gave chase, but just as he reached the door, a trio of darts slammed into it, and he dropped back. A moment later, he ran out, but the woman was gone.

 Indy rolled his eyes. "Curare, and don't touch it!" he yelled at a junior officer. "It's a poison from the Amazon basin."

 "Right, where they speak Portuguese."

 "In Brazil, yes."

 The cop nodded. "Right. But Dr. Brody says that none of the Amazonian artefacts were stolen. Just an Egyptian necklace. Why do you suppose that is?"

 "I really can't say."

 Indy took a slow drink, then spoke. "The cop was right about one thing."

 "What is that?"

 "It doesn't quite add up. Why would she steal a second-dynasty necklace? She passed by more valuable artefacts, including some I'd brought back from her part of the world."

 "Assuming she is Brazilian," Marcus added. "And isn't a mercenary."

 "I'm trying not to think that."

 "Maybe it's something to do with Professor Dobtcheff," Marcus offered. "He made trips to that part of the world nearly as often as he did to Egypt, you know."

 "Are you suggesting the necklace may have been misidentified?" Marcus blanched. "Oh, no. I only meant..." He shrugged. "I don't know what I meant."

 Indy downed the last of the tea. "I know one thing. Tomorrow morning, I'm going to Brazil."

 "Doctor, are you sure this is where the corridor went?" Bernice asked. While the Doctor had been looking for remnants of a time corridor from the Osiran tomb, she had raided the wardrobe and found a worn brown leather jacket that went nicely with her fedora. After the Doctor told her where they'd landed, she'd also grabbed a machete.

 The Doctor looked around at the dense foliage. "This is where the trace ran out." He tapped his chin. "I wonder."

 Bernice hacked at some leaves and made her way around to the back of the TARDIS. "Doctor!" she called.

 "What is it?" he yelled back. "I'm busy pondering something!"

 Bernice laughed. "Well, Doctor, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"

 Upset that he'd left that opening, the Doctor walked back to where Bernice stood. He followed her outstretched and raised hand and looked up. "Oh my. I think I am, Brain. I think I am pondering exactly what you're pondering." Looming over them was a giant Egyptian pyramid.

 Jock was so busy tuning his plane's engine that he didn't hear the footsteps.

 "Hey, buddy, do you know where I can find a pilot?" a voice asked. It took a moment, but recognition hit, and Jock spun around and hugged his old friend.

 "Indiana Jones, you ol' dog! What brings you down this way? Here for the weddin'?"

 "Who's getting married?"

 "I am, to the prettiest li'l girl in the whole of South America!"

 "She wouldn't be a redhead, would she?"

 "Huh?"

 "Never mind." Indy pulled a small bit of cloth from his pocket. "Is Doc still around? I got something to show him."

 Indy nodded. "And not a native."

 "Juitzi would never give his secrets to a female, which means this is one generation removed. Still, the pupil-turned-master couldn't have gone far, since his disciple is still using Juitzi's favoured methods." He turned to Jock. "Get us a map, would you?"

 "Sure thing." Jock went into a back room and brought out a rolled map. He set it on the table, and he and Indy unrolled it and held the ends down while Doc traced along the river and tributaries with his finger. "There," the old man said. "That's where the Nixstisos are."

 "And where you'll find yer redhead," Jock added.

 Doc paled. "Did you say she has red hair?"

 "Does that mean something?" Indy asked.

 "No, not a thing."

 "Well, Indy," Jock said, "come mornin' we'll have to see about rentin' a boat for ya so..."

 "You can't fly me there?"

 "Buddy, I'm gettin' hitched in a couple days! We've been pals a long time, but I can't drop everythin' to provide shuttle service, even for you."

 "It's official," Benny announced. "I'm nuts."

 The Doctor ignored her as he rubbed chalk marks off his umbrella. "Exactly twice the width of the Great Pyramid, which means eight times the volume..."

 "If it's proportionally the same," Benny said. "Odd that nobody's ever noticed it before."

 "Ever read Conan Doyle?" the Doctor asked.

 "Just some Sherlock Holmes stuff. Why?"

 "He once... oh my."

 Rising as one from the jungle, dozens of nearly naked natives armed with spears and blowguns surrounded the two travellers.

 Indy had spent the night in Jock's spare room and had a chance to meet his friend's fiancee. Indy had to admit to himself that he was jealous; she was beautiful, with soft eyes and long raven hair. On the other hand, she was young enough to be Jock's daughter.

 In the morning, they'd visited a friend of Jock's who owned a collection of riverboats. Unfortunately, all the larger boats were out, but the owner, a man named Diego, told them that one had left only the day before and was not too far up the river yet. He arranged to have one of his men take Indy out in a motorboat to catch up to it around midday.

 As the boat started its journey, Indy grew bored, so he pulled his fedora down over his eyes and took a nap.

 Now, an odd splash awakened him, and he sat up. Diego's man had turned off the motor and was swimming toward shore. Indy looked down and saw that water was bubbling into the boat from a large hole in the bottom. Worse, a raw steak was floating right next to it.

 Indy was distracted from his predicament by a scream. The other man was thrashing wildly in the water, which was turning red around him. In seconds, he was gone. Indy looked from one bank to the other, but neither was close. Just then the boat gave a final glug and sank out from under him.

 NEXT TIME

 A Thousand Points of Death!

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