Due to the truck bouncing on a root, the statue’s head shifted slightly and slammed against the metal siding. It didn’t make the clinking sound of stone on metal. It made a dull, wet crunch. We stopped the vehicle and shined our flashlights. At the impact site, on the statue’s “neck,” a crack had appeared.
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But inside the crack, there was no grey rock. There was something dark, porous, looking like a dried sponge. “That’s not granite,” I said, running a finger over the chip. “That’s a shell.” The local guides who were helping us with the gear refused to go any further.
They muttered something in their dialect about a “Soul Trap” and walked back to the village on foot, leaving us alone in the night jungle with this cargo. We got to base camp by midnight. I couldn’t sleep. I hooked up the portable C-14 scanner and the high-power X-ray machine we use for checking sarcophagi.
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