The Mayan Glyph by Larry Baxter ... Atlantic Coast Media

THE
MAYAN GLYPH

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The Mayan Glyph

Larry Baxter

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Price: $12.95 US $15.95 CAN

Softcover | 308 pages | ISBN: 0-9765767-0-8

Awards
Winner, action-adventure, Eppies 2004
Finalist, action-adventure, Ippies 2006

Summary

Glyph (gl[i^]f), n. `
1. (Arch.) A sunken channel or groove, usually vertical.
2. (Arch[ae]ol.) A carved figure or character, incised or in relief; a carved pictograph; hence, a pictograph representing a form originally adopted for sculpture, whether carved or painted.

Uxmal, Mexico AD 823

The Maya city of Uxmal is playing an important Ball Game with a team from Chichen Itza. The game uses a heavy rubber ball that is propelled with the feet towards a stone ring set high in a wall. After several days of competition Uxmal is victorious and the city celebrates as the vanquished are led to their ceremonial deaths.
But the city’s king, Chortal the Parrot, is unhappy, as his people are being devastated by a disease that blackens their tongues and kills them quickly. Chortal instructs several runners who show the first signs of the infection to run to Tulum on the sacred road. Tulum is the civilization’s research center, guided by the legendary Peloc. Peloc will use the runners as guinea pigs. Chortal coughs violently, his body spasming—can Peloc save him?

Uxmal, present day

A team of a dozen archaeology students and their professor from the University of Texas are excavating a site near Uxmal. They discover a crypt and translate the inscription, “Chortal the Parrot, Supreme Ruler,” and open the casket to reveal a tiny mummified body, surrounded by jade carvings. They return to Texas and die in a few days from a mysterious virus that blackens their tongues. The disease spreads.

Boston, MA

At Boston University, wheelchair-bound but highly-networked professor of biology Dr. Edwin Teppin has been following the virus on the web. He remembers Dr. Robert Asher’s concept for a new kind of microscope and thinks it may help. He asks Asher to develop the microscope.
A few weeks later, Asher demos his microscope. Working on the principle of charge imaging, it promises to be a revolutionary tool in developing antiviral medicine. Teppin gets a sample of concentrated virus molecules and Asher images them with the microscope. The images are a curious swirling pattern. He pastes the images into his browser and searches the web to see if some other researcher had already created a similar microscope. To his amazement, he finds an exact match carved in stone in Uxmal in 823. What is going on? One-in-a-trillion coincidence? Or had the ancient Maya invented a similar microscope and used it for medical research?
Teppin suggests an expedition to check out the glyph. Asher recruits lovely hispanic Maya scholar Teresa Welles from Harvard.

Cancun and Uxmal

Asher and Teresa travel to the Maya archeological site in Uxmal. They find the glyph that appeared on the Web, and discover clues pointing to Maya savant Peloc who was seeking a cure for the disease of the black tongue almost 1200 years ago. Did he succeed? Can they rediscover his cure?

Tulum

Tracking clues across the Yucatan, they visit Tulum and discover a large cave, but are accosted by Ernesto and gun-wielding drug-runners and imprisoned, in a room that also holds a dozen twenty-foot-long fiberglass submarines filled with cocaine.
Asher escapes. They dive into a fast-moving underground river, but get battered by coral outcrops and barely find enough air pockets to survive. Teresa recovers quickly, but Asher has two .30 caliber slugs extracted and is in bad shape for several days.
Finally functioning, Asher calls Teppin and asks for help. They need to explore the cave to have any chance of deciphering Peloc’s work, but the druggies, aided by the gendarmes, will be difficult to expel. Teppin calls a friend, Gabor, on an offshore treasure-hunting ship. Teppin explains to Asher that Gabor’s crew is better-equipped and more competent than any Seal team.
Asher and Teresa visit the ship and explain the problem. With Gabor, other crew include Kiraly, ex-mercenary, and two younger adventurers Bela and Bartok, Gabor’s undisciplined 18- and 20-year-old sons. The ship is equipped with miscellaneous small arms, remotely-operated underwater craft, and a pair of ultralight aircraft for reconnaissance.
The group explores the underground river with submersibles and finds a back entrance to the cave. After a fierce fight, the enemy force is rolled up and collected by the local police.
Asher, Teresa, and the crew explore the caves and locate a hidden chamber filled with ancient artifacts, and, beyond, Peloc’s laboratory, its walls covered with inscriptions documenting his research. In one corner, they find a primitive but functional charge microscope. But Teresa can’t translate the inscriptions, they’re not in the standard Maya dictionary.

Akumal

Asher and Teresa rent an unfinished hotel in Akumal, a few miles north, and begin translation. They also move in a biolab and medical personnel.
The virus is exploding through Texas, breaks out near Uxmal, and begins to spread in Mexico.
Several of Ernesto’s men walk into Asher’s hotel, unarmed, and ask for help. They have caught the virus. Asher sets up an isolation ward and moves them to quarantine
The translation effort pays off. Peloc had discovered that the flower of the eucalyptus tree had antiviral properties. Asher asks for more people and more lab equipment, anticipating that Peloc’s solution will work.
Teresa is diagnosed with the virus and moved to quarantine.
The team uses the ultralight aircraft to harvest the eucalyptus flower in the jungle, quickly processes samples, injects the quarantined patients, then congregates in the lab and listens to the reports of vital signs from the ward. For several hours, nothing happens. Then slight upticks, and more, and finally, to thunderous applause, it is clear that they have a cure.
They harvest more flowers and the lab processes a supply for the US as well as for Mexico.

Washington

Teresa recovers. Asher and Teresa follow the successful treatment of many thousand cases. Upon return to the US, they are invited to dinner at the White House with the president.

About the Author

Larry Baxter is a consulting engineer (visit his website, http://www.capsense.com), a musician (jazz trumpet) and the technical founder of several electronics companies. He authored a non-fiction book (Capacitive Sensors) for IEEE press. He is currently living in Lexington, MA and enjoys skiing and mountain biking. He answers email at larry@capsense.com, phone at 781-372-1002.

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