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6.”
    Turning her head, she locked gazes with him.
We.
They were in this together.
    In tune with her feelings, he tugged her closer and kissed her forehead. “I don’t care if we find the treasure. We’ll get by without it. If you open this door, do it for you. Not for me. Or don’t do it. Whatever. I’ll be here for you whatever you decide.”
    Taking a deep breath, Sam pulled the key chain over her head and stepped closer to the hole in the wall. “Let’s do this or we’ll wonder forever.”
    As she slid the key in, he stepped up behind her and put comforting hands on her shoulders.
    From a distance, a creak signaled the start of some ancient mechanism. Rattles and groans vibrated through the walls and shook the floor beneath their feet. Rick caught her up by the waist and pulled her back against him, shielding her with his much larger body. Dust and sand billowed around their legs. They both stared, riveted, as the massive stone wall shrank away from them and then slid off to the right, exposing a massive chamber.
    Grabbing his blaster from its holster, Rick motioned for her to hang back as he walked cautiously into the dark room. Suddenly, the space was filled with light as sensors picked up his presence and activated.
    “
This
is cool!” Sam breathed, awed as she stepped into the chamber behind him. Spinning slowly, she took in the ancient Earth hieroglyphics that covered the walls. In the center of the room waited three pyramid-shaped databases no bigger than the bag she’d brought with them.
    “Oh man…oh goddess… Jeez, Rick. You have any idea how many erotic e-books those databases can hold?”
    “Yeah, baby. I think I do. We’re filthy rich. And we’re going to be heroes. Hey, can you read this stuff?”
    She tore her covetous gaze from the black databases and looked at him. “I think so.”
    He pointed at the arched monoliths that curved up the walls and then across the stone ceiling. On the left, the massive stone was carved in the shape of a man. On the right, a woman. Their backs were to each other and text filled the space between their headdresses. “What’s that say?” he asked. “It looks important.”
    Sam smiled. “It says, ‘
Ellora’s Cave Presents
’.”
    “Huh?” He frowned. “Wasn’t that a twenty-first-century e-publisher?”
    “You did your homework!” She beamed with pride. “EC was the largest and most lucrative of many such ventures started during that time period.”
    “What does it mean?”
    “It means they knew what was going to happen, Rick. I don’t know how they knew, but they did. EC started planning this in the year 2004.”
    “How do you know that?” he asked, awed at her deductive reasoning. “How did you know this was here on Cerridwen?”
    “It was the twenty-first-century advertisements! No one paid any attention to them. I admit, I disregarded them, too. But in 2004 EC began releasing anthologies called ‘
Cavemen
’. In each of the print advertisements for those volumes, they embedded symbols. Written in chronological order, the code revealed the location of Cerridwen. Think about it. Ellora’s Cave? The very name of the company was a clue.”
    “How the hell could they know about the Conservative Censorship Committee, so many years ahead of its formation? Intergalactic travel wasn’t even possible at that time.”
    “I honestly don’t know.” Laughing and crying and spinning with arms wide, Sam was certain her life was perfect. “But look at the treasure their vision created. Look at what they left us to find!”
    Rick ducked to avoid her widespread arms and caught her about the waist, lifting her feet from the floor. “We also found each other.”
    “Yes, my love. And you’re the greatest treasure in the universe.” Cupping his face, she kissed his nose and asked, “What’s next? The Draken Cup? The Sarian Stone?”
    His grin was pure carnal wickedness. “The toys.”
    She rolled her eyes. “What am I going to do with