He nods. “The Maya believed in five suns or five Great Cycles of creation, the fifth and last of which is set to end on December 21, the day of this year’s winter solstice. According to the Popol Vuh, the universe was organized into an Overworld, a Middleworld, and an Underworld. The Overworld represented the celestial heavens, the Middleworld—Earth. The Maya referred to the Underworld as Xibalba, a dark, evil place said to be ruled by Hurakan, the death god. Mayan legend claims the great teacher, Kukulcan, was engaged in a long, cosmic battle with Hurakan, pitting the forces of good and light against darkness and evil. It’s written that the fourth cycle came to an abrupt end when Hurakan caused a great flood to engulf the world. The English word, ‘hurricane,’ comes from the Mayan word, ‘Hurakan.’ The Maya believed the demonic entity existed within a violent maelstrom. The Aztecs believed in the same legend, only their name for the great teacher was Quetzalcoatl, the underworld deity known as Tezcatilpoca, a name which translates to ‘smoking mirror.’ ”

“Mick, wait—just stop a moment, okay. Forget about the Mayan myth. What I need you to stay focused on is the facts surrounding the calendar and how it relates to that deep-space transmission.”

The dark eyes blaze at her like onyx lasers, the look causing her to shrink. “I can’t discuss the science supporting the doomsday prophecy without explaining the creation myth. It’s all related. There’s a paradox surrounding the Maya. Most people think the Maya were just a bunch of jungle-dwelling savages that built some neat pyramids. The truth is, the Maya were incredible astronomers and mathematicians who possessed an unfathomable understanding of our planet’s existence within the galaxy. And it was this knowledge that allowed them to predict the celestial alignment that led to yesterday’s radio signal.”

“I don’t understand—”

Mick fidgets, then begins pacing again. “We have evidence that shows the Maya and their predecessors, the Olmec, used the Milky Way galaxy as their celestial background marker to calculate the Mayan calendar. The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy, about 100,000 light-years in diameter, made up of approximately 200 billion stars. Our own sun is located in one of the spiral arms—the Orion arm—about 35,000 light-years from the galactic center, which astronomers now believe to be a gigantic black hole, running straight through Sagittarius. The galactic center functions as a kind of celestial magnet, pulling the Milky Way in a powerful vortex. As we speak, our solar system is whipping around the galactic center point at a velocity of 135 miles per second. Despite that speed, it still takes Earth a good 226 million years to complete one revolutionary cycle around the Milky Way.”

You’re running out of tape. “Mick, the signal—”