Steph Bennion - Paw-Prints of the Gods

Xuthus wished he had waited until the girls had gone before asking. Just then, the co-pilot appeared from the airlock, having been outside to connect the ship’s fuel hoses to the depot’s hydrogen tanks. The tall Jamaican had not yet taken off his pressure suit and the bowl-shaped helmet under his arm looked far too small to contain the mass of dreadlocks tumbling from his smiling features.

“Hey mon,” he greeted, nodding at Xuthus. “What’s your grief?”

“He’s worried about Ravana,” said Hestia, who up until now had sat quietly unnoticed at the back of the cabin. “Nobody seems to know where she went.”

“The freaky Indian girl?” asked the co-pilot. “Not seen her at all today.”

“How about last time we were here?” asked Xuthus. “A fortnight ago?”

The Jamaican shook his head.

“I did see her last time,” the pilot admitted. “She was talking to that Dhusarian nutcase down by the bar when the rest of you were in here waiting to use the transceiver. He’s a weird one, that Dagan. Gave me some leaflet on aliens.”

“And she definitely did not return to Ascension on the ship?” asked Xuthus.

“I’ve already said as much!” the pilot said irritably. “What’s wrong with you, boy?”

“Don’t stress,” his co-pilot told Xuthus. “Your lady friend will be somewhere. You need some egg to smooth things out, make you mellow? I can do you a good price.”

“You’re dealing drugs?” Xuthus looked shocked. Egg was the name given to an illegal yet popular mood-enhancing drug out of Epsilon Eridani. “I’ll tell Doctor Jones.”

“Hey, chill out,” the Jamaican purred. “I ain’t no pusher. This is just between friends.”

“No thanks,” Xuthus said firmly.

“So where did Ravana go?” asked Hestia. Xuthus saw her concern and assumed rather uncharitably she was trying to impress him.

“Probably crawled under a rock somewhere,” muttered Urania. “Or Dagan’s alien friends came along and whisked her away to the planet of the bitches.”

“Urania!” exclaimed Hestia.

“Hey, that’s not cool,” agreed the Jamaican.

“Well, we haven’t seen her,” reiterated the pilot. “We’re just the taxi service. It’s not our fault if she went wandering off.”

Xuthus stared at him in disbelief, unable to comprehend how an adult could abdicate responsibility so easily. Yet Urania’s taunts aroused feelings of guilt, for he remembered how he had not stopped his friends bullying Ravana when they first met many months ago, at the floating market in Hemakuta on Daode. Ravana had been a very private person on site, but even though Urania had for some reason taken an instant dislike to her, he did not believe Ravana would have run out on them without letting them know why. He still remembered the infamous finale of the peace conference, when Ravana and Raja Surya had dared to confront Yuanshi’s political leaders before hundreds of delegates and millions of holovid viewers. The girl who took the stage that night would not let someone like Urania get the better of them.

He would mention Ravana’s disappearance to his father when Urania finally got off the holovid unit, but in the meantime Xuthus knew he should take his fears to Doctor Jones. Even talking to Dagan might prove more fruitful than trying to get any sense out the crew. He did not want to contemplate the horrible possibility that Ravana had somehow ended up outside the dome.

“She can’t have just vanished,” he said. “How far can you get on a dead planet?”

“Falsafah ain’t as dead as it looks,” said the Jamaican, giving him an odd look. “I’ve seen some mighty strange things out there.”

“That’s because you take too much egg,” his colleague pointed out.

Ignoring Urania’s giggle, Xuthus stared through the cockpit windows at the endless bleak desert beyond the landing strip. It was hard to imagine anything surviving out there.

“Thanks,” he said. “For nothing.”

Professor Cadmus paused beneath the arch and raised the lantern high above his head. The ancient door had yielded easily under his determined attack with the mattock, whereupon he had stood and stared for what seemed an age into the dark ‘Y’-shaped passage beyond. The star chamber was built of glass blocks as perfectly aligned as those of the grand gallery in Khufu’s pyramid at Giza. The moment he set eyes upon the meticulous architecture within he knew without a doubt that he was right, Doctor Jones was wrong and the mysterious construction on Falsafah was indeed the work of an unknown alien intelligence.

Years before in Egypt, Cadmus had led the team that discovered the secret vault behind the wall of the king’s chamber and been the first to gaze upon Khufu’s long-sought sarcophagus and treasures. The thrill he felt on that occasion was nothing compared to the fever that gripped him now. At Giza, he was lauded for finding the prize missed by countless archaeologists before him, but singularly failed to find the proof he personally sought that extra-terrestrials built the pyramids. Here in the Arallu Wastes was something beyond archaeology, beyond history; this was a discovery to make humanity a mere footnote in the universal story, the history of everything. To go it alone was a daunting prospect.

The floor of the entrance chamber sloped down and split into two tunnels, leading in different directions sixty degrees apart, equally dark and mysterious. The walls were bare and incredibly smooth to the touch, reflecting the light of his lantern with a muted matt glow. Cadmus slipped the oxygen mask onto his face, took a hesitant step forward and paused. His academic mind knew he ought to be recording his observations in some way. On the other hand, the adventurer in him suspected that after smashing the door to smithereens it was probably too late to think about doing things properly. With a determined step, he strode forward and on an impulse selected the right-hand tunnel.

He did not get far. After no more than twenty metres the passage veered again to the right, continued for the same distance to a sharp left, then carried on a little further before ending at a solid wall. Undeterred, Cadmus retraced his steps, carefully scrutinising the walls and ceiling along the way to make sure he had not missed anything. Once back at the entrance chamber, he barely paused before heading down the other passage to the left.

Around twenty metres later this passage veered left, mirroring what he found in the right-hand tunnel. As expected, when he had gone the same distance again, the passage turned sharply right, only to split into two parallel tunnels, the right one sloping down. Confused, Cadmus shuffled to a halt and shone his light down the descending passage, conscious that the trench entrance was now far behind. Without the lantern the darkness would be absolute.

“A labyrinth,” he murmured, his words muffled by his mask. “Crafty aliens.”

His suspicious were confirmed when a quick exploration of the right-hand tunnel led him around a bend to another dead end. Upon returning to where the original passage split, Cadmus took a few steps down the left-hand tunnel and then stopped to root through his pockets for a piece of chalk. He was just about to leave a mark to help him find his way back when something further along the wall caught his eye. Curious, he shuffled across to look and then gasped. Barely a metre away along the same wall was a neat white cross. Someone or something had been here before him and had the same idea.

He returned the chalk to his pocket, his hands shaking. As far as he was aware his expedition was the first to excavate at this spot, but the cross on the wall and Govannon’s earlier remarks about the odd stratification and a buried oxygen tank were making him think again. Yet he was certain there were no published archaeological reports on Arallu.