Steph Bennion - Paw-Prints of the Gods

“Was squashed?” suggested Urania. “Bit the dust?”

“Don’t be horrible!” retorted Hestia.

The passage was narrow, humid and heavy with a cloying darkness that swallowed the light of their lanterns. Hestia got to work throwing aside the chunks of rubble Yima and Govannon had placed across the floor in a feeble attempt to block the bomb-damaged arch. The sight of Cadmus’ oxygen mask lying nearby dampened Xuthus’ eagerness to see what treasures lay in the chamber beyond. Hestia’s analysis of how the wall came to collapse on top of the professor only added to the general air of discomfort.

“An explosive charge,” she declared, peering at a fresh gouge in the archway. “Some sort of booby-trap, maybe?”

“A bomb!” exclaimed Urania. “Who would do that? And how? This place was sealed until Cadmus took a mattock to the door and he was the only one left in the dome.”

“You said ‘door’,” mused Hestia. “Govannon said it was a volcanic vent.”

“This temple or tomb or whatever was clearly built by someone,” retorted Urania. “That doesn’t mean Cadmus was right about his ancient aliens, though.”

“Aliens!” echoed Xuthus.

Hestia wiped her hands on her overalls. “Shall we take a look?”

Xuthus nodded. He swung his torch beam towards the arch and followed Hestia through into the chamber beyond, Urania close behind.

A few steps later he hesitated, his eyes wide. Ahead, their lamps had found a strange shape in the gloom. A huge egg-shaped cocoon, resting serenely in a dark pool.

“What is that thing?” he murmured.

He was in no doubt it was alien. The weird cocoon appeared more biological than mechanical, though it was hard to tell if it was the remains of a long-dead creature or something wholly artificial. There were patches where mottled green skin had decayed to brown and the insect-like spindly legs sprouting from the top gave the impression it may have once been ready to walk away. Xuthus approached the end of the tongue-like protuberance and shone torchlight into the oval opening, half-expecting to see teeth or rotting innards to prove it had once been alive, but the cavity was oddly featureless. The cocoon discomforted him further due to its resemblance to the level-four aliens in his favourite holovid game, which had the annoying habit of scuttling after heroic marines and shooting them with webs of fire. The floor quivered beneath his feet, mirroring his own trembling fear.

Hestia shrieked. Xuthus hastened around the sentry-like grey rods towards her and shuddered as he too saw the mangled giant spider embedded in the floor. Urania gave an irritable frown, herself transfixed by something lying on the far side of the dark pool.

“Weird,” she muttered and beckoned to Xuthus. “Come and look at this.”

Xuthus cautiously went to where Urania stood. He was momentarily puzzled by the pale coffin-sized shape, then yelped in surprise. The smooth capsule wore the faded red, white and blue of the stars and stripes of his home country.

“But that’s…” he began, but could not finish his sentence.

“An American cryogenic capsule,” confirmed Urania. “But how?”

Hestia came to their side and gazed at the white shape for what seemed an age. Xuthus’ mind whirled. All their earlier talk of aliens had not led him to expect this, a modern relic of the space age in such an ancient and bewildering setting.

“So you Americans got here first,” muttered Urania. “Typical.”

Xuthus opened his mouth to reply, but was lost for words. Govannon and Yima must have seen the capsule during their earlier visit to recover Cadmus’ body, which perhaps explained their unwillingness to talk. As they stood and stared, he found his brain reluctant to engage with what was before them; in the eyes of a student archaeologist, it was akin to finding a food molecularisor buried beneath the sarsens of Stonehenge.

“Did you see that old oxygen tank we found?” asked Hestia. “Govannon and I unearthed it near the entrance. I reckon someone’s dug here before.”

“I saw it,” murmured Urania. “But this capsule is ancient in comparison. The only one I’ve seen before was in the museum at the new Gávea Planetarium in Rio.”

“Cryogenic capsules were used on the failed mission to Alpha Centauri,” Xuthus said, awestruck. “The USS Constellation , which was years before the Edward Everett Hale . I did a project on it at school,” he explained, seeing their mystified looks. “The Constellation disappeared without trace and cryogenic capsules were never used again.”

“You are so clever!” said Hestia. “But that would make it a hundred years old!”

“More like a hundred and fifty,” Urania told her, sounding doubtful.

“Do you think we sent a ship to Tau Ceti all those years ago?” suggested Xuthus, suddenly excited by the prospect. “Were Americans the first to reach Falsafah?”

“Maybe the Constellation got lost in space and ended up here,” mused Hestia.

“They would have to be very lost to end up at Tau Ceti,” Urania retorted scornfully. “Alpha Centauri is in the totally opposite direction from Earth.”

“How about time travel?” offered Hestia. “If it’s not from the Constellation , perhaps it was sent here by top-secret time-travelling archaeologists!”

“Time travel is impossible,” said Xuthus, irritated by Hestia’s enthusiasm.

“What about the dead giant spider?” she asked. She sounded peeved that no one was taking her seriously. “I think someone’s been here before and taken samples.”

Xuthus frowned. His glance at the spider had been enough to see the curious incisions in its desiccated flesh. The idea of time travel was tantalising; the capsule itself exuded a fragility that suggested it could have lain hidden for thousands rather than hundreds of years. Urania was carefully recording the scene with her wristpad’s holovid camera. She caught his gaze, lowered her arm and gave him a sneering look.

“You two are so stupid,” she said, exasperated. “Can’t you see the bigger picture? You’re quibbling over some old capsule and ignoring the fact we have a massive alien egg on legs and a huge dead spider at the bottom of a labyrinth on an equally dead planet. This is the find of the century! The millennium! Here is proof of an ancient alien civilisation! No wonder those agents were told not to do anything until their experts arrived.”

“Civilisation?” Xuthus frowned, well aware of Govannon’s thoughts on the subject. “This is two weird corpses or whatever at the bottom of a pit. The capsule is human.”

“Weird?” remarked Urania. “That’s the understatement of the year.”

“What do you think?” Hestia asked Xuthus, fluttering her eyelashes.

“If it is an alien tomb we’ll be in the history books,” murmured Xuthus.

“Like the people who find Egyptian mummies,” mused Hestia. A look of horror crept across her face. “Do you think there’s anyone inside? Frozen, I mean.”

Xuthus gulped. Keeping his eyes on the capsule, he nervously backed away until he came up against one of the upright rods. The expressions of Hestia and Urania were enough to tell him he was not the only one who suddenly found himself stifled by the atmosphere inside the chamber. Hestia retreated towards the archway, followed by Urania. Xuthus put a hand behind his back to feel his way past the grey rod. His prying fingers came across a small indentation in the smooth pillar and before he knew what he was doing, a fingertip squeezed the membrane within the hollow.

A low groan echoed across the chamber. Xuthus felt the rod slip through his hand and he leapt away with a shout of fright. All twelve rods rose in silent unison, silhouetted against pin-pricks of pale blue light that now appeared on the walls like stars at dusk. Suddenly, the chamber shuddered to the sound of another deep grumble and the ground at his feet promptly blistered to release puffs of cold air through the floor itself. The strange cocoon trembled, cracked and began to disintegrate before his eyes.