Paw-Prints Of The Gods (38 page)

“Are you really sure
about this?” asked Urania, hesitating.

“I’m sure if Xuthus
is,” Hestia said coyly.

Xuthus nodded. “We may
never get to see what’s down there otherwise.”

This time he took the
lead. Brushing past Hestia, he descended the ladder to the bottom
of the trench and walked to where the parallel glass walls rose
from the sand. The mattock used by Cadmus still lay where it had
been dropped by the breached archway. Behind, Hestia and Urania
paused to shine their torch beams upon the curious symbols etched
into the wall. Xuthus gave a cursory glance over his shoulder,
ducked defiantly into the hole and shuffled into the tunnel
beyond.

“Hey!” hissed Urania.
“Wait for us!”

Xuthus waited for them
to catch up, then led the way past the first of the green lamps
into the labyrinth. The air tasted of dust and he felt the heat
rising with every step he took. After several minutes of walking it
occurred to him that they had forgotten to bring oxygen masks, but
no one was lying on the floor gasping for breath so he assumed life
support in the domes had filled the labyrinth with air.

“Have you noticed the
way the passages are angled?” asked Hestia. They had come to yet
another tight corner. “We’re following the walls of the star
chamber. This maze is set out like a six-pointed star, with us
spiralling towards the centre.”

“Just like the sign of
the Dhusarian Church,” Xuthus said smugly.

“Or the Star of
David,” Urania pointed out. “I think Freemasons use it too. And
please don’t refer to it as a maze. People get lost in mazes.”

“We’ll be okay if we
follow the lamps,” he reassured her, though he too had seen the
other tunnels branching off into the dark.

The thrill of
adventure waned and became tiring as they traipsed from one green
lamp to the next through one featureless tunnel after another. The
occasional downward slope did little to relieve the monotony and it
was a while before they noticed how the straight sections got
shorter as the roof rose higher. After what seemed an age, they
turned a final corner and came to a rubble-strewn archway. The
floor glittered with shards of glass, amidst which was a cluster of
scrape marks where something long and heavy had been pulled from
beneath a pile of fallen masonry. Hestia came to Xuthus’ side and
gulped.

“A rock fall,” she
murmured. “This must be where Professor Cadmus, err...”

“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.

Hestia and Urania
shrieked in alarm. Startled, Xuthus gave another yell and ran to
the arch. He glanced back just in time to see the ancient cocoon
collapse amidst a tumble of splintering legs.

“What’s happening?”
screamed Hestia. “What have you done?!”

“I didn’t touch
anything!” Xuthus protested, knowing it was a lie. “Run!”

Hestia and Urania did
not need to be told twice. Xuthus led the way, sprinting like a
maniac into the labyrinth. The rumbling and tremors shook clouds of
dust from the ceiling and stirred the biochemical fluids of the
lamps, making them flicker. They raced past one stuttering green
glow to the next, as fast as their pounding hearts would allow.
Xuthus almost cried with relief when he finally spied the light of
the shattered archway ahead and burst through the hole into the
trench like a plasma bolt from a gun. Urania was right behind, a
wheezing Hestia a distant third.

Xuthus put a hand to
the ladder, but his weary legs had other ideas and he collapsed
into an untidy heap on the floor. It was not until he saw the
gathered faces peering into the trench from above that he realised
the dome lights were back on. Urania staggered to a halt next to
him and warily regarded the scene that greeted them.

Doctor Jones, Agent
Ininna and Agent Yima stood with hands on their heads, looking
subdued before two clunky military androids armed with rifles. With
them was a thin Indian woman, wearing a grey cloak and headscarf,
whom Xuthus had not seen before and who seemed most displeased to
meet him now. Behind her stood two robed figures, their faces
hidden in the shadows of their hoods, who did not move nor make a
sound but nonetheless exuded an aura of quiet rage.

“What’s going on?”
Xuthus asked, his voice wavering.

He cautiously
clambered to his feet. Behind him, Hestia emerged from the archway,
wheezing heavily. The tremors had ceased but a nearby equipment
cabinet had toppled and one of the trench walls had collapsed.
Xuthus looked around the dome and saw that the airtight door to the
east, previously sealed on the sensible grounds there was nothing
but inhospitable desert on the other side, was now wide open to
reveal the interior of a tubular walkway, linked to the hatch of a
transport parked outside. Two figures in dark flight suits were
erecting what looked like a tent near the dome wall and making a
mess of a carefully-cleaned trench. Confused, Xuthus shifted his
gaze back to Govannon.

“This is Lilith and
err... friends,” said the archaeologist. “Aren’t we popular?”

The Indian woman
pushed him aside and stared frostily at Xuthus, Hestia and
Urania.

“This holy ground is
now in the hands of the brothers of the Dhusarian Church,” Lilith
declared. “You will not meddle in our affairs a moment longer!”

* * *

Quirinus was aboard
the berthed
Platypus
when he felt the first tremors.
Engrossed in a holovid message Ostara had sent from Newbrum, his
first reaction was to look through the flight-deck windows at the
nearby
Atterberg Epiphany
, convinced the disturbance was the
ship firing its engines ready to depart. Yet as the rumbling
continued he realised it came from deep within the planet, then
watched in alarm as the nearby wind-pump tower slowly keeled over
and collapsed. When the tremors eventually subsided, he saw a
distant glint of sunlight upon running water and guessed the leak
from the well had become terminal.