The Ancient Starship Read online

  Grawk let out a sharp bark of warning as a branch snapped under someone’s foot, just outside the workstation.

  Lady Naomi pressed a button and the holo-screen vanished. The whole clearing lit up as halogen lights flared. All three of them swung around to see who the intruder was.

  Grawk scampered away from the workstation and over to the figure, frozen in the light, her usually neat scarf pulled awry on her head.

  ‘You!’ said Charlie. ‘You followed us!’

  The woman in the scarf ran toward them.

  ‘What do you want?’ Lady Naomi demanded.

  Amelia braced herself, waiting for some proud, angry retort. To her surprise, though, the woman couldn’t have been meeker or more apologetic.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I overheard you with the children at the hotel …’

  Lady Naomi was stony-faced, her hands on her hips. ‘Yes?’

  The woman nervously straightened her scarf. ‘You mentioned that you could find out about the starship in Egypt …’

  Amelia noticed Grawk sniffing delicately at the woman’s shoe.

  ‘Well, you see,’ the woman said miserably, realising that no-one was about to make things easy for her, ‘I’ve lost my husband, and I wondered if you could help me find him?’

  ‘What’s your husband got to do with us?’ said Charlie. ‘Is he an Egyptian archaeologist?’

  Lady Naomi crossed her arms, clearly wary. ‘Yes, go on. Why do you think I can help you?’

  ‘I thought …’ The woman wrung her hands. ‘I don’t know. I came here to find him myself, but then when I heard you offer to help find the children’s father … I wondered …’

  Lady Naomi frowned, unmoved. Then Amelia realised that Lady Naomi didn’t know one crucial fact about the woman in the scarf.

  ‘She came through the gateway,’ Amelia blurted. ‘She already looked human when she came up the stairs, but Charlie and I saw her arrive.’

  ‘Oh.’ Lady Naomi relaxed slightly. At least she wouldn’t be breaking Control’s rules by having the woman there.

  But knowing the woman had come through the gateway wasn’t the same as knowing who she was, so Amelia understood when Lady Naomi ignored the tears in the other woman’s eyes and asked, ‘Who is your husband? How did he get lost?’

  The woman swallowed hard and ducked her head, but she didn’t look surprised by Lady Naomi’s series of questions. Disappointed maybe, but a disappointment she had expected. When she raised her face again, it was still streaked with tears, but now there was a kind of bitter resignation to it.

  She almost smiled as she said, ‘I don’t suppose you’ll believe me if I say I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Not really,’ said Charlie. ‘I mean, for all we know, you could be Mrs Krskn. He’s the only alien we’ve seen getting lost lately.’

  Like every other alien Amelia had ever met, the woman in the scarf baulked at the mention of Krskn.

  ‘No, not him, I promise you. But if there was any way I could use your equipment on my own … for only the shortest time …’

  ‘No.’ Lady Naomi was firm. ‘Not a chance.’

  ‘Not even if –’ the woman began.

  ‘No. But if you’re willing to give me the information …’

  The woman held up a hand. ‘No, I understand. Neither of us can bend to the other on this. Never mind. I will find another way. Please excuse my interruption.’

  Without another word, she turned and walked into the bush, disappearing into the darkness.

  Walking to school the next day with Charlie, Amelia was still trying to figure it out. Grawk padded beside her like a shadow.

  ‘She was definitely telling the truth,’ she said. ‘You could tell she wasn’t faking being upset about her husband. But she’s making it impossible for anyone to help her. Which makes me think that at least one of them is in trouble. Like, on the run from the law or something …’

  Charlie kicked a stone on the path and grunted. He really couldn’t care less about some alien’s relationship problems – and, as he’d been saying all morning, he couldn’t understand why she cared either, when all of humanity might be about to find proof of the existence of aliens.

  ‘Or maybe,’ Amelia went on, ‘she can’t say anything because her husband’s here as a spy, and she doesn’t want to blow his cover. Oh!’ She turned to Charlie with a new thought. ‘Maybe it does connect with Egypt – maybe her husband is one of the Control agents that went with Dad to check out the spaceship.’

  Charlie snorted. ‘Well, he’s hardly lost then, is he? She knows exactly where he is.’

  ‘Unless there’s some other reason they can’t be together …’

  ‘Urgh! Maybe he’s not lost because he’s running away from her, did you think of that? Maybe she’s in love with him, and he thinks she’s a big, crazy, crying stalker lady. Maybe we should be helping him stay escaped from her.’

  Amelia shook her head at Charlie.

  The bell rang and Grawk turned without a sound and headed back to the hotel.

  ‘Hurry up, you two!’ Ms Slaviero called. ‘There’s a special news bulletin about Egypt in ten minutes.’

  Amelia and Charlie pelted into class along with the rest of the kids. Even Sophie T, despite her sarcasm the day before, was excited to see what else the archaeologists had found out.

  ‘Righty-ho, guys,’ Ms Slaviero grinned as she powered up the board. ‘Let’s see what’s new on planet Earth. I mean, ancient – thousands of years old, obviously – but new for us.’

  Amelia fidgeted in her seat. There had been no phone calls from Dad last night or this morning. Mum said that was fine and totally to be expected. Not only was Dad probably too busy with Control to even eat, let alone make phone calls, there was a nine-hour time difference between Egypt and Australia. Which was fine. But she wished she knew what this announcement was going to be.

  She heard the sound of soft chanting and saw Charlie and Erik grinning as they crossed all the fingers on both hands and rocked in time to the words, ‘Be aliens! Be aliens! Be aliens!’

  To one side of them, Callan was white-faced with fear.

  Ms Slaviero went to a news channel, and the screen was filled with jostling reporters. They weren’t at the dig site, but in a bland conference room. Several people walked onto the stage and hundreds of cameras clicked and flashed as the chief archaeologist stood by a microphone. She looked exhausted (it was after midnight in Egypt), but also very, very excited.

  Amelia curled her toes inside her shoes and held her breath. Sophie T gripped her arm.

  The chief archaeologist spoke in English. ‘The artefact found under the north-eastern corner of the Great Pyramid has now been completely excavated and removed from the site.’

  She clicked a button, and the projector screen behind her lit up with an image of the pyramid and the dig site. ‘As you can see, in order to access the artefact, we had to dig under the pyramid itself. The structural difficulties of doing this without compromising the pyramid above have slowed our work considerably. Although news of the artefact has only just broken for you all here,’ she smiled at the reporters, ‘my team has in fact been digging this site for nearly a year.’

  Get on with it, Amelia thought.

  ‘As you can see here …’ The picture on the screen changed. ‘The artefact was found encased in a crude glass shell, some fifteen to twenty centimetres thick. It appears the artefact may have been buried while hot enough to melt the surrounding sand –’

  ‘Spaceship – spaceship – spaceship –’ Charlie and Erik whispered in unison.

  ‘As yet we have no theories as to how or why this heating may have occurred. The glass has now been prised off, allowing my team to fully inspect the artefact itself.’

  The cameras clicked and flashed in excitement.

  ‘It is an object unlike any other previously dug up in Egypt or indeed, any other place on Earth.’

  The cameras were going crazy now.

  ‘T
his discovery demands that we re-write everything we have believed about our history, our origins, about our very identity as human beings …’

  The cameras couldn’t shoot any faster. Amelia had clenched every muscle in her body so tightly it was painful. Sophie T’s grip on her arm was like iron.

  ‘The artefact,’ the chief archaeologist said proudly, ‘dates back at least six thousand years, and is undoubtedly the most beautiful, sophisticated, and advanced sarcophagus we have ever seen.’

  ‘What!?’ Charlie shouted.

  A similar reaction spread through the crowd of reporters on the screen. Hands shot into the air.

  The chief archaeologist smiled wryly. You could tell she knew exactly what was coming. She pointed at one reporter. ‘Yes?’

  ‘So it’s not an alien spacecraft?’ he called out.

  ‘No.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’ another reporter yelled.

  ‘By being scientific and using the facts available to us,’ she said calmly. ‘And not getting swept up in fairy tales!’

  The reporters began to shout more questions, but she ploughed on. ‘The artefact is made of a green chrysoprase stone, not particularly common, but a perfectly normal Earth mineral. Its surface shows marks of iron cutting tools – human cutting tools,’ she added fiercely. ‘We have more testing to do, but we are convinced –’

  Amelia blocked out her voice, thinking hard. The archaeologist was either wrong, or lying! Lady Naomi had shown them a radioactive reading that was impossible for an Earth-made object. And what about those pock marks and burns where it had been damaged in Earth’s atmosphere? Not to mention the little fact it plummeted into the ground so fast it burned its way through the sand … And what sophisticated, powerful pharaoh was ever buried at an angle like that? Hardly a decent burial!

  No, she wouldn’t believe it. And she was using the facts available to her.

  Nobody else in the class had been won over, either.

  ‘That’s all lies!’ shouted Erik. ‘They tried to tell us crop circles were made by humans, too!’

  Amelia saw Charlie struggling to contain himself.

  She thought Callan at least would be pleased, but he was just as angry as Erik. ‘It’s a cover up! They want us to stay blind to the invasion until it’s all over!’

  Ms Slaviero switched off the board. ‘All right. All right, settle down.’

  ‘I knew it wasn’t aliens.’ Sophie T blew her fringe off her face and grinned. ‘I know the boys wanted it to be like Star Wars was real, but really, just another stone coffin makes a lot more sense.’

  But that’s just it, Amelia thought, smiling weakly. It doesn’t make any sense at all.

  When Amelia and Charlie got back to the hotel that afternoon, their mums were talking together in low voices in the lobby.

  ‘I don’t know how much longer to wait,’ said Amelia’s mum.

  ‘Until dinner time?’ Mary suggested. ‘Then, if he still doesn’t come out, we can knock and offer him room service.’

  ‘Hey,’ said Charlie. ‘What’s up?’

  Mum looked around to make sure they weren’t being overheard. ‘We might have a problem with one of the guests.’

  ‘That woman with the bratty kids?’ said Charlie. ‘She’s horrible. We just saw her on the driveway, and she practically wet herself when Grawk walked past her little girl.’

  ‘Shh!’ said Mary. ‘Don’t be so rude! Or at least, not so loud.’

  ‘No, not her,’ said Mum. ‘The nice older man in the bowler hat. He hasn’t left his room since dinner last night. We’re worried he’s fallen ill and needs a doctor, but he hasn’t phoned for help and he’s got the Do Not Disturb sign on his door, so we’re not sure how long to leave him until we knock.’

  The main doors of the lobby opened and in came James (home early from school – it must have been one of his early afternoons) followed by –

  ‘Dad!’ Amelia cried. ‘You’re back!’

  So were the rest of the Control crew. Amelia expected them all to be as gruff and stern as they had been in Tom’s cottage, but they were quite cheerful. Even Arxish looked almost friendly. Things must have gone really well in Egypt.

  Wait – what?

  Amelia was more puzzled than ever.

  ‘Hey, cookie,’ Dad grinned. ‘Did you miss me? Do you want to see what we brought you back for a souvenir?’

  ‘Is it a pyramid in a snow dome?’ said Charlie.

  ‘Nope.’ Dad’s smile was so wide that Amelia could see all his teeth. ‘How about a freshly stolen alien starship?’

  ‘Walker!’ snapped Arxish, his moment of good humour gone in less than a second. ‘What did I say to you about Control protocols?’

  ‘Ah, come on,’ said Dad easily. ‘It’s only the kids. They already know about the gateway without any issues. You let them see us all teleport, for Pete’s sake. What’s the difference?’

  ‘We even met Krskn,’ said Charlie, helpful as ever. He never seemed to get enough of watching aliens spasm at that name.

  Arxish glowered, but Ms Rosby slapped him on the back. ‘Relax, Arxish. It’s not as though any human alive will connect the thing in Egypt with what we’re doing here with the gateway. Largely because there is no connection.’

  Arxish made a face as though he were about to argue with Ms Rosby, but then Mum said, ‘Well, whatever you decide, can you talk about it somewhere else? I’ve got two regular guests upstairs, and more outside in the gardens.’

  Arxish flushed, embarrassed to be caught out like that.

  ‘OK, great!’ Dad clapped his hands together. ‘Well, come on, kids – want to see it now?’

  Amelia and Charlie didn’t bother to answer. Instead they ran across the lobby to the doors, James beside them, as they leapt down the steps to the lawn.

  ‘Have you seen it already?’ Amelia asked him.

  ‘No, Dad wanted to wait for you.’

  Amelia looked back, and saw Dad patiently helping Ms Rosby totter down the steps, her hand clutching tightly to Dad’s arm while Arxish waited at the bottom holding her walking stick.

  ‘Oh, we’ll never get to it at this rate,’ muttered Charlie.

  James smirked and shoved Charlie’s shoulder. ‘Just wait till we’re over the hill.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ said Amelia as Dad and Ms Rosby reached them.

  ‘Down to Lady Naomi’s,’ said Dad. ‘She’s been very generous and said we can use her shields until Control know what to do with it.’

  ‘But why did you steal it? The archaeologist thinks it’s an Earth-made sarcophagus, so Control’s secret is safe, isn’t it?’

  ‘That was the whole point of our mission!’ said Dad, helping Ms Rosby over the brow of the hill, and holding tightly to her arm.

  Once the hotel was out of sight behind them, Ms Rosby swung her walking stick over one shoulder, straightened her back and called out, ‘Keep up, lads!’ as she sprinted down the hill, her bony knees flashing under the flapping hem of her dress.

  Arxish ran after her, leaving the humans behind. Amelia and Charlie were desperate to catch up, but Dad held them back. Charlie didn’t look too sure about staying behind.

  From the other side of the hill, Grawk bounded up and pulled to a slow trot beside them.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Dad. ‘We won’t miss anything, but if you want me to answer your questions, it’s better to do it without Arxish overhearing us. Poor fellow is annoyed enough without us rubbing his face in it.’

  He yawned and scratched the red stubble on his chin, and then went on. ‘Control monitor all the archaeological and exploratory work on Earth. In fact, Arxish is the head of that whole department. So they’ve known for months what was coming, and had been steadily developing a plan to deal with it. What they didn’t expect was the news to leak and speed up the dig before they’d made the swap.’

  ‘The swap?’ said Charlie.

  ‘Yes. Once the pod had been discovered, the archaeologists had to dig up somethin
g. Arxish has a very low opinion of humans in general, but even he admits that we would notice if a big, solid, buried-in-glass object simply vanished from under our shovels. On the other hand, Arxish is determined to keep all alien technology out of human hands.’

  ‘But why?’ said Amelia. ‘We’re not allowed to know about aliens until we discover them for ourselves, but we’re not allowed to discover them either … well, that’s not fair.’

  ‘I know,’ said Dad. ‘I’ve had the same argument with Control more times than I can count. Ms Rosby sees it our way, and thinks it can only be good for everyone – Control, Earth and all the travellers through the gateway – if humans know the full story. But Arxish and his faction have more votes, and they’ve convinced head office that we humans have to figure out interstellar space travel on our own first. Letting us get hold of an alien spaceship, they say, would unnaturally speed up our technology and science, and … well, Arxish thinks he’s protecting us from ourselves by keeping Earth ignorant.’

  ‘That’s –’ Amelia spluttered.

  ‘That’s cool, Mr Walker,’ Charlie cut her off. ‘But what about the spaceship?’

  ‘What about the swap?’ James added.

  ‘Right, right.’ They’d reached the end of the lawn, and Dad pulled aside the banksia branch to let the kids onto Lady Naomi’s path. ‘They used the same teleporter that took us to Egypt to get the ship out of its glass casing. It was genius! They just beautifully folded the fourth dimension there and the ship slipped neatly into Lady Naomi’s clearing here. So then the ship was safely away, but there was a huge glass cavity in the ground. Next they reversed the teleporter so that it worked like a kind of 3D printer, and just filled in the space. And I mean, seamlessly! Down to every last wrinkle and bump in the glass. Just beep-boop-bip!’ He mimed pressing buttons. ‘Type in green chrysoprase, upload your design, factor in the right radiation signature for the supposed age of the thing, and it’s built almost instantly! From the electrons up! Job done, we go home, and the archaeologists of Egypt have a whole new career ahead of them! Everyone’s a winner!’