Free Paw-Prints Of The Gods by Steph Bennion Page B

done so a hundred thousand years before
humans had even considered stepping foot on Falsafah.
    The latest extension
to the trench only served to reveal another layer of mystery to the
enigma. As Govannon returned to scratching his chin, he looked not
at the arch but beyond. Careful excavation had uncovered an
adjoining triangular-topped mass, corresponding exactly to the
ghostly desert shadows of an earlier survey. It was the
southernmost spur of a perfectly-symmetrical six-pointed star,
built of the same bricks seen elsewhere, one that the geophysical
study showed extended northwards beneath the sand maybe sixty
metres or more.
    “What do you think it
is, Doctor Jones?” asked Hestia, coming to his side. Her choppy
hairstyle was now streaked with blue, transformed by bioelectric
fibre-optic extensions woven into her own mousy tresses. “The
entrance to an alien temple?”
    “There’s no such thing
as aliens!” muttered Govannon, irritably.
    “The Dhusarian Church
uses a six-pointed star as its symbol,” Hestia pointed out.
    “So does Judaism. The
work of alien rabbis, is it?”
    “It must be alien!”
she protested. “You said it was too old to be built by humans.”
    “It could be a natural
phenomenon,” he suggested weakly. “An outcrop of volcanic magma.
One that somehow crystallised into a regular shape, see?”
    “With a door?”
    Govannon looked to
where Hestia pointed. The arch was sealed by a recessed wall of
silicon blocks, which at a glance could be taken for bricked-up
door into the triangular spur. Despite the early discovery of a
strange script carved on the nearby wall, Govannon stoically
maintained that the arch was nothing more than the remains of an
unusually-regular volcanic vent, yet the hard evidence of what had
already been coined the ‘star chamber’ severely shook his resolve.
He had spent his academic life exposing the sensationalists of the
archaeological world who saw evidence of aliens in almost every
ancient ruin, for he had long ago become convinced that humankind
was alone in the universe. Here in the Arallu Wastes he had found
enough evidence to destroy a lifetime of arguments. With a sigh, he
turned his gaze towards the waiting laser-mapper machines.
    “Three-dimensional
scan,” he instructed. “Full spectrum analysis.”
    The drones began their
methodical plotting of the trench. The expedition was able to work
on the inhospitable planet without survival suits thanks to three
inflatable-walled domes, forty metres in diameter with airtight
doors every ninety degrees for interconnectivity, each kept in
place by desert rocks heaped into external perimeter troughs.
Govannon heard the soft thump of boots upon sand and turned to see
a figure approaching from the connecting tunnel to the neighbouring
dome.
    He was still not sure
what to make of Professor Cadmus. The burly English academic was
supremely qualified and an alumnus of both Oxford University and
the renowned Institute of Archaeology, University College London.
Govannon’s assumption that his colleague would share his views on
the non-existence of ancient aliens was rocked when Cadmus revealed
he was on Falsafah as chairman of the recently-established Que Qiao
Alien Encounters Board. Govannon, having visited Daode in Epsilon
Eridani, remembered with affection how the local Que Qiao
government were quick to discredit all sightings of the legendary
alien greys. That the corporation had such thing as an Alien
Encounters Board was puzzling.
    “Doctor Jones!” called
Professor Cadmus. He waved to Govannon with the touch-screen slate
in his hand. The brown jacket and trousers he wore made him look
every bit the academic, an image reinforced by a grey square-cut
beard in a style most agreed had never been in fashion. “I need you
to sign off the site report. I trust your records are up to
date?”
    “All but the context
scans for this one,” Govannon told him, raising his voice against
the buzz of the mapper robots. Using