The Ancient Starship

by Cerberus Jones

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  Amelia and Charlie panted as they ran. There had been some kind of crisis at the hotel that morning – the phone had been ringing and ringing long before dawn, and between each call, Dad and Mum kept having this hurried, whispered discussion. By the time the sun was up, it felt like everyone had been awake for hours. In fact, when Charlie’s mum Mary had looked at the clock and screeched, ‘You’re twenty minutes late!’ Amelia was surprised it wasn’t already lunchtime.

  So here they were, sweaty and puffed and still half a block from school.

  As they got closer, though, Amelia realised that there might be some sort of crisis at school, too. Thudding along the pavement, swinging around the signpost and racing down the driveway into the school grounds, Amelia heard kids shouting at one another. Not just the usual loud, playful shouts, but angry yells. The school bell rang on and on, but no-one paid any attention.

  She glanced at Charlie, but he looked as confused as she was.

  Slowing to a jog, they passed the school buildings and reached the playground at the back. Kids were swarming under the old crabapple tree.

  ‘It’ll be the start of World War Three!’ yelled Callan, a panicked look on his face.

  ‘No it won’t!’ Erik snapped. ‘Don’t you know anything? It’s the start of a new world order – a new world peace!’

  ‘What on earth …’ Charlie murmured, his eyes moving from one kid to the other. He found any sort of chaos very cheering.

  Ms Slaviero was in the middle of the playground, the old brass bell in one hand, but she’d given up using it. With her other hand, she put two fingers in her mouth and whistled.

  For an instant, the playground was silent. The arguing kids stood frozen, stunned and staring at one another before turning to face their teacher.

  ‘What is all the noise about?’ Ms Slaviero asked. ‘I could hear you from inside the supply cupboard!’

  The quiet broke abruptly as six or eight kids shouted their explanations at Ms Slaviero over the top of everyone else. She held up her hands.

  ‘Stop, stop, stop! One at a time, please.’ She waited until they were all quiet again. ‘Right. Thank you. Now, Sophie T. How did this begin?’

  ‘Oh, miss! Not her –’ Erik blurted out.

  Ms Slaviero held up a hand again and looked steadily at Sophie T.

  ‘Well,’ Sophie T said, ‘it all started because of the aliens.’

  Amelia and Charlie glanced at one another.

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ said Ms Slaviero.

  ‘Because of the aliens they found in Egypt,’ said Sophie T.

  Amelia let out a breath she hadn’t even known she was holding. In Egypt – phew. Nothing to do with the gateway, then. Nothing to do with me or my family at all.

  Ms Slaviero laughed. ‘Ooo-kay. Aliens in Egypt. I’ve got to say, I haven’t heard that one before.’

  ‘It’s true!’ said Erik. ‘It was on the news and everything.’

  Charlie grinned at Amelia. ‘No way!’ he whispered.

  ‘Are you sure it was the news, Erik?’ said Ms Slaviero. ‘And not one of those funny internet videos?’

  ‘It was on the radio, too,’ said Callan.

  ‘It’s a hoax!’ Sophie T scoffed. ‘You guys are so gullible.’

  ‘It’s not a hoax,’ said Callan, eyes widening. ‘It’s a conspiracy. My brother told me all about it!’

  ‘If that was true, we’d be blown to bits already!’ Erik shot back. ‘They’ve come in peace.’

  ‘It’s an invasion!’ Callan shouted. ‘It’s been going on for centuries. Wake up and learn the facts before it’s too late, you drone! The whole world has been run by a secret society of giant space lizards since 1776.’

  Amelia gasped aloud. It was surely just a coincidence, wasn’t it? Callan couldn’t possibly know that the first alien Amelia and Charlie had ever seen going through the gateway under Tom’s cottage had in fact been a giant space-reptile. She hadn’t told anyone about it. She shot a sideways glance at Charlie, but he seemed as bewildered by Callan’s announcement as she was.

  Ms Slaviero turned and noticed Amelia and Charlie had arrived.

  ‘Hello, you two,’ she said. ‘Well, if we’ve got the whole class here, I think I know what we’re studying today.’

  Callan nodded fiercely. ‘The real history of the Illuminati and their plans to enslave all humanity.’

  ‘Er, no …’ said Ms Slaviero.

  ‘How proof of alien existence will unite all humanity in a new era of peace and enlightenment,’ said Erik.

  ‘No!’ Ms Slaviero was starting to sound irritated. ‘More like: truth versus fiction, and how to tell whether a story comes from a reliable source or not.’

  Charlie groaned. ‘How do teachers do that?’

  ‘Do what?’ said Amelia as they joined the crowd heading to the classroom.

  ‘Take something as awesome as a fight about aliens and turn it into the world’s most boring lesson.’

  But as far as Amelia was concerned, the quicker they got off the topic of aliens, the better. She was good at keeping secrets, but she was a terrible liar – if anyone asked her if she believed in aliens, it wouldn’t matter what she said. The truth would show clearly in her face.

  And what would happen if, even as a joke, someone asked her if she’d ever seen an alien? Worse still, what if they asked Charlie?

  For a while, it seemed like the whole thing might just blow over.

  Despite Charlie’s whingeing, Ms Slaviero was one of those teachers who could make anything fun. Twenty minutes later, she had the interactive whiteboard covered with ideas and arrows, with words circled in purple or slashed through in red, or surrounded by green question marks.

  By this time, the class had settled down. Amelia had felt the atmosphere in the room calm and cool as Ms Slaviero taught them the difference between facts, theories and inferences. Even Callan and Erik were concentrating, their argument forgotten.

  And then Ms Slaviero wrecked it all.

  ‘So let’s look at this aliens-in-Egypt story together,’ she said, bringing her web browser up on the board.

  Amelia’s leg jiggled under the table. Charlie leaned over his desk in anticipation.

  Ms Slaviero typed into her search engine, and then gave a little oh of surprise at the results. Skimming down the page, Amelia saw how good the sources were – Science Today, the Egyptian National News website, the major news services in England, the USA, China, Germany, Canada, just for starters.

  It’s not a hoax …

  Amelia hadn’t seen or heard any news that morning, of course. The headland where the hotel was built was so strongly magnetic, they couldn’t use a TV, radio, computer, or even a mobile phone anywhere.

  A sick feeling was growing in her stomach. It wasn’t a fact, but she was starting to develop a theory of her own … The more she thought about it, the more likely it seemed that all those phone calls her dad had been getting that morning were somehow connected to whatever had happened in Egypt.

  Ms Slaviero clicked on a link and the board became a big TV screen showing a video of a news crew at what looked like an archaeological dig. A pyramid was glowing pink in the background as the setting sun hit it, and a very excited reporter was speaking directly to the camera.

  ‘An astonishing discovery – absolutely, this will rock our understanding of the history of Ancient Egypt �
�� perhaps our understanding of humanity itself …’

  The video cut to the bottom of the excavations. Little pegs and string markers showed exactly where they were in the vast hole that had been carved into the sand. Towering over the archaeologist who stood beside it was, quite clearly, a crash-landed spaceship.

  Charlie yelped in delight.

  Amelia stared. The spaceship was enclosed in a thick shell of rough glass, as though it had been so white-hot when it hit the Earth that it melted the sand around it. It was buried in the ground at an angle, and Amelia wondered at the total lack of control that must have led to such a violent collision.

  Where the glass had been chipped away by the archaeologists, she could see the grey-green hull of the spaceship itself. Enough had been uncovered to show the scorch marks where it had burnt its way through our atmosphere, the dents and gouges where space debris had hit it, and then – most unmistakably – writing that was nothing like any human system Amelia had ever seen before.

  She glanced sideways at Sophie T to see if she still thought it was a hoax. Her mouth sagged open and her face was quite white. Sophie F was frowning at the screen. Shani was sitting perfectly still, half-smiling.

  ‘Well,’ muttered Ms Slaviero. ‘I’m obviously going to have to rethink my policy of listening only to disco hits in the car on the way to school.’

  When the home bell finally rang, Amelia ran out the door so fast she accidentally knocked over the bin. Charlie was right behind her, and up ahead she could see that her not-quite-a-dog Grawk was waiting in the shade of an oleander bush, his yellow eyes glowing.

  ‘You know,’ she puffed as they ran along the beach road, ‘for a minute there, when Callan started yelling, I almost thought –’

  ‘That it was me shooting my mouth off,’ Charlie said bluntly. But he wasn’t offended.

  Amelia shrugged. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No chance,’ he went on. ‘Nothing I’ve ever said or done has ever impressed anyone around here.’

  That sounded horrible to Amelia.

  Charlie wasn’t feeling sorry for himself. ‘So you know how I’m getting my revenge on them all?’

  ‘No.’

  He grinned. ‘Now that I have the coolest, most unbelievable, most impressive news ever, in the whole universe, literally, I’ll never tell them anything.’

  She laughed with him, but felt a little pang, too.

  Then she didn’t have enough breath for anything but running as the path started its steep climb up to the headland. By the time they reached the top of the hotel’s long driveway, Amelia was too weary to take much notice of the number of cars parked there. And when she and Charlie had chucked their bags down on the veranda and crashed through the hotel’s main doors, she didn’t stop to think before yelling out in the lobby, ‘Mum! Dad! There are aliens in Egypt!’

  As her eyes adjusted to the dim indoor light, she realised that there was a line of complete strangers standing at the reception desk.

  Ah, she thought as they all turned to stare. Those would be guests.

  A man in a black suit and bowler hat paused with his room key in his hand, his forehead wrinkled in perplexity. The woman behind him scowled at Amelia, and pulled her two little children close, as though Amelia’s bad manners might be catching. And the old lady behind her just looked too tired to be kept waiting any longer.

  Behind the desk, Mum raised her eyebrows and said nothing.

  Oops. The hotel had officially opened for business this week, which meant that for the first time, regular human tourists were coming to stay at the hotel, as well as the aliens that had been coming all along, disguised with holo-emitters. Amelia had only recently got used to the idea that the hotel really was her home, and now it had all changed again, and she had to get used to strangers living in the hotel with them.

  ‘Dad is at Tom’s,’ said Mum pointedly. ‘Why don’t you –?’

  Amelia and Charlie were back out the door and running down the hill before Mum could even finish the sentence.

  Tom, the caretaker, lived at the bottom of the hotel grounds, behind a wall of ancient magnolia trees. He had a little wooden cottage in a clearing that just happened to be directly on top of the natural cave system where the gateway opened.

  ‘Hey!’ yelled Tom, as they burst through his door.

  The tiny cottage seemed full of people. For the second time in two minutes, a group of adults turned to her. Amelia could have kicked herself. At least this time Dad was there too, grinning cheerfully. Beside him, an extremely old, wrinkly woman bent over her walking stick with her grey hair pinned up in a bun.

  ‘Hello, here’s trouble,’ she cackled.

  ‘Ms Rosby!’ said Amelia.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ asked Charlie.

  A square-shaped man with very short hair snorted disapprovingly.

  ‘I can’t believe you don’t already know, Charlie,’ said Ms Rosby. ‘I thought you two knew everything around here before anyone else.’

  The square man narrowed his eyes.

  ‘What –?’ Charlie began.

  ‘Why, the starship in Egypt, of course!’ said Ms Rosby.

  ‘That’s quite enough, Rosby!’ snapped the square man.

  ‘That’s what we came to tell you,’ said Charlie. ‘We saw it on the news at school.’

  ‘You see, Arxish?’ Ms Rosby smiled sweetly. ‘Hardly a secret, is it?’

  Amelia had heard of Arxish before. He, Ms Rosby and someone called Stern were the Big Three – Gateway Control’s top alien agents stationed on Earth. Ms Rosby had helped Amelia’s family out of a tough spot before, when a guest had made a serious complaint against them. She not only made sure that Dad and Tom kept their jobs, she’d also given official permission for Amelia and Charlie to be included in the gateway’s secrets. She was rather fond of the two kids, actually. Despite her old-lady appearance, she was only six years old herself.

  Arxish, though, was quite a different person.

  Dad had said very little about him in front of Amelia, but she had gathered enough clues here and there to know he was one of the Control agents who believed the gateway should be taken away from humans and put directly under the authority of Control.

  From the looks on their faces, the other two agents in the room agreed with Arxish. Amelia didn’t know how Dad could be so happy knowing he was surrounded by aliens who thought he was nothing more than an ignorant, half-wit Earthling.

  ‘Tell Mum I won’t be home for dinner,’ he beamed.

  ‘Ready, Walker?’ said Arxish, holding out a strange clockwork steering wheel. Ms Rosby and the other two crowded around and held on, leaving space for Dad’s hand.

  ‘Ready for what?’ said Charlie.

  Already Dad had taken hold of the wheel. It hummed, its centre spun, and a swirl of light blossomed out, enveloping all five beings touching it. They flared green for a second and then vanished, leaving Amelia, Charlie and Tom staring at empty air.

  Amelia and Charlie were still standing dumbfounded when the door to the cottage opened again. James thudded in, bright red in the face and puffing.

  ‘I’m putting a lock on that door!’ snapped Tom.

  ‘Did I miss him?’ James gasped.

  ‘Do any of you kids know how to knock?’ Tom pushed past Charlie and went to his desk, rifling through his papers. ‘This is my home, you know. Do any of you think of that?’

  ‘Sorry, Tom,’ said James. ‘You’re right.’

  ‘Don’t see me bursting into your rooms,’ Tom muttered to himself.

  James pushed his hair off his face and fanned himself, panting. ‘Dad’s gone, I take it?’

  ‘Yep,’ said Amelia.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Good question,’ said Charlie. ‘What was that thing?’

  ‘Teleporter,’ Tom sniffed. ‘The show-offs. They’ll want to be careful, zapping into Giza at sunrise with half the world’s film crews on standby.’

  ‘A teleporter!’ James’s face broke into a
goofy grin. ‘I wish I’d seen it. How does it work? It can’t be electrical, can it, with all this magnetic interference –’

  Tom sighed. ‘Was there something you wanted, James?’

  James shrugged and looked around Tom’s cottage. ‘Just … you know … wondered if there was anything I could … help with?’

  Amelia smiled to herself. It had taken several weeks and a face full of toxic Lellum slug mucus to make James believe that the aliens in this place were even real. But since then, all his science-geek/mad-inventor/gadget-genius circuits had kicked in, and he’d been driving Tom crazy, trying to learn everything he could about the gateway.

  Tom gazed at him, one stony eye fixed on James and the other hidden beneath a black eye-patch. ‘If you really want to help, you can put my charts in order.’

  It was quite obvious to Amelia that this was the sort of offer that was supposed to send James running back up the hill, but instead James looked as excited as a kid on his birthday.

  ‘Thanks, Tom! You’re the best!’

  Tom grunted, and turned back to Amelia and Charlie. ‘Now, what do you want?’

  ‘We just wanted to see what was happening,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Well, don’t look at me. You think anyone tells me anything? Rosby might have, if she’d come here on her own, but Arxish won’t say a word. As far as he let slip to your dad, Control want to cover up this whole situation.’

  ‘Why?’ said Amelia.

  ‘We’re a non-stellar planet, aren’t we?’ said Tom. ‘Never left our own solar system. So far as they’re concerned, we might as well be living in caves and trying to make fire.’

  ‘But we know,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Tom, and before either Amelia or Charlie could ask him what he meant by that, a gust of wind blew out of the gateway stairwell, flooding the cottage with the smell of grilled cheese. A wormhole had just connected to the gateway, opening up a path to an alien world.

  Grawk, who had been lurking outside the cottage all this time, now wandered in, sniffing the air appreciatively.

  ‘More guests?’ said Charlie, straining to see what was happening in the other room.