The Ancient Starship

by Cerberus Jones

  ‘But we just got cheated out of our aliens,’ Charlie protested.

  ‘Yes, well, there is that … I can’t say I like it, either, Charlie.’

  They trudged around the last bend and saw Arxish and Ms Rosby standing beside an awkward-looking Lady Naomi. When she saw Dad and the kids, her face brightened and she came over to them at once. Amelia noticed Grawk had disappeared again.

  ‘I’m not sure about this, Scott,’ Lady Naomi said in a low voice. ‘The starship is one thing, but I didn’t agree to have this lot take over my facility.’

  Dad patted her shoulder. ‘It’ll only be a day or two at most. And Ms Rosby and I will do our best to make sure Control come through with some upgraded equipment as a way of saying thanks.’

  Lady Naomi considered him, her frustration slowly giving way to a small smile. ‘All right. You’ve got me there. Just keep that Arxish away from me – he’s obnoxious.’

  ‘So where’s the spaceship?’ said Charlie.

  Amelia nudged him and pointed. Hadn’t Charlie noticed? Lady Naomi’s holo-rock was significantly larger than it had been.

  ‘Where?’ said Charlie.

  Lady Naomi took out her little gadget and the rock vanished. This time, in front of the workstation, a large dark-green object hung in midair. It was somehow both bigger and smaller than Amelia had expected – about the size of a very large freezer chest. Quite enormous for a freezer, in fact, but not very big at all if you were inside it while blasting through space.

  One part of her mind was simply astonished that a thing she had first seen in a far-away country on the news was now floating only metres from her. Another part of her was sort of deflated. It was nothing at all like the sleek, shiny, gorgeous-looking ships she’d seen in movies.

  Charlie didn’t appear to be disappointed. Or bothered by how the ship had glowed red on Lady Naomi’s radiation scan. He walked right up to it and ran his hands over the burnt surface. ‘Cool …’

  ‘Hey!’ snapped one of the Control agents. ‘No touching!’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Ms Rosby said bluntly. ‘This thing has travelled light-years through space, survived asteroid belts, burnt up through this planet’s atmosphere, and survived a terminal velocity impact with the surface. What damage do you think the kid will inflict?’

  The agent muttered to himself. ‘Yes, by all means,’ he said grimly. ‘Fondle the ship to your heart’s content … if we can’t discover how to open it, how to read the writing on the sides, or how to determine its origin, why not let the human pup have a go?’

  Amelia saw his mouth twist, and the other guy in the crew looked sullen, too. Clearly, this puzzle was too big even for Control.

  Dad stayed out all night with the Control crew and Lady Naomi, trying to open the ship. At breakfast, he finally staggered in, but from the look on his face, Amelia knew they’d made little progress.

  The man in the bowler hat came into the dining room behind Dad, and went straight to the table he’d sat at for dinner the first night. Amelia was pleased. She knew that Mum and Mary would be relieved he was OK. And he was OK, wasn’t he? He was looking –

  She jerked back in her chair and the butter knife in her hand banged so hard on the edge of the plate, she chipped it.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ said Charlie, pausing between bites of toast.

  Amelia whispered, ‘That’s not Bowler-Hat Man. It’s the same hat, but it’s not the same man.’

  Charlie peered at their neighbour. ‘Same suit, too. I recognise the gravy stains.’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe his holo-emitter is playing up. Or maybe he just decided he wanted to be better-looking, and hoped no-one would notice the change.’

  Charlie’s explanation was so reasonable, Amelia was almost convinced. But he’d overlooked a vital fact.

  ‘But the man in the bowler hat isn’t an alien, Charlie. He didn’t come through the gateway, and he didn’t get a holo-emitter from Tom. Don’t you remember? He came in a hire car like the other human guests. And his car is still outside the hotel!’

  ‘But then …’ Charlie’s eyes widened. ‘If the guy didn’t leave in his car, where is he?’

  ‘And,’ said Amelia, ‘who is this guy? And what is he doing in the other guy’s clothes?’

  It was so disturbing, Amelia ran straight to tell her mother. Not that they could find her. Amelia tried the library, which Mum used as an office, her parents’ bedroom, the kitchen, and even the ballroom. Eventually, they found Mary upstairs in the guest wing, making up beds.

  ‘She went down to Tom’s,’ said Mary. ‘She’ll be back in a min–’

  But Amelia and Charlie were already running. They knew better than to run madly through the lobby, so instead they went the other way, down the corridor to the back of the hotel where the servants’ stairs led out to the gardens a secret way.

  They got out to the ballroom deck and lawns just in time to see a black-hatted figure creeping past the hedges. The fake Bowler-Hat Man, and he had one of the hotel’s giant laundry-chute bags over his shoulder. A bag.

  One large, knobbly object was crammed into the bag, and it looked exactly the right size and shape to be a human body.

  Amelia and Charlie froze, unable to believe what they had just seen. Or thought they had seen …

  As if they didn’t have enough to think about between the alien spaceship and the weird scarf lady and Control sticking their nose in everything, now they had to deal with a –

  Amelia stopped, not wanting to say the word murderer, even to herself.

  Amelia tapped Charlie on the arm, then pointed to the other side of the hotel. If they were quick enough, they could run around the whole hotel and see where the impostor was going without the risk of following along behind. If that was a body in the bag, there was no way Amelia wanted to get caught spying.

  Charlie nodded, and they sprinted as quietly as possible around to the front of the hotel, meeting Grawk on the way. Amelia put a finger to her lips to warn him they were being sneaky.

  Looking out over the hotel grounds, they saw the top of the bowler hat just disappear below the brow of the hill as the man headed down to the bush. For a moment, Amelia was worried he was heading for Lady Naomi’s workstation, but he was actually bearing further left, more toward the maze.

  Amelia, Charlie and Grawk were totally exposed, running across the open grass of the hill after him, with nowhere to hide and no way to pretend they were doing anything other than chasing him. But they had no choice. If they waited until he got to the bush before they started after him, they would lose the trail.

  Luckily for them, he didn’t turn to check behind him.

  ‘I reckon that’s the real Bowler-Hat Man he’s got in there,’ said Charlie quietly. ‘And now he’s going to dump him in the bush.’

  ‘Listen!’ Amelia whispered.

  The man had started picking his way into the bush, and even from their distance, they could hear the crunching, snapping sound of leaves and twigs under each footstep.

  ‘We can’t follow him in there,’ she realised.

  ‘We can’t let him get away with murder!’

  ‘No, but Charlie, he’ll hear us from miles away if we go after him. And if he murdered the real Bowler-Hat Man, what’s to stop him murdering us too?’

  Charlie paused over that, and then Amelia noticed Grawk wagging his tail and staring at her intently. Grawk, who had known Krskn was bad news before anyone else had any idea he was there. Grawk, who could tell it was Charlie even when he was disguised with a holo-emitter. Amelia still wasn’t sure just what Grawk knew or how he knew it, but by now she was happy to trust his judgment.

  And right now, Grawk looked as relaxed and pleased as Amelia had ever seen him. She nudged Charlie. ‘Look! He’s onto something!’

  Once Grawk had their attention, he took off – trotting through the grass with his head held high, sniffing the air, his ears cocked toward the bush.

  ‘I think Grawk’s tracking him,’ she said. ‘But
not following him – look. He’s working out where he’s going.’

  Indeed, Grawk bounded twenty or more metres downhill, sniffed and listened a bit more. Then he blinked solemnly at Amelia, and walked into the bush.

  ‘Brilliant, Grawk,’ she whispered. ‘Look, Charlie. The bush is thinner here, and there are all those rocks ahead. If we’re careful, we can get in there without making a sound.’

  ‘Get in where?’ Charlie grumbled. ‘Grawk could be taking us to see his favourite peeing tree for all we know.’

  But Amelia could tell he didn’t really mean it, and in fact, when they scrambled up the side of a boulder and saw the fake Bowler-Hat Man walking along the bottom of the gully below them, Charlie didn’t seem surprised.

  The impostor was still carrying the laundry bag over his shoulder, and now Amelia noticed there was something odd in the way it hung across his back, bumping up and down with each step.

  ‘It’s not heavy enough to be a body,’ she whispered.

  ‘Unless he’s super strong.’

  ‘Even then. The bag would still show strain under the weight. That bag looks like it’s full of feathers.’

  The man looked around him, then wandered over to some thick bushes, whirled the bag around his head, and let it fly so that it arced up over the tips of the bushes, and landed hidden behind them. Without a backward glance, the man turned and walked back the way he’d come.

  There was no sign that he’d suspected he had been watched, but still Amelia and Charlie waited ten long minutes before they went out to inspect the bag. A month or so ago, they might have just crashed their way through the undergrowth as soon as the man was out of sight. Now that they’d seen Krskn in action, they understood that these adventures that kept befalling them had no safety net. No time-outs, second chances, or places to respawn and try again. If this man were really a murderer, they couldn’t afford to act like kids.

  They waited until Grawk led the way out.

  ‘You were right,’ said Charlie. ‘No matter how strong he was throwing that bag, it didn’t sound heavy as it hit the trees.’

  They scrambled through the leaves and branches to get to the bag.

  ‘But if it’s not a body …’ Amelia began. ‘That means the real Bowler-Hat Man is still missing.’

  ‘And whatever is in this bag,’ Charlie finished, ‘he still came all the way out here to dump it.’

  Grawk was at the bag already, wagging his tail and sniffing in delight.

  Amelia took a sniff too. ‘Ugh!’ Even from a metre away it was rank – off-milk and vomit.

  Charlie poked the bag with a stick and the end of it sank in without resistance. Amelia stretched out a foot and pressed on a bulge with her sneakered toe. It gave way like wadding or a folded doona.

  ‘So weird,’ said Charlie.

  Amelia bent down and grabbed the edge of the bag. ‘Ready or not …’ she said, and yanked it open.

  A gust of rancid, puke-flavoured air engulfed them, strong enough to make them both cough. They held their noses and stared at the bag’s contents.

  ‘So …’ Charlie said at last. ‘What the heck is that?’

  The thing inside the laundry bag was so strange, it took Amelia several long moments to process what she was seeing. It was a pale yellowy colour – that was the first thing that got through. Then she noticed how kind of hairy it was – like a huge, loose spool of wool, if the wool had been so fine it looked more like fibreglass. Strangest of all, Amelia saw that it was hollow and she was looking into it through a big gash along one side. It looked as though it had been violently torn open.

  It definitely wasn’t a body, but in its own way it was nearly as horrible. And although it was clearly alien, there was something weirdly familiar about it, as though Amelia had seen one of these before.

  Except who would ever forget seeing one of these? Or smelling one? She shuddered.

  ‘We have to tell Dad. Or Tom. Probably Ms Rosby, too.’

  ‘Can you imagine how angry Arxish will be?’ Charlie said. He poked the bag again. ‘Do you think we should bring it with us?’

  He bent down, reached into the bag and touched the woolly thing. ‘Oh, yuck! It’s all sticky!’ He wiped his hand on his pants.

  ‘It doesn’t look sticky,’ said Amelia. ‘Is it like fairy floss?’

  ‘Almost,’ said Charlie. ‘Only much stickier, more like – oh! That’s what it is! It’s a spider web!’

  They both looked in horror at the bag.

  ‘That’s what spiders do when they catch a bug,’ said Charlie in a low voice. ‘They wrap it up in silk and suck the guts out. I bet that’s what happened to the real Bowler-Hat Man. And that’s why there’s no body – the new guy already ate it.’

  But Amelia, sick with fear, shook her head and squatted down for a closer look at the empty wrappings. ‘I don’t think that’s it, Charlie … I think it’s much, much worse than that …’

  She pointed into the hollow space and Charlie crouched down beside her. ‘Look how clean it is inside. No-one died in there or had their guts sucked out.’

  ‘Then what? You don’t think Bowler-Hat Man is dead?’

  ‘Oh, no, I think he is – or wishes he was.’ Amelia closed her eyes. ‘I think this is an egg sac.’

  ‘An egg sac –’ Charlie frowned. ‘But there are no eggs in there.’

  Amelia looked at him bleakly. ‘There wouldn’t be – once they hatched.’

  Now Charlie turned a sickly green and gulped. ‘So the giant alien spider had babies, and they are … in the hotel? And the real Bowler-Hat Man …?’

  ‘Baby food,’ Amelia nodded. She flung a small stick at Grawk, who was nibbling happily on the edge of the stinky silk sac. ‘Stop it! Bad dog!’

  Grawk didn’t turn around, but kicked back with one paw, showering Amelia with a little cloud of dirt, leaves and gumnuts.

  ‘Fine,’ she snapped at him. ‘Be gross, then. Come on, Charlie.’

  ‘Come on where?’ He followed her back up the gully to the rocks. ‘We’re not going to the hotel, surely?’

  ‘Tom’s. He’s got a phone. We can call the hotel and tell Mum and Mary to evacuate.’

  ‘This is a disaster.’

  Grawk got over his irritation with Amelia and soon caught up and started leading the way through the bush again. Amelia was grateful. She’d been so absorbed in being stealthy on the way down, she hadn’t memorised the path. Plus, she couldn’t deny it, she felt much safer having Grawk with them, just in case the alien spider-daddy had actually sensed them spying on him and was now lying in wait behind a bush somewhere …

  But no-one was waiting in ambush for them. No-one tried to trap them. There was one bend in the track where Charlie walked face-first into an orb-weaver’s web and freaked out, clawing the strands off his cheeks and yelling, ‘Get off me, you sicko!’ Other than that, they got to Tom’s without a hitch.

  Except Tom wasn’t there, and James was just leaving.

  ‘Hey,’ he smiled broadly. ‘You’re just in time. Mum called from the hotel.’

  ‘Mum’s in the hotel?’ Amelia almost yelled.

  ‘Where else would she be?’ James looked at her, puzzled.

  ‘We’ve got to get her out!’

  ‘And my mum!’ Charlie added. ‘And the guests.’

  James frowned. ‘Why would we do that?’

  ‘Because there’s a brood of alien spider babies in Bowler-Hat Man’s room and they’ve already eaten him up!’

  To James’s credit, he accepted their story immediately. Only weeks ago, he would have patted Amelia on the head and told her how cute it was she still played make-believe with her friends. Now he didn’t even ask her how she knew, he just went back to Tom’s and opened the door.

  Amelia and Charlie followed him inside.

  ‘Whoa!’ said Charlie.

  Amelia stared. The chaos and clutter of Tom’s cottage had undergone a radical change. James snatched up the phone and dialled the hotel, while Amelia gazed
about her. Tom’s messy piles of half-rolled charts and lists had been organised into five neat sets, and one whole portion of the desk had been cleared to make room for a huge square of grid paper. She could see James’s careful handwriting in several different colours on the grid, and off to the side, scraps of paper with scribbled maths equations, lots of crossing out, and several large, cross-looking question marks.

  ‘Mum?’ James sounded calm, but his expression was tense. ‘Amelia and Charlie are down here – they want you to evacuate the hotel.’

  He listened intently, then said, ‘I’ll put her on,’ and held the phone out to Amelia.

  ‘Mum, get out now!’ Amelia said. ‘Charlie and I saw Bowler-Hat Man go into the bush and dump a giant, empty spider-egg sac, but it’s not the real Bowler-Hat Man, this guy is a fake. And now there are probably thousands of cannibal spider babies in his room, and they’re going to eat everyone, and –’

  ‘Amelia!’ Mum was abrupt. ‘Stop!’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Amelia, I heard you and I’m taking you seriously. I’m so glad you told me straight away. I’m going to tell Ms Rosby as soon as I see her. Illegal alien immigration, visa over-stay and invasion is her department, and she’ll know exactly what we’re dealing with.’

  ‘OK,’ Amelia said, ‘good, but you still have to get out!’

  ‘Cookie, I can’t evacuate the hotel on your hunch, even,’ she raised her voice over Amelia’s protest, ‘even a very good hunch, which I know yours is. In our situation, with aliens we know little or nothing about, there may be more than one way to understand even the most suspicious behaviour.’

  Amelia groaned.

  ‘Anyway,’ Mum went on briskly. ‘Hadn’t you better get a move on?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh, I thought James told you.’

  Amelia looked up at James. ‘Told me what?’

  ‘Dad’s with Control at Lady Naomi’s. They’re going to blow up the you-know-what.’