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  Bala ambled over to Hunter. “Captain, more good news. The water’s entirely safe, as long as you don’t drink it: it’s even saltier than our oceans. But it should be fine to swim in. We have to be a little careful while we’re still learning about aquatic life here though; we’ve found a nice pool to the south that’s clear of fish. Natalia says to bathe in there for the moment.”

  “Good. I’ll tell the crew they can skinny-dip to their heart’s content, with no fear of killer microbes … excuse me for a moment.” She was being beckoned over by a pair of figures from across the clearing. Approaching them, she saw that they were geologist Kiaya Ferguson and botanist Jess Ryan, the Bona Dea’s only wife and wife team.

  “Captain,” said Ferguson, the more talkative of the pair, “something strange here. Kind of embarrassing we didn’t spot it earlier. Does anything strike you as odd about the trees?”

  Hunter looked. Like so much else about this planet, the trees were strikingly similar to their Earth counterparts. She saw close equivalents of ash and oak that looked normal enough to her, so she shook her head.

  “Actually, it’s really the grass that’s peculiar,” said Ferguson. “You see, it grows right to the base of the trees at the same height: a carpet, hardly any variation.”

  “Differing amounts of sunlight and rainwater will get through the canopy,” added Ryan. “Back on Earth the grass would reflect that. This sort of orderliness is pretty strange.”

  “I see. But I for one view strangeness as a plus point. Scientific knowledge is advanced by solving mysteries, isn’t it? A simple duplicate of Earth would be an anticlimax. All in all, Mahi Mata seems to be coming through for us.”

  * * *

  “What’s it like out there?” asked Charlie.

  “Oh … nice. The fresh air feels invigorating to us human types. And the colours! Very vivid. After being shut up in a box for so long, you really get sick of seeing the same sights.”

  Charlie sighed. “I can certainly relate to that. I’ve never been out of this room. I listen to your stories – about Earth, the planets we’ve visited, other parts of this ship – and my programming gives me the knowledge to understand them, but I’ve no experience, I can never truly understand …”

  “Oh, I’m sorry! There was me grumbling about being shut in, and you’re a virtual prisoner in here.”

  “I go to my doorway sometimes. There’s a small window in the door at the end of our corridor, and through that … more windows, leading to the outside. I can’t see out through them, but sometimes streams of sunlight are visible. I’ve thought about sneaking out and having a look through, but if I were caught out of my room, the game would be up. No normal ACM would wander about the ship like that.”

  Flora was silent for a while. It occurred to her that she’d been having her cake and eating it these past few weeks. On the one hand, she let herself believe Charlie was alive so that she could enjoy the fruits of a relationship with him, but on the other, she’d never considered whether he might have any desires beyond his programmed function to please her. Lazy thinking; it was time to give as well as take.

  “Charlie, I don’t know how, but I’m going to find a way to get you out of here. That’s a promise.”

  He looked her in the eyes. “I believe you.”

  “And in the meantime …” struck by sudden inspiration, she worked at her wristband. “I’m patching into our external systems; we can hear what the ship hears.”

  Soon the little room was filled with the sounds of the outside world. Eyes closed, they lay and listened to the twittering of birds, and the calm rustling of wind through leaves.

  II

  … It’s hard to believe that it’s already been three months (a little more by Earth time) since we landed. Every day has been Christmas, especially for the science team, who’ve stocked their labs on board ship with soil and plant samples, and amassed reams of data on our environment I can’t pretend to understand.

  The work of Natalia Preciado is perhaps most appealing to the layman (namely, cataloguing the Matan animal kingdom). She gave me an hour of her time earlier today [insert link to Preciado interview C1] and we covered various aspects of her work.

  Particularly interesting were her thoughts on why the various species we’ve seen resemble Earth species so closely. Mahi Mata has wolves, monkeys, badgers, owls, grebes, sparrows, plaice, cod and many more. But the same god rules here as at home: evolution. Given similar conditions to Earth we can expect similar forms to win the battle for survival.

  Which is not to say that there are no new species here. The matan manticore, a herbivore with a lion’s mane and club-like tail, has to be seen to be believed …

  – Daniella Winters, Journal Entry #337

  It was Annie Grace who found the doorway, about five miles inland from their camp. The others of the little expedition – Flora, Preciado and Ryan – heard her excited shouts from over a little hillock and came running. Ryan had the group’s stun gun out and ready, but they found no predators menacing the young technician.

  She was looking down through the trees, eyes wide. Flora heard gasps from her companions but it took her several seconds to spot the cause of them, overgrown as it was with leaves and vines. But at last, following the gazes of her companions, she saw the grey opening, a lonely monument amongst the greenery. A doorway to nowhere.

  Approaching slowly, as though the structure were a wild animal which might easily be frightened away, they saw it to be rectangular and made of large stone bricks, of which several were missing. Small sections of wall were attached on each side.

  It took a while to sink in. A doorway means intelligent life once bloomed on this planet. We are not the first to walk in this forest.

  Annie spoke first. “Look at the size of the opening. Fifteen feet, maybe? Whoever built it must’ve been giants.”

  “Think a little,” said Preciado. “If Arc de Triomphe was the last structure left on Earth, visiting aliens might say we were all 90 feet tall. We’ve no context for this … structure. But bipedal looks likely.”

  Annie laughed suddenly. “My God, this is awesome! And I saw it first! Where’s the rest of it? There’s gotta be other buildings around as well … maybe we’re on the edge of a city? Well, call Hunter, then!”

  The captain came soon enough, as did most everyone else. She wore a sceptical look at first, half expecting it all to be a silly prank of Annie’s that she’d somehow roped the others into. Then she saw it.

  “Just when you think you’ve reached the limits of your capacity for amazement,” she said, once she’d recovered her composure, “something even more wild and inexplicable comes along. There were people on this planet once. And yet no trace of them was visible from orbit. Where did they go?”

  “And where did the rest of this building go?” wondered Flora. “We’ve been digging around looking for more fragments, but so far nothing. I assume the Matans didn’t just build a door in the middle of nowhere.”

  They ultimately had to bring in specialized digging equipment. Then they uncovered further fragments of the building, but not all together; they were scattered at different depths. The real surprise, though, came when they carbon dated fragments of mortar, and found them to be barely 500 years old.

  “It seems beyond belief that there could have been an intelligent species living here only half a millennium ago,” said Hunter to Flora as the two of them watched the dig progressing. “Can there really be so little left that we couldn’t find a single trace of them from orbit?”

  “It’s almost as though the grass swallowed them up.” Flora felt a sudden chill as she spoke the words, the first touch of fear. She wasn’t alone.

  “This is wrong.” Barbara Young looked around the forest warily. “There’s something unnatural about this place. We should get back to the ship. We should get back into orbit.”

  “Come on Babs,” taunted Annie. “You’re a gardener: plants that eat buildings should be right up your alley.”


  “I’m not a gardener, I’m a hydro and aeroponic engineer. And I like plants that do as they’re told.”

  “Return to the ship if you want, Barbara.” Hunter waved dismissively. “But we aren’t going anywhere. There’s no danger here, merely questions that need answers, and we’re more than qualified to find them. We just need time; there’s no shortage of that.”

  Barbara stalked off. Flora fought the impulse to follow her.

  * * *

  The excavation continued for several weeks. They found fragments of other buildings nearby – all of them beneath the earth – suggesting a settlement. Unlike any archaeological dig on Earth, however, this was a culture of a technological sophistication at least on a par with their own.

  There were ancient machines amongst the other relics, their wiring eroded, any data they had held long since lost. The brickwork consisted mainly of strong alloys: evidently the initial stone wall they had found had been an exception.

  An air of tension hung over the crew as they worked on the site, which only lifted when they returned to the clearing by the sea. They had found no solutions to the mysteries of the settlement. Every building seemed to have been smashed into a thousand pieces, yet there was no evidence of missile damage. The trees, tall and thin in this area, loomed on all sides, and the wind sounded uncomfortably akin to laughter as it rustled through their leaves. You will never uncover the forest’s secrets, it seemed to mock the alien interlopers.

  But the women accepted the challenge. Stubborn and persistent, they kept looking for their answers.

  * * *

  Gypsy Cumberland’s alarm clock emitted a series of deep buzzes. Had it been sentient, it would have had little expectation of being rewarded for its efforts, its previous sixteen attempts having met only with a hand snaking out from under the duvet to hit the snooze button.

  But it was seventeenth time a charm. Gypsy woke up.

  So. Once again I’m reluctantly prized from the comforting bosom of sleep.

  Already, she felt the irrational dread which greeted her most mornings. It was there in her stomach, settling itself in for the day, a mix of tightness and nausea.

  “You’re worse today than yesterday, Mr. Dread,” she said aloud. “Well, you do feed on laziness, so perhaps I’d better get up.”

  Gypsy glanced at the clock. It was 11:06, she saw with a jolt. 666 minutes into the day. An evil number. She couldn’t start her day with that number on the clock

  No, no. I’ve got to fight that sort of thinking. Exposure and response prevention; this is a perfect opportunity to hit my OCD where it hurts. Get up.

  She got up. A violent scramble and she was on her feet, standing beside her bed in her plain white nightgown.

  “There, now, that wasn’t so difficult …”

  Still, Gypsy waited until the time read 11:07 before she began her dressing ritual. Once the seven had appeared in fine white lines on the clock face, she lurched into action, going through the procedure she’d nailed in place over a decade earlier. Seven steps over to the wardrobe. Seven taps on the wardrobe door.

  “What colour is today?” she asked herself, then closed her eyes to ponder the question. Truth be told, she felt a jumble of emotions milling listlessly about her. Only one choice, then: ambivalent orange.

  She selected a set of clothes in the appropriate colour, while she pondered the day ahead. There wasn’t much for her to do – no navigation would be needed until the journey home, still a couple of years away. No courses for her to calculate, nothing to do in here but solve number puzzles and maybe try and write something creative, following Flora’s advice. She really should go outside …

  Her clothes were laid out before her. She tapped the wardrobe seven times with her right index finger, then put on her underpants. Seven more taps, then she donned her bra, struggling a little to position and fasten it under the soft material of her nightgown. The same procedure followed for right sock, left sock, left slipper, right slipper. Only now did she take the nightgown off – Gypsy avoided the indignity of being naked wherever possible.

  I’m going to have to drop this routine someday, she thought, as she moved on to her T-shirt, if I’m ever going to truly beat this thing in my head. But I’ve been starting the day this way for so long. I’ll leave that challenge until last.

  “Good idea,” she muttered, reaching for her shirt. She had slipped it on and was just fastening the fifth of the buttons – of which there were seven, naturally – when there came a knock at the door.

  “You up yet, love?” came her mother’s voice.

  “Yes!” Gypsy answered sharply. “I’m getting dressed …”

  “Right. Breakfast’s ready when you want it.”

  “Okay …” The flash of annoyance at the interruption to her routine was swiftly followed by a rush of guilt over her own ingratitude. She mustn’t tempt fate. If she didn’t show appreciation for her mother, the universe might decide to take her away.

  I’m sorry. She directed her thoughts up to whoever might be listening in. Don’t hurt her.

  Gypsy reluctantly decided that some penance was needed to atone for her bad thought. She’d have to change back into her nightgown and begin her dressing ritual again, from the top.

  With a sigh, she began unbuttoning her shirt. It was going to be a long day.

  * * *

  Flora was buried deep beneath the earth. It must be miles to the surface, she guessed, but at least she could move, with an effort. The dead soil parted for her, and she swam upwards.

  Or was it upwards? Suddenly she was unsure of the correct direction. Imagine toiling for hours, only to end up further from escape than when she started! Gravity told her nothing; the treacherous dirt pushed in from all sides. She curled up into a ball and wondered whether she’d ever feel the air on her skin again.

  I really hope this is a dream. It should be. How could I breathe otherwise? My mouth and nose are clogged. A dream. All I need do to escape is open my eyes.

  She opened them. A light blue ceiling greeted her. Her quarters on the Bona Dea: relief.

  But the dream lingered, and her T-shirt was clinging to her, slick with sweat. She heard rain on her window and crossed to peer out at it; the sight soothed her. Slowly the terrible claustrophobic feeling faded.

  I suppose I should be grateful my subconscious waited so long before serving up this little treat.

  Her door chimed; after taking a moment longer to compose herself, she responded. “Come in.”

  It was the captain. “Am I intruding?”

  “Not at all, I just got up. How can I help you?”

  Hunter scanned the room thoughtfully. Some loose papers on Flora’s little table caught her eye.

  “What’s this? ‘Memories I long to find, with a message entwined, so I can salvage peace of mind …’ I didn’t know you were a poet.”

  “Just a few rough ideas.” Flora crossed to the table and swept the little scraps of paper into a drawer.

  “Embarrassed?” asked the captain with mild reproach. “Looks like decent rhyming to me. And how can you improve without feedback? Literature is meant to be read.”

  “Good literature is meant to be read. My poems are meant to be buried somewhere nice and dark, where they can’t offend anyone’s artistic sensibilities.” But I was pleased with those lines until someone else saw them. Am I being too hard on myself?

  Hunter rolled her eyes. Flora knew that the captain had little patience for negativity or self-doubt. But she let the matter drop for the moment.

  “We haven’t seen you at the site for a couple days.”

  “There were things to do here. You know I’m happy to chip in if you need me, but archaeology is pretty far from being my speciality.”

  “And you’ve taken to sleeping in the ship again, I see.”

  “Yes.” There didn’t seem to be much more to say, but Hunter kept her expectant gaze steady. Flora sighed. “Okay, I imagine this is in my psychological file anyway. I’
ve a fear of being buried. A very slight fear. Recent events have set it off, but it’s nothing I can’t handle. I’ll be back at the dig this afternoon, okay?”

  “I hadn’t checked your file. I imagine this voyage has been hard for you, if you suffer from claustrophobia.”

  “I don’t, really, it’s just this one specific scenario.”

  “A childhood trauma?”

  “Nothing so dramatic. At least, not that I remember. It’s a pretty common fear, I think? Perhaps I have it a little worse than most.”

  Hunter shrugged, dismissing the matter. “We found something yesterday. A wooden box, largely intact.”

  “I’m guessing there was something in it … ?”

  “Right.” Hunter crossed to Flora’s computer and activated it. As the younger woman looked on curiously, she brought up an image on-screen: ancient paper, torn in places, but with faint symbols still visible. “Books. There are 47 of them, of various sizes and in various states of disrepair.”

  “Wow.” Flora bent over the screen. The characters on display were simplistic combinations of straight lines, curved lines and little circles. Disconcertingly, one of the most common was identical to a percentage sign – a familiar face in a foreign land.

  “We’re scanning them into the computer system. It would be fascinating to know what they say, but I didn’t think to include a linguist when I drew up my crew manifest. I was wondering whether you were up for the challenge.”

  “Me? I’m no linguist. Hisano’s fluent in four languages – I only speak one. Unless I’m allowed to count programming languages.”

  “Yes, Hisano’s abilities are impressive, but I don’t think there’ll do us much good. The Matan tongue has evolved separately from any on Earth.”

  “Yes, well … it’s simply impossible then, isn’t it? With no Rosetta Stone to guide us, we’ll never know where to start.”