Tau Ceti hung low in the west as the expedition’s transport arrived at the airstrip. The spaceplane Sir Bedivere had landed and stood linked to the enclosed walkway projecting from the small terminal building on the far side of the depot’s dome. The silver ship was a sleek, stubby-winged Skylon Interstellar Mk IV, the latest of a successful line of Earth-class spacecraft to come from the Rolls-Royce aerospace factories of Mercia. The university had chartered the ship for the duration of the expedition, though Govannon was convinced the reason the crew never wanted to stay on Falsafah any longer than necessary was because they were flying black-market deliveries on the side.
The transport slipped past the wind-pump tower with its ferociously-spinning vanes, through the shallow pool of water left by leaking pump-head pipes and onwards to the rear of the dome. The depot’s transport hangar was part of the terminal building, the roof of which was covered by solar panels that powered the electrolysis plant, which in turn extracted hydrogen and oxygen from the underground stream. After getting too close to the spaceplane during an engine test, Govannon preferred to go the long way around.
“Are we there yet?” asked Urania, teasing him. She sat next to him at the front of the vehicle, having beaten Xuthus to the seat normally taken by Professor Cadmus.
“Funny girl,” Govannon muttered wearily. Urania had not stopped talking throughout the four-hour journey and it was this, not the long drive, that had exhausted him. “Do you want me to send you back to Ascension?”
“Is that what you did with Ravana?”
“Cadmus said she just got fed up and went home,” replied Govannon.
“She left all her stuff behind,” said Hestia. “Her clothes, slate, everything.”
“Good riddance,” muttered Urania. “Bitch.”
“Urania!” exclaimed Govannon. “There’s no need for that!”
“She’s one of those refugees from that crazy asteroid,” retorted Urania. “There’s hundreds of them at Newbrum, all wanting our jobs. Besides, who goes around with a face scarred like that? That sort of thing is easy to fix these days. She’s a freak.”
“She’s not!” snapped Xuthus, shocked at Urania’s outburst. “She’s really brave and clever. I was there in Epsilon Eridani, when she and her friends made the news after finding the kidnapped Raja.”
“It sounds like you fancy her,” Urania sneered.
“I liked her,” said Hestia. No one was listening to her.
“I do not fancy her!” cried Xuthus.
“That’s enough!” Govannon said sternly. Urania’s views of the refugees were no doubt inherited from her parents, but given her own status as a recent immigrant to Ascension he was surprised at her attitude. “If I find that Ravana left the dig because she was being bullied, there will be trouble, see!”
“But…” started Xuthus.
“Big trouble,” Govannon reiterated, looking at each of them in turn.
The transport slipped into the hangar airlock. It took barely a minute for the chamber to be pressurised, yet each second that ticked by seemed longer than the last. Eventually, the inner door slid open and the vehicle trundled forward into the hangar. Govannon’s heart sank at the sight of a familiar microlight aircraft parked in the corner of the hangar, then cursed as he spied its owner watching from the doorway to the transit lounge. Dagan, the eager young activist with camouflage-patterned flight suit, slicked-back dark hair and oily moustache, quite fancied himself the revolutionary. Govannon had been looking forward to a relaxing few hours at the depot’s makeshift bar, catching up with the latest news from the ship’s crew, but with Dagan around he knew that was unlikely to happen.
“Look out,” he muttered. “There’s a Dhusarian about.”
“What does he want?” Urania said irritably.
“To praise the greys,” Xuthus intoned solemnly. “And bring our deliverance!”
Govannon brought the vehicle to a halt. Urania, Xuthus and Hestia were already out of their seats, eagerly making their way to the transport’s airlock. Arallu Depot was no bigger than the domes at the excavation but it was the only change of scenery they had to look forward to until they returned to Ascension.
“Hey!” called Govannon. “Can someone give me a hand with the poop-mobile?”
“Hestia will do it!” called Urania, who was already at the hatch.
The transit lounge of Arallu Depot was little more than a metal-walled shed, furnished with a scattering of plastic chairs and a battered food molecularisor that no longer served tea. By the time Govannon and Hestia entered, having spent several smelly minutes manoeuvring the toilet trailer across the hangar to the cesspool valve, Dagan was nowhere in sight. Nor were Urania and Xuthus, though Urania’s loud cackle could be heard wafting down the walkway tunnel from the docked spaceplane. Govannon knew there would be a queue to use the ship’s ED transmitter and decided to head for the peaceful sanctuary he liked to call his own. Leaving Hestia to join her fellow students, he made his way to the far side of the lounge and down the short tunnel leading into the main dome.
The towering walls of shipping crates and discarded machinery that filled the windowless dome looked the same as ever. Near the entrance to the lounge, one empty and particularly large crate had been turned on its side and furnished with a metal counter, a row of stools and one second-hand robotic bar steward serving the best micro-brewed draft lager this side of Tau Ceti, topped by a sign that read: MORRIGAN’S BAR. Govannon had no idea who Morrigan was but admired his or her foresight in establishing such an oasis out here at Arallu. Apart from a tiny habitation module nearby, the bar was the only concession to home comforts to be found within the warehouse-like environs of the dome.
The depot was unmanned, though visiting maintenance crews and the local Que Qiao security team made sure its life-support and other systems were kept in order. Govannon stopped short upon seeing a figure slouched upon his favourite stool at the end of the bar, then cursed when he realised it was none other than Dagan. The activist had previously admitted he had been recruited by the Dhusarian Church on Aram, with the aim of reminding the archaeologists at every opportunity of the Church’s consternation over the exploitation of ancient alien remains. Govannon was convinced Dagan had taken his task a step further and embarked upon a campaign of sabotage to drive the archaeologists away.
“Dagan,” growled Govannon. “What are you doing here?”
The man turned and greeted the archaeologist with a sly smile. Behind him, the robot bartender trundled to the bar in anticipation, its head swaying disturbingly as its wheels stuttered upon the uneven floor.
“Doctor Jones,” acknowledged Dagan. “Don’t tell me you’ve abandoned your hard work out in the desert? Holy sites don’t desecrate themselves, you know.”
“That’s a little hypocritical coming from Falsafah’s one-man terrorist cell.”