Resurrection by Arwen Elys Dayton

court of paved stones, with a few rooms behind it, including a small bedroom and a tiny kitchen. A canopy was usually thrown up over the court to provide shade. Others had tents of coarse linen, which they had brought with them from the towns and cities. These too had awnings propped up in front of them. In the early evening, when all work had been done and dinner was over, the workers would sit under their canopies and chat, drinking beer or tea and enjoying the evening breezes.
    On the other side of the camp was the shuttle, a sleek vehicle with a pearlescent hide that stood upright on its back thrusters, ready to leap into the sky. It was a simple fusion drive craft, which had been nestled into the hull of the mother ship during the journey to Earth. Upon arrival, it had been used to ferry the team from the Champion ’s landing site to the campsite. They would ultimately use it to travel all over the world, when their research in Egypt was done. But it was a precious vehicle, with few replacement parts, and they did not use it unless absolutely necessary. It was an object of some awe to the locals, some of whom had been caught making offerings to it late at night.
    On this afternoon, the Lion, son of the Captain and the Archaeologist, sat at a large wooden folding table in front of the shuttle, eating cold soup, flatbread, and local beans and making notes in his log. He had lately been studying a herd of antelope that were migrating south.
    His name had not always been the Lion. Originally, he had been the Zoologist, for this was his profession. The Lion was a name given to him by the natives. He was over six feet tall, with broad shoulders and incredibly strong arms, built from years of studying and handling animals. His blond hair fell to his shoulders and framed a wide, handsome face, darkened by the sun, but free of wrinkles, for he was still in his twenties. The dark-haired natives had seen an obvious resemblance to a lion, and the name stuck. Soon the crew, and even his parents, had begun to call him Lion as well.
    Near the table was the Engineer, who had set up an outdoor testing station for one of his current projects. On the table near the Lion were several dozen data crystals, ranged neatly according to some system the Lion could not decipher. Next to them was a large crystal reader, the Engineer’s special reader, which was, he often bragged, at least three times as fast at finding information as any of the other readers in camp.
    At the moment, the Engineer was assembling a box of some sort, using crystal sheets for the sides and soldering them together with a hand tool. He took frequent breaks to run back to the table and study something else in the reader. The Lion finished his lunch while watching the Engineer’s frenetic motions with some amusement.
    “What are you doing after lunch?” the Engineer asked as he jotted something down while his eyes were pressed to the eyepieces of the crystal reader.
    “I have a feeling I’m going to be helping you,” the Lion said.
    “How very right you are.” The Engineer laughed. “Hand me that blue crystal, will you?”
    The Lion stood up, pushing his dishes safely to the center of the table, and examined the crystals. “Engineer, there are at least twenty blue ones here.”
    The Engineer made a sound of mock exasperation and removed his eyes from the reader, then grabbed the correct crystal, without even appearing to look at his choices. “Really, Lion, if you’re going to help me, you’ll have to be quicker than that.”
    The Lion laughed. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
    “Ah, that’s it. Right there.” He scribbled a formula down, then moved back to the box he was making. The Lion moved over with him. Near the box was a small cauldron with some kind of liquid within it. Around the cauldron were several sacks of mineral powders of different colors and a large piece of rock.
    “What exactly are you doing?” the Lion asked.
    The Engineer smiled. “I’m