(Author's Note: My entry for the #UltimateSFSD Round 3. Prompts to include were a cat, a recipe and a B.D.O. (Big Dumb Object). Word count 2648 according to Word - not including this note)

The ancient necropolis of Saqqara sprawled before her in all its glory. Althea stopped, drinking it all in, overcome with the realization that she was finally here, in person, and not staring at the scene on her laptop. The guide was beckoning her onward, but she refused to be hurried. She felt as if she had been waiting for this moment her entire life. Although she was a specialist in deciphering ancient languages, Ancient Egyptian was not her only subject and this was her first opportunity to visit the country.

The sun was fierce, blazing down from a cloudless sky and radiating off the brown sand.

Althea took a long drink from her water bottle and removed her sweat soaked hat, waving it back and forth in a vain attempt to dry the band before replacing it firmly on her head. She smiled at her guide.
"Right, Ahmed, I'm ready. Lead the way!"

Pyramids loomed tantalizingly in the distance but Ahmed led her toward what appeared to be the ruins of a small village. Walls, now only a metre or so high, showed where buildings had once stood and trenches traversed the landscape. String marked off areas currently under investigation, with an occasional line of planks covering a protected area. All the signs of an archeological dig in action.

A small group of men was standing near what appeared to be a hole in the ground and one of them looked up and waved.

Dr Lewis, Althea presumed. She waved back, then looked down to concentrate on her footing. The ground was uneven and the last thing she wanted to do was twist her ankle when she was so close. As she approached the group, the man who had waved stepped forward with a welcoming smile. He looked to be in his forties, with a weatherworn face and dark stubble on his chin.

"Doctor Graham? I'm Grant Lewis, please call me Grant. It's a pleasure to meet you. How was your trip?"

"Fine, thank you," answered Althea, shaking his hand. "I can't tell you how thrilled I am to be here. I really appreciate this chance to see your discoveries in situ."

"Well, no time like the present," Grant beamed. "You'll need to wear this hardhat though," he added, handing one over to her. "Just as a precaution. The ceiling is quite low in places."

Althea put on the hat, her gaze drawn to the gaping hole behind him. She could just see the rails of a ladder resting against the lip.

"Ready? Follow me."

Althea watched, her heart drumming with excitement as Grant climbed down the ladder into the darkness. She followed a moment later, making sure she had a firm grip on the ladder. Lucky she didn't suffer from claustrophobia, she thought, as the light faded the further down the shaft she went.

About halfway down, the walls became honeycombed with large shelves.

"This was a burial shaft," Grant explained, his voice echoing. "Everything has been cleared out now, but we found all sorts of things tucked away in these shelves when we first entered. Amulets, small statues, even the mummy of a cat. When we finish here, I'll show you some of our finds which haven't been transferred to the museum."

Then Althea's feet found firm ground.

Grant handed her a large torch. "Eventually we will install better lighting but this will work well enough for the present."

Althea shone her torch around the space, discovering they were in a small alcove with a narrow passage leading away in the opposite direction.

"I'm sure I don't need to remind you not to touch anything, but sometimes people forget when they come face to face with the drawings." Grant was apologetic but Althea took no offence. She knew how damaging even the slightest grease from fingertips could be.

Grant led the way down the passage, his torch lighting their path with Althea following close behind. The air was cooler underground but a musty smell tickled her nostrils. Soon the passage opened up into a chamber and they came to a halt. A stone sarcophagus, now emptied of its contents, took up a large amount of the floor space.

Interesting as the sarcophagus might be, Althea turned her attention immediately to the walls, shining her torch slowly from one end to the other.

This.

This is what she had been studying her whole life, but the reality was so much better than she had imagined. Brightly coloured images filled the bottom half of the walls, pictures of men and women, going about their daily lives, hunting, threshing grain and baking bread. Above them were lines of hieroglyphics, so many of the symbols as familiar to her as English.

She craned her neck to study one particular set.

"Amazing, aren't they?" murmured Dr Lewis, pointing to a particularly elaborate painting of a funeral procession.

"Amazing," agreed Althea, absently, still examining the patch of wall which had caught her attention. "But I think we have something even more remarkable here!"

She tapped his arm and pointed. "See here? We have a picture of wheat, followed by what are obviously loaves of bread..."

"Yes?" Grant asked in puzzled tones.

"Common enough images I'm sure you'll agree, but what is really interesting is in the writing above. We are looking at a recipe! Surely one of the earliest in existence." Althea's voice rose excitedly.

"A recipe?" Grant sounded doubtful. "Where?"

"Here," Althea pointed to some hieroglyphics. "Oh, it's not like a modern recipe, of course. No mention of weights or cooking times, but then my grandmother didn't use those either. It was always a cup of this and handful of that. See here," she pointed again, careful not to touch the carvings. "It asks for three staves of wheat, ground, a measure of wine which has been left out overnight, then sweeten it all with water from soaking dates. Then the mixture is formed into spirals and dropped into boiling water, and finally baked in an oven. This is wonderful!"

She took some photos with her phone. She could easily have spent the whole day there, but that would hardly be fair. She was certain Grant had a lot of other tasks needing his attention. Still, she thought, perhaps she could return later by herself, if she could convince Grant she was a responsible professional and wouldn't damage anything.

However, when she climbed out of the shaft behind Grant, everything changed. She was approached by two men in suits, wearing dark glasses. The whupp whupp of a helicopter sounded in the distance, fortunately far enough away from the dig not to cause damage.

The taller of the two men spoke. "Dr Althea Graham? You'll need to come with us, please. It's an emergency."
"Oh my God, has something happened to Tania?" It was all she could think of, even as she realized no-one would send a helicopter to give her bad news.
"Your family is fine, Dr Graham. This is a matter of national security."

"National security?" Althea was bewildered. "I'm a Doctor of Philology. Are you sure you have the right person?"

"Yes. We'll explain further on the plane," said the other man soothingly.

"But we need to go now," added the other.

"But I just got here, I haven't finished my research..." protested Althea, faintly, still certain there was some mistake.

"I'm afraid that will have to wait," insisted the tall man, beginning to sound impatient. His hand twitched as if he was ready to grab her by the arm.

"Time is of the essence." The shorter man looked at his watch. "We have a plane waiting at Cairo airport. We'll explain everything on the plane. Ma'am?"

"But where are we going?"

"The Pentagon."

Althea gulped. It didn't sound as if she had much choice here. Feeling rather as if she had stepped into the middle of a movie script, Althea allowed herself to be led away.

What the hell was going on?

Several hours later, Althea found herself deep in the bowels of the Pentagon, feeling not much wiser. The briefing she had received during the plane journey had not helped.

"We have a serious matter that requires someone with your knowledge and experience," was all that the tall man had told her, and Althea had pressed in vain for the details.

After walking along what seemed a mile of corridors, the officer escorting her stopped outside a door that looked exactly the same as all the others they had passed, and ushered her inside.

There was an oval table with six chairs around it and a large screen at the end of the room. Four of the chairs were already occupied, one by a white-haired man in a lab coat and two by grim faced men in uniform. The fourth man was bent over a laptop, presumably preparing for a slideshow on the screen.

Perhaps now someone would tell her what was going on.

"Ah, Dr Graham, please come in and take a seat. We are just waiting for one more arrival and then we'll get started." The older of the two uniformed men spoke without getting up. Evidently the situation was too serious for niceties.

As soon as Althea seated herself, the door opened again and a young man with bushy hair and a broad smile entered the room. He sat next to Althea and rubbed his hands.

"This is going to be so exciting!"

Exciting was not the word Althea would have used, but perhaps he knew more than she did.

The older man cleared his throat.

"Right. I'm General Brightman and beside me is Colonel Hawkins from NASA. We also have Dr Whitelock from NASA's science division," the white-haired man dipped his head, "Dr Althea Graham from the Clemens Institute and Dr Robert Branson from Google."

"Google?" Althea couldn't help an involuntary protest.

"Call me Bob," invited the man next to her with a grin. "And don't knock it! Google has one of the best cyber workforces in the country."

General Brightman cleared his throat again.

"I've called this meeting because we are facing the biggest threat to life on earth since the extinction of the dinosaurs."

Althea and Bob gasped audibly.

"Huh?"

The General frowned. "If you'll just let me explain first, there will be time for questions later.

"Nine days ago, we discovered an object coming inward from the outer solar system. It has a diameter of almost 500 metres and on its current trajectory, will reach Earth in five days and 18 hours."

"Wow that's one large asteroid!" exclaimed Bob. "Or is it a comet?"

"Neither," Dr Whitelock spoke for the first time. "In fact, in my opinion, it's not a natural object of any sort. It's artificial."

"Artificial? You mean a UFO? You're kidding, right?"

"See for yourself." He nodded at the man with the laptop. "Go ahead, Mark."

An image filled the screen. For a moment Althea could see nothing but empty space, then she saw a dot moving across the screen from right to left.

"Now, here are the really interesting ones," announced Mark. "We picked these images up from Sentinel 8, when it passed near Mars."

Unlike the long sleek object she had been expecting, the image which now filled the screen was perfectly round, like a ball. There were no visible projections of any kind.

"Is there any life on board?" asked Rob. "Any communication signals?"

"Not that we have been able to establish." Dr Whitelock answered. "Certainly nothing we recognize as 'life' and there are no signals, radio or otherwise, of any kind."

"Just a 'big dumb object'," quipped Rob.

"Well, it's one damned big object, that's for certain!" said General Brightman in sour tones. "And if we can't divert it, we'll have to blow it up!"

The men from NASA looked disapproving but unsurprised, as if they had heard this ultimatum before.

"I'm sorry, this is all very fascinating, but I don't see where I come in," Althea spoke up. "I know nothing about aeronautics or engineering."

"Ah, let me show you. Mark?" Dr Whitelock prompted his assistant. "At first glance, the surface appears to be a uniform grey, but after closer examination we found this." He paused for effect as Mark put up a new image.

A cluster of symbols, hundreds of them, stretched across the screen, far too precise to be random chips and scrapes.

Althea found she was leaning forward for a closer look, her eyes widening in wonder.

"They form a band, about a metre wide, around the entire sphere," Dr Whitelock explained. "We're hoping you and Mr Branson might be able to tell us what they mean."

Rob nudged Althea in the ribs. "See? I told you this was going to be exciting."

Althea felt both thrilled and furious. The opportunity to examine the first ever alien language was exciting beyond her wildest dreams, but to expect that she could come up with answers in less than five days was ridiculous. Unless the symbols were some kind of universal mathematical formula, (which they were not, according to Rob) such a study would likely take years.

Fortunately, Dr Whitelock was as keen as she was to record as much detail of the sphere's surface as possible. Even if the original had to be destroyed to protect Earth, they would at least have the copies to study.

"It keeps coming back." Rob spoke from the doorway.

"What?" Althea looked up blearily from her laptop.

"That's three times now the airforce has managed to knock the sphere off course, and three times it's spun back to its original path. General Brightman told me they've made the decision to blow it up, he doesn't consider they have a choice any longer."

At least most of the larger pieces landed in the ocean. The various defence forces around the world managed to retrieve most of the identifiable remnants which landed on the ground, but none were bigger than a few centimetres.

It took five years before Althea thought she had the answer. Although the issue had become academic, no longer an active concern, she forwarded a copy of her results to General Hawkins and another to Mark Abbott, Dr Whitelock's replacement.

Then she rang Rob Branson with whom she had kept in occasional contact over the years.

"It's a list of names."

"What? People?" Rob sounded horrified. "Did we blow up a generational ship?"

"I hardly think so. Remember there were no life signs. A memorial maybe? Kind of like our early Voyager. But the names don't have to be people; they could be places, or animals, or plant names. Anything, really. Thousands of them. 11,939 to be precise."

"Sounds like a lot of trouble to go to, just to send a list of names across the galaxy," Rob said doubtfully.

"Well, I did wonder, and this is only my own theory you understand, whether it was a seed bank?"

"You mean like that place in Norway? Svalbard?"

"Yes. You could imagine a dying race, or one that knew it was facing extinction, working to preserve as much of their world as possible..." Althea felt she could identify with that. These days Earth seemed be in a fairly precarious state.

"But they would have only been plant seeds, wouldn't they? Not animals... not embryos..."

"Probably. I don't think human embryos would survive that kind of journey. Though we really have no idea how other life forms would develop, do we?"

"True." A worried expression crossed Rob's face.

"I gather anything inside the sphere was destroyed in the explosion. Certainly, General Hawkins has never told me otherwise, but wouldn't it have been wonderful if some had survived?"

It was another six months before reports of unusual creatures discovered deep in the Pacific Ocean began to surface.