by Vicki Arnott

The discovery of the Fabliau had caused a sensation in the archaeological community. For Professor Madeleine Hewett (unkindly referred to as Mad Madeleine by a significant number of her peers) it represented vindication. After years of fossicking through dusty, crumbling parchments in the spooky basement storerooms of museums. Years of sorting and examining jumbled collections of broken pottery, oddly-shaped pieces of metal, and strange, perplexing artefacts. Years of traipsing to far flung corners of the globe, scratching through ancient ruins, following flimsy leads to gather evidence in support of her theory. The Fabliau did exist, and in the end, they had found it in exactly the place she had told them it would be. It took some time for the scientists to figure out how to operate it. Once they finally switched it on and viewed its data recordings there could be no further doubt. All the unanswered questions, the wild theories and crazy notions, could finally be solved. Undeniable proof now existed. Ancient aliens had indeed visited, and long ago colonised the planet. They had crossed the vast expanse of space, escaping from a dying world. The Fabliau had carried them here, from a planet called Earth.