While jackals had been augmented and given speech and ghost-scent for the war, it was so long ago that barely anyone remembered. Anubis only knew it from the smell-stories. He used his skills to hunt for old forgotten ghosts out in the desert. What remained of people after centuries were bones and a small hard disc, and he collected the discs and the Webster traded them sometimes for other goods.

Long ago, Anubis became curious about the site of the downed spaceship that fell not far from the Webster house. He’d gone sniffing around there, pulled by the tales of treasure, but like others before him he found nothing. Someone had cleaned the site up long ago. Whatever treasure the Compassionate Heaven carried, it was long gone, if it ever was to begin with.

He saw the two boys go there, too. Had followed them. Anubis did not fancy joining the caravan. He didn’t like the elephants, or the goats, or children. But he thought it might be good to follow at a distance for a while. After Saleh and Elias came back from the ship, and the moon rose in the sky, Anubis went back to the site of the crash for one last sniff, just on a whim.

This time, though, the site did smell different. Some old, not unfamiliar traces first: scavengers, the Webster. Then, just recently, the two boys. But in between was a new smell, sharp and half in the digitality: star anise and pixelated Byzantine Blue and rust.

It made Anubis scared.

It made Anubis hungry.

He followed the trace. He couldn’t help it. The smell exerted a power over him, both biological and augmented brain. It wasn’t something he knew, it was something he felt.

He trotted after it all night, losing it at times but always picking it up again, until he came to a cave high in the mountains where clouds black with rain watered a poisoned earth.

Anubis entered the cave. The smell he sought was stronger here, rancid and rank. The person who left it was only recently departed from that place.

Anubis found human furniture, a bed and a desk. He found remnants of food on the table, and two glasses, both empty and both smelling of an old, expensive liqueur. Ganymedian brandy, if Anubis was any judge. It was near priceless.

He looked, but he couldn’t find the bottle.