Paw-Prints Of The Gods (24 page)

Nyx smiled. He made as
if to turn away and then paused. “One last thing,” he said. “If
you’re from the
Dandridge Cole
, are you one of those scummy,
low-life refugees who have come to Newbrum and taken all our
jobs?”

“You’re really
enjoying this, aren’t you?” retorted Momus. “The answer is no.”

“In that case, I don’t
want to talk to you anymore. Have a nice trip.”

“I’m free to go?”

“You’re a rubbish
pilot,” Nyx told him. “But you’ll keep your mouth shut. If I was a
betting man I would stake your life on that.”

* * *

Zotz soon discovered
that while Ravana’s electric pet did not take well to zero gravity,
its AI unit liked being controlled from afar even less. In the end
he came up with a method whereby he would transmit a list of
possible places to explore, safe in the knowledge that the cat
would reject every single one and go somewhere else. It had somehow
already left the
Indra
and despondently clung to a handrail
in the passageway outside. Persuading the cat to jump to the floor
and grip the steel mesh floor with its diamond-tipped claws was one
thing. Getting it to go where he wanted was something else
entirely.

Endymion’s hack
however worked like a dream. The view through Zotz’s VR headset, as
seen by the electric pet just a fraction of a second ago, was a
cat’s-eye aspect of the flexible walkway that linked the docking
pontoon to the huge mysterious cylinder. Ahead was an open
hatchway, beyond which was darkness. He set the VR console to
record, sent a message to the cat ordering it back to the
Indra
, then grinned as the pet promptly ignored the request
and began to claw its way towards the hatch.

“Stupid Jones,” he
murmured.

A faint growl came
over the speakers. Zotz froze, then sighed with relief when he saw
his microphone was switched to mute after all. An angry electric
cat was not a pretty sight.

Something in the
darkness ahead excited the cat and urged it to scramble forward.
The view through Zotz’s VR headset changed from colour to
monochrome in shades of green as the pet’s electric vision
automatically switched from visible light to infra-red. Moments
later, the cat clawed over the sill of the hatchway and was
inside.

The steel lattice
floor at the pet’s feet slowly resolved into a balcony looking out
upon the curved walls of the cylindrical hull. Looming out of the
gloom in the centre of the vast chamber was the large spherical
casing of a nuclear fusion reactor, surrounded by a network of
pipes and electrical systems. Everything in sight was caked in
mould or fungus. Vine-like growths grew up every walkway, ladder
and steel beam, all somewhat reminiscent of the tendrils infesting
the cargo bay of the
Platypus
.

The cat clambered to
the top of a flight of steps and peered down. Zotz gazed in awe at
the chaotic mishmash of refuse, console parts and weird green
globules drifting in zero gravity. Heavy equipment swayed at the
end of cables fixed to the reactor. Twelve sinister vats gaped like
giant glass seed pods, each standing firm before the reactor and
evidently bolted to the floor. An uncontrollable shiver ran down
Zotz’s spine.

“The cyberclones!” he
murmured.

The huge silver
cylinder lashed to
Sky Cleaver
’s docking pontoon was the
missing engine room of the
Dandridge Cole
, ejected into
space with Taranis and his newly-born creations inside. Zotz still
had horrible dreams about his own role in the tense confrontation
between Ravana, a double-crossing agent called Fenris and the mad
priest himself. Fenris had been killed by the cyberclones and
Taranis incapacitated after having his spider-walker chair
sabotaged by the teeth and claws of a certain electric cat. Yet the
eyes of the very same pet now revealed no trace of Taranis, Fenris
or the dreadful clones, living or dead.

Zotz had long felt
uneasy over his part in their fate. Now he was unsure which was the
greater mystery: how the engine room came to be moored at Thunor,
or where its reluctant occupants had gone. It was the latter that
worried him most.

“Jones,” he murmured.
“I think we’ve seen enough.”

He sent an order to
return to the
Indra
. This time, the cat did not disobey.

* * *

The thought that there
was a ship full of cannibals somewhere out in space did little to
ease Momus’ nerves as the
Indra
headed back to the
Dandridge Cole
. Refuelling the tanker had taken an
agonisingly long time, during which he and a strangely subdued cat
had kept themselves to the
Indra
’s flight deck with the
airlock securely closed. The image left lodged in his brain by Nyx
and his fellow officer turned every streak of rust on
Sky
Cleaver
’s walls into a splash of blood, every creak of the
superstructure into the scrape of a butcher’s knife and every touch
of hydraulic hose into a brush of a discarded severed limb. He
could see himself having nightmares for months to come.

Once clear of Thunor
orbit, he recorded a holovid message to Quirinus and sent it on its
way. A two-way conversation was impossible this far from the hollow
moon, but despite his promise to Nyx not to say anything it felt
good to burden someone with his experience. When Wak’s reply came a
couple of hours later, interrupting his enjoyment of the fifties’
clatterstomp blasting from the
Indra
’s cabin speakers, Momus
was miffed to discover that the others on the
Dandridge Cole
already seemed to know about the salvaged engine unit and what it
may have contained. Now he felt like a sacrificial lamb that
against the odds had lived to bleat again.

The hours passed.
Momus received a further communication from the
Dandridge
Cole
, this time from Quirinus who was eager to bring his
pilot-for-hire up to speed regarding the plan to take the
Platypus
to Falsafah. One thing Professor Wak, Quirinus and
Zotz had not known before Momus’ report was Nyx’s revelation that
the
Sky Cleaver
deaths were somehow connected to an
operation in the Tau Ceti system. In his earlier message, Wak had
not mentioned Quirinus’ own conversation with Administrator
Verdandi, but now Momus heard the news he could see why Ravana’s
father looked more worried than ever. The plan itself sounded
preposterous.

“Mining boosters!” he
mumbled. “First they send me off in a crappy tanker chasing
cannibals and now they expect me to fly a frigging heap of
fireworks!”

The electric cat,
curled beneath the seatbelt of the co-pilot’s chair, looked up at
him and yawned. Momus did not expect any sympathy from that
quarter.

* * *

The final hurried
repairs to the
Platypus
continued unabated even as the
freighter began its ascent on the hangar’s elevator up into the
main airlock. The fitting of the external boosters added a few
hours to the AI unit’s original estimate, but now all Quirinus had
left to do was link the firing circuits of the three rockets to the
flight-deck console.

Momus had returned and
overseen the transfer of hydrogen and helium-three from the
Indra
to the
Dandridge Cole
’s own tanks. Upon hearing
that the automated systems at the cloud mine were operational, Wak
sent the tanker straight back to
Sky Cleaver
on autopilot,
for it would take several trips to replenish all the fuel lost. A
nervous Momus made sure the tanker’s hatch was securely locked,
fearful of what might hitch a lift back home.

Quirinus snapped the
final connector into place and extracted himself from beneath the
console. The flight deck of the
Platypus
still wore the
blackened scars from the bomb blast but was otherwise clean, tidy
and fully operational. After recalling the holovid image of Wak
being half-strangled, he had not dared to even attempt the removal
of tendrils, but the more obtrusive ones had been encouraged to
hide out of sight.

The hangar elevator
groaned to a halt. Quirinus heard the reassuring clunks as docking
tethers and a refuelling gantry reached out and latched to the
freighter’s hull, then again as the redundant undercarriage folded
into the hull to leave the ship swaying gently in the zero-gravity
wobble of the spinning asteroid.

The view through the
flight-deck window was of the huge circular portal that led into
the interior of the hollow moon itself. This had been opened just
once since the
Dandridge Cole
left the Solar System more
than a century ago; a spur-of-the-moment decision that had saved
the crew from certain death wrecked inside an airless airlock, but
which had ended with the stricken
Platypus
crashing into the
artificial sun. Quirinus was still not sure whether to be grateful
he had been unconscious at the time.

“Ship?” asked
Quirinus. One curious development was that the AI unit no longer
needed to be called via the customary switch. “Run pre-flight
checks and prepare flight systems for a trip to Tau Ceti,
coordinates to follow. Seal the cargo bay airlock, but leave the EV
pod bay door open for now.”

“Confirmed,” replied
the AI. “It is a pleasure to be back in service, Captain
Quirinus.”

“Let’s hope so,” he
muttered.

A murmur of voices
wafted through the open floor hatch. Outside, Quirinus glimpsed the
bobbing heads of Wak, Momus and Zotz near the beak-like nose of the
ship. Sounds of scrabbling hands and feet were followed by Momus’
inevitable grumbling as each in turn made their way through the
tiny pod bay and up into the flight deck.

“My word!” exclaimed
Wak, clambering from the hatch. “You don’t make things easy for
your poor passengers, that’s for sure!”

“This is frigging
madness,” Momus muttered.

Quirinus watched as
Zotz scrambled in after him. Both carried luggage, which for Zotz
included Ravana’s electric cat. Despite his grumbles, Momus went
straight to the co-pilot’s seat, buckled himself in and scrutinised
the controls. He may have been the only one with a valid licence,
but knew better than to take the pilot’s chair himself.

“Have you decided to
come with us?” Quirinus asked Zotz.

“Ravana is my friend,”
he said quietly. “I want to help you find her.”

“There’s still lots to
do here,” Wak suggested. “It feels like we’ve hardly spent any time
together and already you’re rushing off on another adventure!”

“Momus said Taranis’
horrible cyberclones might be at Tau Ceti,” said Zotz. “What if
they’re on Falsafah? It was me who sent them into space and so it’s
my fault they went mad and killed those people. If they find Ravana
and hurt her that will be my fault too.”

“If anyone’s to blame
it’s that damn priest,” Quirinus told him. “But this won’t be a
comfortable trip. It’s two days to Falsafah and as the carousel
isn’t working you’ll be eating and sleeping in zero gravity. It
isn’t exactly the most welcoming of planets either.”

“I don’t mind
staying,” Momus interjected. “I can feed the pigs and
chickens.”

“Shut up!” retorted
Quirinus. “You’re coming whether you like it or not.”

Zotz looked hesitant.
Quirinus knew he was desperate to join the
Platypus
to Tau
Ceti, but saw the boy’s loyalty was torn between his father and his
friend.

“Zotz,” said Wak,
quietly. “Go with Quirinus. You will always have family, but a good
friend like Ravana is hard to find. We’ll have plenty of time for
father-and-son stuff when you get back.”

Zotz grinned and
darted into the crawl tunnel to stow his luggage in the hold. Momus
opened his mouth to speak, caught Quirinus’ glare and closed it
again.

“In that case, shall
we make a move?” suggested Quirinus. “Ship! How are you getting on
with those pre-flight checks?”

“Life-support systems
are running at maximum efficiency,” said the unruffled tones of the
AI. “Fuel tanks are full and all flight systems are fully
operational. The AI unit has had a nice rest and is looking forward
to getting back to work. Forward visual scanner assembly and
carousel drive unit remain inoperative.”

They heard a clunk as
the refuelling gantry uncoupled from the
Platypus
and
retreated into the hangar wall. Zotz reappeared on the flight deck,
went straight to his father and gave him a hug. Wak looked
embarrassed at the sudden show of affection.

“Right! Well, I’ll be
off,” he said, moving towards the hatch. “Good luck and all
that!”

“You too,” replied
Quirinus. “I expect the sun to be shining when we return.”

“And keep a look out
for space cannibals,” added Momus.

Wak did not seem to
know how to respond to that, so settled for a final brief wave to
Zotz and quickly left. Quirinus watched the professor exit the
airlock chamber, then manoeuvred himself to the pilot’s seat and
strapped himself in. The four flight-deck chairs were in a row
facing the windscreen, with the middle two pilot chairs set forward
within banks of flight controls. Quirinus settled into his familiar
centre-starboard seat with a satisfied smile and looked to Momus
and Zotz either side of him. As usual, Zotz was having problems
with his seatbelt, but managed a grin in return.

“Ship, seal the pod
bay door,” said Quirinus. He gave Zotz a wink. “Ready?”

“Flight systems on
standby,” said the AI. “Please clarify your last command.”

“I wasn’t talking to
you,” Quirinus said irritably.

“I’m ready,” replied
Zotz.

“Whatever,” muttered
Momus. “Ship, open the main airlock and cut us free.”

“Confirmed,” intoned
the AI. “Please be gentle, Captain Momus.”