Paw-Prints Of The Gods (39 page)

“Ship, what was that?”
he asked, pausing the holovid replay. “An earthquake?”

“Detectors registered
seismic activity in the area,” the AI replied. “The initial shock
wave originated approximately two hundred kilometres north of our
present location. The cause of the disturbance is unknown.”

With a sigh, Quirinus
returned his attention to Ostara’s report. It was brief but
informative; she had attached the recording made at the Broad
Street church, giving him his first glimpse of Taranis’ alien
cyberclones, but the words of the sermon were lost beneath the
muted gasps and whispers of herself and Endymion. Yet it was
Ostara’s tale of how she and Endymion had caught Bellona searching
through Ravana’s things for the
Isa-Sastra
that concerned
him, for he suspected it had something to do with Jizo being on
Falsafah. Back on Yuanshi, the nurse had been far too close to
Taranis for Quirinus’ liking.

He quickly recorded a
couple of brief messages, one for Ostara and another to Wak on the
Dandridge Cole
, then used the ship’s transceiver to send
them on their way. Once that was done, he again tried to raise the
archaeologists on the short-range system, but as before there was
no reply. The radio silence from the dig was worrying.

“Ship, have you
managed to link with the depot’s system?” he asked. He had failed
to crack the local database, despite Zotz’s help. “Remote access to
the ship’s transceiver would be useful, too. It would save me
having to put on a spacesuit to make a call.”

“Arallu Depot’s data
network is coded to secure police channels. I have been granted
access to ground crew maintenance and refuelling sub-systems only,”
the computer replied. “I can maintain a ship-to-shore link via your
wristpad.”

“Yes, that’s fine,”
grumbled Quirinus, who hated doing anything complicated on his
wristpad’s tiny screen. “Do the same for all registered crew and
send regular updates.”

“Confirmed,” said the
AI.

Quirinus put on his
helmet, slipped through the floor hatch into the pod bay and
dropped clumsily onto the runway. One brisk walk later, he was back
in the depot’s hangar and shedding his survival suit. He was ready
for another battle of wills with Jizo.

* * *

Quirinus found Momus
waiting for him at Morrigan’s Bar, standing next to where Jizo was
perched on the end stool, her wrists and ankles secured with tape.
Zotz, Philyra and a sulky-looking Fornax were sat on top of an
upturned crate in front of the nearby habitation cabin, peering at
the screen of Zotz’s wristpad. Ravana’s runaway cat was
broadcasting a live holovid feed, but Quirinus could tell from the
bemused expressions of those watching the footage that they still
had no idea where the electric pet actually was.

“She had this on her,”
Momus said, as Quirinus approached. He showed him a flask. “Nothing
else of interest. I reckon she’s a spy.”

Quirinus took the
stool next to Jizo. “Is she ready to talk?”

“Talk?” Jizo gave him
a smug, self-satisfied smile. “What about?”

“Don’t play games with
me! What have you done with Ravana?” asked Quirinus. He scowled as
Momus reached to switch on the robot bar steward. “Leave that thing
alone!”

“I want a frigging
beer,” said Momus. “Nothing else to do, is there?”

The robot shuddered
and its eyes began to glow. “Would you like a drink, sir?”

“Lager,” declared
Momus. “Ice cold.”

“Can I have one?”
asked Jizo.

“No, you can’t!”
snapped Quirinus. “Answer my question!”

“Ravana?” the nurse
replied, acting surprised. “The church has a mission on Falsafah.
My duty is to lead the disciples who come from afar to stop the
desecration of holy lands.”

“Who is this woman?”
asked Momus. He picked up the tumbler the robot placed before him,
took a long sip and grinned. Quirinus saw Jizo staring and licking
her lips. “Wow, that’s frigging good stuff. Brewed on the premises,
eh?”

“Yes sir,” said the
robot. “I am pleased it meets with your approval.”

“Jizo was a nurse at
Lanka hospital, back when Ravana and I lived on Yuanshi,” Quirinus
said irritably, in an attempt to get the conversation back on
track. “She was on duty the night they brought in the wounded from
the Aranya Pass massacre. Jizo came to treat Ravana and realised
she was the child Taranis had years ago made plans for in secret,
against our will. Jizo told Taranis and we were forced into hiding.
She sold us out.”

“Actually, it was
Fenris who saw your daughter,” Jizo remarked. “But he could not
make up his mind about what to do, so I went to Taranis and took
all the credit.”

“Taranis?” asked
Momus. “Who the bloody hell is he?”

“Our beloved father!”
announced Jizo. “The founder of the Dhusarian Church!”

“Oh, that crappy
nutcase,” mused Momus. “Isn’t he dead?”

“I did hope so,”
Quirinus admitted. “Yet I’ve received a holovid that shows some of
his entourage in Newbrum, preaching about some stupid prophecy of
Falsafah. Would you care to comment?” he added icily, looking at
Jizo.

“I object to this
man’s description of our exalted priest!” she declared.

Exasperated, Quirinus
opened his mouth to argue and paused. Jizo trembled, not with fear
but anticipation, for her gaze had not moved from the drink in
Momus’ hand. Quirinus saw her tongue again run across her lips and
he smiled wryly.

“Bar steward!” he
called. “A beer for our guest!”

“What?” exclaimed
Momus and Jizo in unison.

“At once sir,” replied
the robot.

Jizo tugged at her
bonds, mesmerised by the automated bar tender as it poured a
schooner of lager and deposited it before her. Condensation formed
on the glass.

“Where is Ravana?”
Quirinus asked her gently. “That’s all I want to know.”

“Untie my wrists,” she
murmured.

“Tell me about my
daughter!”

“I will tell you what
I know,” replied Jizo coolly, “when my hands are free.”

Quirinus gestured to
Momus to undo the bindings securing the nurse’s wrists. No sooner
were her hands free when a brown blur shot towards his face and
poked him squarely in the centre of his eye patch.

“Ow!” cried Quirinus.
“You little piece of...!”

“That’s for being rude
about Taranis,” Jizo said smartly, reaching for her beer.

“It was Momus who
called him a crappy nutcase!”

“You didn’t disagree
with him,” she pointed out. Putting the tumbler to her lips, she
took a long, slow sip and gave a satisfied burp. “That is good
beer!” she agreed, addressing Momus. She turned back to Quirinus.
“Where were we?”

“I was just deciding
which of your eyes to poke in return,” he grumbled.

“Be thankful I didn’t
go for your good one,” she retorted, then shrieked as Quirinus
snatched the drink from her hands. “Give that back!”

“Tell me about
Ravana!” Quirinus roared angrily. “Or I’ll shove this where...”

“Fine!” interrupted
Jizo. She gazed longingly at the drink in Quirinus’ grip and
sighed. “I was rewarded for my loyalty on the night you described.
I am one of a select few, chosen to guide the twelve along paths
Taranis has foreseen. We did not expect to find Ravana with the
archaeologists. Your daughter was simply in the wrong place at the
wrong time.”

Quirinus frowned. “But
the dig has something to do with it all?”

“Oh yes,” she replied.
“Great things are afoot. And Ravana knows too much.”

“Where is she?”
pleaded Quirinus. “What have you done with my little girl?”

“We had her brought to
us,” Jizo replied simply. “Then she escaped.”

“Escaped?”

“There’s nowhere to
frigging escape to on this crappy planet,” said Momus.

“Thanks,” muttered
Quirinus. “You’re not helping.”

Jizo smiled and eyed
the tumbler in Quirinus’ hands. “My mind needs lubrication,” she
hinted. “Talking to you is such thirsty work.”

Quirinus glowered and
shoved the drink back across the bar. Jizo grabbed it with both
hands and took a long sip, holding the tumbler tight.

“Well?” Quirinus
snapped.

“She stole a transport
and crashed in the desert,” the nurse replied flatly. She grinned
at Quirinus’ look of alarm. “Don’t worry! An acquaintance of ours
happened to be following and Ravana is quite safe. My friends in
that fancy spaceship detected their vehicle in the mountains and we
know they’re on their way.”

“She’s safe!”
exclaimed Quirinus. “Are you sure? Somewhere in the mountains?”

“A couple of days
away. Didn’t you spot it from your own ship?”

Quirinus pursed his
lips and frowned. The damaged visual scanners had left them unable
to run a broad scan when the
Platypus
was on its final
approach. Yet Jizo’s news was the first ray of light since that
dark day on the
Dandridge Cole
. His daughter was somewhere
out there and she was not alone. Quirinus slumped back in his stool
and leaned against the bar, his mind buzzing with a tentative wave
of relief. A thought struck him.

“You’re here in case
she turns up at this depot!” he realised. “Who’s with her?”

Jizo gave him an
unpleasant leer. “Now that would be telling.”

* * *

[Chapter
Eleven
] [
Contents
] [
Chapter Thirteen
]

THE SHAKING OF THE
TRANSPORT worked better than any alarm. Within moments, Ravana and
Kedesh were out of their bunks and in the cockpit of the parked
transport, frantically scrutinising the console and the rugged
landscape beyond the windscreen to see what was happening. In the
cabin behind, the greys picked themselves up from where they had
fallen onto the floor. Artorius slept on, making Ravana wonder just
what it would take to disturb the boy from his slumber.

“What was that?” she
exclaimed. “Some sort of earthquake?”

“Falsafah quake,”
Kedesh corrected her.

“Thraak thraak!” Nana
shrieked excitedly. “Thraak thraak!”

“Fwack fwack,” agreed
Stripy.

“How could you
possibly tell?” retorted Ravana. She cast a puzzled stare across
the readings on the console, but the transport’s basic seismic
sensors were not up to pinpointing the origin of the tremor.
“Arallu is on the other side of the mountains!”

“All hail the wisdom
of the greys,” Kedesh intoned solemnly.

“That’s not funny,”
muttered Ravana.

She countered Kedesh’s
grin with a scowl and scratched the scar upon her arm, feeling
tense and irritable. They had driven almost non-stop since they
left Missi in the ruins of Falsafah Alpha over two Terran days ago,
which as far as Ravana was concerned was way too long for five
sweaty bodies to be cooped up in a vehicle of this size.

They had made good
progress and by following the ancient coastal plain to the
mountains had covered almost three thousand kilometres in just over
fifty hours. They reached the foothills of the peaks during another
long Falsafah night, whereupon the path became increasingly
hazardous, leading Kedesh to call a rest until daylight returned.
Ravana’s temper was starting to fray by this point and she had
vehemently argued to keep going. Now it was dawn she was more
grouchy than ever, for not withstanding their rude awakening, her
restless sleep had been plagued by some very disturbing dreams.

“Breakfast?” asked
Kedesh. She held up a carton of rice pudding liberated from the
Falsafah Alpha storeroom. “There’s a tricky wicket to play today
and it won’t do to step up to the crease on an empty stomach.”

Ravana frowned and
returned her gaze to the view outside. During yesterday’s drive,
the landscape had become noticeably darker, the red dunes pushed
aside by outcrops of black volcanic rock. The breaking dawn
revealed the full scale of the treacherous terrain before them. The
mountains between them and Arallu were the remnants of an ancient
outpouring of magma that had left behind a line of jagged peaks,
running from north-east to south-west for thousands of kilometres.
The stiff equatorial wind, laden with desert sand, carved crater
rims and lava flows into a myriad of fantastic shapes that bore a
bleak twisted beauty. Kedesh had identified a possible route
through the mountains but the satellite image showed a summit
peppered with huge calderas masked in dark shadows.

“Why all the cricket
stuff?” Ravana asked, breaking her moody silence.

“What?” Kedesh looked
surprised at her question. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I’m half Indian, half
Australian. Do you really think I’ve never come across anyone using
cricketing terms before?”

“Fair point.” Kedesh
waved the pot of rice again and beckoned to Ravana to join her at
the table. “Do you play?”

“My father tried to
teach me a couple of summers ago. I wasn’t very good.”

“I played a little for
Kent back in the seventies. It’s hard to get a game these days with
me always on the move, but I keep the old bat around just in
case.”

“The shin pads came in
handy,” mused Ravana, thinking back to Kedesh’s fracas against the
spiders. “You are a very unusual person.”

“Thraak,” agreed
Nana.

Ravana took the
offered rice and settled down to eat. The smell of food managed
what the tremor failed to achieve and a hungry, bleary-eyed
Artorius was soon awake and demanding to be fed. The raid on the
Falsafah Alpha storeroom had given them a much better selection of
meals, but that did not stop Artorius turning his nose up at
everything an increasingly-annoyed Ravana presented to him.

After breakfast and
customary tea and slice of cake, Kedesh gathered them together in
the cockpit and brought up the latest map on the navigation
console. Ravana made for the driver’s seat and settled behind the
controls with a weary sigh. The transport’s systems had been hard
at work interrogating the satellite and she saw the geographic
chart held much more detail than before. The broad-topped peak
ahead now had a name.