Paw-Prints Of The Gods (40 page)

“Hursag Asag,” read
Artorius, squinting at the screen. “What does what mean?”

“Demon Mountain?”
suggested Kedesh.

“Fwack!”

“My thoughts exactly,”
muttered Ravana.

“Well, it won’t be
easy,” Kedesh admitted. She ran a finger along a contour that
skirted the edge of a mottled dark patch to the north of the
mountain’s caldera. “This side of the peak has a gentler slope so I
suggest we head that way. I wish we knew what that dark area is. It
seems unusually flat for a volcanic feature.”

“Then let’s get
going,” said Ravana. She turned from the screen and switched on the
drive systems. “I see no reason to hang around here a minute
longer.”

“Don’t you want to
have a shower and get changed?” asked Kedesh, perturbed.

Artorius pulled a
face. “Smelly Ravana.”

Ravana stared at her
ghost-like reflection in the windscreen. Her face was sallow and
haggard, her hair looked like a rat’s nest, her bones were starting
to ache again and she felt itchy after a hot and uncomfortable
night, but she was too tired to care. All she could think about was
Doctor Jones, Xuthus and the frail outpost of civilisation in the
Arallu Wastes, two days away on the other side of the mountains.
Everything else that had happened did not matter. She just wanted
to go home.

“You do what you
like,” she said and shoved the gear lever into ‘drive’.

* * *

Over the next few
hours the terrain became progressively steeper. The route
identified by Kedesh led them up the shallow valley of an ancient
lava channel that over millennia had filled with wind-blown sand,
creating a scarlet desiccated glacier. Ravana still felt low and
was glad to be on the move, but her lack of sleep eventually began
to take its toll and when the time came to hand over driving duties
to Kedesh she did so with relief. During Ravana’s spell at the
wheel, Nana sat quietly in the co-pilot’s seat, solemnly studying
the navigation console. Ravana had not seen either of the greys try
to operate onboard equipment before and had been surprised to see
Nana flicking through the various applications with remarkable
fluency.

Leaving Kedesh with
Nana in the cockpit, Ravana took her growing melancholy into the
passenger compartment and slunk into a corner to watch Artorius and
Stripy entertain themselves with yet another variation of the
slapping game. After a while, the young grey broke away, came to
where she sat huddled upon the bunk and gently placed a
six-fingered hand upon her knee. It was such a touching gesture
that Ravana managed a smile.

“Fwack?” asked
Stripy.

“A little bit,” she
admitted. “But I’m fine, really.”

“Why are you sad?”
asked Artorius, with a distinct lack of sympathy.

Ravana sighed. “I
can’t stop thinking about what we did to Taranis,” she said. “It
must have been a horrible way to die. I hated him and Fenris for
what they did to my father. I made Zotz force the ejection of the
engine room. I am a dreadful person.”

“I hate the nurses,”
Artorius said solemnly. “They were horrible to me.”

“Fwack,” added Stripy.
“Fwack fwack!”

“I killed a man. That
was wrong.”

“Are you quite sure
he’s dead?” asked Kedesh, glancing over her shoulder. “Two of his
creations survived. You saw them yourself.”

“Nurse Lilith said he
was dead,” Ravana pointed out. “She accused me of murder.”

“People lie,” said
Kedesh.

The transport jolted
over a rock and she returned her attention to the path ahead.
Ravana frowned and wondered if there was wisdom in the woman’s
words, yet the thought Taranis could still be alive was no more
reassuring. She decided to change the subject.

“It’s strange we’re
not being followed,” she mused, addressing Kedesh. “A transport
chased us from the dome, but since you rescued us we haven’t seen
anyone apart from those Que Qiao agents.”

“I’m sure we’re being
tracked,” replied Kedesh. “The satellite, remember?”

“The Dhusarians went
to a lot of trouble to keep us hidden away,” Ravana reminded her.
“I thought they’d try harder than this to get us back.”

“It’s their innings.
You’re stuck on Falsafah until they pull the stumps.”

“We’re lucky this
planet hasn’t killed us by now,” said Ravana, unconvinced. “Perhaps
they don’t care if we live or die.”

“Fwack!”

“I agree,” remarked
Kedesh. “That is a gloomy thought.”

“I don’t want to die,”
Artorius mumbled.

“I’m sorry.” Ravana
reached forward and gave him a hug. “Everything is going to be
fine. The nurses at the dome were horrible but they obviously
thought you were a very special little boy. Do you recall anything
else of the rhyme you were taught? Something about a great game,
paw-prints of the gods?”

The boy solemnly
scratched his cheek and shook his head.

“I’ll try hard to
remember,” he said sullenly. “Is it important?”

“I think you’ve been
dragged into another of Taranis’ stupid prophecies. That could be
why the Dhusarians brought you to Falsafah just as we’re digging up
whatever it is we found,” said Ravana. A new thought occurred to
her. “You never said how long you were in that dreadful place. Can
you remember?”

“It was a long time,”
Artorius said in a small voice.

“Are we talking days?”
asked Kedesh, who was listening. “Months, years?”

“I don’t know,” the
boy moaned. He looked close to tears.

“It doesn’t matter.”
Ravana gave him another hug. “How did you get there?”

Artorius rubbed his
nose and frowned. “There was a black spaceship,” he said. “Me and
the nurses got on at Camelot. It went into space and then did an ED
jump and flew to a big red planet. We landed in the desert and we
got in the transport where there were two men in cloaks and then
drove to the dome where Nana and Stripy lived.”

“Thraak thraak,” Nana
interjected, looking up from the console.

“Those men were
cyberclones,” Ravana told Artorius. “Brother Simha and Dhanus, who
I told you about. So you knew we were on Falsafah all that
time?”

Artorius nodded and
started to pick his nose.

“Taranis is set on
creating a new mythology for his Church,” said Kedesh, keeping her
eyes on the windscreen. “He uses people like pawns in chess, only
he makes up the rules as he goes along. His own disappearances just
add to the mystique. What does the
Isa-Sastra
say? Do you
really think this prophecy, Artorius and the dig are linked?”

“Artorius’ forgotten
rhyme is carved into a wall we uncovered,” said Ravana. She gave
Kedesh an odd look and wondered why the woman was questioning this
now. “The
Isa-Sastra
has a star chart that pinpoints Tau
Ceti using pulsar coordinates and there’s a line in the so-called
prophecy itself that identifies Falsafah. If we ever get to the
excavation I’ll be able to retrieve my slate and check Taranis’
notes.”

“Pulsars as
triangulation points.” Kedesh gave a wry grin. “The Americans used
to fit plaques to space probes that used the same trick to show
Earth, until people got nervous about who or what might actually
get to read them. That would have been around the time the
Isa-Sastra
allegedly first appeared. Coincidence?”

“Allegedly?” Ravana
caught the light-hearted tone of her comment and frowned. “I
thought you believed it was genuine.”

“You don’t know what I
believe,” the woman replied. “You never asked.”

“Thraak,” said Nana.
“Thraak thraak.”

“Fwack fwack!”

Artorius scratched his
head. “I didn’t understand that at all.”

The bright, swirling
implant image created in response to the greys’ interruptions was
confusing. Ravana was left with the impression that Nana and Stripy
both had an idea of what was buried at Arallu but had each tried to
describe it in different ways. Kedesh too seemed intrigued by the
implant translation. Ravana found the woman’s reaction
irritating.

“I’m so sorry Artorius
and I have been wrapped up in our own concerns,” she said crossly,
addressing Kedesh. “Go on then. Tell us what you believe.”

Artorius’ eyes went
wide. “Alien monsters!”

“Silly boy. I meant
you never asked me what I thought about the dig,” Kedesh remarked,
with another glance over her shoulder. “I know something you
don’t.”

Ravana was too tired
for games. “Which is?”

“Arallu has been
excavated before. About ten years ago, in fact,” said Kedesh.
Ravana stared at her in surprise and caught the reflection of the
woman’s smug smile in the windscreen. “It’s amazing what you can
learn with the right contacts. Before you ask, what the previous
dig found is something I don’t know.”

“Professor Cadmus said
we got there first,” Ravana said doubtfully.

“Officially, that’s
true,” the woman replied. “There are more mysteries on Falsafah
than any of us can possibly imagine.”

* * *

The lava channel
became increasingly steep and narrow as they ascended into the
mountains. They aimed to pass north of the mighty peak of Hursag
Asag, towards where a colossal flat caldera ran across their
forward horizon, stretching for hundreds of kilometres to the rocky
crags of the north-east. Kedesh’s plan was to find a route into
this crater and cross to the far side, from where she hoped there
was a way down through the rolling foothills that fringed the
distant Arallu Wastes.

Kedesh had been at the
wheel almost six hours by the time Ravana took over driving duties
once again. The terrain was difficult and the transport, pushed to
its limit, had begun to make very odd clunking noises as it climbed
through the rock-strewn landscape.

A couple of hours into
Ravana’s drive, the lava channel widened and then fell away to
become a vast rift in the crater wall. By now, everyone else had
joined her in the cockpit and the collected sense of relief was
palpable as their vehicle passed through into the interior of the
ancient caldera. The rocks beneath the wheels gave way to soft
drifts of sand. It was something else entirely that made Ravana
reach for the brake and bring the transport to a halt.

“Oh my,” she
murmured.

Kedesh frowned. “I
didn’t expect this.”

The crater was home to
a shimmering lake that stretched as far as the eye could see. Tau
Ceti was directly overhead and sparkling motes of sunlight
flickered upon tiny rippling waves that danced before the stiff
prevailing winds. A thin mist hung in the air and far away to their
left, the faint silver streak of a waterfall could be seen
cascading down the distant southern rim of the caldera, beyond
which Hursag Asag itself rose through a layer of diaphanous cloud.
The bright sunshine was deceptive, for the console’s environmental
monitor revealed the temperature outside was just a few degrees
above freezing.

“Why is there a lake
in our way?” Artorius asked grumpily. “That’s stupid.”

“It’s amazing,”
murmured Ravana. “The warm air from the plains must be condensing
on the mountains. The volcanic rock is sucking the sky dry. I bet
there’s another lake beyond the top of that waterfall, maybe in the
crater of Hursag Asag itself.”

“Well deduced.” Kedesh
looked thoughtful. “That would explain the dark patch on the map.
It would appear I’ve directed you to Falsafah’s one-and-only beach
resort.”

“Very funny.” Ravana
sighed. “What now?”

Kedesh squinted
through the windscreen and slowly scanned the entire crater from
left to right. Ravana followed her gaze and her heart sank at the
thought of the lengthy detour needed to reach the other side.
Kedesh soon confirmed the girl’s fears.

“I can’t see an easy
way round,” she said. “Let’s take a walk and assess the state of
play. We can handle a bit of water if it’s not too deep.”

“Outside?” Ravana
gulped.

“Can I come?” asked
Artorius.

“No,” Kedesh said
firmly. She looked at Ravana. “Are you up for this?”

Ravana paused and then
nodded. “I could do with stretching my legs.”

“Thraak thraak!”

“Not literally! It’s
just a turn of phrase.”

Kedesh found a spare
survival suit and helmet for Ravana and before long they were
huddled in the airlock ready to face the world outside. Kedesh
armed them both with a cricket stump, plus gyroscopic binoculars
for herself. Ravana was not sure why Kedesh had given her the stump
but found a heavy stick in her hand somewhat reassuring.

Once outside, Kedesh
went ahead of the vehicle and cautiously approached the water’s
edge, pausing now and again to prod the ground with the stump along
the way. Ravana caught on fast and followed, checking the ground
ahead with her own stump. The sand beneath their feet remained firm
and by the time Ravana caught up, Kedesh had taken a few steps into
the lake itself, which even a few metres from the shore barely
reached to her shins. The water was crystal clear and through the
glass bowl visor of her helmet Ravana was surprised to see patches
of brown fungus-like growths sprouting from the lake bed. Missi’s
spiders aside, Falsafah was proving to be not so dead as she
thought.

“Have you seen those?”
she remarked, pointing. “There’s life on this planet.”

Kedesh gave a cursory
glance but did not reply. The woman waded back to shore, handed
Ravana the binoculars and gestured towards the transport. The faces
of Artorius, Nana and Stripy pressed excitedly against the
windscreen.

“Go onto the roof and
see if you can spot dry land beyond this,” she said, her voice
faintly distorted by the speaker in Ravana’s helmet. “It seems to
be getting shallower to the north but it’s hard to tell.”

Ravana nodded and
jogged back to the parked vehicle. The ladder to the roof was next
to the airlock hatch and soon she was on top, her feet gingerly
placed amongst bits of blasted spider the maintenance robots had
missed, with the binoculars to her eyes. As Kedesh surmised, barely
half a kilometre from shore on her right, a ridge of sand rose from
the lake which offered a route west. Ravana was about to turn away
when she noticed a dark shadow upon the lake. It looked like an oil
slick, but with a start she realised it was moving against the
wind, straight towards where the woman waded a few metres from
shore.