Paw-Prints Of The Gods (5 page)

The boy nodded. “Nana
and Stripy.”

“Nana?”

“She’s very old.”

“And Stripy is
striped,” Ravana murmured. “How original.”

“Their real names are
very long!” Artorius replied haughtily.

The younger grey
pointed to a bunch of old-fashioned mechanical keys hanging on a
wall hook. Ravana found the one to open the cage and moments later
Stripy and Nana were clambering cautiously down to the floor,
unsure of their new-found freedom. Neither stood more than chest
high to her, though could look Artorius in the eye.

They seemed unwilling
to move until they were taken by the hand. While their stubby legs
did not look as if they had evolved for speed, Ravana soon had them
all out of the strange laboratory and at the door to the interview
room. Upon hearing the sound of distant footsteps they hurried into
the room, where Ravana used her implant to lock the door behind
them.

The room was in
near-darkness, with the window in the opposite wall just visible in
the gloom. She found the darkness outside puzzling, for a day on
Daode was ten times longer than on Earth and the sun had showed no
signs of setting when she had been there earlier.

The window remained
slightly ajar and a simple shove was enough to open it wide. Using
a chair as a step, Ravana helped Artorius and the two greys
through, then followed.

The silence of the sea
was eerie. A dim glow filled the sky, allowing them to see various
shapes in the dark. It was only when Ravana accidentally stumbled
into a large screen that she began to suspect things were not quite
as expected. Slowly, her eyes began to adjust to the low light and
her confusion turned bitter.

“It was all a trick,”
she murmured. “One big lie after another.”

Above them soared the
inner surface of a vast pressurised dome, one transparent enough to
allow a little sunlight through from outside. The screen she had
walked into was blank, but there was a triple-lens holovid
projector mounted above the window frame, positioned just right so
that recorded footage of Pampa Bay would appear real to someone
looking through the window from inside. It dawned upon Ravana that
her aching bones were right. They were not on Daode after all.

“Where are we going?”
asked Artorius. Beside him, the greys looked anxious.

“Far away from here,”
she muttered angrily. “Follow me.”

Ravana led them away
into the gloom. The low rambling building masquerading as a hospice
bordered a hangar-like space that extended as far as the curved
wall of the dome. They scurried forward in the gloom and almost ran
headlong into a huge mechanical monstrosity on caterpillar tracks,
the purpose of which Ravana cared not to guess. Just when she was
starting to think they would never find a way out, a large green
shape resolved into the familiar six wheels and barrel-shaped hull
of a lunar-class personnel carrier, parked in front of a huge
airlock door in the side of the dome. The dark windows of the
vehicle were strangely inviting.

“There,” she whispered
to Artorius. “That’s our way out of here.”

“You’re going to steal
a transport?”

“Borrow it,” Ravana
corrected him. “Hopefully.”

She scurried to the
transport and activated the control to open the rear hatch.
Artorius and the greys followed more hesitantly, but before long
Ravana was hastening them up the steps, through the airlock and
into the passenger cabin. She sealed the hatch behind them.

The lights came on as
they entered, revealing bare metal walls with bench seats and
overhead lockers on either side. Ravana hurried forward to the
cockpit and dropped into the driver’s seat. Sitting before the
console felt reassuringly like being on the flight deck of the
Platypus
to give her confidence, though she had precious
little experience driving anything with wheels. Both the dome above
and the design of the transport suggested that wherever they were,
the world outside was far from welcoming.

“Nowhere to run?” she
muttered. Their escape had been remarkably easy to far. She hit the
start switch. “We’ll see about that.”

The hydrogen-powered
engine roared into life, louder than she expected. Seconds later,
alarms began to ring and the dome lit up with flashing red warning
lights. Artorius and the greys quickly added to the confusion with
a barrage of mutterings and nervous screeches. With a hand on the
steering wheel, Ravana shoved the gear level into ‘drive’.

The transport
shuddered into motion towards the closed door of the dome airlock.
She looked for a remote airlock control on the console before her,
then in desperation closed her eyes, brought up the implant images
in her mind and gave a panicky mental stab at the one that seemed
most likely. To her relief, the airlock door ahead began to slide
open.

The transport trundled
into the chamber. Automatic sensors got to work to seal the door
behind them, ready to let them loose onto whatever lay beyond.
Ravana found the control for the rear-view camera and caught a
glimpse of two figures running from the fake hospice towards them
before the airlock door sealed them from sight. There was a
metallic clang as the door in front began to slide open. A sudden
shaft of daylight broke through and Ravana raised a hand to shield
her eyes.

“Wow!” exclaimed
Artorius. “A proper alien planet!”

The door revealed a
bleak desert landscape against an arid pink sky. Ahead, a black
gravel road ran to the horizon across a sea of red dunes. Ravana
saw straight away that the bright yellow sun was not the distant
light that Epsilon Eridani was to Daode, nor was it the bloated red
disc that was Barnard’s Star from Ascension. Now she remembered
everything.

“Falsafah,” said
Ravana. “It looks like I never left Tau Ceti after all.”

* * *

[Chapter One
]
[
Contents
] [
Chapter Three
]

ADMINISTRATOR VERDANDI
sat back in her chair and frowned. She had long ago learned that
the art of delegation was a delicate balancing game; it was all
about giving subordinates just enough power to keep things running
smoothly, but not enough to totally screw things up. It was a
philosophy that had served the domed settlement of Newbrum well for
many years, not to mention one that had made her the
longest-serving city Administrator ever on Ascension and favoured
candidate to fill the vacant post of planet-wide Governor come the
elections next year. Her tall, imposing presence was often all that
was needed to spur others to get on with the job, for the brisk
mind beneath her tightly-secured blond hair was perfectly
encapsulated by her equally sharp suit and boots. The thud of the
latter could make any of her staff cut short their lunch break.

Nevertheless, the
arrival of the refugees from the asteroid colony ship
Dandridge
Cole
had proved testing. Every day there seemed to be yet
another problem that demanded her personal attention. Verdandi was
beginning to suspect that her staff had realised just how powerless
they really were and were taking perverse pleasure in accepting the
fact.

The man seated
opposite cut a striking muscular figure with his bald head and
bushy beard, but it was the tatty flight suit and patch over his
left eye that held her attention. They were a reminder of why he
was here in her office, very annoyed and presenting her with a
demand that may as well have been a request for snow machines in
hell.

“I’m sorry Quirinus,”
Verdandi said. “I cannot change the rules just for you.”

“But it’s my
livelihood!” Quirinus exclaimed, his Australian drawl somewhat
lacking the finesse of Verdandi’s clipped English tones. “Take away
my pilot’s licence and I have no way of earning a living. There’s
enough of us without work as it is!”

“The eyesight test is
strict for a reason,” she said sternly. “I will not have one-eyed
pilots fly in and out of my spaceport! The Newbrum clinic is fully
equipped to fit bionic devices, so it’s not as if you’re out of
options.”

“None of us from the
hollow moon have that sort of money. You know that.”

Verdandi gave a
sympathetic nod and shifted her gaze to the window on her right.
Her office was small and minimalist, decorated only by a portrait
of Queen Victoria II on the wall behind her desk, but had a good
view of the city centre oasis that was Circle Park. Of the four
hundred refugees from the
Dandridge Cole
, barely half had
found work in Newbrum and gained the housing rights that came with
a job. The rest lived in temporary habitation modules on the edge
of the park, much to the dismay of Newbrum’s other three thousand
residents who were not impressed that the only bit of greenery
within the city had become a shanty town, complete with a motley
collection of dispossessed farm animals. Many refugees from the
asteroid commune, having no concept of a credit-driven economy,
were overwhelmed by how complicated day-to-day life was wherever
money was involved, especially when they had none. Verdandi sighed
and returned her attention to the matter in hand.

“You do not need to be
a pilot to operate your own ship,” she pointed out. “Have you
thought about hiring someone to fly that old freighter of yours for
you?”

“I did hire a pilot,
some idiot called Momus,” Quirinus told her. “He’s run me back and
forth to the
Dandridge Cole
a few times but what he
laughingly called his ship has been impounded for failing safety
checks.”

“Oh, that Momus. What
about your own ship?”

“The
Platypus
is stuck at the hollow moon, going nowhere fast. The repairs won’t
be finished for a while yet. I need a licence to hire myself out
and earn a few credits.”

“After what you did?
Barely hours after being grounded, you’re up on
Stellarbridge
trying to make off with a fuel tanker!”

“It’s our tanker!”
protested Quirinus. The hollow moon’s fuel supply ship
Indra
, which had been used as a makeshift lifeboat following
the failure of the
Dandridge Cole
’s power systems, was
incapable of atmospheric flight and had been parked in Ascension
orbit ever since. “In my defence, the
Indra
’s flight systems
are all automatic and don’t whinge like Momus. Anyway, it’s needed
at the
Dandridge Cole
and the harbour master did say he
wanted it out of the way.”

“I feel for you
Quirinus, I really do,” she said, though there was a definite edge
to her voice. The Commonwealth Space Station
CSS
Stellarbridge
, in orbit around Ascension, only had a dozen or
so docking gates and the
Indra
was blocking at least five.
Verdandi had received a complaint that very morning from the
harbour master about what this and the non-payment of fees was
doing to business and was in no mood for compromise. “Maybe you
should consider a career change until your daughter can help you
with what you have grandly referred to as your interstellar courier
business. I heard she’s settled into life on Newbrum better than
most.”

“Ravana? She’s a
bright kid,” Quirinus said fondly. “That unfortunate business in
Epsilon Eridani was a blessing in disguise, for it meant there were
people she knew at the academy. She’s away at the moment,” he
added, with a tinge of regret. “She’s become obsessed with
archaeology and managed to get a place on the excavation Bradbury
Heights University are running in the Tau Ceti system.”

“So I heard.” Verdandi
spoke with genuine interest. “Is it true they’re uncovering actual
alien ruins on Falsafah? I’ve heard one of the Avalon holovid news
shows is eager to do something on the Barnard’s Star
connection.”

“That’s the story.
Ravana sounded really excited last time I spoke to her, though that
was a couple of weeks ago,” Quirinus told her. He looked
uncomfortable in the age-old role of worried father. “Communication
links aren’t too reliable on Falsafah. She quite surprised me when
she volunteered to go on the trip. She used to be such a shy little
thing.”

Verdandi smiled,
recognising the slight bewilderment common in all parents who are
finally starting to realise just how much their children have grown
up. Quirinus shifted awkwardly in his chair in the manner of
someone who had run out of things to say. Verdandi herself had
other appointments waiting.

“I hope it works out
for you, Quirinus.” Verdandi extended her hand, a signal that their
discussion was over. “You’ll soon be back on your feet, I’m
sure.”

* * *

There were three
people in the waiting room outside Verdandi’s office when Quirinus
emerged, one of whom he was surprised to see was Ostara, a
smartly-dressed slim young Chinese woman, who at the time of Raja
Surya’s kidnap had been head of security on the
Dandridge
Cole
. Her success in solving that particular mystery, albeit
with help from Ravana and her friend Zotz, had convinced Ostara she
was born to be a detective and upon arriving at Newbrum she had
applied to join the local police force. Quirinus had not seen her
for some days and they greeted each other with broad smiles,
pleased at their chance meeting.

“Fancy meeting you
here!” Quirinus exclaimed, earning disapproving stares from the two
men sitting opposite. “What brings you before the mighty
Administrator?”

“Business,” Ostara
told him. “It’s good to see you, Quirinus.”

“You too. Have you had
your interview with the police?”

“Yesterday,” she
replied, looking solemn. “I didn’t get the job. The officer said I
failed to meet the pass mark on one of the tests, but I just know
its because they’ve got something against us refugees. Either that
or they haven’t got a uniform to fit me!”