“Fwack fwack!” chided Stripy.
“Thraak,” agreed Nana.
“That’s religion for you,” Kedesh remarked. “If it is the real thing, I’m amazed it can be read at all. The programme Artorius kindly dropped into our heads is also quite incredible. I assume Taranis’ research on one led to the development of the other.”
“It’s all very clever,” Ravana admitted. “The book starts with a series of diagrams that anyone with a bit of chemistry knowledge would recognise as elements from the periodic table. Each has numbers in both binary and their own script, which Taranis worked out uses a system in base twelve. This then goes on into mathematics and physics, so that numbers and words in the book’s script can be defined through basic concepts in distance, movement and time. What Taranis struggled with but I spotted straight away is that the equations use Planck units, which are universal constants.”
“Sounds a thrilling read.”
“Then there’s short sections on biology and geography with yet more diagrams. Finally, there’s a tricky section that I think tries to bring it all together to explain verbs and the finer points of the grey’s language. Taranis didn’t get far with that; having tried to go through it myself, I’m not surprised. However, he must have made quite a bit of progress for someone to develop the implant translation programme.”
Kedesh gave Nana a thoughtful look. “What do you know of this?”
“Thraak thraak!”
“Fwack fwack,” added Stripy.
“So the book sounds genuine, but you have no idea who created it?”
“It never occurred to me to ask the greys,” mused Ravana.
“Maybe it was an attempt at first contact,” Kedesh remarked. “That would bowl anyone over. So is that all it is? A teach-yourself-alien phrasebook?”
“Fwack!” retorted Stripy.
“I wasn’t being patronising!”
“The rest is what Taranis called the sacred texts,” replied Ravana. “The fabled Book of the Greys! From the bits he had translated, it seems to be a history of their civilisation. This is where the so-called prophecy about Falsafah is written.”
“I take it you’re not a believer. Can you remember what it said?”
Ravana frowned. “That’s the weird thing. Artorius recited a few lines of it earlier and said the nurses had taught it to him, though I’m not sure why. But there was also this other phrase that was so odd it stuck in my mind.”
Kedesh gave her a questioning look. “Which is?”
“Paw-prints of the gods,” she said. “Or at least, that was Taranis’ translation.”
* * *
The hours slipped by. At one point, Ravana thought she saw a flash of silver and a pair of yellow eyes lurking in the shadow of a nearby dune, but with innumerable doubts still clouding her mind was reluctant to mention it to anyone else. Eventually, the thin black line of the gravel track appeared on the horizon, unnaturally stark and straight amidst the endless rolling sands. Artorius became ever more sullen and punctuated his complaints about the constant rocking of the transport with noisy grumbles about the lack of food in his stomach. Kedesh reluctantly agreed to stop for a rest once they reached the road.
They parked on the edge of the road’s low embankment, facing west ready for the next leg of the journey. Artorius waited at the table, his expression that of someone unwilling to fetch food for himself when there were others quite capable of getting it for him. Ravana, having been handed a box of rations from Kedesh, barely had time to examine the contents before Artorius snatched it from her to rummage for what he wanted.
“What a rude little boy,” commented Kedesh. “Anyone else want tea?”
Ravana nodded assent, extracted the box from Artorius’ grubby hands and retrieved a selection of packs for Kedesh, the greys and herself. Everything in the box was a vegetarian dish, which no doubt accounted for Artorius’ disappointed scowl. She was handing the box back to the boy when a loud beeping noise was heard from the cockpit. The communication console had come to life and a screen showed a code number and a graphic of a silver shield. Ravana looked closer and scowled. Upon the shield was the word: ‘POLICE’.
“It seems Artorius’ rudeness is contagious,” murmured Kedesh, coming to her side. “Why do people always call when we’re just about to eat?”
“You could ignore them,” Ravana suggested warily. “Pretend we’re asleep?”
“And turn down a chance to chat with Que Qiao agents? The local police are the big fish in a lonely pond and do not take kindly to being ignored.”
“What’s happening?” asked Artorius, his mouth full of food.
“Shut up and eat your dinner,” Kedesh told him. “No, wait! Ravana, take him and the neands into the back and find somewhere to hide. If they catch sight of you on holovid it will lead to all sorts of awkward questions.”
Ravana caught the look in the woman’s eye. She quickly rounded up a protesting Artorius and herded him and the greys into the transport’s small washroom, then squeezed in after them. She pulled the door closed behind her, careful to leave a small gap. Ravana watched as Kedesh lowered herself into the driver’s seat, clearly perturbed.
Kedesh reached for the console and pressed the switch to accept the call. The image on the holovid screen promptly changed to show the fierce Arabic features of a woman wearing a distinctive blue headscarf. From the way the view occasionally juddered, Ravana guessed the Que Qiao agent was calling from a moving vehicle.
“My dear Ininna,” greeted Kedesh, her voice steady. “We meet again.”
“Kedesh!” snapped the caller. “By the mighty Allah, why are you still on Falsafah? We have made it clear you have no jurisdiction here!”
“I missed my flight. Thought I’d take in the sights while I wait for another.”
The woman pushed back a stray length of dark hair and scowled. “There’s been a lot of odd activity in the area these last few days. It’s too much of a coincidence to find that you’re still around,” she said irritably. “Our transport will be with you in ten minutes and I expect you to be ready to receive visitors. Understand?”
“I’ll come to you,” Kedesh told her. “Do you have any tea?”
“You’ll get what’s coming to you. Don’t try running out on us again!”
The screen went dead. Kedesh leaned back in her seat and glanced at the scanner display. From her hiding place, Ravana saw the red square that had appeared behind them to the east. She recalled the navigation satellite was a Que Qiao device and wondered if it had been tracking their progress ever since the stolen transport left the dome.
Kedesh clambered from her chair, made her way to the rear of the cabin and lifted a survival suit off the hanger next to the airlock door. As an afterthought, she opened a nearby locker and retrieved one of her prized stock of wrapped fruit cakes. The sudden creak from the washroom door made her jump.
“Is everything okay?” asked Ravana, peering through the gap.
“I’m going to step outside for a while,” Kedesh told her. “I may be some time.”
* * *
Lilith stared through the windscreen of the transport and silently scrutinised the scene in the desert before them. An identical vehicle lay nose down in a crater, metres from where they were parked. The open airlock door and extra set of wheel tracks were evidence enough that their quarry was long gone. She returned her attention to the communication console and tried not to look too smug as she regarded the hooded features of Brother Simha on the holovid screen. Her panic at the thought that Ravana had gone and killed both herself and Artorius mercifully had proved short-lived.
“It seems our friend found them just in time,” remarked Lilith.
“zz-thee-daayy-oof-thee-staar-maan-iis-neeaar-zz!” Simha rasped vehemently. “zz-theeyy-muust-noot-sliip-throouugh-yyoouur-fiingeers-zz!”
“They slipped through yours,” muttered Lilith. “And you have twelve.”
“Do we follow the tracks?” Dagan asked, who s
at at the controls.
Lilith ignored him. “They may head for the excavation,” she declared, addressing the face on the screen. “It is unfortunate your chemical interrogations failed to extract the whereabouts of Taranis’ papers when the girl’s memory was yours to reap, but her new-found friend may win her confidence. We will recover the boy and the greys soon enough.”
“zz-yyoouu-muust-doo-whaat-neeeeds-too-bee-doonee-zz!”
“Of course,” Lilith replied coolly.
The holovid went blank. Lilith let her gaze drift to the bleak desert before them. The two cyberclones scared her; just that morning she spied them eating what smelt like raw pork, but which she knew was not. Jizo remained unfazed by the monks, but Dagan’s startled stare told Lilith her own apprehension was not unwarranted. It had taken a considerable sum of credits to bribe Sir Bedivere’s crew into bringing Dagan and his bubble-cockpit microlight to the airstrip near the Dhusarians’ dome, but Lilith needed someone she could trust.
“Greys?” Dagan asked in awe. “Have our interstellar guides come at last?”
“Not quite. They’re a couple of funny ape-like aliens from Epsilon Eridani,” she told him. “The problem is that these greys are smart, very smart; and the boy has the translator in his head. Whether he really is the ‘reborn traveller’ of this stupid prophecy is irrelevant; my worry is that if we don’t contain the situation, our alien runaways could raise too many questions about our beloved Dhusarian Church. People do not like it when their gods turn out to be just another version of themselves.”
“Arallu is six thousand kilometres away,” Dagan remarked, gripping the steering wheel. “They can’t possibly hope to get there before us.”
“That drunk psycho Jizo knows something about the girl she’s not telling,” Lilith added absent-mindedly. “She was Taranis’ nurse for a while and thinks that makes her an authority on everything. Did you know the Isa-Sastra has been revised at least twice?”
Dagan shook his head.
“Early versions contained a prophecy regarding Maharaja Ravana, who would one day liberate Yuanshi and Daode. The missing girl is called Ravana. Coincidence?”
“I thought the prophecy was about the boy,” Dagan said weakly.
“There are many prophecies. All nonsense, of course.”
“About the excavation?”
“No, in this case, just the one,” Lilith said testily. Dagan’s approach to church was that of an activist, not a theologian and she could almost see his head starting to hurt. “I hear you’ve been doing sterling work sabotaging the rape and pillage of our scared inheritance. Everything is playing out as expected and we will be at Arallu soon enough.”
“It’s a long way by transport,” he reminded her. “The microlight can’t take us both.”
“The Atterberg Epiphany returns in three days. We shall fly there in style.”
* * *
Que Qiao officer Ininna was not happy, a state of mind Kedesh could testify often resulted in those nearby breaking out in bruises. Ininna and her colleague Yima, a big burly Arab who had his own ideas when it came to applying the full force of the law, had been talking to Kedesh for over an hour but as yet the red-haired woman had not told them anything they did not know already.
“You disgust me,” muttered Ininna. She raised a hand to make Kedesh flinch, then lowered it again. “Your life is one big act and all you can give me are lies. Did you help the occupants of that crashed transport?”
“You’ve asked me that already,” Kedesh murmured. The cut on her lip opened up again and she winced. The wire from the lie-detector probe on her forehead rubbed against her nose and Ininna saw the woman was desperately ignoring the urge to scratch the itch, especially after what happened last time she tried. “The same question, six times. Do you really think my answer is going to change anytime soon? And where is this tea you promised me an hour ago? I brought you cake! You should always have tea with cake.”
“Dessert in the desert,” mused Ininna. “You English are so quaint.”
“It’s called being civilised,” Kedesh retorted. “You should try it some time.”
“Someone must have rescued whoever was in there,” Yima said softly, who knew his place when it came to the ‘good cop, bad cop’ routine. Ininna did not like competition in badness stakes. “Your vehicle was the only one in the area at the time.”
“I have no idea how they got out of that transport!”
Ininna glanced at the read-out of the lie detector and sighed. The devices were illegal and results could not be cited in a court of law, but in this case the point was moot. Kedesh was telling the truth. She plucked free the electrode and tossed it unceremoniously aside.
“I’m bored with this game,” she said. “Get out of my sight.”
“Fine,” muttered Kedesh, looking pained. “Next time, don’t lure me here under false pretences. A promise of tea is not one broken lightly.”
Kedesh retrieved her suit’s helmet and quickly made her way to the airlock before Ininna could change her mind. Before long she was outside and limping back to the green transport ahead, parked forward of the police vehicle on the long gravel road.
“Did you have to hit her that hard?” asked Yima. “She seemed to be telling the truth.”
“Kedesh doesn’t know the meaning of the word!” retorted Ininna. “The charlatan could hardly deny being there given satellite evidence, but do you really believe her story that she found that transport empty? If so, why is she now in such a hurry to head west? It’s all tied up with whatever’s going on at Arallu, mark my words.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Something has rattled the Dhusarians,” she pointed out. “Someone steals a transport from their dome, abandons it in a crater in the middle of nowhere, yet no one falls over themselves to get the authorities involved? We know that idiot activist Dagan has been out causing trouble at Arallu. I’m convinced there’s a connection.”
“There’s also that missing person report,” added Yima. Ininna could tell he was still not sure what she was getting at. “The one raised by the boy at the dig?”
“I tried to make contact with a professor on site who’s on the Que Qiao payroll but had no luck. Our people on Aram are being very cagey about him,” she said thoughtfully. “By the way, I get the impression they’ve found something quite spectacular out there.”
She lapsed into silence and watched as Kedesh clambered slowly up the steps into her transport, encumbered not so much by her survival suit and helmet but by the pain of fresh bruises. An hour in the company of Que Qiao agents was often not a pleasant one. Ininna smiled, then realised Yima still looked at her with a vague expression upon his face.
“The Dhusarians are harassing the archaeologists,” she said. “A Grand Priory spy is on the loose. There’s an abandoned transport no one wants to talk about and all of a sudden we find Commander Kedesh rushing off the map towards Arallu. Coincidence?”
“Something spectacular in Arallu,” mused Yima. “Maybe we should check it out.”
* * *
Chapter Seven
The cloud mine of Thunor
[Chapter Six] [Contents] [Chapter Eight]
MOMUS GAZED IN WONDER at the enormous churning ball of gas in a thousand shades of brown that filled the view before him. Thunor was the fourth planet out from Barnard’s Star and the second largest in the system after the mighty Woden. It was slightly smaller than Saturn in the Solar System and lacked that planet’s magnificent icy rings, but there was no denying it was still one of the most breathtaking sights Momus had ever seen. The planet went from huge through massive onto truly gargantuan, until the scale of what lay before him became simply far too large for his brain to contemplate. Thunor’s moon of Eostre was but a dark dot far away on the Indra’s starboard bow, yet even the knowledge that this rocky satellite was as large as Earth’s own moon did little to help his sense of perspective. The tiny speck ahead that was CSS Sky Cleaver looked as lost and alone a
s a cork bobbing in the middle of a storm-wracked sea.
“Wow,” murmured Momus, not for the first time. “That’s a frigging big planet.”
The Sky Cleaver cloud-mining facility worked in the tenuous upper atmosphere of Thunor, orbiting fast and low on the very edge of space. It was of a similar wheel-and-axle design to Stellarbridge, though slightly smaller and with a longer static pontoon that extended from the wheel on both sides, perpendicular to what passed for the surface of the planet below. The mast extending towards the gaseous mantle of Thunor served as an anchor for the kilometres-long cable of high-tensile piping that descended into the planet’s atmosphere; on the other end, a huge conical net ionised the swirling gas and sucked it up the pipe by way of electromagnetic induction. Powerful compressors at the top of the cable pumped and separated harvested hydrogen and helium-three through the station’s axle to the huge gas tanks on the far-side pontoon. It was an impressive piece of engineering and one that in various guises guaranteed a virtually-unlimited supply of fuel for spacecraft and fusion reactors across the five systems.
Sky Cleaver’s docking area was on the pontoon pointing away from Thunor, next to the cluster of spherical reservoirs that were hopefully full and ready to replenish the Indra’s own tanks. Momus settled back in his seat, content to let the automatic guidance controls handle the final approach. It became apparent that of the four docking positions, two were taken. At one was a large, odd-looking vessel, in the shape of a monstrous silver cylinder with the largest rocket nozzle he had ever seen protruding from the rear, secured to the pontoon by cables and a flexible tubular walkway. A sleek Mars-class spaceplane in the blue livery adopted by Newbrum police was docked at another.
The presence of the police vehicle was worrying, but more so was the absence of the heavy-duty shuttle that served as Sky Cleaver’s emergency lifeboat. As the Indra drew nearer, Momus began to wonder if he should have paid more attention to the disturbing rumours going around Newbrum spaceport. Just then, he heard an electronic purr and saw Ravana’s electric pet float into view from behind the co-pilot’s seat.
Paw-Prints Of The Gods Page 16