Paw-Prints Of The Gods

by Steph Bennion

  “Giant spiders!” he yelled, pointing. “They’re everywhere!”

  “Thraak!”

  “Fwack fwack!”

  “Please!” shouted Kedesh. “Calm down, all of you!”

  “How can they be here?” wailed Ravana, terrified. “The air’s poisonous!”

  “But perfectly safe for cats with yellow eyes?” suggested Kedesh.

  Ravana glared at her. Kedesh shoved the speed control lever forward and the transport leapt forward as if its tail was on fire. Ravana shrieked and fell back in her seat. Through the windows, the web-strewn walls of the canyon became a blur. A huge black shape, the size of a cow but with a confusing contortion of legs, suddenly loomed large in the headlamps. There was a thump and the transport battered the hideous creature aside.

  “Is that your plan?” cried Ravana. “Ram our way out?”

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  “I’m frightened,” moaned Artorius. “I hate spiders.”

  “Join the club,” muttered Ravana. She pulled Artorius onto her lap and held him tight, more for her own reassurance than the boy’s own.

  “Atmospheric sensors show unusually high oxygen levels outside,” Kedesh remarked wryly, raising her voice above the harsh whine of the transport’s stressed engine. “We may have stumbled into some sort of genetic-engineering experiment. Or maybe they’re cyberclones or machines and not really alive at all.”

  Ravana shrieked again. A spider with legs splayed a metre either side dropped from nowhere and splattered heavily across the transport’s windscreen. Artorius whimpered and clutched her ever tighter. The impact left the windscreen smeared with mangled spindly limbs, ragged chunks of spider carapace and blood.

  “My mistake,” said Kedesh. She switched on the windscreen wipers. “They are real live creatures after all. Well, except that one.”

  The windscreen cleared just in time for them to see another spider hit the side of the transport and spin away into the shadows. The canyon walls either side were thickly shrouded with webs, down which a torrent of black shapes cascaded to the valley floor. Two large spiders scuttled before them and were promptly crushed beneath the transport’s wheels, but as the vehicle bounced over the crumpled bodies there came an ominous thud, followed by a series of mechanical clunks. The powerful purr of the engine suddenly changed into a growl both coarse and laboured. The clanking became insistent and Ravana’s blood ran cold when she realised the transport was starting to slow down.

  “This is not good,” Kedesh said. She had gone very pale.

  “Make them go away!” cried Artorius.

  “Fwack!”

  “Thraak thraak!” added Nana.

  “I’m sure we’re quite safe inside here,” Kedesh reassured them.

  A spider, some three metres high, crashed down the valley wall in a flurry of legs. Before they could steer clear, the creature hit them squarely above the port-side front wheel with a force that made the transport lurch. Ravana screamed as a giant eye loomed large in the window to her left, then again when she saw the crack in the glass and the large dent in the panel below. A warning buzzer sounded and red lights on the console began to flash.

  “We’re going to be battered to death!” cried Ravana.

  “Unless the air poisons us first,” Kedesh said, speaking far too casually. She silenced the buzzer and stared hard at the console. “That last impact cracked the hull. Life-support is holding for now but we’re using up oxygen reserves fast. There should be an emergency sealant kit and masks in the locker at your feet.”

  Ravana looked to where the woman pointed, yanked open the locker door and found a rack of survival masks with tiny oxygen cylinders attached. She quickly handed a mask each to Artorius, Kedesh and the greys, took one for herself and reached for what she thought was a sealant canister, only to find herself holding a stubby-barrelled plasma pistol. Ravana caught Kedesh’s frown and hurriedly returned the gun, found the canister and pointed the nozzle at the crack in the window at her side. A quick pull on the trigger resulted in a satisfying slurping noise and a sticky smear of sealant upon the crack.

  “There’s another one!” shouted Artorius.

  A huge spider scuttled along the valley floor beside them, easily matching their diminishing speed. Ravana shuddered, feeling nauseous at the dreadful sight of giant pincers below plate-sized eyes. Without warning, Kedesh stomped on the brake and the spider shot ahead. The woman shoved the speed control lever forward and rammed the transport into the spider’s bulbous abdomen, sending it spinning away into the shadows. Kedesh’s triumphant grin faltered the moment she saw the fresh crack in the windscreen.

  “Thraak!” exclaimed Nana. “Thraak thraak!”

  “We can’t go on like this,” said Ravana. Nana’s outburst’s were not helping. The translator had filled her head with a bizarre image of giant arachnids standing defiant over a line of chained slaves, both human and grey. “There’s too many! The scanner shows hundreds of the damn things, all coming for us!”

  “You’re right,” said Kedesh. She slipped from her seat and let the transport roll on, only now there was no one at the controls. “Take the wheel.”

  “What are you doing?” In a panic, Ravana reached across and grabbed the steering wheel just in time to avoid a large boulder. “We’ll crash!”

  “Just drive the bloody thing! They’re not bowling me out in this innings.”

  Startled, Ravana extracted herself from Artorius’ clutches, dumped the sealant gun into his lap and slipped into the pilot’s seat. Kedesh hurried to the rear of the passenger compartment. When Ravana glanced around a few moments later, she saw her struggling into a survival suit whilst trying to pick up her helmet and open a storage locker all at the same time. There was a thud and another spider fell crushed beneath the wheels, rocking the transport and almost knocking the woman from her feet.

  “Keep your eye on the game!” snapped Kedesh.

  “Sorry,” muttered Ravana.

  Kedesh finished fastening her suit and began strapping to her legs what Ravana was surprised to recognise as cricketing shin pads. The woman gave her a wink, slotted her helmet into place, then reached into the locker and picked up a well-worn cricket bat. Ravana stared in disbelief as Kedesh took a few practice swings with the bat before laying it aside. Returning to the locker, she withdrew a long black cylinder with brutal military overtones. Artorius’ eyes widened when he saw the weapon in the woman’s hands.

  “Fwack!” cried Stripy, impressed.

  “Is that a plasma cannon?” Artorius asked in awe.

  “It’s a portable recoilless electro-thermal accelerator,” said Kedesh. Her voice sounded muffled through the helmet and Ravana switched the suit’s intercom to the console speakers. “So yes, it’s a plasma cannon. Ravana, find a clear spot and stop. Stay at the controls until I get back. If I get back,” she murmured to herself.

  “You’re going outside?” exclaimed Ravana, in disbelief.

  “No, I’m wearing this suit as a fashion statement,” snapped Kedesh. “Ready?”

  Trembling, Ravana nodded and brought the transport to a clanking halt. A cluster of dark long-limbed shapes quickly appeared at the limit of the headlamps and began to advance. Looking pale, Artorius huddled down in his seat and held the sealant canister out towards the windscreen as if it were super-strength bug spray.

  “They’re coming!” called Ravana.

  “Thraak?” asked Nana. Stripy cowered at Artorius’ feet.

  “I wasn’t talking to you,” Ravana said crossly. Her heart sank when she saw the empty cabin behind. Kedesh had slipped into the airlock without another word.

  There was a sudden bang, followed by a terrible splintering noise as another spider appeared from nowhere and crashed into the cracked port-side window. The spider’s pincers tore a chunk out of the toughened glass, then a head and snapping mandibles broke through into the cockpit. Artorius leapt out of his seat in alarm.

  “Thraak!” wailed Nana. �
��Thraak thraak!”

  A foul yet familiar smell reached Ravana’s nose. Nana darted away in a mixture of embarrassment and fear, leaving Artorius sprawled upon the floor and frantically waving his oxygen mask in an ironic attempt to disperse the gust of alien flatulence. Amidst her panic, Ravana saw he had managed to keep hold of the sealant canister as he fell.

  “Artorius!” she cried. The spider brought with it a blast of air from outside and the dizziness of carbon-dioxide poisoning hit her hard. “Use the sealant gun! Spray the window!”

  The boy twisted onto his back, pointed the canister towards the writhing head of the spider and pulled the trigger. A jet of milky fluid erupted from the nozzle and caught the creature square in the mouth, instantly gumming its jaws together with a ball of sealant. The spider thrashed frantically against the broken window, in a manner that would have looked quite comical in different circumstances, then retreated through the hole in the glass. Artorius, his eyes closed in terror, kept his finger on the trigger and sealant sprayed erratically around the cabin. Ravana grabbed his arm and guided his aim towards the shattered window, waving his hand back and forth in a cross-hatch pattern. To her relief, the sticky threads of sealant latched to the glass and expanded to block the opening. The canister ran dry all too quickly, but the huge flat blob of sealant on the window had done its job.

  Ravana felt the transport rock and tensed in anticipation of another impact, then heard the tap of human footsteps and creak of metal as Kedesh clambered onto the transport’s roof. Ravana’s immediate panic faded but did not go away, for still more spiders emerged from the shadows outside. She was not at all comforted by the thought that perhaps the creatures saw the unmoving transport as prey caught in a web, injured or wearied by the chase.

  “Well done Artorius,” she said weakly, releasing his arm. Her heart pounded and she was having trouble breathing, for she had not managed to find her mask in time. She heard the comforting rattle of a compressor as the life-support system got to work restoring the air. The boy’s shrieks still echoed in her aching head. “Some excellent quick thinking there.”

  “You scared me!” complained Artorius. A sheepish-looking Nana came out of hiding and crept back to join Stripy in the cockpit. “I thought the monster spider had grabbed me!”

  Ravana heard Kedesh move again. She barely had time to wonder what the woman had planned when the grandfather of all nightmares stepped into the headlamp beams. Before them, blocking the valley, was an arachnid of truly mammoth proportions, standing high upon eight gnarled legs as thick as ancient tree trunks. The spider’s mandibles flexed like the claws of a salvage-yard crusher, above which a cluster of huge baleful eyes caught their headlights in a hideous kaleidoscope stare.

  “Maharaja Ashtapada,” murmured Ravana. “That is what you call a demon king.”

  Artorius screamed. “It’s come to eat us alive!”

  “Fwack fwack fwack!” shrieked Stripy, seemingly in agreement.

  The valley suddenly burned with a blinding white light. A spear of flame erupted from the roof of the transport and caught the monstrous spider in the centre of its snapping jaws. Ravana instinctively shielded their eyes and peered through her fingers in stunned amazement as another rush of fire lanced into the creature, then a third, leaving the monster writhed in flame. A dreadful piercing cry filled the web-strewn canyon, one that made Artorius and the greys to clamp a hand over their ears. Ravana jumped as another fiery burst swept across the ground in front of the transport, instantly reducing an advancing horde of lesser spiders to a series of charred, smoking mounds.

  “It’s Kedesh!” Artorius cried jubilantly. “She’s blasting them to bits!”

  The white lightning of the plasma cannon erupted again and soon there was little left alive in the valley before them. The scanner showed the remaining spiders in retreat, leaving a clear circle amidst the red blobs with the transport at the centre. Ravana reached for the console and activated the communicator.

  “Kedesh!” she cried. “We should make a run for it while we can!”

  “Just one more!” Kedesh replied. The plasma flame burst forth once again.

  The sound of footsteps scrabbled across the roof, followed by a reassuring clunk and hiss as the outer door closed and the airlock began to fill. Ravana’s hand was already slotting the gear lever into ‘drive’ and she did not wait for Kedesh to step out of the chamber before shoving the speed control lever forward. The transport clattered into life and was soon ploughing mercilessly though the dead and the dying, away through the valley. Kedesh stepped wearily into the cabin, her helmet and plasma cannon in her hands.

  “Bit of a sticky wicket that one,” she said and collapsed onto a bunk. Her suit was splattered with blood and black slime. “I could murder a cup of tea.”

  “You blew them up!” exclaimed Artorius. “Amazing!”

  “Piece of cake,” Kedesh murmured. “Don’t touch that,” she warned, as Artorius slipped from his seat to look at the cannon at her side. “It gets incredibly hot.”

  “Can I shoot some next time?”

  “Next time?” muttered Ravana and shivered.

  “You boys do like your big guns,” Kedesh observed. Ravana saw her looking at the congealed mass of sealant at the window. “I could have sworn one of the beasts was choking on a giant marshmallow. I take it you had to step up to the crease yourselves.”

  “You seemed to have scared them off for now,” Ravana told her, glancing at the scanner screen. “The way ahead looks clear, though there’s a couple of kilometres to go before the valley flattens out enough for us to get back to the road.”

  “Will they come back?” Artorius asked, sounding fearful.

  “Let’s hope not. How far is the depot once we hit the road?”

  “Five kilometres or so,” said Ravana. “The poor transport’s taken a battering, but has enough left in it to get us there within the hour.” The clunking from beneath had not gone away but did not seem to be getting any worse. She glanced over her shoulder to where Kedesh sat slumped upon the bunk. “That was very brave. You could have got killed.”

  “Falsafah’s not a very friendly planet. Sometimes you have to stand your ground.”

  “Thraak,” Nana said sadly. “Thraak thraak.”

  “I agree,” said Kedesh. “Let’s hope there’s no more surprises like that one.”

  * * *

  High upon a nearby outcrop of rock, a small silver and black shape idly scratched an ear with a paw and watched the labouring transport trundle uneasily out of the valley. Events on Falsafah were unravelling somewhat differently to expectations, but when the players showed a bit of initiative it always made things more entertaining. In the end, the outcome mattered little, for it was all about the game.

  The transport disappeared behind a dune. The watcher yawned, contemplated the slowly-thrashing tail wrapped around its feet, then in a flash of tabby fur was gone.

  * * *

  Chapter Nine

  Private investigations

  [Chapter Eight] [Contents] [Chapter Ten]

  BELLONA LOWERED HERSELF into the offered couch and gave a nervous smile. This was the first time she had been invited to the private rooms at the church and did not know whether she ought to be honoured or terrified. The office at the back of the old bingo hall in Broad Street was well-appointed with patterned wallpaper, a large wall-mounted holovid screen and a suite of soft-sprung couches that must have been imported to Ascension at some expense, though the overall effect was tainted by a faint yet unpleasant coppery smell that lingered in the air. Yet even the surprise invitation and comfy furnishings paled into insignificance compared to what was on the table before her: a plate of chocolate biscuits, the first Bellona had seen in Newbrum for months.

  In the chair opposite sat Selene, the girl from her class, who as usual was dressed entirely in black. She had fastened her purple tresses into an unfussy ponytail and dispensed with her customary floral crown, which she had earlier referred t
o as ‘ceremonial headgear’. Selene, with a cool and calm business-like attitude, had introduced herself as a junior member of the inner circle of the Dhusarian Church of Newbrum. The inner circle was interested in Bellona. No one had ever said that before.

  “Would you like a biscuit?” asked Selene. There was a seductive tone to her voice; Bellona had heard gossip that the girl’s sultry and mysterious persona was a ploy to impress Captain Nyx, one of the Church’s rising stars. “Genuine chocolate, you know. The fellowship of the greys on Earth like to keep us supplied with innocent luxuries.”

  Bellona smiled weakly and hesitantly took a biscuit from the plate.

  Selene watched her carefully. “I expect you’re wondering why we asked you here.”

  Her mouth full of biscuit, Bellona nodded. She wondered who Selene meant by ‘we’. The clocks of Newbrum had just gone nine o’clock in the morning and she had not seen another soul in the building since her arrival. There was a tradition that Dhusarians should gather as daylight faded and the stars began to appear, but the Church in Newbrum stuck to European Central Time, otherwise the slow rotation of Ascension would lead them to meet just once a week. Detractors on Earth believed the real reason for having evening services was because the average Dhusarian could not get out of bed in the morning.

  “We were concerned by how rarely you accessed the Isa-Sastra on your slate,” Selene continued. “Others took this as evidence that your commitment was not true, but I told them you often read from an antique printed version of the sacred texts. I wondered if it was a family heirloom, that perhaps you had a past association with the Church?”

  Bellona hesitated, startled that the inner circle was evidently monitoring what they read. She subconsciously touched a hand to her hip to feel the reassuring lump of the book in the pocket of her faded flight suit. Aware of Selene’s curious stare, Bellona slowly withdrew the paper-leafed book. The girl’s eyes widened at the sight of the volume with its worn grey cover, inscribed with the legend Isa-Sastra.