Paw-Prints Of The Gods

by Steph Bennion

  “Tea?” asked Yima. “I wouldn’t say no.”

  “Thirsty work, is it?” asked Govannon. “Standing around, doing nothing?”

  “Kedesh gave us some cake,” Yima reminded Ininna, missing Govannon’s sarcasm. “That would go down well with a hot brew. Shall I go and get it?”

  “We’re not here for tea and cake!” said Ininna, irritably.

  “There’s not much else to do,” Yima retorted. “Why aren’t we looking into the professor’s death? We should at least see for ourselves what’s inside that alien temple.”

  “It is not a temple!” cried Govannon and sighed. “Never mind.”

  “Ravana is also still missing,” Hestia reminded them.

  “Official investigators are on their way,” Ininna replied to Yima, somewhat sulkily.

  “We have forensic equipment here, as I’m sure you do too,” said Hestia. “Doctor Jones is a proper archaeologist and knows how to use stuff like that. We all want to know what happened to Professor Cadmus and Ravana. We could help you find out.”

  Govannon gave Hestia a sly smile. Offering to help the agents was not an approach that had crossed his mind. He could see Hestia had Ininna and Yima confused, which as far as he was concerned was a result in itself.

  “If I was in your position,” Hestia continued, scratching her cheek in an absent-minded fashion, “I’d want to find out as much as I could beforehand so I did not look stupid when your official investigators arrive. Are you sure someone is coming?”

  “Eventually,” mumbled Yima.

  “Don’t try any tricky mind games with us,” said Ininna, glaring at Hestia. “Nobody here is doing anything unless I say so.”

  “We are well aware of that,” said Govannon. “We have a man dead and a young girl missing, see? All you have done is shut down a legitimate excavation and treat everyone like suspects. You would have to order us to help you before we even considered it.”

  “Security on Falsafah is a Que Qiao matter and we decide what is legitimate or not!” Ininna retorted. “In case you had forgotten, this expedition is funded by Que Qiao.”

  “Is it?” asked Hestia, surprised.

  “Cadmus was on their Alien Encounters Board,” murmured Govannon.

  “We’re getting off the point,” snapped Ininna. “You have no rights here.”

  “We order you to help us investigate!” declared Yima.

  Govannon smirked as a seething glare shot from Ininna to a suddenly red-faced Yima. Ininna turned her venomous stare towards the archaeologist. To his relief, her fiery temper collapsed into a weary, exasperated sigh and crumbled before his eyes.

  “Very clever,” she said. “Fine, let’s do this.”

  “Our investigation,” Yima said firmly. “Not yours.”

  “I wouldn’t dare take away your glory,” Govannon declared solemnly.

  “Me neither,” said Hestia, then grinned. “But did you mention cake?”

  * * *

  Zotz placed his screwdriver upon the bar, reached to the back of the humanoid robot’s head and flicked its power switch to the ‘on’ position. Quirinus and Momus had left him to his own devices whilst they scoured the deserted depot for clues to Ravana’s whereabouts. As the long Falsafah night wore on, Zotz gravitated towards Morrigan’s Bar and its battered mechanical bar steward. His initial conversation with the robot left him in no doubt it had been tampered with, whereupon he had used more prosaic devices from his portable toolkit to find and remove the AI bypass module fitted by some unknown saboteur.

  He heard a reassuring gentle hum from the robot and settled back to see whether his repairs were successful. Beside him, Ravana’s electric cat sat upon the bar top and chewed thoughtfully upon the removed circuit board. The bar steward’s eyes lit up and with a faint metallic groan swivelled its head towards the seated Zotz.

  “Welcome to Morrigan’s Bar,” it said. “Would you care for a drink, sir?

  “What have you got?” asked Zotz.

  “I am able to serve all the usual hot and cold beverages from reconstituted powdered sources,” the robot informed him. “Alternative products are available from the molecularisor in the transit lounge. I am unable to offer you micro-brewery products as your juvenile stature and voice pattern suggest you are not yet of the legal age to be served alcohol.”

  “Are you saying I’m short and have a squeaky voice?”

  “My intention was not to cause offence, sir.”

  Zotz heard a distant yell and guessed Momus had found yet another dead rat amidst the stacked equipment and shipping containers. Quirinus poked his head from the door of the nearby habitation module, stared across the dome in the direction of Momus’ cry, shook his head and disappeared back inside. Zotz had asked the bar steward about Ravana before he switched it off to do repairs but to no avail. He decided to pose the question again.

  “They’re looking for Ravana,” he told the robot. “Do you remember seeing her here?”

  “Would you like an orange juice, sir?”

  “She was with the archaeologists,” said Zotz. “One of the students.”

  “I can add ice and a little umbrella if that is to your liking,” the robot offered.

  “I don’t want a drink! I want to know about Ravana. Was she here?”

  “I have no memory of a person by that name. Doctor Jones and an unknown male were here four days ago. They were the last people to visit this establishment.”

  “So you do remember things,” mused Zotz. Four days had passed since Quirinus learned Ravana never arrived to meet the Sir Bedivere, but he recalled from conversations back on the Dandridge Cole that the rest of the expedition assumed she returned to Ascension on the previous flight, a fortnight before. “What about previous visits?”

  “Doctor Jones was here eighteen days ago,” the robot confirmed. “The unnamed male also came to Morrigan’s Bar that day but at a different time. He was with a young female.”

  “A girl?” Zotz exclaimed. He dropped his voice to an excited whisper. “Taller than me, with dark hair, brown skin and a scar on her face?”

  “Your limited description concurs with the visual image in my records, sir.”

  “That was Ravana!” cried Zotz. “Where did she go?”

  A sudden crash made him jump. Zotz’s exchange with the unsuspecting mechanical bar steward had reached Quirinus’ ears and at the mention of Ravana’s name, the pilot leapt from the cabin and rushed to the bar, knocking over a crate of engine spares on the way. He was not usually so clumsy but the heavier gravity of Falsafah compared to that of Ascension, especially after two days in deep space, was taking them all a while to get used to.

  “Where is she?” Quirinus demanded breathlessly, facing the robot’s blank stare. “Come on, you lanky strip of rivets, tell me! You must have seen where she went!”

  “I do not have the information you require.”

  “You have eyes and a memory!” retorted Quirinus. “Tell me!”

  The robot shuffled closer. “Would you care for a drink, sir?”

  Quirinus grabbed hold of the bar steward’s neck in exasperation and tried to throttle it into submission. The robot at first appeared blissfully unaware of what was happening, then all of a sudden the light in its eyes died and it slipped lifelessly out of the pilot’s grasp to land face down upon the bar. Ravana’s cat leapt away in alarm.

  “I think you knocked the power switch,” Zotz said cautiously.

  “Dratted thing,” muttered Quirinus. “Do you reckon it knows anything useful?”

  Zotz scratched his head. “Whoever programmed it left things pretty basic. I don’t think it can do much more than take orders for drinks.”

  “You’ve still done better than we have. There’s no security cameras in the depot and I’ve yet to make sense of the system data logs,” replied Quirinus, looking glum. “We’ve searched the dome at least twice. There’s no transport in the hangar to get us to the dig, no one listening on the short-range transceiver and not a
living soul in sight! I can’t believe we’ve come all this way just to find a dead end.”

  Zotz solemnly digested Quirinus’ growing frustration. They were interrupted by the arrival of Momus, who was covered in grime and scowling more than usual. His grimace deepened when he saw the prone body of the bar steward.

  “I was looking forward to a nice cold lager when we finished,” he grumbled.

  “Did you find anything?” asked Zotz.

  Momus frowned. “No.”

  “Then we haven’t finished,” Quirinus retorted. “Ravana was here. There must be some clue as to where she is now. There has to be!”

  Momus put a friendly hand to Quirinus’ shoulder and sighed when the pilot shrugged it away. Zotz was surprised to see Momus’ expression soften until it almost became a smile. This was the closest he had ever seen him looking kindly and sympathetic.

  “We will find her,” Momus reassured Quirinus. “But I’m guessing I’m not the only one who’s tired and frigging starving. Once we’re fit, we’ll do a bit of reconnaissance in that crappy freighter of yours, find this dig and see if there’s any chance of landing a bit closer. I don’t fancy traipsing all that way on foot just to find another bloody empty dome.”

  “You’d walk across that desert to find my girl?”

  “If it came to it.”

  “My dear Momus,” said Quirinus. “I’m almost glad I brought you along after all.”

  * * *

  The aged food molecularisor in the transit lounge was a bulky frontier model with half its nutrient cartridges missing, but Momus nevertheless managed to coax a decent spread from its output tray before Quirinus and Zotz retired to the habitation module to get some sleep. Momus surprised them again by offering to keep watch whilst the pilot and his young charge rested, pointing out that Quirinus had been at the helm of the Platypus most of the way and had not rested once since landing. The heavier gravity aside, it had been a tiring day all round and Quirinus had to agree that he could not have stayed awake if he tried.

  Several hours later, a thump on the wall of the cabin woke Quirinus from his slumber. It turned out to be from Momus’ head, who had fallen over outside whilst trying to remove his boots. Quirinus found his hired pilot swaying unsteadily in the doorway of the cabin, suspiciously wobbly on his feet, though that particular mystery was solved by the sight of the bar steward busily tidying away a stack of empty tumblers from the bar.

  “Nothing to report,” slurred Momus. He burped and gave a lopsided grin. “All quiet on the Falsafah front, Captain Quirinus, sir.”

  “Go to bed,” Quirinus hissed irritably. “And do it quietly! Zotz is still asleep.”

  Leaving Momus to stumble into the cabin, Quirinus made his way across the dome and up the short tunnel to the transit lounge. The dull pink light of dawn was breaking and he went to a window to get his first proper view of the alien world outside. Beyond the Platypus on the apron at the side of the runway, the wind-pump tower and the fresh wheel tracks leading to the hangar, there was nothing to show that humans had ever trespassed upon the bleak monotony of the endless red dunes.

  Quirinus paused, crossed to the window nearest the hangar and gave the tracks a puzzled stare. The twin gouges in the sand looked fresh and were still full of water where they ran near the leaking wind pump. The stiff breeze that had greeted them upon leaving the Platypus continued to bluster hard against the walls of the depot, yet that same wind had barely begun to obliterate tracks that at first he had assumed were several days old. Quirinus craned his neck to follow their trail to the bottom of the wind-pump tower and gave a low whistle of surprise. Parked almost out of sight, at the side of the depot’s dome, was a green six-wheeled personnel carrier that had definitely not been there before.

  “Nothing to report!” he muttered. “Too drunk to notice a transport visiting in the dead of night, more like.”

  The vehicle’s running lights were off. A tense minute of scrutiny revealed no sign of movement inside. His mind made up, Quirinus hurried to retrieve his survival suit from the rack next to the hangar door, left there after disembarking from the Platypus. He pulled on the suit and helmet, opened the door and was halfway across the hangar when an unexpected movement brought him to a surprised halt.

  The mysterious transport was forgotten as he hastened towards the two wriggling and hooded human shapes lying upon the floor. Removing his helmet, he knelt by the first, pulled away the hood and gasped in shock at the furious and scowling features of a dark-haired young woman. Lifting the hood from the second, he gave a cry of disbelief, recognising the face beneath. The girl’s eyes, wild with fear, melted into relief at the sight of her rescuer. Both captives were gagged with tape and lay with their wrists and ankles bound by cords.

  “Philyra!” Quirinus exclaimed. Putting down his helmet, he ripped the tape from the girl’s face. He did not remember her having purple hair. “It is you, isn’t it?”

  “Yes!” shrieked Philyra. “I nearly suffocated under there!”

  “Who’s your friend?” asked Quirinus. He pulled the tape from the other captive’s mouth and got to work untying their bonds, his mind whirling.

  “Felicity Fornax!” the woman snapped. “Where the hell are we?”

  “She’s a reporter,” added Philyra. “She got us into this mess.”

  “You’re on Falsafah,” he told them, his hands busy with the knotted cables. “Arallu Depot, to be precise. Otherwise known as the middle of nowhere.”

  He pulled free the last of Philyra’s bindings and moved to help Fornax. Philyra gave a whimper and began to massage her limbs to get the blood flowing again. By the time Quirinus had unfastened the cords securing the reporter’s ankles and wrists, Philyra had regained the use of her legs and was pacing nervously around the hangar.

  “Do you know this man?” remarked Fornax.

  “This is Captain Quirinus,” Philyra said proudly. “He took us to the Epsilon Eridani peace conference last year. His daughter Ravana is one of the students at the dig.”

  “Enough about me,” Quirinus said impatiently. “Why are you here?”

  “It’s all her fault,” Philyra said and glared at Fornax, still sat wearily on the floor. “She thought it would be a good idea to pretend to be Dhusarians so we could get on that ship. We were barely out of Ascension orbit when they realised we were fakes. They trussed us up to stop us escaping, then when we landed dumped us here.”

  “Stop us escaping?” scoffed Fornax. “From a moving spaceship?”

  “Dhusarians?” asked Quirinus, confused. “What ship?”

  “Can we go somewhere a little more comfortable?” asked Fornax, climbing to her feet. “This place makes my hotel room look luxurious.”

  “Of course,” said Quirinus. “Though the rest of the depot is not much better.”

  He led them into the transit lounge, where Fornax promptly crashed into the nearest chair with a groan. Philyra continued to pace restlessly back and forth while Quirinus tried to persuade the food molecularisor to produce something comforting.

  “Hot chocolate?” he said at last. He handed them each a plastic cup emanating sweet-smelling steam. “I couldn’t get it to serve tea.”

  Fornax gave a grunt of thanks, tasted the bitter drink and scowled. Philyra looked equally unimpressed by the offering but was a little more gracious.

  “Thanks,” she said. She turned to the window and looked across the concrete apron to the berthed Platypus. “Is that your ship? It looks different, somehow.”

  “It’s a long story,” admitted Quirinus. “But you still haven’t told me yours.”

  “I was in Newbrum doing a piece on the dig and chasing rumours of alien artefacts on the black market,” Fornax said wearily. “The trail led us to a ship owned by the Dhusarian Church, which we boarded and ended up here.”

  “I’m her personal assistant,” Philyra added.

  “That’s your freighter out there?” asked Fornax, eyeing Quirinus suspiciously. “It has smuggler w
ritten all over it. Doing a bit of black-market trading yourself?”

  “I am looking for my daughter,” Quirinus replied frostily. “She went missing from the dig over two weeks ago.”

  “Ravana’s gone missing?” Philyra’s face fell. “I’m so sorry. Can we help?”

  “You can tell me if there’s anyone in that transport parked outside,” said Quirinus impatiently. “It’s a delight to meet you again, my dear Philyra, but you may have noticed that we’re nowhere near wherever the action is. If I am to steal someone else’s wheels, it would be nice to know if there’s anyone inside ready to object.”

  “We had hoods over our heads,” Philyra reminded him. “I’ve no idea what happened between us landing here and you finding us. On the spaceship there was just the pilot and co-pilot, plus a couple of nasty-looking robots in crates. Didn’t you see anything? Surely you must have heard a spacecraft landing right next to the dome.”

  “I was asleep,” Quirinus said irritably. “And I left an idiot on watch.”

  “There are others here?” asked Fornax, raising an inquisitive eyebrow.

  “My co-pilot Momus,” he told them. “And Ravana’s friend Zotz.”

  “Zotz is here?” remarked Philyra. “That’s cool.”

  She sipped upon the sickly chocolate drink and gazed thoughtfully through the window. Fornax climbed to her feet and hobbled to the door through which they had come. Quirinus followed and saw that whoever had abandoned the reporter and Philyra in the hangar had also left behind what he assumed was their luggage. His mind whirled with unanswered questions and he was unwilling to let the subject drop.

  “These Dhusarians,” said Quirinus. “What did their ship look like?”

  “Some sort of personnel carrier,” Fornax told him. “A black flying wing.”

  “Pretty much like that one,” said Philyra. Still at the window, she pointed towards an arrow-shaped blob high above the distant horizon. “Do you think they’re coming back?”

  “What!” exclaimed Quirinus. “Where?”