Paw-Prints Of The Gods
Page 37
“What was that?” snapped Jizo.
“Right angles to reality,” Ravana said slowly, still holding Artorius. The equations that had puzzled the priest now made sense. “A door through space-time, like that created by an ED drive, but on land. You think your gods are waiting on the other side.”
Dhanus turned to face her. “zz-iin-yyoouur-heeaad-bee-iit-zz.”
“zz-aand-bee-it-iin-yyoouurs-zz!” Simha screeched to Artorius.
“A lucky guess,” mumbled Athene, scowling. Ravana gave a wry smile.
Lilith looked thoughtful. Jizo scowled and swayed unsteadily before them, her mouth open ready to speak. Lilith raised her hand to stop her and beckoned to Ravana.
“Come and see this,” she said. “Tell me what you think.”
“Be careful!” urged her father.
Ravana gave the sobbing Artorius a hug and hesitantly followed Lilith to the far side of the pool. The white coffin-shaped capsule, wearing its stars and stripes, came as a shock. Ravana had barely registered Xuthus’ remark about the lost flight to Alpha Centauri but recognised the pod for what it was, having seen old cryogenic units at the spacecraft breaking yards on Ascension. It looked very out of place in the alien chamber.
Her silent stare moved to the crumpled arachnid and a shiver ran down her spine. Equally perturbing were the sharp-edged gouges across the creature’s bulbous head, which looked like the interrupted cuts of a surgeon. Kedesh came to her side.
“Thraak thraak,” said Nana. The grey’s voice sounded oddly distant.
“The capsule and spider,” Ravana murmured. “Did they arrive together?”
“It must have spun a hell of a web to catch a frozen astronaut,” said Kedesh.
“Astronaut?” retorted Jizo. “Go on, show them.”
Lilith knelt before the capsule and pressed a concealed catch. Ravana expected the hiss of gas or a puff of vapour, but there was nothing. Lilith took hold of the lid and lifted it open. Athene sprang to look and Ravana shuddered as the watcher’s visage momentarily slipped into the fang-toothed crone she saw on Hursag Asag.
“zz-froozeen-traaveelleer-creeaateed-aaneew-zz,” intoned Simha.
“zz-reeboorn-beeneeaath-twiin-suuns-zz,” screeched Dhanus.
Ravana glanced towards Artorius. “Surely you don’t think...?”
She left her sentence unfinished. Through her implant she felt the fierce passion of the cyberclones, a cruel wash of emotions shaped from shards of pain. Taranis’ disciples were half alien and part machine; all manner of ideas may have been implanted in their minds during their creation. In her eyes Artorius was but an innocent little boy, one who had already suffered too much at the hands of Jizo. Ravana did not want him to suffer any more.
“Nana, Stripy,” she said. “This portal. Is it something you can open?”
“Fwack fwack!”
“Thraak thraak.”
Ravana’s implant translator flickered with the strange chain-gang image from their confrontation with Missi’s spiders. The unmistakeable odour of alien flatulence filled the air.
“Enough of your horrid games,” Ravana told Jizo tartly. “The greys will fulfil Artorius’ so-called destiny and then we’re out of here. All of us.”
“Don’t do it,” Athene said suddenly. “You have no idea what’s on the other side.”
Jizo gave Ravana a venomous glare. “Your move, demon king.”
* * *
Chapter Fourteen
Close encounters of the eight-legged kind
[Chapter Thirteen] [Contents] [Ebook Extras]
ZOTZ WAS THE FIRST to react upon hearing the ship’s alert of an incoming message and was at the holovid console before a dozing Momus had time to move his feet out of the way. With everyone else away in the domes, the mood within the Platypus simmered in an air of nervous anticipation. The AI’s gentle beep had a similar impact to a meteorite strike.
“It’s Endymion,” said Zotz, startled. “Calling from Newbrum.”
The on-screen holding message cleared to reveal a grinning Endymion and a tentative-looking Ostara, both of whom were squeezed into a holovid booth clearly not designed to seat two. Judging by distant announcements and the chaotic background scene, they were in a public booth at the spaceport. The image jerked and occasionally froze, for the signal from Ascension’s servermoon was coming direct to the Platypus rather than via Aram and the ship’s transceiver was having problems smoothing the incoming chunks of data.
“Hi Endymion, Ostara,” greeted Zotz, with a wave at the screen.
“I got Quirinus’ message,” Ostara said excitedly, before Endymion could speak. “I’m so glad Ravana is safe! Where are you now? Are they there with you?”
Momus’ response was not so enthusiastic. “They’re off rescuing some brat from a bunch of frigging Dhusarian nutcases,” he grumbled.
“We’re still on Falsafah, at the dig,” added Zotz, feeling he should clarify the man’s summary of the situation. “Two of Taranis’ cyberclones are here. Ravana says the Dhusarians are being really horrible and have taken this boy somewhere for a silly prophecy.”
“That’s why we’re calling!” cried Endymion. “The Church was after Taranis’ Book of the Greys. All my stuff on the servermoon was hacked and the copy I kept has gone.”
“We’ve also traced some of the other clones,” Ostara said hesitantly. “I’ve a horrible feeling all twelve survived.”
“What?” Zotz looked worried. “Where are they?”
“Two were seen in Yao Chi on Taotie,” she said. “Another two on Asgard. Endymion has been brilliant and asked all his spaceport contacts for sightings of their ship.”
“The Atterberg Epiphany,” said Momus. “Black flying wing?”
Endymion looked surprised. “How do you know?”
“Because I’m staring at the bloody thing right now,” retorted Momus. “What about the frigging mad priest himself? Don’t tell me he’s still around.”
Zotz went pale. “Taranis?”
Ostara however just shrugged. “We don’t know. I found someone from the Newbrum church willing to talk and the word being put out is that Taranis has ‘ascended to a higher plane’, whatever that means,” she said. “The scary thing is that they see the appearance of the cyberclones as the start of something big. Having someone like Nyx in charge also worries me. It seems wrong to have a police officer involved in all this.”
“Something big,” mused Momus. “Just my frigging luck to be in the middle of it all.”
“We’ll be back as soon as we can,” Zotz promised.
“Be careful,” said Ostara, pensively. Endymion tapped her shoulder and pointed to something off screen. “We’re about to run out of credits. See you...”
The holovid screen went blank, then switched to a generic servermoon status screen. Momus killed the connection, leaned back in his seat and looked thoughtfully at Zotz. He reached to the console again and opened a voice channel to Quirinus’ wristpad.
“Captain?” he called. “We’ve had news from Newbrum. Are you receiving me?”
A hiss of static wafted from the cabin speakers. There was no response.
“Ship?” Zotz sounded hesitant. “Is Ravana using her implant?”
“The link is active but Miss O’Brien is out of range,” the AI replied.
“Wonderful,” muttered Momus.
“It is an archaeology dig,” Zotz said hesitantly. “They might be underground.”
“The calm before a frigging storm,” said Momus. His gaze moved from the Atterberg Epiphany to the Alf-Sana Booma, just visible beyond the domes. “It’s a bit bloody crowded for my liking. I don’t want to be last off this crappy planet when all hell breaks loose.”
Zotz knew he meant they would need to get people back aboard fast. His own stare was upon the Dhusarians’ transport linked to the nearby dome. The flexible walkway tunnel had multi-purpose vacuum couplings that could link to anything with a hatch, assuming they could get the transport out of the
way. His gaze caught the road-laying machine parked in the desert near the end of the runway and he smiled.
“Captain Momus?” asked Zotz. “Do you have your spacesuit handy?”
* * *
Ravana stared warily at the cloaked figures and shuddered. The cyberclone monks had lowered their hoods to expose their lizard-like features and paced restlessly from one rod to the next. The staccato chants that left their lips were neither their customary screeching English nor anything the translator could decipher. Her implant pulsed wave upon wave of the clones’ anger into her headache, tightening the noose upon her mind.
She knew a limitation of all cyberclones was they lacked initiative. Jizo appeared to be their controller, but without Cadmus the nurse seemed lost. It was the greys who now led the way. Stripy, scrutinising a nearby rod, ran nimble fingers over the faint indentations Ravana had seen earlier. Nana had clambered across to the remains of the crumbled cocoon and was rummaging through the debris as if looking for something.
A tearful Artorius stood between Ravana and Jizo, clutching his mutilated hand. The nurse, her meaty palm clamped upon the boy’s shoulder, had ordered Quirinus to join them within the circle of rods so that Lilith could keep her gun upon them all. Dagan was back on guard at the archway, masked from view by the bright floodlights. Behind Lilith, not far from where her electric cat chewed fitfully upon the remains of the cambot, Ravana saw Kedesh surreptitiously kneeling by the cryogenic capsule. Athene had once again vanished from sight. Ravana suspected they had not seen the last of the watcher.
“What’s that?” demanded Jizo. Her slurred words were aimed at Kedesh, who was edging away from the capsule with a curved box in her hands. “What are you doing?”
“It’s the waste disposal cartridge,” Kedesh explained sheepishly. “With any luck it’ll contain DNA samples. When this is over, we can find out who or what was inside.”
“Artorius is not their star man!” Ravana said defensively.
“zz-oorphaaneed-chiild-oof-Sool-zz,” screeched Dhanus.
“zz-hiiddeen-byy-slaavees-aand-maasteers-zz!” shrieked Simha.
“Yes, but as a theory, it’s not very scientific, is it?” Kedesh protested.
A sudden deep-throated groan, born from the bowels of the planet, rolled across the chamber. Ravana and her father exchanged nervous glances, then both jumped in alarm as a curtain of ethereal blue light leapt from one grey rod to the next. A split second later there came a loud crack, followed by a shriek from Artorius. All twelve columns began to creep sideways, grinding anti-clockwise around the pool. Each upright rod gouged a deep arc as it moved, which quickly merged to slice a huge circular gash in the trembling ground. Finding herself in the way, Lilith gave a strangled cry and leapt back to avoid being hit. The rods continued to slide by, leaving Ravana with the impression that she and others within the circle were trapped inside a slowly-rotating cage. A faint blue glow issued from the shifting rods, creating a hazy column of light.
“What’s happening?” asked Jizo, startled. “Why are they moving?”
“Thraak,” Nana said gaily. “Thraak thraak thraak!”
“Fwack fwack,” confirmed Stripy.
“They’re opening the door,” murmured Artorius, his face pale.
The cyberclones released guttural shrieks and stopped. A storm of emotions leeched from Ravana’s implant, yet the translator images of the greys’ cries came through clear. It was the same picture of hope that had kept her going ever since their escape from the Dhusarians’ dome. The conversation in the stolen transport, when she and Artorius had asked Nana and Stripy about their home world, came vividly back to mind. Talk of doors and portals and trees in space was not enough to express what the star chamber meant to the greys. Artorius slipped free of Jizo’s grip and gave Ravana a hug.
“A way home,” Ravana said in wonder. “They’ve found a way back home!”
“You really should not be doing this,” an angry voice purred in her ear.
Ravana scowled at the ice-smooth tones of the watcher. She turned to the figure who had appeared beside her and stifled a shriek. Athene’s youthful visage was twisted in a cruel grimace of lips curled around bared incisors and the cold yellow stare of a hunter preparing for the kill. Earlier, Fornax had described watchers as alien cat gods. Athene looked ready to give Ravana’s Hindu namesake some serious competition in the vengeful deity stakes.
“zz-oopeen-thee-doooor-zz!” shrieked Dhanus.
On the other side of Artorius, Jizo swayed uneasily before the rotating circle of rods, her mask of confidence in tatters. Ravana saw Kedesh’s eyes follow Athene, who began to pace restlessly around the pool as the clones had done before her. No one else appeared to be aware of the watcher’s presence.
Ravana felt Artorius’ tight embrace and saw his tearful gaze become a look of awe. Nana and Stripy approached, bearing the dignified calm of visiting diplomats. In Nana’s hands was a glistening green globe, no bigger than a fist, made of what looked like damp leather that nonetheless sparkled in the blue luminescence of the chamber walls. The elderly grey shuffled to a halt and offered it to Ravana.
“Thraak,” Nana said solemnly. “Thraak thraak.”
“Err... thanks,” said Ravana, nonplussed. “What is it?”
“Just what you always wanted,” muttered Quirinus. “Fossilised spider snot.”
Artorius frowned. “Where’s mine?”
“You can’t do this!” Athene looked angrier than ever. “You’re changing the rules!”
The watcher’s reaction puzzled Ravana. Nana held out the globe with a gaze of both sadness and joy. Ravana gingerly took the mysterious gift in her hands and found it light and surprisingly dry to the touch. Feeling she should present something in return, she remembered what was in her pocket and withdrew the silver-wrapped packet.
“Would you like some cake?” she asked.
Nana gratefully took the offering. “Thraak thraak!”
“Good call,” Kedesh murmured approvingly.
“What a sweet little scene!” said Jizo, adopting a mocking tone. “I have a present for you, mister star man. Would you like to see it?”
Quirinus and Kedesh exchanged worried glances. Ravana hissed a warning and tried to pull the boy away. Artorius looked to the looming presence of Jizo, then down at her clenched fingers and hesitantly nodded. As he moved closer to see what the nurse held, she grabbed his ear and gave it a vicious twist. The greys shrieked.
“Ow!” screamed Artorius. “That hurt!”
“I’ll rip off both your ears if you don’t get a move on!”
Nana stopped shrieking and tugged Ravana’s arm. Stripy scooped the electric pet from the floor and hugged it tight, not seeming to mind that the cat was more interested in the half-eaten shreds of cambot between its claws. Ravana realised the circling rods moved much more rapidly than before and caught the anxiety in the greys’ behaviour.
“Fwack fwack,” urged Stripy. “Fwack fwack.”
“Thraak thraak,” reiterated Nana.
Kedesh caught the girl’s glance and nodded. “Time to declare, I think.”
“Really?” Ravana retorted scornfully. “Back on my side, are you?”
“I never left it! I was batting for you, all the way.”
“zz-iin-yyoouur-heeaad-bee-iit-zz!” chanted the clones. “zz-oopeen-thee-doooor-zz!”
“No!” cried Athene. “Don’t listen to those brain-washed cyber-boneheads!”
Ravana approached the rods and watched them sweep from right to left before her, each trailing a faint blue mist. The rotating cage soared to the distant ceiling and her blood ran cold at the thought they were somehow trapped inside. She tentatively raised her right hand and pushed her fingers through the luminous vapour swirling between the moving rods.
Her father looked nervous. “Be careful!” he urged.
“My hand goes right through the light,” Ravana said, relieved. “There was me thinking it was some sort of force... Ow!”
“Ravana!” cried Quirinus. He rushed to her side. “Are you okay?”
“zz-oopeen-thee-doooor-zz!” the clones shrieked again. “zz-oopeen-thee-doooor-zz!”
“Better do as the lizard men say,” sneered Jizo. “They eat people like you.”
“You’d make a veritable banquet, my fat pickled friend,” growled Athene.
Ravana climbed to her feet, rubbed her aching arm and froze. Jizo looked ready to hit her back to the floor, but it was something else that had caught the girl’s eye.
The dark swirling surface of the pool bubbled and churned like the brew of a witch’s cauldron. As Ravana stared, the shattered cocoon tilted and slid aside, wallowing on a wave that rose from the depths. There was a hiss of liquid, then all of a sudden a huge glistening mass of smooth skin and spindly legs erupted from the pool.
Artorius screamed. Ravana, rooted to the spot in terror, did likewise. The egg-shaped mass rising before them had eight insect-like legs, emerging from the top to bend downwards into the pool. Several dreadful moments passed before Ravana realised what she feared to be a giant spider was nothing of the sort. Standing twice her height, with a mottled green surface streaked with veins, it was like no living thing she had ever seen.
The rising hulk shuddered to a halt. An oval aperture broke open in the side, revealing a space within that glowed with a faint pink light. Startled, Ravana stared as what looked like a tongue appeared below the aperture and rolled across the pool towards them. She remembered Govannon’s description of what he had seen on his previous visit and gazed in wonder at the multi-limbed cocoon. The incredible thought struck her that it was some sort of vehicle, conjured from the depths to replace the one crumbled to dust.