Paw-Prints Of The Gods

by Steph Bennion

  “Ravana!” hissed Quirinus, who had also stopped. “Save the heroics until later!”

  He grabbed her aching arm and pulled her forward. The passageway seemed never-ending, made more so by the sound of the scurrying spiders behind. After what seemed an age, they spied the light of the exit and finally scrambled into the trench beyond.

  Zotz was waiting in the dome, calling and waving from the entrance of the flexible walkway. Kedesh limped to Ravana’s side, still holding the waste cartridge taken from the cryogenic capsule. She had also found time to grab her cricket bat on the way.

  “Jizo made me leave it behind,” Kedesh said sourly. “She was no fan of cricket.”

  “This way!” Zotz cried. “Quickly!”

  Behind them, the jaws of a spider snapped at the ragged opening in the arch. Quirinus raised a gun, released a barrage of shots into the arachnid’s head and the creature fell to the ground. He shoved the pistols into his belt and reached for his wristpad communicator.

  “Momus!” he yelled. “Start the engines!”

  * * *

  Ravana, Quirinus and Kedesh, out of breath after their frantic dash back through the labyrinth, hurried to where Zotz eagerly beckoned them on. The dome’s airtight door was open, beyond which the walkway tunnel curved up to where vacuum clamps held it to the underside of a spacecraft’s curved bow. At the other end, Ravana saw the welcoming sight of the open pod bay door of the Platypus, from which dangled a wire ladder. As Zotz sealed the dome door behind them, a pair of legs appeared at the pod bay hatch. Govannon clambered uneasily down the ladder and dropped into the tunnel ahead.

  “What happened to the others?” gasped Quirinus.

  “All present and accounted for,” Govannon reported. “The Que Qiao agents made off in their own transport, see? Everyone else is aboard. I’m sorry to say that includes Dagan and the other Dhusarian. It seemed cruel to leave them here.”

  “This is Kedesh,” Ravana said, seeing his wary look. “She helped us escape.”

  “What happened to the Dhusarians’ transport?” asked Kedesh.

  “Momus hooked it up to the road-laying machine and set it off on automatic pilot across the desert,” Zotz replied, grinning.

  They became aware of a faint chattering on the other side of the airtight hatch, a sound rapidly followed by the muffled patter of arachnid feet. Ravana put an ear to the door and shivered. Quirinus flipped the timer switches to release the clamps securing the Platypus to the tunnel, then with Ravana quickly followed Govannon, Zotz and Kedesh up the ladder and through the pod bay to the flight deck of the ship. Ravana quickly made for her co-pilot’s seat and ran her fingers across the console, checking flight systems.

  “Ship!” Quirinus called, shutting the floor hatch. “Seal the EV pod bay door.”

  “I’m already on it,” retorted Momus. He caught Quirinus’ stare and moved to the adjacent seat to leave the pilot’s chair clear. “Ready when you are, captain.”

  “Pre-flight checks complete,” intoned the AI. “Life support and flight systems online and functioning normally. Faults remain in the forward...”

  “We haven’t got time for that!” snapped Quirinus, taking his chair.

  A series of clunks sounded, followed by a thud and the flexible walkway fell away from the ship. Govannon slipped into the crawl tunnel to join his students, huddled together on a bench in the cargo bay, the couch in the carousel having already been commandeered by Fornax, Philyra, Lilith and Dagan. Seeing Zotz take the fourth seat on the flight deck, Kedesh was about to follow Govannon when a movement outside caught her eye.

  “Look!” she cried, pointing. “They’re coming through the dome!”

  Ravana gasped in horror. A spider was wriggling through a hole in the dome’s inflatable wall, its powerful jaws masticating upon shreds of ripped fabric. The poisonous air of Falsafah did not seem to be slowing it down. Momus glanced up and went pale.

  “What the bloody crapping hell is that frigging eight-legged freak?”

  “Ship!” yelled Ravana. “Start the engines, maximum reverse thrust!”

  “Brakes released,” said Quirinus. “I’m extending the wings now.”

  The Platypus shuddered into life with a roar of thrusters and backed away from the dome. More spiders were forcing their way through the dome’s sagging wall. Kedesh tore her eyes from the scene, turned to the crawl tunnel and cursed as a couple of the AI’s tendrils dropped from a conduit and slapped her in the face. She gave Quirinus a startled stare, wedged her cannon and cricket bat under another thick tendril, grabbed the cryogenic capsule cartridge and hurriedly slipped away to the cargo bay to find a seat.

  “Main engines running using onboard oxygen,” the AI confirmed.

  “Ravana, can you handle take-off?” asked Quirinus. “The boosters aren’t wired into the AI, so I need to run some manual calculations on when to fire them.”

  “What about me?” retorted Momus. “The pilot you hired?”

  “I know exactly when to fire you,” Quirinus muttered. Zotz grinned.

  Ravana nodded anxiously. She switched to forward thrust, pulled the rudder across and the beak-like nose of the Platypus swung away from the archaeologists’ domes onto the runway. Several tense moments passed before the ship reached the end of the airstrip and turned once more for its take-off run. Ravana’s implant link to the AI was live and she mentally scanned the various read-outs for alerts. The hull sensors made it feel as if the spacecraft’s wings were trembling in sympathy with her own nerves rather than on the breeze. Quirinus pressed a switch to activate the ship’s intercom.

  “Ready for take off,” he announced. His amplified voice echoed back through the crawl tunnel. “Anyone not strapped into a seat is about to get very bruised.”

  “Ship,” said Ravana. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Your wish is my command,” said the AI. “Commencing full thrust now.”

  The main engines roared and the Platypus surged down the runway. They were close to take-off speed when a huge arachnid suddenly scurried across the airstrip ahead. Ravana gritted her teeth, hauled back on the aileron control and the spacecraft lifted just as a loud thud came from below. Her hands firm upon the controls, she used her implant to switch on the rear-view camera. The display rewarded her with an image of the mangled remains of a spider spread across the runway. More importantly, they were in the air.

  “That was close,” she murmured and flexed her throbbing arm. “Too close.”

  “Cool,” murmured Zotz, looking pale.

  “Good work,” Quirinus agreed, glancing from where he tapped busily at a console. “We need to persuade Verdandi to give you a pilot’s licence. It doesn’t seem fair that the law makes you wait until you’re eighteen.”

  Momus stared at her. “You haven’t got a frigging licence?”

  Ravana grinned. “Out here, who cares?”

  “How about the police ship behind us?” suggested Zotz.

  The rear-view display showed a flying-wing spacecraft hot on their tail. Ravana accessed her implant and brought up the ship’s location beacon data.

  “The Alf-Sana Booma,” she said. “It must be the Que Qiao agents’ ship.”

  “Forget them,” said Quirinus. “We need to fire the boosters at ten kilometres. It’s more marginal than I hoped, but I never expected to have this many people aboard.”

  “What if they don’t bloody fire?” asked Momus.

  Quirinus ignored him and instead looked questioningly at Ravana.

  “Altitude is five kilometres and climbing,” she said, after a lengthy pause. “We’re on the maximum rate of ascent but still some way off escape velocity.”

  The violent shuddering of the ship began to ease as they climbed ever higher through the thinning upper atmosphere. She watched her father’s hand go to the control panel for the trio of rockets fixed to the hull, fully aware that what they were about to attempt was risky in the extreme. The Mars-class Platypus was not designed to break free of
a planet with the gravity of Falsafah. If anything went wrong, the only place they could go was down; most likely in a jumble of burning wreckage.

  “Eight kilometres,” she said. “I’m bringing in the wings. Ship, how are we doing?”

  “Atmospheric ascent is steady and holding,” responded the AI.

  The Alf-Sana Booma shot into view above them at the head of four blazing spears of thrust. It was a more powerful ship and would have no problem making orbit. An unexpected pang of jealousy made Ravana feel quite defensive about the ageing Platypus, which had been a part of her life as long as she could remember. She gave the console a soothing pat.

  “Ten kilometres on my mark,” she said. “Five, four, three, two...”

  Quirinus thumbed the switch. Ravana felt a surge of relief as all three boosters fired, instantly shoving her back in her seat to a rumble she felt through the vibrating hull rather than heard. Startled shrieks drifted from the carousel and cargo bay, which were promptly drowned by a sudden chorus of alarms from the console. The ship was being pushed past its design limits for atmospheric flight and the AI did not like it one bit.

  Momus reached to the console and silenced the alarms. Through the windscreen, the curvature of the planet below was becoming more pronounced, wreathed in atmospheric haze below a pink Falsafah sky darkening to black. Ravana, her hands drenched in sweat upon the controls, concentrated on completing their course into orbit. Her headache had returned, this time on the grounds it felt like her eyeballs were rattling inside her skull.

  After what seemed an age, the boosters cut out and the shaking of the ship eased. The stillness that descended upon the flight deck was sudden and sweet, broken only by the gentle murmur of the main engines. Ravana leaned back in her chair and sighed with relief.

  “Orbital insertion complete,” the ship informed them. Ravana thought the AI sounded surprised it was not delivering a more doom-laden missive. “That was a most exhilarating experience. Main engines powering down. Interplanetary plasma drive on standby.”

  Quirinus stretched wearily and batted away a stray tendril floating up from the console. The fading look of panic upon his face spoke volumes.

  “Piece of cake,” he remarked. “Next stop, Barnard’s Star.”

  “Cake?” Ravana smiled and thought of the greys. “I gave the last of it to Nana.”

  Her face fell when she saw the angular blip on the scanner screen. The Alf-Sana Booma, ahead in a higher orbit, was dropping back down and coming their way.

  * * *

  The Alf-Sana Booma loomed large through the windscreen. It had not taken the Que Qiao officers long to bring their ship alongside the Platypus and issue their demands to come aboard. The flying wing approached from above, belly-side up, spraying jets of gas as it moved to dock its roof airlock with that of the aged freighter. Ravana and Quirinus both knew the Platypus could not outrun the police flyer, but figured they had nothing to hide. That did not stop Kedesh looking worried.

  Several anxious minutes later, there was a clunk and the two ships docked. Quirinus asked Momus to watch over Lilith and Dagan in the carousel until they found out what the agents wanted, but left the ship’s intercom switched on so everyone could hear. Fornax and Philyra stayed with the Dhusarians, eager to question them for Fornax’s coveted scoop. Being in orbit meant there was no real gravity within either ship, but with Artorius and Govannon joining Quirinus, Ravana and Kedesh on the flight deck, plus Zotz, Xuthus, Hestia and Urania all scrabbling for space to watch from the crawl tunnel, being able to float did little to ease an uncomfortably crowded situation as they waited for their visitors to arrive.

  Yima was first to drift through the ceiling hatch. He winced as his bandaged arm found the handrail before his fingers did, only to receive an unsympathetic sneer from his colleague behind. Ininna flinched at the sight of a tendril slowly uncurling towards her neck. Ravana got the impression the ship’s AI did not relish their presence. Both agents were quick to reveal they were armed with replacement guns.

  “Welcome aboard,” said Quirinus, eyeing Ininna carefully. “To what do we owe this pleasure? Do you want a witness report on how you bravely ran away from the spiders?”

  “Silence!” snapped Ininna.

  Ravana, sat in her co-pilot’s seat, watched as Ininna manoeuvred across to where Kedesh calmly drifted. Artorius sat sullenly in Zotz’s vacated seat, nursing his bandaged hand. The boy was clearly upset; Hestia had done what she could for his broken finger with the ship’s first-aid kit, but Ravana’s attempts to speak to him had only deepened his sulk.

  “Marion Kedesh,” spat Ininna. “Why did you not leave Falsafah when we asked? Now I have the tedious job of arresting everyone aboard this heap and taking you all to Aram for interrogation. Have you any idea how much form-filling that involves?”

  “Nobody is going anywhere,” Quirinus said roughly. He floated poised behind his pilot’s seat with a hand upon the switch panel for the mining thrusters. “Did you see the rockets strapped to the hull? It wouldn’t take much to fire the release mechanism and shoot the top booster straight through your nice shiny spaceship.”

  “You’re bluffing,” growled Yima. His glance went to the switch beneath Quirinus’ fingertips and a flicker of doubt crossed his face. “We don’t want trouble.”

  “What do you want?” asked Govannon, his hand on his hat.

  “The two Dhusarians we suspect you of shielding are wanted on terrorist charges,” Ininna replied, facing her audience one by one. “Kedesh here is a veritable thorn in our side. We have special orders regarding the boy; and also for you, Ravana O’Brien.”

  “Me?” exclaimed Ravana, startled. “What did I do?”

  “You are not taking my daughter anywhere!” growled Quirinus.

  “Doctor Jones!” cried Xuthus. “Say something! Don’t let them take Ravana!”

  “You’re not taking Artorius, either!” retorted Ravana.

  “We have been monitoring communications on Falsafah,” Yima told her. “Including the internal camera feeds at Falsafah Alpha. Your scarred little face was matched against one of a party of royalist rebels causing mischief on Yuanshi several months ago. Do you make a habit of sabotaging research stations?”

  Kedesh had not yet spoken. Ravana watched as she withdrew a familiar vial of blood from her pocket. Her other hand held the waste cartridge from the cryogenic capsule.

  “This is what your superiors want,” Kedesh said, offering both to Ininna. “Artorius and I will play along and come with you, if you let the others go free.”

  “No!” Ravana cried. “He’s staying with us.”

  “You made Stripy and Nana go away,” muttered Artorius. “I don’t like you anymore.”

  Kedesh gave Ravana an apologetic grin. “Rude as ever, I see. Once the Americans hear Que Qiao has him, he’ll be back home safe and sound on Avalon in no time.”

  Ravana looked confused. “I don’t understand.”

  “You and me both,” grumbled Quirinus.

  Ininna motioned to Yima to relieve Kedesh of the vial and cartridge.

  “Evidence,” Kedesh told them. “I’m sure you have basic forensic equipment aboard your ship. Get some DNA samples and see what you find.”

  “Why the sudden cooperation?” Ininna asked, suspicious. “Is this some kind of trick?”

  “No trick. I want you to know the state of play if we’re coming with you to Aram. What happened down there is far bigger than you can possibly imagine.”

  “Bigger than an alien temple with huge killer spiders coming out of ground?” scoffed Yima. “Have you done a visual scan of Arallu since you left? There’s hundreds of the damn things, pouring across the desert and dropping like flies. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “They’re dying?” asked Quirinus.

  Ininna shrugged. “It seems they do need oxygen, after all.”

  Artorius looked at Ininna. “I want to go home,” he said.

  “You could come with us,” Ravana sugg
ested gently. “We’re your friends.”

  “My friend was Stripy,” he retorted. “You sent him and Nana down a hole.”

  “We will look after you,” Ininna said to Artorius. “They’re worried about you back on Avalon. We just need to ask you some questions about the people you were with on Falsafah and then we’ll take you home. Would you like that?”

  Artorius nodded. He wriggled free of his seat belt and pulled himself across the cabin to where the agents waited. Yima pocketed the vial, took Artorius’ hand and led him through the roof hatch into the Alf-Sana Booma. Ravana watched Artorius go with tears in her eyes. She did not want him to be angry about the departure of the greys.

  “A wise decision,” remarked Ininna. “So he’s important to the Americans?”

  “We spoke to Missi, the AI at Falsafah Alpha,” Kedesh told her. “It was obsessed with experiments it had continued to run despite there being no human crew at the station. I guess you know of the eight-legged horrors loose in the nearby valley. When we were in the alien chamber, I saw the cut marks on the body of the dead weaver where someone had removed tissue samples and wondered if there was a connection.”

  “Weaver?” asked Ravana, puzzled.

  “We did find evidence of a previous dig,” Govannon said. “There was an old oxygen cylinder, see? In an area of recent infill around the entrance.”

  “Someone also left a bomb for Professor Cadmus,” piped up Hestia. Ininna responded with a glare, having seemingly forgotten her audience in the crawl tunnel.

  “There was an American expedition to Arallu around ten years ago,” said Kedesh and smiled at Govannon’s surprise. “Very hush-hush, if you know what I mean. My guess is that the samples taken from the chamber were Missi’s experiment, in that the giant spiders in the valley are clones grown from the dissected tissue. But Missi also spoke of Artorius when it referred to other experiments. I think something else was taken from the chamber.”

  “The cryogenic capsule,” murmured Quirinus. “It was empty.”