“That’s nice for you,” muttered Endymion.
“I’d forgotten about that book.” Ostara looked thoughtful. “Is it valuable?”
“Maybe,” Bellona said warily.
“Well, Ravana doesn’t have it anymore,” retorted Endymion. “Verdandi ordered it to be confiscated as evidence when there was talk of an investigation into your crackpot church. I have no idea where it is now.”
Bellona glared and stuck her tongue out at him, but otherwise looked downcast.
“You seem remarkably well-informed on the subject,” observed Ostara.
“I helped Ravana make a copy before she...” Endymion started, then bit his lip.
“There’s a copy?” exclaimed Bellona, brightening.
Endymion quickly shook his head and turned to avoid her excited stare.
“Where is it?” asked Bellona. “I know! I bet you used the scanners at school.”
“No, I didn’t!”
“A copy?” asked Ostara. “Why would she want that old thing?”
“Ravana probably has it on her slate,” reasoned Bellona. “But you hide all your programming stuff on the servermoon! I bet you kept a backup file!”
“Lies!” cried Endymion, but his guilty expression gave him away.
“Your secret is safe with me,” Bellona said solemnly.
“Drat,” muttered Endymion. “Anyway, you’re the one who broke into Quirinus’ cabin. I could report you to spaceport security!”
“And say what? That you caught me looking for stolen church property, which you had secretly copied using school equipment and dodgy hackware?”
“I helped raise the funds to buy that equipment!” argued Endymion.
“You set up an illegal holobooth scam,” Bellona reminded him. “You rigged the school’s network so any telesales AIs that called would be put through to a premium-rate answering service.”
Endymion scowled. Ostara grinned, having heard the story before from Ravana. He had been severely reprimanded at the time, but the school head later confessed to not being sure whether to expel him or award him an honorary degree in business studies. Bellona slid from the bunk without another word and with one last glare pushed her way past her brother, slipped through the doorway and was gone. Endymion watched her go and sighed.
“I told you that church was a bad influence,” he grumbled.
“Is that book important?” Ostara moved to the door to see where Bellona had gone, but was distracted by the sight of the café owner walking towards their table with their order. She blushed as her stomach rumbled again.
“Maybe,” Endymion said thoughtfully. He glanced towards the holovid unit on the wall. “There might be something about it in that BBC report you mentioned.”
Ostara looked hungrily towards the food awaiting them at the table.
“It can wait,” she said. “Detective work is no fun on an empty stomach.”
* * *
Fornax arranged to meet Philyra at noon, but it was a good ten minutes past the hour before the young girl finally arrived. The section of Hockley Market between Queensway and the dome wall was a hive of activity and possibly the most dirty, noisy and frantic place in Newbrum, with an incredible array of goods constantly being shunted between vehicles, storage sheds, shops and stalls. Many of the male workers nevertheless still found time to stand and leer as she stood at the roadside, feeling lost and alone. When Philyra finally appeared, fiddling with her wristpad as she walked, Fornax almost hugged her in relief. She was touched to see the girl wearing a similar tunic and leggings outfit to herself, even down to styling her hair the same way. Fornax smiled, pleased that she had made a lasting impression upon her young apprentice reporter.
Philyra looked up from the screen of her wristpad and gave her a critical look. “You shouldn’t try to copy my style,” she complained, instantly dampening the woman’s revived spirits. “It doesn’t look right on you at all.”
Fornax gave Philyra a suitably withering smile. “What are you watching?” she asked. The girl’s wristpad screen was alive with flickering holovid images.
“Gods of Avalon,” she replied and lowered her wrist. “The contestants get dumber by the week. Some guy fell off a rope bridge into a river, tried to fight off robot piranhas with an electric lance and electrocuted himself.”
“Charming,” muttered Fornax, who was not a fan of the show. “Couldn’t we have met somewhere else?” she asked and winced as a nearby stack of crates toppled and crashed to the floor. “As in anywhere else but here? This place is giving me a headache.”
“You wanted to know about black market stuff,” Philyra said. “I asked Endymion and he told me about this guy at the spaceport who does a bit of trading on the side. He wouldn’t give me the man’s name but did tell me where to find him.”
“Sounds promising,” said Fornax. “Where do we find this mysterious stranger?”
Philyra pointed to a nearby shop, which had a large sign above the grime-covered window inscribed with the legend: ‘OUTER LIMITS EMPORIUM’. As if to confirm the shop’s dubious credentials, the nearby street security cameras had at some point been a victim of targeted arson and were now not much more than congealed lumps of metal and plastic.
As Fornax and Philyra approached the door, they were surprised by the appearance of Ostara and Endymion, who had chosen that moment to exit the very same shop. Endymion, who carried a small and new-looking holovid unit of a design not usually seen in Newbrum, greeted them with his usual easy-going grin. Ostara glared at Fornax as if the reporter had just kicked a lame puppy across the street.
“Who do we have here?” sneered Fornax. “The great detective, no less!”
“Still looking for your scoop?” Ostara asked, mirroring her mocking tone.
“Are you still totally clueless?” retorted the reporter.
Endymion rolled his eyes and gave Ostara an impatient nudge with the holovid unit in his hands. Ostara shot Fornax a final wounded look and led Endymion away through the bustling market and out of sight. Fornax scowled, then glanced across to Philyra, who stood with hands on hips and a look of weary irritation upon her face.
“Coming?” asked Philyra.
The inside of the shop was exactly what Fornax expected. Almost every square centimetre of floor space was taken up by a bizarre mix of cheap furniture, obsolete electrical equipment, dusty storage boxes and a dormant electric sheep. A couple of clothes racks displayed a shabby collection of out-of-date fashions in the far corner.
A narrow walkway wound through erratic stacks of merchandise to a small serving counter towards the back. There was a rail hanging at head height above the counter, upon which Fornax was bemused to see a ragged green parrot stalking up and down, eyeing them with interest. It looked like it had been in a fight with an electric fan and in places the feathers had fallen away to reveal the tarnished robot skeleton beneath. The proprietor was nowhere in sight, but faint sounds of activity and recorded music could be heard from a nearby half-open door. The ceiling light panels were off and the red daylight spilling through the door and dust-smeared window did little to dispel the gloom.
“This place is a tip,” remarked Fornax. “Look at this stuff! What use is it to anyone?”
“We use what we can get,” Philyra said indignantly. “Most of us can’t afford to import fancy new things from Earth or wherever. We don’t have the big robot factories that make all the nice stuff you’re obviously so used to.”
“But look at it! Voice-activated sofas are so twenty-second century.”
Philyra looked at her in scorn. Fornax smiled, glanced towards the door at the back of the shop, then walked to the counter and began to examine the odd bits of rock displayed on a tray. The electric parrot shuffled along its perch and fixed her with a beady-eyed stare.
“Hey, mister parrot,” greeted Fornax. She plucked a lump of rock from the tray and examined it closely in an attempt to avoid the bird’s piercing gaze. “Are these fossils?”
&
nbsp; The parrot cocked its head to one side and gave a metallic squawk.
“For sale!” it declared. “One credit!”
Philyra came to join Fornax and picked up another piece of rock. The dark-coloured sample contained an unmistakeable yet unidentifiable fragment of some long-dead creature. Fossils were rarely found on Ascension, but that was largely because geologists generally thought there were far more interesting planets to explore. Fornax knew little of the bleak landscape outside the dome but there was something about the colouring of these particular rocks that to her suggested they had come from a lot further afield.
“I’m guessing these aren’t local,” she remarked. “Where were they dug up?”
“Imported especially for you from Tau Ceti,” the parrot declared. “Genuine alien artefacts! Bones of the mysterious greys. One credit!”
“One credit for an authentic alien fossil?” Fornax frowned, disappointed that these particular alien artefacts were not what she expected. Now she thought about it, she was not sure what she had hoped to find.
“How much for a pencil?” asked Philyra. She had quickly become bored with looking at lumps of rock and had found a pot of archaic writing implements on a nearby desk.
“One credit!”
Fornax held up a fossil. “Are these from Falsafah?”
“One credit for a pencil?” Philyra laughed. “I could buy a laser stylus for that.”
“Alien artefact, one credit!” the parrot confirmed. “Pencil, one credit!”
“So a lump of rock, painstakingly identified and carefully extracted as an important extra-terrestrial relic,” said Fornax, “no doubt by a skilled archaeologist working under very trying conditions, then flown fifteen light years across the galaxy to this very shop, is deemed comparable in value to a wooden writing stick?”
The parrot paused, as if to consider the logic of her question. “One credit!”
“They must be really good pencils,” muttered Philyra.
“Is the owner of the shop here?” asked Fornax, impatiently.
The parrot did not reply. Fornax became aware of a sudden silence beyond the door to whatever lay at the rear of the emporium and began to suspect it was no coincidence they had found no one here. The reporter was a stranger in town, which would immediately ring alarm bells for anyone who thought nothing of sabotaging security cameras. She realised then that her direct approach had been wrong.
With a sigh, she glanced down at the display of fossils, looking for inspiration. It was then she saw that the tray was actually the lid of a storage box, of a similar size and shape to the smaller shipping containers used for interplanetary cargo. After glancing at both doors to make sure they were not about to be disturbed, she lifted the tray and peered beneath to see if there were any markings on what would be the top of the box lid, taking care not to spill its contents. Fornax smiled and lowered the tray back onto the counter.
“We should go,” she declared. “There’s nothing to see here.”
“Genuine alien artefacts!” the parrot protested. “One credit!”
“No thanks,” said Fornax. “These are not the finds I am looking for.”
Philyra looked puzzled by the odd tone to her voice. Fornax gave a cryptic smile, turned from the counter and walked briskly to the door. The reporter could almost hear the sigh of relief from whoever it was hiding in the room beyond.
“What now?” asked Philyra, as they stepped back out onto the street.
“The spaceport,” declared Fornax. “We have a ship to find.”
* * *
Bellona sat quietly in Circle Park, resting upon the soft grass with her back against the trunk of an anaemic conifer, her slate on her lap. As expected, Endymion had added untold layers of encryption to his personal network account and she was unable to confirm her assertion that he had a secret copy of Taranis’ Isa-Sastra, but figured Nyx could use his influence as a police officer to locate it easily enough. She had sent a message to Selene with her news, who had replied to say she would meet Bellona at the park.
Selene’s earlier hint about a possible reward had encouraged Bellona to think about studying the Isa-Sastra properly, in case the inner circle decided to throw a few questions her way to test her faith. In Bellona’s hand was the old grey book, Fenris’ copy of the Dhusarian texts, while on the slate screen before her now was the same book as given to her when she joined the Newbrum church. Except it was not the same.
Fenris had underlined many sections in his paper copy of the book. As she flicked through the densely-printed pages, Bellona was startled to find marked in this way a passage regarding Maharaja Ravana of Yuanshi, the reborn demon king of Lanka. Intrigued, she read with fascination the prophecy of a warrior boy king, destined to unite the people of Lanka and Ayodhya under one rule and free the moon of Yuanshi from its oppressors. She found it hard to reconcile this tale with the Ravana she knew, the shy Indian girl with the scarred face, who had sided with Raja Surya at the peace conference. Yet what disturbed her more was that the story was missing from the Isa-Sastra given to her by the Newbrum church. It did not seem right to Bellona that holy texts could be edited in this way, for part of her felt that no one had a right to tell her how to shape her own beliefs.
Bellona read the passage again, this time looking for clues that it was indeed about the Ravana she knew, but found nothing other than that her Isa-Sastra namesake shared the same birthplace of Lanka. She dimly recalled talk of a prophecy after Ravana and the others returned from their confrontation with Taranis on the Dandridge Cole, but she had been busy nursing the wounded Quirinus and had not paid much attention. Bellona thought it odd that anyone still believed in such things as prophecies, yet could see why Ravana O’Brien may have been intrigued enough to relieve Taranis of the original texts.
A shadow fell across her slate and she looked up to see that Selene had arrived, dressed as always in her customary black. Bellona was surprised to see Nyx coming up behind, wearing his police uniform and looking irritable and weary, though it was hard to be sure as his eyes were masked by his visor. Selene seemed a little annoyed by Nyx’s presence but nonetheless greeted Bellona with a pleasant smile.
“Hello Bellona,” she said. “You have some news for me?”
“Will this take long?” snapped Nyx, frowning. “I’ve just got back from mopping up the mess at Thunor and I need to get some sleep before tonight’s service. We must also attend to the funeral arrangements for our departed Dhusarian Brother.”
“I didn’t ask you to come,” hissed Selene. “I can handle this!”
Nyx removed his visor, gave her a scathing look and impolitely pushed her aside.
“Well?” he asked, staring at Bellona. “Did you get the book from the Indian girl?”
“My brother said it’s been confiscated by Administrator Verdandi,” Bellona said, stammering slightly. She did not like the way he towered over her and climbed to her feet. Her answer had not pleased the police officer one bit. “But Ravana made a copy at school,” she added quickly. “It should be on the network somewhere.”
“A copy?” Nyx growled. “The sly little bitch!”
“Nyx!” exclaimed Selene, clearly shocked by his reaction.
“The thieving cow! How dare she mistreat the sacred texts!”
“You forget you are talking about one of Bellona’s friends,” murmured Selene warily. “Besides, this is good news. If we can’t get the original texts from Verdandi, the copy may be sufficient for what the brothers need on Falsafah.”
“What that dreadful girl and her friends did was unforgivable!” Nyx retorted. “They committed Taranis and the twelve to a lingering death. What happened on Sky Cleaver was a direct consequence of their meddling!”
Bellona watched as Selene shot him a warning look. The grisly rumours regarding the fate of the cloud-mining crew were the talk of Newbrum, but Bellona could not imagine how that was linked to what had happened on the Dandridge Cole all those months before. It was the way Nyx
spoke of Ravana that troubled her most.
“Ravana is named in the Isa-Sastra,” Bellona said cautiously, wondering how much Nyx knew. “How can you say such horrible things like that?”
Selene looked surprised. “Is she?”
“Take no notice,” Nyx said. “The Church of Ascension does not recognise the Book of New Prophecies. You should not waste your time studying discredited texts.”
“There’s other texts? Since when?” asked Selene. Bellona caught her glance, which suggested that like her, Selene too was disturbed by the thought that the Isa-Sastra was not the immutable theological rock they assumed the church had been built upon. “Are there any more prophecies we should know about?”
Nyx glared at her. “Right now, Falsafah is the only one that matters.”
* * *
Endymion went back to work after accompanying Ostara and her new holovid unit to her Sherlock Street office. She quickly became engrossed in the unedited BBC report and was still sat in front of the screen when he returned at the end of his shift some hours later. She had been busy in his absence and one entire wall of her office was now covered in sticky-taped scraps of paper, upon which she had scribbled various words and phrases. There were more scrawled notes on her desk and the floor.
“The BBC had a really neat screen that filled a whole wall,” Ostara explained, seeing Endymion’s bemused expression. “This is the penniless detective’s version.”
Endymion read a few of the notes and smiled. “Anything useful in that report?”
Ostara shrugged. “The Dhusarian Church of Ascension is quite tame compared to that of Yuanshi,” she said. “In Lanka, it was very much part of the rebellion against Que Qiao. The report says its swirly star symbol is banned on Yuanshi, which explains why I don’t remember seeing it. Here in Newbrum, the Church is seen as just another bizarre yet harmless cult. They even have Que Qiao employees in the congregation.”
Endymion’s eyes narrowed. “I thought the corporation was against membership.”
Paw-Prints Of The Gods Page 22
