“Someone’s been busy,” remarked Kedesh. “Stop the transport.”
“Here?” retorted Ravana. “In full sight?”
She caught Kedesh’s glare and brought the vehicle to a halt. They were perched on a rise and had a good view of the domes ahead. Ravana watched warily as the transport at the site disconnected from dome three and rolled away into the dunes.
“Why have we stopped?” complained Artorius. “I’m hungry.”
“Fwack fwack,” remarked Stripy.
“How can someone do this?” Ravana asked bitterly, her eyes upon the site. “This whole area is rich in archaeology and they’ve ploughed it up to make a runway!”
“Everyone’s bowling a googly,” muttered Kedesh.
She moved to the passenger cabin and started rummaging through the lockers. Ravana frowned and wondered why the woman wanted to stop now when they were so close to their goal. Kedesh returned to the cockpit and waved the object in her hand.
“You must be thirsty,” she said to Ravana. “Would you like a drink?”
Ravana turned and almost knocked the open carton from the woman’s hand. Keeping her eyes on the domes, she took the juice drink and sipped it thoughtfully. Although eager to rejoin the archaeologists, the prospect of unwelcome visitors at the site troubled her.
“Where’s mine?” asked Artorius.
“You wait your turn,” Kedesh said harshly.
Ravana took another sip. She felt tired and a little dizzy, but it was perhaps to be expected given everything they had been through.
Her eyelids became heavy and a sudden weariness swept upon her, like a blanket thrown across a flame. The juice tasted odd and had a bitter aftertaste, one that reawakened a forgotten memory of the drink given to her by Dagan at Arallu Depot, so many weeks before. Ravana turned to Kedesh and saw her look of guilt. A shiver ran down her spine.
“Thraak!” cried Nana in alarm. “Thraak thraak!”
“The juice,” murmured Ravana. “What did you put in this?”
The carton dropped to the floor with a splatter. The urge to lie down came suddenly, but the bunk seemed so far away. Ravana tried to stand and slipped drunkenly to the floor, sending Stripy scuttling away in alarm. She cringed in fear as Kedesh’s face loomed close.
A cloud swept across her thoughts and all was dark.
* * *
Ravana awoke with a thumping headache, scared and confused beneath a pile of smelly towels. It was pitch black, her body ached and she lay curled in a most uncomfortable manner, but she quickly discovered this was because she was somewhere with not enough room to do otherwise. The loud roaring sound that had awoken her faded to leave behind a quiet intermittent whimper that if anything was even more disturbing.
She pushed away her coverings, wriggled into a sitting position and winced as something small and square jabbed her in the ribs. Ravana tried to stand, lost her balance and fell against a wall, which promptly swung open to reveal it was actually the door to the shower cubicle, leaving her to crash through onto the floor of the transport’s main cabin. The interior lights were no more than a feeble glow, but it was enough for her to see that Kedesh, Artorius and the greys had gone. Outside, night had fallen and the windscreen looked out upon a single white dome, above which arced the fiery trail of a spacecraft rocketing into the heavens. Between the transport and the dome, a collapsed wind pump lay amidst a pool of gushing water, which itself formed the head of a sizeable stream. It took Ravana a few moments to register that the dome before her was not the excavation site, but Arallu Depot.
“Kedesh!” she growled. “What have you done?”
She climbed to her feet and turned up the cabin lights. The square object that had bruised her ribs was Kedesh’s slate, which had fallen out of the shower cubicle with her. She picked it up and scowled at the message left on the notepad screen:
My behaviour was just not cricket, but unavoidable I’m afraid. Final day’s play is too risky for you to be involved. You should be safe here. Help yourself to cake. Kedesh.
“Bitch,” muttered Ravana. “You tricked me.”
The irritating whining had not gone away. It was now joined by a scratching noise, both of which came from the airlock. Ravana threw down the slate and stomped across to open the hatch, wondering what else Kedesh had left to surprise her. She was only mildly surprised to find a cat sitting in the shadows of the chamber, mewing pitifully.
“Oh, it’s you,” she snapped, thinking of the watcher. “Athene, is it? Come inside!”
The cat looked up, gave another sad meow and jumped lightly into the cabin. As it moved into the light, Ravana gave a shriek of surprised recognition and fell to her knees.
“Jones!” she cried. “My little fluff ball! Is it really you?”
The cat mewed, coughed and as if to answer her question spat out a mangled lump of circuitry from Arallu Depot’s food molecularisor. Ravana grinned and hugged her electric pet close. As she shut her eyes against her tears, she realised her cranium implant had awoken. A familiar glowing purple image hovered in her mind’s eye: a crude rendering of a duck-billed platypus, the symbol of her personal link to the onboard AI of the ship of the same name.
Her cat still in her arms, Ravana scrambled to her feet and into the cockpit. Her heart leapt with joy as she caught sight of the purple and white spacecraft, parked on the edge of the runway beyond the dome. A quick mental prod activated the image in her mind, which went green and then expanded into a line of control symbols. In the background was a web-like image of the Platypus itself, an echo of the strange tendrils that had sprouted through the ship. She hurriedly scrolled through the controls and opened a voice link to the AI.
“Ship?” she called hesitantly. “Are you there?”
The familiar cool female tones of the AI filled her head almost instantly.
“It is a pleasure to speak with you again, Ravana. How may I be of assistance?”
Ravana grinned with relief, hardly able to believe that the end to her trials was near. Lowering her pet to the floor, she dropped into the driver’s seat.
“Ship, is father nearby?” she asked. “I think he’s expecting my call.”
* * *
Chapter Thirteen
Star man, cats and clones
[Chapter Twelve] [Contents] [Chapter Fourteen]
THE CLANKING OF THE TRANSPORT exploded into a deafening clatter, drowning out Ravana’s squeals of excitement as she nursed the vehicle into the hangar of Arallu Depot. The dusty windscreen framed an unexpectedly large group of people waiting to greet her, first and foremost of whom was her beaming father. Grinning like an idiot, Ravana killed the engine, scooped her cat from the co-pilot’s seat and hurried to the hatch at the rear. Moments later she was hugging her father tight, overwhelmed by the fact he was actually there. After all she had been through it seemed too good to be true.
“You’re safe!” cried Quirinus. He wrapped his arms around her and pressed her head to his chest, as if frightened to let go. “I was so worried. You might have died out there!”
“Several times,” she murmured. There were tears in her eyes. “I’m so glad you’re here! It feels like everything on this planet is out to get me.”
“You’re safe now,” he reassured her. He glanced down to where her cat was doing its utmost to trip them up. “I see you’ve found that dratted pet of yours.”
Ravana smiled. For the first time since stepping outside, she looked to the four figures fidgeting awkwardly by the door to the depot’s passenger lounge.
“Is that really Zotz with you?” she asked. “And what’s Philyra doing here?”
“It’s a long story,” Quirinus replied wearily. “I’m guessing you have a tale or two of your own. Where have you been?”
Her reply was interrupted by a dreadful metallic groan from the transport. They both retreated in alarm and then jumped as the suspension on the left-hand side collapsed with a loud bang. The tired, worn-out vehicle, having performed admirably thr
ough six thousand kilometres of harsh alien terrain, had finally reached the end of the road.
“Shall we go into the dome?” suggested Ravana. “It’s been a bit of a rough journey.”
* * *
The news that the transport had brought food the depot’s abused molecularisor could only dream of was well-received, particularly when Zotz discovered the locker full of chocolate cake. They retired to the habitation cabin near Morrigan’s Bar, where Ravana told her tale over a hearty meal washed down with copious cups of tea. Her portrayal of Kedesh was harsh but she felt bitter over the way the woman had abused her trust.
Fornax greeted Ravana with a puzzled stare that flickered just once to her facial scar. Upon hearing the woman was a journalist, Ravana glossed over their escape from Missi and the giant spiders, for the last thing she wanted was to become a story on Weird Universe. That everyone bar a doubting Philyra accepted her account of the alien greys surprised her, though she knew Zotz briefly saw the caged Nana when they faced Taranis on the Dandridge Cole many months before. To Ravana’s further surprise, when she hesitantly described her encounters with Athene, it was Fornax who was the least sceptical of her listeners.
“We did a piece on watchers for Weird Universe,” the journalist revealed. “There was this crazy old man who said he was a knight of Saint John, who had all these bizarre stories about alien cat gods who meddled in history. Most of what we recorded was too off-the-wall to use. It ended up as a ten-minute filler on our ghost-watch special.”
“I saw that,” said Philyra. “There’s no such thing as ghosts. Or aliens.”
“Well, that’s my story,” declared Ravana. “The rest, as they say, is geography.”
“Don’t you mean history?” asked Zotz.
“I know what I mean,” she muttered. She had seen enough desert to last a lifetime.
In the process of swapping tales, her father confirmed it was the Platypus she had seen circling the excavation site. He and Momus had taken the ship on a couple of reconnaissance flights; on the second, they had spotted Kedesh’s transport near the dig, remembered what Jizo told them and had tried to make contact. Ravana recalled the password-locked transceiver and frowned, but was more startled by the revelation that Jizo had been at Arallu Depot. Momus scowled and put on a sulky face.
“She was here,” said Quirinus, glaring at his hired pilot. “Last night she gave us the slip whilst this idiot was again dozing on watch. Their transport returned to pick her up and they left in a flying wing that’s been parked here the last couple of days.”
“I wasn’t asleep,” muttered Momus. “It was me who saw the frigging ship leave.”
“It woke you up, you mean,” retorted Fornax. “The bitch stole my Pinot.”
“Jones ran off and hid in their transport,” Zotz told Ravana. The electric cat lay curled upon his lap. “We followed its camera feed on my wristpad but it was mostly jumping around too much to see anything. We did spot the nurse with another woman and a boy.”
“I didn’t know it could transmit pictures,” Ravana said cautiously, looking at her pet. Zotz blushed and dropped his gaze. “Have you been messing with its insides again?”
“Their transport must have docked with yours whilst you were unconscious,” reasoned Quirinus. “Jizo was clearly waiting for you to show up. I wonder why they left you behind? She said something about you being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Ravana frowned. This aspect of the mystery puzzled her also, especially given the trouble Jizo and Lilith had taken to keep her locked up next door to Artorius. Her father had instructed the Platypus AI to keep track of the departing Atterberg Epiphany and they knew the black ship had touched down on the new runway at the excavation.
“I found a link between the dig and a so-called prophecy in the Isa-Sastra,” she said hesitantly. “It could be that they thought I knew too much, so wanted me out of the way. But if so, why abandon me with a vehicle right next to where our spaceship is parked?”
“More prophecies?” asked Quirinus, rolling his eyes.
“This time, I don’t think it’s something invented by Taranis,” Ravana told him. Earlier, she had shown them all Artorius’ words on the slate. “But calling it a prophecy sounds too mystical, somehow. It might be more of a warning.”
“A warning!” exclaimed Zotz.
“It seems to me they want us to leave,” Momus said flatly. “There’s too much frigging secret-agent stuff going on for my liking. The sooner we blast out of here, the better.”
“Leave?” Fornax frowned. “What about my story?”
“Forget your story. What about Artorius?” asked Ravana, her face creased in concern. “We can’t leave him here. He’s just a little boy.”
“Artorius,” mused Philyra, looking thoughtful. “I know that name.”
“It’s Taranis’ freaky cyberclones that scare me,” said Quirinus. “You’ve seen two of them and Ostara reckons there’s a couple more in Newbrum. You saw the police flyer at the dig. I’m hoping they already have the situation in hand.”
“There’s clones in Newbrum?” Ravana was shocked. “How do you know?”
“Ostara has been doing some secret-agent stuff of her own,” he told her.
“Frigging lizard men!” scoffed Momus. “As if Newbrum needs more weirdos.”
“We blasted them into space,” said Ravana. “Who rescued them?”
Quirinus, Zotz and Momus realised they had omitted an important piece of their story and told her about how the ejected engine room had been salvaged by the crew of the cloud-mining facility at Thunor. When Momus mentioned that Sky Cleaver’s shuttle had been found in orbit around Woden, Fornax looked thoughtful.
“Some guy at the spaceport told me it was the Dhusarians’ black ship that brought the monks to Newbrum,” she said. “It must have met the stolen shuttle.”
“Then delivered another two to Falsafah,” murmured Ravana, perturbed. “What about the rest of the twelve? And Taranis himself?”
Momus shrugged. “There was a half-eaten stiff at Sky Cleaver. Was that him?”
“Did he have a spider walker instead of legs?” asked Zotz. He grinned as Fornax and Philyra screwed their faces in disgust. Momus however shook his head.
“Half-eaten?” Ravana shuddered. The more she heard about Taranis’ creations, the worse they became. “That must have been Fenris. He was killed by the clones.”
“Jizo spoke of Taranis as if he were still alive,” Quirinus said gently.
“But Lilith said he was dead,” she retorted sullenly. “And that I killed him.”
For a while, no one spoke. Zotz took advantage of the lull to find Ostara’s recording on his wristpad, which in turn reminded Quirinus to send Ostara and Wak the news that Ravana was safe. As Zotz showed Ravana the shaky muffled footage of Nyx and the two monks, the fear she felt back at the Dhusarians’ dome was awakened anew. Taranis had called them his disciples, created to spread the word of the Dhusarian Church, but it was a shock to see they had begun their mission on Ascension. Yet foremost in her mind was Artorius, the mysterious star man Athene described as being led to his duty like a lamb to the slaughter, who was once again prisoner of the Dhusarians. There was little Ravana could do about the cyberclones on Newbrum. Here on Falsafah, she could not stand idly by.
“I have to try and rescue Artorius,” she said. “I don’t know what the Dhusarians have planned for him but I’m sure it’s not good.”
“They have scary killer robots,” Philyra said cautiously. “We saw a couple of military androids in crates in the hold. I just thought I’d mention that.”
“I didn’t intend to march in there unarmed,” Ravana reassured her, before adding hopefully, “nor alone.”
“Armed!” exclaimed Quirinus. “My little girl does not mess with guns!”
Ravana gave him an apologetic smile. “I only shoot robots and acid slime.”
“And launch lizard men into frigging space,” muttered Momus.
&nb
sp; Zotz looked uneasy. “I’ll come if you want me to,” he said quietly. The cat in his lap squirmed under his tight embrace. “You needed my help last time.”
“Count me in too,” said Fornax. “I still need a good story to take back with me.”
Ravana looked to her father with pleading eyes.
“I suppose we should make sure there’s nothing untoward going on at the dig,” admitted Quirinus. “This is no place for a little boy to be lost. Let’s see if that transport of yours has any life left in it before we decide to try that new runway.”
“You’re all frigging mad,” muttered Momus.
“But you’ll come with us?” Quirinus asked.
Momus scratched his ragged moustache. “Am I getting overtime for this?”
* * *
The lone repair robot stationed at Arallu Depot, a beetle-like automaton half a metre long, clung gloomily to the undercarriage of the transport and in a blaze of sparks added yet another glowing scar to the broken suspension strut. Two of the vehicle’s huge wheels had been removed, along with the gearbox, a couple of drive shafts and a large coil spring that had snapped in two. One look at the robot’s progress was enough to tell Ravana it would be a while before the vehicle was capable of going anywhere again. Leaving her father watching the robot, she clambered into the transport and emerged minutes later loaded down with the plasma cannon, a couple of undamaged survival suits and Kedesh’s cricket bat, all of which she deposited on the floor. Quirinus’ quizzical gaze moved immediately to the bat.
Paw-Prints Of The Gods Page 33
