Paw-Prints Of The Gods (11 page)

Tau Ceti hung low in
the west as the expedition’s transport arrived at the airstrip. The
spaceplane
Sir Bedivere
had landed and stood linked to the
enclosed walkway projecting from the small terminal building on the
far side of the depot’s dome. The silver ship was a sleek,
stubby-winged Skylon Interstellar Mk IV, the latest of a successful
line of Earth-class spacecraft to come from the Rolls-Royce
aerospace factories of Mercia. The university had chartered the
ship for the duration of the expedition, though Govannon was
convinced the reason the crew never wanted to stay on Falsafah any
longer than necessary was because they were flying black-market
deliveries on the side.

The transport slipped
past the wind-pump tower with its ferociously-spinning vanes,
through the shallow pool of water left by leaking pump-head pipes
and onwards to the rear of the dome. The depot’s transport hangar
was part of the terminal building, the roof of which was covered by
solar panels that powered the electrolysis plant, which in turn
extracted hydrogen and oxygen from the underground stream. After
getting too close to the spaceplane during an engine test, Govannon
preferred to go the long way around.

“Are we there yet?”
asked Urania, teasing him. She sat next to him at the front of the
vehicle, having beaten Xuthus to the seat normally taken by
Professor Cadmus.

“Funny girl,” Govannon
muttered wearily. Urania had not stopped talking throughout the
four-hour journey and it was this, not the long drive, that had
exhausted him. “Do you want me to send you back to Ascension?”

“Is that what you did
with Ravana?”

“Cadmus said she just
got fed up and went home,” replied Govannon.

“She left all her
stuff behind,” said Hestia. “Her clothes, slate, everything.”

“Good riddance,”
muttered Urania. “Bitch.”

“Urania!” exclaimed
Govannon. “There’s no need for that!”

“She’s one of those
refugees from that crazy asteroid,” retorted Urania. “There’s
hundreds of them at Newbrum, all wanting our jobs. Besides, who
goes around with a face scarred like that? That sort of thing is
easy to fix these days. She’s a freak.”

“She’s not!” snapped
Xuthus, shocked at Urania’s outburst. “She’s really brave and
clever. I was there in Epsilon Eridani, when she and her friends
made the news after finding the kidnapped Raja.”

“It sounds like you
fancy her,” Urania sneered.

“I liked her,” said
Hestia. No one was listening to her.

“I do not fancy her!”
cried Xuthus.

“That’s enough!”
Govannon said sternly. Urania’s views of the refugees were no doubt
inherited from her parents, but given her own status as a recent
immigrant to Ascension he was surprised at her attitude. “If I find
that Ravana left the dig because she was being bullied, there will
be trouble, see!”

“But...” started
Xuthus.

“Big trouble,”
Govannon reiterated, looking at each of them in turn.

The transport slipped
into the hangar airlock. It took barely a minute for the chamber to
be pressurised, yet each second that ticked by seemed longer than
the last. Eventually, the inner door slid open and the vehicle
trundled forward into the hangar. Govannon’s heart sank at the
sight of a familiar microlight aircraft parked in the corner of the
hangar, then cursed as he spied its owner watching from the doorway
to the transit lounge. Dagan, the eager young activist with
camouflage-patterned flight suit, slicked-back dark hair and oily
moustache, quite fancied himself the revolutionary. Govannon had
been looking forward to a relaxing few hours at the depot’s
makeshift bar, catching up with the latest news from the ship’s
crew, but with Dagan around he knew that was unlikely to
happen.

“Look out,” he
muttered. “There’s a Dhusarian about.”

“What does he want?”
Urania said irritably.

“To praise the greys,”
Xuthus intoned solemnly. “And bring our deliverance!”

Govannon brought the
vehicle to a halt. Urania, Xuthus and Hestia were already out of
their seats, eagerly making their way to the transport’s airlock.
Arallu Depot was no bigger than the domes at the excavation but it
was the only change of scenery they had to look forward to until
they returned to Ascension.

“Hey!” called
Govannon. “Can someone give me a hand with the poop-mobile?”

“Hestia will do it!”
called Urania, who was already at the hatch.

The transit lounge of
Arallu Depot was little more than a metal-walled shed, furnished
with a scattering of plastic chairs and a battered food
molecularisor that no longer served tea. By the time Govannon and
Hestia entered, having spent several smelly minutes manoeuvring the
toilet trailer across the hangar to the cesspool valve, Dagan was
nowhere in sight. Nor were Urania and Xuthus, though Urania’s loud
cackle could be heard wafting down the walkway tunnel from the
docked spaceplane. Govannon knew there would be a queue to use the
ship’s ED transmitter and decided to head for the peaceful
sanctuary he liked to call his own. Leaving Hestia to join her
fellow students, he made his way to the far side of the lounge and
down the short tunnel leading into the main dome.

The towering walls of
shipping crates and discarded machinery that filled the windowless
dome looked the same as ever. Near the entrance to the lounge, one
empty and particularly large crate had been turned on its side and
furnished with a metal counter, a row of stools and one second-hand
robotic bar steward serving the best micro-brewed draft lager this
side of Tau Ceti, topped by a sign that read: MORRIGAN’S BAR.
Govannon had no idea who Morrigan was but admired his or her
foresight in establishing such an oasis out here at Arallu. Apart
from a tiny habitation module nearby, the bar was the only
concession to home comforts to be found within the warehouse-like
environs of the dome.

The depot was
unmanned, though visiting maintenance crews and the local Que Qiao
security team made sure its life-support and other systems were
kept in order. Govannon stopped short upon seeing a figure slouched
upon his favourite stool at the end of the bar, then cursed when he
realised it was none other than Dagan. The activist had previously
admitted he had been recruited by the Dhusarian Church on Aram,
with the aim of reminding the archaeologists at every opportunity
of the Church’s consternation over the exploitation of ancient
alien remains. Govannon was convinced Dagan had taken his task a
step further and embarked upon a campaign of sabotage to drive the
archaeologists away.

“Dagan,” growled
Govannon. “What are you doing here?”

The man turned and
greeted the archaeologist with a sly smile. Behind him, the robot
bartender trundled to the bar in anticipation, its head swaying
disturbingly as its wheels stuttered upon the uneven floor.

“Doctor Jones,”
acknowledged Dagan. “Don’t tell me you’ve abandoned your hard work
out in the desert? Holy sites don’t desecrate themselves, you
know.”

“That’s a little
hypocritical coming from Falsafah’s one-man terrorist cell.”

“Terrorist?” exclaimed
Dagan. “How dare you! I fight for what’s right.”

“Any attack on a tea
vending machine is terrorism to me, see!”

“Tea is a symbol of
urban decadence. It cannot fulfil your spiritual needs,” Dagan said
solemnly. “Don’t get too comfortable. This bar is also on my
list.”

Ignoring him, Govannon
took the seat at the other end of the bar.

“Would you care for a
drink, sir?” asked the robot. There were several dents in its
oddly-contoured head. Its humanoid upper body had once worn the
traditional livery of a butler but rust had badly discoloured the
plates upon its chest.

“Lager,” said
Govannon. “Ice cold.”

“What have you found
out there?” asked Dagan. “The girl I spoke to last time said
something about a temple, mysterious carvings and all sorts of
fascinating stuff! You’ll be pleased to hear the fossils you found
were warmly received by the Church.”

“Stealing samples, is
it?” accused Govannon. “What have you done with them?”

“They are holy relics
and should not have been removed from sacred ground! Your
archaeology is no more than the systematic destruction of history.
What else have you done in the name of science? Perhaps I need to
take a closer look.”

“You would not be
welcome.”

“No,” said Dagan. “But
neither are you.”

He rose from his seat
and regarded Govannon levelly. When the archaeologist failed to
respond, he walked smartly from the bar and out of sight. Govannon
sighed and reached for the schooner tumbler the robot placed upon
the bar. His long-awaited sip resulted in an unexpected assault
upon his senses and he spluttered in disgust.

“What the hell is
that?” he exclaimed, shoving the tumbler back across the bar.

“Warm reconstituted
goat’s milk,” the robot replied. “I regret that due to a recent
data infection, I can no longer serve the full range of
beverages.”

Govannon gritted his
teeth. Sabotaging the molecularisor and taking away his supply of
tea was bad enough, but the bar was his holy ground.

“Dagan!” he muttered.
“This means war!”

* * *

Xuthus looked at the
pilot, puzzled. The surly red-faced Englishman had on several
occasions expressed distaste at being on some far-flung frontier
planet and not in his old job ferrying wealthy tourists around the
inner Solar System. Yet it was Xuthus’ question about Ravana that
had led the man to scowl and screw his face into a peculiar
defensive frown.

“I don’t know where
she is,” the pilot snapped. “She didn’t come back with us.”

“Then where is she?”
asked Xuthus.

“Are you asking after
your girlfriend?” called Urania, looking around from where she
hogged the holovid console. “Are you upset she ran out on you?”

“Ravana is not my
girlfriend!”

Xuthus wished he had
waited until the girls had gone before asking. Just then, the
co-pilot appeared from the airlock, having been outside to connect
the ship’s fuel hoses to the depot’s hydrogen tanks. The tall
Jamaican had not yet taken off his pressure suit and the
bowl-shaped helmet under his arm looked far too small to contain
the mass of dreadlocks tumbling from his smiling features.

“Hey mon,” he greeted,
nodding at Xuthus. “What’s your grief?”

“He’s worried about
Ravana,” said Hestia, who up until now had sat quietly unnoticed at
the back of the cabin. “Nobody seems to know where she went.”

“The freaky Indian
girl?” asked the co-pilot. “Not seen her at all today.”

“How about last time
we were here?” asked Xuthus. “A fortnight ago?”

The Jamaican shook his
head.

“I did see her last
time,” the pilot admitted. “She was talking to that Dhusarian
nutcase down by the bar when the rest of you were in here waiting
to use the transceiver. He’s a weird one, that Dagan. Gave me some
leaflet on aliens.”

“And she definitely
did not return to Ascension on the ship?” asked Xuthus.

“I’ve already said as
much!” the pilot said irritably. “What’s wrong with you, boy?”

“Don’t stress,” his
co-pilot told Xuthus. “Your lady friend will be somewhere. You need
some egg to smooth things out, make you mellow? I can do you a good
price.”

“You’re dealing
drugs?” Xuthus looked shocked. Egg was the name given to an illegal
yet popular mood-enhancing drug out of Epsilon Eridani. “I’ll tell
Doctor Jones.”

“Hey, chill out,” the
Jamaican purred. “I ain’t no pusher. This is just between
friends.”

“No thanks,” Xuthus
said firmly.

“So where did Ravana
go?” asked Hestia. Xuthus saw her concern and assumed rather
uncharitably she was trying to impress him.

“Probably crawled
under a rock somewhere,” muttered Urania. “Or Dagan’s alien friends
came along and whisked her away to the planet of the bitches.”

“Urania!” exclaimed
Hestia.

“Hey, that’s not
cool,” agreed the Jamaican.

“Well, we haven’t seen
her,” reiterated the pilot. “We’re just the taxi service. It’s not
our fault if she went wandering off.”

Xuthus stared at him
in disbelief, unable to comprehend how an adult could abdicate
responsibility so easily. Yet Urania’s taunts aroused feelings of
guilt, for he remembered how he had not stopped his friends
bullying Ravana when they first met many months ago, at the
floating market in Hemakuta on Daode. Ravana had been a very
private person on site, but even though Urania had for some reason
taken an instant dislike to her, he did not believe Ravana would
have run out on them without letting them know why. He still
remembered the infamous finale of the peace conference, when Ravana
and Raja Surya had dared to confront Yuanshi’s political leaders
before hundreds of delegates and millions of holovid viewers. The
girl who took the stage that night would not let someone like
Urania get the better of them.

He would mention
Ravana’s disappearance to his father when Urania finally got off
the holovid unit, but in the meantime Xuthus knew he should take
his fears to Doctor Jones. Even talking to Dagan might prove more
fruitful than trying to get any sense out the crew. He did not want
to contemplate the horrible possibility that Ravana had somehow
ended up outside the dome.

“She can’t have just
vanished,” he said. “How far can you get on a dead planet?”

“Falsafah ain’t as
dead as it looks,” said the Jamaican, giving him an odd look. “I’ve
seen some mighty strange things out there.”

“That’s because you
take too much egg,” his colleague pointed out.

Ignoring Urania’s
giggle, Xuthus stared through the cockpit windows at the endless
bleak desert beyond the landing strip. It was hard to imagine
anything surviving out there.