Paw-Prints Of The Gods (27 page)

“Thraak?” asked Nana.
Stripy cowered at Artorius’ feet.

“I wasn’t talking to
you,” Ravana said crossly. Her heart sank when she saw the empty
cabin behind. Kedesh had slipped into the airlock without another
word.

There was a sudden
bang, followed by a terrible splintering noise as another spider
appeared from nowhere and crashed into the cracked port-side
window. The spider’s pincers tore a chunk out of the toughened
glass, then a head and snapping mandibles broke through into the
cockpit. Artorius leapt out of his seat in alarm.

“Thraak!” wailed Nana.
“Thraak thraak!”

A foul yet familiar
smell reached Ravana’s nose. Nana darted away in a mixture of
embarrassment and fear, leaving Artorius sprawled upon the floor
and frantically waving his oxygen mask in an ironic attempt to
disperse the gust of alien flatulence. Amidst her panic, Ravana saw
he had managed to keep hold of the sealant canister as he fell.

“Artorius!” she cried.
The spider brought with it a blast of air from outside and the
dizziness of carbon-dioxide poisoning hit her hard. “Use the
sealant gun! Spray the window!”

The boy twisted onto
his back, pointed the canister towards the writhing head of the
spider and pulled the trigger. A jet of milky fluid erupted from
the nozzle and caught the creature square in the mouth, instantly
gumming its jaws together with a ball of sealant. The spider
thrashed frantically against the broken window, in a manner that
would have looked quite comical in different circumstances, then
retreated through the hole in the glass. Artorius, his eyes closed
in terror, kept his finger on the trigger and sealant sprayed
erratically around the cabin. Ravana grabbed his arm and guided his
aim towards the shattered window, waving his hand back and forth in
a cross-hatch pattern. To her relief, the sticky threads of sealant
latched to the glass and expanded to block the opening. The
canister ran dry all too quickly, but the huge flat blob of sealant
on the window had done its job.

Ravana felt the
transport rock and tensed in anticipation of another impact, then
heard the tap of human footsteps and creak of metal as Kedesh
clambered onto the transport’s roof. Ravana’s immediate panic faded
but did not go away, for still more spiders emerged from the
shadows outside. She was not at all comforted by the thought that
perhaps the creatures saw the unmoving transport as prey caught in
a web, injured or wearied by the chase.

“Well done Artorius,”
she said weakly, releasing his arm. Her heart pounded and she was
having trouble breathing, for she had not managed to find her mask
in time. She heard the comforting rattle of a compressor as the
life-support system got to work restoring the air. The boy’s
shrieks still echoed in her aching head. “Some excellent quick
thinking there.”

“You scared me!”
complained Artorius. A sheepish-looking Nana came out of hiding and
crept back to join Stripy in the cockpit. “I thought the monster
spider had grabbed me!”

Ravana heard Kedesh
move again. She barely had time to wonder what the woman had
planned when the grandfather of all nightmares stepped into the
headlamp beams. Before them, blocking the valley, was an arachnid
of truly mammoth proportions, standing high upon eight gnarled legs
as thick as ancient tree trunks. The spider’s mandibles flexed like
the claws of a salvage-yard crusher, above which a cluster of huge
baleful eyes caught their headlights in a hideous kaleidoscope
stare.

“Maharaja Ashtapada,”
murmured Ravana. “That is what you call a demon king.”

Artorius screamed.
“It’s come to eat us alive!”

“Fwack fwack fwack!”
shrieked Stripy, seemingly in agreement.

The valley suddenly
burned with a blinding white light. A spear of flame erupted from
the roof of the transport and caught the monstrous spider in the
centre of its snapping jaws. Ravana instinctively shielded their
eyes and peered through her fingers in stunned amazement as another
rush of fire lanced into the creature, then a third, leaving the
monster writhed in flame. A dreadful piercing cry filled the
web-strewn canyon, one that made Artorius and the greys to clamp a
hand over their ears. Ravana jumped as another fiery burst swept
across the ground in front of the transport, instantly reducing an
advancing horde of lesser spiders to a series of charred, smoking
mounds.

“It’s Kedesh!”
Artorius cried jubilantly. “She’s blasting them to bits!”

The white lightning of
the plasma cannon erupted again and soon there was little left
alive in the valley before them. The scanner showed the remaining
spiders in retreat, leaving a clear circle amidst the red blobs
with the transport at the centre. Ravana reached for the console
and activated the communicator.

“Kedesh!” she cried.
“We should make a run for it while we can!”

“Just one more!”
Kedesh replied. The plasma flame burst forth once again.

The sound of footsteps
scrabbled across the roof, followed by a reassuring clunk and hiss
as the outer door closed and the airlock began to fill. Ravana’s
hand was already slotting the gear lever into ‘drive’ and she did
not wait for Kedesh to step out of the chamber before shoving the
speed control lever forward. The transport clattered into life and
was soon ploughing mercilessly though the dead and the dying, away
through the valley. Kedesh stepped wearily into the cabin, her
helmet and plasma cannon in her hands.

“Bit of a sticky
wicket that one,” she said and collapsed onto a bunk. Her suit was
splattered with blood and black slime. “I could murder a cup of
tea.”

“You blew them up!”
exclaimed Artorius. “Amazing!”

“Piece of cake,”
Kedesh murmured. “Don’t touch that,” she warned, as Artorius
slipped from his seat to look at the cannon at her side. “It gets
incredibly hot.”

“Can I shoot some next
time?”

“Next time?” muttered
Ravana and shivered.

“You boys do like your
big guns,” Kedesh observed. Ravana saw her looking at the congealed
mass of sealant at the window. “I could have sworn one of the
beasts was choking on a giant marshmallow. I take it you had to
step up to the crease yourselves.”

“You seemed to have
scared them off for now,” Ravana told her, glancing at the scanner
screen. “The way ahead looks clear, though there’s a couple of
kilometres to go before the valley flattens out enough for us to
get back to the road.”

“Will they come back?”
Artorius asked, sounding fearful.

“Let’s hope not. How
far is the depot once we hit the road?”

“Five kilometres or
so,” said Ravana. “The poor transport’s taken a battering, but has
enough left in it to get us there within the hour.” The clunking
from beneath had not gone away but did not seem to be getting any
worse. She glanced over her shoulder to where Kedesh sat slumped
upon the bunk. “That was very brave. You could have got
killed.”

“Falsafah’s not a very
friendly planet. Sometimes you have to stand your ground.”

“Thraak,” Nana said
sadly. “Thraak thraak.”

“I agree,” said
Kedesh. “Let’s hope there’s no more surprises like that one.”

* * *

High upon a nearby
outcrop of rock, a small silver and black shape idly scratched an
ear with a paw and watched the labouring transport trundle uneasily
out of the valley. Events on Falsafah were unravelling somewhat
differently to expectations, but when the players showed a bit of
initiative it always made things more entertaining. In the end, the
outcome mattered little, for it was all about the game.

The transport
disappeared behind a dune. The watcher yawned, contemplated the
slowly-thrashing tail wrapped around its feet, then in a flash of
tabby fur was gone.

* * *

[Chapter
Eight
] [
Contents
] [
Chapter Ten
]

BELLONA LOWERED
HERSELF into the offered couch and gave a nervous smile. This was
the first time she had been invited to the private rooms at the
church and did not know whether she ought to be honoured or
terrified. The office at the back of the old bingo hall in Broad
Street was well-appointed with patterned wallpaper, a large
wall-mounted holovid screen and a suite of soft-sprung couches that
must have been imported to Ascension at some expense, though the
overall effect was tainted by a faint yet unpleasant coppery smell
that lingered in the air. Yet even the surprise invitation and
comfy furnishings paled into insignificance compared to what was on
the table before her: a plate of chocolate biscuits, the first
Bellona had seen in Newbrum for months.

In the chair opposite
sat Selene, the girl from her class, who as usual was dressed
entirely in black. She had fastened her purple tresses into an
unfussy ponytail and dispensed with her customary floral crown,
which she had earlier referred to as ‘ceremonial headgear’. Selene,
with a cool and calm business-like attitude, had introduced herself
as a junior member of the inner circle of the Dhusarian Church of
Newbrum. The inner circle was interested in Bellona. No one had
ever said that before.

“Would you like a
biscuit?” asked Selene. There was a seductive tone to her voice;
Bellona had heard gossip that the girl’s sultry and mysterious
persona was a ploy to impress Captain Nyx, one of the Church’s
rising stars. “Genuine chocolate, you know. The fellowship of the
greys on Earth like to keep us supplied with innocent
luxuries.”

Bellona smiled weakly
and hesitantly took a biscuit from the plate.

Selene watched her
carefully. “I expect you’re wondering why we asked you here.”

Her mouth full of
biscuit, Bellona nodded. She wondered who Selene meant by ‘we’. The
clocks of Newbrum had just gone nine o’clock in the morning and she
had not seen another soul in the building since her arrival. There
was a tradition that Dhusarians should gather as daylight faded and
the stars began to appear, but the Church in Newbrum stuck to
European Central Time, otherwise the slow rotation of Ascension
would lead them to meet just once a week. Detractors on Earth
believed the real reason for having evening services was because
the average Dhusarian could not get out of bed in the morning.

“We were concerned by
how rarely you accessed the
Isa-Sastra
on your slate,”
Selene continued. “Others took this as evidence that your
commitment was not true, but I told them you often read from an
antique printed version of the sacred texts. I wondered if it was a
family heirloom, that perhaps you had a past association with the
Church?”

Bellona hesitated,
startled that the inner circle was evidently monitoring what they
read. She subconsciously touched a hand to her hip to feel the
reassuring lump of the book in the pocket of her faded flight suit.
Aware of Selene’s curious stare, Bellona slowly withdrew the
paper-leafed book. The girl’s eyes widened at the sight of the
volume with its worn grey cover, inscribed with the legend
Isa-Sastra
.

“It belonged to a man
called Fenris,” Bellona said slowly. “I think he once worked for
Taranis. His book came to me after he died.” She decided not to
mention that she had more or less stolen the book from amongst
Fenris’ abandoned possessions.

“Priest Taranis!”
Selene declared proudly. “Did you know him?”

Bellona shook her
head. “He was...”

“An inspiration to us
all!” Selene declared. Her completion of the unfinished sentence
was nothing like what Bellona intended to say. “The father of
Dhusarism! He who led us from the shadows so that we may bask
beneath the wisdom of the stars!”

“Some people blame
Taranis for the civil war on Yuanshi,” Bellona said cautiously.
Much of what she knew of the priest was from what she had heard
both on and off the stage at the peace conference on Daode. “The
Que Qiao governor called us a dangerous cult.”

“Here on Ascension,
many in the corporation support our work,” Selene reassured her. “I
heard you are friends with Ravana O’Brien, Zotz Wak and the others
who were there when Taranis and his disciples were committed to the
void. Is this true?”

Bellona frowned.
Selene seemed to know a lot more about what happened than she did.
At the time, despite the kidnapping scandal being big news, the
footnote regarding their ill-fated encounter with Taranis on the
Dandridge Cole
had generated barely a flicker of interest.
The local Dhusarian Church would have seen things differently, of
course.

“I do know Ravana and
Zotz,” she hesitantly replied. “They both played in the band at the
peace conference last year. Ravana is here studying engineering and
Zotz is in my class. Nearly everyone from the hollow moon lives in
Newbrum now.”

Selene nodded
thoughtfully and settled back into her seat. For a while no one
spoke, then the girl leaned forward once more and gave Bellona a
friendly smile.

“Ravana took something
that did not belong to her,” she said. “Priest Taranis was the
keeper of the book containing the first sacred texts. Ravana stole
it from him and spirited it away for reasons we cannot imagine. We
believe she brought it with her to Newbrum. We would like you to
find out where it is; and if possible, get it back.”

“The
Isa-Sastra
?” Awestruck, Bellona recalled seeing Ravana with
a large book at the end of their adventures, but its significance
had been lost to her at the time. “The original?”

“As given to the
prophet Betty Hill more than three hundred years ago.”

“Ravana is on
Falsafah,” Bellona said, her voice trembling. “Zotz may know where
it is. He’s gone back to the hollow moon to see his father. Shall I
contact him?”