Paw-Prints Of The Gods (28 page)

“Neither can be
trusted. You need to be discrete with your enquiries.”

“You want me to spy on
them?” asked Bellona, somewhat shocked.

“We just want you to
play detective for a while,” Selene reassured her. “You’re only
looking for a book. How hard can that be?”

Bellona looked
doubtful. “I’ll try my best,” she said uncertainly. “My brother
might know something. He and Zotz are friends.”

“Trust no one! These
are difficult times for the Dhusarian Church.”

“They are?”

“Yet those who serve
well will be rewarded,” Selene said. She picked up the plate of
chocolate biscuits and offered them to Bellona. “Would you like
another before you go?”

* * *

Ostara paused outside
the Setco store, entranced by the wonderful smell of freshly-baked
bread wafting from within. Her kitchen cupboards were bare and the
lack of her morning toast and cup of tea had left her grouchy, but
upon seeing the queue winding its way through the shop and out of
the door she decided to leave her grocery shopping until later. A
shop assistant was busy updating the product availability display
in the window and Ostara sighed when she saw chocolate was once
again ‘out of stock’.

She was conscious that
she had yet to make a start on her investigation into the local
Dhusarian Church, even more so that she had no other job offers as
a distraction. Teiresias had sent her the cancelled BBC report as
promised, but now she was in the embarrassing situation of not
being able to afford a cheap holovid unit on which to view it. She
had tried to watch it on her wristpad but the tiny screen made her
eyes hurt. Hence she was now making her way to Endymion’s place of
work at the spaceport, in the hope he could somehow magic up a
solution in the same way he had managed to procure a desk, chair,
filing cabinet and a rather nice bookcase for her
Sherlock
Holmes
collection.

There was a microbus
service along Corporation Street to the spaceport, but even if she
had money for the fare Ostara preferred to walk. Upon crossing
Paradise Circus, she spied Endymion’s sister Bellona scurrying a
short distance ahead, who had just emerged from the Queensway
section of Hockley Market on the left. Without thinking, Ostara
quickened her pace and waved her empty shopping bag at the girl’s
back.

“Bellona!” she called.
“Wait for me!”

The girl turned, saw
Ostara and promptly ran away towards the tunnel leading to the
spaceport. Ostara muttered a curse and slowed to a more reasonable
gait. Bellona was not usually prone to running from her like that.
By the time Ostara reached the entrance of the short tunnel, the
girl had reached the far side and disappeared from sight.

“Strange girl,”
muttered Ostara.

She continued through
the tunnel and into the crescent-shaped entrance hall of the
spaceport dome. In front of the elevator doors on her left, at the
foot of the stairs that curved to the main concourse above, an
enterprising merchant had set up a fast-food stand wreathed in
wonderful odours. To her right, on the other side of the road, was
the spiral staircase that led down to Aston Pier. The road itself
continued through another tunnel that ran beneath the skybus
terminal and into the shuttle hangar on the far side of the
dome.

The smell of fried
food wafting from the stall made Ostara more hungry than ever. The
elderly Asian man selling food smiled at her approach, but kept a
wary eye on his surroundings and she wondered if he had set up his
stand without permission. Right on cue, a security officer appeared
on the concourse above, who upon seeing the stallholder gave a
shout and hurried down the stairs.

The man’s smile
faltered. With an apologetic grin, he ran his fingers across a
switch panel on the side of the stand and promptly dashed away
through the tunnel back into Newbrum. Startled, Ostara watched as
the abandoned stall gave a series of clunks and folded in upon
itself until it was no bigger than a large suitcase, before
trundling off on tiny wheels to find a hiding place of its own. By
the time the officer reached the bottom of the stairs, both the man
and his stall of fried snacks had gone.

Ostara was in no mood
to be interrogated by the local police. Crossing the road, she
quickly descended the spiral stairs to Aston Pier before the
officer decided that questioning her was a better prospect than
trying to catch an errant fast-food stand. The smell of fried
take-away food clung to her clothes and as her stomach began to
rumble she caught another delicate whiff of cooking. This time it
came from the bottom of the stairwell and she remembered that Aston
Pier had a cafeteria for spaceport workers and flight crews. If
Endymion was around, she hoped he was ready to buy her
breakfast.

The short staircase
led to a dimly-lit concrete tunnel that ran east below the
spaceport dome towards the Tatrill Sea shoreline. Further along was
the first of two dozen circular doors, each leading to a
subterranean dwelling reserved for spaceport workers, pilots and
crew. The tunnel ran for some distance, far beyond the dome and
runway above, to eventually break through the cliffs and onto stout
pylons above the choppy waters of Salford Bay. This last stretch of
Aston Pier was a bright, airy space with walls of steel and glass
that served as a passenger lounge for the flying boat service.
Ostara thought it was a shame that spaceport workers were not
allowed to enter the lounge when off duty, for the panorama of
rocky coastline and crashing waves was not far short of
spectacular. Nevertheless, the staff café at the end of the
lodgings was close enough to the windows to get a reasonable view,
albeit one constrained by the escalators leading to the passenger
entrance above.

A few off-duty pilots
sat at the tables outside the cafeteria. Ostara had no idea which
of the circular doors concealed Endymion’s own room and did not
feel brave enough to ask, so instead took a seat and contemplated
the scene. The flying-boat lounge was on the other side of a
floor-to-ceiling partition of one-way mirrors, a relic of when the
café had been a security office and New Birmingham still harboured
ambitions to be the bustling gateway to a brave new world. Today
the lounge contained a mere handful of passengers, their complaints
regarding broken-down escalators murmuring through the glass.

The grey domed top of
the moored craft was visible through the far windows, bobbing upon
the waters of the bay. Newbrum’s flying boats were rigid,
delta-shaped airships some two hundred metres long that used
hydrogen rather than helium for lift; hydrogen was already produced
in vast quantities at Newbrum for spacecraft fuel and there was
little danger of embarrassing explosions on a world with little
oxygen in the air. The service connected the smaller settlements
and research stations dotted around the Tatrill Sea coast. Ostara
recalled the first time she had seen an airship glide gracefully
home and how it left her with an urge to one day take a trip
herself. It seemed such a quaint yet luxurious way to travel.

Her reverie was
interrupted by the arrival of the café proprietor. He was a rotund
middle-aged man with pasty skin, greasy black hair and an apron to
match, who having served his patrons on the neighbouring table now
approached with a menu in his hand. She recognised him as a fellow
refugee from the
Dandridge Cole
but could not recall his
name, so was a little embarrassed when he greeted her like an old
friend.

“Ostara Lee!” he
cried, speaking with a pronounced Italian lilt. “The great
detective from our dear hollow moon! What would be your pleasure on
this fine summer morning?”

“Is it summer?” she
asked. “Or even morning? It’s hard to tell on this planet.”

“It is both in
Naples,” he reassured her. “And that is where my heart will always
be.”

He waited while Ostara
cautiously perused the offered menu. The only thing she recognised
were spanner crabs, primitive sea creatures native to the Tatrill
that looked like rat-sized centipedes with claws at either end,
albeit swathed in batter and pierced with a wooden skewer. She had
never tasted one herself but had it on good authority that the
lobster-like smell of a cooked specimen was sadly deceptive.

“The sign says ‘Fresh
Fish Sold Here’,” she said, pointing to the wavering hologram
outside the squat cabin. “That’s a silly thing to say.”

The man looked
puzzled. “I don’t understand.”

“Well, I assume you’re
not dealing in mouldy food,” she pointed out. “So it must be fresh.
And it wouldn’t be much of a business if you gave it away, so it
must be sold.”

“You want me to change
it to ‘Fish Here’?” the man suggested.

Ostara shrugged. “Why
say it is here? Where else would it be?”

“And I suppose it’s
obvious that I am selling fish,” the man said cautiously. “Many a
person has told me you can smell it from the other side of the
dome.”

“That’s the most
deceiving part of your sign,” she teased, adopting a mock scolding
tone. “I’ve seen what swims in the Tatrill Sea and it’s nothing
like any fish I remember from Earth. Is it all sea food? Inside the
batter, I mean. I’m vegetarian.”

“I heartily recommend
the aubergine cannelloni,” he said, with the air of someone
relieved to be back on firmer ground. “Freshly made by my dear
wife. My cousin works in the greenhouses,” he added slyly, as if to
hint that the ingredients had bypassed the usual routes of commerce
and surreptitiously arrived faster and fresher to his wife’s
kitchen.

“That does sound
nice,” she admitted. “Only I haven’t any credit. Is that a
problem?”

The man’s face fell.
Ostara’s hopeful expression followed suit, then became a cringe as
her stomach rumbled again. Whatever was cooking in the cafeteria
kitchen smelt delicious.

“My treat!” came a
sudden voice from behind her.

Ostara twisted in her
seat and smiled as a loose-limbed Endymion sauntered over to her
table and dropped into a vacant seat. She was vaguely mystified by
how he could look so fresh at this time in the morning, but he
often did weird shifts at the spaceport and for all she knew this
could be his lunch break.

“Endymion!” she
greeted. “I was hoping to run into you.”

“So what will it be,
my friends?” asked the man.

“Two veggie
breakfasts,” declared Endymion. “Give us the works. I’m so hungry I
could eat a scabby camel. Coffee for me, a pot of tea for Ostara.
Is that okay?”

His last question was
directed at Ostara, who nodded hungrily. The man gave a bow,
relieved her of the menu and retreated to the café. Ostara
grinned.

“How did you know I’d
be here?” asked Endymion.

“Oh, I followed my
nose,” she said airily. “You’re becoming a very confident young
man, Endymion. Getting a place of your own has obviously done you a
world of good. But there was no need to buy me breakfast, you
know.”

“Yes there was. You
have no food at your office,” he pointed out. “I noticed the empty
cupboards when I tripped over the mattress in the kitchenette. Are
you living there?”

“I have nowhere else
to sleep,” she said defensively. “And it’s one way of getting to
work on time. Thanks for bringing the furniture earlier, by the
way. It is much appreciated.”

Endymion shrugged.
“The guy who runs the baggage robots has a sideline in imports and
exports, if you know what I mean.”

“Black market?”

“Amongst other things.
A lot of it is second-hand goods he picks up cheap and stores until
he finds a buyer,” he said. “He bought the spaceport’s old
runway-laying rig and sold it for ten times the price to some
desperate idiot in the Tau Ceti system. Funnily enough, Philyra
contacted me earlier, asking about him. Do you remember
Philyra?”

“Talks too much and
obsessed with
Gods of Avalon
and other rubbish?” asked
Ostara. “Yes, I remember Philyra. I always thought you had a crush
on her.”

“What makes you say
that?” asked Endymion, feigning surprise.

Ostara’s mind was
elsewhere and she did not see him blush. “Can this friend of yours
get me a cheap holovid unit?” she asked. Endymion’s indignant
expression settled into a puzzled frown. “There’s this BBC report
on the Dhusarian Church I’d like to watch.”

“Can’t you use your
slate?”

“I don’t have it
anymore. If you’re thinking of the one I gained whilst hobnobbing
with the rebels on Yuanshi, I gave it to Ravana for her university
work.”

Endymion did not
reply. Ostara saw he had been distracted and followed his gaze to a
distant figure loitering suspiciously outside one of the lodgings.
With a curse, he was abruptly on his feet and running towards the
now-open door. Ostara caught a glimpse of a familiar face as the
figure slipped furtively into the cabin. Leaving her seat, she
hurriedly followed.

“Bellona?” she
murmured.

By the time Ostara
reached the open door, Endymion had cornered his sister and was
holding Bellona down by twisting the girl’s arm behind her back,
forcing her to sit rigid upon one of the room’s narrow bunks.
Bellona refused to meet her brother’s stare and looked sulky yet
defiant. The room was barely the size of Ostara’s office, but
somehow managed to contain three beds, a tatty wardrobe and a tiny
wall-mounted holovid unit. Ostara looked at the jumble of clothes,
empty food cartons and other miscellaneous objects scattered across
the floor and turned to Endymion in alarm.

“Has this place been
burgled?”

“Not yet,” retorted
Endymion. “But it was about to be.”

“I haven’t done
anything!” cried Bellona.

“It looks like it has
been ransacked,” Ostara said, sounding uncertain, then with a start
realised the cabin was the one Quirinus shared with Ravana and
Zotz. “It just goes to show it was Ravana who kept the place tidy,”
she mused. She felt sorry for any girl who had to share such an
incredibly small space with two boys.