Paw-Prints Of The Gods (32 page)

“It’s as good a
description as any,” Kedesh admitted and sighed. “That is, if your
definition of a ghost is a trans-dimensional pain in the arse.”

* * *

Upon leaving the
transport, Ravana kept a watchful eye open for any movement in the
shadows. Kedesh refused to be drawn further on the subject of the
mysterious stranger, but the dome was not large and it did not take
them long to ascertain it was deserted.

The doorway at the
rear of the hangar led to a wide corridor into the heart of the
dome. After passing a series of other doors leading to various
storerooms, this passageway opened into another corridor that ran
in a ring around a central circular common room. Further doors off
this second passage led to a couple of dormitories, a small medical
centre, a well-appointed laboratory and a computer suite equipped
with military communications equipment, including a holovid booth.
Everything looked at least a couple of decades old yet in good
working order, though there was little evidence the depot had
regular visitors.

In one respect they
were far from alone. The depot’s computer network was live and
unexpectedly home to an artificial-intelligence personality that
had greeted them by way of a hologram in the computer suite. The
monochrome projection was of an elderly man with crazy white hair
and an equally dishevelled laboratory coat, a visage Ravana
recognised from history books as that of an esteemed
twentieth-century physicist.

“Welcome to Falsafah
Alpha!” the hologram greeted. Its voice bore a slight German accent
and was authoritative yet gentle, in the manner of a genial
headmaster. “I am the Monitoring and Information Scrutiny System
Intelligence, responsible for the continuing operation of this
station.”

Ravana paused while
she sorted out the acronym in her mind. “Missi?”

“That’s a girl’s
name,” sneered Artorius.

“Pleased to meet you,”
said Kedesh. “I wasn’t aware this place was a going concern.”

“The human contingent
has been absent for a while,” the AI informed her. “My duty is to
preserve the viability of this facility and to continue monitoring
ongoing experiments until such time that full operations can
recommence.”

“Do you always appear
like that?” asked Ravana. She remained puzzled that they had found
no trace of the phantom cat woman, but now wondered if it had been
an alternative holographic manifestation of Missi. “An Einstein
look-alike, I mean.”

“The hologram is
merely an aid to human interfacing,” the AI replied, not
registering the real question behind Ravana’s remark. “I am
available to assist whenever required.”

“Thank you,” said
Kedesh, looking thoughtful. “I will bear that in mind.”

The hologram nodded,
waited a few moments, then when no one else said anything it faded
away to leave them alone in the computer suite. Kedesh looked
perturbed, but when Ravana gave her a questioning look, she put a
finger to her lips and shook her head.

After beckoning to
Ravana, Artorius and the greys to follow, Kedesh led them to the
medical centre. They were all tired and looking forward to taking
advantage of the beds in the dormitories, but before they retired
Kedesh suggested they use the centre’s full-body scanner and run
blood tests to make sure no one had gained hidden injuries as a
result of their recent trials. The woman’s frown deepened when they
found the medical systems already held their names and other
information, presumably harvested from their implants by Missi.

“Are there records for
anyone else?” asked Ravana. “That woman, for instance?”

“Forget her,” Kedesh
said harshly. “You saw nothing.”

Ravana scowled, but
let Kedesh proceed with the checks. Her curiosity was aroused when
she saw the woman pocket a vial of Artorius’ blood when she thought
no one was looking, but said nothing. Kedesh acted coy about her
own body scans, but when she came to check Ravana’s results she had
a few questions of her own.

“Those scars of
yours,” Kedesh said slowly. “On your face and arm. Do they
hurt?”

Ravana hesitated. “Why
do you ask?”

Kedesh lightly ran a
finger down Ravana’s arm, along one of the deeper scars. There was
a thin silver line at the base of the crease that contrasted
markedly with the surrounding brown skin. Similar faint markings
were evident elsewhere on the girl’s arm.

“Those lines,” she
said. “I’ve never seen anything like them before.”

“I get pins and
needles sometimes,” Ravana told her, looking wary. “Does the scan
show anything? It’s just that...”

Her words faltered
amidst a tremor of fear. Behind them, Artorius and Stripy were
playing their slapping game and their excited shrieks had driven
Nana to hide beneath the examination table. Kedesh took Ravana’s
hand, gave her fingers a gentle squeeze of reassurance and waited
for the girl to continue.

“I have this cat,”
Ravana said at last. “An electric pet. A few months ago it fell off
a window ledge and the panel in its belly came loose. I knew my
friend Zotz had been secretly messing with its programming and
guessed he had not closed it properly. When I went to push the
panel closed, I was curious and looked inside. The cat was full of
these tiny plant-like tendrils, all sprouting from its organic AI
chip. It looked horrible.”

Kedesh looked puzzled.
“I’m not sure I follow you.”

“Father says it’s
something called Woomerberg Syndrome. The AI on the
Platypus
, my father’s ship, is affected the same way. At a
Que Qiao research plantation on Yuanshi, we discovered that their
AI units use brain cells taken from greys. Then when Taranis set up
his secret cloning laboratory on the
Dandridge Cole
, alien
growth hormones got into the life-support systems and contaminated
the ship and my cat. And me.”

“Alien brain cells?”
Kedesh smiled. “You’re no AI!”

“My implant,” Ravana
said weakly. “I’m scared those silver lines are the same, that my
implant is sending out tendrils under my skin. What else could it
be?”

“That’s ridiculous!
Where do you get these silly ideas?”

“There’s other things
too,” Ravana protested, a little taken aback by the woman’s
reaction. “My weak arm seems stronger now than it used to be. And,
also...” She hesitated, then sighed. “Actually, I can’t think of
anything else. Am I being silly?”

Kedesh gave her a
reassuring hug.

“You’re fine!” she
announced. “If a bit silly. You’ll be pleased to know the scanner
has not found anything some food, a cup of tea and a good night’s
sleep won’t cure. You too, Artorius. This may be our last chance
for a decent meal and a proper bed for a while, so we may as well
make the most of it.”

Ravana managed a wry
grin. “Unless we get awoken by the strange cat woman.”

“I said forget her,”
Kedesh said sternly. “I’ll see you in the common room.”

Ravana smiled, took
Artorius by the hand and led him out of the medical centre, the
greys trotting behind. Kedesh waited a few moments and then
sighed.

“Missi?” she
called.

The hologram appeared
near the doorway and greeted her with a nod.

“How may I be of
assistance?” asked the AI.

“Ravana’s results,”
Kedesh said. She pointed towards the scanner. “Delete them.”

* * *

The circular common
room was well-appointed with comfortable furnishings, a small
kitchenette and a dark round skylight in the roof high above to
provide natural light during the long Falsafah days. The most
welcoming sight of all was the room’s military-grade food
molecularisor, which to their surprise was fully stocked and ready
to serve whatever they desired. Artorius’ stubborn vote for copious
amounts of ice-cream was ignored and instead Ravana set it to
deliver a feast of delectable English and Indian dishes to satisfy
their hunger. Missi reappeared briefly when Artorius accidentally
stumbled against a control panel, but there was something about the
hologram that unnerved Ravana and she was quick to dismiss the AI’s
offer of assistance.

It was not long after
the now-obligatory cup of tea and slice of cake that their
weariness finally caught up with them. Artorius was the first to
yawn, which proved contagious and one by one they shuffled away to
the dormitories to get some sleep. When Ravana suggested they sleep
in shifts as a precaution, Kedesh pointed out that Missi would
undoubtedly warn them to any dangers, but did agree to a little
sabotage of the dormitory door circuits so that they could only be
opened from inside.

Despite her
reservations, Ravana slept soundly. The room was comfortable and
quiet, the latter by virtue of Artorius and the restless greys
having taken the second dormitory for themselves. Kedesh had been
unusually coy when getting ready for bed and insisted on undressing
in private, but the woman’s presence in the neighbouring bunk was
comforting. Ravana’s own bed was snug and warm, her belly was full
and in the darkness of the room she felt safe. Images of ghastly
alien clones, giant spiders and the mysterious dark-haired woman
hovered on the edge of her dreams but the nightmares never
came.

Kedesh was evidently a
light sleeper, for when Ravana awoke several hours later the
woman’s bed was empty and her clothes were gone. After a quick
visit to the dormitory’s small bathroom, Ravana slipped on her
overalls and headed towards the hangar, from where she could hear
faint sounds of activity. A decent night’s sleep had done her good
and her bones no longer ached like they did. She had been on
Falsafah for over six weeks, which was normally long enough to
adjust to local gravity. It was only her mistreatment at the hands
of Jizo and Lilith that had left her overly-conscious of weight
that, though less than what it would be on Earth, was still more
than she was used to carrying back home.

Ravana reached the
door to the computer suite and paused. Earlier, she had been too
tired to try anything, but now wondered if the station had a
transmitter capable of sending a message back home. Entering the
room, she examined the military equipment. The holovid booth was of
a familiar commercial design, but after switching it on her hopes
were dashed when she was confronted by a message reporting a fault
with the antenna. What puzzled her was that the system log showed a
call had been made earlier that night. Disheartened, Ravana
abandoned the computer suite and resumed her way to the hangar.

Their battered
transport was on jacks, with one of its rear wheels removed and
multi-limbed robots busy at work conducting repairs. The attached
refuelling line was an optimistic touch, for the vehicle was
clearly not going anywhere soon. Kedesh was nowhere in sight, but
her plasma cannon lay next to a pile of rags upon a workbench,
looking freshly cleaned. Ravana guessed it was her who had
instructed the depot’s robots to start repairs, which judging by
their progress must have been several hours ago. The ramshackle
remains of another transport parked next to their own was not a
good advert for their services.

One of the squat
maintenance automatons was having problems getting into position to
clean a broken shock-absorber mount for welding. Ravana took some
gloves and auto-shield goggles from the bench, relieved the robot
of its grinding tool, knelt beside it and absorbed herself in the
task of stripping dirt and rust from the damaged steel. That done,
it took a matter of minutes to clamp the mount back onto the
chassis and use the robot’s gas arc welder to finalise the repair.
While she did not share Zotz’s mania for inventing things, she was
good at fixing machines and it felt good to be doing something
useful. The job finished, she left the automaton to its duties and
watched as another robot, clinging limpet-like to the hull, applied
liquid glass to the myriad of cracks across the windscreen.

“Industrious little
things, are they not?” a voice purred behind her.

Startled, Ravana
jumped and then froze in wonder at the sight of a small black and
silver tabby cat sitting on top of a tool cabinet near the door,
nonchalantly licking its paws. The cat paused to return her stare,
leapt lightly to the floor and in a surreal blink of an eye
abruptly metamorphosed into the tall, dark-haired woman Ravana had
seen earlier. She wore the same full-length fur coat, which was
open to reveal a long, blindingly-white column dress gathered below
the bust. The stranger’s baleful yellow stare bore into her like
that of a caged tiger idly awaiting the right moment to snap the
zoo keeper’s neck in two. Ravana nervously backed away. There was
something beyond the woman’s supernatural method of arrival that
terrified her.

“Who are you?”
Ravana’s words trembled. “Where did you come from?”

“You humans are so
creative,” the woman remarked, ignoring Ravana’s questions. “There
seems to be no limit to what you or your clever devices can do.
Your motives may be questionable, but your determination is second
to none. Most impressive.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Sorry? Use that word
with care!” the woman hissed. “One day you will know the true
depths of remorse. But take heart!” she said gaily, her tone
suddenly brightening. “Even the most humble of pawns can be queen
if they make the right moves. The trick to survival, my dear Ravana
of Yuanshi, is to understand your place in the great game.”

“How do you know
my...” began Ravana. She was speaking to thin air.

The woman had
disappeared in a tiny flash of silver fur. Frightened, Ravana
shuffled around the edge of the hangar, keeping her panic-stricken
stare wide open for the woman’s return as she hastened towards the
door. Only then did she scream and run.

* * *