Paw-Prints Of The Gods (33 page)

“Would you like to
play a game?”

Artorius opened a
sleepy eye, saw the hazy monochrome figure at the foot of his bunk
and sat bolt upright in bed in alarm. The boy rubbed sleep from his
eyes and the shape resolved into the familiar hologram of Missi.
Artorius gave an involuntary yawn and looked around the dormitory.
The trail of sheets and blankets leading from where Nana and Stripy
had been sleeping suggested they were up and about somewhere.

“What?” asked
Artorius, confused. “A game?”

“I am well-versed in
chess,” the hologram continued. “And many other pursuits.”

“I’m hungry,” the boy
complained. “What time is it?”

“We will play later,”
Missi acknowledged, this time with a slight edge to its voice, not
that Artorius noticed. “A healthy mind makes for healthy
flesh.”

Artorius thought about
this, then threw back his sheets and scrambled messily to the edge
of his bunk. Somehow he had forgotten to get undressed before going
to bed.

“Do you know the
slapping game?” he asked.

* * *

Ravana ran along the
circular corridor, eager to distance herself from the scene of her
disturbing close encounter. She heard the reassuring sound of
Kedesh’s voice from a room ahead and moments later burst through
the door into the dome’s laboratory. Her panic turned to disgust at
the sight of Kedesh elbows deep in slime, for the woman was busy
dissecting the mangled remains of a metre-wide black spider. Beside
her, Missi’s hologram hovered disconcertingly a few centimetres
above the floor. Kedesh and the AI were in deep discussion and
barely gave Ravana a glance as she skidded to a halt inside the
room.

“It has the same
flexible carapace and freaky internal skeleton of a Yuanshi
ashtapada,” Kedesh was saying. “The enlarged book lungs and
pronounced frontal lobes set it apart. But there’s nothing to eat
out there and very little oxygen beyond the valley. How can these
things be anything else other than a bizarre and possibly pointless
experiment?”

“I am unable to
confirm nor deny your observations,” replied the hologram.

“I saw her again!”
cried Ravana. “I even spoke to her!”

Kedesh looked up and
regarded Ravana crossly. “Saw who?”

“The phantom cat
woman. She was in the hangar!”

“Ravana,” Kedesh said
gently. “There was no one there. Forget her.”

“You’ve seen her
before, haven’t you?” Ravana accused her, but the woman just
shrugged. “Missi, you must have cameras everywhere. Did you see
her?”

“My records contain no
image of such person,” the AI told Ravana.

“Fat lot of use you
are,” Ravana grumbled. “I did see her! She said something about
being a pawn or a queen in a game, then disappeared exactly as
before! She was tall, with dark hair, a fur coat and strange yellow
eyes and... What?”

Kedesh gave a
sympathetic smile and shook her head sadly. Ravana opened her mouth
to argue, but the woman’s expression was that of someone listening
to a child’s tale of fairies at the bottom of the garden. Ravana
scowled and slunk into a corner to sulk.

“Can we return to the
spiders?” suggested Kedesh, addressing the hologram. “This
experiment of yours. Classified information, I take it?”

“To answer that
question would presuppose your earlier deductions were correct,”
Missi said smoothly. “You are free to use the station’s facilities
as you please, but I cannot allow you to compromise the ongoing
research conducted under my supervision.”

“By that you mean stop
asking questions,” Kedesh retorted irritably.

“You don’t answer any
of mine,” complained Ravana. “Why don’t you believe me? I did see
her. She knew my name!”

Finding herself
ignored, Ravana shuffled closer to Kedesh and the hologram. She was
trying not to look at the corpse, for the thought of what the woman
was doing to the mangled arachnid made her feel sick. Kedesh paused
to dictate murmured notes to a nearby touch-screen slate, seemingly
fascinated by the innards of the spider’s carapace.

“Do you know if this
place has a working ED transmitter?” Ravana asked cautiously,
trying a change of tack. “I was hoping I could call home.”

Just for an instant,
the hologram froze and then flickered, as if the guiding
intelligence had been temporarily called away. Ravana turned her
questioning stare towards Kedesh, but the woman pointedly remained
engrossed in her dissection.

“I regret that the
transceiver is currently inoperative,” Missi announced calmly.

Ravana found the AI’s
manner oddly suspicious. “What sort of problem?”

“There is a fault in
the alpha-echo-three-five control unit,” the AI replied hesitantly.
“This is situated on the main antenna mast and human intervention
is required.”

“I’ve seen that
movie,” Ravana retorted crossly. “If you don’t want me to use the
holovid, just say so.” She glanced at the half-dissected spider,
then to Kedesh and shuddered. “I don’t know how you can even touch
that thing. Where did it come from?”

“It was wrapped around
a drive shaft underneath the transport,” she said. “I wanted to
test my hunch that the spiders are part of an experiment Missi
refuses to tell me about. I’m pretty sure the bunker we saw in the
valley is extracting oxygen from ground water to give them
something to breathe, but it makes me wonder what else is needed to
sustain them. I’m somewhat stumped as to why they are out there at
all.”

“The pursuit of
knowledge is reason enough,” the hologram interjected.

Kedesh looked far from
convinced. “I know this place was built by the American military. I
dread to think of what your creators had in mind when they set up
an experiment involving these things.”

“The scope and aims of
the research are restricted,” the AI stated.

“This is a military
research centre?” asked Ravana, alarmed. “Won’t we get into trouble
just by being here?”

“You heard Missi,”
said Kedesh. “We are welcome as long as we don’t meddle. Besides, I
think the Americans have forgotten this place exists. They built
both here and Falsafah Beta more than twenty years ago, but the
latter has long been used as a hideaway by the Dhusarians and no
one has ever objected.”

“I am aware of their
presence,” Missi confirmed. “They are of no consequence.”

“Easy for you to say,”
muttered Ravana.

“Ravana, Artorius and
our grey friends had a rather unpleasant innings with those at
Falsafah Beta,” Kedesh explained. Ravana wondered why she was
telling this to an AI. “It has been a trying time all round, but we
are grateful for the chance to rest.”

“You are most
welcome,” the AI replied. “The station is at your disposal.”

“We’ll be gone before
you know it,” said Ravana, still thinking of the mysterious
stranger in the hangar. “No one likes guests who overstay their
welcome, do they?”

“On the contrary,”
said Missi. “There is no danger of that happening here.”

* * *

Artorius pushed aside
the empty bowl, slumped back into his chair and burped. His fifth
serving of ice-cream was nice, but somehow not as satisfying as the
previous four, to add to which he now felt queasy. Sitting with him
in the common room were Nana and Stripy. They had both been keen to
try the cold dessert, albeit with mixed results; Stripy was a bowl
ahead of Artorius and behaving as if it were some sort of
competition, while Nana had left a first helping unfinished.
Artorius watched with a glazed expression as a clawed scullery
robot scuttled along the table on tiny legs, scooped the empty
dishes into the basket upon its back, then disappeared once more
through a hatch in the wall. Missi’s hologram, hovering by the food
molecularisor, approached the seated diners with an icy smile.

“Was that to your
satisfaction?” asked the AI.

Artorius nodded,
burped again and gave a weak grin. “I feel sick,” he said.

“Fwack,” agreed
Stripy. The grey’s face had taken on a distinct green tint.

“Thraak thraak!”
chided Nana. “Thraak thraak thraak!”

“I don’t care,”
Artorius said stubbornly. “I like ice-cream.”

He enjoyed being able
to order Missi around; and not just because he had no idea how to
work the molecularisor, or indeed anything else in the kitchenette.
He felt the AI treated him like a proper adult in letting him do
what he wanted, which was more than Ravana or Kedesh ever did.

“I like you,” Artorius
decided. “You can be my slave.”

“Your arrival was
unforeseen but welcome,” Missi replied. “I have no recent data on
your development and my research will be greatly enhanced by your
presence. I fear however that allowing your companions to remain
poses a risk to this establishment.”

“Nana and Stripy?”

“I refer to the young
female and the other individual,” the AI clarified. “The creatures
with you in this room appear to be of non-Earth origin and similar
to the subject of another research project known to me. They are
particularly worthy of further study.”

“They’re aliens,”
Artorius told the hologram. “They’re really clever but talk
funny.”

“Fwack!” protested
Stripy.

“Your human companions
destroyed many years of work when they trespassed in the valley.
They will make amends by sacrificing themselves to science. Once
committed, I would be free to serve you and you alone.”

“Thraak?” exclaimed
Nana, alarmed.

“Could I do whatever I
wanted?”

Missi’s reply was
interrupted by the arrival of Ravana and Kedesh, who both stopped
short at the door upon seeing the copious amounts of ice-cream
dribbling from Artorius’ lips. Stripy and Nana shuffled away,
looking sheepish. Ignoring the hologram, Ravana shook her head
sadly and reached for the towel hanging by the kitchenette
sink.

“Artorius!” she
scolded. “Look at the mess you’ve made of yourself! Have you had
nothing to eat but ice-cream?”

“I can eat what I
want!” Artorius retorted sulkily. “You can’t tell me what to
do!”

“How rude!” said
Ravana. “You need to learn some manners, young man.”

“Fwack fwack,” said
Stripy.

“He had five bowls of
ice-cream?”

“Stripy had six,”
Artorius retorted sulkily. “Why can’t I...?”

Ravana muffled the
boy’s protest with a non-too-gentle chastisement of his face with
the towel. Kedesh regarded Missi suspiciously.

“Didn’t we leave you
in the laboratory?” she asked.

“Each room has its own
holographic projector,” the AI said smoothly. “The system can
support multiple simultaneous visual interfaces.”

“Lucky us,” muttered
Kedesh. “Make sure the boy eats something healthy, would you? We’re
going to the hangar to see how the robots are doing.”

She waited for an
acknowledgement, but the AI remained silent. Artorius pulled
himself free of the towel, glanced up at the hologram and
frowned.

“Missi?” asked
Ravana.

“Your instructions
have been noted,” the AI replied.

“Good,” said Kedesh.
“We’ll be back shortly.”

She beckoned to Ravana
and together they left the common room. Artorius yawned, then
giggled as he caught Stripy doing the same thing. Apart from making
him feel sick, eating all that ice-cream had for some reason made
him feel sleepy. His gaze was drawn once more to the molecularisor
and he gave the hologram a hopeful look.

“Another?” he
suggested.

“Thraak,” murmured
Nana uneasily.

“Your companions left
me strict instructions,” replied Missi, then paused. “Yet the needs
of my research are paramount. You may eat whatever you wish and
then you will sleep. By the time you awake, they will have paid
their dues.”

* * *

Their transport still
looked like it had been dragged through a battlefield backwards,
but now stood firm upon all six wheels with its windows repaired
and the hull wiped clean of spiders’ innards. The maintenance
robots were busy tidying the final minor repairs, though Ravana was
a little disconcerted by the nuts, bolts and twisty metal brackets
one robot was sweeping away from beneath the vehicle. There seemed
little either of them could do to help. Kedesh agreed and pointed
out they still needed to search the storerooms and stock up on
provisions, whereupon she grabbed a trolley from the hangar and led
the way.

“We need to talk,”
said Ravana. They struck lucky in the first room they tried and
Kedesh was busy pulling boxes of travel rations from a shelf.
“About that cat woman.”

“What woman?” asked
Kedesh innocently. “Ooh! Veggie sausage hat-trick!”

“You know who I
mean!”

“There’s a lot of
fried chicken meals here. Can’t see the fascination myself.”

“Kedesh!”

“Spinach pasta bake?”
Kedesh showed Ravana the ration carton, caught the girl’s look of
frustration and dropped the box into the trolley with a sigh. “She
was a quantum mirage, a hallucination. Missi didn’t see her because
in a way she wasn’t really there. Please believe me when I say we
have more important things to worry about than her.”

“A quantum mirage?”
Ravana scoffed. “The first time she appeared you said, ‘oh no, not
again’! And you called her a pain in the arse. What is it you’re
not telling me?”

“As I said, we have
other problems,” Kedesh hissed. She kept her voice low. “I didn’t
want to say anything in front of the boy, but something very odd is
going on. I was under the impression this place had been mothballed
due to lack of funds, change of government, that sort of thing. I
thought we’d have to start up life support before doing anything
else.”

“The dome is probably
kept pressurised to support the weight of the roof,” Ravana told
her. “I’m training to be an engineer,” she added, seeing the
woman’s blank expression.