Paw-Prints Of The Gods (41 page)

“Kedesh!” she cried.
“There’s something in the water, coming your way!”

“I see it,” came the
crackling response, after a pause. “Very odd.”

The approaching stain
resolved into a ragged dark green oval, several metres wide. The
shadowy slick oozed across the rippling surface and slowly spread
around Kedesh’s legs. Ravana watched as the woman bent low to take
a closer look.

“It’s some sort of
weird slime,” said Kedesh. “I wonder...”

Her words broke off
into a piercing scream. Ravana stared in horror as Kedesh leapt
towards the shore in a flurry of limbs, her boots and survival suit
ankle coverings masked by a billowing green mist. Ravana leapt to
the ladder, dropped to the ground and rushed to meet her, deafened
and terrified by the agonising cries flooding from her suit
speaker. Kedesh staggered clear of the water and fell thankfully
into the girl’s arms.

Within moments they
were back in the airlock. Kedesh’s screams became fitful and choked
as her suit filled with vapours from the slime bubbling at the
smouldering ankle seals. When the inner hatch finally opened,
Kedesh fell through into the passenger cabin beyond. Ravana
unlocked the woman’s helmet, removed her own and quickly got to
work helping her out of the ruined suit. The released vapour smelt
vile.

“What the hell is that
stuff?” Ravana cried. “It’s eating through everything!”

Her face fell as she
pulled the woman’s suit clear. Kedesh’s ankles and feet were badly
inflamed and breaking out in huge blisters. Artorius and the greys,
wearing startled expressions, watched from across the cabin.

“I think ‘eating’ is
right,” groaned Kedesh, with a cough that made her wince. “That
green stuff is alive. I’m guessing it’s some primitive organism
that attacks with acid.”

“Wonderful,” muttered
Ravana. “Artorius, fetch the first aid box, would you?”

* * *

Kedesh refused to
remove her underclothes but allowed Ravana to help her into the
transport’s shower cubicle, where what remained of the acidic slime
was quickly washed away. Ravana’s hands were shaking as she
attended to the injuries but soon had the wounds clean and secure
beneath a layer of fresh bandages.

The woman looked pale
and woozy from painkillers when some time later they returned to
the cockpit to consider their options. Nana came with Ravana,
leaving Artorius and Stripy huddled in the back. Other than a small
patch of green slime at the water’s edge, the windswept lake once
again looked deceptively serene.

“I vote we make a dash
across the water to the ridge I saw,” Ravana began. “I reckon we
could do it in under a minute at full speed.”

“Unless we hit deep
water or submerged rocks,” said Kedesh. “Or worse, a patch of slimy
acid waiting to dissolve us for lunch. It’s too risky to go for a
boundary shot.”

“Then I’ll lead the
way,” Ravana said hesitantly. “You’re not too wounded to drive.
I’ll walk in front to make sure it’s safe and use your cannon to
scatter any slime.”

“Thraak thraak!”

“You heard Nana,” said
Kedesh. “That’s crazy talk.”

“Not as insane as I
will be if I spend any longer cooped up in this transport.”

Kedesh sighed. “We’ll
need someone on the roof,” she said, though looked far from
convinced it was a good idea. “You saw the green nasty before I did
when you were up there. The scanner can spot large rocks but won’t
pick up biological weirdness.”

Ravana frowned. “I
can’t ask Artorius.”

“Thraak thraak!”

“It seems you have a
volunteer,” mused Kedesh. “But that makes it no less mad.”

* * *

Ravana paused by the
water’s edge and glanced back at the transport trundling in her
wake. The squat figure upon the roof was barely recognisable; the
greys’ tolerance to the poisonous atmosphere was unclear, so as a
precaution Nana was wrapped in one of the spare survival suits.
Ravana returned her gaze to the lake, hefted the cannon to her
shoulder and placed a finger on the trigger. Her left hand held
Kedesh’s acid-damaged cricket stump.

“Hey Nana,” she
called. “Everything okay up there?”

“Thraak!”

The suit’s inbuilt
communicator made the grey’s screech sound more like white noise
than ever. Reassured, Ravana stepped forward into the lake. Her
helmet speaker relayed a muffled splash as the wheels of the
transport entered the water behind her.

“I can’t see the ridge
from here,” she said. “Am I walking towards it?”

“Thraak,” came the
reply. “Thraak thraak.”

Ravana nodded and
turned slightly to the right. After every second step she paused
and prodded the lake bed with the stump, her eyes scanning the
surface for any signs of movement. She could not help feeling a
little awestruck by her situation; with the transport temporarily
out of her eye line, it brought back to her just how far from the
rest of humanity they were. Yet the vastness of the bleak unspoilt
vista left Ravana feeling not lonely but exhilarated. She walked
upon the raw bones of the universe, unseen by any human eyes before
hers. It was a daunting thought.

“Thraak! Thraak
thraak!”

Ravana spun to the
left, her finger instinctively closing on the trigger before her
mind had even registered the approaching wash of green slime. A
spear of lightning erupted from the cannon and the water at the
edge of the shadow promptly exploded in a cloud of steam. Ravana
quickly backed towards the transport, but paused when she saw her
shot had done the trick. The bits of membrane left bobbing upon the
water were a reassuring roasted shade of brown and soon drifted
away on the wind.

“Thanks for the
warning,” she said, relieved. “Has it gone?”

“Thraak,” confirmed
Nana.

“Well done!” added
Kedesh, watching and listening from the cockpit.

Ravana grinned and
stepped forward once more. Nana sounded another alarm several
metres later. This time, Ravana barely paused as she blasted the
incoming slime, after which she gave the lake bed a nonchalant prod
with the stump and continued to wade onwards. The lake became
deeper and soon she was submerged to her thighs. When Nana sounded
the third warning, Ravana found it harder to turn in the water and
gave a squeak of fear when she saw how near the slime was. A quick
blast dispatched it as before.

“That was close,” she
murmured. “How much further?”

“Thraak thraak.”

“We’re not even
halfway?”

Ravana frowned. She
reached to give the lake bed another prod, then screamed as the
stump was promptly snatched from her hand, sucked away into the
murky shadow that had appeared from nowhere to surround her. The
green slime, oozing thickly across the surface of the water and
rolling like treacle, bubbled and then broke into a myriad of tiny
vortices that moved like gasping mouths. Ravana’s eyes went wide
with fear.

“Thraak!” cried Nana.
“Thraak thraak!”

Gripped by panic,
Ravana blasted recklessly into the lake. She did not stop even when
the heat of boiling water came through the fabric of her suit and
continued to fire long after the eerie shadow had been reduced to
charred fragments. Wreathed in steam, it was not until her linked
implant display flashed overheating warnings, the cannon glowing
warm against her cheek, that she relaxed her grip upon the trigger
and slackened her shaking hands. Her heart raced and inside her
suit she was drenched in sweat.

“You were right,” she
muttered to Kedesh. “This is madness!”

“I don’t know,” purred
a reply. “You’ve done well to get this far.”

Ravana froze. The
woman’s voice that seeped into her helmet was not that of Kedesh.
She turned slowly and twitched in alarm.

To her right, reclined
upon a rock that had also manifested out of thin air, was the
dark-haired watcher from Falsafah Alpha, wearing the same fur coat
and mischievous smile. Ravana gave a strangled cry, glanced back at
the transport and gasped. Everything around her, from the vehicle
to the rippling waters of the lake, had stopped dead as if frozen
in time. She returned her wary stare to the apparition and gulped.
The woman, who lay on her side with her head resting upon a slender
bare hand, regarded Ravana curiously.

“You again!” cried
Ravana. “Where the hell did you come from? How can you just appear
out of nowhere? Not to mention breathe!”

The woman winked. “I
play by different rules when it comes to reality.”

“This is not
real?”

“Let’s not get into
technicalities,” she said irritably. “From your bemused air of
bafflement, I take it that your travelling companion has been her
usual inscrutable self. There was me thinking you’d be fully
briefed by now.”

“She said you are a
watcher,” said Ravana, eyeing her carefully. She had quizzed Kedesh
further about the mysterious stranger during the long drive into
the mountains, but received nothing but vague replies. “Are you an
alien?”

“No more than you
are,” the woman replied frostily. “The only true citizen here is
the green slime you seem happy to obliterate, but that’s
imperialism for you. How’s the little star man? The boy being led
like a lamb to the slaughter to fulfil his destiny, I trust?”

“What?”

“The infamous Falsafah
prophecy?”

“I don’t
understand.”

“I’m talking to an
idiot!” she growled. Her youthful facade, much to Ravana’s horror,
abruptly slipped and twisted into that of a wizened old crone with
blackened razor teeth. “You showed real promise against mad Missi.
Do your homework before we meet again!”

“But...” stammered
Ravana.

The watcher and her
rocky pedestal were gone. What looked like a silver owl fluttered
skywards, then vanished to leave nothing but the blank rippling
waters of the lake.

Ravana gulped. Gripped
with terror, she lunged forward through the water, away from the
transport towards the distant sand bank. Her half-wading,
half-leaping progress became rapid once she reached the shallows
and soon she was sprinting through ankle-deep water, conscious but
uncaring of the slimy dark shadows darting away on all sides.

“Ravana!” Kedesh’s
voice sounded loud in her helmet. “Slow down!”

“Thraak thraak!”

Ravana reached the dry
ground of the ridge and fell to her knees. She was scared, angry,
confused and seriously fearing for her sanity. Behind, the
transport climbed from the lake onto the sand bank and pulled to a
halt, pouring water from various nooks and crannies beneath the
chassis. Nana took the opportunity to shuffle along the roof
towards the ladder, but it was Ravana who reached the airlock hatch
first.

Kedesh rose from her
seat as the girl burst back into the cabin, Nana close behind.

“What happened out
there?” she cried. “Spooked by the slime?”

Ravana threw her
helmet to the floor. “Didn’t you see her?” she retorted
angrily.

“See who?” asked
Kedesh.

“A big scary slime
monster?” sneered Artorius.

“That damn watcher
from the dome!”

“Fwack!”

Kedesh frowned. “There
was no one out there but you.”

“Thraak thraak,” added
Nana, as Artorius helped the grey from the suit.

“And Nana on the
roof,” the woman corrected. “You saw Athene?”

“Athene?” Ravana
stomped to a bunk, sat down and threw an angry glare at Kedesh.
Nana and Stripy slunk to sit with a startled Artorius. “You can’t
see her but somehow know her name? Who is she? Tell me now!”

“One who walks amongst
us,” Kedesh said slowly.

“Stop being so
frigging mysterious!” snapped Ravana, frustrated. “What the hell is
a watcher? And why is she also a cat? Or even an owl?”

“She can be whatever
she wants,” the woman remarked gaily.

“Answer my damn
question!”

Kedesh sighed.
“Watchers are hard to explain,” she admitted. “Some believe them to
be alien beings of pure energy, evolved far beyond the need for
flesh and bones, each with a consciousness mapped into the quantum
fluctuations of space-time. Less charitable people dismiss them as
delusions of the insane, of course. In the past they may have been
looked upon as gods. The cat thing goes back a long way amongst
watchers who toy with humans.”

“Evil space ghosts!”
Artorius remarked gleefully. “Cool!”

Ravana forced herself
to be calm. “An alien cat woman?”

“Thraak,” replied
Nana. “Thraak thraak.”

“Our grey friend has a
point,” said Kedesh. “It is said they’re as old as the stars, which
makes us the invading aliens, not them. The watcher who calls
herself Athene is one I have crossed paths with before. She likes
to meddle more than watch.”

“I don’t like the
sound of that,” Ravana said dubiously. “Tell me more.”

“Athene is a bit of a
maverick all-rounder,” Kedesh said thoughtfully. “The fact she’s
hanging around Falsafah worries the hell out of me.”

* * *

A short while later
they were on the move. The ridge ran high and dry for most of the
way, but solid ground remained at least an hour’s drive away.
Ravana was keen to hear more about the mysterious watchers but
Kedesh, ever eager to change the subject, convinced her that their
immediate concern was keeping the acid slime away from the
transport. Ravana soon found herself back on the roof, plasma
cannon at the ready.

She gazed across the
congregating flotillas of slime, astounded by how the lake had
changed in such a short space of time. The shore either side of the
sand bank bubbled like hot volcanic mud and a green mist swirled
uneasily above the wallowing sickly surface. The knowledge they
were running low on spare cartridges for the cannon did not help
Ravana’s nerves and she jumped when Kedesh’s voice suddenly
interrupted her thoughts. The woman had suggested they use their
headcoms to keep in contact; Ravana did not like to be reminded of
her cranium implant but had reluctantly agreed.