Steph Bennion - Paw-Prints of the Gods

“Would you like me to do anything else?” asked Endymion, interrupting her thoughts.

“I think that’s it for now. You’ve been most kind, helping me like this,” said Ostara, turning away from the window. She saw Endymion glance at his wristpad, as if to check the time. “Are your folks expecting you back? I know you’ve probably got people to do, things to see. Or even the other way around.”

“I’m in no rush,” he replied and sighed. “I don’t live at home now, anyway.”

“You don’t?” Ostara was surprised. “How come?”

“I managed to get me a place at Aston Pier. My folks argue all the time since dad lost his job and Bellona is acting all weird with this Dhusarian Church stuff, so I moved out,” he told her. “The room is tiny but it’s a cool place to live, with all the space pilots and so on. The Brits call it Aston-super-Mare. It’s supposed to be a joke but I don’t get it.”

“Isn’t Quirinus staying down that way?”

Endymion nodded. “I see him and Zotz quite a lot. Ravana is away at the moment.”

“Digging up dead aliens in Tau Ceti, I know. Would you like some tea?”

He shrugged, then nodded. “I’ll see if I can fix the desk,” he offered, as she headed for the small kitchenette next door.

By the time she emerged a few minutes later, Ostara saw he had not only managed to slot the dislodged desk leg back into position and arrange the boxes into makeshift seats, but had also found a broom from somewhere to give the floor a quick sweep. The air sparkled as the dim red light from the window caught floating motes of dust.

“So,” said Ostara, handing him a steaming mug of tea. “Do you like my new office?”

“It’s got potential,” he admitted. “A detective agency sounds really cool. Does that mean you’re in Newbrum for good?”

“There’s no going back to the Dandridge Cole for a while,” she said. “You saw what the Platypus did to the sun. Even if it can be fixed, it will take a lot of work to bring the farms back to life and get the hollow moon self-sufficient again.”

They had both been aboard the freighter when it crashed into the tiny artificial sun, which fortunately had been suffering a power loss at the time. Her mention of the hollow moon’s farms made Endymion smile. She thought of the animals the refugees brought with them, many of which now terrorised squirrels and small children in Circle Park.

“There was a ship in from Yuanshi just last week,” Endymion told her, inadvertently revealing he too was thinking of their past adventures. “We don’t often receive flights from Epsilon Eridani and this one was odder than most. It was met by people from Bellona’s church, though the passengers kept themselves hidden the whole time. Verdandi was furious that we let them into the city without ever seeing who was aboard.”

“They’re a weird lot at that church,” Ostara remarked. “No offence to your sister.”

“None taken. It stuck in my mind because of Ravana being away doing her archaeology. I took a peek at the ship’s flight log and saw it had been to Falsafah a few weeks before,” explained Endymion, then sighed. “It’s been an odd week at the spaceport. The police were around earlier, asking space-traffic controllers about any unusual activity around Thunor. They think something has happened to the workers on Sky Cleaver and are sending a ship to investigate.”

“Unusual activity?” Ostara asked, mildly intrigued. The CSS Sky Cleaver was the deep-space equivalent of an oil rig, placed in a low orbit around Thunor to extract hydrogen and helium-three from the gas giant’s atmosphere.

“There’s been no word from the crew for ages,” Endymion told her. “The police say it was probably an accident. You know, someone forgot to close an airlock, or rats got aboard and chewed through life support systems, or they all got food poisoning or something.”

“That’s horrible!”

“It’s a dangerous job,” mused Endymion, thoughtfully sipping his tea.

Ostara frowned. Endymion was usually more than ready to go into graphic detail as to what unpleasant and gory fate awaited the unwary in space, but his thoughts seemed to be elsewhere. Ostara decided she was not much of an investigator if she did not ask.

“Something on your mind?”

Endymion paused and gave his cheek an absent-minded scratch. “The Dhusarian Church in Newbrum is really getting big,” he said slowly. “I thought it was just another fad, a harmless crack-pot religion and with Taranis gone it would fade away. But this alien god thing is becoming a cult and drawing all sorts of people in.”

“Like your sister?”

“Mum and dad are worried about what she’s getting into,” he said. “So am I.”

“Is it worth investigating? I happen to know a detective who’s looking for work.”

Endymion laughed. Ostara’s face fell, reflecting that Verdandi herself had hinted there was no demand for a detective agency in Newbrum. Endymion’s casual remark about Taranis also unsettled her, for she effectively had been an accomplice to the priest’s murder, though it now crossed her mind that they had never made sure of Taranis’ fate after blasting him and his creations into space. She felt Endymion’s eyes upon her as she glumly contemplated the contents of her mug and wondered what he was thinking.

“Maybe that church does need looking into,” Endymion said. “I’d do a bit of snooping myself but Bellona would only accuse me of being sneaky.”

“You want me to spy on her instead?”

“Maybe. I can’t afford to pay you,” he said hurriedly. “I could pick up some bits of furniture for your office, if that helps.”

“I’ve got nothing else doing,” Ostara admitted. “Perhaps it is best that I practice my detecting before I start charging for my services.”

“Then you’ll make a few enquiries?”

Ostara smiled. “Let’s see what the Dhusarians are up to, shall we?”

Zotz gazed out the window at the slowly-rotating wheel that was CSS Stellarbridge , the two-hundred-metres-wide orbital station that served as a passenger terminal and trading post for ships unable or unwilling to drop through Ascension’s atmosphere. He sat strapped into the navigator’s seat on the flight deck of the Indra , watching as Momus slowly backed the huge tanker away from the static docking pontoon that emerged axle-like from the centre of the wheel. Quirinus was in the co-pilot’s seat, holding Ravana’s electric pet to his lap and clearly uncomfortable at not being at the helm. The Indra was far bigger than anything Momus had piloted before and in the wrong hands could easily knock Stellarbridge out of orbit. It was only when the end of the pontoon finally slipped past and began to recede into the distance that Quirinus visibly relaxed.

“We’ve got about twenty minutes before we break orbit,” he said, squinting at the console before him. The Indra was designed for pilot-less operation, but the flight deck had basic controls and life support so maintenance crews could fly the ship manually if needed. “Once the main engine has fired it’ll take about seven hours to reach the Dandridge Cole .”

“Aye aye, captain,” said Momus. “Or in your case, is that just one aye?”

“Very funny,” muttered Quirinus. He self-consciously touched his eye patch.

The ship began a lateral rotation and the brown planet below filled the view as they turned away from the space station. The Indra was shaped like a squashed airship, right down to the fabric skin that cocooned the spherical holding tanks clustered either side of the ship’s cylindrical spine. The control cabin was at the front of the spacecraft, with a cramped engine room that served the single plasma drive unit at the rear. The hollow central spine was currently stripped of its inflatable gas tanks, a hurried modification made before the tanker gallantly carried the people of the hollow moon to safety. This narrow corridor, three metres in diameter and a hundred and fifty metres long, had seen four hundred people and their valuables, noisy air-processing units, temporary toilets and assorted livestock all jostling for space. It had been a trip few could forget, despite all attempts to try.