Steph Bennion - Paw-Prints of the Gods

“How fascinating,” said Fornax, with a mock yawn. “I’m not here to discuss old news. I’ve heard a rumour about alien artefacts from the Falsafah dig, turning up on the local black market. What have you got on that?”

“Hoping for a scoop, are you?” teased Teiresias. “Looking for the big exposé that will finally make the holovid world sit up and take notice? I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Ascension is where journalism careers come to die.”

“Yours maybe,” muttered Fornax.

Ostara looked at the wall screen, which Fornax had already noted showed various holovids, pictures and other items about Sky Cleaver and the fate of its crew. Some of the clips were of Teiresias standing in the departure lounge of Newbrum spaceport, talking to the camera as mystified travellers passed by. Ostara lingered at a clip that in the background had two men and a boy pointing into the hangar and laughing about something.

“Are they dead?” Ostara asked. “Those poor people out at Thunor?”

Teiresias paused. “That report is embargoed,” he said cautiously.

“A scoop of your own?” sneered Fornax. “Don’t worry, I won’t steal it.”

“There’s not much to tell. The police are on their way to investigate and Verdandi has asked us not to run the story until she knows more,” he replied. “It’s a shame, really.”

Ostara nodded solemnly. “Those poor mine workers.”

“I meant it’s a shame my report has been put on hold,” snapped Teiresias. “I’ve put a lot of work into it! I’m trying to convince the head of the network back in London to commission a regular current affairs show for the Barnard’s Star system.”

“Are you hosting it? You could call it The Daily Prophet ,” quipped Fornax. “What with you having a name like Teiresias.”

“Why would a prophet need news?” he retorted. The reference to his name was lost on Ostara, who gave them both blank looks. “That’s a ridiculous idea!”

“To see if prophecies came true?”

“I don’t understand,” Ostara said weakly.

“And I haven’t got time for this!” snapped Teiresias. “Ostara, my dear, I will send you the report on the Dhusarian Church. Miss Fornax, you can do your own journalism and keep out of my way. Alien artefacts indeed! Is that really the level you aspire to on Weird Universe ?”

Fornax gave him a hurt look. In her world journalists stuck together and were not renowned for helping private investigators or the police. When she realised Teiresias was not joking, she stepped towards the door and faced him with a glare.

“I don’t need your help!” she declared. “I’ll get my scoop! I have more journalistic instincts in my little finger than you have in your entire body. That goes for you too,” she added, seeing Ostara’s baffled expression. “A private detective from a hollow asteroid? Don’t make me laugh! This planet is a madhouse!”

With that, roving reporter Felicity Fornax pulled open the door and stormed noisily down the stairs and back onto the street.

“Crazy dome,” she muttered. “There’s a story here somewhere. I can smell it!”

Many millions of kilometres away, Momus, Quirinus and Wak were in the main airlock of the Dandridge Cole , each clutching the wall rail to stop themselves drifting away. Momus had reluctantly accepted Wak’s arguments for not sending the Indra on automatic pilot, though suspected it was really because Quirinus wanted rid of him for a day or so.

“Crappy pile of space junk,” he declared. “Why do I have to do the refuelling run? The frigging thing is as old as my granny.”

“Then you’ll know how to handle an old girl like the Indra ,” Quirinus replied wearily.

“I’m not a pilot,” Wak pointed out. “And Quirinus has things to do here.”

The tanker before them swayed upon its moorings, sending faint knocking sounds echoing around the airlock. The asteroid spun upon its long axis once every minute, which was enough to create a centrifugal force equivalent to Ascension gravity upon the inner surface of the cavern. The main airlock was supposed to be at the zero-gravity point, but the Dandridge Cole had developed a slight eccentricity in its rotation and the axis of the hollow moon had become askew, leading Momus to curse more than usual when he earlier brought the Indra down the kilometre-long tunnel through the nose of the asteroid and into dock.

“Can’t you fix that wobble?” asked Quirinus irritably.

“The missing engine and reactor has put the asteroid out of balance,” Wak explained. “The venting fuel line didn’t help, nor that those idiots who came for the Raja managed to destroy a control bunker in the process.”

“It’s about time you frigging sorted it out,” Momus muttered.

“I’m doing my best!” Wak retorted. “There’s a lesson to be learned though. It was the height of stupidity to take something like power generation for granted. In my defence, those reactors were designed to run at maximum efficiency for a century or more with little or no maintenance. I had the access tunnels sealed to stop people meddling! Believe me, I do regret not sending my team to check the engine rooms straight away, instead of wasting my time trying to diagnose the problem via remote systems. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.”

Quirinus shuddered. “What Ravana found was far from wonderful.”

“Anyway, the robots finished rebuilding the bunker and spin thrusters a while ago,” Wak told Momus. “It’s just that with the fuel situation and everything I left it wobbling. Why waste power on that when we have heaters and lights to run in Dockside?”

“It’s making me feel sick,” complained Momus, but it was more the sight of the Indra oscillating gently before him that he found disconcerting.

“You’ll be fine once you’re aboard!” Quirinus told him. He patted his pilot-for-hire on the back. “Captain Momus, your ship awaits!”

Momus pulled a face and reluctantly pushed himself from the railing towards the open airlock of the Indra . By the time he was inside and pulling the hatch closed, Quirinus and Wak had made a hasty retreat to the elevator back to Dockside and were out of sight.

“Frigging space tankers,” Momus muttered, strapping himself into the pilot’s seat.

It took a few minutes to run through the final pre-flight checks. The huge airlock chamber opened and the Indra began its slow reverse along the rectangular shaft that led to the outer doors and deep space. Despite his complaining, Momus was secretly quite content at having a ship to himself for a change. His failure to progress as a pilot beyond short-range shuttles was almost entirely down to his extreme dislike of taking passengers. When the Indra finally emerged into space some five minutes later, he almost managed a smile.

The ship backed away from the immense rocky bulk of the asteroid and the dwindling narrow slot of the outer airlock door. The Indra left the shaft spinning at the same rate at the Dandridge Cole , but after a quick blast of the tanker’s correction jets, the asteroid filling the view through the flight-deck window began to rotate once more. Further jets fired and the Indra turned away, leaving Momus with little to do other than to await the main engine burn that would take him to the distant gas planet of Thunor.

“Just me and the stars,” he murmured. “Bliss.”

A sudden noise made him jump. He could have sworn that above the background murmur of onboard equipment he had heard the pitiful meow of a cat. Slowly, he turned in his seat and was greeted by the sight of Ravana’s electric pet, wearing a pained expression as it drifted between the ceiling and the floor.