Steph Bennion - Paw-Prints of the Gods

“There’s also that missing person report,” added Yima. Ininna could tell he was still not sure what she was getting at. “The one raised by the boy at the dig?”

“I tried to make contact with a professor on site who’s on the Que Qiao payroll but had no luck. Our people on Aram are being very cagey about him,” she said thoughtfully. “By the way, I get the impression they’ve found something quite spectacular out there.”

She lapsed into silence and watched as Kedesh clambered slowly up the steps into her transport, encumbered not so much by her survival suit and helmet but by the pain of fresh bruises. An hour in the company of Que Qiao agents was often not a pleasant one. Ininna smiled, then realised Yima still looked at her with a vague expression upon his face.

“The Dhusarians are harassing the archaeologists,” she said. “A Grand Priory spy is on the loose. There’s an abandoned transport no one wants to talk about and all of a sudden we find Commander Kedesh rushing off the map towards Arallu. Coincidence?”

“Something spectacular in Arallu,” mused Yima. “Maybe we should check it out.”

MOMUS GAZED IN WONDER at the enormous churning ball of gas in a thousand shades of brown that filled the view before him. Thunor was the fourth planet out from Barnard’s Star and the second largest in the system after the mighty Woden. It was slightly smaller than Saturn in the Solar System and lacked that planet’s magnificent icy rings, but there was no denying it was still one of the most breathtaking sights Momus had ever seen. The planet went from huge through massive onto truly gargantuan, until the scale of what lay before him became simply far too large for his brain to contemplate. Thunor’s moon of Eostre was but a dark dot far away on the Indra ’s starboard bow, yet even the knowledge that this rocky satellite was as large as Earth’s own moon did little to help his sense of perspective. The tiny speck ahead that was CSS Sky Cleaver looked as lost and alone as a cork bobbing in the middle of a storm-wracked sea.

“Wow,” murmured Momus, not for the first time. “That’s a frigging big planet.”

The Sky Cleaver cloud-mining facility worked in the tenuous upper atmosphere of Thunor, orbiting fast and low on the very edge of space. It was of a similar wheel-and-axle design to Stellarbridge , though slightly smaller and with a longer static pontoon that extended from the wheel on both sides, perpendicular to what passed for the surface of the planet below. The mast extending towards the gaseous mantle of Thunor served as an anchor for the kilometres-long cable of high-tensile piping that descended into the planet’s atmosphere; on the other end, a huge conical net ionised the swirling gas and sucked it up the pipe by way of electromagnetic induction. Powerful compressors at the top of the cable pumped and separated harvested hydrogen and helium-three through the station’s axle to the huge gas tanks on the far-side pontoon. It was an impressive piece of engineering and one that in various guises guaranteed a virtually-unlimited supply of fuel for spacecraft and fusion reactors across the five systems.

Sky Cleaver ’s docking area was on the pontoon pointing away from Thunor, next to the cluster of spherical reservoirs that were hopefully full and ready to replenish the Indra ’s own tanks. Momus settled back in his seat, content to let the automatic guidance controls handle the final approach. It became apparent that of the four docking positions, two were taken. At one was a large, odd-looking vessel, in the shape of a monstrous silver cylinder with the largest rocket nozzle he had ever seen protruding from the rear, secured to the pontoon by cables and a flexible tubular walkway. A sleek Mars-class spaceplane in the blue livery adopted by Newbrum police was docked at another.

The presence of the police vehicle was worrying, but more so was the absence of the heavy-duty shuttle that served as Sky Cleaver ’s emergency lifeboat. As the Indra drew nearer, Momus began to wonder if he should have paid more attention to the disturbing rumours going around Newbrum spaceport. Just then, he heard an electronic purr and saw Ravana’s electric pet float into view from behind the co-pilot’s seat.

“Do you think they’ve really been eaten by mutant rats?” he asked. “Perhaps having a frigging mad moggy at my side might be handy after all.”

Quirinus stood in the hangar, moved his gaze along the hull of the Platypus and thoughtfully stroked his beard. The scaffolding around the bow was gone, most of the inspection hatches were bolted back in place and in his pocket was a light unit, stolen from a fitting in one of the abandoned rooms of Dockside, ready to be installed in the ship’s toilet cubicle. He and Wak had worked almost non-stop on the ship ever since Momus’ departure and nine hours on, it finally felt as if they were making progress. Wak and Zotz stood beside him, both of whom looked as tired as he felt.

“Well?” asked Quirinus. “What do you think?”

“Let me get this straight,” Wak said wearily. “You want to strap three rockets to the side of the hull? We are talking about those dodgy industrial thrusters the miners use to bring ice asteroids back to Ascension, are we not?”

“I found five of them in the other hangar,” Quirinus told him. “Along with a herd of cows and more manure than I’ve ever seen in my life! They must have been brought here for repairs and never collected. I’ve checked the power ratings and reckon I’ll need three to provide the extra thrust needed to blast us into orbit from Falsafah.”

“Three cows?” Zotz asked innocently, teasing him.

“Don’t be silly,” retorted Quirinus. “Three cows are barely two horsepower.”

“You’re mad,” Wak declared. “The hull won’t take the strain!”

“The chassis already has proper mounting points,” Quirinus pointed out. “Early Mars-class freighters were built on Earth and they used boosters to get into orbit. We’ll fit one either side and one on top, a hundred and twenty degrees apart. It’s perfect!”

Zotz looked puzzled. “Wouldn’t having rockets on the side block the door?”

Quirinus looked flustered. “Of course not! Maybe. Okay, yes it would. It just means having to use the roof docking hatch to get in and out, that’s all.”

“Which means finding somewhere to land on Falsafah that has someone waiting with a long ladder,” mused Wak. “No, I can’t see any flaw in your plan at all.”

“Do you have a better idea?” retorted Quirinus.

“Yes! Leave it to the proper authorities!” said Wak. “Or wait until the University’s ship heads out there again. I’m sure they won’t mind you hitching a ride.”

“I can’t leave it another two weeks,” said Quirinus. “You know that.”

For a moment there was silence, broken only by the gentle bleating of sheep in the corridor outside. Quirinus saw Zotz’s gaze move to a mangled white shape in the corner of the hangar, which looked like a man-sized artificial lobster with a glass canopy and giant metal claws. It was the Platypus ’ single-seat extra-vehicular pod from the small bay beneath the flight deck, used to perform repairs in space. Its crumpled outline was testament to the fact it had borne the brunt of the impact with the sun.

“You could use the pod bay door,” Zotz suggested. “Or hang a rope ladder from the roof hatch. That means you could use the mining rockets like you said.”

Quirinus looked from the discarded pod to the hatch beneath the beak-like nose of the Platypus . Ravana had used the pod bay as a way off the ship before, though doing the same on Falsafah whilst wearing survival suits would not be easy.