Steph Bennion - Paw-Prints of the Gods

“I do know Ravana and Zotz,” she hesitantly replied. “They both played in the band at the peace conference last year. Ravana is here studying engineering and Zotz is in my class. Nearly everyone from the hollow moon lives in Newbrum now.”

Selene nodded thoughtfully and settled back into her seat. For a while no one spoke, then the girl leaned forward once more and gave Bellona a friendly smile.

“Ravana took something that did not belong to her,” she said. “Priest Taranis was the keeper of the book containing the first sacred texts. Ravana stole it from him and spirited it away for reasons we cannot imagine. We believe she brought it with her to Newbrum. We would like you to find out where it is; and if possible, get it back.”

“The Isa-Sastra ?” Awestruck, Bellona recalled seeing Ravana with a large book at the end of their adventures, but its significance had been lost to her at the time. “The original?”

“As given to the prophet Betty Hill more than three hundred years ago.”

“Ravana is on Falsafah,” Bellona said, her voice trembling. “Zotz may know where it is. He’s gone back to the hollow moon to see his father. Shall I contact him?”

“Neither can be trusted. You need to be discrete with your enquiries.”

“You want me to spy on them?” asked Bellona, somewhat shocked.

“We just want you to play detective for a while,” Selene reassured her. “You’re only looking for a book. How hard can that be?”

Bellona looked doubtful. “I’ll try my best,” she said uncertainly. “My brother might know something. He and Zotz are friends.”

“Trust no one! These are difficult times for the Dhusarian Church.”

“They are?”

“Yet those who serve well will be rewarded,” Selene said. She picked up the plate of chocolate biscuits and offered them to Bellona. “Would you like another before you go?”

Ostara paused outside the Setco store, entranced by the wonderful smell of freshly-baked bread wafting from within. Her kitchen cupboards were bare and the lack of her morning toast and cup of tea had left her grouchy, but upon seeing the queue winding its way through the shop and out of the door she decided to leave her grocery shopping until later. A shop assistant was busy updating the product availability display in the window and Ostara sighed when she saw chocolate was once again ‘out of stock’.

She was conscious that she had yet to make a start on her investigation into the local Dhusarian Church, even more so that she had no other job offers as a distraction. Teiresias had sent her the cancelled BBC report as promised, but now she was in the embarrassing situation of not being able to afford a cheap holovid unit on which to view it. She had tried to watch it on her wristpad but the tiny screen made her eyes hurt. Hence she was now making her way to Endymion’s place of work at the spaceport, in the hope he could somehow magic up a solution in the same way he had managed to procure a desk, chair, filing cabinet and a rather nice bookcase for her Sherlock Holmes collection.

There was a microbus service along Corporation Street to the spaceport, but even if she had money for the fare Ostara preferred to walk. Upon crossing Paradise Circus, she spied Endymion’s sister Bellona scurrying a short distance ahead, who had just emerged from the Queensway section of Hockley Market on the left. Without thinking, Ostara quickened her pace and waved her empty shopping bag at the girl’s back.

“Bellona!” she called. “Wait for me!”

The girl turned, saw Ostara and promptly ran away towards the tunnel leading to the spaceport. Ostara muttered a curse and slowed to a more reasonable gait. Bellona was not usually prone to running from her like that. By the time Ostara reached the entrance of the short tunnel, the girl had reached the far side and disappeared from sight.

“Strange girl,” muttered Ostara.

She continued through the tunnel and into the crescent-shaped entrance hall of the spaceport dome. In front of the elevator doors on her left, at the foot of the stairs that curved to the main concourse above, an enterprising merchant had set up a fast-food stand wreathed in wonderful odours. To her right, on the other side of the road, was the spiral staircase that led down to Aston Pier. The road itself continued through another tunnel that ran beneath the skybus terminal and into the shuttle hangar on the far side of the dome.

The smell of fried food wafting from the stall made Ostara more hungry than ever. The elderly Asian man selling food smiled at her approach, but kept a wary eye on his surroundings and she wondered if he had set up his stand without permission. Right on cue, a security officer appeared on the concourse above, who upon seeing the stallholder gave a shout and hurried down the stairs.

The man’s smile faltered. With an apologetic grin, he ran his fingers across a switch panel on the side of the stand and promptly dashed away through the tunnel back into Newbrum. Startled, Ostara watched as the abandoned stall gave a series of clunks and folded in upon itself until it was no bigger than a large suitcase, before trundling off on tiny wheels to find a hiding place of its own. By the time the officer reached the bottom of the stairs, both the man and his stall of fried snacks had gone.

Ostara was in no mood to be interrogated by the local police. Crossing the road, she quickly descended the spiral stairs to Aston Pier before the officer decided that questioning her was a better prospect than trying to catch an errant fast-food stand. The smell of fried take-away food clung to her clothes and as her stomach began to rumble she caught another delicate whiff of cooking. This time it came from the bottom of the stairwell and she remembered that Aston Pier had a cafeteria for spaceport workers and flight crews. If Endymion was around, she hoped he was ready to buy her breakfast.

The short staircase led to a dimly-lit concrete tunnel that ran east below the spaceport dome towards the Tatrill Sea shoreline. Further along was the first of two dozen circular doors, each leading to a subterranean dwelling reserved for spaceport workers, pilots and crew. The tunnel ran for some distance, far beyond the dome and runway above, to eventually break through the cliffs and onto stout pylons above the choppy waters of Salford Bay. This last stretch of Aston Pier was a bright, airy space with walls of steel and glass that served as a passenger lounge for the flying boat service. Ostara thought it was a shame that spaceport workers were not allowed to enter the lounge when off duty, for the panorama of rocky coastline and crashing waves was not far short of spectacular. Nevertheless, the staff café at the end of the lodgings was close enough to the windows to get a reasonable view, albeit one constrained by the escalators leading to the passenger entrance above.

A few off-duty pilots sat at the tables outside the cafeteria. Ostara had no idea which of the circular doors concealed Endymion’s own room and did not feel brave enough to ask, so instead took a seat and contemplated the scene. The flying-boat lounge was on the other side of a floor-to-ceiling partition of one-way mirrors, a relic of when the café had been a security office and New Birmingham still harboured ambitions to be the bustling gateway to a brave new world. Today the lounge contained a mere handful of passengers, their complaints regarding broken-down escalators murmuring through the glass.

The grey domed top of the moored craft was visible through the far windows, bobbing upon the waters of the bay. Newbrum’s flying boats were rigid, delta-shaped airships some two hundred metres long that used hydrogen rather than helium for lift; hydrogen was already produced in vast quantities at Newbrum for spacecraft fuel and there was little danger of embarrassing explosions on a world with little oxygen in the air. The service connected the smaller settlements and research stations dotted around the Tatrill Sea coast. Ostara recalled the first time she had seen an airship glide gracefully home and how it left her with an urge to one day take a trip herself. It seemed such a quaint yet luxurious way to travel.