Steph Bennion - Paw-Prints of the Gods

“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.