Steph Bennion - Paw-Prints of the Gods

“Really?” retorted Ravana and scowled. The transport swerved around the miniature impact craters she had just created. “So you’re a watcher, too?”

“I am Commander Marion Kedesh,” snapped the terse reply. “Field agent for the Grand Priory, the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem.”

Ravana blinked. “You’re what?”

“It is a bit of a mouthful,” admitted Kedesh.

“A field agent for Saint John?”

“Sent here to report on the Dhusarian Church, but with no authority to intervene.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Suit yourself.”

Ravana silenced her headcom with a vicious mental stab. The transport rolled on and soon there were fresh patches of slime to divert her attention. Eventually even these became fewer and far between, then the ridge widened into an expanse of smooth sand and suddenly the strange lake was behind them. Ravana was tired and hungry, her legs ached from her earlier frantic run, her shoulder throbbed from the weight of the cannon and her mind felt heavier still with the day’s revelations. When it was finally time to climb from the roof and go back inside, Ravana ignored Kedesh’s request to talk and went straight to her bunk, kicked off her suit, buried herself under a blanket and tried to get some sleep.

Ravana awoke to find the transport had once again fallen still. She brushed her matted hair aside and saw several hours had passed; dusk was upon them and through the windscreen Tau Ceti was setting below a sky awash with brilliant pinks and purples. They were no longer in the caldera and instead were high upon a hillside of windswept rolling dunes.

The interior lamps were on their lowest setting, save for a single bright light above where Kedesh sat at the table. Ravana watched curiously as the woman slotted a glass vial into a portable medical analysis unit and scrutinised the machine’s display. Ravana wriggled free of the blanket, stretched wearily, then frowned when Kedesh reacted to her awakening by trying to hide what she was doing. A trio of gentle snores from the heaving shapes on the opposite bunk was enough to locate Artorius and the greys.

“Are we out of the mountains?” asked Ravana, keeping her voice low.

“Almost,” Kedesh whispered back. She shifted upon her bandaged feet and winced. “It’s a lot less rocky this side, so if you’re up to driving we can probably keep going through the night. I was too tired to carry on.”

Ravana dropped lightly off the bunk and shuffled to the table. Kedesh relaxed her defensive gesture but still wore a guilty look.

“There’s no need to hide that,” Ravana said, indicating the medical equipment. “I saw you with the vial at Missi’s dome. So what did you find? Is there some magical element in Artorius’ blood to explain why the Dhusarians think he’s so special? Are you on a mystical mission from Saint John to find the saviour of the universe?”

Kedesh caught the smirk on the girl’s face and smiled.

“No ingenious little nano-probes buzzing through his veins?” suggested Ravana. Her voice betrayed a tone of solemn mockery. “Athene said he was a star man.”

“Very funny. You’ve been watching too many fantasy holovids.”

Ravana ignored her quip. “Not that I care. I haven’t forgiven you, by the way.”

“Fair enough. At least you’ve come out of that mood you’ve been in these last few days. Anyone would think you didn’t like battling acid snot whilst stinking to high heaven.”

Ravana experimentally sniffed an armpit and screwed up her face in disgust. Despite her unpleasant body odour, she did feel more optimistic, though all things considered she was not sure why. Her lost trust in Kedesh had let feelings of isolation return.

“I will take a shower,” she promised. “Then I’ll be ready to drive on.”

“Before you do, I have something that may interest you.”

Kedesh reached across the table and handed her a small touch-screen slate Ravana had not seen before. The notepad function was live and showing twelve lines of text. As Ravana began to read, the words of the Isa-Sastra flooded back to her:

“The so-called prophecy of Falsafah,” she murmured. “Is this from Artorius?”

Kedesh nodded. “It took him hours to remember it all. What do you think?”

“I see watchers get a mention,” mused Ravana. After what Kedesh had said about Athene, she found the phrase ‘paw-prints of the gods’ intriguing. “And I can see how ‘Tau Ceti’s wandering tomb’ identifies Falsafah. The lines about ‘twin suns’ and ‘orphaned child’ could even describe Artorius. But why ‘reborn’? Was there anything odd in his blood?”

“I got distracted by the green slime mould,” Kedesh said. “I analysed a sample and it is fascinating stuff. It’s a clump of single-cell organisms that work together to…”

“Stop changing the subject,” Ravana said irritably. “If you really are from some secret society sent to spy on the Dhusarians, you must have an idea what this is about. Is Taranis the ‘father of the twelve’? What about ‘frozen traveller’ and ‘slaves and masters’?”

“The Order of Saint John is not a secret society!” retorted Kedesh. “It is an old Commonwealth institution set up to protect the health and wellbeing of humankind. The Grand Priory tries to guard against future threats and so employs field agents like me.”

Ravana frowned. “Is this a Christian thing? Do you see other religions as a threat?”

“As far as I’m concerned, people can believe whatever they like if it helps them cope with the chaos that is humanity,” Kedesh retorted testily. “What they should not do is try to impose their beliefs on others. The Dhusarian Church in particular is bowling wide from Raëlism and becoming a dangerous cult. The one is an off-shoot of the other,” she explained, after Ravana gave her a blank look. “The Raëlian Church is an old UFO religion that still has followers today. Taranis was a Raëlian priest at Lanka, who mixed his beliefs with Hindu mythology to create Dhusarism. Did you not know any of this?”

“UFO religion?” remarked Ravana, baffled.

“Unidentified Flying Objects,” said Kedesh. “Don’t ask. Even in the midst of the communications revolution, the twentieth century was not a period of enlightenment.”

“My brain hurts. I think it’s time for my shower.”

“Good girl. All will be revealed when we reach Arallu.”

Ravana was not so sure. She made her way to the shower cubicle with an uneasy mind. Her thoughts continued to whirl as the hot jets of water washed away the accumulated sweat and grime of her ongoing Falsafah odyssey.

The last rays of Tau Ceti were fading fast by the time Ravana slipped back behind the wheel. Billions of tonnes of wind-borne sand, dumped over millennia in the lee of Hursag Asag, softened the western slopes into a lofty cascade of dunes and she soon lost herself in their relentless journey, the headlamps falling upon one dry valley after another. Kedesh retired to her bunk once they were underway, leaving Ravana alone with her thoughts and some soothing Shanghai jazz from the transport’s music player. On the console before her, next to a cup of tea and inevitable slice of cake, the slate mocked her with its twelve lines of text. The more she stared at the words, the less sense they made.