Steph Bennion - Paw-Prints of the Gods

The long Falsafah night drew on. A few hours into her drive, the smell of her hastily-grabbed carton of noodles awakened Artorius, who in turn disturbed Nana and Stripy from their slumber. Driving in the dark was a gloomy affair and Ravana was glad of the company.

“Have a good sleep?” she asked.

“Thraak,” replied Nana. “Thraak thraak.”

“I’m hungry,” grumbled Artorius.

“Help yourself to food,” she said. “Try not to wake Kedesh while you’re at it.”

Artorius instead came and sat glumly in the co-pilot’s seat. In the end it was Nana who went to fetch something to eat, leading the short-limbed grey to climb onto the table to reach the overhead lockers. Much to Ravana’s irritation, all three decided to join her in the cockpit, where she was soon bombarded by strong smells and some very noisy slurping.

“Hey Nana, Stripy,” said Ravana, after a pause. “Kedesh told me it was you who saved me and Artorius after we crashed into that crater. Thank you.”

“Thraak thraak,” Nana said solemnly.

“It was not nothing! You saved our lives!”

“Fwack,” said Stripy. “Fwack fwack.”

“Well, I am really grateful,” Ravana replied. “And I’m sure Artorius is too.”

She looked expectantly at Artorius. When he did not speak, she gave him a prod.

“Thank you for saving me,” he said in mock sincerity. “I didn’t want to be dead.”

Ravana sighed. The transport rolled on to further sounds of munching.

“Kedesh showed me your rhyme,” she said to Artorius and pointed to the slate.

Artorius presented her with a beef-and-noodles grin. “It doesn’t rhyme, stupid!”

“I’ve done that joke. What does it all mean?”

“Fwack,” Stripy said solemnly. “Fwack fwack fwack.”

“Thraak thraak,” interjected Nana.

“That’s wrong!” Artorius protested. “I’m king of the great game! I was in Gods of Avalon and pulled the sword out of the anvil when no one else could. They said it was not fair as I was not supposed to be playing but the nurses said it meant I was special.”

Ravana frowned. She did not watch the holovid show herself, but knew it was based upon challenges inspired by Arthurian mythology. Artorius was too young to be a contestant, yet the coincidence of his name being the Latin version of Arthur was puzzling.

“So you think the great game is Gods of Avalon ?” she asked him. “But the greys just said the passage is about something else entirely and is to do with watchers.”

“Lots of people watch Gods of Avalon ,” Artorius said stubbornly.

“I didn’t mean that kind of watcher.”

“Thraak?”

“Nurse Jizo said I was a star man and a traveller,” the boy said. There was a defiant look in his eye. “I was to meet masters and slaves and they would tell me what it meant. She said all those who believe would come together and not be afraid.”

Ravana gave him an odd look. “Believe in what?”

“In the greys.”

“Fwack fwack!”

“Exactly. They’re right here, dropping food all over the floor. What’s not to believe?”

Artorius looked sullen. “I don’t know.”

Ravana saw confusion on the boy’s face and did not press him further. Beside her, Nana picked up the slate and carefully scrutinised the twelve lines of text. Ravana was amused to see that the elderly grey looked as puzzled as she herself felt.

Kedesh awoke a few hours later to take over driving duties. Their descent through the dark dunes seemed never-ending. Ravana’s revived spirits faded and she spent the rest of the long Falsafah night curled upon a bunk, leaving Nana to keep a watchful eye on Artorius’ and Stripy’s latest round of the increasingly-noisy slapping game. The gentle wallowing of the transport was soothing, though the loud clunking from beneath had returned and Ravana saw Kedesh give a worried downwards glance on more than one occasion.

It was not until Kedesh stood over her and gently shook her shoulder that Ravana realised she had dropped off to sleep. The sky was no longer dark and in the dim light of dawn she saw they had left the foothills of Hursag Asag behind. The view ahead was of a rolling sea of sand, peppered with black rocks, stretching as far as the eye could see.

“The Arallu Wastes,” Ravana murmured. “We made it.”

“We’re on the final innings,” Kedesh confirmed. “A mere thousand kilometres to go. With any luck we’ll be within sight of the excavation by dusk.”

Ravana stretched wearily and managed a weak smile. “Is it my turn to drive?”

“I’m afraid so. I tried the automatics again now we’re out of the mountains, but the navigation computer is still not impressed with what it’s getting from the satellite.”

“Fine by me. After Missi I’m not sure I’d trust an AI to do anything.”

Kedesh grinned and limped away to the washroom. Ravana reached above where Artorius and the greys dozed upon the other bunk, grabbed a carton of orange juice from a locker and then shuffled forward to take her place at the controls.

The hours passed without incident. Kedesh retired to a bunk to rest and left it to Ravana to scrutinise the satellite image of the terrain ahead and plot a suitable course. The map revealed Arallu to be a vast waterless river delta that in wetter climes would have drowned that of the Ganges on Earth. Ravana drove through a landscape of red dunes that gradually softened into the remnants of a meandering shoreline, until the transport finally bounced down a short slope onto the vast flat expanse of the ancient river bed. The clattering vehicle picked up speed and she felt a rush of adrenaline at the sight of the wind-blown desert sweeping by. A strange sense of melancholy drew her gaze to the rear-view camera display and as the ancient shoreline and mighty Hursag Asag slipped from view, the endless flat sands that remained left her feeling more isolated than ever.

Her spirits were given a boost by the appearance on the scanner of Arallu Depot, which at long last showed at maximum range. It was not long before the detectors picked up a further trace from the excavation to the north, plus at least one other signal she thought could be a beacon from a ship at the depot. She was keen to make contact, but when she tried to use the transceiver to see if anyone was in messaging range, she was surprised to find that the communication console needed a password before it would unlock.

Ravana managed almost seven hours behind the wheel before Kedesh awoke to take over. Tau Ceti rose higher above the parched delta and the hard-pushed transport began to struggle and show signs of overheating. Once Artorius and the greys were awake, they stopped for tea and a bite to eat in the shadow of an ancient river island. The towering rocky outcrop next to the cooling vehicle was a mass of crumbling sedimentary layers, pockmarked by metre-wide dark spirals that to Ravana looked like the fossilised remains of giant snails.

Kedesh caught her eagerness to finish the journey and soon they were speeding westwards once more. Ravana remained at her side, increasingly obsessed by the cluster of dots on the scanner marking Arallu Depot and the excavation. Now they were closer, the console had unexpectedly identified five separate beacons, three of which were spacecraft. Ravana still wanted to try and make contact, but when she questioned Kedesh about the password-protected transceiver, the woman merely shrugged.

“It’s just a precaution,” she said. Ravana saw her glance in Artorius’ direction. “I’d rather keep radio silence until we know who’s out there waiting for us.”

“Couldn’t we at least try to identify the ships?” asked Ravana. The presence of a ship at the depot made her wonder if the Sir Bedivere had returned early.