Steph Bennion - Paw-Prints of the Gods

“Let’s play a straight bat on this, okay?”

Ravana frowned. After a while she went to sit in the back with the greys, leaving Artorius with Kedesh in the cockpit. Nana picked up the slate and idly experimented with a drawing application. Ravana had earlier tried to ask the greys about how they came to be held by the Dhusarians but the resulting translator images left her baffled. She was beginning to wonder if it was Nana and Stripy, not Artorius, who were the key to whatever it was the Church had planned for Falsafah. Kedesh’s own revelations made no more sense.

“People are strange,” she muttered.

“Thraak?”

“Except you,” Ravana reassured Nana. “You’re probably the only sane one here.”

The ragged line of the ancient delta’s far shore appeared on the horizon a few hours into Ravana’s second driving shift of the day. Before long she was slowing to guide the vehicle out of the river bed and into the red dunes beyond, to the sound of more ominous clunks that seemed worse than ever. Her annoyance at their drop in speed was tempered by the scanner’s insistence that they had barely two hundred kilometres to go.

The final hours crawled by. Kedesh, Artorius and the greys joined her in the cockpit, all eagerly awaiting the end of their long journey. The blobs on the scanner screen crept ever closer. Finally, as they crested the top of a rise, Artorius gave an excited screech. Nestling within the distant undulating sands ahead lay the pale silhouettes of three squat domes.

“The excavation!” cried Ravana. “We made it!”

“And there’s a spaceship in the sky,” added Artorius.

“What?” Kedesh looked perturbed. “Where?”

As one they all looked to where the boy pointed to a tiny slash of colour in the sky. The ship, turning in a wide arc high above, was long and narrow with barely-visible stubby wings. Ravana thought she spied a flash of purple and white.

“Oh my word,” she murmured. “That looks like my father’s ship.”

“Your father?” asked Kedesh sharply. Her eyes narrowed. “Here on Falsafah?”

Ravana paused, then shook her head. “No, it can’t be. The Platypus was badly damaged when we had all that trouble with Taranis and I doubt father’s had time to finish repairs. Besides, it’s not built to cope with Falsafah gravity.” Nevertheless, she could not keep a tremor of hope from her voice. “Whoever it is must be in communication range.”

“Just keep driving. There’s too many players on the pitch for my liking.”

“Can’t we even try to contact Doctor Jones at the dig?” asked Ravana.

Kedesh ran her fingers across the communication console. “Your archaeologists may not be there to respond,” she said eventually. “The Que Qiao agents’ ship made it to the dig ahead of us. The spacecraft at Arallu Depot belongs to the Dhusarians.”

“What about the third?” asked Ravana. She frowned when she saw Kedesh enter the password to lock the console once again. “The one we just saw?”

Kedesh ignored her question. “The point is that Ininna and Yima weren’t too pleased to see me last time. They’re even less keen on the Dhusarians. Do you really want to march in there whilst they’re fighting over whatever it is your archaeologist friends have found?”

“Treasure!” exclaimed Artorius.

“Fwack fwack!”

“Thraak,” added Nana sadly. “Thraak thraak.”

“Exactly!” Ravana declared. She grimaced as the transport heaved itself over a rough outcrop of rock with a mournful series of clangs. “If we have found an ancient site of the greys, Nana and Stripy have more right than anyone to be there. And what about the rights of archaeologists to claim the ruins in the name of science?”

“The past is dead,” said Kedesh. “How do you decide who owns what’s left behind?”

“Why should the Dhusarians have it just because of their beliefs?” Ravana retorted.

“Maybe they see themselves as custodians of neand culture.”

“There’s that word again! Why do you call them neands?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Kedesh said hurriedly. “Besides, Que Qiao has the upper hand. They pretty much run Falsafah and treat everything as if it’s their own.”

“Fwack fwack!”

“Most things in life are unfair,” agreed Kedesh.

“Que Qiao?” Ravana looked doubtful. “But why would they be interested?”

“I have it on good authority they financed your expedition.”

Ravana stared at her in surprise. The transport hit a patch of soft sand and her desire to quiz Kedesh further was forgotten as she concentrated on the way ahead. The excavation’s domes now lay a mere few kilometres ahead, within the shallow depression of another dried river bed. Ravana’s relief at being so near turned to concern when she saw the changes. On the far side of the domes, a strip of desert had become a runway, upon which an unidentifiable vehicle could be seen crawling back and forth. There was a stationary transport linked via a flexible walkway to dome two, while away from the new runway, parked in the desert near dome one, was the Que Qiao police spacecraft they had spotted at the abandoned airstrip some days before. It was far more activity than she had anticipated.

“Someone’s been busy,” remarked Kedesh. “Stop the transport.”

“Here?” retorted Ravana. “In full sight?”

She caught Kedesh’s glare and brought the vehicle to a halt. They were perched on a rise and had a good view of the domes ahead. Ravana watched warily as the transport at the site disconnected from dome three and rolled away into the dunes.

“Why have we stopped?” complained Artorius. “I’m hungry.”

“Fwack fwack,” remarked Stripy.

“How can someone do this?” Ravana asked bitterly, her eyes upon the site. “This whole area is rich in archaeology and they’ve ploughed it up to make a runway!”

“Everyone’s bowling a googly,” muttered Kedesh.

She moved to the passenger cabin and started rummaging through the lockers. Ravana frowned and wondered why the woman wanted to stop now when they were so close to their goal. Kedesh returned to the cockpit and waved the object in her hand.

“You must be thirsty,” she said to Ravana. “Would you like a drink?”

Ravana turned and almost knocked the open carton from the woman’s hand. Keeping her eyes on the domes, she took the juice drink and sipped it thoughtfully. Although eager to rejoin the archaeologists, the prospect of unwelcome visitors at the site troubled her.

“Where’s mine?” asked Artorius.

“You wait your turn,” Kedesh said harshly.

Ravana took another sip. She felt tired and a little dizzy, but it was perhaps to be expected given everything they had been through.

Her eyelids became heavy and a sudden weariness swept upon her, like a blanket thrown across a flame. The juice tasted odd and had a bitter aftertaste, one that reawakened a forgotten memory of the drink given to her by Dagan at Arallu Depot, so many weeks before. Ravana turned to Kedesh and saw her look of guilt. A shiver ran down her spine.

“Thraak!” cried Nana in alarm. “Thraak thraak!”

“The juice,” murmured Ravana. “What did you put in this?”

The carton dropped to the floor with a splatter. The urge to lie down came suddenly, but the bunk seemed so far away. Ravana tried to stand and slipped drunkenly to the floor, sending Stripy scuttling away in alarm. She cringed in fear as Kedesh’s face loomed close.

A cloud swept across her thoughts and all was dark.

Ravana awoke with a thumping headache, scared and confused beneath a pile of smelly towels. It was pitch black, her body ached and she lay curled in a most uncomfortable manner, but she quickly discovered this was because she was somewhere with not enough room to do otherwise. The loud roaring sound that had awoken her faded to leave behind a quiet intermittent whimper that if anything was even more disturbing.