Steph Bennion - Paw-Prints of the Gods

“zz-thee-booyy-muust-fuulfiil-hiis-deestiinyy-zz!” demanded Dhanus.

“zz-maasteers-aand-slaavees-uuniitee-aas-oonee-zz!” screeched Simha.

“I am the ghost in the machine,” Athene said gaily. “Invisible to all but my two star players. Have you done your homework?”

“The Dhusarians trained Artorius to communicate with the greys,” Ravana whispered cautiously, hoping her reply would not raise suspicions. Kedesh’s unsubtle attempt to attract her attention by waving was not helping. “They think the prophecy brought him here to unite all believers. Plus something about slaves and masters.”

“Prophecies!” scoffed Quirinus. “Sounds like that stupid Gods of Avalon show.”

“But who are the slaves?” Athene teased. “Who are the masters?”

Ravana shook her head irritably. Her headache was worse than ever. Her implant startled her with an alert in her mind’s eye, which turned out to be Kedesh trying to reach her via a headcom call. She came close to refusing it, but there was such a look of anguish in the woman’s woeful expression that she relented and with a mental jab opened the channel.

“Ravana, I’m so sorry,” whispered Kedesh. She barely moved her lips, but in the girl’s head the words came loud and clear. She shot a frosty glance at Athene. “I caught you on the back foot and bowled a googly, but I’m not the rogue player here.”

“You handed Artorius to Jizo and put me to sleep!” Ravana hissed angrily. She had yet to fathom how to use the headcom in a voiceless fashion. Both her father and Lilith were giving her some very odd looks. “You told them I was dead!”

“That was to stop them coming after you,” Kedesh countered.

The cyberclones turned to one another and released a barrage of muted high-pitched shrieks. Athene sprang lightly across the pool to the broken cocoon, picked up a limb and comically waved it in Jizo’s face. Unaware of the watcher’s performance, the nurse growled, threw away her half-eaten spider cutlet and grabbed Artorius by the shoulders.

“Taranis said you are the one,” she slurred, shaking him angrily. She shoved the screen of her slate into his face. “What does this mean? You have to know!”

“Hey!” Kedesh pulled Jizo away. “Leave him alone, you drunk!”

“Better drunk than ugly,” Jizo retorted and pushed Kedesh aside. “In the morning I’ll be sober, but you’ll still have the face of a bearded goat.”

Ravana gave Kedesh a disdainful look. “It’s a bit late to show concern.”

“I’m sorry I had to field Artorius,” she replied, her voice once again a headcom-amplified murmur. “You were supposed to stay away! I knocked you for six for your own good. I had an escape all planned until you blundered in with a gift of hostages.”

“You had a plan?” asked Ravana, frowning.

“Actually, no. I’m making it up as I go along.”

Ravana scowled and silenced her headcom. Lilith sighed, stepped into the circle, wrestled the slate from Jizo’s grip and studied the screen. After a pause, she led Artorius to the nearest rod and placed his hands upon a series of faint indentations just visible at shoulder height. The arc of six ovals, delineated in blue against grey, was a pattern Ravana recognised from a sketch made by Taranis in his notes. Athene’s playful grin became a perturbed frown.

Artorius looked distraught. “I don’t know what you want me to do!”

“These marks are important,” said Lilith. “Perhaps the greys can guide you.”

“Those pitiful creatures?” sneered Jizo. “Don’t make me laugh!”

“Fwack fwack,” muttered Stripy, sounding deeply offended.

“Thraak.” Nana tugged Ravana’s arm. “Thraak thraak.”

Quirinus gave his daughter a quizzical look. “What did they say?”

“The rods open something,” she said. The translator images were far from clear. Athene’s baleful yellow stare narrowed, seemingly in disapproval of the greys’ contribution. “Something big and swirly that could be a door. Or not,” she added hastily.

“Rubbish!” retorted Athene. “You haven’t a clue.”

“Think hard!” Lilith urged Artorius. “We haven’t got Cadmus to help us now.”

Jizo stomped up, snatched the agent’s gun from Lilith and fired a shot into the air. Startled shrieks echoed from the archway, followed by a sudden hush and then a crunch as Fornax’s camera fell from the air and smashed to the ground. With an angry snarl, Jizo tossed the gun back to Lilith, wrapped her sausage-like digits around Artorius’ own left hand and twisted hard. There was a muffled snap and he screamed.

“I have run out of patience, Mister Arty-Farty!” Jizo screamed. “Do your duty!”

“My finger!” Artorius wailed. “You broke my finger!”

“You shot my cambot!” Fornax shouted angrily from the archway.

A cloud of dust drifted from the ceiling. Quirinus lunged at Jizo as if to grab her, but was brought up short by the gun in Lilith’s hand, now pointing his way.

“You twisted evil freak!” Ravana shrieked to Jizo. “How could you?”

“That’s just not cricket,” Kedesh murmured, looking perturbed.

Ravana dashed across to comfort the weeping and wounded Artorius, who clung to the rod like a stormed-wracked sailor at the mast of his boat. Nurse Jizo, the macabre joker from the fake clinic had gone; the version of Jizo now before them was clearly insane. Alarmed by the commotion, Dagan left his prisoners and came closer. Ravana glanced towards the arch and wondered if anyone was ready to grab the cannon. She caught a glint of reflected light, then groaned in despair at the sight of Xuthus and Urania calmly recording the scene on their wristpads. Her cat, having wriggled free from Stripy’s grip, was busily chewing the pieces of Fornax’s fallen cambot.

Jizo looked at Artorius in disgust. “Be thankful it was just a finger.”

“Don’t you dare touch him again!” yelled Ravana.

“Then cooperate!” growled Jizo. “Or I’ll break the rest, one by one.”

Ravana’s gaze flew desperately about the chamber. Her mind whirled with what she had seen in Taranis’ notes and all that the greys had tried to tell her. When she first entered the chamber she had imagined it as a machine; what struck her now was the resemblance between the soaring triangular alcoves and the grooves of a rifle barrel. The similarity made her think of how it was aligned, perpendicular to the solid rock of Falsafah below.

“Shooting into a gravity well,” she murmured, suddenly inspired. “And beyond.”

“What was that?” snapped Jizo.

“Right angles to reality,” Ravana said slowly, still holding Artorius. The equations that had puzzled the priest now made sense. “A door through space-time, like that created by an ED drive, but on land. You think your gods are waiting on the other side.”

Dhanus turned to face her. “zz-iin-yyoouur-heeaad-bee-iit-zz.”

“zz-aand-bee-it-iin-yyoouurs-zz!” Simha screeched to Artorius.

“A lucky guess,” mumbled Athene, scowling. Ravana gave a wry smile.

Lilith looked thoughtful. Jizo scowled and swayed unsteadily before them, her mouth open ready to speak. Lilith raised her hand to stop her and beckoned to Ravana.

“Come and see this,” she said. “Tell me what you think.”

“Be careful!” urged her father.

Ravana gave the sobbing Artorius a hug and hesitantly followed Lilith to the far side of the pool. The white coffin-shaped capsule, wearing its stars and stripes, came as a shock. Ravana had barely registered Xuthus’ remark about the lost flight to Alpha Centauri but recognised the pod for what it was, having seen old cryogenic units at the spacecraft breaking yards on Ascension. It looked very out of place in the alien chamber.