Paw-Prints Of The Gods Read Online Free PDF Page A

a pocket and took a swig. “I told you it was something
to do with dinosaurs.”
     
    * * *
     
    As soon as the nurses
had gone, Ravana rolled out of bed and rammed her finger down her
throat, already feeling a lightness in her head as the tablets got
to work. Moments later she was on her hands and knees, trying to
vomit as quietly as possible and glaring at the metal box under her
mattress with justified paranoia. When she felt she had thrown up
what she could of the undigested tablets, she reached beneath the
bed and yanked the electrical cables from the box in a shower of
sparks. The flickering shapes in her mind abruptly resolved into
clearly-defined symbols, created by her cranium implant as it
reached out and connected with whatever remote circuits it could
find. Her mind had been messed with in more ways than one.
Exhausted, she slumped against the wall, sobbing quietly.
    “Why me?” she moaned.
Her headache was worse than ever. “What have I done?”
    Lilith’s accusation
reawakened the guilt Ravana had bottled up over the fate of Priest
Taranis, the father of the Dhusarian Church. The shock of seeing
two of Taranis’ creations sent her mind into turmoil and her
memories flooded back. The priest and his alien-human cyberclones
had been blasted into space, cast adrift when her friend Zotz
tricked the Dandridge Cole ’s safety systems into jettisoning
the engine room and the priest’s secret laboratory into the void,
deep in the Barnard’s Star system. Ravana and her friends abandoned
the hollow moon shortly afterwards, for Taranis’ meddling and the
crash of the Platypus had left the tiny world with badly
compromised life-support systems.
    Taranis’ clones had
threatened their lives and left Fenris dead. After the euphoria of
their escape, Ravana had nevertheless been haunted by the thought
that she had been wrong to encourage Zotz to do what he did. Prior
to the incident, the priest had been presumed dead for years. An
inquest into what happened that fateful day was shelved and quietly
forgotten. If Lilith’s revelation was true, Ravana and her friends
had got away with murder.
    Ravana found a new
home on Ascension, gained a place at Newbrum University and tried
to get on with her life. Yet she was also a thief; she had taken
Taranis’ Isa-Sastra , a book that ultimately led her to join
a student archaeology expedition in the Tau Ceti system during the
summer break. What was missing from her memory was how she had
apparently ended back on Daode, a virtual prisoner of the Dhusarian
Church, in the company of two of Taranis’ surviving disciples. It
was a mystery she was more than willing to leave behind.
    “It’s time this
patient was discharged,” she murmured.
    Her cranium implant
had already identified the remote control for the lock on the door
to her room. All children born in the Epsilon Eridani system were
implanted at a young age by order of the governing Que Qiao
Corporation; Taranis and his attempts to meddle with her destiny
many years ago had left Ravana with an unregistered
special-services device with far greater capabilities than was
usual. As she listened for any sound of movement in the corridor
beyond, she heard a murmur from the room next door and felt guilty
for not remembering Artorius. Moving to the wall, she put an ear to
the flaking paint and listened.
    “Artorius?” she
whispered. “Can you hear me?”
    There was a rustle of
sheets, a soft patter of feet and a faint thud as someone dropped
to the floor on the other side of the wall.
    “Ravana?”
    “Yes, it’s me. Are you
okay?”
    “I want to go home,”
the voice declared.
    “Me too,” admitted
Ravana. “I’m leaving tonight.”
    “Oh.”
    “Do you want to come
with me?”
    “Can I bring Nana and
Stripy?”
    “Who?” Ravana rolled
her eyes in despair. “This is an escape, not a group outing!”
    She heard a shuffling
noise and guessed the boy had moved from the wall. She crept to the
door and pressed the