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

smile.
    “Greys,” she
corrected, cautiously approaching the cage. “We’re the aliens
here.”
    The elder grey
recognised her. The creature reached through the bars and placed a
six-fingered hand upon her arm, just like at their last fateful
encounter. Ravana began to suspect they were far more intelligent
than she had previously given them credit for.
    “Thraak thraak!” the
grey yelped gently, momentarily startling her. The noise that
erupted from the creature’s mouth was like two bursts of
static.
    “Nana knows you,” said
Artorius, impressed.
    “It’s a long story,”
she admitted. “You can understand them?”
    “The angry nurses make
me ask them things.”
    His reply opened up
far too many questions but Ravana knew this was not the time for a
discussion on clandestine scientific research. She had tried and
failed to save the older grey from Taranis once before. She would
not fail again.
    “They’re coming with
us,” she reassured Artorius. “Is it just these two?”
    The boy nodded. “Nana
and Stripy.”
    “Nana?”
    “She’s very old.”
    “And Stripy is
striped,” Ravana murmured. “How original.”
    “Their real names are
very long!” Artorius replied haughtily.
    The younger grey
pointed to a bunch of old-fashioned mechanical keys hanging on a
wall hook. Ravana found the one to open the cage and moments later
Stripy and Nana were clambering cautiously down to the floor,
unsure of their new-found freedom. Neither stood more than chest
high to her, though could look Artorius in the eye.
    They seemed unwilling
to move until they were taken by the hand. While their stubby legs
did not look as if they had evolved for speed, Ravana soon had them
all out of the strange laboratory and at the door to the interview
room. Upon hearing the sound of distant footsteps they hurried into
the room, where Ravana used her implant to lock the door behind
them.
    The room was in
near-darkness, with the window in the opposite wall just visible in
the gloom. She found the darkness outside puzzling, for a day on
Daode was ten times longer than on Earth and the sun had showed no
signs of setting when she had been there earlier.
    The window remained
slightly ajar and a simple shove was enough to open it wide. Using
a chair as a step, Ravana helped Artorius and the two greys
through, then followed.
    The silence of the sea
was eerie. A dim glow filled the sky, allowing them to see various
shapes in the dark. It was only when Ravana accidentally stumbled
into a large screen that she began to suspect things were not quite
as expected. Slowly, her eyes began to adjust to the low light and
her confusion turned bitter.
    “It was all a trick,”
she murmured. “One big lie after another.”
    Above them soared the
inner surface of a vast pressurised dome, one transparent enough to
allow a little sunlight through from outside. The screen she had
walked into was blank, but there was a triple-lens holovid
projector mounted above the window frame, positioned just right so
that recorded footage of Pampa Bay would appear real to someone
looking through the window from inside. It dawned upon Ravana that
her aching bones were right. They were not on Daode after all.
    “Where are we going?”
asked Artorius. Beside him, the greys looked anxious.
    “Far away from here,”
she muttered angrily. “Follow me.”
    Ravana led them away
into the gloom. The low rambling building masquerading as a hospice
bordered a hangar-like space that extended as far as the curved
wall of the dome. They scurried forward in the gloom and almost ran
headlong into a huge mechanical monstrosity on caterpillar tracks,
the purpose of which Ravana cared not to guess. Just when she was
starting to think they would never find a way out, a large green
shape resolved into the familiar six wheels and barrel-shaped hull
of a lunar-class personnel carrier, parked in front of a huge
airlock door in the side of the dome. The dark windows of the
vehicle were strangely