Starship Fall (Starship Seasons, #2)(12)

“And she’s okay with this?” Maddie asked.

Hawk nodded. “She seems to be. As far as I know there’s no precedent ever been set of humans entering sacred territory, so...”

“Let’s go,” Matt said.

We crossed the clearing, and the humidity seemed to lift as we left the confines of the jungle; a flagging wind lapped across the hill, and as we approached the waterfall its spray drenched us in a cool, jewelled shower.

Qah led us around the sink formed by the waterfall, and along a ledge behind its sheer crystal sheet of water. The rock underfoot was treacherous, and Matt, Maddie and I gripped each other’s hands as we inched along the ledge.

We came to a gaping rent in the rock and followed Qah within. Something glowed on the walls, mats and rafts of what looked like fungus, giving off a dull green luminescence.We followed a natural corridor in the rock as it dropped rapidly. I made out carvings on the walls, stick Ashentay figures and animals, and wondered what xenologists back on Earth would make of this alien treasure.

Ten minutes later I saw light ahead, brighter than the verdant gloaming of the corridor. Seconds later we emerged into a vast cavern.

I thought, for a second, that we had emerged into the twilight, that we’d somehow penetrated through to a valley fissure deep within the mountain. Then my eyes adjusted and I made out the rocky bounds of the cavern – perhaps a kilometre distant – and the fires, bonfires no less, situated at intervals around the perimeter and providing a bright rouge glow. Only then did I make out the long-house, raised on stilts above the ground and entered by a timber ramp. Positioned in the centre of the pitched roof was an opening through which poured a thick pall of smoke. It rose and hung beneath the natural ceiling of the chamber like a threatening storm-cloud.

I inhaled and smelled the sweet, almost familiar scent of the bone smoke.





We were standing on a slightly raised gallery, looking down. A dozen Ashentay stood at the foot of the ramp to the long-house, and though they were perhaps only fifty metres from us, so far we had not been seen.

Then we heard an inhuman squealing, and three Ashentay males struggled from a pen behind the long-house. They were wrestling with a black-pelted beast the size of a rhino though more resembling a terrestrial pig, but for its deadly array of horns and a spiked tail which whipped back and forth as the creature attempted to escape.

Its captors delivered the creature to their waiting fellows, and two women stepped forward with long knives and sliced into the beast’s thick neck. Blood geysered and the animal’s dying squeal turned to a guttering splutter as it lay twitching on the rock. Then the butchers set to work and seconds later the flesh had been flensed. Four Ashentay men stepped forward, intoned something above the jackstraw scatter of bones, then bundled them up, climbed the ramp to the long-house and passed inside.

Qah spoke in a hushed, reverent tone.

“The ritual of sacrifice,” Hawk said. “The gheer donates its bones for the ritual of smoking.”

Maddie said, “So it hasn’t taken place yet?”

Hawk spoke to Qah. She replied, and he reported, “She doesn’t know. She said she’ll try to find out.”

Qah called out and hurried down to the gathered Ashentay.

An old man, tall for an Ashentay, stepped from the long-house holding an intricately carved spear. On his head he wore a long wooden mask, with wide staring eyes and a rictus grin; the headpiece was topped with an array of gheer horns.

He paused in the entrance at the top of the ramp, then moved to one side and dropped his spear with a great thump on the timber floor.

As if at this signal, six Ashentay males emerged from the long-house. They walked carefully down the ramp in pairs, bearing laden stretchers.

“Christ…” Hawk turned to us. “They’re bringing out the dead...”

I stared at the figure on the first stretcher; it appeared female, but as one Ashentay looked very much like any other I was unable to say whether or not she might have been Kee.

Hawk staggered forward, and we followed. We slowed our approach, something like respect, or a desire to be seen not to be intruding, curbing our haste. We paused before the long-house and the stretcher-bearers passed us without any suggestion that they might have been disconcerted by our presence. I stared at the body on the first stretcher and saw that it was not Kee.

On the second stretcher was the body of a male Ashentay, and on the third...

I took a step forward, peering intently. It was a woman, but not Kee.

I heard Hawk choke back a relieved sob, and Maddie and Matt moved to his side.

I peered into the shadows of the building, and made out several shadowy figures. Seconds later, the survivors of the smoking ritual emerged one by one.

They ducked from the long-house and straightened, blinking in the half-light after the darkness. They wore the rapt expressions of religious devotees who had been granted glimpses of their destinies.

I scanned the aliens as they stepped down the ramp. I thought I saw Kee – a slight, fine-boned young girl... Hawk took a step forward and reached out, his expression of nascent hope collapsing as the girl approached and passed him by.

By my count twelve aliens – including the dead trio – had emerged from the long-house.

Maddie murmured, “But where is Kee?”

Qah moved to Hawk’s side and indicated a dozen seated cross-legged between the distant bonfires. They stood as one and crossed the cavern to the long-house. In the doorway, the priest thumped his spear on the timber threshold and called out.