Hollow Moon (12 page)

Surya looked away and smiled. Barely two Terran days had
passed since he had been rudely awakened from his afternoon nap and taken bound
and gagged from his cosy rooms at the palace. Namtar and Inari had been a
little heavy-handed during his kidnap and there was no denying that he had been
scared, especially after they had bundled him out of the strange burrowing
machine into another cramped vehicle, which had then shot out of a tunnel to
present him with a mind-bending vision of the hollow moon spinning through
space. After that his senses had been in overdrive as he sought to comprehend
their fiery descent towards a small brown planet, the brief sojourn on a
strange jungle world to meet another waiting spacecraft, then another hasty
departure away into the void of space.

Through all this, it quickly became clear that Namtar and
Inari had no intention of hurting him and indeed often treated him with a
politeness verging on reverence. Notwithstanding the shock of the abduction,
Surya was getting to like being away from his mother’s stifling influence. The
scariest part of the journey since had been the stomach-churning leap, lasting
mere nanoseconds, which had taken them through extra-dimensional space to
Shennong, sixteen light years away.

“Fourth planet of Epsilon Eridani and first of its three
gas giants,” Surya murmured. “Given to Indian settlers by a Chinese nation
grateful for our help in colonising the star system. I have studied my
homeland,” he said, addressing Namtar. “What was never explained to me was why
Shennong and its moons kept their Chinese names.”

“Space traffic control throughout the system is firmly in
the hands of the Chinese authorities on Taotie,” Namtar replied. He referred to
Epsilon Eridani’s second planet, the first ever discovered outside the Solar
System with an Earth-like biosphere and one which had been claimed exclusively
by Chinese colonists. “All local navigation and survey data comes from Yao Chi
city and it would be a gross incivility to start changing names.”

“If it were up to me, I would give Yuanshi an Indian
name,” declared Surya.

“Our Chinese friends may take offence at such a
suggestion,” Namtar said darkly.

“And when the people of Taotie get offended, other people
get hurt,” muttered Inari. “Steer clear of the Chinese, I would.”

“I’m sure they feel the same way about you,” Namtar
countered.

They were interrupted by the arrival of a third man, who
entered from the flight deck ahead by pulling himself along a ceiling handrail,
perfectly at ease in the zero gravity. He was a young Indian, his mop of unruly
hair and two-day growth of stubble framing a confident gaze and knowing smile.
Hanuman was the owner and pilot of the
Sun Wukong
, the Chinese-built ex-military transport ship in green and black
camouflage livery that had collected Surya, Namtar and Inari from the Eden
Ravines and delivered them to the Epsilon Eridani system. To avoid detection
they had maintained a ground-hugging flight path deep in the Ravines for over
an hour and Surya had been impressed by the way Hanuman piloted the spacecraft
through the maze of deep canyons. At the moment it was his co-pilot Ganesa who
was at the controls. She too was Indian and for want of a better offer had
flown with Hanuman for many years.

The
Sun Wukong
was
essentially a broad flying wing, the angular hull of which was mostly taken up
by fuel tanks and a cargo bay big enough to take three armoured ground
transports and a platoon of troops. The ship was of an old design and when the
time came for it to be taken out of service and auctioned off it had been
stripped of its military hardware and weaponry. However, over the years Hanuman
had gradually equipped it once again with a formidable array of defence
systems. The one thing he had not managed to improve was the passenger
compartment, which like that of most military craft was cramped with a tiny
kitchen area and a very unpleasant zero-gravity bathroom and toilet.

“We’ve just had the all-clear from Lanka spaceport,” he
said, addressing Namtar. “We should be down on Yuanshi within the hour. I’ve
also had an interesting conversation with Ayodhya space-traffic controllers who
think we’re gun runners,” he added casually. “They’ve launched a gunship, which
given the chance will undoubtedly try to blast us into tiny bits.”

“So why aren’t you at the controls?” Namtar asked,
regarding him quizzically.

“I trust Ganesa implicitly,” Hanuman told him. “Besides,
I must have done something to annoy the computer as it’s only responding to her
at the moment.”

Namtar gave him a weary look. “Anything else I should
know?”

“It’s raining hard in Lanka. The terraforming crews
disintegrated another ice asteroid into the atmosphere last week.”

“Typical,” muttered Namtar. A gunship was one thing, but
Surya saw he was far less impressed by the prospect of bad weather. “Do you
perchance have a hat I may borrow?”

Lanka spaceport turned out to be not much more than a
rain-drenched landing strip next to a small terminal building and a
bomb-damaged warehouse. The long civil war on Yuanshi between the followers of
the exiled royal family and the Que Qiao Corporation had taken its toll and
Lanka had been heavily scarred by the long royalist campaign to secure the city
as their own.

Que Qiao was the driving force behind the colonisation of
the Epsilon Eridani system and the huge terraforming projects on Yuanshi and
Daode. Despite its Chinese name, the corporation was very much a multi-national
affair. On Daode the Indian colonists had accepted the security of a Que Qiao
administration with the same lackadaisical political vigour the Chinese had
shown on Taotie. The people of Yuanshi had not been so compliant; after
declaring their intention to self-govern, the Indian settlers instead adopted
an archaic system of government under the rule of a Maharaja where older
traditions shaped the law. Yet Yuanshi had many riches that both the Maharaja
and Que Qiao were keen to exploit and the political battle for control had long
since escalated into civil war, inflamed by a heady mix of religious tensions
and the heavy-handed attitude of the corporation. The Maharani and her son went
into exile following the assassination of the Maharaja. The sumptuous palace
that had been theirs in the old royalist capital of Ayodhya, on the other side
of the moon’s main continent, became Que Qiao’s headquarters on Yuanshi.

Raja Surya, the Maharaja’s son and heir, was coming home.
The descent from orbit turned out to be uneventful, notwithstanding the
colourful and quite obscene language exchanged between Hanuman and the
commander of the corporation gunship sent to intercept the
Sun Wukong
. Any flights in or out of the rebel stronghold at
Lanka were automatically deemed an act of war but the gunship never got close;
Hanuman and Ganesa knew full well how difficult it was for two craft to
rendezvous at high altitudes, especially when one was actively fleeing the
other.

With Ganesa at the helm the
Sun Wukong
made a textbook landing and trundled to a halt at the
end of the runway. A small aircar, a box-like craft with large windows and
stubby wings, waited with its four turbines running ready for take-off. Hanuman
and Ganesa were to stay behind on the ship and so it was left to Namtar and
Inari to lead Surya out through the torrential rain towards the waiting
vehicle.

Night was falling and the damp air was breathable but
cold, made more so by the chill wind driving the storm. As Inari swung the
aircar door shut behind them, a distant muffled explosion reached their ears
and moments later Surya saw a faint glow of orange silhouetting a distant part
of the city. He could already feel a headache coming on.

“Missile attacks,” Inari told him, scowling. “Que Qiao
likes to keep us on our toes.”

Namtar nodded to the young woman sitting silently in the
pilot’s seat at the front. With a deafening roar of turbines, the aircar soared
into the sky and headed across the city. The roads below were deserted and as
Surya gazed through the window he could see dark bomb craters and crumbling
buildings everywhere, interspersed with occasional pockets of light from where
even amidst the ruins life went on. Then they were past the battle zone and
flying over an unruly conurbation of brightly-lit mansion blocks, squat factory
units and high-rise offices intersected by streets bustling with traffic. The
city lived behind a thick mass of buildings crowding against a huge circular
wall, which itself was all that remained of the dome that once protected Lanka
from the hostile environment of a pre-terraformed Yuanshi.

“Wow,” murmured Surya.

“The historic city of Lanka,” said Namtar, peering over
the Raja’s shoulder. “The apron of the old dome has been built up and
fortified, as you can see. The city wall is little defence against missile
attacks, but Kartikeya believes it brings certain psychological benefits. It
makes people feel more secure.”

“Who is Kartikeya?” asked Surya.

“Commander Kartikeya leads the fight against Que Qiao
here on Yuanshi,” Namtar told him. “You have the honour of being his guest here
in Lanka.”

“Is he winning the war?” asked Surya, still looking down
at the city.

“Nobody wins wars,” Namtar opined. “Generals plan battles
to be swift and decisive. When they are not, the aim is to end the conflict
less defeated than your opponent.”

“He means no, we’re not winning,” retorted Inari.

The aircar started to descend towards a large square
building, situated on the edge of a circular park that had once lain beneath
the highest point of the old city dome. The park was bordered by a wide road
and from this a number of broad boulevards stretched away to the city wall like
the spokes of a wheel. As they approached, the building resolved into a mansion
house topped by four domed towers, built from blocks of gold-tinted opaque
glass in a style that reminded Surya of his mother’s palace of exile within the
hollow moon.

The four main blocks of the mansion were built around a
square courtyard, which was open to the elements. Guided by the ever-silent
pilot, the aircar dropped out of the darkening sky and moments later touched
down upon the small landing pad in the middle of the courtyard. The whine of
the turbines wound down into silence, to be replaced by the splattering
staccato of rain upon the aircar’s roof.

Reaching over, Namtar pushed open the door.

“Welcome to the Crystal Palace of Kubera,” he said to
Surya. An attendant rushed across the courtyard towards them, holding a large
umbrella. “Your destiny awaits.”

Raja Surya gazed around the room, impressed. The bedroom
was enormous and luxuriously furnished with solid wooden furniture, wall
tapestries and a carpet that caressed his bare feet and tickled his toes. The
four-poster bed, adorned with dark curtains embroidered with intricate swirling
patterns, was twice the size of anything he had slept in before. After the rain
and the cold outside, the room was pleasantly warm and the lower gravity of
Yuanshi compared to that of the hollow moon made him feel as light as a
feather. His headache was worse than ever.

“This is my room?” he asked in disbelief. “It’s huge!”

The elderly Indian woman who stood beside him smiled. She
was dressed in a traditional pale blue saree, which looked slightly incongruous
alongside the touch-screen slate she held in her hand. She placed a reassuring
hand upon his shoulder.

“Surya, you have said that in each of the rooms I have
shown you,” she said lightly. “The entire suite is yours and the servants will
tend to your needs. I have however taken the liberty of instructing the staff
not to enter the master bedroom unless so ordered. Everyone deserves a little
privacy now and again, whatever their place in the household.”

“Thank you, Yaksha,” murmured Surya, awestruck. Back at
his mother’s palace, nowhere was safe from the prying eyes of Fenris, who
professed to serve the Maharani first and foremost. Here in Lanka it was
beginning to dawn upon him that Yaksha, the head of the household at the Palace
of Kubera, was here to serve him. The thought filled his young mind with
unexpected delight.

“I see the headaches have started,” said Yaksha. Surya
winced again as the ache in his skull became insistent. “Your implant is
awakening to the palace network and you may feel some discomfort for a while,
but it will pass. You may find it useful to run the calibration programme on the
holovid unit. In the meantime, I will leave you to rest.”

As she turned to depart, Namtar appeared at the doorway,
looking unusually grumpy. The
Sun Wukong
had landed barely an hour ago, yet to his dismay Inari had already volunteered
them both for a new assignment. Inari was the ideal recruit to the rebels’
cause, for he was easily talked into doing the most foolhardy missions, usually
when Namtar was out of earshot. Namtar himself had a keen sense of
self-preservation and to date had brought himself and Inari back from several
escapades that had made a martyr of others.

“I have a message from Kartikeya to the young Raja,” he
said, addressing Yaksha. “He would be greatly honoured if the Raja would
consent to joining him and his guests at dinner this evening in the grand
hall.”

“Still using ten words when one will do, my little
Thesaurus Rex?” teased Yaksha.

“What time is dinner?” asked Surya, still musing over
what Yaksha had said about an implant. Apart from an unsatisfying zero-gravity
food pack given to him by Ganesa aboard the
Sun Wukong
he had not eaten since leaving the hollow moon. “Is
it soon?”