Hollow Moon (14 page)

“What have Que Qiao ever done for Yuanshi?” asked
Kartikeya. “Tell me that!”

Yaksha shrugged. “Given us a breathable atmosphere?” she
suggested.

“Not to mention the cities and infrastructure,” said
Namtar.

“And food,” added Inari, burping loudly into the butler’s
face. “Lots of it.”

“Que Qiao is taking Yuanshi’s wealth for themselves!”
retorted Kartikeya. “Just like it has long done on Daode. The justice we will
bring to this moon is only the start, for our ultimate goal must be to rid
Yuanshi, Daode and Lingbao of Que Qiao so that all of India’s children can
share in the bounty of Shennong.”

“Just like you are sharing the wealth of Kubera?”
retorted Yaksha. Surya, sitting sleepily at her side, wondered if he had been
forgotten. “Is it not hypocritical of you to preach of equality from the
comfort of a palace when so much of Lanka lives in poverty? Or to sit drinking
the best wines when alcohol is forbidden by the Church you profess to serve?”

“Yaksha,” murmured Kartikeya, warningly.

“What with your pretentious royal court, your foolish
feud with Que Qiao and the ban Taranis has imposed on music and anything else
that brings a bit of joy to the poor, you and that mad priest seem determined
to drag Yuanshi back into the dark ages!”

Silence fell across the table. Kartikeya stared frostily
at Yaksha, then jumped as Inari clumsily dropped a serving spoon into his dish,
where it landed with a loud clatter. As one, Kartikeya, Namtar and Inari turned
to see how Surya had reacted to Yaksha’s impromptu outburst. They were greeted
by the sight of the Raja slumped forward upon the table, almost but not quite
fast asleep. The long day really had been too much for him.

“It is fortunate he is not awake to hear your words,”
murmured Kartikeya.

Surya, his eyes closed, heard a scrape of a chair and
felt a hand upon his shoulder.

“It is not my words he should be worried about,” Yaksha
replied softly. “If you will excuse us, I will take him to his chamber. He has
another long day ahead of him tomorrow.”

Kartikeya sat at the holovid console, waiting for the
connection to be made. He felt ill at ease; partly because the tiny alcove in
which the console stood in the palace basement made all users feel
claustrophobic, but more because the man to whom he was about to speak
increasingly left him with little room for manoeuvre.

Behind him in darkness was what he liked to call his
top-secret operations room, a large barrel-roofed basement in which pride of
place was given to his prized holographic projection table loaded with
geographic studies of all Yuanshi. In the palace kitchens above he heard sounds
of movement as Hanuman and Ganesa, having come from the
Sun Wukong
to get some rest before their next assignment, helped
themselves to whatever food Inari had left unmolested. Inari himself had
departed earlier with Namtar to embark upon a night-time raid in Ayodhya.

The message on the screen had been ‘waiting’ for what
seemed an age. Kartikeya cursed and waited a little longer, then when the
message still failed to change reluctantly brought up the contact details for
Kubera’s resident technician on his wristpad. Moments later, a tired-looking
redheaded woman appeared on the wristpad’s tiny screen.

“Kubera service desk,” she said sleepily. “How may I help
you?”

“The holovid isn’t working,” Kartikeya told her, not
bothering to hide his irritation. “I’m expecting a very important call but
nothing’s come through.”

“Are you using the one in the basement?”

“If you mean the operations room communications centre,
then yes.”

“And where’s the call coming from?”

Kartikeya blinked. He had regular holovid conversations
with this particular caller but now he thought about it, he had no idea where
the holovid transmissions actually originated.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted sheepishly. He called up the
holovid’s call log and scrutinised the display. “The last one came from Station
BS3, if that helps.”

“That’s the Ascension servermoon, Barnard’s Star,” the
technician told him. There was a pause while she tapped at a console on the
desk before her. “There is a transmission trying to come through, so it may be
a fault with your holovid unit. Have you tried turning it off and on again?”

“No,” mumbled Kartikeya. He reached behind the console
and pressed the power button, waited a few seconds, then pressed it again. The
holovid screen flickered, quickly ran through its start-up checks, then much to
Kartikeya’s relief the status message on the screen changed from ‘waiting’ to
‘connecting’.

“Thank you,” he said. “It seems to be working now.”

“Glad to hear it,” she snapped back. “Don’t drag me out
of bed again.”

The wristpad call ended. Kartikeya was momentarily
distracted by the sound of movement in the room behind and was about to turn to
look when his gaze was drawn to the console before him. The screen now showed a
face that no matter how many times Kartikeya saw it still sent an
uncontrollable shiver down his spine. The man’s grey skin hung in folds; the
metal plates upon his skull seemingly ready to squash his head down into his
chest at a moment’s notice. Only his head and black-robed upper torso could be
seen but that was enough to see the glistening pipes running out of the
skullcap and down his back.

The years had certainly left their mark. The caller was
barely recognisable as the man Kartikeya had known personally in the early days
of the rebellion. Even before his mysterious disappearance the priest had used
a spider walker mobility chair to get around, but looking at him now his return
from the dead seemed more than a mere figure of speech.

Kartikeya nodded curtly at the screen. “Good evening,
Taranis. I trust all is well?”

On the screen, the priest’s face twisted with
displeasure, not that it made much difference to his gnarled features.

“Kartikeya, all is not well!” he snapped. “Has the Raja
arrived?”

“Safe and sound,” Kartikeya confirmed. “He is resting
upstairs.”

“I have a report from Fenris,” Taranis informed him. “The
ship your idiots used to board the
Dandridge Cole
has already been found. Instead of losing it in the
jungle, those numbskulls landed too close to the research station.”

“Navigation was never Namtar’s strong point. Are the
authorities on the case?”

“If not, they soon will be,” retorted Taranis. “The
Maharani sent Fenris to Newbrum to ask for help in tracing the Raja’s
kidnappers. He tells me that he must do her bidding if he is to avoid
suspicion, but aims to join you on Yuanshi as soon as he can. There is still
much that can go wrong, Kartikeya. Did you find out why Namtar moved ahead of
schedule?”

“He swears he picked up the signal from the Raja’s
implant and acted as ordered,” Kartikeya replied. “They were lucky Fenris
managed to think on his feet and keep the palace guard occupied, for it could
have gone a lot worse.”

“By the mighty greys, why do I get saddled with fools?”
exclaimed Taranis, shaking his head in exasperation. “It matters not, for we
have another problem. There was a witness, a girl named Ravana, who saw your
men with the Raja. Fenris spoke to her afterwards and I watched on a holovid
link. She saw too much.”

“Ravana?” mused Kartikeya. “Who on Yuanshi would be so
daft to name their daughter after some mythical demon king? I bet she was
bullied rotten at school. I’ve heard it’s almost impossible to change your name
once it’s lodged on the network.”

“The point is your careful planning has come to nothing!
Not only is our timetable compromised, but those fools have left a trail any
idiot could follow.”

“The plan will work,” Kartikeya reassured him. “We are to
spread the word that Que Qiao abducted and murdered the Raja, then once the
conference has collapsed and the people are at arms, Surya will miraculously
reappear, ready to lead Lanka to victory. All Fenris has to do is get here in
time to make sure the Raja’s appearance goes as planned.”

“Fenris is concerned that the mind probe he was secretly
running prior to Surya’s liberation may not work, as the hypnosis was
incomplete. I trust the Raja remains unaware of how we have shaped his thoughts
while he slept. Will he cooperate when the time is right?”

“I think so,” replied Kartikeya. “I have told him a
little of our plans and he appears keen to claim his father’s inheritance. He
seems very at ease here at Kubera.”

“That is good to hear. The Maharani herself cares little
for our cause and craves only the life of luxury she once enjoyed at Sumitra,”
mused Taranis, referring to the grand palatial complex in Ayodhya that had once
been home to the Maharaja and his family. “Fenris tells me she is trying to
make a deal with Que Qiao to return as Governor of Yuanshi! This has put Fenris
in a somewhat delicate position, but he assures me he will not let her plans
interfere with our own and will do his utmost to sabotage any investigation.”

“She’ll soon have to rethink her plans, if all goes
well,” noted Kartikeya.

“Indeed. My disciples are but days from their awakening.
Soon we will be ready to spread the faith with both words and fire!” Taranis
declared with grim satisfaction. “The true godly spirit of Yuanshi will rise
again, Kartikeya. The time of the new dawn is near!”

A sound in the darkened room behind drew a glance from
Kartikeya and he cursed as he saw a figure steal away into the shadows. Yaksha
had long made a habit of eavesdropping. This latest exchange between himself
and Taranis had revealed more than most.

“Damn that woman!” he muttered.

Her own murmurs, though faint, caught him surprise.

“Ravana,” he heard her say. “A name I’ve not heard in a
long time.”

Inari and Namtar stood in the doorway of the church and
looked out across the road at the brightly-lit entrance of Ayodhya railway
station. They had left Kubera over three hours ago, but due to the time
difference between Ayodhya and Lanka the sun had only just set. The rain had
been with them all the way and in the gloom the deserted street shimmered as it
reflected the city lights in its damp slickness. Above, a gap in the clouds
revealed a glimpse of the blue moon of Daode low in the darkening sky. Inari
squirmed uncomfortably as the straps of the heavy rucksack dug into his
shoulders, took a hesitant step forwards, then paused.

“Do I have to do this?” he asked. “You know I don’t like
the rain.”

“It will be nice and dry inside the station,” Namtar told
him. “The spaceport express departs in half an hour and it is imperative that
both you and the package are aboard when it leaves. All you need to do is hide
it, activate the timing device and then keep watch to make sure our plot is not
discovered before time. What could be simpler?”

“Staying at home?” replied Inari. “Speaking of which, if
I blow up the station, how do we get back to Lanka? I bought a return ticket.”

“Our target is the spaceport, not the station,” Namtar
reassured him. Inari saw he relished the taste of the lie upon his lips; he
knew it was so, for earlier he had overheard his colleague mutter something
about getting a refund on Inari’s return fare. Namtar raised his hand to push
him out into the rain, glanced warily at Inari’s rucksack, then gingerly edged
away. “Fear not, comrade. When all is said and done, we shall meet again. The
embrace of the Dhusarian Church is here not just to keep us from the rain.”

Inari grumbled under his breath, recalling that as a
homeless ex-convict he had been lured to church purely because it had been the
only place willing to offer food and shelter. Seeing Namtar was not about to
volunteer to take his place, he stepped into the rain.

Keeping low, Inari crossed to the other side of the road
and entered the station. The concourse was almost deserted and the only eyes
watching as he crept furtively towards the dormant trains were those of an
elderly couple sitting on a bench, unless he counted the electronic stares of
the omnipresent security scanners, not to mention that of a solitary maintenance
robot sweeping the floor. Inari did not fear the cameras, for all they did was
allow the replaying of his movements after the event, by which time he hoped to
be safely back in Lanka and out of reach of Que Qiao police. The robot he
regarded more cautiously, for some were armed and could be operated remotely by
security staff. However, the eight-limbed metal box on wheels shuffling back
and forth with a broom looked harmless enough.

The missile-like monorail train that was the spaceport
express stood silently at platform four, its deep blue paintwork reflecting
Inari’s nervous steps as he approached. The first two carriages already had a
few passengers aboard, but the third and final one was empty and moments later
Inari was inside. He quietly slipped the rucksack from his shoulders into a
convenient hiding place behind one of the seats, reached into the top of the
pack and pressed the switch to activate the timer on the device inside.
Unbeknown to Inari, as the unseen digital display began to count down, the time
left remaining was in minutes, not hours.

He was just about to take a seat himself when he felt a
sudden pang of hunger. Namtar had instructed him to stay with the package, but
Inari figured it would not matter if he had a quick look to see if there was a
snack machine on the station concourse. As he stepped out of the express train
he almost fell over the maintenance robot, which had followed and was now
busily sweeping the platform outside the door. It seemed that after crossing
the rain-drenched road Inari had left a muddy trail across the floor.