Hollow Moon (21 page)

“Or vice versa,” Quirinus replied. “It’s hard to tell.”

Zotz turned to the window and watched as the curved
countryside of the hollow moon slowly passed by. They had left the lake behind
and the end of the line at Petit Havre was just a few minutes away.

“What about Ravana?” he asked carefully. His voice
betrayed a tiny nervous tremor. “Why did she scream like that?”

Quirinus did not reply for a while. Taking his slate from
Zotz, he pressed the power button in the corner and switched it off. Zotz
caught his expression and it was clear that Ravana’s father too shared the
boy’s unspoken concerns.

“I don’t know,” Quirinus said eventually. “You like
Ravana a lot, don’t you?”

“She is my friend,” Zotz answered simply.

“That teacher wants me to take her students to Epsilon
Eridani,” Quirinus told him. “Perhaps we should go; Ravana and I. They have
good doctors on Daode.”

Zotz looked at him, puzzled. “I don’t understand.”

“Me neither,” Quirinus admitted. “Maybe we need to find
someone who does.”

Ravana’s cat had once again wandered off towards the
cliff behind the palace, but at least this time she did manage to catch up with
her electric pet before it started scrambling up the three-hundred-metre tumble
of scree below the cave. At Ostara’s insistence, Ravana reluctantly invited
Endymion, Bellona and Philyra to join her, leaving Professor Wak, Miss Clymene
and Ostara herself at the maintenance shed to await the arrival of her father.
Ravana knew Ostara was trying to encourage new friendships, but did not find it
easy to be sociable at the best of times. Endymion seemed friendly enough, but
the way Philyra and Bellona kept looking at her disfigured arm and face made
Ravana feel very self-conscious.

“Nice cat,” remarked Endymion, as she lifted her pet into
her arms. The cat had stayed away from the palace grounds and had instead
scampered diagonally towards the cliff through a stretch of common pasture
land, frightening a mob of wallabies in the process. “You don’t see many
electric pets on Ascension. Does it have a name?”

“Fluffy?” suggested Ravana, embarrassed. “That was the
name I gave it when I was little. It doesn’t actually take any notice of what I
call it, so now it’s just ‘cat’. It was a birthday present when I was six, back
on Yuanshi,” she added. “Zotz calls it Jones.”

“What made you come to this place?” asked Philyra, with a
tinge of disdain.

“What’s wrong with the hollow moon?” retorted Ravana
defensively.

As she spoke, a shiver fell upon them and for a brief
moment the shadows around them faded, just as they might on a planet such as
Earth or Taotie whenever the sun passed behind a cloud. Within an artificial
environment such as the hollow moon or the dome of Newbrum city, it was not
something that should happen. Startled, Ravana lifted her gaze towards the
artificial sun and for a moment she was convinced it glowed less brightly. As
long as she could remember it had never faltered before.

“Is it supposed to do that?” asked Endymion. He had seen
the same thing.

Ravana shook her head slowly. “Not in the middle of the
day,” she murmured, somewhat disturbed. “Professor Wak did say there was something
strange happening with the
Dandridge Cole
’s
power supply.”

“Newbrum’s just as bad,” said Philyra. “Everything you
touch is falling apart.”

“Yes, but this place looks so much older!” Bellona
exclaimed. “The houses in that village we came through are really quaint. It
feels like we’ve gone back in time.”

“Father says the hollow moon is at least a hundred years
old,” Ravana told her, still puzzling over the faltering sun. “I like the
old-fashioned way we live here, especially how we work together and share
everything like they did in the early colonies. Father says it’s the only way a
place like this can keep going.”

“You share everything?” asked Bellona, surprised. “What
about money?”

“Dockside has an account we use for trading, but no one
has any for themselves. Except the Maharani, of course; they say she brought
lots with her when she fled Yuanshi. Everyone who lives here is provided with
food and shelter so there is no need for it.”

“I suppose if there’s no money, there’s no crime,”
Endymion reasoned.

“There is still a bit of crime,” Ravana admitted. “Ostara
was investigating a robbery at the biology laboratories before she started
looking into the kidnap of the Raja. On the whole though it seems to work well.
Everyone has to contribute a bit of their time to help where needed. I do three
days a week in the fields. I’m training to be an engineer.”

Philyra raised a surprised eyebrow. “You work for
nothing?”

“What use is money here?” asked Ravana, puzzled. “Where
would I spend it?”

“On Ascension, you have to work to buy food and clothes
and stuff,” Endymion told her. “If I didn’t get paid I wouldn’t want to work
for nothing. I’d rather do nothing!”

“You don’t do anything at work anyway,” Bellona pointed
out.

“What would happen if you couldn’t find a job?” Ravana
asked Endymion, smiling mischievously. “Would you be left hungry and naked?”

“There’s enough jobs for everyone,” Endymion said,
ignoring Bellona’s giggle. “More jobs than people, in fact.”

“But that’s forcing people to work or starve. That
doesn’t seem right to me.”

Philyra looked puzzled. “What happens here if you can’t
be bothered to do your bit?”

“People in the hollow moon are used to helping each other
out,” Ravana replied. “Very few refuse to work, but if they did all that would
happen is they would no longer have any friends. But they would not go cold or
hungry.”

Endymion shook his head in amazement. “Working for
nothing is crazy.”

“It’s not for nothing!” Ravana protested. “Father says
the hollow moon is everyone’s responsibility as we all need it to survive. If
someone couldn’t work for whatever reason, they would be looked after. Anyway,
I like being able to try lots of different jobs here. I think it helps you find
the one you’re good at and like doing best.”

She could see it had never occurred to a fascinated
Bellona that a community could live and work together in this way. Her brother
on the other hand looked unimpressed by the concept of a world without money.
Ravana was getting bored of the subject.

“Would you like to visit other places?” Bellona asked.
“Maybe go back to Yuanshi?”

“I’ve been to places!” retorted Ravana. “Father and I go
to Lan-Tlanto at least once a month. I’ve also been to Lowell City on Mars and
to Camelot spaceport on Avalon.”

“You’ve been to Avalon?” Philyra looked jealous. “To the
holovid studios?”

“We’re meant to be going to Daode this week,” added
Bellona. Ravana recalled Miss Clymene’s conversation with her father about
chartering the
Platypus
and saw Bellona
looked awkward, as if she felt she was being used. “We’re supposed to be taking
part in the school band competition at the peace conference. Perhaps you could
come with us?”

“I do play the cornet,” Ravana admitted. “It’s like a
squashed trumpet.”

“Another brass player!” exclaimed Endymion. “Trombone,
me.”

“I play clarinet,” said Bellona. “Philyra plays the
flute.”

Ravana considered this. “Is it just the three of you?”

Philyra nodded sullenly.

“You would make four,” Bellona suggested hopefully.

“Maybe,” mused Ravana, not convinced. While the idea of
an adventure to the Epsilon Eridani system was appealing, less so was the
prospect of going in the company of strangers. “Would Zotz be able to come as
well?” she asked. “He’s my friend.”

“Is he the one who keeps tripping over his shoe laces?”
asked Bellona.

Ravana smiled. “His father’s just as bad. Professor Wak
is one of the leading experts on extra-dimensional string theory but can’t tie
a knot to save his life.”

“Can he play an instrument?” asked Philyra.

“Who? The professor?”

“No,” retorted Philyra, irritably. “Your friend Zotz.”

“Of course!” said Ravana. She knew full well that Zotz
had never shown even the slightest interest in music. She lowered her gaze and
started to stroke her cat in a none-to-subtle attempt to mask her fraud.

“Marvellous!” Endymion grinned. “Let’s go and ask Miss
Clymene.”

“Whoopee,” muttered Philyra. “All we need now is a
spaceship.”

By the time Ravana, Endymion, Bellona and Philyra
returned to the maintenance shed, Quirinus and Zotz had arrived, having walked
the short distance from the monorail station at Petit Havre. At Wak’s
insistence, Ostara had contacted Fenris at the palace and arranged a meeting
with the Maharani. So it was that Ravana found herself back at the palace,
again with her cat in her arms but this time also with her father, Wak, Ostara
and Miss Clymene for company.

They were led to a sumptuous glass conservatory that
looked out upon a small leafy courtyard isolated from the rest of the palace
grounds. The palace servants, silent as ever, were somewhat perturbed at the
sight of so many people disturbing the peace of the Maharani’s sanctum and
quickly decided that Zotz, Endymion, Bellona and Philyra were better left to
amuse themselves beside the fish pond in the courtyard outside. Quirinus
brought with him the device Endymion had found in the kidnappers’ tunnel. He
was just lowering it onto the table, fully expecting that they would be kept
waiting, when Maharani Uma swept into the conservatory, a sullen Fenris close
behind.

“Well, well,” sneered Fenris upon seeing Ravana. He had
just returned from carrying Surya’s cyberclone down to its coffin-shaped
maintenance unit in the basement and was in a foul mood. “If it isn’t Ravana
and her amazing vomiting cat.”

“Ignore him, my dear,” the Maharani said sweetly,
addressing Ravana. “He sometimes forgets his manners. I have been meaning to
thank you for the help you’ve given Fenris and err… your security officer,”
she said, with a glance towards the nervously-fidgeting Ostara, having
seemingly forgotten her name. “I know you are all doing your best to find my
son.”

There was an edge to the Maharani’s tone that suggested
their best was not good enough. It was a subtlety lost on Professor Wak as he
drew her attention to the metal box Quirinus had placed on the table.

“We have established how the kidnappers gained access to
the
Dandridge Cole
,” he informed her.
“They left behind this device, which offers a clue to their identity.”

“A clue?” asked Ostara, the Maharani’s snub forgotten.

“Your investigator appears to need enlightenment,”
muttered Fenris.

“As indeed do I,” remarked the Maharani, slightly put out
by the wild gesturing of Wak’s flattened hand. “What is it you have found?”

“A personnel scanner, as issued to Que Qiao authorities
on Daode and Yuanshi,” Quirinus remarked. “These devices can pick up the minute
signals given out by cranium implants. They’re used to track criminals,
political activists and the like.”

“What implants?” asked Miss Clymene, confused.

“Microchips in the brain,” Wak told her. “The ultimate
interface between human and machine! They’re popular with tech-heads across all
five systems, but it is only the Que Qiao administration in Epsilon Eridani
that insists every child is implanted with one as soon as they are old enough.”

Ravana shivered. “Yuck. Implants in the brain? That’s
horrible.”

“Maharani, I take it the Raja has such a device?” asked
Wak.

The Maharani nodded. “My son was fitted with an implant
as per the usual practice on Yuanshi. I was born on Earth and so do not have
one myself; and for various reasons nor does Fenris or anyone else in my
household here.”

“This equipment then was obviously used to target your
son,” Wak told her.

“Impossible,” retorted the Maharani. “The palace is
shielded against any electronic methods of espionage and as the girl saw, my
son was inside when the kidnappers struck. Perhaps you should ask Quirinus if
he knows of another who may have an implant.”

Ravana glanced to her father, puzzled by the Maharani’s
words. He looked back with a most curious expression, but quickly turned away
as he caught his daughter’s gaze.

“Are you saying Que Qiao agents took the Raja?” Ostara
asked Quirinus.

“That’s unlikely. The scanner is an old design,” Quirinus
replied hesitantly. “My guess is it was bought on the black market. The real
mystery is how someone managed to wander up to the palace waving a scanner
around without being apprehended by the guards!”

“My security team had been called away to complete a
health and safety assessment,” the Maharani replied frostily, glaring at
Fenris. “The timing was most unfortunate.”

“I must get to Yuanshi,” Fenris said to Quirinus,
ignoring the Maharani’s rebuke. “If I am to negotiate with the kidnappers on
the Maharani’s behalf, I need to be there with the authorities in Ayodhya.”

Ravana looked at her father. “Miss Clymene has invited me
and Zotz to play in their band at the peace conference on Daode,” she said, her
expression hopeful. She glanced towards the window, hoping to catch Zotz’s
attention. He and Endymion had taken a break from trying to grab fish with
their bare hands and were busy soaking Bellona and Philyra with water from the
garden pool. “We could all go to Epsilon Eridani together!”

“It would be a tremendous help and much appreciated,”
admitted Miss Clymene.