Hollow Moon (26 page)

“They’re playing Bantoff’s
Shennong
,” observed Ravana, recognising the tune.

Endymion looked genuinely surprised. “Is that what it’s
supposed to sound like?”

Using the tracker application on his wristpad, he found
the signal from his sister’s device on a live satellite map of the market and
beckoned to Ravana to follow him onto the escalator. The moving stairway bore
them swiftly up into the leafy canopy and onto a wide platform that completely
encircled the trunk of the tree. They stepped out into a bustle of people, all
idly browsing market stalls that were suddenly everywhere they looked.

The range of goods on offer was incredible. Endymion led
her over a footbridge onto the next platform and Ravana stared in wonder at the
astonishing displays of food, clothing, jewellery and souvenirs for sale. She
was drawn to a stall selling traditional Asian clothing and stared longingly at
a saree in emerald green, thinking of the beautiful clothes the Maharani wore,
then quickly hurried away when she caught the handsome young stallholder
staring at the scar on her face with undisguised disgust.

The posts and wires supporting the platforms were
cunningly concealed, though Ravana’s engineering training helped her pick out
the clever techniques that resulted in the incredible illusion that the market
floated in thin air. When she looked around for Endymion, eager to share her
observations, she saw he had gone ahead to where Bellona and Philyra stood by a
curious stall piled high with cages of tiny fluttering birds, slumbering
reptiles and other strange creatures. As Ravana went to join them, she saw
Philyra had failed to resist the temptation to shop for clothes and was wearing
a short summer dress in metallic blue that still had a price tag hanging down
the back. The dress was extremely low-cut and was making Endymion look at
Philyra in a whole new way.

“What do you think of this dress?” Philyra was asking
him, flouncing.

Endymion looked nonplussed. “It’s very, err… short.”

“I know!” exclaimed Philyra. She did not seem to mind
that he was clearly mesmerized by her exposed cleavage. “Isn’t it fabulous!”

Ravana glanced towards the cages on the nearby stall. She
had initially thought that the creatures within were electric pets, but now she
saw they were real animals and birds, a fact she found a little disturbing.
Looking closer, she was drawn to a large cage in the corner that held a
creature quite unlike the rest. Intrigued, she stepped closer.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” said Endymion, coming beside her. “A
real alien!”

Most of the captive animals and birds were species unique
to Daode, but Ravana knew that was not what Endymion meant. The caged creature
was the size of a small ape, grey and entirely hairless, with large
almond-shaped eyes staring up out of an angular and vaguely lizard-like face.
Like an ape, its legs were short and stocky and its arms long, though its feet
had just three toes while its delicate hands each had six dainty fingers. As
Ravana bent closer, the creature lifted its head and met her gaze with a
frightened stare.

“Poor thing,” she murmured. “It’s just a baby.”

“A baby grey!” exclaimed Endymion. “I knew it!”

“There’s no such thing as greys!” retorted Philyra. “It’s
nothing more than a shaven Yuanshi water monkey. One of those scams aimed at
gullible tourists!”

Ravana was not convinced. Daode and Yuanshi were teeming
with native life when humans first arrived, but it was well known that most
higher life-forms died out shortly after large-scale terraforming began.
Nevertheless, rumours persisted of secret colonies of intelligent humanoids,
reinforced by occasional sightings like her own childhood encounter. There was
something about the creature that held her entranced.

“The Dhusarian Church believes in greys,” she remarked,
thinking back to the conversation in the carousel on the
Platypus
. “Fenris told me all about it.”

“Fenris!” exclaimed Endymion. “I knew there was something
I meant to tell you all. Ostara, Zotz and I listened in on a holovid call
and…”

“Well, well!” came a sudden loud voice. “The terrible
trio of Newbrum!”

As one, Ravana and Endymion turned to see two boys and a
girl strutting smugly towards them. All three were expensively dressed in
Hemakuta fashions and sported the latest model wristpads, though it occurred to
Ravana that this was the one thing she had not seen many local people wearing.
She was also a little mystified that anyone would recognise them sixteen light
years from home but it was clear that Endymion, Bellona and Philyra knew who
the three youths were and were not at all pleased to see them.

“Xuthus!” growled Endymion. “How unlucky of us to see you
here.”

“And it’s not a trio,” snapped Bellona. “There’s five of
us now.”

“Big deal,” Maia retorted, unimpressed. “We have a whole
orchestra!”

“They’re from the Bradbury Heights band,” Endymion
informed Ravana. “Xuthus, Maia and Lodus. Otherwise known as rich, stuck-up and
largely brainless.”

Ravana smiled, not noticing the venomous look Maia gave
her.

“So where are you staying?” asked Xuthus. “And how did
you get here? I bet you came on some smelly freighter and you’re having to live
in a tent on the beach!”

“The
Platypus
is
not smelly!” exclaimed Ravana, seeing Lodus snigger.

“We’re at the Pampa Palace,” declared Endymion. “Beat
that!”

“No way!” said Maia in disbelief. “Are you on egg?”

“Better than where you’re staying, is it?” remarked
Bellona mockingly.

“You should come and visit,” Philyra suggested to Xuthus,
smiling coyly.

Lodus pushed past Ravana and stuck his chubby fingers
through the wire mesh on the front of the nearby cage. He responded to her
glare with a defiant leer.

“Stop that!” Ravana snapped. “You’ll scare the poor
thing!”

“Get lost, scar face,” retorted Lodus. Inside the cage,
the grey creature cowered nervously, its child-like gaze transfixed upon the
boy’s wriggling digits.

“Yeah!” sneered Maia. “Scabby bitch!”

“Don’t be horrible!” retorted Bellona. “Not everyone can
be a glamour queen!”

“There are no words to describe Maia’s own beauty,”
Endymion said to Ravana in a mock whisper. “None that can be said in polite
company, anyway.”

“Yeah, well who does she think she is, telling Lodus what
to do?”

Ravana gave Maia a fierce stare. “My name is Ravana
O’Brien,” she said. “And I don’t much care to see small defenceless creatures
being bullied by big stupid ones.”

“Big talk from a little girl,” snarled Maia. “Think
you’re something, don’t you?”

Xuthus smiled and seemed content to let Maia’s temper
explode. Endymion stepped forward to come between her and Ravana, but was
abruptly jostled out of the way by Philyra who was staring into the branches
above and not looking where she was going. It was then that Lodus screamed and
wrenched his hand away from the cage, his fingers dripping blood. The grey
creature, having finally had enough of the boy’s taunts, had tasted human
flesh.

“It bit me!” cried Lodus.

“That’s your fault!” Maia yelled accusingly to Ravana. As
quick as a flash her hand came up in a blur and slapped Ravana hard across the
face, causing her to shriek. Blinking back tears, Ravana staggered back and
stared at Maia in disbelief.

“Look out!” shouted Philyra.

A figure in a red birdsuit suddenly dropped from above
and landed before Maia, wings outstretched and fists raised ready for a fight.
Maia gave a strangled yelp of surprise, turned to run, then tripped and fell
over Lodus, who had dived for cover as soon as the birdman appeared. Together
they scrambled to their feet and scuttled behind Xuthus. He was made of sterner
stuff and gave the masked birdman a withering stare.

“A flying ginger ninja,” he remarked coolly. “Here to
save the native princess?”

“It’s him!” cried Bellona excitedly. “The hollow moon superhero!”

“Is it really you?” Ravana asked wonderingly, momentarily
distracted from the pain of her throbbing cheek. “My guardian angel?”

The masked figure turned to Ravana and bowed
theatrically. “The Flying Fox, once again at your service,” he confirmed. “Are
you hurt?”

“Angry and sore,” Ravana told him, shooting a glare
towards the cowering Maia.

“Butt out of this, bat boy,” Xuthus snarled, squaring up
to the newcomer. He had quickly seen that dramatic entrance aside, The Flying
Fox was no more than a scrawny youth in a padded birdsuit and a good ten
centimetres shorter than himself. “This isn’t a holovid game. Someone could get
seriously hurt.”

“Aha!” declared the birdman. “Do I detect the smell of
fear? Or is it the hideous odour of the Eden Ravines’ very own greater-spotted
voluminous tree-skunk!?”

With a dramatic flourish, The Flying Fox extended his
left wrist towards Xuthus and with his other hand pressed a button on his
oversized wristpad. A jet of choking green mist erupted from the wristpad,
enveloping Xuthus in the most foul-smelling, vomit-inducing odour Ravana had
ever had the misfortune to let near her nostrils. As the scent hit the
crouching Maia and Lodus, they gave yelps of dismay and leapt away into the
crowd. Xuthus grimaced, tears streaming from his eyes, yet incredibly held his
ground for several moments more before running after his friends and out of
sight. The masked birdman gave a nod and folded his arms in satisfaction,
seemingly unconcerned that his audience now included a growing congregation of
bemused shoppers.

“My work here is done,” he declared.

Ravana beamed and slipped her hands around The Flying
Fox’s arm. “You are my hero!” she cried. “Thanks for scaring them off. It must
make a change from rescuing cats.”

The Flying Fox bowed again and with poignant grace took
Ravana’s hand, raised it to his masked face and bestowed a gentle kiss.
Releasing her, he stepped back, unfolded his wings to maximum stretch and then
with a sudden spurt of power from the suit’s jet pack was up and away through
the leafy canopy. The gathered crowd soon lost interest and melted away,
leaving Ravana, Endymion, Bellona and Philyra alone and somewhat nonplussed.

“Don’t look at me like that!” retorted Ravana, feeling
the weight of the stares the other three were giving her. “I didn’t ask him to
follow me here!”

Ostara peered around the corner of the corridor and
watched as the Chinese woman ahead unlocked a door and entered a suite,
clipboard in hand. Fenris’ mention of Dana during his conversation with Taranis
left her intrigued. Eager to pursue her investigations, she had forsaken her
bath to instead try to learn something about the Que Qiao agent, reassured both
by the knowledge that Fenris was safely asleep in his room and by
The
Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes
on her
wristpad. So far all her detective work had revealed was that the woman liked
going in and out of every hotel room she could find.

“Checking surveillance equipment?” Ostara murmured, her
mind working overtime. “Or looking for secret papers left behind by delegates?”

Moments later the woman reappeared in the corridor, still
too far away for Ostara to get a good look at her, then walked to the next door
and again disappeared inside. Ostara was momentarily startled by the arrival of
a laundry-collection robot, then on a whim quickly dropped to her hands and
knees and crawled in its wake, using the square bulk of the automaton as cover
as it moved down the corridor. When she reached what she thought was the right
room, she paused and put an ear to the closed door, still crouched upon the
floor.

“Can I help you?” came a sudden loud voice.

Ostara looked up and saw the woman standing outside
another door further along, then realised the robot had trundled away on its
own mission to collect the hotel’s dirty linen. It took a while for Ostara’s
brain to register that even though she was sure she had correctly identified
Dana in the hotel foyer, it now appeared that the woman she had been trailing
for the last half an hour was definitely not the Que Qiao agent.

“You’re not Dana,” murmured Ostara, sheepishly climbing
to her feet.

“Customer experience inspectorate!” snapped the woman.
“What are you doing?”

“I, err… dropped something,” Ostara stuttered, cringing
inwardly at how lame that sounded. Without waiting for an answer, she hurried
down the corridor as fast as she could and did not stop until the woman was far
behind and out of sight. She really wished she had chosen to stay in her room
and take a relaxing bath after all.

“Rats,” she murmured. “Sherlock Holmes makes it look so
easy.”

Endymion quickly grew bored of the floating market and at
his insistence they made their way back to the hotel, for earlier he had
discovered that the basement games room had a number of virtual-reality titles yet
to reach Newbrum. Ravana found Zotz waiting for her in the lobby, looking out
of breath and strangely dishevelled as if he had just fought his way out of a
wardrobe. He too was eager to sample the plethora of games offered by the hotel
but had been too shy to enter a VR suite alone.

The games room boasted a wide selection of VR machines.
Some were linked to keep-fit apparatus such as treadmills, exercise cycles or
rowing machines, enabling the participant to run with virtual dinosaurs on
Mesozoic Earth, cycle through Valles Marineris on a virtual Mars, or race the
krakens across the virtual seas of Yuanshi. For those feeling not quite so
energetic, submersion booths allowed players to enter any one of hundreds of
fantasy worlds, which ranged from no-frills relaxation breaks to full
role-playing adventures.