Hollow Moon (3 page)

“Find him easy, you said!” remarked the fat man, clearly
out of breath. “Your tracker device tried to lead us back into the garden!”

“A mere technical glitch, no more,” his colleague said
dismissively. “The path of faith has not led us astray and we have found what
we came for.”

Still struggling, the boy somehow loosened his gag and
suddenly screamed.

“Help!” he cried in terror. “I’m being kidnapped!”

“Be quiet!” The taller man brought them to a pause so he
could nonchalantly cuff the boy around the head and refasten the gag, before hooking
his hands once more under the boy’s wriggling shoulders. “Children just do not
know how to behave in polite company.”

“He’s a right fidget. Can I knock him on the head to calm
him down?”

“We have been tasked to return our cargo in pristine
condition. I fear our own deliverance into sanctity may be withheld if we
deliver damaged goods.”

“I’d only hit him gentle, like.”

“I sincerely doubt you truly appreciate the meaning of
the word ‘gentle’.”

“Yes I do,” retorted the fat man. “My mum bought me a
dictionary for my birthday and I’ve read as far as ‘halibut’. Go on, ask me
what a halibut is.”

The men moved on and the response was lost to Ravana’s
ears. Alarmed at their treatment of the young boy, she watched nervously from
her hiding place as they headed towards the wall that surrounded the palace
grounds. Her headache was gone, as if the pain had been a needle suddenly
plucked free from her brain, but she was left with a less-than-steely resolve
to spring into action. Ravana knew there was no way she could tackle the two
men alone but was determined to find out what they were up to before she went
for help.

“Don’t be a scaredy-cat!” she muttered to herself. “No
offence,” she added, seeing her electric pet look up from its systematic
destruction of a pretty display of blooms.

Keeping herself hidden, she crept nearer and saw that
between the men and the wall was a very strange object indeed. It was some sort
of vehicle; a horizontal cylinder as high as a man and three times as long, one
end of which tapered to a cone of bright silver, the other end flat with a
recessed hatch. A series of horizontal spiked tracks ran along its rusty yellow
hull at regular intervals and between two of these, faded black letters spelt
out the legend ‘ASTROMOLE’. Ahead, the men had reached the machine and she
scurried towards them, darting through the undergrowth until she was as close
as she dared.

Her heart pounding, she peered around the edge of a
convenient bush. Beyond, the kidnappers were bundling their captive into the
open hatch of the machine. The taller man paused to look around the palace
grounds before following his colleague and the boy inside, the hatch clanging
shut behind him. There was a muffled shout, then the door swung open again and
he leapt out again, his face creased in disgust.

“You vile man!” he cried, fanning a hand frantically
before his nose. “That truly is the height of bad manners, especially in such
an enclosed space! What have you been eating?”

After a few moments of frenetic waving, he climbed back
inside and pulled the hatch closed once more. With a great clattering noise,
the Astromole jerked into motion and started to trundle across the ground,
cone-end forwards, propelled by the spiked tracks clattering along the side of
the cylinder. Startled, Ravana crawled from behind the bush and watched as the
machine moved slowly towards a small statue-lined courtyard near the main
gates. There was no sign of the palace guard or anyone else whom she could alert.
She quickly came to a decision and started in pursuit of the disappearing
vehicle.

The courtyard was watched by the blank stares of
moss-covered stone elephants, one at each corner standing three metres high.
All four faced the large ragged hole torn through the central paving. It was
towards this hole the rusty yellow machine now headed, its nose cone spinning
like a high-speed drill. Close behind, Ravana retreated to hide behind an empty
wooden cart at the edge of the courtyard. She looked out again just as the
Astromole reached the edge of the pit and tipped itself into the hole.

“They’re digging their way out!” she murmured.

She had never seen anything like it before in her life.
The machine tilted further, then began to sink into the ground, the whirring
tracks throwing chunks of rock into the air behind. In a matter of seconds it
had disappeared from sight, leaving nothing but a rubble-strewn courtyard in
its wake.

Awestruck, Ravana emerged from behind the cart and
hesitantly approached the edge of the pit. Peering into the gloom, she caught a
glimpse of the rear of the Astromole, slipping into the darkness of the curving
tunnel. It fitted its burrow so neatly she realised the vehicle must have cut
the shaft itself earlier to get into the palace grounds in the first place. Now
very scared, she backed away from the edge. The machine had made so much noise
she was sure the Maharani’s guards should have been alerted by now, but there
was still no one else in sight. Although apprehensive about approaching the
palace, she knew it was the right thing to do.

Ravana took a few steps towards the house and paused. The
hush that had descended upon the scene felt unnatural, making her more nervous
than ever. As if to reassure herself she had not imagined it, she glanced back
towards the shattered courtyard, then shivered as a sudden chill wind swept
through the grounds. The climate within the hollow moon was carefully
controlled and it was rare to feel anything much more than a gentle breeze.

The wind quickly gathered strength. Startled, she saw
that a flurry of leaves, twigs and other garden detritus were all being drawn
towards the hole in the centre of the courtyard. In a panic, she scrambled back
to her refuge behind the wagon and watched wide-eyed as the debris swirled ever
faster around the ragged pit like water down a drain. The wind grew more
ferocious still until the branches of the nearby trees too were bending towards
the hole, creaking with an agonising sense of foreboding.

Ravana stared at the pit. It seemed incredible, yet she
knew what was happening. Somehow, the hollow moon had been breached and its air
was being sucked out into space before her very eyes.

The canvas fastened across the back of the cart rose like
a sail in the wind, jolting the wagon forward against the wooden chock holding
its wheel. As the canvas rose, she spied a coil of rope lying in the back, then
screamed as a disturbed huntsman spider dropped from the canvas onto her arm,
scuttled down her sleeve and ran for cover. Ravana cursed and made a grab for
the rope before her plan had fully formed in her head.

Rope in hand, she quickly secured one end to a sturdy
part of the cart, then scrambled across to loop the other around the neck of
the nearest stone elephant, tying it tight. By now it was becoming difficult to
stand upright in the blasting wind. Crawling back to the wagon, she kicked away
the wheel chock, reached for the lever next to the driver’s seat and released
the brake.

The cart leapt across the courtyard with its canvas
flapping like a kite before a storm. The rope tightened and the wagon shuddered
to a halt on the edge of the pit. Buffeted by the wind, Ravana tried to crawl
to the edge of the courtyard and safety, but she could not get a grip upon the
paving slabs and slowly but surely found herself being dragged across the
ground towards the gaping hole behind her.

The rushing air was filled with grit that seared
painfully against her skin. Ravana closed her eyes and waited for the final
blast that would send her flying down the shaft to her doom. The wailing of the
wind was deafening, yet through her mounting terror she still found time to
curse her electric cat for landing her in this mess in the first place.

Just when she thought her plan had failed, she heard the
sound of grating stone as the nearby elephant began to topple from its plinth.
On the other end of the rope, the cart leapt forward once more and was
instantly sucked into the pit, dragging the huge statue behind it. Ravana, her
eyes tightly closed, sadly missed the awesome spectacle of several tonnes of
stone elephant flying across the courtyard as if it weighed no more than a
feather. The statue flew towards the pit and then, with an almighty crunch,
jammed neatly into the hole.

Suddenly, the wind was no more, leaving nothing but the
distant wail of a siren to break the silence. Ravana cautiously opened her
eyes. Standing before where she lay was her cat, looking suspiciously clean and
holding the remains of the sentry gull in its mouth.

“After today, you are definitely grounded,” she muttered.
She sat up and started pulling leaves from her hair. “Your recharging
privileges have been revoked.”

The cat looked at her oddly and shifted its electric gaze
to the source of the shadow over her shoulder. Ravana wearily climbed to her
feet and turned to see two Indian men standing at the edge of the courtyard,
both dressed in the dark suits of the palace guard. One was looking
despondently at the stone elephant, which now lay wedged in the hole in the
middle of the ruined paving with its legs in the air. The other pointed a gun
in her direction.

“I expected a better reception than this,” Ravana said
wearily. “After all, it’s not every day someone gets to save the world with an
elephant.”

The guards took Ravana through the palace grounds to the
guard house, a squat and utilitarian building attached to the palace itself by
a short open-sided veranda. There they led her into a small, sparsely-furnished
room and stood silently over her for what seemed an age. When she tried to tell
the guards what she had witnessed in the grounds she was steadfastly ignored,
though was given a bowl of perfumed water and a soft towel to wash the mud from
her hands and face.

The open door at the far end of the veranda offered a
tantalising glimpse of the elaborate yet old-fashioned decor of the palace,
which in Ravana’s eyes was well suited to a household under the rule of a woman
who used the archaic Indian title of Maharani. No one knew much about the
palace’s reclusive inhabitants. It was rumoured that the Maharani’s staff were
forbidden to speak of the outside world or mix with the other residents of the
Dandridge
Cole
. The only thing Ravana knew for
certain was that the Maharani and the rest of the royal household were fellow
exiles from the Epsilon Eridani system who had come to the hollow moon around
the same time as Ravana and her father, back when Ravana herself had been just
seven years old.

Finally, a third man entered. He was tall and
pale-skinned, with dark hair and a neatly-trimmed goatee beard. He wore a smart
uniform in green with gold piping and by the way the first two guards silently
deferred to him Ravana guessed he was their superior. Initially ignoring her,
the newcomer placed the small flat case and the antique paper-leafed book he
carried upon a desk by the window and only then turned to greet Ravana.

“My name is Fenris,” he said, by way of an introduction.
He spoke perfect English, with an accent suggesting he was of Terran Eastern
European origin. His brusque manner was that of someone who was clearly not
having a good day. “I am the Maharani’s chief of staff and head of security
here at the palace.”

“My name is Ravana,” she said hesitantly. “Is this
about…?”

“Ravana,” mused Fenris, interrupting. “An unusual name, I
must say. The Maharani does not take kindly to trespassers,” he said sternly,
side-stepping her unfinished question. “Yet we mean you no harm. I trust my men
have not mistreated you.”

Ravana saw he was looking at the scar on her face and
turned away, discomforted yet also puzzled by how calm he seemed considering
what had just happened. Fenris saw her unease and beckoned to her to take a
seat by the desk, then dismissed the guards.

He sat down in the chair opposite. She watched his hand
momentarily go to the book, a grey leather-bound volume inscribed with the word
Isa-Sastra
, as if seeking reassurance.
Reaching for his case, he opened the lid and turned it slightly to hide its
contents from Ravana’s sight. Nevertheless, she caught a glimpse of what looked
like a small holovid screen and at the top of the lid there was a small hole,
now facing towards her, which she suspected was a camera lens.

“The guards are good men but not great at conversation,”
he said. Ravana smiled nervously, then thought better of it when she saw that
Fenris’ own expression remained entirely humourless. “Regrettably, they were a
little slow to react to the rather unpleasant incident we had here today. Maybe
you saw something of it yourself?”

Ravana nodded and was just about to launch into her story
when Fenris put a finger to his lips, then cocked his head slightly as if
listening to something. She noticed he wore a small earpiece, adding weight to
her suspicions that he was recording their conversation. Suddenly rising from
his seat, he walked to the door and beckoned to someone beyond.

The youth who stepped into the room moments later,
dressed in a long green robe that reached to the floor, was instantly
recognisable as the boy Ravana had seen being carried off by the two
spacesuit-clad men.

“It can’t be!” she exclaimed. “You were taken away in the
Astromole. I saw you!”

The boy bowed deeply. “Pleased to make your acquaintance,
miss.”

Ravana stared at him. The voice was perfectly modulated
and strangely emotionless.

“Ravana, this is Raja Surya,” Fenris told her. “The Raja
is the Maharani’s only child and the sole heir to the royal seat of Yuanshi.”