Hollow Moon (35 page)

“A bit of improvised rebellion, eh? I can’t say I
disapprove. So you’re Ravana?” remarked Kartikeya, looking at her as if seeing
her for the first time. “The one who saw Namtar and Inari with the young Raja?”

“You’re from the hollow moon?” Surya asked, regarding
Ravana warily.

“That’s her,” Fenris confirmed moodily. “Trouble-makers,
the lot of them.”

“The Raja was kidnapped!” snapped Ostara, with a glance
to Surya. “Don’t you dare use that patronising, pig-headed tone with Ravana or
anyone else! I am here as chief of security on the
Dandridge Cole
and if anyone is in trouble it is you!”

“Big words from a small woman,” mused Kartikeya, though
he said it with a smile. “There is no need for hostilities! We have enough of
that going on outside. You are here at Kubera as my guests. Please don’t let me
keep you here as my prisoners.”

“I’d like to see you try,” murmured Yaksha.

“Why are they here?” retorted Fenris. “What is going on?”

“Hanuman said you could help me rescue my father,” Ravana
told Kartikeya. “But I did not know you were in league with Fenris! He and a
Que Qiao agent commandeered the
Platypus
and forced my father to fly to Ayodhya.”

“Did you do that?” Kartikeya asked Fenris.

“Quirinus needed to be dealt with,” Fenris declared. “He
and the Maharani were colluding against us. Besides, you remember how he was
part of the movement that opposed Taranis before the war.”

“That was a long time ago,” Ganesa pointed out.

“What business is it of mine?” Kartikeya asked irritably,
gently shooing Ravana’s cat away with his foot. “Fenris obviously had his
reasons for doing what he did.”

“You owe her,” Yaksha said. There was a degree of menace
in her voice and Ravana looked at the old woman in surprise, suddenly seeing
the rebel within.

Kartikeya gave her an odd look. “Owe her what?”

“You took her mother away from her. You have no right to
take her father too.”

“That’s not fair!” Fenris spluttered. “These things
happen in war!”

“Look at her face,” said Yaksha, fixing Kartikeya with a
steely glare. “Look at it!”

“That is quite a nasty scar,” Kartikeya admitted. “Are
you saying that’s my fault?”

“Perhaps Fenris could enlighten you. He seems more than
ready to dig up the past,” she said coolly. “Let me take you back to your first
command, when we still had a Maharaja, Taranis held sway in court and Que Qiao
had just started sending troops to Yuanshi. Do you remember Aranya Pass? The
attack on a Que Qiao supply convoy?”

“Aranya?” murmured Ravana, feeling her right arm twinge.
It was a name that conjured up disturbing memories from her childhood.

Kartikeya sighed. “Ganesa’s right. Some things are best
left in the past.”

“A little too late for that now,” Hanuman murmured to
Ganesa.

“What has it got to do with Ravana?” asked Ostara.

“She was there,” Yaksha replied. “Along with her mother,
her father and all the other volunteers who defied the Que Qiao curfew to bring
medical supplies into Lanka. The mighty commander here comes in with all guns
blazing and destroys the lot. Ravana was left scarred for life. Her mother was
not so lucky.”

“You did that?” cried Ravana, staring at Kartikeya in
horror. “You killed my mother?”

“War is hell,” Fenris said coldly.

“You got your scar in a war?” Zotz gazed wide-eyed at
Ravana. She just knew he was thinking that battle scars were in the top ten of
cool things to have.

“I thought it was a troop convoy,” mumbled Kartikeya. He
was unable to face Ravana. “My intelligence let me down.”

“In more ways than one,” muttered Ostara, putting an arm
around Ravana.

Tears welled in Ravana’s dark eyes. She clutched Ostara
tightly and buried her face in the crook of her friend’s shoulder. A surge of
anger lashed out at random at the implant images in her mind and for a split
second the basement was left in darkness as the overhead lights faltered then
recovered. Fenris glanced up at the ceiling, visibly startled.

“Is that really how it happened?” asked Hanuman,
regarding Kartikeya curiously.

Seeing he was not about to reply, Ganesa nodded. “I had a
friend who was there also.”

“You killed all those innocent people?” Surya’s
expression suggested he was suddenly seeing Kartikeya in a new and not very
flattering light. “What if I insisted you help Ravana? You brought me here as
heir to the throne of Yuanshi. I believe my father would have felt it was your
duty to do what could be done to right the wrongs of the past.”

“I am in command here!” snapped Kartikeya. He looked at
Ravana. “I am truly sorry for your loss, but I cannot help you. I have been
granted diplomatic immunity to attend the peace conference, with an official
shuttle waiting for me at the spaceport as I speak. In a few hours Fenris and
the Raja are to follow in the
Sun Wukong
.
I simply do not have the time nor the resources to mount what would undoubtedly
be a foolhardy enterprise.”

“Foolhardiness is your speciality,” Yaksha said bitterly.
“As I said, you owe her. Dwell upon that as I attend to our guests. You come
too, Surya,” she said, beckoning to the Raja. “Let us adjourn to somewhere more
civilised.”

After giving the commander a final glare, she led Ravana,
Ostara, Zotz and Surya out of the basement, in a silence broken only by the
sound of a young girl’s muted sobs.

Ravana clung to Ostara every step of the way and barely
lifted her gaze as they followed Yaksha upstairs to the first floor. By the
time they reached the old woman’s quarters, a small suite of rooms that doubled
as the palace’s medical centre, Ravana had exhausted her tears but remained
disconsolate and wary. Surya and Zotz stayed close to Yaksha, subdued and
eyeing each other uneasily. Zotz held Ravana’s electric cat rather awkwardly
under his arm.

“Amongst other things, I have the privilege of being
chief medical officer here in Kubera,” Yaksha remarked. She led them into a
large room that was in equal parts an office, laboratory and operating theatre.
“All that means is I get to wrap bandages, dish out pills and occasionally
press a few buttons when the autosurgeon is called upon to pluck bullets and
shrapnel from one of Kartikeya’s heroic revolutionaries.”

The far side of the room was dominated by a large
operating table, next to which were all manner of surgical automata, diagnostic
instruments and boxed medical supplies. Yaksha directed them to a cluster of
comfy-looking chairs and invited them to sit. Ravana needed no encouragement
and slumped into the nearest seat without uttering a word.

“Wow,” Zotz murmured, looking at the operating table.
Ravana’s cat started to fidget and he dropped it clumsily to the floor. “Do you
get to see lots of blood and guts?”

“Not really,” Yaksha admitted. “I keep my eyes closed.”

“I wouldn’t,” declared Surya. “I’d want to see
everything!”

“Charming,” muttered Ostara, taking the seat next to
Ravana. “Why are we here?”

The old woman ignored the question and instead knelt
before the crumpled and emotionally-drained Ravana. Reaching forward, she took
the girl’s unresisting grip in one hand, lifted her other towards Ravana’s head
and then hesitated.

“Ravana,” Yaksha said softly. “You did something to the
lights in the basement. Do you have a cranium implant?”

“That’s a sore point,” Ostara retorted. “She didn’t know
she had one until yesterday.”

“We were in a VR machine and it all went wrong,” added
Zotz.

“Everything since then has been like a bad dream,” Ravana
murmured wearily. For a moment she wondered whether she was still trapped in a
virtual nightmare and none of this was actually happening, but that was perhaps
too much to hope for.

“May I take a look?” asked Yaksha.

Ravana nodded and tried not to flinch as Yaksha moved
closer and put a hand to the back of her head. The old woman’s expert touch
went straight to the small lump at the top of Ravana’s spine, located just
below the base of her skull and so slight Ravana had previously never given it
a second thought. Leaning forward, Yaksha carefully moved Ravana’s dark locks
aside and peered at the brown skin beneath. Other than the lump itself, there
should not have been anything to see, yet there was a definite grey tinge
around the area of the implant and faint web-like traces of silver reaching out
across her scalp in all directions.

“Most odd,” she murmured, pursing her lips.

“Does mine look like that?” asked Surya and put a hand to
the bump on the back of his own neck. He had tried to find it earlier using the
mirror in his room but with no success.

“Is everything okay?” asked Ostara. Yaksha wore a
perturbed expression.

“I’d like to do a scan to get a read-out of the implant,”
said Yaksha, clambering to her feet as she spoke. “Don’t worry,” she reassured
Ravana. “It won’t hurt.”

She stepped to a nearby cabinet and retrieved a black
rod-like device with a switch on the side. Pointing the wand at Ravana, Yaksha
pressed the switch and a small red light on the tip flashed once. Ravana
instinctively closed her eyes and gripped the edge of the chair, bracing
herself against the expected sudden headache, but nothing happened.

“Is that it?” she asked, cautiously opening her eyes.

“That’s it,” Yaksha confirmed, now scrutinising the
screen of her wristpad. “My word! Did you know you’ve got a military-grade
implant in there? Unregistered, too. You could cause all sorts of trouble with
a thing like that.”

“We already have,” Ravana said, smiling weakly as she
recalled how they had set free the creatures from the secret laboratory. “Is my
implant different to others?”

“It’s very similar to those issued to Que Qiao special
forces operatives,” Yaksha told her, a note of awe in her voice. “Why on
Yuanshi would you have one?”

“Why has she got a special implant when I haven’t?” Surya
demanded, deeply offended. “I should have one! I am heir to the throne of
Yuanshi!”

“Little boys shouldn’t be given big boy’s toys,” came a
voice from across the room. Hanuman leant casually against the doorway, wearing
a huge grin. “Sorry to interrupt, but Kartikeya has requested your company in
Hemakuta,” he said to Yaksha, pretending not to notice the Raja’s sulky
expression. “He leaves in ten minutes.”

“I’m not his personal assistant!” Yaksha grumbled, but
knew she had little choice. She gave Hanuman a quizzical look. “Has he come to
his senses?”

Hanuman shrugged. “I put it to him again that he has a
duty towards Ravana and her father, but he was adamant in his refusal to help.”

Ravana’s face fell. Her electric cat, having found and
eaten a box of vaccination syringes carelessly left within its reach, decided
it was a good moment to bound back into her lap using Surya’s legs as a launch
pad, causing him to shriek.

“Is there really nothing you can do?” asked Ostara.

“After I left our beloved leader, I had a private talk
with Fenris,” Hanuman told her, looking sly. “I wanted to make sure he
understood the error of his ways. You’ll be pleased to hear that Fenris deeply
regrets what happened and is now ready to help us.”

“Really?” Ravana sounded surprised. “I don’t believe it.”

“He is the religious type,” said Ostara. “He must
appreciate honour and duty.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” murmured Yaksha. Her eyes were
upon a suspicious scuff mark on the butt of Hanuman’s holstered gun. “How
exactly did you make him change his mind?”

“That’s not important right now,” Hanuman said hurriedly.
He turned to Ravana. “This is a promise I mean to keep. We must do what we can
to rescue your father.”

Ravana’s eyes shone. “You really mean to help me?”

Hanuman nodded. “Namtar and Inari have sighted the
Platypus
at the private landing strip at Sumitra,” he told
her. “They’ve agreed to arrange a diversion so that Fenris can lead you to
where Quirinus is being held. However, we need to move quickly. We must get Fenris
and the Raja to Daode before Kartikeya starts wondering where we are.”

Ostara was impressed. “You seem to have thought of
everything.”

“There is one more thing,” Hanuman said to Ravana. “I’m
afraid we will need to call upon that piece of special-forces hardware in your
head. Security at Sumitra is tight but I have a feeling you should be able to
walk straight in without any problems.”

Ravana nodded. “Of course.”

“Be careful,” said Yaksha, pausing at the door to address
both Ravana and Surya. “Fenris is not to be trusted. He is firmly under the
spell of Taranis and I fear all this is part of something bigger. The mad
priest revels in tales of divine destiny that suit his own ends.”

Surya looked at Ravana, then shrugged. “We’ll be
careful.”

“A rescue mission!” exclaimed Zotz, excited. “What do you
want me to do?”

“Stay out of trouble,” Ostara said firmly.

Ravana pushed her cat aside and climbed to her feet, her
tears forgotten.

“I don’t know how to thank you for this,” she said
gratefully, giving Hanuman a hug. “You have been more than kind.”

“You can thank me when you and your father are safely
away from this moon,” said Hanuman. “The
Sun Wukong
leaves in an hour!”

Ostara sat in front of the holovid console, acutely aware
that the alcove in the palace basement was cosy enough without Zotz and Surya
leaning over her shoulders. It had taken all her powers of persuasion to get
the go-ahead for a call to the Pampa Palace hotel, but now she was here she was
not so sure it was a good idea. Before she could change her mind, the screen
lit up and an image appeared of a holovid booth that looked even more crowded
than their own little room. Endymion sat before the console, with Bellona and
Philyra perched on the arms of his chair either side. All three looked slightly
stunned and out of breath, for it had been barely ten minutes since Zotz had
sent a hurried wristpad message to Endymion asking him to wait by the hotel
holovid booths.