Hollow Moon (40 page)

“You’d have to be on egg to mix with Dhusarians,”
Endymion retorted.

Ravana smiled at the memory of the giant grey eggs they
had seen at the plantation.

“Did you know egg is literally just that?” she remarked,
inadvertently changing the subject. “Alien eggs laid by giant,
genetically-engineered thunderworms?”

Both Philyra and Bellona looked disgusted at the idea.
Endymion just shrugged.

“Ravana helped us break into a top-secret laboratory,”
Zotz said proudly. “Her implant is a special-forces one that can open any door
she likes!”

“Wow,” murmured Endymion, impressed.

Feeling all eyes suddenly upon her, Ravana shifted
uncomfortably in her seat. Yet Zotz’s mention of her implant reminded her of
something that had been bothering her and reaching behind, she pressed a button
on the carousel’s computer terminal.

“Ship?” she called. “Do you respond to cranium implant
commands?”

“That function has been disabled,” the smooth voice
replied.

“Can you enable it?”

“That command is restricted to Captain Quirinus only.”

“Is that so?” muttered Ravana. She rose from her seat and
stepped lightly towards the ladder leading to the carousel exit hatch. “I think
I need to have a word with my father.”

“I’ll come with you,” said Surya. “I’d like to use the
ship’s transmitter to call home.”

“Tell your mother we won,” said Miss Clymene, holding up
the cup. “We won!”

On the flight deck, it was immediately apparent that
Quirinus and Ostara had more pressing concerns. Professor Wak was talking to
the
Platypus
on the console holovid
screen and had very little good news to impart.

“The problem with the fusion reactor is critical!” Wak
was saying. “We’ve been unable to locate the power drain and it’s worse than
ever! The fuel-cell reserves are gone, life support is about to shut down and
everyone else left some time ago aboard the
Indra
, leaving just me here trying to do what I can. And I mean everyone.
It’s not looking good, Quirinus. My advice is to make planet-fall at Newbrum or
Lan-Tlanto.”

“We’re on the wrong trajectory for Ascension,” Quirinus
told him. “Besides, that would leave you stranded!”

“The ship from Newbrum coming to collect your passengers
is thankfully now also bringing an emergency crew,” replied Wak. “I’ve also
picked up another spacecraft behind you on visual, but whoever’s aboard is not
responding to transmissions.”

“There’s a ship behind us?” Quirinus sounded surprised.
“There’s nothing on radar.”

Ostara caught his glance and responded with a shrug.
Seeing Ravana drift towards her with a purposeful look in her eye, Ostara
vacated the co-pilot’s seat and watched as Ravana buckled herself in and
proceeded to run her fingers over the scanner console.

“I repeat, you are advised to divert to Ascension,” said
Wak. “I’ll be fine.”

“The hell you will,” retorted Quirinus, causing both
Ravana and Ostara to look at him in surprise. “If I’ve learned anything on this
trip, it’s that friends look out for each other. I’m setting the final course
corrections now and we’ll be with you in an hour or so.”

“Your friends certainly made their mark. The young girl’s
news report on the conference is all over the net!” said Wak, managing a brief
smile. He waved a subdued farewell with his hastily-repaired artificial hand.
“I’ll be waiting for you.”

The screen went blank. With a deep sigh, Quirinus tapped
in a new set of coordinates into the flight computer, checked the revised
flight path on the console navigation screen, then wearily leaned back into his
seat.

“Everyone’s gone?” asked Ostara, sounding dubious. “Can
that really be true?”

“Wak can be a little melodramatic at times,” said
Quirinus dismissively.

“I hope my mother’s okay,” Surya murmured anxiously. “Can
I call her?”

Quirinus shrugged and waved towards the holovid console.
Surya was surprised to find that the unit already held the Maharani’s private
contact details at the palace but said nothing. However, when he tried to
establish a connection there was no reply.

“Your mother would be first in line if it came to
abandoning ship,” Quirinus told him, sounding bitter. “I’m sure she’s perfectly
safe.”

Seeing Surya’s downcast frown, Ostara put a comforting
arm around his shoulders.

“You’re very grouchy,” she said to Quirinus. “What’s
wrong?”

“After all we’ve been through I was looking forward to
getting back to a normal life,” he replied. His face revealed his concern. “Or
as normal as living in a hollow asteroid can be. The
Dandridge Cole
’s systems should not have failed like that.” He
looked across to where Ravana was busy at the console. “Have you found that
ship behind us?”

“Not yet,” she replied, then gave him a sly look. “The
auxiliary scanner systems are not very user-friendly. How about if I use my
implant to talk directly to the AI?”

“Can you do that?” asked Ostara, surprised.

Quirinus gave Ravana a stern look. “You’ve been talking
to the ship,” he accused her. “Do you really want to link the
Platypus
to that thing in your head?”

“Do you mean the same ‘thing’ that got us into Sumitra so
we could rescue you?” asked Ravana. “I don’t particularly like the idea of
having an alien lump of hardware in my skull, but now I know it’s there I may
as well learn to make the most of it.”

Quirinus sighed, then pressed a switch on the console.
“Ship! Can you enable the cranium implant interface? Restrict access to Ravana
only.”

“A pleasure to be of service,” the ship replied.
“Military special-services implant detected and interface calibrated to optimum
settings. Ravana, welcome to my mind.”

Ravana became aware of a new image in her thoughts. The
glowing purple symbol was hard to decipher at first, then she smiled as she
realised what the exquisitely-rendered icon was meant to represent. In a way,
it was the obvious choice.

“Is that really a duck-billed platypus?” she asked the
computer.

“Available data suggested it was the most appropriate
image,” the ship confirmed.

“Happy now?” asked Quirinus.

Ravana did not answer at first. Unable to resist, she
mentally pressed the platypus-shaped symbol and watched with her mind’s eye as
it changed colour to green and expanded to show a long, scrolling line of other
symbols, each one representing a different onboard system. Yet behind all this
was a hazy image of the
Platypus
itself,
one created from a fine web of lines splaying like tree roots from a bright
focus near the bow. Reaching out with her mind, Ravana felt the power of the
ship quivering in every strand, from the pulsating brain of the AI unit to the
distant tips of its rudders. Somehow, the
Platypus
felt alive.

“It’s incredible!” murmured Ravana. “It feels so organic,
as if the ship and I are one!”

“Organic?” remarked Surya. “It’s just a machine!”

Quirinus regarded her oddly. “The tendrils, perhaps?”

“That must be it,” Ravana said dreamily. “Amazing!”

“Is she okay?” asked Ostara, concerned. “She looks
possessed.”

“Perhaps I should deactivate the link again,” said
Quirinus, looking perturbed. He reached over and gently shook her shoulder.
“Ravana! Snap out of it! We have work to do.”

Ravana caught her reflection in the windscreen and jolted
of her reverie, startled by the expression upon her own face. It reminded her
of when she had once been ill with a virus and hallucinating with a fever.

“Sorry about that,” she apologised.

Her father gave her an expectant look. Ravana remembered
what she was supposed to be doing and using her implant selected the scanner
array at the stern of the hull. As her father had noted, there was nothing on
radar but she saw the optical scope had detected a moving object on a matching
trajectory several thousand kilometres behind. She set the scope to maximum
magnification and routed the output to the console screen.

“That’s what Wak saw behind us,” she said at last. “I
found it on long-range visual. It must be a stealth gunship not to show up on
radar.”

“Or an ex-military transport,” murmured Quirinus. He
seemed impressed by what Ravana had done. The image on the screen showed an
angular flying-wing spaceship that to all of them looked stupefying familiar.
“That is almost certainly the
Sun Wukong
.”

“What are they doing here?” asked Ostara.

“More to the point, why are they ignoring Wak’s
communications?” Quirinus asked. He checked a scanner reading again and then
sat back, looking more puzzled than ever. “Their ship’s location beacon is
switched off. Why would they hide from us?”

“Shall I try to get them on the holovid?” asked Ravana.

Quirinus nodded. Ravana called up the contact reference
for the
Sun Wukong
and sent a call
signal, then when there was no reply sent another, but the screen remained
blank. Meanwhile, Surya experimented with his implant’s built-in communicator,
but if Ganesa was on the other ship she was out of range. They both quickly
admitted defeat.

“Nothing,” said Ravana and sighed. “Equipment failure,
perhaps?”

“Perhaps,” mused Quirinus. Something was very odd indeed.

Space-traffic controllers in the Barnard’s Star system
were far more laid-back than their Epsilon Eridani counterparts and the
Platypus
had been able to come out of
extra-dimensional space a mere three hours away from the
Dandridge
Cole
. The spinning asteroid was getting
larger through the flight-deck windows, but behind them and closer still was
the rapidly-approaching
Sun Wukong
,
its crew still ignoring all transmissions.

Quirinus and Ravana pushed this particular mystery to the
back of their minds, preoccupied as they were with the manoeuvres needed for
their final approach. The entrance to the hollow moon’s dock was a large
rectangular airlock on the central axis, which like the rest of the asteroid spun
at a stately one revolution per minute. The
Platypus
had to come in on a perfect trajectory and match this
spin precisely if it was to make a successful landing.

“Ravana? Surya? Can you hear me?”

Ravana looked around the cabin, confused. The woman’s
voice was familiar but there was only herself and her father on the flight
deck.

“Ship?” she called, hesitantly. “Was that you?”

“Please clarify your query,” the AI intoned,
inadvertently answering her question. Its voice was not the one she had heard.

Quirinus looked up from the console. “Who are you
speaking to?”

“I thought I heard someone,” said Ravana, looking wary.
“Didn’t you?”

“First sign of madness, hearing voices in your head.”

“Hello? Is there anybody out there?”

“There it is again!” cried Ravana.

Surya appeared at the hatch, excited and out of breath.

“Ganesa!” he exclaimed. “She’s trying to contact us via
her implant!”

“Oh my,” murmured Ravana. She located the headcom icon in
her mind. She had forgotten to switch it off after their hasty departure from
Ayodhya.

“Finally!” gasped the voice in her head. “I can’t stay
here much longer!”

“Ganesa? Is that really you?” asked Ravana, astonished.
“Where are you?”

“Hiding in the toilet on the
Sun Wukong
!”

“Yuck,” remarked Surya, pulling a face. “How gross.”

“What’s worse is Hanuman dumps his dirty laundry in here
and it smells as bad as the toilet itself,” replied Ganesa. “But you must
listen! You are in grave danger!”

“We’re nearly home!” Ravana protested. “What can possibly
happen now?”

“Fenris is here, holding a gun to Hanuman! He made us
follow you back!”

“Fenris!” Ravana hissed. “He’s hijacked the
Sun Wukong
!”

Her father looked up in alarm. “What?”

“Ganesa is hiding in the toilet,” Surya added, feeling he
should say something.

“This is too much,” muttered Quirinus. He pressed a
switch to activate the ship’s intercom. “Ostara? Can you get up here?”

Ostara was at the hatch almost immediately, relieved to
have an excuse to leave the carousel. Having finished reading
Sherlock
Holmes
, she had run out of things to talk
about with Miss Clymene and the rest of the Newbrum band were dozing in the
bunks.

“Are we there yet?” she asked brightly.

“We’ve got trouble,” Quirinus told her. “Fenris has taken
over the
Sun Wukong
.”

“Ganesa called us on her implant headcom,” Surya
explained.

“What does he want?” asked Ravana, speaking hurriedly to
Ganesa. “Can we help?”

“Fenris has gone crazy!” Ganesa wailed softly. “He’s put
a b…”

Ravana and Surya winced as Ganesa’s sharp scream sliced
through their thoughts like a wayward laser-cutter and then just as abruptly
cut off. As they sat staring at one another, wondering what had happened, the
console holovid flickered into life. Recognising the incoming call-sign as that
of the
Sun Wukong
, Quirinus hesitated a
few moments and then touched the screen to accept the call.

“Fenris,” he growled, as the man’s unpleasant leer
appeared on the screen. Fenris sat in Ganesa’s usual seat, calmly pointing a
plasma pistol at Hanuman, who was at the helm beside him. “You’re the one
person I really did not mind leaving behind on Yuanshi. What have you done to
Ganesa?”