Hollow Moon (5 page)

“Home sweet home,” Ravana murmured.

Right on cue, a beep from her wristpad alerted her to a
new message from her father, who was asking why she had not turned up to her
music class that afternoon. She had genuinely forgotten about her cornet lesson
and did not know how her father would react to her arriving back in such style.
She only hoped he would not be angry with her for straying into the palace
grounds.

The road they were on ran diagonally across open
farmland, which created the illusion that the end of the cavern was slowly
rotating to meet their approach. The building ahead was one of two maintenance
bays for the small fleet of spacecraft that served the
Dandridge Cole
. Half a kilometre above, in the centre of the cliff,
was the huge circular steel door of the main airlock. Ravana had never known
this to be opened; instead, there were elevators inside the two maintenance
bays to take ships up through the cliff and into the airlock chamber. A group
of Dockside residents had congregated outside the workshop entrance to watch as
the Maharani’s transport drew near.

“There appears to be quite a reception for us,” Fenris
observed irritably.

The transport pulled to a halt a short distance from the
gathered crowd. Fenris opened the hatch beside where he sat and motioned to
Ravana to follow him outside. As she stepped to the ground, she saw her father
making his way to the front, his familiar bushy beard and shiny bald head as
welcome a sight as his broad smile. Ignoring Fenris, Ravana ran over and hugged
him tightly, letting the familiar smell of grease and hydraulic fluid from her
father’s overalls fill her nostrils. Next to him stood the tousled and
ginger-haired Zotz, his pale face streaked with dirt, who had slipped through
the small crowd to join them. He wore a long bathrobe, underneath which Ravana
was convinced she glimpsed the elasticated body of a birdsuit. As usual, his
shoe laces were undone.

“Sorry about your robot bird, Zotz,” Ravana apologised,
seeing a remote-control unit dangling from his hand.

Zotz grinned. “That’s okay,” he said shyly. “I hope it
helped.”

“Ravana!” exclaimed her father. His distinctive Australian
drawl sliced through the murmurs of those around him. “Who have you brought
back with you?”

The Maharani stepped out of the personnel carrier as he
spoke. A faint tinkle of jewellery accompanied her; she was liberally decked in
a number of gold bangles and had completed her outfit with a chain headpiece
displaying a red stone in the centre of her forehead. She moved with a grace
that was the antithesis of the usual bounding walk most people adopted in the
low pseudo-gravity of the hollow moon, then turned and took small but
purposeful steps towards where Ravana and her father stood. The Maharani was
flanked by two female attendants who were also dressed in sarees, albeit of a
plainer design. As Fenris himself stepped forward, the Maharani put out a hand
to stop him, making it clear he was not wanted. Her gaze had not once left that
of Ravana’s father.

The Maharani was beautiful. Ravana looked into her
heart-shaped features, at her dark eyes and glowing caramel skin framed by a
cascade of jet-black hair, then turned her gaze to the floor, her hand moving
to touch the scar upon her own face. Her father put an arm around Ravana’s
waist and gave her a comforting squeeze. She glanced up into his eyes and
noticed with surprise that he was regarding the Maharani with an expression
that was unexpectedly cold and unwelcoming.

“Well, well,” her father said, his tone sarcastic. “If it
isn’t Maharani Uma, the mighty exiled drama queen of Yuanshi herself.”

The Maharani met his stare calmly, unabashed.

“We meet again, my dear Quirinus,” she purred, her voice
laden with silken tones. “As before, I regret it is an act of war that has
caused our paths to cross.”

“War?” Quirinus snorted in disbelief. “Here on the
Dandridge
Cole
?”

“Indeed,” replied the Maharani. “And once again, I need
your help.”

BELLONA STARED out of the window of the skybus at the
bleak landscape flashing by. The endless grey desert was not much to look at,
especially in the dim red light of Barnard’s Star, but it was good to get out
of Newbrum’s dome. Her best friend Philyra sat next to her, idly flicking
through the latest celebrity gossip holovid on her wristpad. To look at they
were nothing alike, yet plump ebony Bellona often thought of herself and pale
skinny Philyra as sisters; they were both tall and dark-haired, they studied
the same subjects at school and both liked the industrial robopop bands that
were the latest sensation coming out of Alpha Centauri. On the other hand,
Bellona had tried and failed to understand Philyra’s fascination with the
gossip holovids, particularly her current addiction to the long-running game
show
Gods of Avalon
, which featured a
host of minor celebrities fighting to survive on a forest moon where robotic
mythical beasts, android deities and even the terraformed climate were
controlled by a surprisingly sadistic audience vote.

On the seat opposite sat Endymion, a tall and scrawny
youth who wore a permanent lazy smile on his face. He was Bellona’s brother and
at eighteen Terran years a full three years older than his sister and her
friend, who nonetheless both agreed that he often acted more like a four-year-old.
Like the girls, he wore a one-piece light blue flight suit that was the school
uniform, all of which bore the Commonwealth Space Agency ensign for Ascension
on the shoulder: a small brown planet against a large red sun with the national
flag of the United Kingdom in the corner. In a rebellious mood he had undone
the top half of the one-piece and tied the empty sleeves around his waist,
revealing the fibre-optic tunic he wore beneath. Bellona and Philyra had
limited their own personal touches to the non-uniform wide silver belts worn
tight around their waists, though both had also taken more care than usual to
pile on the make-up and antigrav hair lacquer.

The fourth member of their party was Miss Clymene, a
portly and slightly eccentric Scottish woman who ruled the class with a firm
but fair hand. It was said by her ex-students that she could be both your best
friend and your worst enemy; more often than not at the same time. At the
moment she was at her most relaxed, sitting calmly across the central aisle
opposite Endymion. Miss Clymene was dressed as always in riotous assembly in
red, complete with a scarlet beret wedged upon her head to keep her tousled
grey locks in check. As Bellona glanced towards her teacher, Miss Clymene
looked down at the small touch-screen computer terminal upon her lap and
smiled.

“Nearly there!” she exclaimed, putting the slate away.
“All excited, are we?”

“Whoopee,” muttered Endymion, staring at the floor.

Bellona gave him a kick. His tunic momentarily flickered,
the graphic of polonium rock band Butt moving a little then stopping before the
tunic’s resonator could play a segment of their song
Smell My Gas
.

“Is he on egg?” remarked Miss Clymene, looking at
Endymion carefully. She was referring to the latest mood-enhancing drug out of
Epsilon Eridani.

Bellona laughed. “No, he’s always like that.”

“Aren’t you glad to get out of the city?” Philyra asked
him.

“This is a school trip,” he retorted. “It’s not the same.
I’m not even in the same class as you and Bellona.”

“On the contrary, during the run-up to the band
competition you are most definitely part of my class,” Miss Clymene said
firmly, her voice slightly scolding. “You know the rules. We rehearse together;
we study together. It is a shame there’s only you three at the academy who
actually have any musical talent, but that’s the way it is.”

“There’s only twelve people in the whole school,” Philyra
pointed out.

“Newbrum’s starting to look like a ghost town,” her
teacher agreed, though school numbers had also suffered due to the big
corporations setting up their own private schools. “The Clarke family shipped
out to Tau Ceti last month. The Robinsons too are talking of going back to the
Solar System to work on a terraforming project on Mars. There won’t be any
proper families left on Ascension at this rate!”

“My dad says there’s no jobs,” mumbled Endymion. His and
Bellona’s parents, both top-class aerospace engineers, had emigrated from
Nigeria to the Barnard’s Star system before he was born and were now starting
to regret it. “Not unless you want to work at the hydrogen works or the
spacecraft breaking yards.”

“Not me,” retorted Philyra. Her own Ascension-born
parents were descended from the English settlers who had helped to found
Newbrum. “When I leave school I’m going to catch the first ship to Alpha
Centauri and get a job at the holovid studios on Avalon. They say they’re
always looking for new talent.”

“Do they indeed,” Miss Clymene murmured.

“Perhaps we could leave you on Daode,” suggested Bellona,
teasing her.

Philyra shook her head, horrified. “Why is the band
competition there, of all places? Isn’t there war in Epsilon Eridani, or
something?”

“Not on Daode,” Miss Clymene reassured her. “I have been
through this several times. We have been invited to represent Newbrum in the
school band competition at the peace conference on Daode. There will be bands
from all across the five systems, plus of course all the politicians and
officials who are coming together to try and bring peace to the region.”

“So there is a war?”

“On Yuanshi,” her teacher confirmed. “Not Daode.
Different moon entirely.”

“The Avalon holovid news teams will be there,” Bellona
reminded Philyra, who immediately brightened. Endymion was somewhat more
lacking in enthusiasm.

“We’ve got no chance of winning, have we?” he grunted.
“Just the three of us?”

“The band may be small but it’s perfectly formed,”
remarked Miss Clymene.

“We sounded awful at rehearsal this morning,” Bellona
said with a sigh. “I couldn’t stop my clarinet from squeaking. It sounded like
a chicken trying to lay an emu egg.”

Philyra giggled. “Or a goose being plucked to death.”

“Bradbury Heights has a full orchestra,” muttered
Endymion, referring to the academy that had become their traditional rival. The
domed city of Bradbury Heights was the second-largest colony on Ascension after
Newbrum, with a far better locale north of the equatorial desert. “I hope we’re
not sharing a shuttle with those egg heads.”

“I can see your brother is as excited about this
competition as he is about today’s trip to the Ravines!” Miss Clymene remarked
to Bellona. “Endymion, my dear, please don’t let your bubbling enthusiasm spoil
it for everyone else.”

“That’s right!” exclaimed Bellona, giving him a prod.
Nevertheless, the rehearsal earlier that morning had gone spectacularly badly
and in her heart, she knew Endymion was probably right about their chances.
“We’re on a field trip! This is better than sitting in a class doing
astrophysics or Earth history, surely?”

Endymion shrugged. “I’ve been to the Eden Ravines before,”
he grunted.

“Hopefully, this visit will be different,” said Miss
Clymene. “I have it on good authority that a big meteor came down near the
research station just this morning and it reminded me that a trip to the
Ravines is part of your education. I thought it would be a good opportunity for
you all to take a break from lessons and rehearsals.” She sounded as if she
needed a break herself. She had spent days trying to secure them a flight to
Daode to no avail.

Bellona glanced at her brother but Endymion still looked
terminally bored. With a sigh, she looked out of the window once more. The
bloated red sun that was Barnard’s Star hung almost directly overhead. The
truncated shadow of the monorail track rushed by, wavering alongside them upon
the desert sand, with the smaller shadow of the skybus itself above it. The
pilot-less skybus flew on short stubby wings but was connected to the rail by a
long telescopic arm, which served to transfer power from the rail to the four
electric turbines that pushed the skybus through the thin atmosphere at speeds
approaching five hundred kilometres per hour. The Eden Ravines nature reserve,
the one and only certified natural wonder of the planet of Ascension, was
obviously not as popular as the Newbrum tourist board would have people
believe, for the four of them were the only people aboard. On the other hand,
the population of Ascension was far from huge and it was not beyond the realms
of possibility that, like Endymion, everyone else on the planet had already
seen it.

“I didn’t know you’d been before,” Philyra remarked to
Endymion, looking up from her wristpad. “When was that?”

“A couple of years ago. I worked at the labs on a science
project.”

“That was community service,” Bellona reminded him.
“Sweeping the floor does not count as a science project. I forgot you were sent
to the Ravines.”

“Community service?” Philyra’s eyes went wide. “What was
that for?”

Endymion muttered something and cast his eyes to the
floor.

“He reprogrammed the kitchen AI unit at school to serve
chocolate sauce instead of gravy,” Bellona told her. The academy’s
industrial-sized food molecularisor featured what was supposed to be the latest
thing in artificial culinary intelligence. She giggled. “It was days before
anyone complained.”

“Or even noticed,” Miss Clymene added wryly. “The
canteen’s desserts always did taste a bit too meaty for my liking. Much as I’d
like to sit here and reminisce about young Endymion’s misdemeanours, our stop
is approaching. Unless you want to stay on to Kirchel, I suggest you collect
your things and get ready. Don’t forget your pack lunches!”