Hollow Moon (9 page)

The clerk consulted her screen once more. “I have a
flight to Hellas,” she offered.

“Oh good!”

“Although it hasn’t actually left the Solar System to get
here as yet,” she added. “It should be at Ascension by the end of the week. Is
that any use to you?”

“None whatsoever.” Miss Clymene sighed. They were due in
the city of Hemakuta on Daode in just four days time. “Is that all you have?”

The clerk nodded and for a moment almost looked as if she
cared. It had been barely six months since the last of the big corporations
pulled out of the Barnard’s Star system, but the exodus had started years ago
when Tau Ceti became the new frontier and now very few flights routinely called
at Ascension. Miss Clymene decided she too would look glum if her job had gone
from dealing with endless hoards of unhappy passengers to the mind-numbing
tedium of sitting behind a desk all day telling people they were not going
anywhere.

“Can we go?” asked Philyra, interrupting them.

Miss Clymene glanced over her shoulder to where Philyra
and Bellona slouched miserably against a wall. Across the hall, Endymion was
examining the contents of a snack food vending machine. There seemed no reason
to keep them here.

“Yes, you can go,” she confirmed. “Class dismissed. Don’t
forget the band rehearsal tomorrow morning!”

“Goodbye, miss!” called Bellona.

“Creep,” muttered Philyra, pulling her away.

Miss Clymene gave them a half-hearted wave, then turned
back to the clerk.

“Now, where were we?” she asked.

“Stuck on Ascension without a flight,” the clerk replied.

“You can’t help me at all?” Miss Clymene asked. “Here I
am, honoured with an invitation to represent the good people of Newbrum at the
Epsilon Eridani peace conference, and there’s nothing you can do to get myself
and my class to Daode?”

“How about I give you a jet pack each and a map of the
Milky Way,” snapped the clerk, finally losing her patience. “Or maybe you could
bribe some dodgy freighter pilot to take you and your class as rare breeds
livestock.”

“How rude!” Miss Clymene exclaimed, a blush of
indignation colouring her cheeks. She paused, then thought about what the clerk
had said. “Actually, that’s not a bad idea.”

“What? Using jet packs?” retorted the clerk. “I was
joking.”

“No,” replied Miss Clymene. “Finding a mercenary with a
freighter for hire.”

Endymion gave up trying to get anything from the vending
machine. He had no credit left in his account and the anti-hack software of the
machine had been upgraded to a new protocol he had not seen before. A second vending
machine was broken, burbling quietly to itself and muttering ‘Reboot me!’ over
and over again in a muted electronic wail. Endymion decided to head further
into the spaceport, away from the entrance to the main city dome. It was a
while before he noticed Bellona and Philyra had followed.

“Where are we going?” asked Bellona.

“We? I’m going to drop by work,” he told his sister,
coming to a standstill. His latest job was as an apprentice ground crew
operative at space-traffic control, which more often than not involved making
tea for everyone else. “I don’t know where you’re going.”

“Can’t we come with you?” asked Philyra. “I’m bored.”

Endymion gave a non-committal shrug and carried on
walking, Bellona and Philyra trotting behind him. Soon they were passing through
the main departure lounge, where around two dozen people were waiting to board
a flight to
CSS Stellarbridge
,
Ascension’s orbital space dock. The small delta-winged shuttle was visible
through the window, parked in the hangar outside the lounge but still within
the spaceport dome. Ghostly monochrome advertising holograms drifted through
the room on a wave of banal chatter as each tried to sell upgraded hotel
bookings and last-minute insurance to the travellers. Endymion glanced at the
waiting crowd and then groaned, recognising them as students and tutors from the
academy at Bradbury Heights. As he and the girls hurried past, three of the
students left the group and stood in their path, blocking their way.

“Xuthus!” murmured Philyra, fluttering her eyelashes at
the boy in front.

“Whoopee,” muttered Bellona. The girl beside him was
Maia.

Xuthus, Maia and the boy with them all wore distinctive
black and gold flight suits, no doubt bought especially for the trip to Daode.
The spray-tanned American families who lived in Bradbury Heights all had some
connection with the large pharmaceutical companies based there and as such
benefited from the high salaries paid. Unfortunately, there were always those
who revelled in displaying their wealth. Endymion scowled.

“Clear off, Xuthus,” he growled. “I’ve seen enough slimy
bugs in the Ravines today without needing to look at you too.”

Xuthus gave a hollow laugh. “Well, if it isn’t the mighty
players of Newbrum,” he said scornfully. “The entire band, in fact. All three
of you.”

“It’s not size that matters,” retorted Endymion. “It’s
what you do with it. At least, that’s what your girlfriend told me.”

“Whatever,” snapped Xuthus.

“It’s a shame you couldn’t come on our flight,” said the
other boy, a short and rather rotund figure, who addressed Endymion with mock
sympathy. “We’re on the
Fenghuang III
, a
proper interstellar cruiser with separate cabins and everything.”

“I’ve heard of that ship,” said Philyra. “The captain is
a pirate who dumps his passengers into the nearest black hole if they don’t
laugh at his jokes. Oh, don’t worry, Lodus,” she added, as the boy looked
worried. “There isn’t a black hole in the universe big enough to throw you
into.”

“Did you get my message?” asked Maia, leering at Bellona.

Bellona gave her a withering look. Endymion heard her
mutter something about a freak falling planetoid dislodging Maia’s smug smile,
or perhaps even doing it herself.

“Maia, my dear,” Bellona said sweetly. “You really should
get a new wristpad. The holovid you sent me did not do justice to your beauty.”

“Really?” Maia tossed her immaculate blond coiffure,
genuinely flattered.

Bellona nodded. “Close up you’re far more ugly.”

“Girls! Calm down!” cried Endymion, as Maia leapt angrily
towards Bellona. Behind him, Philyra winked at Lodus, then giggled. The boy
responded with a grin. “Put your claws away! See, even Lodus can see it was
just a joke!”

“Were you laughing at me?” Maia asked fiercely, turning
on Lodus.

Lodus shook his head, suddenly very nervous. “Me? No.
Never!”

“Yes you were!”

“I was laughing with you, not at you.”

Endymion gave Bellona a nudge. “I think it’s time we
left,” he whispered.

Leaving Xuthus to deal with the squabbling Maia and
Lodus, Endymion led Bellona and Philyra towards the sliding doors at the far
side of the departure lounge. He was almost at the exit when he paused, then a
mischievous grin crept upon his face as his eyes fell upon a touch-screen
terminal on a nearby wall. After quickly checking to make sure there were no
spaceport personnel about, Endymion retrieved a short cable from his pocket and
connected his wristpad to the terminal.

“Xuthus is quite cute,” said Philyra dreamily. “For a
Bradbury Heights boy.”

“I’d like to shove his violin where the sun doesn’t
shine,” Endymion muttered. There was a rebellious glint in his eye. His fingers
were a blur upon his wristpad.

“What are you doing?” asked Bellona. On the wall-mounted
screen, the holovid advert for rock-climbing tours of Mars’ Olympus Mons
changed to a floor plan of the spaceport. She looked down at his wristpad. “Oh
no,” she murmured. “You wouldn’t.”

A hissing of running water suddenly filled the air, a
sound quickly drowned by loud screams from the departure lounge behind. Moments
later they saw Maia run past, her blond hair now extremely bedraggled and
dripping wet. More of the Bradbury Heights party followed to escape the sudden
downpour inside the lounge. As Endymion, Bellona and Philyra watched, a
spaceport security guard ran past them into the fray, getting soaked in the
process. Philyra was helpless with laughter, leaving Endymion to grab the
dumbstruck Bellona and hustle them away through the doors. The grin on his face
grew wider by the minute.

“That was fun!” he exclaimed.

“What did you do?” asked Philyra, once they were out of
sight of the guard.

“I set off the sprinklers!” Endymion said gleefully. “I
thought I’d dampen their spirits a little. Give them a proper send off.”

“You are awful,” Bellona told him. Her brother caught her
secret smile, as if she regretted not getting a picture of Maia running past
with her expensive hairdo ruined.

“How did you manage that?” Philyra inquired. Endymion
could tell she was trying not to sound impressed. Her wristpad was no different
to his own.

“I have a whole load of hackware hidden on the servermoon,”
he told her, coming to a halt before the door to a lift. Ascension’s
servermoon, a kilometre-wide orbiting data satellite, not only provided Newbrum
with all the data storage it would ever need but also an extra-dimensional
transceiver array linked to servermoons in other star systems.

Endymion led them into the lift, swiped his security pass
across a reader on the control panel and pressed the top button. The lift shook
badly on its short journey to the second floor but soon they were piling out into
a large, circular room in which half a dozen people were working in front of
computer terminals with large screens. Windows rose on all sides, half of which
looked inside the dome to give a birds-eye view of the spaceport hangar. The
rest provided a panoramic vista of the main runway and coastal plains to the
north.

“Gosh,” murmured Bellona. “Nice view.”

“Spaceport control,” Endymion announced. “This is where I
work.”

“Endymion Ezenduka! Have you being setting off the fire
sprinklers again?”

Startled, Endymion saw a tall, middle-aged English woman
bear down upon him with a disapproving stare. From the blonde hair fixed in a
bun down to her highly-polished boots, she cut an imposing figure in her
corporate suit of navy skirt and jacket. She was clearly not pleased to see
Endymion, but not many people were.

“Administrator Verdandi,” stuttered Endymion. “I didn’t
expect…”

“Thought you’d give your friends a quick tour while the
boss was away?” suggested Verdandi, sternly. “I am here on official business,
so please try and behave.”

Endymion stared meekly at the floor. “Of course,
Administrator.”

Verdandi was a hard-headed politician with a razor-sharp
mind and one of the few people of whom Endymion was genuinely wary. She was not
only the head of the spaceport but also of Newbrum city itself, yet with a
population of barely three thousand under her jurisdiction she was the last to
pretend it was a position of great influence or power. It was unusual to find
her at spaceport control and Endymion thought he detected an air of muted
anticipation amongst the people in the control room. Subdued, he led Bellona
and Philyra to a spare desk overlooking the inside of the dome and the shuttle
in the hangar below.

“You’re scared of her,” Philyra observed.

“Aren’t we all,” murmured the man at the next desk. He
looked up at Endymion and winked. “Here to make the tea, Endymion? Or perhaps
sweep up a little?”

Bellona laughed. “They make you sweep the floor?”

Endymion stuck his tongue out at her. “Actually, I sweep
the runway,” he said. “They let me drive this huge truck with massive brooms
attached. It’s great fun.”

He sat down at the desk and switched on the vacant
terminal. Philyra had found herself an empty chair to slump into and was
newly-engrossed in the latest celebrity news on her wristpad. Bellona stood at
Endymion’s shoulder and watched the screen as he called up an interplanetary
navigation chart for the Barnard’s Star system.

“Are you still thinking of that spaceship we found in the
Ravines?” she asked.

Endymion nodded. Using his wristpad, he retrieved the
data taken from the
Nellie Chapman
’s
flight computer and entered a set of coordinates into the chart’s search
facility. Once he was satisfied he had entered the correct numbers, he pressed
the ‘enter’ key.

“Weird,” he murmured.

The result brought up a region of empty space beyond the
orbit of Thunor, the second of the system’s three gas giants and fourth-closest
planet to Barnard’s Star. He smiled when he saw that the rocky world
second-closest to the sun was on the chart as Frigg, the name given to
Ascension when the system was first surveyed, but later changed following the
arrival of humourless puritanical colonists.

“Having problems?” asked the man at the next desk.

“Just trying to make sense of a flight path,” replied
Endymion.

“Is this part of your training?”

“Something like that,” Endymion lied.

The man peered at the chart on the screen. “You’ve got it
showing planetary bodies only,” he pointed out. “Try changing the settings to
include navigation beacons.”

Endymion ran the appropriate command and a series of red
crosses appeared upon the screen, each one of which marked the position of the
various signal beacons and satellites that warned pilots of potential
navigation hazards in the system. One such symbol had appeared at his entered
coordinates.

“A radiation warning beacon,” Endymion noted, looking at
the code next to the cross.