Hollow Moon

by Steph Bennion

  “I didn’t know people were mining in the Ravines,” remarked Bellona.

  “They’re not,” replied Endymion. “Or at least they’re not supposed to be. It’s protected territory. You’re not even allowed to fly in the area.”

  “So what’s it doing here?” asked Philyra.

  “No idea,” Endymion murmured. Bellona saw his eyes were upon the gaping hatchway. “Do you think there’s anyone inside?”

  He started to walk across the charred ground towards the bottom of the ladder. Bellona ran after him and put a hand to his arm.

  “Wait! Are you sure it’s safe?”

  “No,” he admitted, grinning. “But I’m only going to look.”

  “Be careful not to press any buttons,” Philyra called out. “You might fly off!”

  “Don’t give him ideas,” muttered Bellona.

  *

  Endymion reached the bottom of the ladder and began to climb. The hatch was at least five metres up but before long he was peering cautiously through the opening, looking for any signs of life. The entrance airlock and the cabin beyond appeared to be deserted. He turned and gave Philyra and his sister a brief wave, then clambered inside.

  He had never been in a mining ship before and was surprised at the sparse flight deck. Everything looked extremely solid and built to last, with the only concession to comfort being the padded cushions upon the pilot’s and co-pilot’s seats. The Nellie Chapman was designed for the rough-and-tumble of prospecting on rocky worlds and to survive the odd crash landing. It was not the ship of choice for a long cruise around the star system.

  The flight computer had a heavy-duty keyboard with oversized keys for use by someone wearing a spacesuit. Endymion found the power switch and watched the display screen glow into life, then jumped at the sound of an unexpected loud click from under the console. He was curious as to why the mining ship was in the Eden Ravines and it only took him a moment to call up the navigation system and download the flight log to his wristpad. It was then he spied a small foil-wrapped carton lying on top of the console and recognising it for what it was, hungrily picked it up and stuffed it into a pocket.

  In the floor a few steps away was an open trapdoor with an airlock control panel above. Curious, he looked down and saw it led into a narrow chamber with a ladder fixed to the wall, descending to the Astromole docked in the cradle below. The open hatch of the digging machine was illuminated from within and Endymion was just on the point of climbing down to have a look when he heard Bellona calling his name.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, sticking his head through the hatchway.

  “We should go!” shouted Bellona.

  With a shrug of assent, Endymion stepped out of the hatch, put a foot upon the top rung of the ladder and paused. Away from the Nellie Chapman, on the far side of the clearing, he could see a second area of scorched soil, complete with a distinctive set of marks that he instantly recognised as those left by the landing gear of another and much larger spacecraft.

  “Another ship?” he murmured to himself. “Very strange.”

  “Endymion!” Bellona called again.

  He took a couple steps down the ladder, then glanced back through the hatch, reluctant to leave. It was then his eyes fell upon a small orange cylinder, about as thick as his arm, hidden beneath the console. In the centre was a small digital display and he watched as the number upon it counted down second by second.

  “Ten, nine,” murmured Endymion. “Eight, seven…”

  His hands and feet were scrambling down the rungs long before his brain had decided what it was he actually saw. By the time he slid down the final metres of the ladder, his panic was in full swing and he hit the ground like a coiled spring.

  “Quick!” he yelled to Bellona and Philyra, sprinting towards them. “Run!”

  Seeing the girls hesitate, he grabbed their hands and pulled them after him, leaping across the uneven ground as fast as his legs could carry him. Ignoring their screams of protest, he dragged them back to the jungle path and pulled them down into the undergrowth.

  “Get off me!” Philyra shrieked.

  “What the hell are you doing?” cried Bellona.

  “Keep your heads down!” Endymion yelled.

  Seven seconds after his hasty exit through the hatch, there was a sudden deafening bang. A huge explosion ripped through the spacecraft, tearing it apart and sending the upper part of the hull careering into the air. Moments later, fiery debris began to rain down, setting fire to the surrounding undergrowth and the tops of nearby trees. Endymion, Bellona and Philyra cautiously raised their heads and looked towards the smouldering remains of the spacecraft. The Nellie Chapman was no more.

  “Wow,” murmured Philyra, then gulped. A broken landing strut was embedded in the ground barely a metre from where she lay.

  Despite everything, Endymion grinned. Bellona gave him a shove.

  “Philyra did tell you not to press any buttons,” she retorted.

  *

  Incredibly, the sound of a spacecraft exploding a kilometre away failed to wake Miss Clymene, who when they returned to camp was still asleep and safely tucked up inside the darkened dome. Bellona and Philyra were terrified of what she might do should she wake and learn of their impromptu jungle trek and so quietly followed suit. Endymion stayed awake a little longer, calmly munching upon the zero-gravity rations he had found aboard the Nellie Chapman as he tried to make sense of the data obtained from the ship’s computer. The mining ship’s last flight remained a puzzle; before it returned to Ascension, the vessel had ventured into deep space, far away from the asteroid belt and nowhere near any of the other major planets of the Barnard’s Star system.

  It was a mystery that would have to wait. The scientists at the research station were exobiologists, not astrophysicists and their limited network did not hold the information he sought. Admitting defeat, Endymion eventually joined the others in sleep.

  Chapter Three

  Newbrum Spaceport

  MAHARANI UMA did not repeat her visit to Dockside but her plea for help struck a chord. The Dandridge Cole’s sensor arrays had tracked the kidnappers’ spacecraft to Ascension, yet nearly two days had passed since Raja Surya’s disappearance and discrete enquiries to Newbrum and the black-market haven of Lan-Tlanto had so far drawn a blank. Fenris had been back to Dockside several times since the Maharani’s visit and now approached Quirinus and Ravana, who were in one of the hangar workshops getting ready to refit an auxiliary life-support module removed from the Platypus for repair.

  “Can you smell something?” Quirinus asked Ravana. “Oh look, it’s Fenris.”

  Ravana giggled. Her father had confided to her that although he was happy to help the Maharani and speak to his contacts on Ascension, he had no intention of being nice to Fenris.

  “The Maharani wishes for you to take me to Newbrum,” Fenris said urgently, looking flustered. “She is keen for me to speak directly with Administrator Verdandi. Are the repairs to your ship complete?”

  “The Platypus is available for hire, if that’s what you mean,” Quirinus told him. “I hope you’ve got deep pockets. I don’t go to Newbrum without a very good reason.”

  “Ever the mercenary,” Fenris murmured. “Money is no object, as you know.”

  “In that case, you’ve got yourself a ship!” said Quirinus. “We’ll be ready to depart in an hour or so. Ravana, do you fancy a trip to Ascension?”

  Ravana nodded and grinned. “Do I get to be co-pilot again?”

  She watched as Fenris stomped away to find somewhere quiet to sulk. She got the impression he was not so keen on taking the trip and could not help wondering why.

  *

  Bellona unzipped the door of the darkened dome and gazed out at another dim red day. High above the Eden Ravines, the sun had started to edge towards the eastern horizon but otherwise had barely moved at all. Behind her, she could hear two totally different musical alarms clashing dissonantly as Endymion’s and Philyra’s wr
istpads tried their best to rouse their owners from dreams made strange by the jungle’s alien murmurs.

  Miss Clymene acted cordially enough at breakfast, but there was a certain coolness to her manner that suggested she was not entirely unaware of her students’ jungle adventure. Endymion, Bellona and Philyra had not stopped to talk on their hurried trek back through the alien forest and the girls were still waiting for an opportunity to ask Endymion about what he had seen inside the abandoned mining ship.

  Upon their return to the research station, Miss Clymene was informed that her friend had been called away on urgent business. The scientist she spoke to was reluctant to elaborate but eventually revealed that there had been a security alert and research station staff had been told to suspend all duties pending the arrival of a government official from Newbrum. Miss Clymene made some comment about the wheels of bureaucracy moving notoriously slowly on Ascension and so it was that she decided to call it a day.

  A few hours later they were back at the skybus station, waiting for the next flight back to Newbrum. Philyra was once again glued to her wristpad and periodically issued gasps of delight or groans of derision as she caught up on the missed hours of holovid celebrity news and the latest happenings in Gods of Avalon. Endymion, never a great conversationalist at the best of times, was immersed in his own device as he returned to the mystery of the last flight of the Nellie Chapman. Bored, Bellona turned to her own wristpad and upon reconnecting to the net she sighed, finding she had a paltry two messages waiting. One was from her mother asking her to make sure Endymion behaved himself. The other was a rude message from Maia, a girl who played clarinet in the Bradbury Heights band, complete with a short holovid of her and her fellow band members mocking their Newbrum rivals.

  The skybus to Newbrum that arrived shortly afterwards looked old enough to merit its own plinth in a transport museum, but soon they were hurtling back across the desert and down into the vast equatorial depression towards the distant Tatrill Sea. As the thin grey coastline came into view, Bellona was reminded of the scientist’s hologram and the image of the planetoid slamming into the side of Ascension. It was difficult to imagine a collision of that magnitude, one which could create a basin five thousand kilometres wide and forge the deep cracks of the Eden Ravines. Bellona tried to imagine a planetoid falling on Maia’s head, wiping the smug smile from her face.

  “Look!” she exclaimed. “A terraformer!”

  Endymion and Philyra glanced through the window to where she pointed. Out in the desert sat a monstrous mechanical pyramid of steel, crawling slowly upon huge tracks as it spewed a cocktail of greenhouse gases into the air. Large-scale terraforming had been abandoned on Ascension more than twenty years ago but there were still a few projects ongoing that were trying to make the atmosphere a little less deadly to humans.

  “Fascinating,” murmured Philyra, her gaze already back at her wristpad.

  “There’s not enough of them,” Endymion opined glumly. “At this rate, it’ll take a million years before we can live outside the dome.”

  “That’s what I like about you,” said Miss Clymene. “Always looking to the future.”

  “A friend of mine once hacked into a supply depot and reprogrammed their systems so that a delivery meant for the fish market went instead to a terraformer,” Endymion told her. “The next time it snowed, the ski slopes at Kirchel ended up knee-deep in prawns.”

  “You do talk rubbish,” retorted Bellona. “You know you don’t have any friends.”

  Ahead, the main dome of the city of Newbrum, an immense blister of glass and steel squatting defiantly upon the shores of the Tatrill Sea, had finally appeared upon the horizon. Outside the skybus the grey desert was giving way to scrubland, where tougher versions of the alien shrubs seen in the Eden Ravines mingled with hardy specimens introduced from the tundra regions of Earth. The introduced flora was adding a little oxygen to the air, but apart from at the bottom of the Ravines the atmosphere of Ascension was still prone to turning blue the face of anyone foolish enough to venture outside not dressed for the occasion. A few obstinate alpine animals brought to Ascension by Australian genetic engineers nevertheless had managed to adapt to the thin atmosphere to scratch out a meagre existence on the coastal plains. It remained however that anyone wishing to see anything larger than a wombat would not find it beyond the huge, radiation-proof conservatories, where the descendants of Earth-born livestock grazed the artificial meadows of the coastal covered farms.

  The domed city grew nearer and now they could see individual dots of light from the windows of the various buildings within. The main dome was essentially a giant greenhouse, built to trap the weak heat of the sun and sealed to maintain a breathable atmosphere for its residents. The skybus approached Newbrum from the west; a smaller dome to the south, made of reinforced concrete rather than glass, housed the city’s life-support plant, while a similar dome to the north served as the spaceport terminal. Beyond the city to the east lay the choppy grey waters of the Tatrill Sea.

  “We are now approaching New Birmingham,” announced the automatic pilot. Its use of the old name of the city confirmed Miss Clymene’s earlier voiced suspicion that obsolete skybuses were being put back into service. “Change here for interplanetary and interstellar spaceport services, national skybus services and for flying boat services from Aston Pier.”

  The skybus was slowing and dropping to the monorail track below. Newbrum station was in the north dome and the track passed close enough to the main city dome for them to see the unruly collection of concrete and steel buildings within. On the far side of the spaceport was the salvage yard where old space vehicles were dismantled for recycling; like all planets orbiting ancient red dwarf stars, Ascension was seriously short of metal-bearing rocks. The skybus gave a jolt as it settled upon its rail, the turbines now working to kill its speed as it approached the giant airlock doors sliding open ahead. Moments later they were inside, speeding through a long concrete tunnel into the heart of the concrete dome. A second set of airlock doors closed behind them and with a final screech of brakes the skybus finally rolled to a halt next to a long platform. They were home.

  “We have arrived at New Birmingham, where this service terminates,” the automatic pilot proclaimed cheerfully. “All change, please.”

  *

  “Are you absolutely sure there’s nothing available?” asked Miss Clymene. She was talking to the ticket office clerk at the spaceport departure lounge, a stern-faced woman who clearly thought she had better places to be. Behind Miss Clymene, Endymion, Bellona and Philyra stood idly by, looking bored. “It doesn’t have to be direct to Daode. I’m sure we could get a connecting shuttle from Taotie.”

  “The Fenghuang III has been booked by private charter,” the clerk told her, sounding weary. “Once that leaves orbit, the next ship to Epsilon Eridani is in three weeks time.”

  “Wonderful,” muttered Miss Clymene. Bradbury Heights originally had offered her class some seats on the flight, but then just two days ago had changed their minds on the grounds they now needed to make room for a hamper of speciality cheeses. Miss Clymene decided to try a different tack. “How about the Solar System?” she suggested. “If we can get to Earth or Mars we can pick up a flight to Epsilon Eridani from there.”

  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.