Hollow Moon

by Steph Bennion

  “Did you recognise that?” she whispered to the cyberclone.

  “The notes and melody are a close approximation of Constance Scott’s Woden Waltz from her Barnard’s Star Concerto,” the clone replied.

  Looking embarrassed, Endymion, Bellona and Philyra lowered their instruments.

  “Bravo!” cried the Maharani, clapping her hands. “Well done!”

  Miss Clymene bowed meekly. She was not used to praise.

  “That was an excerpt from Woden Waltz by Scott,” she said. “Part of a musical montage we have created to represent the five systems.”

  “These are your best music students?”

  “Our only music students,” Miss Clymene announced proudly.

  “That figures,” mused the Maharani. “Shall we eat?”

  She directed Miss Clymene to the far end of the table, who in turn beckoned to her students to join her. Six places had been set for dinner: Endymion plumped for the chair to Miss Clymene’s right; Bellona sat to the tutor’s left, opposite her brother, with Philyra taking the seat next to her friend. The Maharani thought it was rather rude the way Philyra ignored everyone to instead scowl at her wristpad, which had stopped working as soon she had entered the palace. She gave a wry smile when she recalled she had forgot to mention that the palace’s network shield was extremely fussy about what electrical equipment could be used indoors.

  Once her guests were settled, the Maharani took her seat at the head of the table, opposite Miss Clymene, leaving Surya’s cyberclone to take the vacant seat to her right. The food had already arrived and the table held a variety of tantalising traditional Indian dishes.

  “I trust you are all hungry,” said the Maharani. “As you can see, we have been joined by my son’s cyberclone, which we are training to assist in official duties.”

  Surya’s clone smiled. “It is a pleasure to meet new people.”

  Bellona stared at the young boy sitting opposite Philyra. Her friend beside her had managed to stand up, help herself to vegetables and rice, then sit back down again all whilst continuing to tap angrily at her dead wristpad.

  “Amazing,” Bellona murmured. “Is he really…? Ow!” She glared at Endymion, who upon seeing an opportunity for mischief had given her a kick to shut her up.

  Philyra looked up and glanced at Surya’s clone. “Really what?”

  “A really huge Gods of Avalon fan,” Endymion told her, helping himself to food. He winked at Bellona, who stuck her tongue out at him as she rubbed her bruised shin.

  “No way!” exclaimed Philyra, abandoning her wristpad. “So am I!”

  “I hear Avalon is covering the peace conference in Epsilon Eridani,” the Maharani noted, regarding Miss Clymene carefully. “Fenris tells me you are representing Newbrum in the music competition. That must be terribly exciting!”

  “It is an honour,” Miss Clymene replied, eyeing a plate of samosa pastries. “We are still trying to secure a flight to Daode but I’m sure something will turn up.”

  “Have you asked Quirinus, the pilot of the Platypus?” asked the Maharani innocently. “I believe he sometimes accepts private charters.”

  “I don’t think he would be interested in taking us,” said Miss Clymene.

  “He was very angry with your man,” observed Endymion. “I’m not sure why.”

  Bored with adult conversation, Philyra turned to Surya’s clone. “Who do you like best in the current series?” she asked.

  “I believe all the contestants are fine people,” the clone replied diplomatically.

  “I like Eve best,” Philyra told the clone. “She’s smart, funny and kicks ass. Did you see the way she dealt with the zombie guards at Blackfoot Dock?”

  The clone paused while it downloaded everything that was known about the Gods of Avalon show from the palace network databanks, which was not much.

  “Eve is a fine warrior,” it said at last.

  “The young Indian girl is his daughter, is she not?” Miss Clymene asked the Maharani. “I couldn’t help noticing the nasty scar on her face. Could she not have treatment to remove it?”

  “Ravana is Indian on her mother’s side,” the Maharani confirmed, noting the hidden query in the teacher’s curiosity. She confined her own dining to a small plate of salad. “Medical facilities on the Dandridge Cole are basic. Life can be hard out here on the fringes, which makes society’s obsession with physical perfection rather superfluous. Were you aware of Ravana’s own musical prowess?” she added, swiftly changing the subject. “Opportunities for public performance are however sadly few and far between in our little community.”

  “What does she play?” asked Miss Clymene, mildly interested.

  The Maharani had forgotten to ask Fenris that question. “I have no idea,” she admitted. “I’m sure you will get a chance to ask her later.”

  “I hope so,” mused Miss Clymene. The Maharani inwardly smiled, for she could almost see the teacher’s mind whirring exactly along the lines she had hoped for.

  “Do you really watch that show?” Bellona asked the clone, disbelievingly.

  “It is entertaining to watch celebrities outside their normal lives,” the clone replied, somewhat conspicuously the only one not partaking in the feast.

  “See!” exclaimed Philyra.

  “But it’s so cruel,” protested Bellona. “The monsters the audience control are horrible and vicious. Some of the stars get really hurt.”

  “They’re not exactly stars, are they?” retorted Endymion. “The last time I watched it, the most famous person they had was known for being an advertising hologram for cat food!”

  “I remember her,” said Philyra. “She was voted off after she lost a leg to a dragon.”

  “Yuck!” Bellona pulled a face. “That’s horrible!”

  “They sewed it back on afterwards,” Philyra reassured her.

  “What on Frigg are you four talking about?” exclaimed Miss Clymene.

  “Gods of Avalon,” replied Bellona meekly.

  “A truly terrible celebrity holovid show,” Endymion explained to the Maharani.

  “He likes it,” retorted Philyra, indicating the clone. “He told me so. You don’t say much, do you? I can tell we’ve got a lot in common, though,” she added, looking hopeful. She looked down at his empty plate. “Are you not hungry?”

  “You do not eat, do you?” the Maharani said to the clone.

  “Maybe a drink then,” Philyra said, filling a glass with orange juice. She leaned across the table and offered the glass to the clone.

  “No!” cried Bellona, seeing the Maharani’s look of horror. “Stop!”

  She lunged across the table to snatch the glass from Philyra’s hand, then shrieked as she knocked it from her grasp and into the clone’s lap. Surya’s cyberclone looked momentarily stunned, then a small wisp of smoke rose from between its legs. Suddenly, the clone slumped forward and collapsed face-first upon the table.

  “Reboot me!” it murmured, then fell silent.

  A faint smell of burning drifted upon the air. Philyra looked around at the other diners with an expression both terrified and apologetic. Endymion grinned sheepishly.

  “My dear,” the Maharani said icily. “Surya’s cyberclone does not care to drink either.”

  *

  Ravana rode the monocycle furiously through the streets of Petit Havre, earning startled stares from the villagers as she went by. The electric motor behind her seat whined in protest as she urged the vehicle forward at close to maximum revolutions. Monocycles were single-seat machines where the rider sat inside the hub of a huge wheel, then hung on for dear life as AI-controlled gyroscopes handled the tedious business of making sure it did not fall over on corners. A monocycle’s top speed was barely thirty kilometres an hour, but when perched upon the low-slung saddle mere centimetres from the ground, where the only view of what lay directly ahead was via a monitor screen, such a speed seemed dangerously fast.

  She was angry, for her father was clearly keeping
something from her. After she collapsed aboard the Platypus he had taken her to the medical unit, where a young doctor on duty had run a scanner over her skull before walking away to talk to her father in private. Ravana had seen them pointing to something on the scanner display, but although they reassured her there was nothing wrong, all her questions had gone unanswered. The pain in her head had been fleeting but excruciating and even now the memory of it remained. It was not something she wanted to experience again in a hurry.

  Upon leaving the medical unit, she had looked for Zotz but he was nowhere to be seen. Nor indeed was her poor cat, but her electric pet had an inbuilt tracking device and it did not take Ravana long to ascertain that in the two hours since it had run from the Platypus it had somehow managed to make its way from one end of the hollow moon to the other.

  The ride was doing Ravana good and already her anger was fading. Leaving the streets of Petit Havre behind she sped onwards down the road, the gates of the palace now visible in the distance. Up ahead, the road passed a large brick maintenance shed, outside which stood Professor Wak’s familiar blue hovertruck, the flatbed loaded with tools and ropes. Ravana decided to stop and see whether Zotz was there with his father.

  As she parked the monocycle behind the battered hovertruck, Ravana spied the professor himself walking up and down outside the open doors of the shed, looking gloomy. She was pleased to see that Ostara was with him, for although some people made fun of the security officer’s misguided enthusiasm, Ravana liked her a lot and often went to her for advice on personal matters, particularly those she would not have been comfortable taking to her father. Ostara was kind and always ready to chat, for she understood that Ravana was of an age where men and women started looking like they were from totally different planets. Seeing Ravana arrive, Ostara waved in greeting.

  “It’s a mess!” Wak was saying. “The kidnappers knew the Dandridge Cole well, but it baffles me as to why they were so destructive. There was no need!”

  “Hullo, Ravana!” greeted Ostara, ignoring Wak. “On the way to the palace?”

  “I wasn’t invited,” replied Ravana glumly, thinking of the visitors from Ascension. She found herself distracted by the professor, who was pacing in circles and running a hand across his mop of ginger hair in exasperation. “Hello, Professor Wak.”

  The professor gave a vague wave, his mind clearly elsewhere.

  “The kidnappers blew the end off a maintenance shaft which runs to the outside,” Ostara said to Ravana. “The top of the shaft comes up inside this shed.”

  She explained that a robot probe, sent out by Wak to fly alongside the Dandridge Cole, had discovered that a control bunker on the surface of the asteroid had been ripped open by an explosion. The bunker was one of four housing the thrusters used to keep the asteroid on course and spinning at the right speed, but they also capped four long excavation shafts, bored into the centre of the asteroid when the hollowing-out of the Dandridge Cole had first begun. Wak had a team of engineers out on the surface of the asteroid assessing the damage to the bunker, but there was no question it had been deliberate, for it appeared that it was into one of these shafts that the kidnappers had guided the stolen Nellie Chapman.

  Her search for her cat forgotten, Ravana looked with renewed interest at the nearby brick shed, which she now noted was barely fifty metres from the palace gate.

  “Do you think the Astromole I saw burrowed towards the shaft to escape?” she asked.

  “Maybe,” muttered Wak. “All I know is that the airlock in the floor of the shed is damaged and the maintenance shaft is open to space when it should not be.”

  “Never mind!” replied Ostara brightly. “It gives your team something to get their teeth into. It must be quite exciting to go outside and see the asteroid in space.”

  “My team are skilled engineers, not dare-devil bricklayers!” retorted Wak. “The prospect of directing a bunch of concrete-laying robots whilst clinging to the side of a spinning lump of rock is not their idea of excitement. We were already very busy trying to find the power drain affecting the Dandridge Cole’s systems. We have lost remote access to the reactor controls!” he exclaimed. “I need my team here, opening the old tunnels to the engine rooms, but instead I’ve got them outside erecting a temporary dome over the damaged bunker, so they can waste even more time repairing this senseless demolition!”

  Ostara looked humbled. “It sounds bad.”

  “Is there anything I can do?” asked Ravana.

  “Another pair of hands is always welcome,” Wak replied, inadvertently drawing her attention to his mechanical left hand, the artificial skin of which was a markedly different colour to his own flesh tones. “My engineers outside already have the dome in place and I’m just waiting for confirmation that it’s all sealed and secure. Once that’s done, we can re-pressurise the shaft and have a look inside. I am more than happy for you to dangle on the end of a rope on my behalf.”

  Ravana’s eyes grew wide. “Will it come to that?”

  Wak smiled. “Probably not. The airlock should be big enough to take the hovertruck.”

  He was interrupted by a tinny yet insistent beeping noise from his wristpad. Glancing down, he read the brief message that had appeared on the tiny screen.

  “The shaft is sealed,” he said. “Let’s see if it will hold some air.”

  Without waiting to see if Ostara and Ravana followed, Wak stalked towards the open doors of the maintenance shed and entered the gloomy interior.

  The airlock hatch at the head of the maintenance shaft was a ten-metre-wide circular door in the concrete floor, painted yellow and split down the centre so that the two halves of the steel hatch could slide open. The waist-high wire fence that ran around the perimeter of the airlock included a wide double gate at the edge of the hatch nearest to the shed door. On the right-hand gatepost was a control panel, upon which red flashing lights and warning buzzers were doing their utmost to attract everyone’s attention. Ravana and Ostara watched Wak tap at the panel keypad, then heard a loud vibrating drone as the airlock air compressors rattled into life.

  “This may take a while,” Wak informed them. “The maintenance shaft is two kilometres long and the whole lot needs to be pressurised before the damaged airlock will open. In the meantime, I suggest you suit up.”

  “Pardon?” exclaimed Ostara, looking slightly panic-stricken.

  Wak pointed to the row of spacesuits hanging on a rack beside the door.

  “No one is going through the airlock without a suit,” he said firmly. “The dome sealing the end of the shaft could give way at any time.”

  “I am not wearing a spacesuit!” protested Ostara. “I’m claustrophobic!”

  “I don’t mind,” ventured Ravana.

  “Fine,” snapped Wak. “Ostara, you wait here and keep an eye on the airlock panel. Ravana, grab a couple of suits and get ready to come with me.”

  Wak stalked out of the shed and made for his hovertruck. Ravana gave Ostara an apologetic shrug, then walked to the rack of spacesuits. There were four of them in a variety of sizes; all lightweight emergency suits in bright orange rather than full spacewalkers, each with a matching helmet. Ravana selected her usual size and another that looked big enough for the professor, then returned to where Ostara stared pensively at the airlock door.

  “You probably think I’m silly,” sighed Ostara, glancing at Ravana. “Being scared of wearing a spacesuit, I mean.”

  “Are you scared?” asked Ravana. She placed Wak’s suit over the top of the gate, then carefully stepped into a leg opening of her own.

  “Aren’t you?” asked Ostara. She pointed to the circular hatch in the floor. “Doesn’t it bother you that beyond that door is nothing? That we’re separated from the cold, dark depths of space by just a few centimetres of metal?”

  Ravana looked at the airlock door. “I never really thought about it,” she admitted.

  She inserted her other foot into the spacesuit and pulled it up around her. Emer
gency suits were designed to be donned quickly over normal clothing and shoes, so were extremely loose-fitting but not very flexible, thanks to internal reinforcing tubes of spring wire. The result made the wearer look as if they had been gorging on chocolate cake, while trying to move in one was like dancing at a fancy-dress party whilst dressed as an airship. As Ravana slid her arms into the voluminous sleeves and wriggled her fingers into the elasticated gloves at the end, she saw Ostara was trying hard not to laugh.

  “You look like a toy animal with too much stuffing,” Ostara told her.

  Behind them, Wak’s hovertruck arrived at the entrance to the shed. The professor’s face, framed by the scratched windscreen, was a picture of fierce concentration as he carefully manoeuvred the vehicle through the gap between open doors. The truck was of a basic design; the crew compartment at the front was open to the elements and had a simple bench seat for the operator and a passenger, behind which was a flatbed furnished with removable side rails and a couple of straps to keep any cargo in place. The vehicle flew using jets of hot gas and the exhaust blast filled the shed with dust and noise as Wak halted before the airlock, then throttled back the thrusters to let the truck drop clumsily onto its spring-loaded landing struts. Ravana collected his spacesuit from where she had left it on the gate and handed it to him as he stepped down from the cab.

  The drone of the compressors finally changed to a less manic tone. In the comparative quiet that followed, they became aware that the airlock control panel was no longer buzzing its warning, though a red light continued to flash. Suit in hand, Wak went to the panel and scrutinised the tiny digital display above the keypad. Seemingly satisfied, he pressed the large green button at the bottom of the panel.