Hollow Moon

by Steph Bennion

  “They’re automatically fed and watered,” Hanuman replied, switching off his lamp. “There are dozens of plantations like this on the Shennong side of Yuanshi. This one has not had a regular team of scientists for months. They are monitored remotely, of course,” he added, pointing to the scanners mounted high upon the wall.

  “They’re watching us?” exclaimed Ganesa, startled. “You’ve led us into a top-secret, high-security compound and you knew we were being watched? They’ll send gunships!”

  “Well, maybe one or two,” Hanuman admitted. “I wasn’t planning on stopping long.”

  After recording a few seconds of footage on his camera, he strode away between two rows of cages, seemingly unconcerned that his every move was under surveillance by distant Que Qiao agents. Mystified, the others followed. Ravana made sure she kept well away from the caged ashtapada as she did so.

  “Look,” Hanuman said suddenly, pausing next to a large cage. “That’s what you get when you let genetic engineers mess with a thunderworm.”

  The huge green worm, resting coiled upon the bare floor inside, was at least ten metres long and wide enough to swallow a man whole. Protruding from its bumpy red spine near its skull was a slender chrome needle, capped and taped to its skin.

  “They’re experimenting on them,” Zotz realised. “That’s horrible!”

  “I thought animal testing had been banned,” said Ravana, disturbed.

  Ahead, the rows of cages gave way to an open area dominated by four large metal tables, above each of which hung a light cluster similar to those found in hospital operating theatres. Three tables were bare but upon the one furthest away lay something covered in a white sheet. To the right of the tables stood a large medical instrument cabinet, while to the left was a long workbench equipped with electrical engineering tools. Zotz hastened over to the workbench and began to excitedly examine its contents.

  A sudden movement caught Ravana’s eye and she paused. A frightened grey face with large almond-shaped eyes peered at her from a nearby cage. Twelve spindly fingers gripped the bars, like those of a death-row prisoner awaiting their fate. The creature’s lizard-like expression was alien yet Ravana recognised both the intelligence and the sadness within.

  Philyra had dismissed the strange creature at Hemakuta as no more than a depilated monkey forced to play its part in a con. Ravana now knew she was wrong. Meeting her stare of wonder both then and now was one of the legendary lost alien beings of Epsilon Eridani.

  “My word,” murmured Ostara, coming up behind her. “Is that really…?”

  “I always thought I’d imagined it,” Ravana said softly, feeling a little queasy. Her cat, still in her arms, fidgeted more than ever. “I was six years old. I’d been naughty and run off to play alone in the woods near Lanka. There was a wounded creature in a cave, just like this one, except it had these beautiful blue markings on its skin. I gave it what food and water I was carrying then ran back home for some more, but because of an air raid it was days before I managed to return, by which time it had gone.” She looked at Ostara. “You’re the first person I’ve ever told that to. I’ve often wondered if I imagined it all.”

  “Fenris would love this. It would be like meeting one of his gods,” Ostara remarked, then caught Ravana’s somewhat peeved expression. “That probably sounded a bit flippant after your childhood revelation. I’m finding all this a bit overwhelming.”

  They were interrupted by a sudden cry of excitement from Zotz. Hanuman glanced up from where he and Ganesa were examining whatever it was under the sheet on the far table, then returned to the hushed argument he was having with his co-pilot.

  “Look at this!” Zotz exclaimed.

  Ostara and Ravana joined him at the workbench. Zotz had been investigating a series of shallow drawers, which when opened revealed row upon row of tiny electronic circuit boards. Picking one up, he showed it to Ravana.

  “What is it?” she asked, squinting at the tiny board. There was something familiar about the tiny chip in the centre, which had a small green blob growing out of it.

  “These are AI chips!” Zotz told her. “Prototypes, I think. They’re much smaller than what I’ve seen before but have the usual organic processor.”

  “Did you never wonder what the organic bit actually is?” asked Hanuman, coming over. He had given his camera to Ganesa, who was busy filming everything in sight.

  “They’re cloned brain cells,” replied Zotz. “Everyone knows that.”

  They are brain cells,” admitted Hanuman. “And in the factories which churn out these chips by the billion, the organic bit is grown in vats. But did you ever stop to think where the original cells came from? Or how Que Qiao developed the technology in the first place when animal testing had been banned?”

  Ravana looked around at the cages. “You mean…?”

  Hanuman nodded. “This is what makes Yuanshi so important to Que Qiao,” he said. “Epsilon Eridani is the only system so far where intelligent native life-forms have been found. The greys are the real prize; as you know, the official line is all higher life-forms died out when humans arrived and set up home. In fact, supposedly extinct species are secretly hunted and shipped to these plantations, to become experimental playthings for Que Qiao scientists looking for new ways to make cheaper, faster gadgets for the corporation to sell. The civil war just makes it easier to keep these research stations hidden.”

  “That’s dreadful!” Ostara exclaimed, visibly shocked.

  “Does that mean Jones also has a bit of alien inside it?” asked Zotz.

  “He means my cat,” Ravana explained, seeing a number of puzzled expressions. “That might explain why it’s been acting so weird ever since we got here.”

  “Almost certainly,” Hanuman replied. “Everything from spacecraft navigation units to washing machines uses a version of these organic processors.”

  “Even implants?” asked Zotz with a mischievous grin.

  “What!?” cried Ravana, putting a hand to her head. “You can’t be serious!”

  Hanuman looked apologetic. “It’s possible.”

  Ravana gave a screech and ran to Ostara, convinced she could feel an alien about to explode out of her head. Zotz’s grin quickly faded when he saw Ravana’s reaction.

  “But why use aliens?” Ostara asked, putting a protective arm around Ravana. “Surely all extra-terrestrial life should be protected.”

  “All except giant spiders,” muttered Ravana.

  “If Que Qiao had chosen to experiment on some Terran life-form when developing their AI units, the corporation would have been hauled before the courts on animal cruelty charges years ago,” Hanuman explained. “Que Qiao instead claims the cells are entirely synthetic, knowing full well that using the brains of presumed extinct aliens makes the source material virtually untraceable. The latest twist is that thanks to the gullible fools who follow Taranis, Que Qiao is starting to convince people that greys were invented by the Dhusarian Church and never existed at all. Sightings are never taken seriously.”

  “So what’s under the sheet?” asked Ostara, pointing to the table.

  “Don’t let them see this!” cried Ganesa.

  She was too late. Zotz appeared out of nowhere and with a single swipe of his hand pulled the sheet clean away. As they stared at the misshapen and butchered corpse hidden beneath, the boy’s face went deathly pale. On the table lay a creature just like the grey humanoid staring out from the nearby cage, only this alien was very dead.

  “How gross,” murmured Ostara. “What makes people do things like that?”

  “Money,” replied Hanuman sadly. “Research facilities like this one have made a lot of Que Qiao shareholders very wealthy.”

  Ravana stared in horror at the mutilated carcass. The top of the creature’s skull had been removed, as had part of its brain. Hanuman’s words sounded blunt and cruel but she knew them to be true. The great space race of the late twenty-first century had seen humans venture into space not to explore
but to exploit. The quest to safeguard supplies of helium-three to power the new fusion reactors brought about the first lunar colonies and cloud-mining facilities at Saturn, projects which in turn led to the invention of the extra-dimensional drive and the urge to see what was worth having in other star systems. Ascension had ended up a forgotten backwater, albeit notionally a British colony and part of the Commonwealth, because the Barnard’s Star system had nothing anyone wanted. Ravana now saw that Yuanshi had become a war zone for precisely the opposite reason.

  “Why are you showing us all of this?” she asked Hanuman. “It’s horrible.”

  Hanuman looked at Ganesa, then sighed. “We hate what we’ve learned about Que Qiao over the years,” he said. “We would have quit running these errands long ago if we had not been effectively blackmailed into continuing. Worse still, it’s not just Que Qiao; when Taranis found out what the corporation was doing to his beloved greys it just encouraged him to start his own cloning experiments. You’ve given me a chance to turn the tables.”

  “How?” asked Ravana, puzzled.

  Ganesa held up the holovid camera. “We now have something with which to do a little blackmailing of our own,” she said. “An insurance policy, if you like. I wasn’t convinced it was worth the risk to get this, but it isn’t nice being under the Que Qiao thumb.”

  “Risk?” Ostara glanced at the cameras, startled by the reminder they were illegally trespassing in a top-secret research station. “Are Que Qiao agents on their way?”

  “Almost certainly.” Hanuman relieved Ganesa of the camera. “We should get back to the Sun Wukong. You’ve done me a big favour,” he told Ravana. “A very big favour.”

  “Don’t thank me,” she muttered darkly. “Thank my alien implant.”

  “Now it’s my turn,” Hanuman said, then smiled. “I’ll take you to Ayodhya, but I think we first need to recruit some help. Unfortunately, the only people we can turn to on this moon are Kartikeya’s bunch of idiots, but beggars can’t be choosers.”

  Ravana looked at him in surprise. “You mean…?”

  Hanuman nodded. “Let’s go and get your father.”

  Ravana gave him a hug. “Before we go, there’s one last thing I’d like to do.”

  *

  Governor Jaggarneth glared at the holovid display upon the wall of his office. Today’s cricket highlights and seeing Yuanshi soundly thrashed by Australia had already put him in a bad mood, but now the Ayodhya news channel had picked up on an item from Anjayaneya and a local reporter was on screen babbling excitedly about strange creatures in the night. By the time Jaggarneth’s own sources had confirmed that someone had broken into a nearby research station and opened the cages, the story had hit the interstellar grapevine and it was too late to bury the bad news. He was just flicking through the security footage from the plantation on a second screen on his desk when there came a knock at the door.

  “Come in,” he said wearily.

  The door opened and Dana entered, holding Quirinus at gunpoint.

  “Governor Jaggarneth,” greeted Dana. “You asked to see the prisoner.”

  “Indeed I did,” Jaggarneth replied, then waved towards the wall screen. “Though this may be an inopportune time. Why did we not burn the retros on this story before it started pinballing the servermoons? What we need is a quantum leap in security protocols to facilitate response times in parsecs, not light years!”

  “Actually, parsecs and light years are measures of distance, not time,” said Dana. She decided not to add that a quantum leap was the smallest possible in physics.

  “Whatever. I’m a politician, not an astrologer.”

  “Astronomer?” suggested Quirinus.

  “Silence!” retorted Jaggarneth. He turned to Dana. “Who is this?”

  “Quirinus O’Brien. Fenris brought him in from Hemakuta,” Dana replied. “Fenris would have come himself but he is feeling a little unwell after our journey.”

  Quirinus smiled. He had brought the Platypus down through the Yuanshi atmosphere as uncomfortably as he could. By the time they landed Fenris was a vomiting nervous wreck.

  “O’Brien, eh? The one with links to our exiled friend the Maharani?” Jaggarneth regarded Quirinus closely. “How are you enjoying your stay at Sumitra?”

  “It’s not bad,” Quirinus said with a shrug. “Room service is a little slack. I will be checking out tomorrow, so could you arrange a wake-up call for about nine o’clock?”

  “A man with a sense of humour,” observed Jaggarneth coldly. “I suppose whoever it was who released all these specimens into the wild also thought it was funny!” Part of him did wonder why the scary ashtapadas had reportedly been left caged. It was a curious fact that they shared a common ancestry with Terran spiders but no one knew how that was possible. “Why do people insist on making life difficult for me? Who on Yuanshi has done this?”

  “One of the intruders possessed a special-services implant,” Dana informed him. “It is unregistered but we’re checking the files of known agitators.”

  “I hope your security plans for the peace conference are a little better prepared,” said Jaggarneth. “We need to be calling the shots, not Kartikeya and his miscreants! Why did Fenris bring this man here?” he suddenly asked, causing Quirinus to glance up from where he had been studying what was on the desk holovid screen. The governor was not impressed by the pilot’s attempt at a winning smile. “I’ve read this man’s file and he’s nothing but a third-rate trader with a few petty misdemeanours to his name.”

  “Fenris had his reasons,” replied Dana. “I will ask him to report as soon as possible.”

  “I’m more concerned about that cyberclone,” muttered Jaggarneth. “You know those things can be used for espionage. Maybe we should reprogram it to replace the real Raja and get this whole affair over and done with.” Exasperated, he gave Quirinus a frosty stare and waved a hand towards the door. “Get him out of my sight! I have work to do!”

  Dana nodded. As he was led away, Quirinus took one last look at the image upon the screen on Jaggarneth’s desk. He was surprised to recognise all five of the figures captured creeping furtively around the secret laboratory, but that they were together on Yuanshi and determined to cause trouble raised his spirits like nothing else.

  “That’s my girl!” he murmured.

  Chapter Ten

  Countdown to the conference

  THE NOISE WAS INCREDIBLE: a truly violent cacophony of both revelation and revulsion that roared through the air like a hypersonic walrus. The thunderous rasps and discordant wails were born of frustration that nonetheless revelled in both the anguish and misguided passion of a doomed attempt to rise above adversity. It was an assault upon the senses both jagged and raw, where any tiny glimpse of untapped potential was quickly lost amidst the chaos of hoots and howls. Then suddenly the mayhem was over, leaving listeners stunned as the performance drifted into silence like the echo of a departing bomber squadron. If there was something greater lurking within the souls of the players it had stayed well hidden.

  Governor Atman shifted uncomfortably in his front row seat. Up until now he had been enjoying the morning dress rehearsal but Newbrum Academy’s performance left most people wondering if they had been subjected to a rather cruel practical joke.

  “That was err… interesting,” he said weakly. “Quite a spirited performance.”

  Miss Clymene was glad Atman was the only official watching the rehearsal, for she had a feeling others would not have been so charitable. Nevertheless, the conference hall auditorium was not quite empty for many of the musicians who had been on stage earlier, including several members of the Bradbury Heights orchestra, had stayed behind to watch their rivals. The Newbrum band had been the last to rehearse; unbeknown to Atman, Miss Clymene had been frantically delaying their performance as long as she could, hoping for Ravana and Zotz to miraculously reappear and reinvigorate their crushed morale. Against an imposing backdrop of the sovereign state flags from across the five sy
stems, the tiny band looked more than a little lost on the huge stage and she did not blame Endymion, Bellona and Philyra for being glum. All three wore the smart jade-coloured commemorative tunics given to them by the peace conference organisers. She thought it was quite touching the way they had all gone overboard on make-up and hair lacquer for the occasion.

  “We are a couple of members down,” Miss Clymene explained. “You should have heard us yesterday! We were like another band.”

  “You have quite a small ensemble there,” Atman observed. The tutor wondered if he was thinking another band would be very welcome right now. “I thought Newbrum was one of the larger outposts.”

  Miss Clymene saw Endymion open his mouth, no doubt to quip that size was not everything, though their performance had blatantly proved otherwise. She remained defensive.

  “Newbrum Academy is very select,” she admitted. “But it is the only official state-funded school in the city. Before the corporation colleges were set up we had the biggest campus in the Barnard’s Star system.”

  “And now the whole school sits in the same room,” sighed Philyra. “All twelve of us.”

  Bellona’s wristpad bleeped to signal an incoming message. Maia had recorded their rehearsal and posted the holovid along with a bunch of sarcastic comments on the net. What made it worse was that an earlier performance by the Bradbury Heights orchestra had gone down very well and they were now favourites to walk away with the prize. Miss Clymene caught her own band’s downcast expressions and attempted to rally her troops.

  “Well done, you three!” she told them. “You should all be proud that you’ve made it this far. Whatever the outcome of the competition tomorrow, you’ll be able to look back and say you were here, making history at the Pampa Palace, sixteen light years from home!”

  “I wish we were back home,” mumbled Endymion.

  Miss Clymene pretended not to hear. “Class dismissed!” she announced. “The rest of the day is yours to enjoy. We have quite an occasion ahead of us tomorrow!”