Hollow Moon

by Steph Bennion

  “The flight deck is off-limits to passengers,” Quirinus informed him. “Please leave.”

  “I need to put in a holovid call to Ayodhya,” Fenris said smoothly.

  “That’s out of the question,” Quirinus replied coldly. The ED drive of the Platypus, like that of all such equipped ships, was also able to send and receive packets of compressed data and thus act as an interstellar transceiver array. “I need to keep the channel open to Taotie space traffic control.”

  “I’m afraid I must insist.”

  “Insist all you like but it isn’t going to happen,” retorted Quirinus. “Ship! Restrict access to all systems to registered crew only.”

  “Security protocol confirmed,” the dispossessed voice replied. “My duty is to serve.”

  Quirinus gave the console an odd look. The AI unit had been behaving a little oddly just lately and he had noticed it departing from standard audio scripts on more than one occasion. He suspected this developing eccentricity was linked to the strange tendrils, one of which he could now see poking out of a gap in the console.

  Fenris glared at Quirinus. “It would not do for you to make things difficult for me,” he warned him. “I have some very powerful friends in Epsilon Eridani.”

  “Is that a threat?” asked Quirinus, smiling sweetly. “Because if it is, you may just find yourself waking up outside the airlock before we even make planet-fall. Remember that.”

  Fenris opened his mouth to argue, then thought better of it and moodily retreated back through the hatch. Quirinus kept an eye on him as he left, somewhat concerned.

  *

  The loud bellowing rasp shook the eardrums of everyone present. Endymion sailed backwards across the cargo bay, propelled by the raucous blast of air from his trombone’s bell. A huge smile rose either side of his trombone’s mouthpiece as he ricocheted off the oxygen tanks on the far side.

  “Endymion!” scolded Miss Clymene. “Stop that!”

  His grin wider than ever, Endymion lowered the instrument from his lips.

  “I never knew trombone could be so much fun!” he exclaimed.

  “You’re an idiot,” Philyra told him.

  Ravana smiled, then returned to the search for her cornet case amongst the piles of luggage strapped down at the end of the cargo bay. Zotz had already untangled what passed for knots sealing his own travelling bag and various items of clothing and strange gadgets drifted around him, including his prized Swiss Army penknife with laser cutter blades. Unable to see what she was looking for, Ravana pulled herself across to the other side of the mound of luggage and uttered a cry of surprise.

  “Look at this!” she exclaimed.

  Zotz came over and stared at the coffin-sized box half-hidden beneath a sheet. The lid of the black metal container was open and within it lay Surya’s cyberclone, its eyes closed as if asleep. On the side of the casket was a small control panel, upon which a row of green lights flashed slowly in sequence. Ravana followed the power cable that ran from the box and found it had been connected to the ship’s internal power supply.

  “The Raja’s clone,” she murmured. “Why is it here?”

  Miss Clymene, Endymion, Bellona and Philyra came over and looked at the sleeping cyberclone. The straps to keep it safe within the casket held the clone’s arms crossed upon its chest. It lay perfectly at peace, for the clone had no need to breathe nor no heartbeat to maintain. Its dull artificial skin bore a greyish tint in the dim light of the cargo bay.

  “Is it dead?” asked Philyra. “It doesn’t look well.”

  “Don’t you mean undead?” Ravana murmured. The scene reminded her of the terrible holovid movies Zotz raved about during his fleeting obsession with vampires.

  “A cyberclone is supposed to be an exact copy of its owner,” remarked Endymion. “At least we will recognise the Raja if we see him.”

  “An exact copy?” retorted Bellona. “I’d like to see someone try and replicate the wonderful odours that emanate from your body after eating cabbage!”

  “I think it’s just recharging itself,” said Zotz. “Shall I wake it?”

  “I think not,” Miss Clymene said firmly. “This ship is crowded enough as it is. Back to your places, please. We have a long rehearsal ahead of us!”

  Grumbling noisily, Endymion, Bellona and Philyra returned to the bench seat along the wall and entertained themselves for a while trying to work out how to use cargo straps as improvised seatbelts. Ravana finally located her case and went to join her new band mates, cornet in hand. Endymion had earlier unfolded a music stand, then abandoned it after failing to find a suitable anchorage on the floor and the metal stand was now drifting around the bay with the contents of Zotz’s bag. In the end, Bellona had the bright idea of running a couple of pieces of string between straps on opposite walls and clipping the sheets of music to these. Miss Clymene had to make do with floating before them as best as she could, though her expression betrayed a sinking feeling that she would not stay in position for long once she started waving her conductor’s baton about.

  Zotz took the seat next to Ravana and fastened a strap across his lap. In his hand was a curious metal box, from which emerged four antennas sticking out at all angles, along with a tangle of cables that led to a small speaker unit wedged under his seat.

  “What have you got there?” asked Miss Clymene, giving the box a dubious look.

  “A quadraphonic autoharp theremin,” declared Zotz proudly.

  “There’s no such thing!” Miss Clymene retorted.

  “I invented it!” he replied. “Ravana gave me the list of music we had to learn and I thought Alpha Centauri would sound really good on theremin. Listen!”

  He pressed a switch on the side of the box, flexed his hands with a dramatic flourish, then slowly moved his fingers around the protruding antennas. The most incredible sound erupted from the speaker; a plaintive, almost ethereal tone that soared and swooped like the song of angels. Another note joined the first, then a third and fourth, combining together to create a cascade of wailing chords, sweet yet distressing enough to make a grown man cry. When Zotz had finished, he saw that the others were looking at him with expressions both stunned and not a little awestruck.

  “Gosh,” murmured Bellona. “That was amazing! What were you playing?”

  Zotz blinked. “Alpha Centauri,” he said. Leaving the theremin to drift, he pressed the touch screen on his wristpad and called up the message Ravana had sent him, back at the hollow moon. “The list I have is Jupiter, Woden Waltz, Aram Sunrise, Shennong and Alpha Centauri theme. I wasn’t sure about the last one so I looked it up on the net.”

  “It should be Theme from Gods of Avalon by Sellman,” replied Miss Clymene. “Other than what’s written for holovid shows, there’s precious little symphonic music coming out of the Alpha Centauri system. The rest of the list should be Shennong by Bantoff, Jupiter by Holst, Woden Waltz by Scott and Aram Sunrise by Toitovna; something for each of the five systems. What you were playing was interesting but did not sound like any of those!”

  Zotz looked hurt. “It’s called Alpha Centauri,” he insisted. “I found a twentieth-century recording by a band called Tangerine Dream. I must have listened to the wrong thing.”

  “Sorry,” said Ravana. “I should have made it clearer in my message.”

  “I actually prefer what you were playing,” remarked Bellona. “The Gods of Avalon theme is, well… a bit rubbish.”

  “It is not!” retorted Philyra.

  “Actually, I agree with Bellona,” said Miss Clymene. “I never really liked it.”

  “Could we play Zotz’s song instead?” asked Endymion. “The sound from his theremin thing is so cool. The Bradbury Heights band has got nothing like it, I’m sure!”

  Miss Clymene looked thoughtful. Ravana had heard the Newbrum students complain countless times that they had little chance of winning the competition, but recognised the spark of optimism in the tutor’s smile and an eagerness to try anything to give them an ed
ge. The sound Zotz had brought to the band was certainly different.

  “Why not,” Miss Clymene declared. “Let’s see if we can wipe the smug smiles from their faces!”

  “Oh my!” murmured Ravana. She had no idea school bands were this competitive.

  *

  Time went by and the Platypus crept ever closer to Shennong and its moons. There were only four bunks in the carousel so passengers and crew slept in shifts, with Quirinus, Ravana and Ostara taking it in turns to keep an eye on things on the flight deck. The band managed two long rehearsals, both of which went a lot better than anyone expected, leaving Miss Clymene very pleased with her newly-expanded ensemble. Ravana was a capable musician who as long as she had the music before her could play almost anything. Zotz’s inspired work on the theremin was the icing on the cake.

  During a lull when Quirinus and Ostara were alone on the flight deck and Zotz, Endymion, Bellona and Philyra were asleep in the carousel’s curtained bunks, Ravana found herself sharing the nearby couch with Fenris, Miss Clymene and Surya’s cyberclone, which since it had been activated never let Fenris out of its sight. Fenris sat at the far end of the couch, quietly reading a paper-leafed book with a worn grey cover. In an age where wristpads and other devices provided instant access to a vast library of literature, digitally archived on every servermoon across the five systems, old-fashioned tomes of bound paper were incredibly rare. Ravana realised she had seen this particular book before.

  “The Isa-Sastra,” commented Miss Clymene, reading the name on the cover. Ravana could tell she too was intrigued. “That sounds very mysterious!”

  Much to Ravana’s surprise, Fenris did not mind being interrupted.

  “These are the sacred writings of the supreme,” he told her. He placed a silver ribbon across the page and closed the book. “The holy texts of the Dhusarian Church.”

  “The Book of the Greys!” remarked Miss Clymene.

  “Please do not refer to it as such,” replied Fenris, looking pained.

  “You’ve heard of it?” Ravana asked Miss Clymene.

  Miss Clymene nodded. “I know one or two people who go to the Dhusarian Church in Newbrum,” she told her. “They believe in alien gods, or something crazy along those lines.”

  Fenris was trying hard to maintain his composure. “It is not quite like that.”

  “We could ask the plastic prince what he thinks,” Miss Clymene suggested.

  Surya’s cyberclone looked at her. “I am not permitted to talk of religion or politics.”

  “Very wise,” said Miss Clymene. “So Fenris, what’s it all about?”

  “The greys?” asked Ravana.

  “An ancient race, far older than mankind,” Fenris said slowly, acknowledging both Ravana’s genuine interest and the obvious derision in Miss Clymene’s words. “Interstellar travellers, bringing wisdom wherever it was needed. Some say they had a home in Epsilon Eridani, others that they were once regular visitors to Earth itself. They are beings of infinite insight who have learned to live in harmony with the universe. It is these noble creatures, the greys as we call them, who will one day show us our future.”

  “Our future?” asked Ravana.

  “For all our wondrous technology, mankind still clings to his barbaric ancestry,” Fenris told her. “The greys have shown us there is another way. The Isa-Sastra is a gift to mankind, given to the first prophet Betty Hill over three hundred years ago and which fate has now placed in the hands of our High Priest Taranis.”

  Ravana smiled. “Betty is a funny name for a prophet.”

  “History is full of people with strange names,” mused Miss Clymene.

  “Legend says Betty hid the book, for she knew the time to reveal its teachings was not yet right,” continued Fenris. “It remained lost for many generations, until fortune brought it to Taranis, who deciphered the wisdom within the ancient script.”

  Miss Clymene looked thoughtful. “So it was Taranis who wrote your holy book?”

  “He merely translated the original texts. The teachings are those of the greys.”

  “Aliens indeed! Has anyone else ever looked at Betty’s book?”

  “They are sacred writings!” Fenris retorted. “They are not for mortal eyes.”

  Miss Clymene smiled, her suspicious nature sensing a scam. Ravana however was fascinated, for although she knew many people within the hollow moon who were religious, the Dhusarian Church was not one she was familiar with. It was the concept of mysterious alien beings, the benevolent greys, that captivated her most. For the first time in years she found herself thinking of a strange memory from her childhood, an incident that perhaps now seemed a little more real.

  “My dear Ravana,” Fenris said, addressing her softly. “Would you care to know more about the Dhusarian Church?”

  “Maybe later,” Ravana murmured.

  In her mind she was once again six years old, out exploring the woodland near Lanka on Yuanshi. It was a memory that would stay with her forever; the vines across the entrance to the cave, the discarded and crumpled spacesuit, the smell of burnt flesh in the air. Most of all she remembered the bundle of blood-soaked rags that had suddenly become the frightened stare of a strange grey creature she had found bleeding, dying and hiding in fear from her, a small girl who had accidentally stumbled across a broken traveller far from home.

  *

  The giant gas planet of Shennong grew closer by the hour and soon the Tianzun moons of Lingbao, Yuanshi and Daode hove into view. Daode hung in the black like a glittering turquoise jewel. As Quirinus looked out upon the cloud-garlanded land and seas of the terraformed moon he could not help but be reminded of his home planet of Earth.

  The peace conference was creating a headache for Hemakuta space traffic control, for most interstellar craft were designed for deep space only and the small fleet of orbital shuttles plying back and forth from the city could not unload the arriving ships fast enough. Endymion, Bellona and Philyra were amused to learn that one such starcruiser now finally being met by a shuttle was the Fenghuang III, aboard which awaited Xuthus, Maia, Lodus and the rest of the Bradbury Heights contingent. The Platypus had no such problems and was granted permission to land shortly after establishing orbit around Daode.

  The carousel was brought to a halt for re-entry and locked into position with the couch at the bottom to provide secure seating. Surya’s cyberclone retreated to the safety of its recharging coffin, Ravana’s cat to the nearest convenient cupboard. Once everyone else was securely strapped to their seats, Quirinus fired the retro rockets, switched the sonic shield to full power and the Platypus began its final descent into Hemakuta.

  The initial tumble through the upper atmosphere was in many ways the most nerve-wracking part of the whole journey. Yet it was just a matter of minutes before the ship slowed enough to deploy its wings and soon their frantic dive to the surface became a gentle glide through the clouds, high above the clear blue waters of Pampa Bay. Ahead lay the city of Hemakuta, a vast metropolis of glass towers, parks and canals that had long outgrown the site of the original domed settlement. The land beyond was a patchwork of fields, forests and green valleys against a backdrop of dark mountains. Daode was living proof of the power of human ingenuity and of mankind’s drive to recreate Earth wherever it could.

  The Platypus touched down at an airstrip next to the small harbour, right in the heart of the city. As they taxied to a halt, a long open-top ground car hove into view, looking and moving like a river boat on wheels as it slipped from behind the sleek shuttle parked nearby. When Ravana finally pushed open the cargo bay airlock to let in the sweet sea air she was surprised to see a uniformed chauffeur waiting to take them all to their hotel.

  “The Maharani has arranged everything,” Fenris replied simply.

  “We made it,” whispered Miss Clymene, barely able to believe it. “Daode!”

  “Oh my,” murmured Bellona, looking through the door. “It’s a whole new world.”

  “I wonder what holo
vid channels they have here?” mused Philyra.

  “Did someone mention a hotel?” asked Ostara, putting an arm around Ravana’s waist. “Only it’s been sixteen light years since I last had a bath.”

  *

  The car sped along the wide boulevard that ran the length of the harbour wall, weaving in and out of the heavy traffic on its way to the seafront hotel on the far side of the harbour. The open-top car left its passengers pleasantly exposed to the elements, for while the tiny sun above seemed weak and incredibly distant, it was a warm day and there was a gentle sea breeze to temper the humid atmosphere typical of terraformed worlds.

  The streets of Hemakuta bustled with people surging from one moment to the next; many rode in hoverchairs, while those on foot moved with an odd lolloping motion that came more naturally in gravity barely a quarter of Earth’s. Even before the dome was dismantled Hemakuta had somehow avoided the usual fate of far-flung outposts, which often slipped back several generations in technological prowess during the initial struggle to establish food supplies, power and shelter. Instead, the city had become the epitome of the ultra-modern spirit of colonisation: a confusion of high-rise towers of carbon-fibre and green glass that splayed and twisted in a very organic way, an idea reinforced by the gossamer hanging walkways that linked many of the buildings to its neighbour.

  The Pampa Palace hotel was a huge edifice of five towers that rose from carbon-brick ramparts. Above the portico entrance, a colossal holovid screen alternately switched between a newsreel on the peace conference and a static display of the hotel’s name in a flamboyant yet regal lettering several metres high.