The main political speakers were not due to appear until the day after tomorrow, though preliminary talks had begun. A throng of journalists and holovid crews had congregated outside, along with a crowd of spectators who seemed ready to burst over the walls of the harbour and into the sea at a moment’s notice. As they approached, this thought drew Ravana’s gaze to the nearby beach and with a pang of jealousy she saw that some people were indeed swimming and surfing in the warm waters of the bay.
“The Pampa Palace,” Miss Clymene observed. She was clearly impressed. “This is the venue for the peace conference.”
“The most exclusive hotel on all of Daode,” Fenris added.
Their car turned off the boulevard and began threading its way through the crowd. As they pulled to a halt outside the grand entrance to the hotel, a stream of attendants swept through the doors, eager to greet them and collect their luggage.
“We’re staying here?” remarked Ostara, surprised.
“Oh yes,” replied Fenris smugly. “The Maharani insists on only the best.”
“So how come she hired you?” asked Quirinus irritably.
By now some members of the nearby crowd had started cheering, perhaps mistaking the occupants of the ground car for visiting dignitaries, though a journalist who managed to grab a few words with Endymion was not at all impressed when she learned they were from the Barnard’s Star system. Leaving the car, the travellers turned their back on the crowd and trooped apprehensively into the cathedral-like surroundings of the hotel lobby.
Waiting to greet them was a tall, grey-haired Indian man who was the epitome of casual confidence. With him was a severe-looking Chinese woman, whose dark tresses were bundled up and tightly pinned. Both wore blue corporate suits with a militaristic flair, which made the faded flight suits worn by the crew and passengers of the Platypus look positively dowdy in comparison. The man gave Fenris a broad smile and held out a hand.
“Welcome to the Pampa Palace!” he boomed, in perfectly-modulated English. “Governor Atman at your service, executive facilitator of the conference.”
“I am Fenris,” greeted Fenris, taking the man’s hand and shaking it firmly. “This is Quirinus, captain of the Platypus; Rosanna, who is here with her music students to represent the city of Newbrum; and finally Ostara, who is our err… head of security.”
Atman nodded to each in turn, then indicated his colleague. “This is Agent Dana, who has joined us from Ayodhya to help with security arrangements.”
“So you are Fenris,” said Dana, speaking carefully. “We have been expecting you.”
“I am here on behalf of Maharani Uma,” Fenris replied smoothly. His confident manner surprised Ravana, especially after his obvious nervousness upon meeting Administrator Verdandi at Newbrum spaceport. “As you are no doubt aware, young Raja Surya has gone missing and I am on my way to Yuanshi to see for myself what the authorities are doing to find the Maharani’s son.”
“A sorry business,” acknowledged Dana. “I am sure Governor Jaggarneth will tell you he is eager to facilitate a mutually-agreeable docking, or some other gobbledegook.”
“So you’re here from Ascension!” exclaimed Atman, turning to Miss Clymene. “This peace conference is indeed a marvellous opportunity to meet all sorts of wonderful people from across the five systems. Of course,” he added conspiratorially, “my security staff do not like it when the Governor of Daode goes out and about in public, but I do think the personal touch is so very important. Don’t you?”
Miss Clymene looked startled. “Err… yes. Definitely.”
“And you are entering the music competition? Such an inspired way to bring the conference to a close. Bringing harmony to our worlds with the music of youth.”
“Indeed we are,” replied Miss Clymene, recovering her composure. Gathering her musicians together, she introduced each in turn. “These are the Newbrum school players; Bellona, Endymion, Philyra, Ravana and Zotz.”
Philyra, Bellona and Endymion gave a hesitant wave of their hands, leaving Zotz lost in his own stunned silence. Ravana had a terrible headache but managed a weak smile.
“And this?” asked Dana, indicating Surya’s clone. “Is it what I think it is?”
“The Raja’s cyberclone,” replied Fenris. “Here to assist in my negotiations.”
“Try not to parade it too conspicuously,” Atman said. “The conference has an exclusive deal with Rent-a-Clone’s remote VR service for delegates unable to be here in person and I’d hate to create any upset.”
“It was a pleasure to meet you both,” said Quirinus. “You must excuse us. We’ve had a long flight and have not yet checked into our rooms. I’m sure we will meet again soon.”
“Of course,” said Atman and smiled. “I do hope you enjoy your stay.”
“I’m sure we will,” murmured Ostara, transfixed by their ornate surroundings.
*
Ravana lay upon the bed, feeling her headache worsening by the minute. She was sharing a hotel room with Bellona and Philyra, who were currently standing on the balcony, pointing and shrieking excitedly at the various sights and scenes of the city below. Endymion and Zotz soon joined them from their own room next door and Endymion’s own loud exclamations did not help at all.
The room itself was incredibly lavish with solid furniture, thick carpeting and heavy wall drapes. The huge holovid unit had turned itself on as she entered the room, only to promptly shut itself off again after she gave it an angry glare. Yet the bed was comfy and the sea air wafting through the window was a luxury in itself, carrying with it a natural freshness that the life-support systems of the Platypus or even the Dandridge Cole could never hope to match.
There was a knock at the door and Ostara bustled in, not waiting to be invited.
“Zotz!” she called urgently. “I need your help.”
“My help?” Zotz asked, turning away from the window. “What with?”
“Fenris has gone downstairs to make a holovid call,” she said, speaking as if it were some sort of crime. “Do you have anything in your bag of tricks I can use to listen in?”
Zotz looked shocked. “You want me to help you spy on Fenris?”
“If you put it like that, then yes.”
Zotz shrugged. “Fair enough. Network hacking isn’t really my thing, though.”
Endymion, who was listening, beamed.
“Leave it to me!” he exclaimed. He glanced towards the girls on the balcony. “Shall we go somewhere a bit quieter?”
Ravana watched as Ostara furtively bundled Endymion and Zotz through the door and out of sight. She wondered if there was any chance of another intervention to relieve her of the excitable Bellona and Philyra.
“Perhaps you two could go shopping?” she suggested wearily.
Philyra turned to Bellona, her eyes wide. “Shopping! Shall we?”
Bellona looked uncertain. “Let’s ask Miss Clymene.”
Moments later they had gone. With a sigh of relief, Ravana settled back into bed, then smiled as her cat emerged from where it had been hiding in her luggage and jumped up beside her. Right now she and her headache were badly in need of some peace and quiet.
*
Quirinus sat down inside the holovid booth, well aware that Fenris and Surya’s cyberclone had followed him downstairs. He had received an urgent message on his wristpad from Professor Wak asking him to call, so upon making the connection it came as somewhat of a surprise to see Maharani Uma and not Wak staring at him from the screen. He was just about to make some grumpy remark when he noticed her nervous expression.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” he asked cautiously.
“I’m sorry for commandeering the holovid like this, but I must speak with you,” she said quickly. The jumble of laboratory equipment in the background confirmed she was speaking from Wak’s workshop in Dockside, which in itself was a surprise as it meant she had left her palace hideaway twice in one week. “I need to warn you about Fenris.”
“
It’s not the first time you’ve hijacked what’s not yours,” murmured Quirinus.
“Please!” The Maharani looked at him with pleading eyes. “This is important!”
Quirinus returned her gaze, startled. He had never seen her look so worried.
“What about Fenris?” he asked. “I should mention that he’s outside, waiting to use the booth and probably listening to everything we say. Not that I care,” he added. “What has he done that would make me trust him even less than I do already?”
“I sense there are few people you do trust,” the Maharani said softly. Behind her, Quirinus saw Wak move into view, then awkwardly shuffle away again. “Including myself. Yet you are happy enough to ignore all that when the price is right. Did you not deliver a consignment to the palace just a few months ago?”
“That was a one-off,” retorted Quirinus. “We all have mouths to feed.”
“You have good reason to hate me and my family. I will not ask you to put that aside and trust me now. Yet you need to believe that I trust you, especially in a matter like this.”
“A matter like what?”
“Faith,” she said simply. “The power of belief. You and I have both seen on Earth and Yuanshi how such a power can corrupt. For a while I hoped Fenris’ own commitment was pure. Now I am sure it is not.”
Quirinus opened his mouth to protest against what seemed an unfair attack against religion, then remembered his own tirade against Fenris at Newbrum.
“In his absence I searched my son’s quarters and found a device, hidden beneath his bed, that Professor Wak thinks is some sort of mind probe,” the Maharani told him. “I also found a slate loaded with a disgusting selection of scantily-clad young women on holovid, but that’s young boys for you. The point is I think Fenris is trying to brainwash my son! I can’t help thinking he had some part to play in poor Surya’s kidnap!”
Quirinus could not help but be moved by her anguish. “I’m sure the authorities are doing all they can to find your son,” he said, in what he hoped was a reassuring tone. “There’s little I can do other than keep an eye on Fenris.”
“There’s no need. Surya’s cyberclone is with Fenris specifically so that it can report his movements back to me,” she confided. “I am frightened about what may happen but I trust that, if need be, you will do the right thing. I just needed you to know that.”
Without another word, Maharani Uma stood up and walked away from the holovid cameras, leaving him staring dumbstruck at an empty seat. When Wak appeared on screen moments later, it took Quirinus a while to register that what Wak was now telling him was totally unrelated to the Maharani’s revelations.
The professor’s own concerns were over the worsening condition of the Dandridge Cole’s power supply. Neither Wak nor Quirinus had witnessed the unprecedented faltering of the artificial sun, but Ravana had mentioned it and many others had seen it and voiced their fears. The Indra, the pilot-less fuel tanker that travelled between the hollow moon and the cloud-mining facility orbiting the gas giant Thunor, had just returned to the Dandridge Cole. Faced with potential crop failures and the prospect of freezing to death in the dark, a growing number of residents were petitioning the Symposium to allow the tanker to be made ready to carry the population to safety. The irony that the hydrogen and helium-three carried by the Indra was the only thing keeping the power generation systems running was lost to those now faced with the possibility that the hollow moon may have to be evacuated. Such fears were not entirely unjustified; whatever was draining power had caused the artificial sun to shut down twice more since, each time longer than the last.
Quirinus was sure Wak would find a solution. Nonetheless, he left the booth wearing a thoughtful expression, though did remember to pull a face at Fenris as he passed.
*
Fenris slipped quickly into the vacated booth and instructed the computer to make the connection. After several agonising moments, the grotesque grimace of Taranis’ twisted features appeared on the screen. The priest’s grey skin glistened as if covered by a thin sheen of sweat. The holovid cameras revealed little of his surroundings but a noticeable haze hung in the air, one alive with wispy tendrils of steam.
“Fenris!” snarled Taranis. “You have something to report?”
“I am in Hemakuta,” replied Fenris, a little perturbed. “I have made contact with Agent Dana and hope to be on my way to Yuanshi before the day is out.”
“About time! I can no longer trust Kartikeya and his incompetent rebels to do my bidding. He is firm in his belief that the Raja is the key that will unlock Yuanshi, but the people will not find the spiritual guidance they need in the hands of young Surya.”
“Only the Dhusarian Church can provide the true light.”
“Pah!” retorted Taranis. “True belief does not need bricks and mortar to contain it. Those who need the trappings of organised religion will never understand that true enlightenment must come from within. My messengers of faith are growing stronger by the day and soon will be ready to show humanity its future!”
Fenris thought about how he first came to the church, finding solace in the routine and beliefs at a time when his own life was chaotic and grim. He decided to ignore the priest’s forceful rejection of an institution he himself held dear.
“Your activities are going to plan?” he enquired.
“My work is proceeding flawlessly. It is that of others which has misfired,” Taranis snapped. “From what Kartikeya tells me, you have done a sterling job with the Raja and he seems more pliable than I expected. The fact remains that those idiots took him from the Maharani before the mind-probe programme was complete. It is vital you reach Surya before his appearance at the conference, to establish whether what you have done is enough.”
Fenris bowed in acquiescence. “The Maharani has found the device and spoken of it to Quirinus,” he reported. “She may yet choose to reveal your whereabouts.”
“Then you must act before she does so,” Taranis told him icily. “Preferably sooner than later. The Sun Wukong is on its way to Hemakuta as I speak, delivering the equipment necessary to make the Raja’s conference appearance go the way we desire. Unless you can find a quicker way of getting to Yuanshi, I suggest you make sure your business on Daode is concluded and you are aboard when it returns!”
“I have a plan in mind that will wrap up all loose ends in one go.”
“Excellent. Any news on Que Qiao intelligence? An oxymoron though that is!”
It was rare for Taranis to attempt a joke and Fenris permitted himself a smile.
“My sources tell me that Atman and his government remain blissfully unaware of our plans,” he said. “Jaggarneth of course knows of Kartikeya’s scheme and is looking to use the resulting chaos at the peace conference to denounce Atman and demand that the governorship of both Daode and Yuanshi comes to him. Jaggarneth’s political ambitions are well known. He has many powerful allies within Que Qiao on both Taotie and Earth.”
“Kartikeya and his rebels would not stand a chance if this came to all-out war,” Taranis observed. “Jaggarneth has been stringing them along for years, happy to use the threat of terrorism to keep control. The time has come for these falsehoods to cease! My disciples will show them that true faith is mightier than the missiles and gunships of Que Qiao. Together the children of Shennong will rise to greet the dawn of the greys!”
“It is an honour to be here at the beginning,” said Fenris. “In your head be it.”
“And be it in yours,” Taranis replied. “Go! There is still much work to be done!”
Abruptly, the screen went blank, leaving Fenris alone with his thoughts. Praise from Taranis was unexpected and he relished the warm glow of self-assurance spreading through him from within. This truly was the beginning. Fate had conspired so many times to thwart the priest’s plans but Fenris now truly believed they were finally on the cusp of bringing his beloved Dhusarian Church out from the shadows. Yuanshi was just the beginning. Soon, all five systems woul
d bow to the one true law. His mind whirring, he left the holovid booth and almost collided with Surya’s cyberclone, which was waiting for him outside.
“Spying on me again?” Fenris remarked. “Never mind. I have a job for you.”
*
In a room upstairs, Ostara, Endymion and Zotz sat huddled around the tiny speaker of Endymion’s wristpad, listening to the relayed audio signal with wide-eyed expressions. They had been lucky in that the hotel’s holovid booth had connected to the Ascension servermoon, making accessing Endymion’s stored hacking programs so much easier, but missed Quirinus’ exchange with the Maharani.
Yet Fenris’ conversation with Taranis had more than captivated their attention, for even though the wristpad had only been able to give them sound and not vision, the priest’s cruel tone had left its mark upon their imaginations. As the audio signal faded, Ostara looked up, shocked.
“Politics, religion and a madman,” she murmured. “Never a good combination.”
Chapter Eight
High and low in Hemakuta
RAVANA AWOKE to find the room deserted and her headache gone. Her slumber had been deep enough for her to momentarily forget where she was and it was not until she climbed out of bed and found herself staggering erratically in the low gravity that she remembered the yellow sunlight streaming through the window was that of Epsilon Eridani.
Yawning, she stumbled to the open window and gazed out upon the golden sands and picturesque harbour of Pampa Bay. The moon of Daode was as big as Mercury or Ganymede, but a lot smaller than Ascension and the curve of the close horizon was disconcerting. The sun hung low on the eastern horizon and looked tiny compared to the bloated sun of Ascension, appearing no bigger than Sol would from Mars. Nevertheless, it was pleasantly warm outside, for the cocktail of gases introduced into the atmosphere by terraforming retained the heat as effectively as any greenhouse.
The time it took for the tiny sun to cross the sky surpassed even that of Ascension; like its sister moons of Yuanshi and Lingbao, Daode rotated just once every orbit, keeping the same face to Shennong as it did so. Here in Hemakuta it would be another four Terran days before the sun dipped below the skyline to the west, at which time the city would be flooded with artificial light, allowing life to continue unabated. Shennong itself was on the far side of the moon and so never graced the skies of Hemakuta; nor did either Yuanshi or Lingbao, for Daode was the outermost of the three giant moons.
Hollow Moon Page 18