Hollow Moon (48 page)

Ravana winced as a blast of pain tore though her head and
smashed away all rational thought. Suddenly, she was back in her
virtual-reality nightmare, seeing walls of grey books squeeze towards her,
their pages spilling out thousands of miniature mechanical priests on
spider-walker legs. In her mind the arachnids were all over her once more,
crawling up her limbs, over her face and in her hair, then amidst it all she
saw the real Taranis, standing behind his alien clones, laughing at her.

Close to exhaustion, she concentrated upon the cruel grin
of the priest and crushed the illusions in her mind. The clones stepped forward
to surround her with all hands outstretched. Ravana caught sight of Zotz
frantically trying to join the bared wires together and failing miserably.

“For Frigg’s sake, Zotz!” she cried wearily. “Tie a knot
in it!”

Taranis snapped his head around and saw Zotz holding two
orange wires.

“Stop, puny child!” cried the priest. “You are powerless
before me!”

“I am Zotz Wak,” the boy declared. “I may not have the
badge, but I can tie a knot!”

With a last defiant twist, he knotted the wires and
stepped back. The engine room instantly came alive with flashing red beacons
and the sound of sirens. Startled, the twelve clones shuffled to a halt, unsure
of what to do. Zotz, knowing perfectly well how to react, dashed across the
chamber and was back with Ostara halfway up the steps before Taranis could
muster his disciples. The control desk near the hatch began to recite a warning
in carefully-modulated tones.

“Reactor coolant failure. Engine room ejection in thirty
seconds.”

“What!?” Taranis roared. “This is a trick! The reactor is
stable!”

“Tell it to the console,” retorted Ravana.

She glanced up at the hatch, then rushed to the cage to
try to free the trapped grey but could not open the door. Taranis shouted an
order and the nearest clone came towards her, its scaly arms outstretched.
Ravana picked up a wrench that lay next to the book on the nearby crate and
started to hammer hysterically at the lock.

“Ravana!” cried Zotz. “We need to get out of here!”

“Reactor coolant failure,” came the voice. “Engine room
ejection in twenty seconds.”

Ravana looked helplessly at the sad stare of the creature
in the cage and felt the gentle touch of its hand upon her arm. Its other
pointed a spindly finger to where Zotz was jumping up and down on the stairs
and beckoning to Ravana to follow.

“I am so sorry,” she whispered. Tears welled in her eyes
as she rested her fingers upon the creature’s own. “I will never forget you.”

“Reactor coolant failure. Engine room ejection in ten
seconds.”

Ravana stood up and grabbed the book from the top of the
nearby crate. If Taranis was mad before, this simple act of theft made him more
furious than ever.

“No!” shrieked Taranis. “The sacred texts! Disciples,
stop her!”

Ravana ran towards the stairs as fast as her legs could
carry her, then crashed to the floor as another surge of pain shot through her
skull and sent her reeling. She scrambled up the steps and reached the hatch
with the disciples close at her heels. Zotz pulled her through the opening just
as the first of the twelve made a grab for the book under her arm. Moments
later it was Ostara’s turn to pull her forward yet again. Ravana heard a clang
as Zotz shoved the airtight hatch closed behind her and spun the locking wheel.

Surya and the Maharani were waiting anxiously when
Ravana, Ostara and Zotz rushed through to join them in the room ahead. As Zotz
went to close the outer hatch they heard a series of muffled explosions and the
room began to shake.

All of a sudden, a gust of escaping air slammed the hatch
shut of its own accord. Zotz, still holding the handle, yelped as he was pulled
off his feet. Ravana felt one last burst of pain in her mind, but this time it
was a cry of despair; the final shout of anguish as Taranis felt the engine
room separate from the
Dandridge Cole
.
So it was that he and his disciples were condemned to a dark oblivion.

Zotz put an eye to the spy hole. The huge silver cylinder
that was the ejected engine room spiralled away into space, spewing tiny jets
of gas as emergency systems hastened it away from the asteroid. Soon it was no
more than a speck in the black.

Ostara lowered the electric cat to the floor. “Have they
gone?”

Ravana felt the pain in her head subside and nodded.
“They’ve gone.”

In the shocked silence that followed, it was not until
Zotz went to pick up the torch he had left by the hatch that anyone realised
the lights had come back on throughout the network of tunnels. With Reactor A
and the rest of the engine room drifting away on an orbit all of its own, the
console for Reactor B had reset itself and restored power to the
Dandridge
Cole
.

The silence continued as they rode the railcar back to
the palace, where Ravana and Zotz got to see the crude passageway Fenris had
hacked from the back of his wardrobe up through the cliff into Access Tunnel A.
Inside the palace, now brightly-lit and looking decidedly less eerie, they
caught up with Hanuman, who having pulled the
Platypus
into the dock had been ordered by an extremely
worried Wak to come and look for them.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said, startled by their weary
expressions. “Did you find Fenris?”

“Fenris is dead,” Ostara told him.

“It was just like
Alien and the Terrorclones
,” added Zotz. He picked up Ravana’s cat and brought
its furry face close to his own. “Clever Jones saved us all from a mad
mechanical priest and his lizard men!”

“Zotz was amazing,” said Ravana and looped her arm
through his. “A real hero!”

She was preoccupied by thoughts of her father, for he had
been unconscious still when Hanuman left. As soon as they were out of the
palace, she borrowed Ostara’s wristpad to call Dockside and was relieved beyond
words when Miss Clymene informed her that Quirinus was awake and waiting to
talk to his daughter. His voice was croaky but full of pride for how Ravana had
brought the damaged
Platypus
home,
having heard an excited retelling of the tale from Endymion, Bellona and
Philyra. Miss Clymene informed Ravana that with the power restored, the
autosurgeon was ready to remove the final pieces of shrapnel. The relief in the
tutor’s voice alone told Ravana everything she needed to know.

The world outside the palace was still in darkness,
though occasional sparks of electricity could be seen leaping from the damaged
heating and lighting units inside the sun. Hanuman had made his way to the
palace on foot and was not impressed when he learned Wak’s hovertruck was on
the far side of the cliff. Fortunately, upon reaching the deserted streets of
Petit Havre, they found the monorail was once again running and they were soon
aboard and trundling through the gloom towards Dockside. The street lamps shone
brightly and the interior of the hollow moon was lit up like a starry sky.

By the time they reached the Dockside medical unit,
Quirinus had been in and out of surgery and was sitting up in bed, chatting to
Miss Clymene and Professor Wak. There were pads over his eyes held in place by
fresh bandages, but after giving his daughter the longest hug of her life, he
was quick to reassure her that everything was going to be fine.

“The autosurgeon took a piece of metal this big out of my
eye!” he exclaimed, holding his hands unfeasibly wide apart. “Okay, I
exaggerate. It looks like I’m going to be stuck in bed for a few days but my
nurses say I should make a good recovery.”

Miss Clymene and Bellona smiled. Behind them, Endymion
and Philyra were talking in excited whispers with Zotz, who having found some
overalls to replace his missing birdsuit was filling them in with all that had
happened.

“Hanuman says the
Platypus
will live to fly again,” Ravana told him. “It’s safely back in the
hangar, awaiting repairs. I’ve got a maintenance robot checking the damage
right now.”

“That’s my girl!” he said. “So Taranis was hiding here
all along?”

“Is it true what he said?” Ravana asked. She could not
bring herself to tell her father that it was he who had inadvertently brought
the priest to the hollow moon in the first place. “That had I been a boy I was
to be raised to rule Lanka?”

“Taranis created tales of destiny to suit his own end,”
he told her. “Only you can shape your future. You must always remember that.”

“He gave me this implant. He said it was part of his
plan.”

“He was a very devious man,” Quirinus said bitterly. “No
one will mourn his passing.”

Ravana was not sure that referring to Taranis in the past
tense was a safe thing to do. Zotz had already pointed out that the airtight
hatches might have saved Taranis and his clones from immediate asphyxiation
when the engine room was blasted into space. Part of her also regretted that
she had not quizzed the priest further about what exactly it was he had ordered
to be implanted inside her head, for many mysteries remained. She would never
forget the first agonising moment when she had been torn by the pain of the
Platypus
, not to mention the way she had felt the dreadful
inner anguish of Taranis’ disciples. She was still considering whether to voice
her fears when they were interrupted by the arrival of Ostara, Maharani Uma and
Surya. The medical unit was becoming very crowded indeed.

“Quirinus O’Brien,” remarked the Maharani. “You seem to
have come out of this more battered than that old ship of yours!”

“An audience with the exiled drama queen herself,”
murmured Quirinus, recognising her silken tones. “Forgive me if I do not stand
and curtsey.”

“Behave yourself!” the Maharani snapped. “You saved my
son and for that I will be forever in your debt. That goes for each and every
one of you here! You certainly managed to show those political miscreants a
thing or two. I particularly liked your broadcast,” she added, addressing
Philyra. “I forgive you for damaging my cyberclone.”

“The cyberclone!” exclaimed Surya. “We left it in
Ayodhya!”

“All the more reason to return,” she replied. “I paid a
lot of money for that.”

“You’re going back to Yuanshi?” asked Ravana.

“Hanuman and Ganesa are taking us on the
Sun Wukong
,” Surya told her.

“We’ve hidden away in this asteroid for far too long,”
said the Maharani. Behind her, Hanuman and Ganesa were at the door, but seeing
the crush inside the room decided to stay where they were. “It feels right to
end our exile on the eve of Diwali, assuming Kartikeya has not given in to
Jaggarneth and cancelled it. Now Taranis has gone I may be able to make the
foolish commander see sense and bring an end to this infernal petty war.”

“Good luck with that,” remarked Quirinus, but meant it.
“Can’t say there’s much left for anyone here. Wak tells me the
Dandridge
Cole
is a bit of a dead duck.”

“We’ll make it habitable again,” Wak replied firmly. The
prospect of living anywhere else was not one he cared to think about.

“You’ll come and visit, won’t you?” Surya asked Ravana.

“Probably best if you stay clear of Yuanshi for a while,”
Hanuman advised her. “Que Qiao agents will have realised by now that our mischief
at the plantation was linked to the attack at Sumitra and will be on the
lookout for someone with a special implant like yours.”

“I’m sure we could find you a safe port,” Ganesa added.
“It was nice meeting you.”

Ravana smiled. “If I can, I will,” she told Surya.
“Promise.”

“The shuttle from Ascension will be here soon,” said Wak.
“There’s a few more goodbyes to get through before the day is out.”

“All my fretting over the music competition suddenly
seems so trivial after all you’ve been through,” Miss Clymene said to Ravana
and Zotz. “Although it’s a shame the trophy got damaged. The display cabinet at
the academy is looking a little bare.”

“I forgot! I fetched it from the
Platypus
,” Zotz told her. He reached into a pocket and handed
her the battered cup. “I’ve knocked most of the dents out.”

“School is going to be such an anticlimax after this,”
remarked Philyra.

“Back to reality,” agreed Endymion. “No more aliens and
mad priests.”

“What was Taranis like?” asked Bellona. She still had
Fenris’
Isa-Sastra
and the bits she had
read both mystified and captivated her. “I never saw him.”

“Count yourself lucky you never will!” exclaimed Ostara.
“Mark my words!”

“I wish I was so sure,” Ravana mused.

She looked to where her cat lay curled asleep on top of
the book she had taken from the priest’s lair. Her electric pet was badly in
need of a recharge after vomiting bits of the priest’s spider walker all over
the monorail carriage floor. The book’s last owner, the man who had named her
demon king, had cheated death at least once before.

Destiny or not, Ravana had a feeling she and Taranis
would meet again.

THE END