Steph Bennion: Hollow Moon

“Did you trip over your shoe laces?” Ravana asked, teasing him.

“It was blasted Jones!” the birdman exclaimed. “Acting like a lunatic!”

The cat meowed, jumped lightly over the birdman’s prone body and disappeared through the door, its electric nose excitedly sniffing the air. Bemused, Ravana waited until The Flying Fox regained his feet and switched on his torch, then followed.

Her cat had not gone far. Ravana gazed wearily at the spiral staircase beyond the door, then down at her pet, which responded with a casual scratch of an ear. The dark stairwell was three hundred metres high and her cat’s pitiful meow made it clear that it did not intend to use its own legs. The Flying Fox peered up into the distance as if considering the options.

“Jet pack?” he suggested.

Ravana smiled weakly. “I thought you’d never ask.”

The centrifugal pull of the spinning asteroid grew weaker as they ascended the stairwell. Upon reaching the halfway point, gravity faded completely. Here, the staircase broke off to leave just a couple of handrails running through a hole in a rotten safety net, beyond which was the one thing Ravana never expected to find on the Dandridge Cole . It was a window, buried deep in an alcove barely a metre across, with triple-glazed glass scarred by countless micrometeoroids, but a proper window nonetheless. It looked out of the asteroid from between the two huge engine nozzles, upon a slowly-rotating vista of the star-spangled void. As they floated before the window, gazing out at the spread of infinity beyond, Ravana thought it poignant that the only natural view the original settlers may have had was not of what they were heading towards, but of what they were leaving behind.

The Flying Fox remained eager to make progress. It was not easy for him to fly with Ravana hanging from his shoulders and a wriggling cat under his arm, but soon they were descending the second half of the darkened staircase and feeling the spin of the hollow moon once more. At one point, the birdman wobbled violently and shone the torch towards the staircase, but Ravana could not see what he was looking at.

When they finally landed at the other end of the staircase, they found a door leading to a room that was the mirror image of the one where the birdman had tripped over the cat. The torchlight revealed walls encrusted with thick purple mould and other strange fungal growths that the cat, upon being let loose once more, appeared to find both frightening and fascinating in equal measure. They were now on the opposite side of the hollow moon and presumably somewhere far behind the palace.

“Did you see her?” asked the birdman excitedly. “On the stairs?”

“See who?” asked Ravana. “Ostara?”

“I don’t think so.”

They both returned to the staircase and peered up, but saw nothing. It was then they heard distant voices drifting from the room behind and paused to listen. Apart from the doorway through which they had come, there was a corroded metal door to their left and a stout hatch to their right with a spy hole and a sign marked: ‘REACTOR A’. Thinking that the voices were coming from behind the hatch, Ravana peered through the spy hole and saw nothing. She realised the sound came from beyond the rusty door.

“There’s someone in the other access tunnel,” Ravana whispered.

“With any luck they’ll trip over Jones and break their necks.”

A sudden loud banging on the door made them both jump. In a panic, Ravana scuttled to hide behind the entrance to the spiral staircase, then peered out again when she realised The Flying Fox and her cat had stayed to face the intruders.

Slowly, the door opened. To her relief, it revealed a friendly and familiar face.

“Ostara!” cried Ravana, coming out of hiding.

“My word!” exclaimed Ostara, clearly startled at finding the masked birdman on the other side of the door. “Here to rescue cats?”

OSTARA LED RAVANA and The Flying Fox through the door to a concrete-lined passage remarkably similar to the one the birdman had propelled them both down earlier. This tunnel was brightly lit and the railcar at the end of the tracks showed signs of recent repairs to bring it back into good running order.

Surya sat at the front of the carriage, his face illuminated by the console screen before him. Ravana saw the railcar had a large fuel cell strapped to the rear and guessed it had been modified, presumably by Fenris, to run on its own power. Another fuel cell on the floor near the door was connected to the lighting circuits. Fenris was evidently a man of more talents than previously revealed.

“We need a plan,” Ostara said to Ravana. “Surya has been speaking to Endymion and we think we’ve found Fenris and the mad priest.”

“Taranis is on the other side of that hatch,” Ravana told her. “Reactor A.”

“How did you know that?”

“Because we’ve just come from Reactor B and he’s definitely not there!”

“Well deduced,” Ostara remarked. “I’ll make a detective of you yet.”

“Have you seen anyone else?” asked Ravana. “Zotz thought there was a woman on the stairs. He is however wearing a mask and it was very dark,” she added hastily.

“Not a soul. The palace was deserted, but we found a secret passage from Fenris’ room that led up to this tunnel. It was quite a walk! It’s taken us an hour to get this far.”

“Access Tunnel A,” said Surya. “All four kilometres of it.”

“Fenris took the train, I presume?” remarked the birdman. “Resourceful man.”

Ostara gave The Flying Fox an odd look and discretely pulled Ravana to one side.

“Why is Zotz dressed as some sort of superhero?” she asked, her voice hushed.

“It’s a long story!” Ravana whispered back. “Now we’re here, I’m not sure it was a good idea. Zotz is so much more confident as The Flying Fox, but to see him in action is like watching a really bad actor. Does that make sense?”

“What was that?” asked the birdman.

“He has bat-like hearing though,” murmured Ostara, making Ravana giggle.

Surya glanced up from the screen. “Are you coming to look at this?” he asked grumpily.

Ostara, Ravana and The Flying Fox went over to where Surya sat in the carriage. The railcar’s console was connected to the Dandridge Cole ’s network. On its holovid screen they saw the familiar grinning features of Endymion, though given the circumstances Ravana was starting to find his perpetual air of blissful ignorance wearisome. Endymion was speaking into his wristpad, with Philyra visible in the shadows over his shoulder.

“Ravana!” greeted Endymion, when she moved into view. “Can I talk to you instead? The professor told me you’re studying engineering.”

“He thinks I’m stupid,” Surya said, speaking in a mock whisper.

“I never said that!”

“Tell Ravana what you found,” Ostara interrupted, sounding exasperated.

“Fenris’ slate,” Endymion declared. Behind him, Philyra held up the slate as if she were selling merchandise on a holovid shopping channel. “It contains technical information and plans for the Dandridge Cole . I think I’ve found what is causing the power drain!”

“Taranis is causing it,” Ravana replied wearily. “He’s holed up near Reactor A.”

“Okay, so you know that bit,” Endymion retorted irritably. “What you may not know is that he has linked the two fusion reactors together, bypassed the overload prevention circuits and switched off remote network access. Both reactors are now controlled solely by the console for Reactor A. The only way to put it right is to go into the engine room.”