Steph Bennion - Hollow Moon

“That’s right!” exclaimed Bellona, giving him a prod. Nevertheless, the rehearsal earlier that morning had gone spectacularly badly and in her heart, she knew Endymion was probably right about their chances. “We’re on a field trip! This is better than sitting in a class doing astrophysics or Earth history, surely?”

Endymion shrugged. “I’ve been to the Eden Ravines before,” he grunted.

“Hopefully, this visit will be different,” said Miss Clymene. “I have it on good authority that a big meteor came down near the research station just this morning and it reminded me that a trip to the Ravines is part of your education. I thought it would be a good opportunity for you all to take a break from lessons and rehearsals.” She sounded as if she needed a break herself. She had spent days trying to secure them a flight to Daode to no avail.

Bellona glanced at her brother but Endymion still looked terminally bored. With a sigh, she looked out of the window once more. The bloated red sun that was Barnard’s Star hung almost directly overhead. The truncated shadow of the monorail track rushed by, wavering alongside them upon the desert sand, with the smaller shadow of the skybus itself above it. The pilot-less skybus flew on short stubby wings but was connected to the rail by a long telescopic arm, which served to transfer power from the rail to the four electric turbines that pushed the skybus through the thin atmosphere at speeds approaching five hundred kilometres per hour. The Eden Ravines nature reserve, the one and only certified natural wonder of the planet of Ascension, was obviously not as popular as the Newbrum tourist board would have people believe, for the four of them were the only people aboard. On the other hand, the population of Ascension was far from huge and it was not beyond the realms of possibility that, like Endymion, everyone else on the planet had already seen it.

“I didn’t know you’d been before,” Philyra remarked to Endymion, looking up from her wristpad. “When was that?”

“A couple of years ago. I worked at the labs on a science project.”

“That was community service,” Bellona reminded him. “Sweeping the floor does not count as a science project. I forgot you were sent to the Ravines.”

“Community service?” Philyra’s eyes went wide. “What was that for?”

Endymion muttered something and cast his eyes to the floor.

“He reprogrammed the kitchen AI unit at school to serve chocolate sauce instead of gravy,” Bellona told her. The academy’s industrial-sized food molecularisor featured what was supposed to be the latest thing in artificial culinary intelligence. She giggled. “It was days before anyone complained.”

“Or even noticed,” Miss Clymene added wryly. “The canteen’s desserts always did taste a bit too meaty for my liking. Much as I’d like to sit here and reminisce about young Endymion’s misdemeanours, our stop is approaching. Unless you want to stay on to Kirchel, I suggest you collect your things and get ready. Don’t forget your pack lunches!”

As she spoke, the skybus lurched slightly, then the high-pitched whine of the turbines slid into a gentle decrescendo as the vehicle began to lose speed and drop towards the rail below. Moments later, there was a solid clunk as the telescopic arm pulled the skybus down onto the monorail trolley. They were no longer flying.

Outside the window the desert stretched to the horizon, yet ahead they could now see a break in the endless grey monotony. Indeed, a break is exactly what it was, for here the monorail track passed close to the edge of a huge crack in the desert floor, which was just the start of a vast network of deep crevices that radiated for hundreds of kilometres across the surface of the planet and down through several kilometres of rock.

“We are now approaching Eden Ravines,” came the calm and measured voice of the automatic pilot. “Please mind the gap.”

“That’s a big gap,” muttered Bellona. The edge of the Ravines was close.

The skybus slid to a halt beside the barrel-shaped building of corrugated steel that served as the station. Clutching their emergency life-support masks, Philyra, Bellona, Endymion and Miss Clymene moved to the door and waited for the station’s airlock tube to extend and dock with the skybus. After what seemed an age, the airlock warning light switched from red to green. The door slid open a fraction, then jammed.

Miss Clymene sighed. “Does nothing on this planet work properly?”

She gave the door a kick, which responded with a horrible grinding noise and slid open a fraction. The four travellers bustled into the chamber before the door could change its mind. The airlock snapped shut at their heels and then shuddered in the blast of turbines as the skybus accelerated away from the retracting tube. Several anxious moments passed before the airlock tube jolted home with a metallic clang.

The exit door before them slid open and as one they hurried through into the reception room beyond. Bellona saw Miss Clymene glancing at the airlock maintenance log next to the door and shudder. The girl peered over her shoulder and saw the last entry was by an engineer she knew had returned to Earth three years ago.

“What’s up, miss?” asked Philyra. Their tutor wore a perturbed expression.

“Nothing to worry about,” said Miss Clymene, brightly. Bellona caught her glance. A lesson on the dangers of poorly-maintained airlocks on a planet with a mostly poisonous atmosphere was the last thing any of them wanted right now. “This way!”

The station was a single long hall with the airlock at one end and a second set of doors leading to a lift at the other. The curved walls and roof were punctuated by a series of small portholes through which little could be seen, though enough to suggest that the station was right on the edge of the ravine itself and even overhanging it a little at the far end. At various places upon the wall hung touch-sensitive electronic screens, of which just three were operational. One was running a holovid advertisement for a new production of the play Waiting for Goddard , showing an excerpt where two old women were arguing and pointing at something unseen in the sky. The remaining working screens flickered with a lazy silent slideshow of awestruck tourists walking through a dark forest, but the glass was so badly scratched it was difficult to make out details. Bellona touched the controls of the nearest screen but nothing happened. Realising she was alone, she looked up and saw Miss Clymene and the others waiting for her at the doors of the lift, which now stood open.

“Bellona!” exclaimed Miss Clymene. “Are you coming?”

Leaving the screen, Bellona skipped across the hall towards the lift. Miss Clymene handed her a hooded cloak of a dull grey colour, which when she took it turned out to be surprisingly heavy.

“Keep this safe,” her tutor told her. “If you hear a solar flare warning, put it on as quickly as you can and pull the hood tight.”

“What does the warning sound like?” asked Bellona.

“No idea!” replied Miss Clymene briskly. “I’m sure we’ll know it when we hear it.”

Bellona solemnly regarded the cloak in her hands as she and her fellow students were bustled into the lift. She knew that Newbrum dome and other buildings had radiation shields, for Barnard’s Star was not as stable as it looked, but it had never occurred to her that they would need to take extra precautions out here. Once they were all safely inside, Miss Clymene indicated to Endymion to press the button marked ‘down’.

Philyra screamed. Before Bellona knew what to expect, the lift dropped through the floor of the station and moments later they were hurtling down the rocky cliff towards the bottom of the ravine six kilometres below.