Hollow Moon Read Online Free Page B

remained entirely humourless. “Regrettably, they were a
little slow to react to the rather unpleasant incident we had here today. Maybe
you saw something of it yourself?”
    Ravana nodded and was just about to launch into her story
when Fenris put a finger to his lips, then cocked his head slightly as if
listening to something. She noticed he wore a small earpiece, adding weight to
her suspicions that he was recording their conversation. Suddenly rising from
his seat, he walked to the door and beckoned to someone beyond.
    The youth who stepped into the room moments later,
dressed in a long green robe that reached to the floor, was instantly
recognisable as the boy Ravana had seen being carried off by the two
spacesuit-clad men.
    “It can’t be!” she exclaimed. “You were taken away in the
Astromole. I saw you!”
    The boy bowed deeply. “Pleased to make your acquaintance,
miss.”
    Ravana stared at him. The voice was perfectly modulated
and strangely emotionless.
    “Ravana, this is Raja Surya,” Fenris told her. “The Raja
is the Maharani’s only child and the sole heir to the royal seat of Yuanshi.”
    Ravana looked confused. “But…”
    “Actually, I have misled you,” Fenris confided. “This is
the Raja’s clone.”
    “What?”
    The boy bowed again. “I am Cyberclone Surya,” he said.
“Here to serve in his place.”
    “A cyberclone?” Ravana was dumbstruck. Momentarily
forgetting what she had seen outside, she looked closer. The boy’s expression
had an odd inscrutable smoothness that reminded her of the humanoid test pilot
robots she had once seen at Lan-Tlanto spaceport. “I thought the Maharani had
forbidden all advanced technology,” she said wonderingly. “You can’t get much
more advanced than a cyberclone.”
    Fenris looked at her oddly. “I wanted to test if you
recognised the boy, which clearly you do. Your reaction to the clone is
curious. I was under the impression that the residents of this asteroid were,
dare I say it, a little backward?”
    “I am training to be an astro-engineer and a pilot like
my father!” retorted Ravana, deeply offended. Now she knew she was looking at
an android she recognised the perfect symmetry of features that separated
machines from flesh-and-blood humans. “I’ve never seen a cyberclone in real
life before. Not that they are real life, if you know what I mean. It’s an
amazing piece of work.”
    She fell silent as she caught Fenris’ expression. His
inadvertent insult was partly true, for a fair few of the long-term residents
of the Dandridge Cole needed no
encouragement to shun technological luxuries and were perfectly happy to live
like simple farming folk.
    “Your father is a pilot?” asked Fenris. “With his own
ship?”
    Ravana nodded. “The Platypus ,” she said proudly, having chosen the name herself.
“He’s flown in all five systems. Now I’m older he lets me go with him.”
    “Ah yes,” Fenris mused. “The delivery man. But we are
getting off the point. The Raja is missing. There are signs of a forced entry
to his chambers and the mark of a rebel faction has been found on the wall by
his window. My men are even now scouring the palace grounds and beyond, but as
yet there is no sign of either the Raja or his abductors.”
    Ravana glanced towards the clone standing silently at
Fenris’ side. She recalled that months ago her father had made a large and
rather mysterious delivery to the palace, which had included what he thought
were two cyberclones in their coffin-like crates. The boy’s blank stare was
more than a little disconcerting and when it became clear that its presence was
stifling conversation, Fenris signalled for it to leave.
    “I saw two men,” Ravana began, as the cyberclone closed
the door. She was pleased to see that her electric cat had somehow found its
way into the palace and homed in on her, slinking furtively between the legs of
the cyberclone as it left. Speaking hesitantly, but reassured by the