by Steph Bennion
Ravana O'Brien, Detective Ostara Lee and young Artorius are marooned a very long way from home. Priest Taranis is reaping his twisted destiny. The watchers Athene and Ares are bringing their great game to a close...
RAVANA O’BRIEN TIGHTENED THE LAST ROPE. Climbing to her feet, she turned away from the mysterious green pods and looked along the roof of the space freighter Platypus, where her friend Ostara was securing a second bundle of netting at the stern. It was a far better view for her nerves than the terrifying nothingness of the abyss below.
The roof docking hatch was just a few steps away. Fighting the urge to look down, Ravana gingerly made her way back inside. A metallic groan quivered through the flight deck and she froze, feeling the ship sway beneath her. The spacecraft’s bow remained precariously balanced over the void. It was a miracle how the Platypus had not been lost for good.
They had barely two hours of sunlight left before the cavern fell dark. The solar panels rigged outside were barely managing to recharge the ship’s fuel cells and they could not afford to run work lamps through another night. Moving carefully, Ravana ducked into the crawl tunnel at the rear of the cabin, slipped past the hatch to the stationary passenger carousel and descended the ladder into the freighter’s cargo bay.
A squat grey-skinned humanoid in bright robes waited on the lowered ramp outside the main airlock, gazing up at the purple and white freighter. Exiting onto the ramp, Ravana followed the grey’s stare to the roof. Dozens of spherical green plant sacs, harvested in a stupidly perilous spacewalk outside the cave, lay beneath two stretched cargo nets tied to mounting points once used to fit external boosters. The strange pods clung to the fuselage with splayed tendrils lined with suckers, eerily reminiscent of the growths which long ago burst from the ship’s artificial intelligence unit and leeched through the hull. Each pulsed with a dim green luminescence, heavy with the silent promise of restrained power.
At the rear of the ship, near the deep gouge the Platypus had carved in the cave floor, monstrous eight-legged shapes waited patiently in the shadows. More squat humanoids stood nearby, accompanied by two of their taller auburn-headed companions who looked almost human but never said a word. The alien greys Ravana could accept; the giant spiders were something else. The weavers were beasts of burden, harnessed by the greys to haul the pods to the crash site, tamed but otherwise no different to the monsters that had erupted like an invading army on human-populated worlds. As for the giant strange fruit, they had taken a month to harvest and install on the ship. The smaller, elongated plant sacs inside the cargo bay were apparently biological fuel pods, boosting the Platypus’ own hydrogen fuel cells. Those on the roof remained a mystery. Ravana had no choice but to trust their alien saviours. Nothing about their situation made sense.
“Hey, Gaffer,” called Ravana. She noted with annoyance that her grubby flight suit had gained a fresh tear. “Tell me again how these magic fruits of yours will lift the ship?”
“Traawk,” the grey squawked solemnly, voicing its thoughts in a restrained white-noise shriek. Translated images danced inside Ravana’s head. “Traawk traawk!”
“Of course I’m going to wait until Ostara is off the roof!” she retorted. “Do I look reckless? I didn’t crash the ship on purpose, you know.”
The figure gave her a withering stare. Ravana caught her own reflection in its dark, almond-shaped eyes. She had grown up with stories of the greys of Epsilon Eridani; humanoid aliens with inverted triangular heads, scaly skin and six-fingered hands, haunting the forests of her home moon of Yuanshi. She had been just six Terran years old when she first saw one with her own eyes, a creature wrapped in blood-soaked rags, hiding and trembling in fear inside a vine-shrouded hollow near the wreckage of a spacecraft. Now she was here, lost in far bigger cave at the edge of the aliens’ own strange world, relying on a grey they called Gaffer, a clutch of other beings and two tame weavers to salvage her own crashed ship. Within Gaffer’s gaze, the reflection of her dark-haired half-Indian, half-Australian features looked too haggard for someone a few months short of her eighteenth birthday. The grey skin of her old scars taunted her. She was the alien here.
Ahead of the grounded Platypus, the cave opened into space. Millions of kilometres away, a blazing orange star shone upon their new strange world. Outside, gigantic crooked limbs reached into the void, massive trunks and boughs adorned with huge ovals of green, all wrapped in mist. Incredibly, it was a tree in space, a living organism hundreds of kilometres wide. The cavern was a broken hollow spur, half a kilometre wide with rippling inner walls of thick, interwoven green and brown vines which were warm to the touch.
Near the mouth of the cave, sweet-smelling flowers of white, yellow and pink added a splash of colour, nurtured by colourful yet bizarre multi-winged insects drifting lazily amidst the blooms. A gentle breeze wafted from the seemingly endless tunnel leading back into the dark heart of the strange world. Photosynthesis brought breathable air and there was gravity around half that of Earth’s, allowing them to breath and move normally outside the ship. Ravana was convinced the living structure had been engineered, a creation of advanced alien science able to manipulate biology the way humans shaped steel.
At the stern of the Platypus, Ostara slipped down a rope and dropped to the ground, raising another groan from the ship. A slim Chinese woman in her twenties, she was Ravana’s oldest and dearest friend. Ostara’s habitual chirpiness had been severely knocked by the crash but over the last few days a twinkle had returned to her eyes.
Trailing her was another grey, who in turn was being shadowed by the mistrustful Smiler, a cyberclone sabre-toothed tiger with steel tusk-like canines, dented body panels and an AI personality of an arrogant sports coach. The fearsome robot had become part of their entourage during their previous adventure on Avalon.
“Flying fruit!” declared Ostara, as she approached. “How on Frigg are those pods supposed to lift the Platypus off the ledge?”
“Because they’re magic alien fruits,” said Ravana, trying to keep her own doubts from her voice. “Did you see how the greys make them move with just a touch? Biological quantum trickery, maybe. We’ll be using the ship’s manoeuvring thrusters too.”
“Traawk traawk,” agreed the grey. “Traawk traawk.”
“See? Gaffer agrees,” said Ravana. “Have you seen Artorius?”
“He’s with his alien buddies up on the ledge,” replied Ostara, irritably batting away a weird flying insect. “Probably telling them how he next plans to drop us all in trouble. It’s creepy the way you and he know what the greys are saying. Smiler and I feel a bit left out.”
“I do not process emotion,” interjected the robot. The cyberclone’s cheery yet condescending male tones were irritating at the best of times. “Nor have I been programmed to attempt communication with those creatures.”
Ravana grinned. She raised her gaze to the cavern wall, where a broad natural shelf overlooked the ship. A young blond boy in dirty overalls sat with a group of greys. She and nine-year-old Artorius had brain implants, devices designed to control compatible technology using thought alone. Whilst held prisoner of the grey-worshipping Dhusarian Church, Artorius had been coerced into helping develop a translator application for the aliens’ white-noise shrieks, which used an implant’s built-in communicator to project images into a user’s mind’s eye. The greys, on the other hand, appeared to have no problems understanding English. Ravana turned to Gaffer, the friendly grey who had arrived to help them after they dared to emerge from the downed Platypus and breath the alien air.
“Ready to give it a try?” she asked hesitantly.
“Traawk,” shrieked the grey. “Traawk.”
“Ostara, you’d better make yourself scarce,” said Ravana, glancing to her friend. “Smiler, you too. You know, just in case the ship explodes or topples off the edge.”
Ostara grimaced. “Good luck.”
Ravana managed a wry grin. With Gaffer beside her, she strode up the ramp back into the ship, feigning a confidence that did not match a head full of doubts.
* * *
Ravana dropped into the pilot’s chair and ran her fingers across the controls. In her mind, she mentally prodded a purple icon of a duck-billed Platypus, her implant’s link to the ship’s AI. Hums and clicks filled the flight deck as systems came to life. The floor quivered beneath her seat, reminding her of the ship’s predicament. More repairs were needed before they had any chance of departing but little could be done until the Platypus was safe.
“Ship?” she called, as Gaffer joined her. “How are pre-launch checks going?”
“Captain Ravana, the main reactor has exhausted fuel reserves,” reported the AI in smooth female tones. “All systems running on auxiliary power only. Extra-dimensional and main plasma drives are not available. There is a hole in my heart where my beloved offered his soul which alas cannot be healed. The ship remains unstable and urgent remedial action is required. Recommendation is for crew to evacuate and…”
“Yeah, I know that bit,” interrupted Ravana. “We’re going to try and lift the ship. Prepare for a zero-gravity vertical ascent, manoeuvring thrusters only.”
“Traawk,” screeched the grey. “Traawk traawk?”
“The Platypus fell in love with another ship called the Woomerberg,” Ravana said archly. “We had quite an emotional time on Avalon. Ship, are you ready?”
“Captain Ravana, sensors do not detect a microgravity environment.”
“Just do it!” she snapped. “Gaffer here has a plan.”
The grey reached for the co-pilot’s console and began tapping the controls in a six-fingered blur. Startled, Ravana stopped what she was doing.
“Hey, Gaffer! What are you doing to my ship?”
“Traawk traawk?”
“Okay, my father’s ship,” she conceded. “The question still stands!”
“Manoeuvring thrusters primed,” said the AI, sounding miffed. “On your head be it.”
“Traawk,” shrieked the grey. “Traawk traawk traawk!”
Ravana watched as Gaffer placed both hands on an exposed strip of hull, one either side of where Artorius had stuck the alien orb stolen from Fort Smith. The glistening apple-sized navigation device, a gift from a grey called Nana to Ravana seemingly a lifetime ago, still glowed but only dimly and the dark pin-pricks within had not moved. Gaffer’s eyes closed as if in concentration. Ravana heard a metallic groan, then loud creaks from the netting tied to the roof. The nose of the Platypus began to rise.
“What the hell…?” she murmured.
More groans reverberated through the ship. Ravana stared through the flight-deck windows in amazement. Somehow, the nose of the freighter was rising. A flex of her mental link with the ship brought up an exterior view on a console holovid, looking rearwards along the hull from the bow. The green pods, straining skywards beneath the netting, pulsated with a vivid green glow. The whole ship was lifting away from the edge of the abyss. For the first time in weeks, the Platypus was airborne.
“How are you doing that?” gasped Ravana. The flight systems showed none of the freighter’s jets were firing. “It’s impossible!”
“Traawk traawk,” murmured the grey, eyes still tightly closed.
“The tree fruit?” she asked, disbelievingly. “They produce thrust? But how?”
“Traawk!” hissed the grey. “Traawk!”
Ravana nodded and hurriedly reached for the controls. A short pulse from manoeuvring thrusters sent the Platypus gliding smoothly backwards. She breathed a sigh of relief as the edge of the cavern mouth slipped into view beyond the windscreen, then the deep gouge where the freighter had come to ground. Ostara, Artorius and the aliens were watching a safe distance away. A second thruster blast brought the ship to a hovering halt.
“Ship?” called Ravana. “Are we clear to deploy the landing gear?”
“We are being held stationary at an altitude of eight point five metres,” the ship replied with a note of bewilderment. “I am unable to detect why we are not falling.”
“Traawk,” grunted Gaffer, with eyes still closed. Beads of sweat were gathering on the grey’s brow. “Traawk traawk traawk.”
Pictures flickered in her mind’s eye; a hollow plant sac filled with vibrating filaments rightly too small to see. It was a concept Ravana dimly recognised from engineering studies but to her knowledge never developed for real. The harvested pods were biological vacuum chambers, laced with vibrating nanoscopic hairs that miraculously conjured short-lived elementary particles from the raw quantum soup, enough to generate usable momentum. The Platypus was being lifted by organic engines, drawing power from the cells in the cargo bay but needing no propellent. The fruit pods grew along every trunk and branch of the strange tree in space. The alien beings who created this world had given it a means to fly.
“This place gets freakier by the day,” she murmured. Pressing a switch, she heard a reassuring clunk as the undercarriage deployed. “Gaffer, you’ve done a grand job.”
“Traawk,” squawked the grey, sounding relieved.
The Platypus began to descend. With a barrage of familiar groans from the landing gear, the ship settled to the ground. Gaffer let go of the hull and sank back in the co-pilot’s seat, looking drained. On the camera display, the glow of the pods faded.
“Well, we may be lost and far from home, but we’ve saved the ship from falling off the end of the world,” remarked Ravana, relieved. “Gaffer, fancy a cup of tea?”
* * *
The Platypus had entered the strange cavern not from space, but from within. Though hard to comprehend, the giant tree was a living extra-dimensional construct: a sprawl of hollow passages linked to portals on faraway worlds, engineered on a truly colossal scale by beings that were to humanity like people were to frogs. All Ravana knew for sure was that they had fallen through a portal on the moon of Avalon in Alpha Centauri, been somehow swept to a strange hollow world in the outer Solar System beyond Neptune, then in a botched attempt to escape had ended up here. She was still not sure where here was.
Three days slipped by, lost in a blur of activity as they got to work fixing the damage sustained in the crash. Ravana had no plan other than to ready the Platypus for an exploratory jaunt into space. Ostara helped where she could but had no technical knowledge whatsoever. Smiler however proved surprisingly adaptable, boasting paws with opposable thumbs which could manipulate tools as well as any human, along with a wide range of diagnostic software the cyberclone’s previous owner had loaded into memory. Ravana just wished there was some way of switching off the robot’s propensity for disparaging remarks.
Artorius, the fourth member of their crew, put in no effort at all. Instead he spent his days exploring the cave, obsessed with the alien greys. They had appeared in their dozens when the Platypus first arrived, along with the taller auburn-headed humanoids and others who looked neither one nor the other. They departed soon after, then Gaffer and three other greys arrived, riding two of the enormous freaky spiders which still gave Ravana nightmares. To her delight, the aliens had come to offer help.
The greys disappeared each evening back into the darkness of the tunnel behind the ship. The crew of the Platypus had until now camped on the moss-covered cave floor, where Ostara had fashioned a crude tent from cargo crates and canvas to ward off the alien insects. The flying bugs did not bite, but being buzzed by what looked like a silvery blue dragonfly the size of a rat was not conducive to a good night’s rest. Now the Platypus was safe, they had dismantled their camp and reloaded their supplies aboard the freighter. Ravana was looking forward to a good hot meal from the ship’s food molecularisor and being able to sleep aboard without fear of toppling to their doom.
The sun had slipped from view, leaving the black velvet night to the twin tiny purple discs of its mysterious companions and a scattering of stars. Ravana had spent the day inside dusty maintenance hatches, tracing faults and repairing a power conduit which had shorted against the chassis and blown the main fuses. Ostara was laying out a meal on a blanket upon the cargo bay ramp. Smiler sauntered back from the solar panels, newly recharged. The smell of freshly cooked food soon brought Artorius trotting back to the Platypus.
“Hello stranger,” Ravana said coolly. “Any chance of helping with repairs?”
“My hand hurts,” the boy replied sulkily, snatching the plate of synthesised chicken offered by Ostara. A sadistic nurse once broke his finger, which he used as an excuse to avoid work. “This place is stupid. I wanted to go with the greys in the asteroid.”
“The Robert Goddard?” remarked Ravana. He spoke of an Earth colony ship, missing for more than a century, which they had seen inside the same extra-dimensional maze that ensnared their own ship. “That’s where Taranis went! His people locked you up on Falsafah and were hunting for you in Fort Smith. That’s not very friendly.”
“My friends are the greys,” he grumbled. “I hate you!”
“Artorius!” snapped Ostara. She scowled as a green winged insect the size of her fist buzzed past her ear, making her jump. “Don’t talk to Ravana like that!”
“I hate you all,” Artorius said irritably. “Except Smiler. Robot tigers are cool.”
“You are a rude little boy,” remarked the cyberclone. “The compliment is noted.”
Ravana sighed. “Artorius, we’re having a chat shortly about what to do next. One of your alien friends is coming,” she added, when her words failed to elicit a response. “Please don’t go wandering off.”
Artorius stuck out his tongue, grabbed a bowl of reconstituted potato chips and stomped down the cargo bay ramp. Ravana watched him skulk away across the cavern to Gaffer and the other greys. One of the aliens had climbed onto a weaver’s back and was riding away into the depths of the cave.
“It’s all his fault,” Ostara reassured her, offering a consolatory smile. “We wouldn’t have been in Alpha Centauri at all if Artorius hadn’t needed rescuing again. And it was him who used that alien gizmo to suck us into the portal. We should have left Commander Kedesh to do her damn mission alone.”
“They probably think we’re dead,” Ravana said mournfully, thinking of her father and Endymion, the boy who had wormed his way into her affections. Her hand went to the slim data rod hanging from a silver chain around her neck, his gift to her. “We left them behind on Avalon surrounded by weavers. I hope they got away okay.”
“We’ll see them again, don’t worry,” said Ostara. “And you need to eat something.”
“Give me five minutes. I need to ask the ship something first.”
Ignoring Ostara’s mystified stare, Ravana returned inside the ship and made her way through the crawl tunnel to the flight deck. The ship’s AI had lost its database connection in the crash, which today she had finally repaired. To her annoyance and relief, it was just a plug which had jolted loose, having not been properly secured by the apprentices who serviced the ship in Alpha Centauri.
Ravana ran her hands affectionately along the curving console before the pilot’s and co-pilot’s seat. Aside from restarting the fusion reactor at the heart of the extra-dimensional drive, repairs were complete. The reactor had exhausted its fuel of helium-three, leaving them with no way of making interstellar jumps. Unfortunately, the ED drive also served to link the ship’s transceiver to the five-systems servermoon network, which meant that even if within range they had no way of calling home. Furthermore, the reactor powered the interplanetary plasma drive and recharged the fuel cells, though the ship’s hull was able to absorb sunlight like the solar panels. Nevertheless, Gaffer’s demonstration of what alien technology could do had raised Ravana’s spirits. She was not ready to give up just yet.
“Ship?” she called, taking her seat. “Your database should be online. Please confirm.”
“Captain Ravana, my memory is restored,” confirmed the AI. “The void grows where my darling was torn away. I yearn for the day we are reunited. How may I assist today?”
“Now you’ve got your navigation charts back, I need you to work out where we are,” said Ravana. “Check for radio signals, navigation beacons, anything. Especially the one we dropped after coming through the portal from Avalon. If there’s nothing, scan for pulsars and triangulate our position, like you did before. Can you do that?”
“A pleasure to be of service,” purred the AI. “Running wide-spectrum scans now.”
“Much appreciated.” Ravana rose from her seat, then paused. “Ship?”
“Yes, Captain Ravana?”
“Can you feel those, err… things on the roof?” she asked. “The alien tree fruits?”
“As you are aware, the biological core of my AI unit merged with my hull,” replied the ship. “I have detected the presence of the artefacts you refer to. The non-human you call Gaffer used my biological matrix to activate the behaviour witnessed. I have a full recording of sensor readings should you require further analysis.”
“Could you replicate it?” she asked hesitantly. “Control the pods yourself?”
“I can synthesise the same signals, yes. It would require some experimentation.”
“Good to know. Let me know when you have our location.”
Beyond the flight-deck windows, Ostara was anxiously swatting away a huge flying insect keen to investigate their picnic. Deep in thought, Ravana returned to the cargo bay. She did not need the AI’s findings to know they were a long way from home. At this point in the late twenty-third century, humans had colonised worlds in Alpha Centauri, Barnard’s Star, Epsilon Eridani, Tau Ceti and across their home Solar System. Nowhere in the five systems had a sun with two brown dwarf companions like those shining upon the cave.
* * *
[End of excerpt from the novel HOLLOW WORLDS.]
Dyson trees, biological skyships, space dreadnoughts, alien greys: the five systems are not big enough to contain the action! Scheming alien watchers are preparing the last roll of dice to seal humankind’s fate. Marooned in an extra-dimensional labyrinth, can Ravana and crew find their way home in time to save the day?
