In the floor a few steps away was an open trapdoor with an airlock control panel above. Curious, he looked down and saw it led into a narrow chamber with a ladder fixed to the wall, descending to the Astromole docked in the cradle below. The open hatch of the digging machine was illuminated from within and Endymion was just on the point of climbing down to have a look when he heard Bellona calling his name.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, sticking his head through the hatchway.
“We should go!” shouted Bellona.
With a shrug of assent, Endymion stepped out of the hatch, put a foot upon the top rung of the ladder and paused. Away from the Nellie Chapman, on the far side of the clearing, he could see a second area of scorched soil, complete with a distinctive set of marks that he instantly recognised as those left by the landing gear of another and much larger spacecraft.
“Another ship?” he murmured to himself. “Very strange.”
“Endymion!” Bellona called again.
He took a couple steps down the ladder, then glanced back through the hatch, reluctant to leave. It was then his eyes fell upon a small orange cylinder, about as thick as his arm, hidden beneath the console. In the centre was a small digital display and he watched as the number upon it counted down second by second.
“Ten, nine,” murmured Endymion. “Eight, seven…”
His hands and feet were scrambling down the rungs long before his brain had decided what it was he actually saw. By the time he slid down the final metres of the ladder, his panic was in full swing and he hit the ground like a coiled spring.
“Quick!” he yelled to Bellona and Philyra, sprinting towards them. “Run!”
Seeing the girls hesitate, he grabbed their hands and pulled them after him, leaping across the uneven ground as fast as his legs could carry him. Ignoring their screams of protest, he dragged them back to the jungle path and pulled them down into the undergrowth.
“Get off me!” Philyra shrieked.
“What the hell are you doing?” cried Bellona.
“Keep your heads down!” Endymion yelled.
Seven seconds after his hasty exit through the hatch, there was a sudden deafening bang. A huge explosion ripped through the spacecraft, tearing it apart and sending the upper part of the hull careering into the air. Moments later, fiery debris began to rain down, setting fire to the surrounding undergrowth and the tops of nearby trees. Endymion, Bellona and Philyra cautiously raised their heads and looked towards the smouldering remains of the spacecraft. The Nellie Chapman was no more.
“Wow,” murmured Philyra, then gulped. A broken landing strut was embedded in the ground barely a metre from where she lay.
Despite everything, Endymion grinned. Bellona gave him a shove.
“Philyra did tell you not to press any buttons,” she retorted.
Incredibly, the sound of a spacecraft exploding a kilometre away failed to wake Miss Clymene, who when they returned to camp was still asleep and safely tucked up inside the darkened dome. Bellona and Philyra were terrified of what she might do should she wake and learn of their impromptu jungle trek and so quietly followed suit. Endymion stayed awake a little longer, calmly munching upon the zero-gravity rations he had found aboard the Nellie Chapman as he tried to make sense of the data obtained from the ship’s computer. The mining ship’s last flight remained a puzzle; before it returned to Ascension, the vessel had ventured into deep space, far away from the asteroid belt and nowhere near any of the other major planets of the Barnard’s Star system.
It was a mystery that would have to wait. The scientists at the research station were exobiologists, not astrophysicists and their limited network did not hold the information he sought. Admitting defeat, Endymion eventually joined the others in sleep.
Chapter Three
Newbrum Spaceport
MAHARANI UMA did not repeat her visit to Dockside but her plea for help struck a chord. The Dandridge Cole’s sensor arrays had tracked the kidnappers’ spacecraft to Ascension, yet nearly two days had passed since Raja Surya’s disappearance and discrete enquiries to Newbrum and the black-market haven of Lan-Tlanto had so far drawn a blank. Fenris had been back to Dockside several times since the Maharani’s visit and now approached Quirinus and Ravana, who were in one of the hangar workshops getting ready to refit an auxiliary life-support module removed from the Platypus for repair.
“Can you smell something?” Quirinus asked Ravana. “Oh look, it’s Fenris.”
Ravana giggled. Her father had confided to her that although he was happy to help the Maharani and speak to his contacts on Ascension, he had no intention of being nice to Fenris.
“The Maharani wishes for you to take me to Newbrum,” Fenris said urgently, looking flustered. “She is keen for me to speak directly with Administrator Verdandi. Are the repairs to your ship complete?”
“The Platypus is available for hire, if that’s what you mean,” Quirinus told him. “I hope you’ve got deep pockets. I don’t go to Newbrum without a very good reason.”
“Ever the mercenary,” Fenris murmured. “Money is no object, as you know.”
“In that case, you’ve got yourself a ship!” said Quirinus. “We’ll be ready to depart in an hour or so. Ravana, do you fancy a trip to Ascension?”
Ravana nodded and grinned. “Do I get to be co-pilot again?”
She watched as Fenris stomped away to find somewhere quiet to sulk. She got the impression he was not so keen on taking the trip and could not help wondering why.
Bellona unzipped the door of the darkened dome and gazed out at another dim red day. High above the Eden Ravines, the sun had started to edge towards the eastern horizon but otherwise had barely moved at all. Behind her, she could hear two totally different musical alarms clashing dissonantly as Endymion’s and Philyra’s wristpads tried their best to rouse their owners from dreams made strange by the jungle’s alien murmurs.
Miss Clymene acted cordially enough at breakfast, but there was a certain coolness to her manner that suggested she was not entirely unaware of her students’ jungle adventure. Endymion, Bellona and Philyra had not stopped to talk on their hurried trek back through the alien forest and the girls were still waiting for an opportunity to ask Endymion about what he had seen inside the abandoned mining ship.
Upon their return to the research station, Miss Clymene was informed that her friend had been called away on urgent business. The scientist she spoke to was reluctant to elaborate but eventually revealed that there had been a security alert and research station staff had been told to suspend all duties pending the arrival of a government official from Newbrum. Miss Clymene made some comment about the wheels of bureaucracy moving notoriously slowly on Ascension and so it was that she decided to call it a day.
A few hours later they were back at the skybus station, waiting for the next flight back to Newbrum. Philyra was once again glued to her wristpad and periodically issued gasps of delight or groans of derision as she caught up on the missed hours of holovid celebrity news and the latest happenings in Gods of Avalon. Endymion, never a great conversationalist at the best of times, was immersed in his own device as he returned to the mystery of the last flight of the Nellie Chapman. Bored, Bellona turned to her own wristpad and upon reconnecting to the net she sighed, finding she had a paltry two messages waiting. One was from her mother asking her to make sure Endymion behaved himself. The other was a rude message from Maia, a girl who played clarinet in the Bradbury Heights band, complete with a short holovid of her and her fellow band members mocking their Newbrum rivals.