With Ganesa at the helm the Sun Wukong made a textbook landing and trundled to a halt at the end of the runway. A small aircar, a box-like craft with large windows and stubby wings, waited with its four turbines running ready for take-off. Hanuman and Ganesa were to stay behind on the ship and so it was left to Namtar and Inari to lead Surya out through the torrential rain towards the waiting vehicle.
Night was falling and the damp air was breathable but cold, made more so by the chill wind driving the storm. As Inari swung the aircar door shut behind them, a distant muffled explosion reached their ears and moments later Surya saw a faint glow of orange silhouetting a distant part of the city. He could already feel a headache coming on.
“Missile attacks,” Inari told him, scowling. “Que Qiao likes to keep us on our toes.”
Namtar nodded to the young woman sitting silently in the pilot’s seat at the front. With a deafening roar of turbines, the aircar soared into the sky and headed across the city. The roads below were deserted and as Surya gazed through the window he could see dark bomb craters and crumbling buildings everywhere, interspersed with occasional pockets of light from where even amidst the ruins life went on. Then they were past the battle zone and flying over an unruly conurbation of brightly-lit mansion blocks, squat factory units and high-rise offices intersected by streets bustling with traffic. The city lived behind a thick mass of buildings crowding against a huge circular wall, which itself was all that remained of the dome that once protected Lanka from the hostile environment of a pre-terraformed Yuanshi.
“Wow,” murmured Surya.
“The historic city of Lanka,” said Namtar, peering over the Raja’s shoulder. “The apron of the old dome has been built up and fortified, as you can see. The city wall is little defence against missile attacks, but Kartikeya believes it brings certain psychological benefits. It makes people feel more secure.”
“Who is Kartikeya?” asked Surya.
“Commander Kartikeya leads the fight against Que Qiao here on Yuanshi,” Namtar told him. “You have the honour of being his guest here in Lanka.”
“Is he winning the war?” asked Surya, still looking down at the city.
“Nobody wins wars,” Namtar opined. “Generals plan battles to be swift and decisive. When they are not, the aim is to end the conflict less defeated than your opponent.”
“He means no, we’re not winning,” retorted Inari.
The aircar started to descend towards a large square building, situated on the edge of a circular park that had once lain beneath the highest point of the old city dome. The park was bordered by a wide road and from this a number of broad boulevards stretched away to the city wall like the spokes of a wheel. As they approached, the building resolved into a mansion house topped by four domed towers, built from blocks of gold-tinted opaque glass in a style that reminded Surya of his mother’s palace of exile within the hollow moon.
The four main blocks of the mansion were built around a square courtyard, which was open to the elements. Guided by the ever-silent pilot, the aircar dropped out of the darkening sky and moments later touched down upon the small landing pad in the middle of the courtyard. The whine of the turbines wound down into silence, to be replaced by the splattering staccato of rain upon the aircar’s roof.
Reaching over, Namtar pushed open the door.
“Welcome to the Crystal Palace of Kubera,” he said to Surya. An attendant rushed across the courtyard towards them, holding a large umbrella. “Your destiny awaits.”
Raja Surya gazed around the room, impressed. The bedroom was enormous and luxuriously furnished with solid wooden furniture, wall tapestries and a carpet that caressed his bare feet and tickled his toes. The four-poster bed, adorned with dark curtains embroidered with intricate swirling patterns, was twice the size of anything he had slept in before. After the rain and the cold outside, the room was pleasantly warm and the lower gravity of Yuanshi compared to that of the hollow moon made him feel as light as a feather. His headache was worse than ever.
“This is my room?” he asked in disbelief. “It’s huge!”
The elderly Indian woman who stood beside him smiled. She was dressed in a traditional pale blue saree, which looked slightly incongruous alongside the touch-screen slate she held in her hand. She placed a reassuring hand upon his shoulder.
“Surya, you have said that in each of the rooms I have shown you,” she said lightly. “The entire suite is yours and the servants will tend to your needs. I have however taken the liberty of instructing the staff not to enter the master bedroom unless so ordered. Everyone deserves a little privacy now and again, whatever their place in the household.”
“Thank you, Yaksha,” murmured Surya, awestruck. Back at his mother’s palace, nowhere was safe from the prying eyes of Fenris, who professed to serve the Maharani first and foremost. Here in Lanka it was beginning to dawn upon him that Yaksha, the head of the household at the Palace of Kubera, was here to serve him. The thought filled his young mind with unexpected delight.
“I see the headaches have started,” said Yaksha. Surya winced again as the ache in his skull became insistent. “Your implant is awakening to the palace network and you may feel some discomfort for a while, but it will pass. You may find it useful to run the calibration programme on the holovid unit. In the meantime, I will leave you to rest.”
As she turned to depart, Namtar appeared at the doorway, looking unusually grumpy. The Sun Wukong had landed barely an hour ago, yet to his dismay Inari had already volunteered them both for a new assignment. Inari was the ideal recruit to the rebels’ cause, for he was easily talked into doing the most foolhardy missions, usually when Namtar was out of earshot. Namtar himself had a keen sense of self-preservation and to date had brought himself and Inari back from several escapades that had made a martyr of others.
“I have a message from Kartikeya to the young Raja,” he said, addressing Yaksha. “He would be greatly honoured if the Raja would consent to joining him and his guests at dinner this evening in the grand hall.”
“Still using ten words when one will do, my little Thesaurus Rex?” teased Yaksha.
“What time is dinner?” asked Surya, still musing over what Yaksha had said about an implant. Apart from an unsatisfying zero-gravity food pack given to him by Ganesa aboard the Sun Wukong he had not eaten since leaving the hollow moon. “Is it soon?”
“Eight o’clock, Raja,” replied Namtar. “It is half-past six now.”
“You will find a change of clothes in your room,” said Yaksha, addressing Surya. “Namtar or I will come and collect you before eight o’clock. In the meantime, I will arrange for some light refreshments to be brought to your study.”
“Thank you,” replied Surya, slightly bemused. Declining the invitation to dinner did not appear to be an option, but his rumbling stomach had already spoken for him.
Namtar replied with a curt nod and departed, followed shortly afterwards by Yaksha who closed the door quietly behind her. A hush descended upon the room, one broken only by the murmur of voices from the lower floors. Feeling a little at a loss, Surya sat down upon the edge of the bed, his mind whirling. His headache was subsiding and on reflection he should have guessed it was from his cranium implant, which his mother had explained was in his head for reasons he still did not fully understand.