“Gosh,” murmured Bellona. “That was amazing! What were you playing?”
Zotz blinked. “Alpha Centauri,” he said. Leaving the theremin to drift, he pressed the touch screen on his wristpad and called up the message Ravana had sent him, back at the hollow moon. “The list I have is Jupiter, Woden Waltz, Aram Sunrise, Shennong and Alpha Centauri theme. I wasn’t sure about the last one so I looked it up on the net.”
“It should be Theme from Gods of Avalon by Sellman,” replied Miss Clymene. “Other than what’s written for holovid shows, there’s precious little symphonic music coming out of the Alpha Centauri system. The rest of the list should be Shennong by Bantoff, Jupiter by Holst, Woden Waltz by Scott and Aram Sunrise by Toitovna; something for each of the five systems. What you were playing was interesting but did not sound like any of those!”
Zotz looked hurt. “It’s called Alpha Centauri,” he insisted. “I found a twentieth-century recording by a band called Tangerine Dream. I must have listened to the wrong thing.”
“Sorry,” said Ravana. “I should have made it clearer in my message.”
“I actually prefer what you were playing,” remarked Bellona. “The Gods of Avalon theme is, well… a bit rubbish.”
“It is not!” retorted Philyra.
“Actually, I agree with Bellona,” said Miss Clymene. “I never really liked it.”
“Could we play Zotz’s song instead?” asked Endymion. “The sound from his theremin thing is so cool. The Bradbury Heights band has got nothing like it, I’m sure!”
Miss Clymene looked thoughtful. Ravana had heard the Newbrum students complain countless times that they had little chance of winning the competition, but recognised the spark of optimism in the tutor’s smile and an eagerness to try anything to give them an edge. The sound Zotz had brought to the band was certainly different.
“Why not,” Miss Clymene declared. “Let’s see if we can wipe the smug smiles from their faces!”
“Oh my!” murmured Ravana. She had no idea school bands were this competitive.
Time went by and the Platypus crept ever closer to Shennong and its moons. There were only four bunks in the carousel so passengers and crew slept in shifts, with Quirinus, Ravana and Ostara taking it in turns to keep an eye on things on the flight deck. The band managed two long rehearsals, both of which went a lot better than anyone expected, leaving Miss Clymene very pleased with her newly-expanded ensemble. Ravana was a capable musician who as long as she had the music before her could play almost anything. Zotz’s inspired work on the theremin was the icing on the cake.
During a lull when Quirinus and Ostara were alone on the flight deck and Zotz, Endymion, Bellona and Philyra were asleep in the carousel’s curtained bunks, Ravana found herself sharing the nearby couch with Fenris, Miss Clymene and Surya’s cyberclone, which since it had been activated never let Fenris out of its sight. Fenris sat at the far end of the couch, quietly reading a paper-leafed book with a worn grey cover. In an age where wristpads and other devices provided instant access to a vast library of literature, digitally archived on every servermoon across the five systems, old-fashioned tomes of bound paper were incredibly rare. Ravana realised she had seen this particular book before.
“The Isa-Sastra,” commented Miss Clymene, reading the name on the cover. Ravana could tell she too was intrigued. “That sounds very mysterious!”
Much to Ravana’s surprise, Fenris did not mind being interrupted.
“These are the sacred writings of the supreme,” he told her. He placed a silver ribbon across the page and closed the book. “The holy texts of the Dhusarian Church.”
“The Book of the Greys!” remarked Miss Clymene.
“Please do not refer to it as such,” replied Fenris, looking pained.
“You’ve heard of it?” Ravana asked Miss Clymene.
Miss Clymene nodded. “I know one or two people who go to the Dhusarian Church in Newbrum,” she told her. “They believe in alien gods, or something crazy along those lines.”
Fenris was trying hard to maintain his composure. “It is not quite like that.”
“We could ask the plastic prince what he thinks,” Miss Clymene suggested.
Surya’s cyberclone looked at her. “I am not permitted to talk of religion or politics.”
“Very wise,” said Miss Clymene. “So Fenris, what’s it all about?”
“The greys?” asked Ravana.
“An ancient race, far older than mankind,” Fenris said slowly, acknowledging both Ravana’s genuine interest and the obvious derision in Miss Clymene’s words. “Interstellar travellers, bringing wisdom wherever it was needed. Some say they had a home in Epsilon Eridani, others that they were once regular visitors to Earth itself. They are beings of infinite insight who have learned to live in harmony with the universe. It is these noble creatures, the greys as we call them, who will one day show us our future.”
“Our future?” asked Ravana.
“For all our wondrous technology, mankind still clings to his barbaric ancestry,” Fenris told her. “The greys have shown us there is another way. The Isa-Sastra is a gift to mankind, given to the first prophet Betty Hill over three hundred years ago and which fate has now placed in the hands of our High Priest Taranis.”
Ravana smiled. “Betty is a funny name for a prophet.”
“History is full of people with strange names,” mused Miss Clymene.
“Legend says Betty hid the book, for she knew the time to reveal its teachings was not yet right,” continued Fenris. “It remained lost for many generations, until fortune brought it to Taranis, who deciphered the wisdom within the ancient script.”
Miss Clymene looked thoughtful. “So it was Taranis who wrote your holy book?”
“He merely translated the original texts. The teachings are those of the greys.”
“Aliens indeed! Has anyone else ever looked at Betty’s book?”
“They are sacred writings!” Fenris retorted. “They are not for mortal eyes.”
Miss Clymene smiled, her suspicious nature sensing a scam. Ravana however was fascinated, for although she knew many people within the hollow moon who were religious, the Dhusarian Church was not one she was familiar with. It was the concept of mysterious alien beings, the benevolent greys, that captivated her most. For the first time in years she found herself thinking of a strange memory from her childhood, an incident that perhaps now seemed a little more real.
“My dear Ravana,” Fenris said, addressing her softly. “Would you care to know more about the Dhusarian Church?”
“Maybe later,” Ravana murmured.
In her mind she was once again six years old, out exploring the woodland near Lanka on Yuanshi. It was a memory that would stay with her forever; the vines across the entrance to the cave, the discarded and crumpled spacesuit, the smell of burnt flesh in the air. Most of all she remembered the bundle of blood-soaked rags that had suddenly become the frightened stare of a strange grey creature she had found bleeding, dying and hiding in fear from her, a small girl who had accidentally stumbled across a broken traveller far from home.