“Nowhere to run?” she muttered. Their escape had been remarkably easy to far. She hit the start switch. “We’ll see about that.”
The hydrogen-powered engine roared into life, louder than she expected. Seconds later, alarms began to ring and the dome lit up with flashing red warning lights. Artorius and the greys quickly added to the confusion with a barrage of mutterings and nervous screeches. With a hand on the steering wheel, Ravana shoved the gear level into ‘drive’.
The transport shuddered into motion towards the closed door of the dome airlock. She looked for a remote airlock control on the console before her, then in desperation closed her eyes, brought up the implant images in her mind and gave a panicky mental stab at the one that seemed most likely. To her relief, the airlock door ahead began to slide open.
The transport trundled into the chamber. Automatic sensors got to work to seal the door behind them, ready to let them loose onto whatever lay beyond. Ravana found the control for the rear-view camera and caught a glimpse of two figures running from the fake hospice towards them before the airlock door sealed them from sight. There was a metallic clang as the door in front began to slide open. A sudden shaft of daylight broke through and Ravana raised a hand to shield her eyes.
“Wow!” exclaimed Artorius. “A proper alien planet!”
The door revealed a bleak desert landscape against an arid pink sky. Ahead, a black gravel road ran to the horizon across a sea of red dunes. Ravana saw straight away that the bright yellow sun was not the distant light that Epsilon Eridani was to Daode, nor was it the bloated red disc that was Barnard’s Star from Ascension. Now she remembered everything.
“Falsafah,” said Ravana. “It looks like I never left Tau Ceti after all.”
Chapter Two
Down and out in Newbrum
ADMINISTRATOR VERDANDI sat back in her chair and frowned. She had long ago learned that the art of delegation was a delicate balancing game; it was all about giving subordinates just enough power to keep things running smoothly, but not enough to totally screw things up. It was a philosophy that had served the domed settlement of Newbrum well for many years, not to mention one that had made her the longest-serving city Administrator ever on Ascension and favoured candidate to fill the vacant post of planet-wide Governor come the elections next year. Her tall, imposing presence was often all that was needed to spur others to get on with the job, for the brisk mind beneath her tightly-secured blond hair was perfectly encapsulated by her equally sharp suit and boots. The thud of the latter could make any of her staff cut short their lunch break.
Nevertheless, the arrival of the refugees from the asteroid colony ship Dandridge Cole had proved testing. Every day there seemed to be yet another problem that demanded her personal attention. Verdandi was beginning to suspect that her staff had realised just how powerless they really were and were taking perverse pleasure in accepting the fact.
The man seated opposite cut a striking muscular figure with his bald head and bushy beard, but it was the tatty flight suit and patch over his left eye that held her attention. They were a reminder of why he was here in her office, very annoyed and presenting her with a demand that may as well have been a request for snow machines in hell.
“I’m sorry Quirinus,” Verdandi said. “I cannot change the rules just for you.”
“But it’s my livelihood!” Quirinus exclaimed, his Australian drawl somewhat lacking the finesse of Verdandi’s clipped English tones. “Take away my pilot’s licence and I have no way of earning a living. There’s enough of us without work as it is!”
“The eyesight test is strict for a reason,” she said sternly. “I will not have one-eyed pilots fly in and out of my spaceport! The Newbrum clinic is fully equipped to fit bionic devices, so it’s not as if you’re out of options.”
“None of us from the hollow moon have that sort of money. You know that.”
Verdandi gave a sympathetic nod and shifted her gaze to the window on her right. Her office was small and minimalist, decorated only by a portrait of Queen Victoria II on the wall behind her desk, but had a good view of the city centre oasis that was Circle Park. Of the four hundred refugees from the Dandridge Cole, barely half had found work in Newbrum and gained the housing rights that came with a job. The rest lived in temporary habitation modules on the edge of the park, much to the dismay of Newbrum’s other three thousand residents who were not impressed that the only bit of greenery within the city had become a shanty town, complete with a motley collection of dispossessed farm animals. Many refugees from the asteroid commune, having no concept of a credit-driven economy, were overwhelmed by how complicated day-to-day life was wherever money was involved, especially when they had none. Verdandi sighed and returned her attention to the matter in hand.
“You do not need to be a pilot to operate your own ship,” she pointed out. “Have you thought about hiring someone to fly that old freighter of yours for you?”
“I did hire a pilot, some idiot called Momus,” Quirinus told her. “He’s run me back and forth to the Dandridge Cole a few times but what he laughingly called his ship has been impounded for failing safety checks.”
“Oh, that Momus. What about your own ship?”
“The Platypus is stuck at the hollow moon, going nowhere fast. The repairs won’t be finished for a while yet. I need a licence to hire myself out and earn a few credits.”
“After what you did? Barely hours after being grounded, you’re up on Stellarbridge trying to make off with a fuel tanker!”
“It’s our tanker!” protested Quirinus. The hollow moon’s fuel supply ship Indra, which had been used as a makeshift lifeboat following the failure of the Dandridge Cole’s power systems, was incapable of atmospheric flight and had been parked in Ascension orbit ever since. “In my defence, the Indra’s flight systems are all automatic and don’t whinge like Momus. Anyway, it’s needed at the Dandridge Cole and the harbour master did say he wanted it out of the way.”
“I feel for you Quirinus, I really do,” she said, though there was a definite edge to her voice. The Commonwealth Space Station CSS Stellarbridge, in orbit around Ascension, only had a dozen or so docking gates and the Indra was blocking at least five. Verdandi had received a complaint that very morning from the harbour master about what this and the non-payment of fees was doing to business and was in no mood for compromise. “Maybe you should consider a career change until your daughter can help you with what you have grandly referred to as your interstellar courier business. I heard she’s settled into life on Newbrum better than most.”
“Ravana? She’s a bright kid,” Quirinus said fondly. “That unfortunate business in Epsilon Eridani was a blessing in disguise, for it meant there were people she knew at the academy. She’s away at the moment,” he added, with a tinge of regret. “She’s become obsessed with archaeology and managed to get a place on the excavation Bradbury Heights University are running in the Tau Ceti system.”
“So I heard.” Verdandi spoke with genuine interest. “Is it true they’re uncovering actual alien ruins on Falsafah? I’ve heard one of the Avalon holovid news shows is eager to do something on the Barnard’s Star connection.”