JANET EDWARDS
Earth Flight

Dedication

To Sal

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

About the Author

Also by Janet Edwards

Copyright

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

This is the third book I’ve written. I wrote the first one for the norms, because I wanted to tell them what it’s like to be born Handicapped. How it feels to be among the despised one in a thousand with an immune system that keeps you trapped on Earth, while everyone else can portal casually between the twelve hundred worlds of humanity.

I wrote about what happened at the start of 2789. How I lied my way into a class of off-world pre-history students, who were on Earth for their compulsory year working in the ruins of the ancient cities. I convinced them I was a norm, fell in love, got caught up in the rescue of a crashed Military spacecraft during a solar super storm, and was awarded the Artemis medal.

I thought that was the end of my story, but then an alien probe was detected approaching Earth, and the Alien Contact programme was activated. Its commanding officer needed someone like me, someone who knew Earth and was Handicapped, and I was the only one he’d ever met. He called in me and my boyfriend to help, and we ended up being the ones who sent a signal to the probe to trigger its communication sequence. The Military kept a lot of the details about that secret, so I wrote a second book about it in the hope that one day some future historians would read it and learn the full truth.

Those first two books are locked away in a highly restricted section of Military records, and now I only have one day to write my third book. This is about what happened after we sent the signal to the alien probe, and it isn’t for the norms, or the historians, it’s for me.

If I’m reading this, then I’ve already read the first two books, so I know Fian is a totally zan person. He’ll tell me all about the things I didn’t have time to write, or was too embarrassed to put into words. I hope I like him again. I hope I love him again. I hope we are very happy together.

But mostly I hope I’m not reading this, because if I am then my memory and everything that made me a person is gone, and this me is dead.

1

According to Earth Rolling News, Jarra Tell Morrath’s favourite colour was green, she was a fan of the singer, Zen Arrath, and she was going to become a member of a Betan clan. My favourite colour was blue, and I didn’t think much of Zen Arrath’s legs, but they were right about the Betan clan.

‘Oh chaos!’

There was the sound of a yawn from where two single beds had been wedged together. ‘What is it this time?’ asked Fian. ‘Another interview with your ex?’

‘No, I told Cathan he wouldn’t just be my ex-boyfriend, but my dead ex-boyfriend, if he talked to the newzies again. Earth Rolling News has found out about me joining the Tell clan.’

The wall vid changed from showing a holo of me to showing one of Fian, and I shook my head. ‘I still can’t believe this. Only a few weeks ago, I could wake up in the morning and watch Earth Rolling News without seeing a single picture of either of us, but now …’

Fian sat up and brushed his long blond hair out of his eyes. ‘We’re famous now, Jarra. People on every world of humanity watched live vid coverage of us sending a signal to the alien probe in Earth orbit. Did you really think we could go back to join our pre-history class afterwards, and everyone would forget about us?’

‘I didn’t think we’d be going back to our pre-history class at all. I expected …’

I let my words trail off into a frustrated groan, remembering all the things I’d expected to happen. I’d thought everyone would be delighted Fian and I had sent the signal to the alien sphere. I’d assumed we’d stay with the Alien Contact programme, and be involved in all the exciting things they were doing.

I’d been a total idiot. Wherever I was, whatever I did, some people would never forget I was Handicapped. A week after we sent the signal, Joint Sector High Congress Committee ordered the Military to dump the throwback girl and her boyfriend.

‘Colonel Torrek is furious about the way we’ve been treated,’ said Fian. ‘He’s fighting to get us back in the Alien Contact programme.’

I’d been haunted by a secret fear for several days. I finally forced myself to put it into words. ‘Colonel Torrek may be able to get you back, but not me. If High Congress make the Military move the base for Alien Contact to another world, like Adonis or Academy, then …’

Fian looked startled. ‘That won’t happen, Jarra. The alien sphere is in Earth orbit, so moving the base to another star system would make no sense.’

‘It would make perfect sense to the prejudiced. They think the Handicapped are less evolved, subhuman, and hate the fact one of us helped send the signal to the alien sphere on behalf of humanity. They won’t be satisfied with just throwing me out of Alien Contact, they’ll want to get rid of the handful of other Handicapped who’ve been involved as well. Our faulty immune systems will kill us if we leave Earth, so they can neatly exclude all of us by moving Alien Contact to another planet.’

Fian shook his head. ‘Colonel Torrek said only a few members of Joint Sector High Congress Committee are prejudiced against the Handicapped. The rest of the committee would never agree to move the base.’

‘They agreed to order the two of us out of the Alien Contact programme, didn’t they?’

‘Yes, but there’s a huge difference between getting rid of two people, and moving the entire base. You don’t have to worry, Jarra. We just have to be patient and we’ll both rejoin Alien Contact.’

I sighed. I wasn’t a patient person, I hated waiting around in suspense like this, and all the newzie interest in us was making everyday life really difficult. It wasn’t just that Fian and I daren’t go out in public. We couldn’t even get mail messages from friends, because our mail addresses were swamped with millions of messages from reporters. Military Command Support had tried giving us several secret mail addresses, but the newzies had somehow found out all of them within hours, so now everything was blocked except official Military mail.

The image on the wall vid changed to show the alien probe in Earth orbit, its central grey sphere almost invisible behind the thousands of constantly changing, multi-coloured strands of its glorious light sculpture. Hundreds of experts were trying to translate those light strands into words. I wondered how they …

A dreadful thought hit me. I shook off the spell of the mesmerizing light sculpture, and turned off the wall vid. ‘Fian, you haven’t told your parents about me joining my clan yet. You have to call them at once, before they see the story on the newzies.’

‘I’m afraid it’s already too late for that,’ said Fian. ‘Earth Rolling News have obviously been talking about that story all night, so the Delta sector newzies must be showing it too. It’s morning here, but it’s late evening on the inhabited continent of Hercules, and my father always watches the evening news on Delta Sector Vision.’

‘I’m sorry.’

He shook his head. ‘It’s my own fault, Jarra. I should have told my parents weeks ago, but I kept delaying, waiting for a good moment. Stupid of me. There was never going to be a good moment to tell two prudish Deltans that their son’s girlfriend was joining a clan from Zeus, capital planet of sexually permissive Beta sector.’

He sounded surprisingly calm about it, but I still felt horribly guilty. Fian had worked so hard to get his parents to accept me despite my Handicap, and now I was causing yet more trouble by joining a Betan clan. Fian’s home planet, Hercules, was one of the strictest in conservative Delta sector. His parents were dubious about moral standards here on Earth, let alone those of notorious Beta sector.

‘Changing my mind about joining my clan would be awkward now it’s been reported on the newzies,’ I said, ‘but …’

‘I’m not letting you change your mind just because my parents won’t approve,’ said Fian. ‘You try and hide it, but I know you desperately want to have a family.’

I hated admitting it, even to myself, but that was perfectly true. I’d been portalled to Earth at birth to save my life, and my parents had handed me over to be raised as a ward of Hospital Earth. I’d grown up in their residences, hating the unknown parents who’d rejected me for being imperfect, but eventually I tried to contact them and was grazzed to find out they were Military. Moving to Earth would have meant abandoning their careers and wrecking the lives of my older brother and sister, so they had more excuse than most parents who abandoned their Handicapped babies, but …

Well, I still had a mess of conflicting powerful emotions about the parents who dumped me as a baby. The parents who I’d called months ago when I was on New York Dig Site and they were in far off Kappa sector. The parents who’d wanted to come to Earth to see me, but died before they could do it. I’d recorded my only call to them. One day, maybe, I’d be able to face replaying that conversation. One day, but not yet.

I thought I’d lost the chance of having a family forever when my parents died, but now their Betan clan was welcoming me as a member. I could never portal away from Earth, never visit the clan hall on Zeus, but I would still be part of one of the huge extended families of a Betan clan. I was staggeringly, unbelievably, bewilderingly lucky. Every kid in the residences run by Hospital Earth, whether they were in Nursery, Home or Next Step, dreamed of something amaz like this. It would have been incredibly hard to give up that dream, even for Fian.

‘I’d better call my parents now.’ Fian reached for his lookup.

By Deltan rules of behaviour, a couple of 18-year-olds on their second Twoing contract were barely allowed to hold hands, so Fian’s parents mustn’t see us together wearing only sleep suits. I pulled on a robe and headed for the door. ‘I’ll go and shower.’

Our pre-history class was spending the year excavating the ruins of the ancient cities of Earth, and staying in a series of basic dig site accommodation domes. That meant there were only three bathrooms for twenty-nine students, so I had to wait in a queue to shower. When I got back to our room, Fian was standing by the bed, his lookup discarded beside him. I didn’t like the grim expression on his face.

‘How bad was it?’ I asked.

‘Very bad.’ Fian hesitated for a moment before continuing. ‘My father ordered me to break our Twoing contract or he’ll disown me.’

I had a sick, nervous feeling in my stomach. ‘I could ask my clan to postpone the ceremony.’

‘He isn’t just angry about you joining the clan, Jarra,’ said Fian. ‘I’ve always been a bit … careful when talking to my parents about how we met. My parents thought I’d known you were Handicapped all along, but now my father’s somehow found out what really happened.’

I stared down at my hands for a moment. I’d done the unthinkable at the start of this year, pretended I was a norm and lied my way into a pre-history course run by University Asgard in Gamma sector, instead of joining a course run by University Earth. I still felt guilty about the lies and …

‘He’s found out we’re sharing a room as well,’ Fian continued.

‘Oh nuke!’

‘He said a scheming ape girl had seduced me into a Twoing contract, and ordered me to dump the throwback right away.’

I fought to stay calm despite the insults. ‘He was understandably angry when he said that.’

‘I told my father that you’d apologized for lying, and I’d chosen to forgive you. I told him I was a very badly-behaved Deltan, and sharing a room was my idea not yours. Then I told him I’d no intention of breaking our Twoing contract and he could nuke off! He ended the call then.’

Well of course he had. Fian’s father would never tolerate his son swearing at him. ‘Fian, I don’t want you falling out with your father because of me.’

‘It’s not just because of you; it’s because of a whole list of things.’ Fian’s face flushed with anger. ‘He spent years mocking me for wanting to study history instead of science, and saying what a disappointment I was compared to my brilliant older sister. His method of subtly breaking the news to my mother that he didn’t plan to renew their term marriage contract was to put their house up for sale. Then there was the way he reacted when he discovered an alien probe had arrived at Earth and I’d been drafted into the Military to help the Alien Contact programme.’

‘That was a bit …’

Fian didn’t give me the chance to finish my sentence. ‘I actually thought he’d be impressed by that. His son playing a leading role in the first contact between humanity and an alien civilization! My mother was proud of me, but my father just started ranting on about how I should have nothing to do with the Military because of some ancient family grudge.’

Fian had been on bad terms with his father for years. The big question was … ‘Did you talk to your mother too?’

Fian nodded. ‘My father had already called her and told her everything. She said I should ignore him because he’s too cold-blooded to understand people with real emotions. She said all that matters to her is that we’re happy together.’

I had a dizzy moment of relief. I should have guessed Fian’s mother would react that way. She wasn’t just a born romantic, but determined to take the opposite side to his father in every argument these days. Fian’s parents were at the end of one of the standard twenty-five year term marriages for people who planned to have children but didn’t want to sign up to an unlimited full marriage. Fian’s mother wanted to renew the term contract, his father didn’t, and the final weeks of the relationship were descending into open warfare.

Fian was deeply upset by his parents breaking up, and I’d no idea how to help him. I’d only ever had a ProMum and a ProDad, paid by Hospital Earth to spend two hours a week with each of their ten ProChildren, and that was nothing like having real full-time parents. Candace was a wonderful ProMum to me, but I had to make appointments to meet her, and I’d hardly seen my ProDad since our big fight when I was 12 years old.

I sighed. ‘When I first agreed to join my clan, I never thought anyone except the two of us would know or care about it.’

Fian hugged me. ‘We’re famous now, and that changes everything.’

2

By the time Fian and I arrived in the hall for breakfast, the rest of the class had already set out the flexiplas tables and chairs. The wall vid was on, showing Gamma Sector News since most of the class were from star systems in that sector. I recognized a horribly familiar vid sequence and groaned. With my worries about Fian’s parents, I’d forgotten today was 1 June, the anniversary of Earth Flight.

Every Wallam-Crane day, all the vid channels showed the footage of the first portal experiment. Every Flight day, they ran a sequence about the first manned interstellar flight by drop portal. Thankfully, we’d missed most of the incomprehensible scientific bit about how the transmitting portal does all the work, and the instant when the drop portal dust ring simultaneously exists at both transmission and reception point, stabilizing its own incoming signal.

‘… together with power issues mean this is limited to dust particles. When a link is established between two normal portals, it can be held open indefinitely, but a drop portal establishes for a maximum of 5.13 seconds before the ephemeral receiving dust ring dissipates,’ said the commentator.

Fian and I went to join the queue at the food dispensers and I frowned gloomily at the available menu. The panic over the alien probe had disrupted their regular service and restock, so we’d run out of most meal options. I settled for a glass of Fizzup, a plate of toasted wafers, and some reconstituted Karanth jelly. There was plenty of Karanth jelly left because of the rumour that eating it made your baby Handicapped.

No one understood what caused a baby to be Handicapped, so norms had a lot of these nardle superstitions about it. Researchers were always claiming to be on the verge of a major breakthrough, but they hadn’t achieved anything since they first established the basic facts of the triple ten. There is a one in ten risk of a baby being born Handicapped if both parents are Handicapped themselves. One in a hundred if one parent is Handicapped. One in a thousand if neither parent is.

Fian and I carried our trays across to sit with the other three members of class dig team 1 at our regular table. Krath greeted us with an exaggerated weary sigh.

‘It’s not fair making us work on a holiday. Playdon’s a slave driver.’

Lecturer Playdon turned his head to call across the room. ‘I’m a slave driver with perfectly good hearing, and Flight day isn’t a holiday on Earth.’

Krath gave an embarrassed groan and looked at me. ‘I thought Flight day was a holiday everywhere.’

Amalie leant across to hit him on the back of the head. Krath was one of the big group of students from Asgard, who’d chosen a course run by their home university, while Amalie was from a planet in frontier Epsilon sector. I wasn’t sure exactly what was going on between them. Krath was definitely chasing after Amalie, but she seemed more interested in teaching him common sense than having a romantic relationship with him.

Krath sighed. ‘What did I do wrong this time?’

‘Think about it, nardle brain,’ said Amalie. ‘Most of the population of Earth is Handicapped and can’t portal to other planets.’

‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘Wallam-Crane day is a holiday here, because he invented the portal and we can at least portal around Earth. We don’t really celebrate it though, because that was the first step towards interstellar portals a century later. Flight day was the start of Exodus century, everyone pouring off world to new planets and leaving Earth to fall apart, so we just try to ignore it.’

I glanced over my shoulder at the vid. The commentator was talking about the S.T.A.R. – Simultaneous Transmission And Reception – series of automated probes, while the screen was showing an image of a curiously shaped ship in Earth orbit.

Dalmora gave me a sympathetic look. She was the only Alphan in the class, the daughter of the famous Ventrak Rostha who made the History of Humanity vid series, and I’d resented her at first sight. With her waist-long black hair adorned with flickering lights, and her lovely dark face delicately highlighted with makeup, I’d expected her to be a selfish, spoilt aristocrat. Instead, I’d discovered she was one of the kindest, most compassionate people I’d ever met.

‘Would you like the vid turned off, Jarra?’ she asked.

I shook my head. ‘I’ve seen it dozens of times before so it doesn’t bother me.’

I munched on my toasted wafers, keeping my back to the wall vid, but of course I could still hear it. They’d finally got to the interesting bit, so the odious commentator stopped talking over the ancient soundtrack. The calm female voice of the mission controller was calling for final confirmations from the various teams. I knew every word of this by heart, and the sound of all the different voices as they spoke the archaic accented version of Language from almost half a millennium ago.

‘Countdown is holding at sixty seconds. Final checks. Drop portal focus?’

‘Drop portal focusing confirmed at 98.73 per cent of optimal.’

‘Telemetry?’

‘Telemetry is green.’

‘Power?’

‘Power is green.’

‘My board is showing clear greens,’ said the mission controller. ‘Mission Control to Earth Flight, are you ready for this?’

‘Earth Flight to Mission Control,’ responded Major Kerr. ‘I’ve been ready for this all my life. Let’s do it.’

‘Prepare to pick up countdown at sixty seconds and initiate power build on my mark,’ said the mission controller. ‘Mark!’

As the countdown started, I gave in and turned to watch the wall vid. The image on the screen showed the view through the front window of the Earth Flight ship, the blackness of space contrasting with the blue and white curve of Earth below.

‘Thirty-five. Committing to auto power spike sequence … Now!’ The mission controller’s voice and the background chatter stopped. They were on auto sequence now. Nothing could stop the power spike building and firing the primitive drop portal, so they could only count down the seconds and hope nothing went wrong. Of the thirty automated probes in the S.T.A.R. series, twenty-four had made it to their destinations, but six had exploded when the power spikes went unstable.

Everyone had stopped eating now, and was watching the wall vid in silence. There was something about this vid sequence that compelled you to watch it even though you already knew exactly what happened.

‘Five seconds,’ said the voice of the mission controller. ‘Four. Three. Earth Flight, take us to the stars!’

The image went totally black as the drop portal fired. There was an agonizing delay, with the sound of increasingly tense voices as Mission Control waited for contact from the tiny comms portal on board Earth Flight. Finally, there was a white flash that broke up into multi-coloured jagged lines. Those formed together for an instant, dissolved again into randomness, then stabilized.

It was a grainy picture now, from the days before they’d invented two-way comms portal twinning or message streaming. The scene it showed was almost identical to the earlier one, but the continents on the blue and white planet were a different shape.

‘Earth Flight to Mission Control,’ said the breathless voice of Major Kerr. ‘Drop portal from Earth successfully completed. The comms portal established after only three mill of fine-tuning. I hope you’re getting visual as well as audio feeds, because this is the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.’

There was an audible sigh from around the hall, as everyone released the breath they’d been holding, and the class started eating and talking again. The vid sequence still had a few minutes to run, but no one was interested in Major Kerr’s spacewalk to detach the portal sections attached to the outside of his ship and assemble them. No one cared about how that created the first standard portal link between Earth and another star system, or the other ships that portalled in through it. No one wanted to hear how Major Kerr’s first description of the new world led to it being named Adonis. They only cared about the symbolic moment when Earth Flight took humanity to the stars.

I bit my lip, remembering the Flight day when I was 4 years old. I’d sat on the floor with the other kids in Nursery, watched the vid coverage, and asked a nurse when I could portal to Adonis. She’d shaken her head and gently explained I couldn’t do that because I’d die. It had taken me a few minutes to understand what she was saying. I already knew the people I saw in the vids had families, while my friends and I didn’t. I couldn’t believe I’d been cheated out of the stars as well.

I could still feel my shocked outrage at the monstrous unfairness of it. A feeling that was repeated again and again as I grew older. When I was 5 years old, laughing at a joke on the vids about stupid, ugly apes, and an older kid slapped my face and told me to stop laughing because the joke was about people like us. When I was 7, and there was a lesson at school about how Earth was run by the off-worlders on the main board of Hospital Earth. Other people, real people, got to vote about how their own world was run, but the Handicapped had no say in what happened on Earth.

The final insult was when I was 9, and discovered Earth was physically in the centre of Alpha sector but not legally part of it. The off-worlders hadn’t just rejected me and everyone like me, they’d rejected Earth itself because we lived there!

Fian gave me a worried look. ‘Are you all right, Jarra?’

My psychologist at Next Step kept telling me it was pointless making myself unhappy by brooding over things I couldn’t change. I didn’t have much faith in psychologists, but he was probably right about that. I forced away the old bitterness. ‘I’m fine.’

The Earth Flight vid sequence ended. Krath went over to the wall vid just as a Gamma Sector News presenter started talking. ‘Now the news headlines for today. Major Jarra Tell Morrath is to join one of the Betan Military clans.’

The entire class stopped talking and stared at me as if I’d grown an extra head.

‘Talks between the two political factions on Hestia have failed to reach an agreement,’ continued the presenter. ‘The …’

Krath turned off the wall vid and gave me a grazzed look. ‘Jarra, that story’s a nardle mistake, isn’t it? You aren’t Betan.’

This was chaos embarrassing. Like most of the class, I’d grown up with prejudices about Beta sector. Only months ago, I’d been joining in their jokes about Betan sex vids, giggling at the scanty clothes Betans wore, and saying Beta sector couldn’t be trusted because it had been on the verge of war with the rest of humanity during its Second Roman Empire period.

Then I discovered I’d been born into a Betan clan, and they actually wanted contact with me. Anyone who’d grown up in Hospital Earth’s residences would understand exactly why I’d promptly rethought my attitudes, but I was in a class of norms. They wouldn’t know how rejected kids longed to have a family, and I didn’t want to explain that sort of private emotional stuff, so I kept my response simple and matter of fact.

‘It’s perfectly true. I was raised on Earth, but my birth family were Betan. You should have realized that. The newzies have been talking for weeks about me being descended from Tellon Blaze, and he was Betan.’

‘Tellon Blaze was Betan!’ Krath waved his hands in disbelief. ‘I didn’t know that.’

‘Of course you wouldn’t,’ said Lolmack, open contempt in his voice.

Lolmack and Lolia were the only two Betans in our class. They were older than the rest of us, married, and had a Handicapped baby. At the start of this course, Krath had made some remarks about the Handicapped being subhuman apes. He’d changed his opinions now, but Lolmack still held a grudge against him.

‘The other sectors never mention Tellon Blaze, the hero who saved humanity from the chimera of Thetis, was from Beta sector,’ continued Lolmack. ‘They never admit it was Beta sector that saved civilization from total collapse after Exodus century. They never tell our side of the Second Roman Empire, or try to understand our culture, or …’

‘That doesn’t matter now,’ Lolia interrupted in an oddly tense voice. ‘Jarra, is it true what Earth Rolling News is saying? The Tell clan are making you a clan member?’

Lolmack made a horizontal, air-slicing movement with his left hand; a classic Betan gesture of rejection. ‘That’s just an outlander news channel making a mistake.’

‘It’s not a mistake,’ I said.

Lolmack stood up and hurried over to me. ‘You’re sure, Jarra?’ he demanded. ‘The Tell clan aren’t just acknowledging your birth, but offering clan membership?’

I didn’t understand the urgency in his face, but I nodded. ‘The presentation ceremony is in three days time.’

‘A presentation ceremony!’ Lolmack turned to his wife. ‘That would …’

‘One of the Handicapped being formally presented to a clan of the gentes maiores!’ Lolia put her hands to her face. ‘If that happens …’

I was shocked to see she was crying. ‘I don’t understand why this is so …?’

‘Jarra,’ she said, ‘a handful of clans have acknowledged a Handicapped birth, but none has ever offered clan membership. The Tell clan are of the gentes maiores, the aristocracy of Zeus. If they do this, it could change our lives!’

I stared at her, totally bewildered by her dramatic words.

‘There’s a lot of prejudice against the Handicapped on Betan worlds,’ said Lolmack.

‘It’s like that in all the sectors,’ I said. ‘I’ve grown up watching off-world vids, and they all use the same insults. The only difference between Handicapped and norms is a fault in our immune system, but they call us throwbacks, Neanderthals, and ugly, smelly apes.’

‘It’s a bigger problem in Beta than the other sectors though, because of the clan system,’ said Lolmack. ‘The shame of a Handicapped birth doesn’t just affect the parents, but the whole clan.’

Lolia nodded. ‘When our baby was born Handicapped, the other partner in our triad marriage instantly divorced us. Lolette wasn’t genetically his child, but …’

Lolmack went to put his arm round her. ‘By saying that, he proved himself lower than the clanless. If things had been reversed, I would still count Lolette as my daughter, and still be here with you on Earth.’

Lolia smiled up at him. ‘I know that. He was more of a loss to you than to me.’ She looked back at me. ‘Hospital Earth rules meant Lolmack and I had to choose between making our daughter their ward and never seeing her again, or moving to Earth to be with her. Clan council ordered us to give up our ape child or be disowned. To have our own clan calling our daughter an ape and threatening us …’

‘Clan council had no choice,’ said Lolmack. ‘Alliance council had ruled the alliance could not afford the loss of status of a Handicapped birth, and threatened to remove our clan from the alliance if our child’s birth became known.’

He pulled a face. ‘So we joined this course to have an excuse for being on Earth. All this time, we’ve lived with the fact that if Lolette’s existence becomes known, our clan cluster must disown us to save their position in the alliance, but if the Tell clan welcome you as a clan member …’

‘It would change everything,’ said Lolia. ‘Just seeing you on the newzies has already made a difference to the way Betans speak of the Handicapped. Every clan was watching the vid coverage when you and Fian sent the signal to the alien sphere. Every clan saw how you looked and spoke and acted like any normal human. Every clan heard you named as a descendant of the great Tellon Blaze.’

Her words tumbled out eagerly now. ‘Jarra, if a clan of the gentes maiores make you a clan member, alliance council may agree to acknowledge Lolette’s birth, perhaps even permit her to be formally presented.’

Lolmack shook his head. ‘Don’t build your hopes impossibly high, Lolia. The vital thing is to have Lolette openly acknowledged, so we can stop living in fear of being made clanless. We must contact clan council at once.’

I was startled to hear Lecturer Playdon join in the conversation. ‘I’ll excuse both Lolia and Lolmack from this morning’s dig site work so they can discuss this development with their clan. Tomorrow, we’ll still be working on the Eden ruins in the morning, but in the afternoon we’ll be packing and moving to London Main Dig Site.’

‘But the General Marshal’s making a statement about the Alien Contact programme tomorrow afternoon,’ said Krath. ‘We can’t miss seeing that.’

‘The announcement is at 17:00 hours Earth Africa time,’ said Playdon. ‘We’ll stay here to watch it, but I want everyone to be packed ready to leave directly after it finishes. Fortunately, Earth Africa is on Green Time plus two hours, while Earth Europe is on Green time, so we’ll gain two hours in the move.’

He paused and pointedly glanced towards Fian and me. ‘I’ll do a last inspection of the dome just before we leave. Students aren’t allowed to move dome walls, so I’m sure I won’t discover any of them are missing.’

Fian and I exchanged embarrassed glances, while the rest of the class laughed at us. Everyone knew we’d illegally moved the wall between our two single rooms to make a double.

‘How many days holiday do we get before starting work on London Main?’ asked Krath.

Playdon gave him one of his evil smiles that meant bad news. ‘None.’

There was a collective groan from the class. We all knew Playdon’s smile meant there was absolutely no point in arguing, but Krath tried it anyway.

‘None? We’re supposed to get at least three days break when we move dig sites!’

‘You all missed an entire week of work due to the alien probe,’ said Playdon, ‘so you’ve got some catching up to do. Clear away breakfast now.’

I started piling plates on to a tray, picked it up, and looked at Fian. ‘Do you believe me becoming a clan member will really help Lolia and Lolmack?’

‘They obviously think so. It’s much bigger than just those two and their baby though, isn’t it? 92 per cent of Handicapped babies are handed over to be wards of Hospital Earth. The older sectors have the highest populations, so at least a quarter of those babies must be being born to Betan clans. If the clan attitudes change so it’s easier for Betan parents to come to Earth with their baby, it could mean thousands of children each year have a chance to grow up with their family.’

Fian was right and my psychologist had been totally wrong. It wasn’t pointless making myself unhappy over the unfairness of things, because there was something I could do to change them for the better.

When we sent the signal to the alien probe, it had been a significant moment for humanity. When the Tell clan of Zeus welcomed me as a clan member, it would be just as significant a moment for the Handicapped children of Beta sector.

3

At exactly 16:59 hours the next day, Fian and I sprinted into the hall and found the rest of the class sitting on neat rows of chairs facing the wall vid. We collapsed on to the two empty chairs next to Krath.

‘What took you so long?’ Krath shook his head at us. ‘It was only one wall. You could have built a whole dome by now.’

‘The wall didn’t want to go back,’ said Fian. ‘We won in the end, but …’

Amalie sighed. ‘Please don’t tell me you fixed the bottom corners first.’

Fian and I exchanged glances. ‘We did …’ I said.

Amalie shook her head sadly at our incompetence. She’d been born only a few years after her world came out of Colony Ten phase and was opened up for full colonization, and had spent her childhood helping to assemble buildings from flexiplas sections. ‘It’s much easier if you start with the top.’

‘Why aren’t you two in uniform?’ asked Dalmora.

‘We’ll be going through Earth Africa Transit,’ said Fian. ‘Playdon suggested we’d be less conspicuous in civilian clothes.’

‘It’s starting!’ Krath shouted.

Everyone went quiet and listened to the presenter on the wall vid. ‘Earth Rolling News now joins the cross-sector live link from Academy in Alpha sector for an announcement by General Marshal Renton Mai, commander-in-chief of the Military.’

The image changed to show a man in a pure white uniform, standing at a podium with the flag of humanity behind him. He began speaking in a relaxed voice. ‘The light-based communication from the alien probe clearly has a huge amount of data content. Deciphering that content and locating the alien planet of origin is likely to take a considerable period of time. Alien Contact is therefore moving from initial response phase into a longer term commitment and there will be a number of changes.’

I held my breath as the General Marshal went on.

‘Military Base 79 Zulu on Earth will be upgraded and become the permanent base for the Alien Contact programme. It will also house two research groups. One investigating the alien technology discovered in Earth Africa, and the other concentrating on the light signals from the sphere.’

I started breathing again. Alien Contact was staying on Earth!

‘The guard on the alien sphere will be maintained but downgraded in scale,’ continued the General Marshal. ‘A search for the alien planet of origin has already commenced in Alpha sector, and will be extended into other sectors.’

He paused for a moment. ‘There are corresponding adjustments to the command structure. The command of the Alien Contact programme will become a General Staff position reporting directly to me. Colonel Riak Torrek is promoted to the rank of General and will remain in overall command of Alien Contact, and in direct command of the search efforts. Commander Nia Stone is promoted to Colonel and takes command of Military Base 79 Zulu and the guard on the alien sphere. Commander Mason Leveque is promoted to Colonel and takes command of the twin research efforts as well as threat assessment. Commander Elith Shirinkin is promoted to Colonel and takes command of the five Earth solar arrays.’

The vid image panned out to include the audience, and the General Marshal started taking questions from eager newzie reporters. I was startled by the first question.

‘Delta Sector Vision here. What about Fian Eklund and Jarra Tell Morrath?’

‘Captain Fian Eklund is promoted to Major, and Major Jarra Tell Morrath to Commander,’ said the General Marshal.

I gasped, totally grazzed by my promotion. It was nardle enough being a Major, but …

‘Commander Tell Morrath and Major Eklund will be reporting to Colonel Leveque while continuing with their specialist pre-history training,’ continued the General Marshal.

‘The rumours that High Congress ordered their removal from the Alien Contact programme have now been confirmed by several discontented committee members,’ said the Deltan reporter. ‘What’s your opinion of this controversial interference in Military staffing?’

‘The Military Charter states the Military should remain politically neutral,’ said the General Marshal. ‘I can’t comment on the decisions of Joint Sector High Congress Committee, however a few hours ago I was sent extra clarification of that particular order for the public record.’

He glanced at the Military forearm lookup attached to his sleeve. ‘High Congress state that Commander Tell Morrath and Major Eklund were removed because they do not have the appropriate skills to assist Alien Contact at this point. This is a purely temporary measure to enable them to continue their studies. They will return to the Alien Contact programme as soon as either the sphere’s message is translated or the alien planet of origin is found.’

I sighed with relief. Fian and I would return to Alien Contact!

The General Marshal pointed to another of the forest of raised hands, and a woman spoke. ‘Beta Sector Daily. What about Commander Tell Dramis and Major Weldon?’

‘Commander Tell Dramis takes command of the search teams in Zeta sector, with Major Weldon as his deputy,’ said the General Marshal.

My frustration returned. My cousin Drago was already out in distant Zeta sector searching for the aliens, and my old friend from Next Step, Keon, was helping with the research into the light sculpture. Fian and I would return to the Alien Contact programme, but not until some unknown time in the future.

A blatantly hostile voice asked the next question. ‘Beta Veritas. Why promote Jarra Morrath, but not Drago Tell Dramis?’

‘Bigot!’ Lolmack and Lolia chorused the word before I’d worked out the significance of the man missing out the clan prefix in my name.

The tone of the General Marshal’s voice made it clear he’d also realized he was dealing with someone prejudiced against me. ‘I’ve promoted every officer who played a significant part in establishing contact with the alien sphere, including Commander Tell Morrath. Commander Tell Dramis and Major Weldon had already received their promotions, and Commander Tell Dramis was strongly opposed to the suggestion of a further promotion to Colonel. His exact words were that he’d rather be locked in a prison cell with a Zeus sewer rat.’

There was a burst of laughter from both the audience on the vid screen and my classmates. Drago had done a lot of talking on the newzies – his jet-black hair and devastatingly handsome face made him incredibly popular with their viewers – and everyone could picture him saying those words.

‘Alpha Spectrum,’ said the next questioner. ‘How long will it take to find the alien home world?’

‘That depends how far away it is,’ said the General Marshal. ‘Humanity currently has well-established inhabited worlds in Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta sectors, fledgling colony worlds in Epsilon and Kappa sectors, and has just begun Planet First assessment of possible colony worlds in Zeta sector. A complete search of that area of space will take between five months and a year, depending on how we divide manpower and resources between Alien Contact and Planet First efforts.’

‘A year!’ The Alpha Spectrum reporter’s words were echoed by Krath sitting next to me. ‘But each sector only has 200 star systems. How can it possibly take that long to search them?’

‘Each sector only has 200 inhabited star systems,’ said the General Marshal. ‘Portalling between inhabited worlds gives the illusion they’re packed closely together, when they’re actually scattered widely across space. We’re extremely selective when we choose our colony worlds. For every star system with a planet satisfying the criteria of Planet First, there are a hundred with a planet where human beings could survive with some difficulty, and many thousands with planets completely unsuitable for human life but with their own alien plant and animal life in abundance. Far more star systems exist without any sign of life at all.’

The next questioner sounded aggressive. ‘Gamma Sector News. You believe the alien home world is within humanity’s space? How could Planet First Stellar Survey have missed a planet with an advanced alien civilization?’

The General Marshal shook his head. ‘On the contrary, we believe the alien home world is probably further away than that. Tactical considerations, however, mean our first priority is to eliminate any possibility of it being within humanity’s space. Expansion was extremely rapid during Exodus century. Humanity was too impatient to spend enough time checking its colony worlds, let alone waste effort on uninhabitable star systems.’

He paused for a moment. ‘That reckless overexpansion led to the near collapse of our civilization. It may also have led to signs of an alien civilization being missed in Alpha, Beta or Gamma sectors. After a century of colony worlds struggling to deal with issues overlooked by those first rushed Planet First checks, there was a new attempt to expand and the nightmare of Thetis. A single lethal alien animal species was overlooked, portal quarantine procedures failed, and the chimera infested other worlds, threatening the survival of the human race.’

There was a moment of grim silence before the General Marshal continued. ‘After the lesson of the Thetis chaos year, humanity finally realized it was vital to allow Planet First teams the time and budget to do a meticulous job, but financial and logistical realities mean we still can’t make an exhaustive search of uninhabitable star systems. I’d be extremely surprised if we’d missed a planet with technology sufficiently advanced to construct the alien probe in Delta, Epsilon or Kappa, but those sectors will be rechecked anyway.’

The Gamma Sector News reporter wasn’t giving way to anyone else. ‘The newly formed Isolationist Party feel searching for the alien home world is a mistake because humanity would be better off not encountering aliens.’

‘I fail to understand the logic of trying to pretend an alien civilization doesn’t exist when they’ve already got a probe orbiting our home world,’ said the General Marshal. ‘We urgently need to know if any of our inhabited worlds are dangerously near alien territory. I’ll take a question from someone else now.’

The next questioner went back to the subject of Fian and me. ‘Alpha and Omega. Our viewers want to know when Commander Tell Morrath and Major Eklund will be available for interviews. They’ve made no public appearances since the signal was sent.’

The General Marshal smiled. ‘I’m fully aware of the ferocious levels of public interest in Commander Tell Morrath and Major Eklund. Fortunately, the remote location of their class protects them from continual invasion of privacy by the vid channels of every sector. No Military officer should have to suffer merciless interrogation by the newzies.’ His smile widened. ‘Except for myself of course.’

‘But Commander Tell Dramis and Major Weldon appeared on Earth Rolling News for extensive periods,’ said the Alpha and Omega representative.

‘Only to provide public information on behalf of the Military.’ The General Marshal paused for a second. ‘That’s all for now. If you want my answers to any questions that weren’t asked, then I’m sure Gamma Sector News will be happy to invent some for you just the way they did after my last newzie conference.’

The General Marshal left the podium while everyone was still laughing at that comment, the vid coverage switched back to the Earth Rolling News studios, and Lecturer Playdon went up to the wall vid and turned it off.

‘A year!’ Krath sounded as frustrated as I felt.

‘If the alien home world is near to Earth, then it may only take a couple of months to find it.’ Playdon turned to look at me and Fian. ‘Congratulations on your promotions, Commander Tell Morrath and Major Eklund.’

I was startled by my classmates applauding. Not all of them of course. When they found out about my lies and my Handicap, some had accepted me, but others tried to drive me away with insults. Eventually, I’d won grudging tolerance from most of the ape haters, and now I was famous a couple of them were fawning over me in a way that made me want to vomit, but there was one person pointedly folding her arms and refusing to give even a token hand clap. Petra would never stop hating me. Not after Joth’s death.

There was the usual stab of pain as I thought of Joth. I blamed Petra for his death, because he was killed doing something stupidly dangerous after an argument with her. She blamed me, because the argument was about her making him insult me. We could both be right, or both wrong. It really didn’t matter. Nothing could bring Joth back, and Petra and I would always be enemies.

‘Put the chairs away and fetch your luggage,’ said Playdon.

A few minutes later, the hall was crowded with people and bobbing hover bags, as the class waited for Playdon to do his final tour of inspection.

‘It’s unusual for High Congress to clarify an order like that,’ said Dalmora. ‘They’re obviously very embarrassed by all the comments on the newzies.’

I sighed. ‘But not embarrassed enough to order Fian and me back to Alien Contact right away.’

She tactfully changed the subject. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing a new city. I hope we’ll spend some time at Jaipur or Chennai later in the year. It would be totally zan to be excavating one of the cities where my ancestors lived.’

‘I’ve started working on my family tree,’ said Amalie, ‘but I’ve only got as far back as 2640. My ancestors were all on planets in Gamma sector then.’

Fian sighed. ‘I’ll never know about mine. My great-grandparents were all on Freya in Alpha sector during the conflict there, and its planetary records were deliberately destroyed. All I know is Freya was originally settled from Earth Europe. What about your ancestors, Jarra?’

I shrugged. ‘They’ll have been from everywhere. The Betan planets all had open colonization, and members of a Military clan marry people from lots of different worlds anyway.’

I was dodging the question. The truth was the Tell clan had a complete family tree on record, but I hadn’t dared to look at it. Fate had robbed me of a family twice already. Once at birth, and again when my parents were killed. If I looked at the Tell family tree before I was actually a clan member, I might tempt fate into making something go wrong a third time.

‘My aunt worked out our family tree all the way back to Exodus century,’ said Krath. ‘I’ve got ancestors from all five of Earth’s continents, so I don’t care what cities we go to. I just hope there’s no more rainforest, or sabre cats, or dire wolves. I’ve had enough of those here at Eden.’

‘I still can’t believe people deliberately genetically salvaged dangerous creatures,’ said Fian.

‘Earth isn’t civilized,’ said Krath, for about the thousandth time. ‘The ruins. The animals. The insects. The solar storms bringing down the portal network.’

Playdon returned just in time to hear him. ‘As I keep saying, the Military Planet First teams carefully select every colony world and make it safe for humans. Earth is our only world that never went through that process, and the vast abandoned areas are dangerous.’

He glanced round the class. ‘We’ll be portalling inter-continent to get to London Main. If we keep close together, with Jarra and Fian in the middle, people may not notice them going through the Transit areas. If we get split up, then I’ll stay with Jarra and Fian. You’ve all got the new dome portal code, so we’ll be able to meet up there.’

Playdon led the way to the portal room and we hurried after him, clicking our key fobs to make our hover bags chase us. Fian and I stayed in the centre of the crowd as we trooped through the portal and gathered under a location board saying ‘Africa Transit 3’. Once the whole class and their luggage had arrived, we headed on past the flashing signs about inter-continental portal charges, and joined the queue for a portal that was already active and locked open to Earth Europe. The queue had been moving rapidly forwards but suddenly stopped.

Amalie groaned. ‘The portal’s cut out. It’s flashing a congestion warning.’

I sighed. ‘Some idiot with more hover bags than brain cells must have stopped in the arrival zone on the other side of the portal to count his luggage.’

‘There’s only a few people ahead of us in the queue,’ said Amalie. ‘I hope it doesn’t … Oh chaos, you’ve been spotted!’

I turned to look behind us. Transits were usually full of purposefully hurrying figures, but now everyone was standing still, staring at Fian and me. A rhythmic sound started, I realized people were clapping, and felt myself grow hot with embarrassment.

‘If we’re stuck here for long we’ll get mobbed,’ muttered Amalie.

She was right. People were constantly arriving through portals but no one was leaving, so the watching crowd was growing larger at frightening speed. Lots of people were holding up lookups to make vids of us, and someone was bound to have called Earth Rolling News by now.

‘The portal’s open again,’ called Playdon. ‘Jarra, Fian, go first!’

The rest of the class moved aside to let us reach the portal, and the sound of applause instantly cut out as Fian and I stepped through it to Earth Europe. Playdon arrived a moment later, and we hurried on past a sign that said ‘Normal Portal Charges Now Apply’. I glanced over my shoulder and saw some of the class running to catch us up. There was a lot of hover luggage chasing us as well. I hoped some of it was mine.

We reached a local portal and Playdon rapidly dialled. ‘Warning,’ said the portal, ‘your destination is a restricted access area. If your scanned genetic code is not listed …’

I didn’t hear the rest of it, because Fian hustled me through the portal with him. We stepped out into the standard grey portal room of a dig site dome, and automatically headed out of the door to allow space for other people to arrive. I paused in the corridor to count the number of hover bags following us. ‘Zan! All the luggage is …’

‘Throwbacks have no place in a noble clan of Beta sector!’ said a strange voice.

I turned, shocked by the words, and something wet splattered across my face. I dropped the key fob I was holding, and lifted my hands to protect myself, but it was too late. My eyes and mouth were burning and I couldn’t see or breathe.

4

I was blind and helpless, battling against pain to get air into my lungs. There were sounds of a fight somewhere very close, fists hitting flesh and agonized gasps. What was happening? Was someone attacking Fian? How could someone have been here, in what should have been an empty dome, lying in wait for us?

‘Playdon, get her to hospital!’

That harsh, angry voice was definitely Fian. Arms grabbed me from behind, half carrying me. There was the siren of a portal medical emergency alarm, which abruptly cut out to be replaced by the sound of voices. We’d portalled. We must be in a Hospital Earth Europe casualty unit now.

‘Code ten!’ Playdon’s voice yelled next to my right ear. ‘Code ten! Chemical contamination!’

I was dragged sharply sideways and liquid sprayed over me. I whimpered in panic before I realized this wasn’t another attack. I was in a decontamination shower.

‘Jarra, open your eyes and your mouth!’

I forced them open, and the pain eased as the decontamination fluid did its job. Playdon’s blurred face was inches from my own, his dripping hair a startling contrast to his usual neat appearance.

‘Does it still hurt? Can you see?’

I managed to speak. ‘Just a faint stinging now, and I can see.’

‘Good. Can you stand by yourself?’

‘Yes.’

Playdon cautiously let me go, and moved back the short distance the shower allowed. ‘It’s totally inappropriate for me to shower with my students, but in the circumstances I think we’d both better stay in here a while.’

My nose was working again now, and even the strong odour of decontaminant couldn’t drown out something more powerful. ‘Oh no! He threw skunk juice at me?’

‘Yes.’

My attacker had shouted about Beta sector, and thrown Cassandrian skunk juice in my face. This was about me joining the Tell clan. Lolia and Lolmack thought it was wonderful, but the people like Petra, the ones who hated apes …

The shower door opened, and a woman in doctor’s uniform looked in at us. ‘Undiluted skunk juice is extremely dangerous.’ Her head turned away for a second as she gulped in some clean air. ‘Fortunately, our scans show you got into the decontaminant quickly enough to avoid serious burns. Please remain here for a few more minutes.’

The shower door closed, leaving me alone again with Playdon in what suddenly seemed embarrassingly close quarters. ‘I’m really sorry about this.’

Playdon brushed his wet hair out of his face. ‘It’s not your fault, Jarra. I don’t know how that man got into the dome, but …’

The doctor opened the door again. She was wearing a mask now. ‘Please step outside, but try not to touch anything.’

I followed Playdon out of the shower, nearly gagging on my own stench as I left the decontaminant. My eyes wouldn’t focus properly, but I could make out the shapes of a reception desk and rows of empty seats. This place had probably been full of people when I arrived, but they’d all fled when they caught the first whiff of skunk juice, all except the unlucky doctor who had to treat me.

The doctor handed a mask to Playdon, and then tipped some tablets from a bottle into two tiny cups. ‘These are meds for shock.’

Playdon gulped his down, but I shook my head. I didn’t like things that messed with my mind.

The doctor was obviously suffering badly from the smell despite her mask, but she bravely started waving a scanner at us. ‘Skunk juice comes from a Cassandrian fruit and is completely odourless until activated by binding to the skin. The creature called the Cassandrian skunk deliberately rolls in fallen fruit to make itself smell as a defence against predators.’

I could tell by the way she recited it, that she’d just looked up skunk juice on the Earth data net. ‘I’m sorry about this,’ I said.

‘Please don’t apologize, Commander. Whoever did this to you should …’ Her sentence was interrupted by a series of musical chimes from the portal, and she looked startled. ‘This unit’s in lockdown. Why is someone portalling in?’

I tensed, preparing to face another attack and determined to handle it better than last time, but the person stepping out of the portal was Fian. He hurried towards us, and I hastily stepped backwards. ‘No! Don’t touch me!’

He frowned, but obediently stopped with a short distance between us, accepted a mask the doctor helpfully waved at him, and put it on. ‘I’ve been worried sick, but I couldn’t come until I had the situation under control.’

Playdon made an odd choking noise. ‘Perhaps you could tell me what’s been happening back at the dome, Major Eklund. You ordered me out of there so fast that I barely even saw the intruder.’

Fian blushed. ‘I apologize, sir. I knew I could trust you to get the right medical help for Jarra, so … The prisoner’s been taken to Zulu base for medical treatment and questioning, and the class are waiting in the dome hall while Military Security check the area. I handed command over to Major Sand of Military Security before I came here.’

‘You handed command over …’ Playdon gave way to laughter behind his mask. ‘Fian, didn’t it occur to you for a single moment that you were a student, I was your lecturer, and I should be the one dealing with the intruder?’

Fian had a totally grazzed expression on his face. ‘No, I … We were under attack, it’s the job of the Military to defend civilians, and …’ He shook his head in complete bewilderment. ‘Why did I react like that? I’m just a history student thrust into uniform.’

Playdon shook his head. ‘I think you’ve successfully made the transition from civilian to Military, Major Eklund.’

The hovering doctor was studying her scanner. ‘Commander Tell Morrath, the skunk juice has bonded to the skin of your face, hands and scalp. You also have minor eye damage that should respond to regeneration fluid treatment within a few hours. Your companion,’ she nodded at Playdon, ‘fortunately didn’t have direct skin contact with the juice.’

Playdon wasn’t skunked. I sighed with relief.

The doctor put on some gloves, sprayed my eyes with something that made my vision even blurrier, then produced a jar of something blue. ‘This gel will neutralize the remaining unbonded juice, Commander, making it safe for people to touch you. It will also reduce the smell to a certain extent, and accelerate the degradation process from several weeks to two or three days.’

Stinking for a couple of days was a lot better than stinking for weeks, but …

The doctor started plastering gel on my hands and face. ‘You’ll notice some discolouration of your skin where the skunk juice has bonded. That will return to normal within a few days.’

Fian watched with a frown. ‘Is this the best treatment you’ve got?’

‘The only other treatment is to surgically remove the skin layer and put the patient in a regrowth tank,’ said the doctor. ‘We prefer to avoid unnecessary major surgery.’

My mind conjured up hideous images of being skinned alive. ‘I’ll stick with the gel.’

The doctor finished work on my face and hands, and moved on to my scalp and hair. ‘We’ll give you some gel to take with you. Apply it three times daily, covering hair and affected skin areas but avoiding the eyes, until the discolouration has completely vanished. Be careful not to wash or shower during that time, because water may re-activate the skunk juice.’

My hair felt like cold, slimy strands of seaweed now. I fought the urge to shudder. ‘Why did the prisoner need medical treatment, Fian? Did he accidentally skunk himself?’

‘No. Lolmack realized the man wasn’t just attacking you, but his daughter’s future as well, and hit him harder than a runaway transport sled. He broke his nose, arm, and three ribs. Lolmack says being a member of a low status clan involved in the sex vid industry means you have to be able to take care of yourself in a fight.’

‘I’d noticed that …’ I broke off as the doctor applied gel to my nose and mouth. The stench of skunk juice was replaced by an overpowering odour of flowers.

‘The gel is scented with Osiris lilies, to mask the remaining aroma of skunk juice,’ said the doctor.

Fian took off his mask and sniffed. ‘That’s a lot better. Very, very flowery though. I see what you mean about the skin discolouration.’

‘That’s absolutely nothing to worry about.’ The doctor started updating my medical records.

I looked down at my hands and saw blotches of green and dark purple. Nothing to worry about? What the chaos did my face look like? I was ugly and I stank. I was like something out of the worst jokes the norms made about the Handicapped. ‘I can’t go back to the dome.’

‘It’s perfectly safe now, Jarra,’ said Fian. ‘Military Security are there.’

‘It isn’t fair to make everyone suffer this smell.’

Playdon took off his mask. ‘It’s not that bad now, Jarra. You can hardly smell the skunk juice for the Osiris lilies. That’s a very overpowering odour, but not unpleasant.’

‘But …’

Playdon held up a hand to stop my protest. ‘You’re coming back to the dome, Jarra. It’s bad enough having one of my students attacked while under my care. I absolutely refuse to exclude you from my course because of your injuries.’

5

We stepped through the portal into the dome at London Main, and I saw the hazy figures of four Military Security officers saluting me.

‘I must find my hover bags and change into dry clothes,’ said Playdon.

Fian nodded. ‘We’ll find a room so Jarra can lie down and rest.’

I wanted to hide away in a room, but … ‘If the class have to see me looking like this, I’d rather get it over with right away.’

Fian sighed. ‘We’ll go to the hall then.’

The four Military Security officers stayed guarding the portal, but we passed several more in the corridor. This was insane. Someone had thrown skunk juice at me, and Military Security was reacting as if they’d tried to assassinate a head of sector.

Fian took my arm and guided me round a couple of white humming shapes that must be air-purifying units. I hoped the Military would let us keep those for a few days to make life more bearable for everyone.

Yet more Military Security officers stood on guard inside the hall, while our classmates sat huddled around tables. When we walked in, the Military saluted, and there was a scraping of chairs as people turned towards us.

‘Jarra,’ said Dalmora in a shocked voice. ‘You look … You look dreadful.’

I felt that said everything. Even Dalmora, with her deeply ingrained tact and diplomacy, couldn’t think of a kinder word than dreadful to describe my appearance.

An officer came up and saluted me. ‘I’m Major Sand, sir. We’ve just completed full scans, both inside and outside the dome, and found no further threats.’

I stared at him blankly for a moment, before working out I was the senior officer present. Major Sand had given me a situation report and was awaiting orders. I wasn’t in uniform, I’d never met this man, but he knew who I was. The whole of humanity did. Even a random doctor in a Hospital Earth casualty unit recognized me and addressed me as Commander.

I ran my fingers through the greasy lank ribbons of my hair. I couldn’t cope with this now. I looked like a monster, I stank, and I was groping my way through a frighteningly hazy world. Was the regen fluid helping my eyes or making them worse?

‘Please, keep …’ I tried to think of the right Military words to use and completely failed. ‘Keep dealing with it.’

Another officer hurried into the room. ‘Sirs, Zulu base warns the General is incoming.’

The Major gave a single heartfelt groan, turned, and headed for the door. I suddenly felt shaky and dreadfully tired, so I sat down on a chair by the wall and let my head sag forward into my hands. I was vaguely aware of Fian positioning a couple of the air purifiers nearby, and then tugging another chair over to sit next to me. I couldn’t tell if the air purifiers were having any effect, because the cloying scent of Osiris lilies had overwhelmed my nose. I’d probably never be able to smell anything else ever again.

There were a couple of minutes of silence before Playdon came into the hall and said something to the class. I heard the words but couldn’t make sense of them. I really was like an ape in an off-world joke. I was ugly, I stank, and I was stupid as well.

More people arrived, a figure in a white jacket in the lead, followed by two others in standard Military uniforms. It took my sluggish brain a moment to work out the white jacket must be Riak Torrek in his new General’s uniform. I blinked my eyes, got them to focus long enough to recognize his face and those of Colonel Leveque and Major Sand behind him, struggled to my feet and saluted.

‘I shouldn’t need to say this is unacceptable,’ said General Torrek in an angry voice.

Riak Torrek had been a close friend of my grandmother. I was the first child born into the family after her death in action, so in Military tradition I was her Honour child and carried her name. I’d known Colonel Torrek took a special interest in me because of it, and felt pretty relaxed around him, but General Torrek seemed far more intimidating, a grimly disapproving stranger.

I realized I was still wearing the wreckage of my civilian clothes. I hadn’t thought to ask Dalmora where my hover bags were and change into uniform. I was a dumb, dumb ape. ‘I apologize for the state of my clothes, sir.’

The General’s voice lost the harsh note. ‘I should be the one apologizing to you, Jarra. The Military failed in our duty to protect you. Please sit down before you fall over.’

He turned to Major Sand and now his voice was icily cold. ‘Major, please explain how an intruder gained entry to this dome.’

I thought I heard a faint gulp from Major Sand, before he answered in an impressively steady voice. ‘Portal access was secure, sir, and we were monitoring all aerial traffic. Unfortunately, London Main Dig Site is in far less hostile terrain than Eden. The intruder gained entry to the nearby London Fringe Dig Site and walked here.’

‘You let him walk in!’ General Torrek gave a despairing groan, and turned to Colonel Leveque. ‘Why did this happen? We were expecting intrusive reporters, not violent attacks.’

‘When Gaius Devon tried to force us to make an unnecessary attack on the alien sphere, we used the tactic of deliberately focussing public attention on Commander Tell Morrath,’ said Leveque. ‘That succeeded in its objective of making Devon betray his uncontrolled prejudice against both the Handicapped and the aliens to the public, thereby discrediting him, but has also had unforeseen consequences.’

General Torrek frowned. ‘You mean one of my command decisions caused this?’

‘Indirectly, sir,’ said Leveque. ‘For the first time, people on all of humanity’s worlds have seen one of the Handicapped appear on their vid channels. Many of them are rethinking their old prejudices in the face of reality. The severely bigoted deeply resent this shift in the attitudes of society. The news that Commander Tell Morrath was to join an aristocratic Betan clan escalated that resentment into violence.’

He paused. ‘This particular assailant intended to intimidate Commander Tell Morrath into returning to the obscurity he considers proper for her. It’s quite possible that others will attempt to permanently eliminate what they see as a threat to the proper social order. We must assume that Major Eklund is also a potential target as a result of his relationship with Commander Tell Morrath.’

My head wasn’t working too well, and I found Colonel Leveque’s sentences confusing at the best of times, but it sounded like he was saying …

‘I’m not having my officers murdered by bigots,’ said General Torrek. ‘I’ll authorize whatever protective measures you want.’

Colonel Leveque nodded. ‘I’ll flag them both with automatic pre-empt status so they can bypass the queues at Transits, assign them a bodyguard, and issue guns for them.’

I’d been right then, I thought numbly. Colonel Leveque really was suggesting that people might try to kill Fian and me.

‘They’ve been instructed to continue their pre-history training while they’re waiting to rejoin the Alien Contact programme,’ said Leveque, ‘but if it proves impossible to adequately secure this location then …’

‘If I can interrupt you there,’ said Playdon, ‘several other dig sites are as inaccessible as Eden. I could arrange to swap dig site assignments with another team.’

‘That would be an excellent solution,’ said Leveque. ‘I’ll also be urgently investigating how this attacker knew exactly when your class would arrive here.’

‘I’ve repeatedly warned my students not to give information about Jarra or Fian to anyone,’ said Playdon.

The class had been a silent audience to all this, but now Steen stood up. ‘That scum knew we were coming here because Petra told him!’

Leveque raised his eyebrows. ‘Do you have any evidence for this accusation?’

‘I don’t need evidence,’ said Steen. ‘Petra started running a hate campaign against Jarra the minute she found out she was Handicapped, insulting her and making her life a misery. Petra was always calling Jarra a stinking ape, so I bet the skunk juice was her idea.’

There was a brief pause, followed by Fian, Playdon and General Torrek all saying almost exactly the same words. ‘Why didn’t I know about this?’

I didn’t need to reply. Fian was already answering the question. In fact, he was having an entire angry conversation with himself.

‘I knew Petra was prejudiced against Jarra, but I’d no idea she was actively insulting her. It’s always the same. We’re on our second Twoing contract, but does Jarra tell me when she has a problem? No. Does she ask anyone for help? No. Does she even hint someone’s been persecuting her for months? No, she doesn’t. I swear, one day I’ll strangle her!’

‘Please don’t strangle Jarra today, Fian,’ said Leveque. ‘When Military Security officers are guarding two people, and one of them tries to strangle the other, they get confused about the appropriate course of action. Besides, Jarra’s clearly suffering from shock.’

‘I’m perfectly fine,’ I said.

‘I disagree,’ said General Torrek. ‘I’d ask why the doctors didn’t treat you for shock, but after my years serving with your grandmother I can guess the answer. She hated taking meds as well.’

‘Were any other class members involved in this abuse?’ asked Colonel Leveque.

Steen hesitated for a second. ‘Petra tried to drag some of the rest of us into the name calling, but we wouldn’t get involved.’

I was grazzed to hear this. My own memory of events was that Steen had spent two months calling me a throwback and pointedly holding his nose when he passed me in the corridor. I opened my mouth to speak, but Petra was ahead of me.

‘It’s not true! I called Jarra some names, but you were just as bad. You’re only crawling to her now because she’s famous.’

Steen shook his head. ‘If the rest of us ever said anything rude, it was only because you kept nagging us, just like you nagged poor Joth. You wanted to drive Jarra away so you could get your claws into Fian. When words weren’t enough to get rid of her, you tried skunk juice!’

‘What?’ Fian’s voice interrupted the pair of them. ‘What’s been going on here?’

I urgently blinked my eyes. The regen fluid must have worked because this time the world came into focus and stayed that way. Fian was on his feet now, his face and stance showing his fury.

‘This is because of me?’ He advanced on Petra. ‘You helped that man throw skunk juice at Jarra because you wanted to split us up?’

Petra scrambled to her feet and tried to back away, but only succeeded in knocking over her chair. ‘I didn’t have anything to do with the skunk juice!’

Playdon moved to stand between them. ‘Stop this, all of you!’

Fian looked past him at Petra. ‘Jarra and I are together. Nothing and nobody is coming between us.’

He turned, came back to sit next to me, and took my hand. His unblemished skin against the mottled green and purple of mine.

‘I’m arresting Petra and taking her in for questioning,’ said Leveque.

Petra’s eyes widened in shock. ‘You can’t arrest me. You aren’t a police officer.’

‘Incorrect,’ said Leveque. ‘Legally any member of the Military is also a police officer empowered to deal with interplanetary crimes.’

‘I may have called Jarra a rude name once or twice,’ said Petra. ‘That might get me warnings from Lecturer Playdon under the Gamma sector moral code governing our course, but it isn’t an interplanetary crime. I didn’t have anything to do with the attack on Jarra, but that wasn’t an interplanetary crime either.’

I admired Petra’s courage, but I knew she was making a big mistake arguing with Leveque. I watched him give one of his relaxed smiles, and held my breath waiting for him to pounce on his prey.

‘Your last point is debatable, since the attacker came to Earth from Atalanta in Beta sector specifically to harm Commander Tell Morrath,’ said Leveque, ‘but I’m happy to abandon any action against you under interplanetary law.’

Petra looked surprised to have won so easily. Steen started to protest, but Fian urgently shook his head at him.

Leveque’s smile widened. ‘I now arrest you for crimes against humanity under the powers of the Alien Contact programme.’

Petra gasped. ‘You can’t do that! I have rights.’

Leveque shook his head. ‘Contact with an alien civilization potentially threatens the survival of the human race. Everyone studies the Alien Contact programme in school, so you should know its emergency powers override everything. I’m not even restricted by the protection of humanity laws, let alone your personal human rights.’

He paused to give Petra the chance to speak, but she’d sense enough to keep quiet this time. ‘Both Commander Tell Morrath and Major Eklund have made multiple valuable contributions to the Alien Contact programme, and I consider it highly probable they will do so again in future. Mere suspicion you were involved in harming irreplaceable personnel is enough for me to perfectly legally pick up a gun and kill you. I can also use any methods, however extreme, to interrogate you before execution.’

He glanced at one of the guards. ‘Take the girl to Military Base 79 Zulu.’

The guard took Petra by the arm and led her off. The rest of the class watched her go with stunned faces, but Playdon moved to face Leveque.

‘I have a duty of care to my students. I’ll insist on regularly visiting Petra to satisfy myself she isn’t being mistreated.’

Leveque seemed amused. ‘I’ll authorize your visits, but I assure you I’ve no intention of torturing the girl. I just wanted to frighten her so she’d stop wasting my time with childish defiance and lies. Now let’s discuss possible new locations for your class.’

6

I stood on a stage, looking out at a sea of faces, and heard Petra’s hugely magnified voice speaking. ‘But the funniest thing is Jarra thought the skunk juice would wear off. She didn’t know she’d be stuck like this forever.’

There was a deafening roar of laughter, and I saw Petra standing in the middle of the audience. I jumped off the stage, intent on reaching her and murdering her, but I couldn’t get through. There was a solid wall of faces. No bodies, not even heads, just faces hovering all around me.

‘Jarra, it’s time to get ready for breakfast.’

I woke up with a gasp. In the dim light of the room glows at their lowest setting, I saw Fian looking at me.

‘Another nightmare?’ he asked. ‘The attack again?’

‘No, this one was weird. Lots of floating faces.’

‘I’m sure you’d have had less nightmares if you’d taken your meds.’

I groaned.

‘And why the chaos didn’t you tell me or Playdon about Petra calling you names? We could have dealt with her for you.’

I groaned again. ‘That’s exactly why I didn’t tell you.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Remember after the Solar 5 rescue, when I was in a hospital regrowth tank having my leg fixed. You went and told the class I was Handicapped.’

Fian frowned. ‘Well, someone had to tell them.’

‘Yes, but that someone was me, not you. I was the one who was Handicapped. I was the one who’d lied to them.’

‘It would have been very unpleasant. The class were shocked and people said a few things that …’

‘I realize that. I should still have faced them myself.’

‘That’s a …’ He broke off. ‘No, I see what you mean. I hated standing by watching Lolmack fighting that man with the skunk juice. He was doing my job for me, fighting my battle, and I felt so …’

He shook his head. ‘Never mind that now. I understand what you’re saying. I should have waited until you were out of the tank and let you talk to the class yourself.’

‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘You meant well, but it actually made things far worse. Petra kept jeering at me for being a coward and hiding behind you, so …’

Fian finished the sentence for me. ‘So you couldn’t tell me or Playdon what was going on, because that would prove Petra was right.’ He paused. ‘I promise I won’t fight your battles for you again, but I’d like to fight your battles beside you. There’s a big difference.’

I grinned with relief. ‘Fighting battles together is fine.’

He grinned back at me. ‘You’re still a nardle for not taking your meds though.’

‘You’re a nardle too. Did you see the look on Playdon’s face when you insisted on moving the wall?’

Fian laughed. ‘It didn’t take long with Amalie organizing the whole class to help.’

‘It wasn’t the time it took, or the fact everyone was totally exhausted by then, it was the sheer idiocy of wanting to share a room with me when I smell like this.’

I paused to pick my words carefully. ‘Fian, it’s not just the perfume, it’s … Well, it might be sensible for you to keep a distance from me for a while. Leveque said our relationship was making you a target too.’

‘I’ve been waiting for you to suggest that idea, so I could tell you to forget it.’

‘But …’

‘No!’ Even in near darkness, I could recognize the determined angle of Fian’s jaw. ‘I meant what I said to Petra. I’m not letting anyone split us up. I’m definitely not allowing some exo and his skunk juice to put a physical wall between us. With three air purifiers in here the smell really isn’t a problem.’

He’d used the ‘exo’ word; the insult the Handicapped use for off-worlders. I smiled to myself. We were fighting this battle together.

Fian rolled away from me, turned up the glows to full brightness, and got out of bed. I’d suggested we should leave a gap between our beds until the skunk juice wore off, but he’d insisted on having them wedged against each other as usual. Fian was wonderfully, madly stubborn, and I loved him for it.

‘Time for me to shower and get ready for breakfast,’ he said.

I watched enviously as Fian headed out of the door. I was desperate to wash the greasy gel out of my hair and be properly clean again, but I couldn’t. Water would make the skunk juice start burning my skin again.

I picked up the hateful jar of gel and went across to the mirror. The regen fluid had finished healing my eyes, so the reflection of my face was a perfectly focused, lurid green and purple mess.

I sighed and carefully rubbed gel into my skin, choking at the overwhelming scent of Osiris lilies. I’d spent my life wistfully dreaming of the hundreds of worlds I could only see on the vids, never visit in real life, but I was glad I’d never go to Osiris and see its famous fields of luminous white flowers opening at sunset, flooding the air with their fragrance. I’d smelt enough nuking Osiris lilies to last me to my hundredth.

I’d just finished putting on my uniform, when Fian came back into the room. I giggled at the look on his face. ‘Wait outside for a few minutes while the gel dries and the air purifiers catch up with the smell.’

‘No, I can cope.’

He heroically shut the door behind him and started changing from his sleep suit into his uniform. On a normal day, I’d have said something about his excellent legs, or even made him blush by using the butt word that was regarded as shocking outside Beta sector, but today I just turned away and attached my curved Military forearm lookup to my left sleeve where it clung neatly in position. The exo with the skunk juice hadn’t managed to put a physical wall between us, but certain things wouldn’t be happening for a few days.

‘I’ve just realized I didn’t take my gun with me to the shower,’ said Fian. ‘I mustn’t leave it lying about like that or Playdon will throw a fit.’

‘No one else could fire it, and all Military guns and lookups have tracking devices and can be disabled remotely if they get lost or stolen.’ I went over to the bed and reached under the pillow for my own gun.

‘Tell Morrath confirmed,’ said the gun. ‘Active power 3. Single target. Safety engaged.’

I remembered the training Fian and I had been given. We were to keep the guns on power 3, which meant anyone we shot would be paralysed for hours. We were to use single target except in extreme circumstances. Scatterfire would hit multiple targets at once, so you had to be really careful using it.

I stared down at my gun. Physically, it felt perfectly natural to be holding it, the grip had been moulded to fit the scanned medical records of my hand, but mentally …

Although I was Military now, I’d still never expected to hold a gun intended for use against another human being. I wasn’t living in the days of pre-history when humanity fought wars. I wasn’t a Military Security agent. I wasn’t on a hostage rescue squad.

Fian picked up his gun, and it chattered away at him. ‘Eklund confirmed. Active power 3. Single target. Safety engaged.’

‘Wearing protective impact suits all day is impossible,’ said Fian, ‘but I’m surprised Leveque hasn’t given us some sort of body armour.’

‘He doesn’t need to. All Military uniforms are made of special material that’s highly resistant to fire, acid, knife attack, and projectile weapons.’

‘That’s good. So, where do we put the guns?’

‘You’re right handed, so the holsters will be on the right hip and left side of your uniform.’

‘They are?’ Fian ran his hands over his uniform. ‘Oh, this little pocket thing. I hadn’t noticed it before.’

I was still standing there like a nardle, looking at my gun. ‘Fian, do you think you could actually shoot someone?’

He put his gun in the holster on his right hip. ‘Yesterday morning, I would have said no, but now … If someone tries to hurt you again, then yes, Jarra, I’ll shoot them.’

The lookup on my sleeve chimed with a message and I frowned. ‘Major Rayne Tar Cameron of Command Support says the Tell clan council have been notified of the attack. They’ve postponed the presentation ceremony and will contact me when they’ve made new arrangements.’

Fian nodded. ‘It’s sensible to give you time to recover.’

I was still frowning as I followed Fian out of the door and down the corridor. Delaying the ceremony might be sensible, but it meant more days of suspense for Lolia and Lolmack. For me too.

Most of the class were already in the hall, sitting at tables and watching Earth Rolling News on the wall vid. A couple of presenters were talking in angry voices about two images on the screen. One was a girl with her face radiating pure delight. The other was a beaten wreck, with slimy hair, mottled skin, and lifeless eyes. They were both me.

Playdon stood up. ‘The story is on all the sector newzies as well. The Military made a statement three hours ago. I bookmarked it for you.’

He went over to the wall vid controls. One of the Earth Rolling News presenters was cut off in mid-sentence, and the image changed to show Colonel Leveque. If this statement went out three hours ago, Leveque had probably been up all night, but he appeared as pristine and relaxed as ever.

‘The Military regret to confirm there has been an attack on Commander Tell Morrath and Major Eklund. The perpetrator has been arrested and charged. Three further individuals are being questioned in connection with the incident.’

He paused for a moment before continuing. ‘This attack was organized by parties with extreme personal prejudices against the Handicapped. I warn anyone contemplating further such action that although Commander Tell Morrath and Major Eklund are temporarily assigned elsewhere, they remain key personnel of the Alien Contact programme. The Military will not hesitate to use deadly force in their defence.’

The recording ended and the screen went blank. I stared at it for a few seconds before speaking. ‘They’re questioning three more people. Petra and …?’

‘Two people on Atalanta in Beta sector,’ said Playdon. ‘I suggest you eat now. I want to start the mandatory dig site introductory and safety lectures straight after breakfast.’

Fian and I obediently headed for the food dispensers and picked up trays. ‘I wasn’t taking much notice of things when we portalled out of London Main,’ I said. ‘I know we’re in Earth America, because Leveque wanted us in the same time zone as Military Base 79 Zulu at White Sands, but which dig site are we at?’

‘California Rift Dig Site,’ said Fian.

‘What? But … Foundation classes aren’t allowed there.’

He shrugged. ‘Playdon must have special permission from Dig Site Command California.’

We loaded up our trays and went across to join Dalmora, Amalie and Krath at their table. Fian tugged a couple of air purifiers closer to us.

‘Sorry about the smell,’ I said.

‘The flower scent is quite pleasant,’ said Dalmora.

Krath’s lookup chimed. He checked it and groaned. ‘My nuking dad wants me to tell the Military I was involved in the attack so I get arrested.’

We all stared at him in disbelief. ‘Why does your dad want you arrested?’ asked Fian. ‘I’m not totally against the idea, but …’

‘He says it would be a great exclusive story for his nardle conspiracy vid channel, Truth Against Oppression.’

‘I hadn’t thought it possible,’ said Amalie, ‘but your dad has even less sense than you, Krath.’

I had a terrible thought. ‘Oh chaos! My ProMum and my friends must have seen reports of the attack on Earth Rolling News. They’ll be worried sick, but they won’t have been able to call me because my mail is blocking everything except Military calls. Major Tar Cameron’s working on a filtering system to relay recorded messages from my personal contacts, but …’

I tapped frantically at my Military lookup, and saw Candace’s face appear.

‘One moment,’ she said, and her image froze as she put the call on hold. That meant Candace was with one of her other nine ProChildren. I felt a stab of guilt at stealing part of someone else’s precious two hours with her.

About a minute later, she was back. ‘Sorry about that, Jarra. My other ProChildren mustn’t find out I’m your ProMum. It would be very psychologically harmful for them to feel I’m comparing them to the famous Commander Tell Morrath.’

I was too grazzed to speak. Hospital Earth rules forbade Candace from discussing her own family or her other ProChildren with me, so she’d never mentioned them before, and her calling me famous felt …

‘Hospital Earth has a standing injunction preventing newzies breaching ProParent confidentiality,’ Candace continued with an anxious air, ‘so it shouldn’t get public as long as you don’t mention me in any interviews.’

I wasn’t stunned any longer, just hurt. I’d thought Candace would be worried about me, but she hadn’t even asked how I was. I fought to keep my voice maturely calm and untroubled. ‘If we ever do interviews, I’ll be careful not to mention you.’

‘Good.’ She smiled. ‘I’m relieved to see you’re already looking better. The picture on Earth Rolling News frightened me, but Colonel Leveque explained about the medical gel and said the skin discolouration would be gone within a few days.’

My selfish feeling of hurt vanished. I should have realized the Military would contact my ProMum as well as my clan council, and that was why Candace wasn’t as worried as I’d expected.

‘I’m afraid I was a little rude to him at first,’ said Candace. ‘I was angry about the Military letting someone attack you.’

I think I groaned at this point, because she looked apologetic. ‘I’m sorry. It’s been such a short time since you were getting into trouble at your Next Step. It’s hard to adjust to you being not just an adult, but a high-ranking Military officer. Fortunately, Colonel Leveque was very understanding and we had a nice long chat about you.’

My ProMum had had a nice long chat to Colonel Leveque about me! I held back a scream of embarrassment. ‘What exactly did you say?’

‘Oh, we discussed your childhood. He seemed very interested.’

I remembered all the times I’d made a total nardle of myself, imagined Candace telling Leveque about them, and held back a shudder. ‘I’m taking up someone else’s time with you, so I’d better go now.’

When I ended the call, Fian laughed. ‘I’m just picturing Candace scolding Leveque for not taking proper care of you.’

I gave a whimper of heartfelt despair. ‘And then boring him by chatting about my childhood!’

Fian shook his head. ‘Leveque’s quite capable of reassuring Candace and getting rid of her at high speed. I’m betting the conversation was his idea. He likes collecting information.’

‘But why would Leveque want information about me?’

‘No idea. I’d better call my mother. My father too I suppose.’ Fian stood up and gestured at my untouched plate. ‘Please eat something, Jarra.’

I watched with a frown as Fian backed off a discreet distance and tapped his lookup. Fian’s mother would be worried about his safety. She might join in his father’s attempts to split us up.

‘Jarra,’ said Dalmora.

I turned to look at her. ‘Yes?’

‘Eat!’ Dalmora, Amalie, and Krath chorused the word in unison.

I sighed, picked up a toasted wafer and took a bite. It tasted of Osiris lilies. ‘There’s no need to nag.’

‘You always stop eating when you get hurt or upset,’ said Dalmora. ‘It’s bad for you and it worries Fian.’

Fian’s call to his mother seemed to end amicably, so I relaxed and dutifully munched more scented breakfast, then recorded a quick message about how I was fine but hated stinking of perfume. I sent that to all my friends from Next Step, and then wrinkled my nose as I considered my ProDad. I’d always felt he cared about the money he got from Hospital Earth, not about me, but he might be worried. I’d just sent him the message too when Fian shouted a single word.

‘No!’

The background chatter of the class abruptly stopped, and everyone turned to look at him. A Major standing in a characteristically Military pose, his left arm raised in front of him as he gazed at the lookup on his left sleeve with a grim expression. I felt a stab of shock, remembering the Deltan boy I’d met at the start of this year, and realizing how the last few months had changed him, had changed both of us. My Deltan wasn’t a boy any longer.

‘I told you, the answer is no.’ Fian’s voice was only slightly quieter than before. ‘I’m not coming back to Hercules, I’m not studying science, I’m not quitting the Military, and I’m not leaving Jarra for some drearily dutiful Deltan girl. Goodbye, sir!’

Fian gave his lookup an aggressive stab to end the call, and lifted his head. All around the room, people hastily faked an intense interest in eating. Fian marched back to our table and sat down, his simmering anger obvious enough that even Krath wasn’t fool enough to say anything.

The awkward silence continued until Playdon stood up and walked to the front of the hall, indicating he wanted to start his lectures. The class automatically responded by dumping the remains of meals into the waste disposal, putting dirty dishes into the cleanser, and moving furniture. Within three minutes, the tables were stacked at the side of the hall, the chairs were lined up in rows, and we all took our seats.

‘Half of human knowledge was lost in the Earth data net crash in 2409,’ said Playdon. ‘Science, technology, history, literature, medicine, all obliterated in a mass of data corruption. There are no surviving detailed records of the history of this area between 2100 and 2250, but at some point in that period there were either one or two massive earthquakes.’

Playdon tapped his lookup, and a weird image appeared on the wall vid. ‘Records from 2250 show that several old cities had been replaced by a single new city, San Angeles. Humanity had defied nature by building this new city directly across the earthquake fault line, on the vast artificial platform we call the California Land Raft.’

He turned and gestured at the wall vid. ‘This platform consisted of four hundred independent islands, connected together by flexible bridges. You’re seeing the view from the ground of one of the eight huge, automatically adjusting legs of one of these islands. The city of San Angeles was abandoned by 2380, but even now, over four centuries later, most of these legs are still fully functional and compensating for the ground movements resulting from earthquake activity in this area.’

Playdon tapped his lookup again, and the image changed to show something with eight long spiky legs, and a flat shell-like back. ‘This is a side view of one of the islands.’

Krath summed up the reaction of the whole class, including me. ‘It looks like a weird, creepy, mechanical spider.’

Playdon changed the image again to show a whole army of spiders. ‘Here we can see a view of the full Land Raft. Virtually all of the flexible bridges between the islands have collapsed, and the few remaining ones are far too hazardous to use. Twenty-three islands nearest the fault line have exceeded the adjustment capability of their supporting legs and also collapsed. A further thirty islands are highly unstable and too hazardous for further exploration.’

His next image was a patchwork of coloured squares. ‘These are the hazard colour coded islands of the Land Raft. Black islands have fallen or been abandoned. Red islands have an estimated survival time of less than fifty years, and amber between fifty and one hundred. Green islands have experienced relatively little movement and may still be standing for many centuries. Current archaeological efforts are concentrated on salvaging what we can from the red islands. Since these sections are nearing their safety limits, any earthquake activity is very dangerous and …’

Playdon broke off his sentence, stood for a moment in silence, and then strode straight past us and out of the hall.

7

‘What the chaos?’ Krath twisted round in his seat to watch the hall door close. ‘Did Playdon get a message on his lookup?’

‘I didn’t hear it chime.’ Dalmora stood up for a moment, gave the door a worried look, then sat down again. ‘I expect he’ll be back in a minute.’

A few people got drinks, while others started checking their mail on their lookups. After five minutes, Dalmora turned to me. ‘You should go and see if Lecturer Playdon is all right, Jarra.’

I replied without thinking. ‘Me? Why not you?’

Dalmora looked embarrassed. ‘He might not like it.’

I could have slapped myself. The whole class knew Dalmora had a crush on Playdon and he was carefully avoiding being alone with her. I’d been as tactless as Krath at his worst. ‘Sorry.’

Amazingly, it was Krath who saved the awkward situation by speaking in a chattily cheerful voice. ‘The highest ranked officer present has to take command, sir.’

I giggled from pure relief. ‘We aren’t under attack, nardle brain!’

I stood up and went out of the hall to look for Playdon. He wasn’t in the corridor, but I could hear the sound of voices coming from the portal room. The rest of the class were all back in the hall, so who the chaos …?

Remembering the ambush the previous day, I drew my gun before peeking cautiously into the doorway of the portal room, but relaxed as I recognized the two men with Playdon. They were his friends, Rono and Keren of Cassandra 2 research team. Playdon and Keren had their backs to me, but Rono’s eyebrows shot up as he saw my gun. I pulled a face of silent apology and put it away.

Rono patted Playdon on the shoulder, and gave Keren a nod, before coming over to me. He touched his lips with one finger, then gave a beckoning gesture and led me back into the hall. Most of the class didn’t know Rono, so they stared at him in total bewilderment as he went to stand in front of the wall vid.

‘I’m Professor Rono Kipkibor, senior team leader of University Cassandra Archaeological Research Team 2. Some of you’ve already met me, and the rest of you will remember helping rescue my team from under a collapsed skyscraper at the New York Dig Site. I’ll be giving you the rest of your introduction to the California Rift Dig Site.’

I went back to my seat and Dalmora gave me an anxious look. I shook my head at her to show I didn’t know what was going on either.

Rono glanced at the image on the wall vid. ‘I see Lecturer Playdon’s already talked about the island structure of the Land Raft. The giant supporting legs of these islands are made out of diamene, and the island platforms are formed of connected diamene strips.’

There was some furtive whispering behind me, as a couple of the class puzzled over the scar tissue that marred Rono’s dark forehead, making him look like someone in a history vid of the days before fluid patch treatments. The scar was the result of the solemn Keren losing his temper and punching Rono on newly regrown skin, and Rono was deliberately keeping it to tease him. I didn’t understand how two such contrasting personalities had ever got into a relationship with each other.

‘The strips are designed to move independently during earthquakes, so buildings are laid out in wide blocks along each strip.’ Rono tapped his lookup to show a new image on the wall vid. ‘The islands all have identical layouts. This is an aerial view of one of them, showing the central park surrounded by regimented blocks of buildings with wide gaps between them where the strips meet. Guess what we call the gaps between the buildings.’

‘The gaps?’ asked Krath.

‘Correct,’ said Rono. ‘I’m glad someone’s awake out there. As you can see, there are twenty gaps running the length of each island from north to south. They’re connected by one gap running east to west through the centre of the island. Like the bridges, that gap was used for emergency access when the portal network had to be shut down during solar storms.’

He paused. ‘The buildings on the islands have structural frames bonded to the diamene platform, so they’re held firmly in place when the platform angle tilts during an earthquake. All the walls have imbedded reinforcement mesh running through them, but they’re still riddled with cracks and liable to drop lumps of concraz on your head. Every gap has twin red safety lines painted on it. Between those two lines is safe, but you never put a foot across a red line without your impact suit hoods up and sealed. Understand?’

We all nodded.

‘Understand?’ repeated Rono. ‘I want to hear you say it.’

‘We understand.’ We chorused the words like a bunch of little kids in Nursery.

‘Due to the small size of Land Raft islands, there are no emergency evac portals on the dig site,’ said Rono, ‘but there are twin accommodation domes on each island. Teams are assigned in pairs, and co-ordinate their excavation work so they can help each other in case of accidents.’

He grinned. ‘Less experienced teams are always paired with research teams. Cassandra 2 were supposed to be nursemaiding Cassandra 11 pre-history degree course, but we were fool enough to agree to them trading dig site allocations with you lot. I’m sure we’ll regret it.’

There was a nervous ripple of laughter from the class. After months of Playdon’s formal teaching style, we found Rono a bit of a shock.

He waited for everyone to quieten down before turning serious again. ‘The main danger here is earthquakes. If the quake warning sirens shriek, then you evacuate as fast as possible. We’re working on red risk islands, and even a minor quake may push one of the supporting legs past its limit or break the strip connections, so you get the chaos out of here. Understand?’

We responded in ritual chorus. ‘We understand.’

‘One final thing,’ said Rono. ‘Four years ago, Dannel Playdon’s wife was killed at the California Rift. This is the first time he’s been back here since then. You don’t mention that to him, you pretend you don’t notice if he looks upset, and you call me at once if you think he needs help. I warn you that if anybody causes him any trouble, I’ll personally take them to the edge of this island and throw them off. It’s a very, very long way down, so even if they’re wearing an impact suit they won’t repeat the mistake. Understand?’

We all stared at him in shock. I hadn’t even known Playdon had been married, let alone that his wife … No wonder Playdon was so paranoid about dig site safety.

‘Understand?’ repeated Rono.

‘We understand,’ we said.

‘Good.’ He turned off the wall vid. ‘Our domes are in the central park, and that’s perfectly safe without impact suits. Let’s go outside and escape the sickly smell of Osiris lilies.’

He led the way towards the dome exit, and everyone pulled frantic faces at each other before trailing after him. This was the first time the class had ever left a dome without wearing protective impact suits. We’d started the year in bleak winter at New York Main Dig Site, where wolves were roaming outside our dome. We’d moved to Eden, in the heart of a rainforest holding scimitar cats and a whole range of nasty insects. Now we found ourselves in bright sunshine in …

Well, this might once have been a park, but now there were no flowers, only patchy grass and a scattering of stunted trees. Next to our accommodation dome was the usual sled storage dome, and facing us were two matching domes that must belong to Cassandra 2. A pathway ran off into the trees to the right, and over to the left was a curved blue shape.

‘We’ve got a swimming pool!’ Krath shouted joyously.

Rono laughed. ‘The park swimming pools are the best thing about the Land Raft islands. They only needed re-lining with flexiplas to make them functional again. Now pay attention to three safety rules.’

He raised one finger. ‘Number one is obvious. Don’t wander out of the park into the ruins. If you aren’t wearing an impact suit, they’re utterly lethal.’

He raised a second finger. ‘Number two. Birds of prey nest on these islands. Don’t disturb them, because they’ll attack you to defend their young.’

He raised a third finger. ‘Number three. The sun here is stronger than most of you will have experienced on your home worlds. If your skin is liable to sunburn badly, there’s protective sun block in the store room.’ He glanced pointedly at a couple of the class, including Fian. ‘Don’t come crying to me if you forget to use it. Understand?’

He’d got us trained now, so we chanted the words in unison. ‘We understand.’

‘Good.’ He clapped his hands. ‘That’s it. Take a break.’

Everyone else sprinted back into the dome, but I went over to Rono. ‘I’m causing far too much trouble staying with the class. I’ll call my commanding officer and ask to go somewhere else.’

Rono looked apologetic. ‘I was joking about the Osiris lily smell, Jarra. I really wanted to get outside because I love the sunshine at the California Rift. It’s just like back home on Cassandra.’

‘I didn’t mean the joke.’ I struggled to keep my voice under control. ‘Lecturer Playdon shouldn’t be forced to come here and face painful memories to keep me safe.’

Rono shook his head. ‘Playdon wasn’t forced to do this. He had plenty of teams offering to trade dig site assignments, and he deliberately chose this one so he could try facing the past in the company of his friends.’

‘Oh.’ I felt a total nardle.

Rono grinned and patted my shoulder. ‘I’m very glad Dannel Playdon’s students appreciate him.’

The rest of the class started reappearing and heading for the pool. Most people, including Fian, were wearing the skintights they normally wore under impact suits, but a few had proper swimming costumes. Rono ran to the pool himself, pulled off his clothes to show a swimming costume that barely covered the legally private areas, and dived into the water.

Fian came over to join me, and I gave an envious sigh. ‘I can’t go in the water until the skunk juice wears off, but you enjoy a swim.’

He shook his head. ‘I’ll wait until we can both go swimming.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I said. ‘You will go swimming, Major Eklund, that’s an order.’

He shook his head again. ‘One slight problem, sir. I can’t swim.’

‘What? Everyone learns to swim at school.’

‘Not on Hercules. Deltans feel school time should be spent studying science. When you recover from the skunk juice, you can teach me to swim. Until then, we’ll just watch the others having fun.’

We walked towards the pool, and found the ten members of Cassandra 2 research team had taken over one end of it, while our class were milling round in the water at the other. I saw Krath go over to the diving area and start climbing the ladder to the highest diving board.

Fian frowned. ‘Do you think the idiot’s safe going up there?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Krath’s usually good at practical things, but …’

Krath reached the diving board, waved his arms, and yelled. ‘Look at me, Amalie!’

Our class all looked up, but Rono ignored him. I wished Playdon was here to make sure Krath didn’t break his stupid …

Krath did a perfect dive that included a forward somersault. I relaxed and laughed at Fian. ‘I’m sure Krath would teach you to swim if you ask him nicely.’

Fian made a disgusted noise, and we watched Krath climb the ladder to do an even fancier dive that started with a handstand. A dozen dives later, Playdon appeared next to me and frowned at the crowd in the pool.

‘Why aren’t my class working?’

Rono swam to the side of the pool, and heaved himself out in one swift movement. ‘They are working. They’re acclimatizing to the sunshine.’

Playdon shook his head and shouted. ‘Asgard 6, out of the pool now!’

Rono winked at me and whispered. ‘I knew this would get him back to normal. Playdon hates seeing his classes lazing around when they should be doing something educational.’

The mob in the pool groaned but obediently climbed out and gathered round us in a dripping group. I backed away nervously to stay clear of water droplets.

‘I want to complete the introductory lectures today, so we can start work on the dig site in the morning,’ said Playdon. ‘Jarra obviously won’t be able to wear an impact suit for a couple of days, so Amalie will substitute as tag leader for our dig team 1.’

Amalie looked worried. ‘I’m not sure …’

‘You’ll do brilliantly,’ I said.

‘It will be good experience for you, Amalie,’ said Playdon. ‘While we’re working on the dig site, Jarra can stay in the dome and do that remedial work I set her on the mathematical theorems of historical analysis. I won’t accept trivial excuses like alien spheres for her delaying it any longer.’

‘Nooo!’ I wailed, while the rest of the class laughed at me.

‘Everyone get dressed now and …’ Playdon broke off as his lookup chimed to signal emergency mail. He tapped it, read the message, and looked startled.

‘Colonel Leveque informs me Jarra and Fian’s bodyguard will be arriving within the next few minutes. Apparently, the bodyguard is …’ Playdon paused to double check the mail message as if he was still having trouble believing it. ‘His Excellency Captain Draven Fedorov Seti Raven, Knight of Adonis.’

There was a moment of stunned silence, before Krath spoke. ‘It must be a joke.’

I couldn’t believe it either. The Adonis Knights were descendants of the first colonists on Adonis. Humanity learned a lot from that first colony. Mostly about all the things that could go wrong when people tried to live on an alien world with its own abundant life and intricate ecology and the portal link failed. After that, the Military Charter was written to establish what later became the cross-sector Military. Their first job was to clean up Adonis and make it safe, then their fledgling Planet First teams moved on to open up other colony worlds.

Playdon shook his head. ‘I can’t imagine Colonel Leveque would …’

He broke off because a man in a Captain’s uniform had just come out of our dome. The new arrival couldn’t be much more than twenty years old. He was slim, with short, dark hair, and had what would have been a very ordinary face if it wasn’t for the thin, horizontal, black and white stripes on his right cheek.

I frantically counted the stripes and made it ten. Chaos take it, I wasn’t just looking at an Adonis Knight. This man had completed the legendary set of ordeals based on the first colonists’ struggle to survive, including a desert trek, fighting predatory animals, a week without food, and two days without water.

The title of an Adonis Knight only meant you were a rich aristocrat with heroic ancestors, but completing all ten trials of Adonis … Respect!

8

I had my eyes closed and my face lifted, glorying in the sensation of warm water cascading over my skin. I ran my fingers through strands of squeaky-clean hair and inhaled the faint fragrance of shower spray. This was blizz. Utter ecstatic blizz!

Someone hammered on the bathroom door, and I heard Amalie shouting. ‘Jarra, there’s a queue out here. For chaos sake, come out of there before you dissolve!’

I groaned and reluctantly switched the shower to dry mode. Amalie must have heard the shower change note, because the hammering stopped. A couple of minutes later, I stepped out of the shower and stood gloating at the sight of my wonderfully unblemished face in the mirror. The hammering on the door started again.

‘I’m coming!’ I tugged on my robe, picked up my gun and my lookup from the shelf, opened the door, and faced a queue of three impatient people.

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I wanted to make sure I got rid of all the Osiris lily smell.’

Amalie groaned. ‘You had an hour-long shower yesterday afternoon. We all told you the smell was gone afterwards. You still insisted on having two more showers and a swim in the pool. The. Smell. Has. Gone.’

‘I could still smell it this morning.’ I sniffed. ‘I think it’s gone now. I’m not sure.’

Amalie sighed and went into the bathroom. His Excellency Captain Draven Fedorov Seti Raven had been leaning casually against the corridor wall waiting for me. Now he escorted me to my room, checking for threats with the tiny sensor in his left hand, while his right hand hovered close to his gun.

I went into the room, found Fian already dressed in his uniform, and got dressed myself. When we went back out into the corridor, we discovered our bodyguard was talking to himself.

‘… understand that but I’m not happy. She’s a potential threat!’

‘I’m afraid you’re stuck with it, Birdy,’ said a disembodied male voice.

I frowned. ‘Where’s that voice coming from, Raven? It’s not your lookup.’

‘It’s coming from the implant bonded to my skull,’ said Raven. ‘It’s SECOP talking.’

‘SECOP? Does that stand for Security Operations?’ I asked.

‘It does, Commander,’ said the voice of SECOP.

I was startled. ‘You can hear me?’

‘In emergency mode, they can see and hear everything I can,’ said Raven. ‘In normal mode, my implant selectively relays statements prefixed with SECOP. Everything else remains private, but my implant has rolling two-hour recordings of everything I see and hear. In the event of my death, or traumatic injury, that data is automatically dumped to SECOP.’

‘It is?’ Fian pulled a face. ‘Next time you stick your nose into something private, I’ll have to remember not to kill you for two hours.’

‘Sorry again,’ said Raven. ‘It sounded like an intruder was attacking you.’

I smothered a giggle. The previous night, Fian and I had celebrated my recovery from the skunk juice by watching a new episode of Fian’s favourite vid series, Stalea of the Jungle. It ended with Stalea throwing her boyfriend across a jungle clearing, pinning him to the ground, and forcibly kissing him. Fian and I were happily re-enacting this scene for our personal entertainment, when an Adonis Knight heroically charged into the room to save us from being murdered.

In the interests of peace, I tried a random change of conversation. ‘Don’t the protection of humanity laws apply to implants?’

‘Implants aren’t banned like robots or clones,’ said Raven, ‘just restricted by the same rules as gene therapy. You can use them to treat medical and cosmetic problems as long as they don’t enhance someone’s abilities beyond the normal human range.’

‘You’re claiming an internal comms system is normal for humans?’ asked Fian.

‘No,’ said Raven, ‘but when Military Security agents are undercover on assignment, a visible external comms unit can get them killed. I’m claiming that’s a cosmetic problem that justifies using implants instead.’

Fian frowned. ‘You’re bending rules that exist for very good reasons. I’ve been arguing with my father for years about this, because my great-grandfather was a member of Cioni’s Apprentices. A huge amount of scientific knowledge was lost in the Earth data net crash. We’re still blindly accepting many things as facts because records state they were once proved. Cioni’s Apprentices were trying to recreate the lost science and proofs, find out what was true or not for themselves.’

He shrugged. ‘I agree with my father that’s a good thing to do, and totally support other scientists working on it, but Cioni’s Apprentices went to inhuman extremes. They didn’t just cause the Freya conflict, and the Persephone incident, but the horror of what happened on Gymir. We need the protection of humanity laws to stop that sort of thing happening again.’

Raven gave Fian a startled look. ‘Your great-grandfather was an Apprentice? Well, yes, I agree the Apprentices took things too far, but plenty of things bend the rules a little. Look at the dome cleaning system. The autovacs break the rules on both robots and artificial intelligence.’

‘No they don’t,’ said Fian. ‘They can’t create another robot, they fail the Owusu intelligence ratings, and they have no digits capable of manipulating …’

I knew the real disagreement here was still about Stalea of the Jungle and privacy, so I gave a pointed cough. ‘I’m starving to death.’

The other two abandoned their argument and we headed to the hall. Raven stopped just inside the doorway, following his regular morning routine of tensely surveying the room for a few minutes, presumably checking to see if any of the class showed signs of having turned into psychotic killers overnight. Fian and I carried on walking to the food dispensers, collected our breakfasts, and went to join Dalmora, Amalie, and Krath at our usual table.

Krath shook his head at us. ‘I still don’t understand why you’ve got an Adonis Knight as a bodyguard.’

I shrugged. ‘Colonel Leveque said he picked Raven because it would be impossible for anyone to bribe him.’

Krath sighed. ‘Yes, the families of the first Adonis colonists all got land grants in perpetuity, so Raven must be stinking rich. I wish I was. All the girls would throw themselves at me.’

Dalmora, Amalie, and I gave him matching glares. Krath hastily changed the subject.

‘Draven Fedorov Seti Raven.’ He started counting on his fingers. ‘Draven is the randomly generated gender specific. Fedorov is the historic reference. Seti …’ He broke off. ‘I’ve forgotten again.’

Dalmora had already explained the Adonis Knight naming system three times, but she patiently did it again. ‘Seti is the month of the fourteen-month-long Adonis year when he was born, and Raven is the Earth nature reference.’

‘It’s too complicated,’ said Krath, ‘and randomly generating a name is a nardle idea.’

‘The Adonis colonists were selected from every region of Earth, and created new traditions to symbolize the fresh start for humanity,’ said Dalmora.

‘Well people obviously didn’t like the new traditions,’ said Krath. ‘Nobody else randomly generates names.’

‘The colonists for other planets in Alpha sector weren’t chosen in the same way,’ said Dalmora. ‘Many of the planets were settled from specific regions of Earth and brought their old customs with them. Other sectors just had open colonization, but you still see major differences between the planets of Alpha sector even today.’

I stopped eating for a moment to join in the conversation. ‘Hospital Earth Administration staff pick what they consider appropriate names for its wards from an approved list. They gave me a different surname as a child, but they let me keep my original first name because Jarra is an old enough name to be on the approved list. They haven’t updated that list for about a century. My best friend from Next Step, Issette, is always complaining about having such an old-fashioned name.’

‘My great-grandmother was called Issette,’ said Amalie. ‘I think it’s a sweetly quaint name.’

I giggled. ‘Please, never say that to my Issette. She’d scream.’

‘Anyway,’ said Krath, ‘I’m glad Raven doesn’t make us use his title or …’

‘Shut up, Krath,’ hissed Amalie. ‘He’s coming.’

Raven put his breakfast tray on the table and sat down in his regular seat, chosen so he’d have his back to the wall and a clear view of everyone in the room. ‘Good morning.’

I heard the wall vid go on, and a presenter say my name. I turned and saw the Beta Sector Daily banner streaming across the top of the vid image.

‘… Commander Tell Morrath as a clan member. The scale of demonstrations, both in support and opposition, increased after the skunk juice attack. The situation escalated further last night, with violent clashes between rival demonstrators outside the Parthenon. We’re now getting reports of demonstrations on other Betan worlds, including Janus, Romulus, Aether and Artemis.’

The image behind the presenter showed a night-time view of the famous Beta Sector Parliament building, with its rows of statues of former First Speakers of Beta sector. The figures of fighting people were silhouetted against the floodlights.

‘The demonstrators are acting as individuals,’ continued the presenter, ‘with clans still awaiting indications from alliances of their official stance on this unprecedented move by a clan of the gentes maiores. The August clan have still made no comment, leaving their alliance and the entire reactionary faction in confusion, though there are allegations that either the August or the Fabian clan are secretly orchestrating the protests against the Tell clan ceremony.’

Lolmack made a noise of disgust and turned off the wall vid. ‘The demonstrations prove we’ve strong public support, but the alliances still don’t have the courage to declare themselves.’

I sat there, totally grazzed. I’d been huddled in my own self-absorbed little world for the last few days, carefully avoiding watching the newzies because they kept showing those two horribly contrasting images of me. I’d had no idea there was a political storm raging in Beta sector, with demonstrators fighting outside the Parthenon itself.

‘I don’t understand Betan politics,’ said Krath. ‘What’s the gentes maiores?’

‘Betan society was inspired by ancient Rome, basing its clan structure on it, and naming the Parthenon after one of its famous buildings,’ said Lolmack.

I blinked, opened my mouth to object, but shut it again because Lolmack was still talking.

‘The highest ranked Betan clans are the gentes maiores, the clans of the Founding Families of Zeus,’ he said. ‘Some official positions, like the First Speaker of Beta sector, are traditionally held by a member of those clans.’

He glanced in my direction. ‘The Tell clan is the one exception among the clans of the gentes maiores. Tellon Blaze was born into a clan of the middle rank, but after the Thetis crisis a grateful Beta sector honoured him by granting him the right to found a new clan of the rank of the gentes maiores.’

‘So how do the alliances work?’ asked Amalie.

Lolmack looked round, saw he had the whole class listening to him now, and settled into lecture mode. ‘Clan alliances are based around political or business interests, and bridge the social divides. The Military clans are all of the middle and first rank, and belong to the Military clan alliance headed by the Tell clan. Lolia and I belong to a plebeian clan of the lowest rank, a mere clan cluster without the right to a true clan name. We make sex vids so …’

He gave a shrug of resignation. ‘Our clan is in an alliance headed by the Breck clan of the middle rank. Being in an alliance is the first step towards getting our clan officially recognized, but we’ve little status and no influence in alliance council decisions.’

‘That’s why your clan has to accept whatever the alliance decides about Lolette?’ I asked.

‘Exactly,’ said Lolmack. ‘If we caused trouble, the alliance would discard us, and we’d have to begin again from nothing. It should have been so different. Our clan has no status but we’re wealthy. We’d arranged to buy adoption for our child.’

I frowned. Lolette wasn’t an unwanted baby. Lolmack and Lolia had made great sacrifices to keep her. ‘I don’t understand what you mean by buying adoption.’

‘A clan may adopt someone as part of marriage negotiations, because they’re impressed by someone’s talent, or if they’re given a large financial incentive,’ said Lolmack. ‘Lolette should have been adopted into the Breck clan as a baby. She’d have remained our daughter, but she’d have been elevated to the middle rank and …’

He pulled a pained face. ‘Lolette was born Handicapped, so now we’ll be grateful if she’s even acknowledged by our clan cluster.’

The silence after that was broken by Playdon’s voice coming from near the door. ‘Since this is a pre-history course, I’d like to point out the original Parthenon was not a Roman building but a Greek temple.’

Lolmack shrugged. ‘There’s no real difference. Ancient Rome and Greece were both on Earth and far back in pre-history.’

I smothered a giggle as I saw the expression on Playdon’s face.

‘There is a very significant difference,’ said Playdon. ‘Although Beta sector claims to be inspired by ancient Rome, there were many initial misconceptions, and of course Betan society has evolved over the centuries.’

He paused for a second. ‘Now I’ve important news for you. Military Security have released Petra. I’ve spoken to her about the issue of insulting Jarra, and she knows I won’t tolerate any further breaches of the Gamman moral code.’

Steen stood up. ‘You can’t let Petra rejoin the class!’

‘I can and I will,’ said Playdon. ‘Military Security arrested her, interrogated her, and decided she’s innocent. Anyone with access to the dig team assignment schedule would know when this class was moving to London Main. Whoever passed on that information, it wasn’t Petra. I’m moving her from our class dig team 4 to team 5 because ill feeling between team members can be dangerous, but I’m not throwing a student off this course for a crime she didn’t commit. Please sit down, Steen.’

Steen didn’t move.

‘I asked you to sit down.’

There was another moment of suspense before Steen flung himself down in his chair. Playdon nodded, turned, and went out of the door.

‘Why is Steen so angry, Jarra?’ Raven asked in an urgent whisper.

I sighed. ‘Steen hates Petra. One of the students in our class, Joth, was Twoing with Petra. They had an argument and Joth got himself killed doing something stupid. Steen was a friend of Joth. He blamed Petra for what happened, so …’

‘I was Joth’s friend too,’ said Krath, ‘and Steen’s right. We should all insist that …’

He broke off because Playdon was back, with Petra standing next to him. There was an awkward silence and I realized some of the class were looking at me. I took a deep breath, forced myself to stand up, and walked across to Petra.

‘I hope we can make a fresh start.’

She stared at me, her expression changing from defiance to shock. I waited a second, but Petra seemed far too grazzed to say anything, so I just went back to my seat.

Krath frowned at me. ‘Why didn’t you tell Petra to nuke off?’

‘Because Playdon’s done a huge amount to help me since I joined this class. I’m not rewarding him by stirring up trouble when he’s grieving for his dead wife.’

‘Jarra’s right,’ said Dalmora. ‘We must respect Playdon’s decision.’

Krath glanced at Amalie and then Fian, but they both nodded agreement.

‘Fine,’ muttered Krath. ‘Have it your way, but I’m not happy about Petra being back with us.’

‘Neither am I,’ said Raven.

9

A crowd of figures in impact suits were gathering by our sled storage dome. Impact suits are wonderful things. When a ruined building collapses on your head, or something explodes and sends debris flying at you, the special fabric triggers and goes solid to protect you. The only problem is they’re chaos difficult to put on. I’d been proud that I could suit up in the Military standard time of two minutes, but I’d just seen Raven casually beat my best ever time by ten seconds.

‘I can’t believe how fast you suited up,’ I said.

Raven laughed. ‘I’ve had special training, Jarra.’

The last few stragglers arrived, and Playdon started talking. ‘Now Jarra is able to come with us, we’ll drive to the edge of the island. You can all admire the view from the Land Raft before we start our excavation work.’

A few minutes later, our line of hover sleds was heading along Gap 15. There was an unbroken wall of buildings on either side of us, towering up to about twenty storeys high. In ancient vid images of San Angeles, these buildings were dazzling white, and their long uniform lines had a regal elegance, but time had aged the concraz to a grubby pale grey and scarred it with cracks and holes.

Our sleds kept carefully to the safe zone between the two red lines, so we had the luxury of keeping our hoods down for the trip, instead of breathing the musty, filtered air inside our suits. I was sitting on the bench seat of a transport sled, between Fian and Raven, our three Military impact suits conspicuous among the standard black suits worn by the other students.

There was an excited yelp from opposite us. ‘Alien Contact have announced they’ve finished searching Alpha sector!’ said Krath.

Everyone madly checked their lookups. ‘So the alien home world definitely isn’t in Alpha sector,’ said Dalmora. ‘I must admit I’m relieved. It would have been worrying to think of it being near my family on Danae.’

‘And the General Marshal’s speech was only a few days ago,’ Krath said joyfully. ‘If they can search Alpha sector that quickly, then it won’t take long to find the aliens after all.’

‘Alien Contact started searching Alpha sector the moment the alien probe arrived at Earth,’ said Fian.

‘Oh,’ said Krath. ‘That’s months so … Why don’t they borrow more people from the Planet First teams, or even stop working on the new colony worlds entirely for a while? The Isolationist Party would whine about it of course, because they don’t want us to find the alien home world, but nobody else would care.’

‘My brother would care,’ said Amalie in acid tones. ‘His Colony Ten group are on standby waiting for Planet First to declare the next Kappa world safe for first stage colonization.’

‘Oh.’ Krath shut up.

Raven hastily changed the subject. ‘Why did people go to all the effort of building this Land Raft? Wouldn’t it have been much easier to build San Angeles somewhere else?’

‘They wanted to prove nature couldn’t beat them.’ I sighed. ‘Imagine what it was like living back then, with their incredible cities and fantastic technology.’

‘It wasn’t a paradise back in 2250,’ said Fian. ‘They had some huge environmental problems to …’

He broke off as a block of concraz suddenly tumbled from one of the buildings and crashed to the ground, underlining the reason for the red danger lines. Raven frowned at it for a second before continuing the conversation.

‘Their technology wasn’t as advanced as ours in some areas. They could portal around Earth, but not to other worlds.’

‘Some of us still can’t,’ I snapped. ‘Back in 2250, no one would have sneered at me for being Handicapped. They didn’t even know the Handicap existed.’

‘Sorry,’ said Raven. ‘I was tactless.’

There was an uncomfortable silence for a couple of minutes, while I indulged myself with bitter thoughts about selfishly smug people who weren’t just born norms, but rich Alphan aristocrats as well. Then I calmed down and felt guilty.

‘Sorry, Raven. I’m frustrated and angry at fate for trapping me on Earth, and at the bigots on Joint Sector High Congress Committee for ordering me and Fian out of the Alien Contact programme, but it isn’t fair to take that anger out on you.’

‘If it’s any consolation, Jarra, I think most of the committee members regret that decision,’ said Raven. ‘They were heavily criticized for it, especially after the skunk juice attack. Some people said they were partly to blame for that, because they sent you away from the safety of Zulu base.’

I pulled a face. ‘The committee members obviously don’t regret it that much, because they haven’t ordered us back.’

Raven shrugged. ‘They’ve already backed down once, issuing that clarified order about your removal only being temporary. They’d have to be desperate to totally reverse their decision.’

‘I’ve been as bad tempered as Jarra,’ said Fian. ‘It’s not just the frustration of having to wait to rejoin the Alien Contact programme, but the strain of having someone following us round all day and sleeping outside our door at night. I know you’re doing it to protect us, Raven, but it sometimes feels like I’m Threeing instead of Twoing.’

I frowned. ‘Raven, if you’re sleeping in the corridor, aren’t the autovacs a problem?’

‘They were annoying the first night, trying to sweep me up, but they’ve classified me as a permanent obstacle now,’ said Raven.

I pictured Raven stubbornly holding his ground in the corridor against the autovacs. It was funny, but it also emphasized how hard and how patiently this Alphan aristocrat was working to keep Fian and me safe. Fian was obviously thinking the same thing, because he groaned.

‘I surrender. I’ll try to stop complaining about privacy, but remember I draw the line at a triad marriage.’

I giggled. ‘Since I’m Betan, I suppose I …’

Fian waved a finger at me. ‘No, Jarra! No triad marriage!’

We’d reached the edge of the island now. Ahead of us, we could see two other islands of the Land Raft, each supported on massive legs that went down, and down, and … The sleds stopped and everyone got off and slowly walked towards the low wall that guarded the sheer drop.

‘Don’t get too close to the edge,’ said Playdon, ‘that wall’s badly cracked.’

We stopped at a safe distance from the edge, and stood there in awed silence for a few minutes. The view was stunning but also terrifying. It wasn’t just the height; the two nearest islands looked like giant alien spiders, and beyond them were dozens, hundreds more, set out in neat lines. It gave me the unnerving impression I was watching an invading force marching across the ground to conquer Earth.

With an alien sphere up in orbit, and the Military busily searching for the alien home world, I daren’t say that aloud. ‘Amaz,’ I said instead. ‘We must be as high up as the top of one of the old skyscrapers on New York Main Dig Site.’

‘I don’t believe it.’ Raven’s voice cracked with emotion. ‘I really don’t believe it. This can’t be real.’

I heard harsh birdcalls, and turned to see a flock of what looked like crows swooping over a nearby building. A much larger bird launched itself from the top of the building, and soared out over the edge of the Land Raft. Wings spread wide and rigidly unmoving except for the feathers at its wingtips, it circled to ride a thermal upwards. A second huge bird appeared through a jagged hole that must have once been a window, and followed it. I tipped my head back to watch them flying, and saw other birds circling even higher in the sky.

I pointed up at them. ‘Look!’

‘A variety of birds, particularly birds of prey, use the Land Raft as a nesting site,’ said Playdon. ‘They treat the islands as their private artificial mountain tops, and will fly out for large distances to hunt prey on the ground below. If they start swooping at you, get your suit hoods up and sealed quickly to protect your faces.’

‘Is that likely to happen?’ asked Amalie.

‘Only if you disturb a nest,’ said Playdon. ‘Another day, we’ll portal down to explore the California Rift area at ground level. We’ll see the Land Raft from below, visit the wreckage of one of the toppled islands, and take a look at the earthquake fault line itself.’

Raven shook his head. ‘I’m being seriously unprofessional here. I should be watching for trouble, not staring at impressive views.’

Fian glanced across at where Krath was standing with Amalie, and then leaned towards Raven and whispered. ‘Raven, could you give me some combat lessons?’

Raven looked startled. ‘I could, but why? It’s my job to do any fighting.’

‘After the attack on Jarra … Well, I’d feel happier knowing I could deal with a situation like that without Lolmack’s help. We’ll have to find somewhere quiet in the park to practise though, because I don’t want Krath watching and making fun of me.’

Raven opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again, frowning at something. I saw Petra was walking towards me. She stopped when she was still a few paces away.

‘What does she want?’ asked Fian.

‘No idea,’ I said. ‘It’s probably best if I talk to her alone.’

I went forward to meet Petra. She looked round warily at the watching class and Playdon, before speaking in a low voice intended only for me.

‘So you want a fresh start? Well I don’t. Even when I thought you were human, I didn’t like the way you constantly showed off. Once I found out you were really a lying, throwback ape …’

I’d been angry at her insults before, but I wasn’t this time. Petra had been through a nightmare of questioning by Military Security, but she was still forcing herself to defy me so she could hang on to some shreds of her pride. I respected that.

I suddenly realized the two of us were very alike. Looking at Petra now was like seeing my own mirror image. If she hated all Handicapped, I’d had an equally indiscriminate hatred of norms before I joined this class. If she used words like ape, I’d used the word exo often enough in the past.

‘I think you began with an unfair prejudice against the Handicapped in general,’ I said, ‘but I agree you’ve got perfectly valid reasons to dislike me now. The lies I told. The way I used my knowledge of Earth and the dig sites to try and prove I was better than the rest of you. It was Steen that accused you, got you arrested for something you hadn’t done, but it certainly wouldn’t have happened if I wasn’t in the class, so …’

Petra gave me a puzzled frown, hesitated, and then spoke in a rush of words. ‘I wasn’t involved in the skunk juice attack, but I did send a message to Fian’s father. I told him exactly how you met his son, and said you were sharing a room.’

I was too startled to speak. Fian’s father had found out the truth from Petra! Did I tell Fian or not? It would only make the situation worse, so …

No, I couldn’t hide this from Fian. I wanted him to let me make my own decisions and fight my own battles, and I had to let him do the same. Petra had sent a poisonous message to his father, and it was up to Fian to decide what to do about it.

Petra was still talking, a hint of apology mingled with the self-justification in her voice. ‘Everyone had forgiven you for the lies. The newzies were all talking about you. Fian was adoring you and you didn’t deserve him. It wasn’t fair! Not after …’

She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t need to. The raw, painful subject of Joth’s death was overshadowing this whole conversation. I could understand that every time Petra saw Fian and me together, laughing, talking, hugging, or arguing, it would rub in the fact that Joth was dead and she was alone.

‘No it wasn’t fair,’ I said. ‘I don’t deserve someone as totally zan as Fian, but he isn’t letting anyone split us up. Not you, not his father, and not the people throwing skunk juice at us.’ I paused. ‘Petra, you’ve had your revenge by setting Fian’s father against us. Let it end there.’

I turned and went back to rejoin the others. Raven’s tense face relaxed, and his right hand moved away from where it had been hovering over his gun. I grinned at him.

‘Were you expecting Petra to try and throw me off the Land Raft?’

I meant it as a joke, but he didn’t laugh. ‘I was prepared for that, as well as several other possibilities. You’ve already been hit in the face by skunk juice, Jarra. Next time, someone may try to kill you. You don’t seem to be taking that seriously, but I must. I’m your bodyguard and it’s my job to stop them.’

10

I was grazzed to discover Krath and an Adonis Knight shared a passion. For horror vids!

‘This has the best holo effects of any of the vids set in the Thetis chaos year.’ Krath adjusted the settings on the huge wall vid in the hall. ‘It’s a pity we have to watch it right after dinner though. Horror vid parties should be late at night.’

‘I’m not allowing late night parties when everyone has to work on the dig site next morning,’ said Playdon.

Krath sighed. ‘Can we at least dim the lights?’

Playdon went and dimmed the lights, then sat on a chair in the corner. The class settled themselves on cushions on the floor, and I saw Fian glare across at Petra.

‘I’d like to murder that girl,’ he muttered.

‘Military officers aren’t allowed to murder civilians,’ I whispered. ‘At least give her credit for confessing she sent that message to your father.’

‘I don’t know why you’re defending Petra. Steen’s told me all about how she insulted you.’

‘Steen’s blaming everything on her, but he called me a lot of names too and …’

I sighed. I couldn’t explain my muddled thoughts about how I’d started all this by lying my way into this class, and how the old me might have done the same as Petra if the situation had been reversed. If a norm had lied her way into a class of Handicapped, rubbed my nose in the fact she was better than me at history, and started Twoing with a boy I loved, I’d have been the one throwing insults around. It wouldn’t have been the exact reverse, Petra would still have been the privileged one who had a real family and could portal to other worlds, but …

‘I can understand her side of things.’

Fian shook his head. ‘Well, I can’t. The only reason I’m not making a formal complaint to Playdon is because I don’t want to worry him right now.’

The vid credits started with an image of a heroic young man wearing a Military cadet’s uniform.

‘Tellon Blaze doesn’t look much like Jarra,’ said Krath.

‘There are two good reasons for that,’ I said. ‘Firstly, there are a lot of generations between me and Tellon Blaze. Secondly, that isn’t the real Tellon Blaze, just a vid actor.’

Raven passed me a bowl of something. ‘It’s an Adonis tradition to eat popcorn at vid parties.’

I’d never heard of popcorn. I peered at it suspiciously, before munching a lump of the peculiar stuff. There were startled squeaks around me, as holos of black spiky creatures shot out from the screen and started creeping round the hall, hissing at us.

‘Dalmora, is your father going to make a history vid about Thetis?’ asked Amalie.

‘He intended to,’ said Dalmora, ‘but he’s changed his mind. He feels it would be irresponsible to remind people of the chimera of Thetis when we’re about to contact an intelligent alien species.’

Raven gave a guilty look at the holo chimera that were now retreating, snarling, to the wall vid. ‘He’s right. I really shouldn’t have … I hope everyone here understands the difference between the chimera and intelligent aliens with their own civilization. Every world we colonize has already evolved its own indigenous plant and animal life. The chimera were just a lethal animal species that were missed by the Planet First checks. Chimera had some incredible natural abilities that let them sneak through our portals and infest other worlds, but they weren’t intelligent.’

I wasn’t sure he was helping by saying that. I felt it just emphasized the point that humanity had barely coped with the chimera, an animal species that had no weapons and operated purely on instinct, and an alien civilization could be a vastly bigger threat.

‘Don’t worry, Raven,’ I said. ‘Everyone in this room must have already watched a dozen horror vids about the chimera. One more won’t make any difference.’

The credits finished and the vid itself started. There were screams when the winged form of the chimera started flying round the room, and someone dropped the popcorn bowl.

After thirty minutes, we reached the point where Tellon Blaze made his legendary call to the General Marshal on Academy in Alpha sector. ‘The Planet First team thought there were thousands of different animal species on Thetis, and they’d eliminated all the dangerous ones, sir,’ he said. ‘They were wrong. There’s only one species on Thetis. Everything is different forms of the chimera!’

My lookup chimed, I read the message, and blinked with surprise. ‘My cousin, Commander Drago Tell Dramis, is on his way to visit us.’

Fian and I stood up and headed for the door, and Raven gave a last regretful look at the wall vid before following us. We’d only just arrived in the portal room, when the portal flared to life and Drago stepped out of it.

I was about to ask why Drago was here, when I realized the answer. I’d been impatiently waiting for clan council to send me details of the rearranged presentation ceremony, but Drago had come to tell me there wasn’t going to be one. I fought to keep my voice calm. ‘We’d better go to our room.’

I led the way, and Raven took up position on guard duty in the corridor, while Fian, Drago and I went inside and closed the door.

‘I’m pleased to see you’re looking your lovely self again, Jarra,’ said Drago.

I was in no mood for his flirting. ‘I’ve seen the demonstrations on the newzies, Drago. I’d no idea making me a clan member would cause so much trouble.’

He nodded. ‘The clan knew it would be controversial, but didn’t expect things to get quite so dramatic. That’s why I’m here.’

‘If the Tell clan don’t want me as a member now, please just tell me and …’

I broke off and bit my lip. It was stupid to feel so wounded by this. I’d coped perfectly well without a family for my whole life, so why should I care if some nuking Betan clan had thought better of having a throwback as a member? It was actually a good thing, because I’d always had reservations about Beta sector. The only reason I wasn’t totally delighted about being dumped, was because Lolia and Lolmack would be devastated.

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