Astra (26 page)

* * *

The next day when Astra woke up and climbed down from Hokma’s loft, Lil was in the kitchen, washing last night’s dishes. After breakfast Lil asked Hokma if she could help in the vegetable garden, where she proved to be very handy with a hoe. Hokma said her dad had obviously brought her up to be a hard worker.

Lil’s head was down among the beans. ‘We worked in the mornings and played games in the afternoons,’ she said.

‘What kind of games?’ Hokma asked.

‘Skipping, hopscotch, singing, catch. Reading, writing, storytelling, snap,’ Lil recited. ‘Other stuff too. Keepie-uppie. Arrow practise.’

‘That’s a nice rhyme. We play all those games here, don’t we, Astra?’

‘We used to,’ Astra corrected. ‘I’m too old for snap now. And hopscotch.’

‘I suppose you are. But we still practise writing sometimes, don’t we?’

‘Sometimes.’ Astra shrugged. Along with her refusal to get a prosthetic eye and her insistence on living off-grid with no access to the internet, writing was one of Hokma’s
eccentricities
, as Nimma put it. All the metal tubes on her desk were antique fountain pens her Code grandmother had brought with her from Neuropa to Is-Land, and the bottles were full of coloured inks Hokma made from berries. She said that fountain pens were an important part of the development of Storytelling tradition, and she often tried to get Astra to use them. She’d taught her how to write the alphabet, the twenty-six Old World letters and the four Gaian diphthongs, but beyond the delight of writing her name in different artistic designs, Astra didn’t really see the point.

Writing took ages and was strewn with peril: first you had to fill the pen and shake it out, risking blotting your page or the wall; when you dragged the nib across Hokma’s rough handmade paper it always caught on bits of fibre and ruined your letters; then just as you were starting to concentrate properly you ran out of ink and had to refill the pen; until finally, you had to try to read what you had written. Astra did her best to write big and clearly, but Hokma’s joined-up writing looked like scattered leaves, her letters loopy and irregular, her
f
s like
t
s, and
r
s for some reason almost disappearing. Hokma had shown her how to write with a quill too, made from one of Helium’s feathers, but the scratchy nib was even more inefficient.

Making paper, though, was the ultimate waste of time. Hokma did it once a year in the lab: pulping the hemp, soaking it in a flat basin on top of the alt-meat incubator, screening it into sheets, hanging the pages out on the line to dry. It had been fun to help when she was little, but now she was older Astra found the whole process tedious and pointless. Worse than pointless: it was backward. You couldn’t run a society on such primitive tech. It slowed your thinking. No wonder the people of the Old World had nearly destroyed Gaia.

‘One day, Astra,’ Hokma said good-humouredly, ‘you’ll be glad you can write.’

Astra ignored her. They’d had this argument before, but Hokma wouldn’t listen. It was true that Server connections could be easily hacked, so you must never trust sensitive information to Tablette talk or emails. But Owleons couldn’t carry reams of paper on their ankles; that was a ridiculous notion: you used a password-protected memory clip and the recipient downloaded it onto a non-Server-linked Tablette. The only time you might conceivably need to write was if you were out on patrol, with no internet connection, and had to leave a message for your unit. But you wouldn’t be wasting valuable pac space carrying a pen and paper; you’d use local materials, rocks or bricks or sticks, and leave them in a pre-arranged Code pattern. Writing, as Klor said, was
obsolete
.

‘My dad said writing stitches our thoughts to Gaia’s eternal shawl,’ Lil said, in a high, sing-song voice.

Astra wanted to gag, but Hokma leaned on her spade as if listening to the phrase linger in the air. ‘That’s a beautiful thing to say, isn’t it, Astra? What did you and he write with, Lil?’

Lil didn’t look at Hokma. ‘We practised with a stick,’ she said, jabbing the furrow with the hoe. ‘In the earth. But he had a pen and berry ink too. Like yours.’

‘A pen. That’s nice. So did he have paper?’

Lil’s back was still turned. ‘He had a notebook. He was saving it for when I wanted to write poems. I copied all my hymns in it and I put it in his pyre with him.’

‘That was very thoughtful of you,’ Hokma said quietly. ‘Did you write a poem too?’

Lil shrugged. Both shoulders lifted and dropped this time. ‘I like singing. I might write a poem one day.’

‘Yes, I expect you might. Astra writes good poems, don’t you, Astra?’

Poems: that was another thing Hokma banged on about. Astra wrote Gaia poems in school like everyone else, and they got high marks, but she wanted to write Code, not poems, when she grew up. Still, if it meant she could get the last word in this inane conversation, she would answer the question.

‘I wrote the best poem in the class last week,’ she said, nonchalantly. ‘It was called “Gaia Take Me Higher”.’

‘It’s a fantastic poem. And you translated it into Asfarian and Inglish, didn’t you? Maybe you can bring your Tablette next time and show Lil.’

She wasn’t normally allowed to bring Tabby to Wise House, but for Lil, obviously, none of the normal rules applied. ‘Maybe,’ she airily replied. ‘Can we play knockout whist tonight?’

‘That’s a great idea, Astra. How does that sound, Lil?’

Lil nodded, so that’s what they did after dinner. Astra won the first game, then Hokma won one. Lil won the next one, and then when the girls begged to continue, Astra won the fourth. Lil wanted to play one more, but Hokma said no, Astra had to go back to Or for some Me-Time before school. Then as Astra was putting the cards back in their box, Hokma asked Lil if she’d like to show Astra her Gaia hymnbook.

Astra picked at a thread on the sofa arm. Despite her disdain for writing, she had to admit that books were interesting. Proper books were printed, not handwritten, so it was as easy to read them as a Tablette screen, but apart from the sewn notebooks she and Hokma used to make, she’d only ever seen one example of the ancient technology, in a glass case in the School Learning Resource Centre. Books were mostly illegal, because they were incredibly wasteful: they took acres of trees to make and you couldn’t update them. Family heirlooms were allowed, and so were very rare hand-crafted volumes, as long as they met the Wheel Meet criteria for ‘art object’. Lil’s hymnbook, Nimma had said, was a very early one from the Pioneer days. It probably had some nice pictures, but it wouldn’t have any new or updated hymns. She could tell Lil how archaic it was, and she could also tell everyone at school that she’d read a book and turned its pages.

Lil was examining her fingernails. ‘Not today,’ she said at last.

‘Okay,’ Hokma said cheerfully, getting up with the dirty mugs, ‘maybe another time. Astra, will you help me wash up?’

What was she, some kind of Old World slave? ‘Doesn’t Lil have to help too?’

‘Lil did the morning dishes – without being asked. Let her relax, Astra. You and I can catch up.’

Lil
had
done the morning dishes. Astra got up and followed Hokma to the vestibule entrance. At the door she stopped to say, ‘Thanks for the game, better luck next time.’ But Lil had turned her back on the room. She was spread out on the sofa, her head leaning on the armrest and her legs stretched out over the cushion Astra had just been sitting on. Astra shut the door with a bang.

* * *

Hokma’s idea of catching up was nagging Astra about her homework. After she’d dried the stupid dishes, she walked back to Or with her solar lamp. When she got back to the Earthship she called out
Hi
, then went into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of oatmilk. There was a plate of Nimma’s berry biscuits on the table. Good. That would take the taste of Lil’s smug victory out of her mouth. She sat down and ate one.

As she munched, Nimma and Klor’s voices drifted in from the living room. ‘Goodness, these forms get more complicated every year,’ Klor complained. ‘Now they want to know Parent and Steering Committee meeting attendance
percentages
.’

‘If you kept track as you went along, darling, instead of waiting until the last minute, you wouldn’t have to go back over all the minutes.’

‘I
have
kept track, my deep-rooted lotus blossom. I just need to calculate the percentages. Surely someone at IMBOD could program a Tablette to do that.’

‘I expect all their statisticians are tracking the progress of the Sec Gens,’ Nimma consoled.

‘Probably so, probably so,’ Klor agreed. There was silence for a few minutes, filled only with the clicking of Nimma’s needles as she sped through her rows. Astra let a biscuit melt in her mouth. Perhaps they would talk more about the Sec Gens.

‘Reasons for absence!’ Klor sounded impatient now. ‘Project deadline. Sick. Sick child. Working abroad. Working elsewhere in Is-Land. Other. But we don’t keep a record of
reasons
.’

‘If IMBOD wants to know, it must be important. We’ll have to start keeping track.’

‘Keeping track of Hokma, you mean. She’s the top absentee. Twenty-four per cent.’

‘Gracious – that
is
high.’

‘They don’t have a category for “Sick Owleon”,’ Klor chuckled.

‘Surely Gloria’s been absent more often. Poor woman.’ Nimma
tsked
.

Gloria was Congruence’s other Shelter mother. She hadn’t been well lately. No one knew what was wrong so she was going to Atourne for tests soon. Nimma, Astra knew, thought Torrent should have ‘taken that into consideration’, but Klor had said goodness, the boy’s not responsible for
the girl’s mother’s health. Not that Torrent was bothered. His Code-Shelter father, Russett, seemed to care about Torrent’s reputation far more than he did. Russett, Astra thought, probably had a parents’ meeting attendance record of one hundred and fifty per cent.

‘No,’ Klor was saying, ‘only twenty-two per cent. And she has a valid reason.’

‘We’ll have to talk to Hokma about it. I’m sure she doesn’t want a black mark on her record. Or ours.
Astra
,’ Nimma called, ‘are you still in the kitchen, darling? Come in and say goodnight.’

She set her empty glass by the sink and shuffled into the living room. Nimma was on the sofa and Klor was in his comfy chair, his Tablette on his lap.

‘How did the weekend go?’ Nimma asked.

‘Okay,’ she said, hovering by the sofa arm.

‘Is Lil settling in?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Is she talking more?’

‘A bit.’

‘But you’re not, now, is that it?’ Klor commented.

Astra rolled her eyes. ‘I ask her questions, but she doesn’t remember anything from before.’

‘It’s not your job to find out about that.’ Klor put his Tablette down on the side table. ‘IMBOD is still checking the records.’

‘Just be nice to her, Astra,’ Nimma said.

‘I am being nice! We played cards, and I let her win a game.’

‘Good girl. Now time for bed.’

Astra lolled against the sofa arm. ‘Nimma?’

‘Yes, darling?’

‘Lil’s not coming to the Blood & Seed ceremony, is she?’

‘I don’t know. It will depend.’

‘On what?’

‘On a lot of things.’ Nimma looked over at Klor. ‘Whether IMBOD finds her family, for one.’

‘Oh, I expect they will soon,’ he said. ‘There can’t be too many missing single Code-Shelter fathers in Is-Land.’

‘But if she’s still here, will she come?’ Astra persisted. ‘I mean, the ceremony’s only for kids in the bioregion. Kids with communities. And she’s fourteen.’

‘We’d have to have a meeting about it,’ Nimma said firmly. ‘She did grow up in the bioregion after all. And it’s not her fault that she missed the ceremony last year.’

Her Shelter parents were frowning a little at each other again. She was arguing too much, she knew. Astra acquiesced, but not before playing her trump card. ‘She hasn’t had her Security shot,’ she pouted. ‘She might upset Yoki.’

Nimma patted her hand. ‘If she’s still here, we’ll see how she’s behaving closer to the time. Now you just put yourself to bed. And darling, do wash your hair in the morning – Eurasian hair dreads get so horribly greasy and rat’s-nesty. It’s not like you have nice springy Eurafrican hair like Meem.’

Astra yanked her hand away. ‘I washed it yesterday. At Wise House,’ she lied.

‘Well, it doesn’t look clean. Hokma probably doesn’t have any shampoo up there, does she? What did you use, baking soda?’

‘I used water!’

‘That’s not enough. Soap, we said. Every two days.’

‘That’s right, Astra,’ Klor added. ‘That was the contract.’

‘Then I’ll wash it tomorrow
night
,’ she said, and stomped out of the room and up to bed.

* * *

The following week Lil helped Hokma make biscuits and wash the housecoats. She flew Helium and the two trainee Owleons, but she was respectful of Silver and only touched him if Astra let her. After the flying field, she played skipping games with Astra until Astra had to stop and admit she’d never be able to make the rope swing through the air the way Lil could. Veneday evening, when Astra was sleeping over again, Lil gathered wood from the forest to make a fire on the lawn.

‘That’s, er,
illegal
,’ Astra pointed out. Hokma had obviously forgotten what season it was.

‘No one will know if you don’t tell them,’ Hokma replied.

Thanks. Make
her
sound like the criminal. ‘They’ll know if the forest burns down,’ she retorted.

‘Oh, it’ll be fine, Astra, just this once. We’ll get some water buckets.’

So she and Hokma filled buckets and set them in a circle in case of sparks. Then they sat on a couple of logs and watched Lil prepare a tipi of twigs, filled with shruff and kindling. Next she stripped the bark off a
thin stick of elder, placed the end on another, flat piece of wood and rotated the stick between her palms. Unbelievably, an ember formed. Lil gently blew the small glowing ball into a handful of shruff, which smoked for a minute, obscuring her face, and then with a whoosh flared into flame. She poked the shruff into the tipi and soon the kindling was crackling and Hokma was cheering. When the fire was properly blazing, Hokma improvised a grill from some bricks and a baking sheet and Lil fried chanterelles, wild garlic and mallow leaves in an old pan from the kitchen. The mushrooms were a little rubbery compared with how Nimma cooked them, but Astra knew Hokma would get annoyed if she said that, so she admired how frilly and golden they were, and how the mallow leaves turned all crispy. And the mushrooms weren’t
bad
. She ate them all, slowly, assessing this new intelligence about their guest.