Astra (31 page)

Astra had had enough. Water was dribbling down her chin. She rubbed it away and chucked her hydropac aside. ‘Well, he should have taken you to
New Zonia
then,’ she cut in, ‘instead of to the off-limits woodlands where even if you
had
a Tablette you couldn’t get reception.’

Surely she’d had the last word. But no, Lil just couldn’t leave it alone. ‘My dad didn’t want me to learn history from a Tablette. He said IMBOD left out bits and changed other parts to brainwash us into being para—’

It was automatic. ‘
Shhhh
,’ Astra hissed.

‘Why?’

Why?
‘You can’t talk like that about IMBOD. What if Tabby was on and his microphone picked you up?’

‘See?’ Lil crowed. ‘My dad was right: IMBOD wants you to be paranoid the whole time!’

‘Wha—?’ Astra sputtered to a halt. It was nearly impossible to keep up with Lil, but she had to try. Being ‘paranoid’ was something the adults joked about sometimes. Astra used to think it was a problem caused by your adenoids, if you hadn’t had them out. A while ago, though, Klor had explained it meant thinking that things were going wrong for you because other people were ganging up behind your back, instead of perhaps the fact that you hadn’t been doing your work properly. Paranoia could affect people outside the workplace too, he’d said, but it wouldn’t ever trouble her or any other Sec Gen.

‘No they don’t,’ she declared. ‘That’s why IMBOD invented the Security shot. So we
don’t
feel paranoid.
You’re
the one who’s paranoid. You think Is-Land history is made-up. You think the Pioneers killed babies. If you go around talking like that, people will think you’re an
infiltrator
.’

Lil wiped a speck of dirt off her hip. ‘So, let them. I’m not going to stay in Is-Land anyway. This place is so
provincial
.’

Astra stood up. Lil was being impossible. And ignorant. Is-Land didn’t have
provinces
: it had
bioregions
. She brushed away the pebbles that were sticking to her bottom. ‘I’m going back to Wise House.’

Lil was stretching her legs and wiggling her toes in the sun. ‘Do you remember the way?’

‘Yes. Sort of.’ Okay, no, she didn’t. She’d just followed Lil from place to place. But somewhere behind the brook and the ancestors was the gorge; if she just kept walking she’d hit it.

‘We’ve gone past the end of the gorge,’ Lil said casually. ‘It’s easy to miss it and end up walking too far north.’

Astra put her hands on her hips. ‘Come with me then.’

Lil rolled on her tummy and smiled up at Astra, as if nothing was wrong. ‘We just got here! Let’s have our lunch and then we’ll go.’

Astra scratched her ankle with the opposite foot and then sat back down. She picked up a small rock and began scraping the ledge with it. ‘You shouldn’t talk the way you do,’ she muttered.

Lil twirled a lock of her hair between her fingers. ‘You’re just saying that because you’re Sec Gen.’

Sometimes Astra could see the field mice in the meadow when she was flying Silver. Silver was Coded not to eat wild animals, but the mice didn’t know that. They would freeze when Silver passed overhead, their ears would flatten to their heads and a millisecond later they would dart away into the long grass. She felt like one of those mice now.

‘So what if I am,’ she said stiffly, gripping the rock in her palm.

‘It’s a shame for you, that’s all. It means you can’t think for yourself, so all the adults talk to you like you’re a child and you’ll just be an IMBOD drone your whole life. My dad didn’t want that for me. That’s why he took me away.’

Astra avoided Lil’s gaze. She rooted in her mind for the right Sec Gen Imprints. ‘I can think for myself. But my self is part of Is-Land, and therefore I think with everyone. IMBOD protects us, and we protect—’

‘Is-Land is a CONC
outpost
,’ Lil triumphantly interrupted. ‘IMBOD’s job is to protect the Continental Server and make Is-Land a safe place to stop between Himalaya and Neuropa. But when the global ceasefire ends, Asfar and the Non-Landers might declare war on us.
That’s
why IMBOD invented the Security Serum. You’re like the worms Hokma feeds to the Owleons: born and raised to blindly die for Is-Land.’

Astra slammed the rock down onto the ledge. ‘
All
Is-Landers would die for Is-Land,’ she said fiercely. ‘Being Sec Gen means we can fight better so we
don’t
die.’

Lil looked at her pityingly. ‘No, being Sec Gen means you’ll follow orders. Too many Is-Landers were starting to question IMBOD and that’s why they developed the Serum.’

Astra had lost track of what she herself thought, but she knew she had to defend herself, defend Is-Land, defend IMBOD, from Lil’s outrageous accusations. ‘No one questions IMBOD because no one
has
to question IMBOD,’ she flared. ‘IMBOD takes orders from the National Wheel Meet, and the National Wheel Meet represents all of us!’ As she was saying it, she believed it.

Lil sat up. She was excited now, her eyes bright, her voice high. ‘People
used
to question the Nat Meet. My dad told me that lots of Is-Landers used to believe that some Non-Landers should have the right to stay here, especially the day labourers.’

Lil’s voice was buzzing around Astra’s head like a bluebottle fly. She reached up and took a vicious swat at it. ‘The
infiltrators
, you mean.’

She’d only made things worse. Lil became even more eager, speaking more quickly and leaning close to Astra’s face. ‘They weren’t infiltrators.’ She pounced on the word, flung it aside. ‘They were seasonal aglabs, and when IMBOD decided to close the Boundary checkpoints, some communities wanted to help them stay. They even petitioned for Non-Landers to get citizenship if they converted to Gaianism. IMBOD cracked down on the dissidents and jailed them. That’s why they invented the Security Serum. So that no one would ever question IMBOD again.’

Like ‘faxma-sheen’ and ‘burlesque’, ‘dissident’ was a word from another world. Is-Land had never had
dissidents
. Again, Lil was scrambling the facts as though they were alt-eggs. ‘No!’ Astra flashed. ‘Some aglabs hid in Is-Land, but no Gaian would
ever
have helped them. The Non-Landers were attacking us in the Belt. Remember: Hokma lost her eye on patrol.
That
was why we had to close the Boundary. Then the
infiltrators
swarmed up to the mountains and dug tunnels and smuggled
nano-explosives
into Is-Land. That’s why Klor only has one leg. His daughter died too –
my
Shelter sister. At a bus stop in Sippur. I
saw
it.’

She was almost panting with the effort to correct Lil’s warped views. In response, Lil reached over and stroked the teaby vaccination scar on her arm. ‘You’re right,’ she said lightly, mockingly, ‘I shouldn’t talk like this. You’re a poor little Sec Gen drone. You’ll probably have to report me.’

Lil’s fingertip was an electric needle, sending a sizzle of fury to Astra’s heart. She opened her mouth to blast Lil off the cliff—

But as she did so, Lil looked her right in the eyes and smirked.

A cold, feverish knowledge crawled over Astra’s skin. Lil knew she wasn’t Sec Gen. She clamped her mouth shut.

‘I’m Sec Gen,’ she said, finally, each word an iron spike to kill this argument dead. ‘That means I care about my friends. Even if you’re not Sec Gen too. Even if you don’t love Gaia enough to die for Her.’

But she’d given it away, she knew. Just like on the sunlit strip of the ledge, she’d wobbled. She’d been about to yell, ‘I’m not Sec Gen, so shut up and listen to me!’ and even though she hadn’t, the intention had hurtled out of her at the speed of light and struck Lil right between the eyes. Lil’s flashing, smug expression said as much and more.

* * *

‘I’d die for Gaia,’ Lil said grandly. ‘Just not for CONC.’

‘Is-Land
is
Gaia.’ Astra batted Lil’s jibe away with another Imprint. The crisis had passed. So what if Lil knew she wasn’t Sec Gen? No one would believe her if she said so, especially not considering all the other crazy things she was spouting today.

‘No it isn’t. There are Gaians in Asfar, you know.’

‘There aren’t,’ she replied flatly. It had somehow become her duty today to disagree with Lil and she wanted her shift to end.

‘There
are
. They wear clothes; that’s the only difference. Even some of the Southern Belters are clothed Gaians too, now. They converted, but IMBOD still won’t let them in.
I
think there’s room here for all the Non-Landers. They can live in the cities and eat alt-meat.’

Astra was bored now. Lil was trying to goad her with heretical remarks, but these were ancient Year Four arguments that everybody knew the answer to. ‘They don’t want to live in cities. They want to live in villages and slaughter sheep and cows. Which reminds me: I’m
hungry
,’ she complained, opening her pac.

‘Me too.’ It was surprising to hear Lil agree, for the first time all day. She pulled out the hummus and tomato sandwiches Hokma had made for them that morning, and the two green apples. The sandwiches were a little squashed, perhaps because of Lil’s cartwheel. Astra had a salad box to share: lettuce, cucumber slices and toasted hazelnuts, with a small bottle of lemon dressing. She also had forks and napkins, and some carrot cake Nimma had given her. She brought everything out, drizzled the salad dressing over the leaves and gave Lil a fork. They ate in silence, apart from the munching of the apples. When she’d finished hers, Lil got up and
hurled the core off the cliff. It sailed in a high curve through the air, tracing an arc like an invisible rainbow.

Watching the apple core disappear, Astra suddenly felt incredibly lonely – lonelier even than the ancestors, who were somehow together, privately alike, even if locked in their own separate prayers. Why couldn’t she tell Lil she wasn’t Sec Gen? Lil said whatever she liked, all the time. She had just spouted off all that absurd, exhausting stuff about the Pioneers and IMBOD and CONC without a single worry that Astra might tell Hokma or Nimma or Klor.

But that was the problem. Lil didn’t respect any rules and so you couldn’t trust her to keep a secret. And she wouldn’t understand, anyway, that you could be like Hokma and question some of IMBOD’s decisions without being a
dissident
.

She chucked her own apple core into the undergrowth. She was done competing with Lil for today.

They had both saved the cake for last. Lil picked up her piece, sniffed it and examined it closely. ‘Is it made out of
carrots
?’ she exclaimed.

At last, something Lil didn’t know. ‘Yeah,’ Astra said. ‘And walnuts and soy-butter icing. Nimma made it.’

‘It must have taken a long time to cut the carrots up so small.’ Lil actually sounded impressed now.

‘She didn’t cut them up. She grated them.’

Lil didn’t want to, Astra could tell, but grudgingly she asked, ‘What does “grated” mean?’

Astra thought about it. ‘A grater is a kitchen utensil. It looks like … a metal cylinder with lots of little moon-shaped knives cut into it. The knives have holes behind them for the grated bits to fall through. You can do apples and beetroots too, for salads.’

Lil was staring at the cake in her hand. ‘I’ve never had carrot cake before.’ Without warning, her whisper edged into a whimper.

Nimma and Hokma had badgered her to play with Lil, to be kind to her. ‘She’s never had a friend,’ they’d said. Lil had won her over with her games and stories, and gradually Astra had forgotten how desperately sad she could be. Now, for the first time, Astra felt the enormity of everything Lil had missed out on: friends, cakes, a kitchen, a Shelter mother. The emptiness was huge, bigger even than the emptiness of the ancestors. It sucked her appetite away.

‘I guess you couldn’t do any baking in the cave,’ she offered, awkwardly. Lil ignored her. For a moment Astra thought she was going to give the cake back, but she didn’t. She took a bite and ate, slowly, expressionlessly, her jaw methodically churning. Astra started eating her piece too. The aroma of cloves and nutmeg was calming, and Nimma’s rich, creamy icing stuck to the roof of her mouth, absorbing her attention. As she chewed the cake, its honeyed syrup flowed steadily into her veins.

Beside her, Lil was licking her fingers, one by one. When she’d finished, she turned to Astra with a radiant smile. She had a dab of icing on her chin. ‘That was
good
.’

‘Nimma’s carrot cakes are the best.’ Astra grinned too, and popped the last crumb from her palm into her mouth.

‘I need a nap now, and then we can go.’ Lil stretched out on her back and closed her eyes. Her nipples puckered into hard brown walnuts. As Astra watched her ribs rise and fall, a fleet of dandelion seeds drifted over Lil’s ribcage. It was a Gaia vision, she could tell, but what it meant, she didn’t know.

* * *

When she woke up, Lil’s face was next to hers.

‘I’m sorry I said mean things,’ she said quietly. ‘I like you being Sec Gen. It makes you benevolent.’

The sun was lower in the sky and its lengthening rays were travelling up Astra’s legs to her thighs. Lil’s breath smelled of the carrot cake, sweet and spicy, and her breasts were brushing against Astra’s arm. They felt soft and mysterious, as if even Lil didn’t know what they were doing. Astra didn’t move.

‘That’s okay,’ she said. ‘I like you not being Sec Gen.’
It makes you magnificent
she almost, but didn’t, say. ‘Thank you for showing me the ancestors,’ she whispered instead.

Then the palm of Lil’s hand was grazing her chest and Lil’s chin was on her shoulder and Lil’s voice was in her ear. ‘Your skin is my skin,’ she said, and then she was kissing Astra’s face, and Astra was turning towards her and kissing Lil too.

That was how her first Gaia play started, and though at first she was anxious in case she broke any rules without knowing it, and a little irritated, because Lil kept murmuring instructions and she didn’t see why
Lil
should take charge of what was supposed to be a co-operative game, eventually something shifted. A little voice in her head told her that if she was
Sec Gen she would enjoy following orders, and anyway, everything Lil told her to do felt good. Then Lil was quiet at last, and for a long time it was as if they were shaking a long, shimmering flag out over the steppes, their skins a sateen pathway unrolling towards the faint puffy clouds on the horizon.