Astra (44 page)

They stood tall, chanting and waiting for the labyrinth to empty of students. The blood was crawling down her leg, tickling her as it reached a sensitive spot just above the knee, but Astra didn’t dare wipe it away. When all the schools were back in their rows, the watchtower lights strobed rapidly, then cut off. This was it, the signal for the final act of the ceremony: the Sec Gen laser ritual.

Everyone stopped chanting. The Pilgrimage site was lit only by the four officer spotlights and the ghostly glow of the Boundary. In one fluid movement, the students of all fourteen schools knelt on the ground. Just as they’d rehearsed, Astra paused for the count of three, then placed her staff to her right and lay back on the grass, her feet on the earth, knees in the air, hydropac coiled like a mat between her shoulder blades. She reached out for Leaf and Fox’s hands and held them loosely, her right wrist resting on her staff. She was a link in a chain of children staring up at the stars, waiting, hearts steady as pulsars, to take the final step into adulthood. From the Boundary, a single soprano voice soared over the site, a high keening wail of aspiration, followed by a deep male bass, a rumbling counterpoint that answered the soprano’s cry for knowledge with a fathomless echo of the night’s impenetrable mysteries.

Astra’s skin erupted in a cold rash of joy. The sacred singers of Vanapur Temple had emerged from the watchtower to serenade her and
her generation. The singers, in their high traditional headdresses and woven wrist- and ankle-wraps, were standing on the parapets of the Boundary, arms raised to the sky, embracing the watching parents and teachers. The labyrinth officers were securing their chalices and flagons into their hydrobelts and taking their square black medpacs from their shoulders. Ensconced in the light of the four spotlights, they were leaving the entrance to the Chakravyuha and marching down the central aisle, medpacs in their hands, each stopping before one of the first four schools, pausing, bowing to the parents. They were turning into the rows, kneeling before the first students, unbuttoning the medpacs. How long would it take for an officer to reach Golden Bough School? Her knees trembled and she inhaled and focused on stilling the tremor. She couldn’t let everyone down, not after being Chosen.

The singing continued, monotonous, swelling, hypnotic, punctuated only by the occasional random yelp or moan. When it was her turn, Astra wasn’t going to utter even a gasp. Her fingers were entwined with Leaf’s and Fox’s and her legs were firm now, the soles of her feet planted securely in the grass. Her eyes were filled with the dazzling smear of the Milky Way, her nostrils hummed with the scent of sweat, earth, lily pollen and the faint tang of blood, her blood, now tracing a line down her legs, seeping into the soil. Her body was not her own: her body belonged to Gaia, to Is-Land, to her generation. She ached for the consummation of all that she was.

After she didn’t know how long, the officer was there, in their row. Beside her, the light beam was flooding Leaf’s body and the officer was kneeling between hir legs. She caught a whiff of an intense, acrid smell that nearly turned her stomach and Leaf was gripping her hand until she thought her finger bones would break. But heesh didn’t cry, didn’t make a single sound.

And now it was her turn.

The officer was between her knees. She mustn’t look up, would never know if her initiator was a male or a female officer, a chalice- or a flagon-bearer. The officer was snapping on a new pair of latex gloves, spreading her buttocks apart and rubbing her Gaia garden with a wet sponge, all the way down to her anus. Just as they’d practised, she opened her legs as wide as she could, raising her buttocks and exposing her perineum. The scent of alcohol wafted up to her nose and the air cooled her damp genitals. Then the officer was drying her quickly with a flannel, not removing it,
but plugging her slightly, pushing the cloth a fingertip into her Gaia garden, just enough to prevent the blood from flowing out. It was coming now. She clenched Leaf’s and Fox’s hands and they squeezed back, Fox with more strength than Leaf.

The officer was smoothing the stencil over her perineum now, holding it down with two fingers. Then, with the other hand, heesh was taking the laser gun from hir belt. The spotlight was blinding her, bleaching her body. Everyone in the stands, every Golden Bough parent and teacher, was watching her, all holding their breath for the Chosen one, begging her not to fail them now. She tensed, squeezed her eyes shut, gritted her teeth.
It will hurt you more than the others
, Hokma had said.
Anything I give for the pain will wear off before the ceremony starts. You will have to cope with it yourself. Count to ten. Breathe deeply. Release the air slowly. Clench your feet inside the boots. Press your wrist against your staff. Create another pain
.

ONE—

A pinball of fire rocketed up her spine, dislocating her bones, rattling her teeth. She dragged a breath …

TWO—

… of charred air into her lungs. The pain was slowly circling her root chakra. A sickening stench …

THREE—

… invaded her mouth, a sulphurous cloud of rotten alt-meat, struck matches, sucked pennies. The flames crawled up her nerves …

FOUR—

… and it was all she could do not to shake her legs and throw her hips in the air. There was bile in her throat, the searing circle of pain …

FIVE—

… joining like a snake, tail to mouth, complete. She choked back the vomit. A thin red-hot bar began to …

SIX—

… traverse her. She rammed wrist against staff, bone against wood, two crossed dorjes welded together. Now …

SEVEN—

… a downwards whiplash began and …

EIGHT—

… another, meeting in a point on the still-burning circle and now …

NINE—

… at last, the vertical gash, dividing the triangle, back down to the …

TEN—

… point of worst pain …

Just when she thought she had to scream or pass out or die, it was over. The IMBOD shield was branded at the root of her Gaia garden and the officer was spraying her with cooling anaesthetic. Leaf and Fox were pumping her hands. Her eyes burned. She was Sec Gen now, in everything but Code.

No one had giggled, no one had faltered; everyone had remembered their lines. No one had cried or screamed during the Branding. No points had been deducted for any part of their performance. Silvie and Sultana had been Gaia-bleeding, and Astra had been Gaia-Chosen, and thanks to the extra points she’d earned them, Golden Bough School won the Congregation Site prize for Best Performance at the Blood & Seed ceremony. As the bioregional medals were being hung around their necks, the results of the other four ceremonies came in to the officers’ Tablettes. Incredibly, another girl – from Atourne – had also been Gaia-Chosen that year, but no girls in her school had been bleeding at the start of the ceremony, so thanks to Silvie and Sultana, Golden Bough had also taken the
National
Blood & Seed prize. The female chalice-bearer announced the amazing news, and everyone at the Congregation Site leapt to their feet and cheered until Astra worried that their throats were being stripped of their linings.

Afterwards, Astra’s classmates mobbed her, desperate to touch and hug and kiss her. Just as she thought she might be crushed, Tedis and Baz lifted her on their shoulders and paraded her up and down the central aisle between the stands, Yoki jumping along by her legs. Tablette cameras flashed everywhere – the parents and students of the other schools were as ecstatic as her own friends and community. Gaia had chosen their ceremony, and they would remember all their lives the moment when their labyrinth walk was transformed by the convergence of the watchtower lights on the girl who had become a woman among them. When the boys finally let her down, Tedis hugged her. Her nipples
pressed hard as acorns against his chest, but then strange adults were falling over themselves to hug her and Nimma was rushing over, pushing them away.

‘Astra, oh my darling! Let me look at you!’ Her Shelter mother cupped Astra’s face in her hands and kissed it all over. Then she sank to her knees, pulled a damp cloth out of her hydropac and began rubbing at the dried blood streaks on Astra’s calves.

‘Good Gaia, woman, don’t wipe it away,’ Klor boomed behind her. ‘Gaia has marked her twice tonight: let her stay marked.’

‘She can shower at home, Nimma,’ Hokma chimed in.

There was a severe, tugging feeling in Astra’s stomach. Lil had told her about this. ‘I’ve got cramps,’ she moaned.

‘Nimma,’ Hokma asked, ‘did you bring any aspirin?’

‘Only enough for two bioregions.’ Nimma rummaged again in her pac and handed Hokma a bottle. Hokma gave Astra two pills and helped her fumble for her hydro-tubing. She sucked and swallowed. ‘My brand hurts too,’ she whispered. It was burning again, a lancing, almost intolerable pain, travelling in spurts up to her coccyx.

‘The aspirin will help,’ Klor soothed.

‘Oh, Klor, it’s not nearly strong enough,’ Nimma snapped. ‘Astra, lie down.’

Astra obeyed, opening her knees to let Nimma spray her again with anaesthetic. Klor knelt at her side and stroked her forehead with his gnarly knuckles.

‘Brave Astra,’ he smiled.

‘I don’t see why they couldn’t have been injected,’ Nimma grumbled. ‘It’s all right for the robust ones, but Yoki’s in tears.’

‘They have to learn to take a little pain,’ Klor said. ‘That’s what the Sec Gens do for us all. Isn’t that right, angel?’

‘Well, they’ve done a good job, at least,’ Nimma added. ‘The circle is round as the moon, Astra. You must have held perfectly still.’

Astra nodded dumbly. Nimma was pulling a pair of blood panties up around her waist, flipping the hipbeads out so the three ropes hung over the red absorbent cloth. The spray was working, her stomach felt better and she thought that in a minute or two she would be able to walk again. As she lay there, dazed and catching her breath, a shadow blocked the light: Ahn, Tablette in hand, a Kezcam hovering at his shoulder, was standing over her, smiling his thin smile.

‘So. The Gaia Girl,’ he greeted her. ‘Well done, Astra. Well done, Hokma.’

Astra shut her knees and Hokma said quietly, ‘Thank you, Ahn, but I had nothing to do with it.’

* * *

The traffic was bumper to bumper leaving the parking field, but the cars rolled down their windows so people could keep waving at each other, all singing the Blood & Seed hymn as they inched towards the main road. In the minivan, Mr Ripenson had joined them, sitting in the back next to Ahn; Freyja’s arm was resting across the back of the front seat, stroking Pan’s shoulder and from her seat behind Yoki and Astra, Nimma asked if anyone was hungry and brought out a picnic hamper filled with soy yoghurts, bananas and berry biscuits. Yoki was hugging Astra, saying, ‘You’re my sister. I
love
you!’ over and over and she was squeezing him back saying, ‘You’re my brother. I love
you
.’ Then right outside Astra’s window Silvie’s carthorse lifted his tail and dropped a big ploppy poo pile on the road and everyone started laughing, even Ahn.

After the picnic, the van picked up speed and Astra and Yoki stretched out on their seats, head to toe. Her brand was burning, but only slightly now, a constant reminder of the enormous change she had undergone tonight. Yoki fell asleep, but Astra lay happily imagining telling Lil everything that had happened. Tonight, she would send Silver with the news. Back at the Earthship, she would unclasp Silver’s memory clip from his leg, plug it into Klor’s Tablette and download a photo of her between the two officers, one of her on Tedis’ shoulders, and another of the whole school getting their medals. Then she’d send Silver ahead of Hokma, back to Wise House, so if Lil was up she could see the photos right away.

‘Hokma,’ she whispered.

‘Yes, Gaia Girl?’

‘I want to send Silver to Lil. Promise you won’t tell her anything first?’

‘I promise.’

* * *

But when she woke up, she wasn’t being gently shaken by the shoulder and told to get up for the walk to the Earthship. The van was squealing up the road and adults were exclaiming, ‘What in Gaia’s name?’ and, ‘Careful, Pan, there are
children
in here.’ She raised her head groggily as the van screeched to a halt.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘It’s okay, Astra,’ Freyja said. ‘We don’t know yet.’

‘Astra,’ Nimma ordered, opening her hydropac, ‘lie still.’ She opened her legs to let Nimma spray her, craning her neck to see what was happening. Klor was wrenching the door open and he and Ahn and Hokma and Mr Ripenson were pouring out and up the path through East Gate. Pan was slamming his door shut and following them. Freyja was looking anxiously at Yoki.

‘Are we home now?’ Yoki asked, rubbing his eyes.

‘Yes, but we have to wait here for a minute,’ Nimma said. ‘Here, let me spray you again.’

‘Why do we have to wait?’ Astra demanded. She stuck her head out of the van. The air was filled with a commotion of calls and cries, and another burning smell met her nostrils – not nauseating, like the laser gun on her genitals, or cosy, like the kitchen stove when you opened the door to add a log. She peered up through East Gate. At the top of the lawn, blooms of smoke were billowing into the night. Beneath the huge ash-grey blossom, flames were leaping like tigers from a black, broken cage. Against their violent orange glow she could see the silhouettes of people, a chain of bodies, as though the Or-adults were all holding hands and dancing round the blaze.

Core House was on fire
.

Nimma reached for her and started, ‘Astra, stay here—’ but she was already off, sprinting up the path after Hokma. Everyone in Or was out on the lawn, she could see them now, dark shapes dashing back and forth, shouting instructions, wailing. Shelter parents were holding crying children, and now she could see the chain of people weren’t dancing: they were lifting the hose from the swimming-pool pump and spraying it over the flames. But it was too late: the cedar roof and walls of the dining-hall extension had been incinerated, leaving only the stone wall of the original building and the timber frame of the hall still standing. As she surged up the path, a great roof beam crashed down into the fire.