Astra (7 page)

‘I thought it was good to be less sensitive,’ she said finally. ‘Klor says Yoki’s too sensitive sometimes.’

Hokma plucked a blade of wild grass and stroked its seedpods. ‘Klor loves Yoki,’ she said, ‘but he isn’t very sensitive himself, so he sometimes can’t understand Yoki’s reactions to the world. Yoki finds bright lights and noise over-stimulating, and he gets upset if other children tease him. You’re not as sensitive as that, but you’re curious and alert – you notice a lot of details in your environment, and you understand how other people are feeling. Don’t you?’

She wasn’t sure if Hokma was praising or criticising her. ‘Sometimes. I guess,’ she admitted.

‘Last summer, when Elpis had her stroke and Nimma was upset, you organised the other children to go and pick wildflowers for Nimma, didn’t you? We talked about it then.’ Hokma gently set down the grass stem. ‘We thought you might feel especially sad for Nimma because you didn’t have any memories of your own Birth-Code mother.’

Astra padded her hydropac down into her lap. Tabby liked to feel snug. ‘I did, a bit.’

‘But not all the children felt like you,’ Hokma continued. ‘Some just picked the flowers because you told them to, and then they raced off and started playing, didn’t they? If you have the Security shot, you’ll become more like those children. Physically and emotionally you won’t feel pain so much, but also you won’t be able to perceive so easily what other people – or animals – are thinking or feeling. You won’t be so curious about the world, and your language skills will level off quite quickly. You won’t be able to make up tongue-twisters so easily, or enjoy poetry, unless you’re reciting it with other Or-children. The world will seem much simpler to you, and you’ll hardly remember when you used to ask questions all the time. You might make a good lab technician one day, but you’d never be a great scientist. I think that would be a terrible waste of your gifts, and that’s why I don’t want you to have the shot.’

It was like being told that you had to leap off that cliff edge now and walk on thin air.

‘I don’t understand,’ Astra whispered. ‘Why does IMBOD want to change me – and all the other Or-kids – like that? Why don’t they want to have good scientists any more?’

‘It’s complicated. Personally, I don’t think IMBOD has thought it through properly. The first batch of test subjects are now fourteen. They are happy and healthy, and they have always scored well above average on their Code exams. But scientists like me are very concerned about their
Language and Creative Problem-Solving scores. Usually, on any test, some children score high, and others low, and the mean average, if the test is a good one, is in the sixty-five-to-seventy range. But the test subjects have all always achieved an average score on their Language and CPS exams. No one ever gets a poor mark or fails, but no one gets eighty or ninety either, or even seventy-five. People like me have been arguing that children should be pre-tested and those with an aptitude for creative thinking shouldn’t have the shot. But IMBOD says that average scores across the board are a good result. I think they’ll regret it one day and change the policy, but that will be too late for you.’

Astra examined her hand. It still ached, and the scratch stung. ‘It would be good not to get hurt so much any more,’ she offered.

‘Pain tells you that there’s something wrong, Astra. Everyone needs a little bit of pain in life, even emotional pain.’

‘But I want to be stronger, and learn Code fast, like all the test subject kids. Can’t I just have that bit of the Security shot?’

‘Unfortunately not. The Serum comes as one inoculation. I wouldn’t be able to request the separate components without someone asking why.’

Astra reached for her hydropac. ‘I’m going to ask Tabby what he thinks.’

Hokma placed her hand on Astra’s wrist. ‘Astra, you promised to keep this a secret and that means you can’t ever tell Tabby about this conversation. Tabby is programmed to tell IMBOD everything you ask him. That’s for your security, but it means you have to be extra careful now. You can never web-search anything we’ve discussed here today.’

Beneath her, the cliff vanished. Astra was flailing in mid-air with an ice stone in her tummy while Tabby twirled out of her hand to the ground far below. But Hokma wasn’t reaching out for her to pull her to safety. Hokma was regarding her seriously, not as though Astra was lost in space with nothing to grab on to, but as though she was in the Quiet Room doing her homework and Hokma was patiently waiting for her to add up her figures and come to the right answer.

She wasn’t falling, though. Somehow she was floating, suspended in a strange new world. She put her hydropac aside. ‘Hokma,’ she said at last.

‘Yes, Astra?’

‘Do you think my Birth-Code mother would have wanted me to have my Security shot?’

‘No, Eya wouldn’t have wanted you to. That’s why I’m talking to you now. I promised Eya that I would always look out for you. But I can’t make a major decision for you, especially not one that involves a great deal of risk. So you have to choose what you want to do.’

But how could she decide? The whole equation was a jumble of unknown variables and millions of minus signs. ‘Will IMBOD take
me
away?’ she squeaked.

At last, for the first time ever, Hokma reached into the void and pulled Astra into her lap, into her big, warm nest of muscle and bone. ‘No, they won’t,’ she promised as Astra pressed her cheek against her chest. ‘If we get found out, they’ll blame me. But if you learn to act like the other children we won’t get found out. That means keeping a very big secret from everyone, even Klor and Nimma –
especially
Klor and Nimma. It means you will always have to be on your guard.’

Hokma’s heart thudded steadily in her ear like a distant drum – the deep booming drum a constable played to pass emergency messages along the Boundary. Astra pulled away. ‘I can’t tell Klor and Nimma?’

‘Not yet. They wouldn’t understand. Later, when they can see you’re okay, we might decide to tell them.’

Hokma’s lap was like her: strong, but hard to get comfortable in. Astra shifted between her thighs. ‘But what if they find out? What if they get cross with me?’

‘They won’t find out.’ Hokma hugged her tight for a moment. ‘Look, Astra: up until now you’ve lived with Klor and Nimma and just spent time with me during the day, but now that you’re older, I’m going to be a more involved Shelter parent. We can spend more time together, and sometimes you can stay with me at Wise House. If your behaviour is different from the other children’s, Klor and Nimma will think it’s because of my influence. And’ – she paused, then kiss-whispered into Astra’s black mop of hair – ‘if you don’t get your shot, I can teach you to train Silver. How does that sound? Do you want to be my special helper with the Owleons?’

It was an
unbelievable
question. The best, most exciting, most amazing question anyone had
ever
asked her. Astra’s own heart did a cartwheel, right off the roof and into the sky. When at last it landed back in her chest, though, she felt a little sick:
of course
she wanted to be Hokma’s special helper with the Owleons. But how could Hokma ask her not to have her shot? And keep it secret from everyone? She leaned against
Hokma’s breasts. ‘What if I
do
have my shot,’ she asked, ‘and I become like all the other Or-kids? Can I still come and stay with you?’

‘Absolutely.’ Hokma patted her back. ‘I’ll always love you the same, no matter what. But you’ll have to stop wriggling when you sit on me, how’s that for a deal?’

Astra slid off Hokma’s lap, but stayed sheltered beneath her arm. Hokma loved her. She must do if she said so, and wanted her to come and help at Wise House. But if she loved her so much, then surely she wanted Astra to be happy? ‘So if we do that,’ she ventured, ‘I mean, if I have my shot and come and stay sometimes, can I still feed the Owleon chicks?’

‘Yes – but you couldn’t train them. You need to be sensitive to do that: you need to be able to listen and watch, to recognise how they are feeling and discover how to train them better in the future. That way you’ll learn how to be a great scientist.’

Oh
. Astra gently stroked the scratch on her hand. ‘I don’t want to only memorise Code,’ she whispered, hopelessly. ‘I want to be a super-smart scientist like you and Klor. I want to train Copper and Silver and Amber and make hypotheses and big discoveries.’

‘I know you do, Astra. That’s why I’m giving you this choice.’

The pebble wrenched around again in her stomach. ‘But I have to have my shot,’ she wailed. ‘It’s the
law
. They’re coming to school tomorrow to give it to all of us. I don’t want to get into trouble, and I don’t want you to get taken away. And—’ She gulped, and said, ‘I want to do my IMBOD Service and catch Non-Landers like the girl in the tree.’ She hid her face in her arms. She was useless. She had nearly failed Hokma with the worms and she was going to fail her again now, up here on the roof meadow.

Hokma shook her by the shoulders. ‘Astra, I have a plan for tomorrow. If we work together and trust each other, no one’s going to get taken away. And you can still do your IMBOD Service. You’ll just have to follow special, secret orders from now on.’

Astra couldn’t listen any more. It was too much. Hokma’s tests were too hard. She’d had to watch her kill worms and now she was being told not to have her shot and to grow up different from every other kid in Is-Land. This was an emergency, yes, a very big emergency. She disentangled herself from Hokma’s arms. ‘
I don’t know what to do
,’ she shouted.

‘I know – I know it’s a very difficult choice. That’s why I brought you here. So you could ask Gaia to help you make your own decision.’

‘But how do I do
that
?’

‘Different people have different ways. I usually sit quietly and ask Gaia to send me a sign.’

‘What
kind
of a sign?’

‘It could be anything – something living, or a cloud, even a picture in your mind. I usually close my eyes to start, then if nothing comes to me, I open them and see what happens.’

If Klor had done it and Hokma did it, it must work. And at least if she closed her eyes she could try to not think about anything at all. The sunshine made the inside of her eye lids orange. Actually, it was nice like this. If she breathed quietly and didn’t move, the ice pebble stayed still too. If she breathed deeply, into her stomach muscles, the ice even melted a little around the edges. Hokma was quiet as well. Around them, the forest birds chattered and cooed.

Astra opened her eyes. In the far distance, between the gap in the trees, a narrow segment of steppe rolled to the horizon; in front of her in the meadow, an emerald-black beetle crawled out from beneath a dock leaf and waddled away. Right beside the toe of her left sandal a bee dozily nuzzled an orchid.

It wasn’t as if a big sign lit up and flashed the answer in her head. It was more like watching the sun rising in the morning and gradually making things clear. Most of the spider orchid stems were tall, with several blossoms each, growing close together, but the flower the bee was suckling was alone.

‘Look, Hokma.’ She pointed at the orchid. The bee was clinging to it now, almost pulling the stem over with its weight. ‘That stem’s only got one flower. And it’s all by itself, next to me. Do you think that’s a sign?’

‘Maybe. What do you think?’

Astra leaned over the plant. The bee flew away and she noticed something strange: the purple vertical lines on the lip
met at the top
.

‘Hokma,’ she gasped, ‘it’s got an
A
. Not an H.’

‘Really?’ Hokma reached over and touched the orchid. ‘Well, look at that.’

Astra’s face was glowing, her heart singing. ‘A for
Astra
. Gaia’s giving me Her wisdom, Hokma! She’s telling me that I’m
supposed
to be different from the others. That I shouldn’t have my shot. That’s the answer. For sure. One hundred per cent.’

‘Good girl. Now listen carefully. This is the plan.’

As the long fingers of the sun stroked her hair and striped Hokma’s cheeks, Astra listened and remembered and wondered, in a small room in her mind, if somewhere in one of the tall spiky pine trees that surrounded them, the Non-Lander girl was watching and waiting for all the Or-kids to grow up dull and stupid. Well, maybe they would. But
she
wouldn’t;
she
would stay smart. She would catch the Non-Lander girl and help train the Owleons and grow up to be a famous scientist, and Hokma would love her the way a Birth-Code-Shelter mother loved her child.

Passing through West Gate hand in hand with her Shelter mother, Astra felt like a giant, striding into Or in seven-league boots, taking command of everything she saw. Here was her innocent community, anchored in its mountain valley by the central hub of Core House and Craft House, a cosy cluster of old stone walls, cedar extensions and solar roofs. Spiralling out like petals from the two main buildings were Or’s vegetable, herb and flower gardens, its fruit orchard and beehives, sports field and kidney-shaped swimming pool: a blossom of industry, health and nutrition, all surrounded and powered by the red Kinbat track. Above the track on East and West Slope rose tiers of Earthships, the best homes in all the world – Astra grew another metre taller as she surveyed them. Earthships hugged Gaia, Klor said. Their curved soilbag walls kept their interiors cool in the summer and in the winter stored the low rays of the sun that flooded in though their front greenhouse corridors, which grew fruit and vegetables all year round. Earthships also had colourful mosaic walls made of old bottles, roof cisterns to harvest the rain and flower-full botanical cells to treat the water for drinking, washing, gardening and toilet flushing. Earthships generated electricity from solar panels and wind turbines, and even in cold climates they were warm enough to grow mangoes inside. Everyone on the whole planet should live in an Earthship – but Is-Land was the only country in the world to make them the main rural habitat. Astra’s heart glowed as she picked out hers in the lowest ring on East Slope, a ray of pride smouldering like the amber sunlight striking the massive glass curves of Code House, Ahn’s prize-winning building and the jewel in Or’s crown. Code House sprouted out of North Slope
like an enormous shelf fungi, but today, for the first time, Astra didn’t feel tiny like an ant when she looked at it. She was a great Wise House scientist now, and a secret IMBOD patrol officer in the forest. Soon Or would need her to survive.