Earth Flight (7 page)

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.’