Heart of Danger (2 page)

A
girl about the same age as me stood on our doorstep.

‘Ciao, Juno of Taris. I’m Tabitha of Otaki and I’m taking you to school.’

Of all the questions buzzing through my head, I chose the one with the obvious answer. ‘How do you know my name?’ I lifted a hand. ‘Dumb question. Sorry. You saw the trial on telly.’

‘Yep, me and the whole entire country. You’re a celeb, J of T. Now are you coming to school or not?’

‘Yep,’ I said, copying her way of speaking. ‘Come in and meet my family while I get sorted. Well, you can meet everyone except Dad, because he’s at the gardens already.’

‘Cool.’ She bounced through the door and looked around as if she expected to see – I don’t know – crocodiles instead of ordinary people.

‘Tabitha, meet Sheen, my mother, Danyat, my
grandfather
and my sister Hera.’

I left her talking to them while I ran off to brush my hair. School! A real, Outside school filled with people who didn’t know me. I threw down the hairbrush. I couldn’t wait to get there. Excitement fizzed through me. I wanted to dance, to run, to spin in circles shouting my glee to the whole world.

Instead, I contained myself enough to just jog back to the kitchen. ‘I’m ready.’

Tabitha looked me up and down. ‘Where’s your gears?’

‘Huh?’ Couldn’t we just go? Right now?

But Danyat was laughing. ‘She means your pens, books, lunch and probably your backpack.’

Tabitha was rolling her eyes. ‘Jeez! How come you don’t know that stuff?’

I gulped. ‘Can’t I go to school without gears?’
Please don’t let it be so. Please
.

But she jumped up from her chair. ‘Sure you can. Mrs Aleni will fix you up. She loves fix-it jobs.’

All the excitement flooded back and I grinned at her, at Mother as she handed me a packet of food wrapped in a tea towel, at Danyat who watched me with a smile in his eyes, and at Hera who was probably about to demand to come too.

Mother gave me a quick hug. ‘Go well, my daughter.’

And Hera said, ‘I will go to school too.’

Tabitha bent down to tweak her nose. ‘Not this school, Sunshine. You’re too little and the big boys would squash you flat.’

Hera eyed her for a few seconds. ‘Okay.’ And she sighed as if not going was the biggest burden anyone in the world had to bear.

But today was my day, not hers. Today was the first day of a life where, if I wanted to, I could turn cartwheels all the way to school and nobody would complain to my family.

Tabitha headed for the door, started talking the moment we were outside, and kept it up till she stopped in front of Mrs Aleni’s office.

‘She’s expecting you. Tell her to put you in my class. See ya, J of T.’

I spent the morning doing tests. Mrs Aleni frowned as she marked them. ‘You’re a problem, Juno. Excellent in everything where you don’t have to write answers longer than a sentence.’ She tapped a finger on her desk while I held my breath. Would this mean I couldn’t go to school after all?

She made up her mind. ‘I’m going to take a gamble. You can go into Year 11, and before you ask, Tabitha is Year 10.’

I walked to my class, nerves twitching at my stomach. I would have to focus on the reading and writing – school here was going to be nothing like it had been on Taris.

Mrs Aleni opened a door with the number 15 on it, propelled me inside and called out to the teacher, ‘New student for you, Timoti, Juno of Taris. Be kind to her.’ That last bit seemed to be directed at the roomful of curious faces gazing at me.

Timoti said, ‘Welcome Juno. Sit over there beside Eva. Have you done any trigonometry? You have? Well, it won’t hurt you to revise it.’

Eva spent the whole maths period writing questions about Taris in her book and I practised my writing by answering them. She wanted to keep going during English but I scribbled,
Sorry, have to concentrate
.

At the end of the day, Tabitha was waiting outside the classroom to escort me home again. ‘Still excited about school, are we?’

‘New people to meet. New subjects to study. Yep, still excited.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Jeez, Juno! I give you till the end of the week – the novelty will definitely wear off by then.’

But the wonders kept on flooding in. On Tuesday it was a movie, a modern one only two years old.

On Wednesday I went into town with Eva, Tabitha and a boy called Jared. ‘But what’s the point?’ I asked. ‘I’ve got no money.’

Eva patted me on the head. ‘You have much to learn, my child.’

Jared said, ‘Any shopping and I’m out of there.’

So we hung out at a new-looking mall, met others from school and I discovered that gossip happened here too.
I tell you, that puppy is seriously weird
.

I listened, absorbed by it all.

Thursday I found the art room – and Arty Arthur. ‘You’ve never done art? Dear girl, what sort of place doesn’t honour art?’ He flapped his hands at me. ‘No, don’t tell me! And please, avail yourself of this space whenever you wish to escape from the humdrum,
fact-pushing
subjects.’ He put a huge sheet of paper in front of me. ‘Fill that up with colour. Experiment. Have fun.’

Freedom, happiness.

Friday I had my first ever practical science class where there were real chemicals to use. Eva shook her head at me. ‘I just don’t get why you’re so gosh darned ecstatic about school, Juno. It’s not cool, girl. Seriously not cool.’ She was laughing, but I didn’t care.

‘See you next week,’ she called at the end of the day as Tabitha and I wandered off home.

‘So what’s your verdict, J of T?’

‘Brilliant. Everything I’ve always hoped for. And more.’

‘You are officially bonkers and there’s no hope for you.’ She waved goodbye. ‘See you next week, weird girl.’

I blew her a kiss and ran into the house. Nobody was inside, but Mother and Hera were working in the back garden.

I took the spade to give Mother a rest. ‘Where are the grandparents?’

She sat down on the grass, stretching out the stiffness in her back. ‘Danyat and Bazin are building seed boxes at the gardens for Zanin. We left Leebar at the swimming pool this morning.’

I paused in the digging. ‘You’ve been here by yourself all afternoon?’

‘No!’ Hera said, outraged. ‘I’m here too. We’re
both
here.’

Mother smiled at her. ‘You’re good company, darling. I’m so glad you’re here too.’

Hera sat back down on her butt. ‘But I’ll go away soon.’

‘Not till next year, Hera,’ I said. ‘That’s when we all go to New Plymouth.’ And I wasn’t going to think about that any sooner than I had to.

Hera stuck her chin out. ‘I’m going without
any
of you.’

I stamped the spade into the soil. ‘You can’t yet. You’re too little.’

Mother tweaked her hair. ‘We’d miss you too much, darling.’

‘I don’t
want
to go,’ Hera said.

No! This couldn’t be one of Hera’s predictions, it just couldn’t be.

Mother’s hand flew to her mouth. I shook my head. I tried pushing Hera’s words away, tried to deny the truth of them. But all the bright joy of the week was gone. I had a sense of events hurtling through the air, waiting to dive on us. They were malign – there was darkness in the atmosphere, disturbance and dread.

‘What do you mean, Hera?’ Mother asked, her voice carefully calm.

Hera frowned. ‘I have to ask Willem. I don’t know all by myself.’

Mother reached for her, dragging her into her arms. ‘We’ll go in now and call him.’

Hera wriggled away. ‘I will plant my strawberry first.’

I wiped the soil off the spade and set it on the grass. ‘I’ll try and get hold of him.’

Mother just nodded.

Back in the house, I switched on the mini-comp and clicked the Fairlands School icon.
Let Willem be there. Please
.

Christina, one of the teachers, answered, her face lighting up when she saw it was me. ‘Juno! How delightful to see you. But you are troubled. What can I do for you?’ I should have known she’d pick up on the trouble; it was what that whole school was about – training people to use their minds to see beyond the obvious. ‘It’s Hera,’ I said. ‘She’s said something we don’t understand. Is Willem around?’ He had to be. He just had to be.

Christina didn’t waste time with idle questions. ‘Wait there. I’ll go and find him.’

I called Mother and Hera in from the garden. Hera, as ever, argued. But this time Mother was firm. ‘You will come right now, Hera. Do you hear me?’

Hera did her usual trick of sizing up whether Mother meant business. It was clear she did. Hera got to her feet and clomped off to the house, muttering all the way. It would have been funny if we hadn’t been so worried.

At last Willem’s lined face came up on our television screen.

He talked to my sister, keeping his voice even and friendly, but the questions he asked her were chilling. ‘When you go away, Hera, do you want to go?’

She frowned, thinking hard. ‘I want my Mother and Juno and Dad and Leebar and Bazin and Danyat.’

‘Are you frightened?’

She was quiet, a grubby bundle of concentration. ‘I don’t like the people. They’re silly.’

‘Do they ask you lots of questions?’

‘I don’t know that, Willem. I just know they’re silly.’

‘Are they nice to you?’

‘They’re silly and they’re not nice.’ She smiled at him. ‘You’re nice, Willem. You’re not silly.’

He said, ‘Thank you, Hera. You’ve done very well.’

She jumped up. ‘I’ll plant my other strawberry now.’

‘No,’ Mother said, her voice on the edge of panic. ‘Not by yourself. Wait for me or Juno.’

She ran off but I grabbed her. ‘Wait!’ I put all the fear I was feeling into the command.

‘You’re a mean, grumpy Juno,’ she said, but she waited.

Mother said, ‘Willem – what can we do? How can we keep her safe?’

He thought for a second, then said, ‘I think you should come to New Plymouth. You and the girls should come immediately, Sheen. The grandparents too, if they will. And Zanin will need to follow as soon as he’s arranged for somebody else to take his place.’

Mother didn’t hesitate. ‘We’ll come tomorrow. On the train.’

Willem’s face relaxed into a smile. ‘Good. I’ll organise travel passes for you and have someone meet you.’

And so it was arranged, just like that. We were to go to the one place in the country I most wanted to avoid: New Plymouth – and, specifically, Fairlands School where Thomas, son of Hilto the dictator of Taris, was a pupil.

I
t didn’t take long for Mother and me to pack our few belongings, despite Hera’s help. Then we roasted chicken and made a plum and apple cake to take with us on our journey.

We kept an eye on Hera as we worked, but still somehow she managed to disappear.

‘Hera! Where are you? Don’t hide, darling.’ Mother shouted, raw panic in her voice. I ran to check the back garden. Mother tore out the front. ‘Wait, Hera! Come back here.’

I got there in time to see Mother about fifty metres down the road, with Hera wriggling and yelling in her arms. ‘Put me down. I’m big, I’m walking to meet Dad and Danyat and Bazin.’

Mother put her down but kept hold of her. ‘No, Hera. Don’t you ever, ever run away again. Do you hear me? It’s dangerous.’

Hera kept struggling. ‘I didn’t run. I walked. Let me go.’

But before she could yell again, I said, ‘I think it’s all right just now, Mother.’ I paused to look deep into my mind. ‘The time hasn’t come.’ I took her free hand. ‘Shut your eyes. See if you can sense it too.’

But she couldn’t, she was too frightened.

‘I want to go and meet Dad,’ Hera said. ‘Right now.’

‘That’s a good idea. Let’s all go,’ I said.

She heaved a dramatic sigh, as if the suggestion was totally unreasonable.

We arrived at the gardens just as Dad and the grandfathers were packing up. Dad took one look at Mother’s face. ‘Sheen! What is it? What’s wrong?’

She kept her voice steady, but we all saw the effort it cost. ‘Hera says she’s going away soon. And Willem says the best thing is for us all to live in New Plymouth. At Fairlands.’

‘You’ve agreed?’ Bazin asked.

Mother nodded. ‘The girls and I will go tomorrow. Willem says for the rest of you to come when you can.’

Danyat came over to put his arm around Mother. ‘I’ll be on that train with you tomorrow, my daughter.’

She rested her head on his shoulder. ‘Thank you.’

Dad locked the tool shed, his actions on automatic. He would have to arrange for somebody to replace him – his Taris apprentice Erse probably. Which would mean Erse, Roop and their daughter Merith would live in the home prepared for us. Roop wouldn’t like living in a house where Hera had been, even for such a short time. She seemed to fear Hera’s uncanny ability to predict the future – maybe she thought that somehow it would contaminate her own daughter. She was scared of me too, had called me dangerous. It was her so-called evidence that had ended up being brought against me in the recent trial.

We were quiet as we walked home with Hera, the only one who seemed unaffected by the upheaval she’d brought upon us. Leebar was waiting for us.

‘Do you think,’ she asked when we’d told her the story, ‘that this journey to New Plymouth might be what she foresaw?’

For a moment Mother’s face cleared, but I said, ‘No, I wish it was, but it isn’t. I don’t know why I think that, but I know for certain that this isn’t what she spoke of.’

Leebar and Bazin didn’t say
Rubbish
, but their faces shrieked their scepticism. Grif would have believed me.

Dad was frowning. ‘How am I to explain this sudden change of plan to the people here? I gave them my word I’d stay until the gardens were back to normal. They desperately need somebody who knows what they’re doing.’

Mother sighed. ‘I think you’ll have to tell them the truth. Enough of it, anyway.’

And so it was arranged, and not one of us protested, not even me – at least not out loud. I didn’t want to go to Fairlands. The thought of being in the same school as Thomas, son of the evil Hilto who had betrayed the position of trust he’d held on Taris, brought sickness to my stomach. No matter how much I tried to tell myself that Thomas was just a kid, a ten-year-old kid, I couldn’t get beyond the fact that he was also Hilto’s son.

The same old argument kept repeating itself in my mind:
Hilto’s dead, he can’t influence Thomas any more
.

But he filled Thomas’s head with ideas of power before he died. That’s a lot of years in the life of a young boy.

Thomas didn’t like his father any more than you did.

He only started to hate him in the last few months. The damage to Thomas’s mind had been done by then.

Maybe it’s up to you to change him.

Thanks very much. I don’t think so! I don’t even want to look at him.

I wished I could shut my mind off. All the arguments in the universe weren’t going to alter the fact that we were going to Fairlands, or that we were wise to go.

But right after that thought came another, just as unwelcome: what if we were taking Hera into danger, rather than protecting her from it?

I was frightened enough by that to still my mind, to search for a sense of whether we were doing the right thing. Nothing. I got no feeling, no inkling of right or wrong.

I needed my learning stratum. Without them I felt exposed and alone. But I had to wait until Dad had finished with the mini-comp before I could try to call any of them.

I tried Silvern first. She was online but wouldn’t take my call. Which meant she’d be talking to Paz. Right, I’d try him. But he ignored me too. I went back to Silvern. It took me six attempts before she finally answered.

‘This had better be good,’ she said, her furious face scowling from the tiny screen.

I gulped. ‘Can you tell Paz to talk too. I …’

‘You’re crying? What … hang on, I’ll connect Paz.’

I waited, wiping my eyes and sniffing.

She came back online. ‘Tell. What’s happened?’

Fear crashed at me but I managed to get the words out. ‘It’s Hera. She says she’s going away soon. She doesn’t like the people and none of us are with her. Willem says we have to go to Fairlands. Mother, Hera and I are going tomorrow. On the train.’

Paz whistled. ‘Sheesh! You’ll be at school with Thomas.’

‘And Ivor the Gorgeous,’ Silvern said. ‘Get over it, Juno. Thomas is just a kid. He’s okay. It’s Hera you should be worrying about.’

‘I am!’ I snapped. ‘Why else d’you think I’m going? I haven’t even thought about Ivor being there.’

‘Well, your parents are going, so you’ve got no choice,’ she said.

Why did I miss Silvern so much? She was infuriating.

Paz said, ‘You know, I reckon we should have a
catch-up
every night now. To make sure Hera’s okay.’

Silvern went right back to snappy. ‘And just how can we help? We’re stuck miles away from Hera and miles away from each other.’

‘Please,’ I said. ‘Can we do it? It helps to talk. I mean, we all know each other …’

Silvern laughed. ‘And you were so keen to get to Outside where you could leave Taris in your dust.’ Then she relented. ‘Yeah, okay. I agree. We’ll arrange it Sunday night.’

That had gone out of my head too – Marba’s command to have a stratum meeting via mini-comp every Sunday evening at nine.

‘Have you tried calling Marba?’ Paz asked. ‘In your head, I mean.’

‘No, of course not,’ I said. ‘Dunedin’s miles away.’

‘Try,’ said Silvern, once again in snippy mode. ‘He’ll love it even if it doesn’t work.’

Yeah, he would. Marba loved experiments, science and anything except emotions, which he just didn’t compute. But I didn’t want to try the mind call. It scared me, that power I didn’t understand.

‘Try it, Juno,’ Paz said. ‘It could be useful to know the range.’

I couldn’t argue with that. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘Hang about.’

I turned away from the screen, stilled my mind, summoned up the fear I felt for my sister. That wasn’t difficult: it was there with every breath I took. Then I focused on Marba and sent with all the strength of that fear:
Get online
.

The message was strong enough, because I felt the usual draining of energy that happened when the process worked. I turned back to the mini-comp. ‘Done.’ But it wouldn’t work – Otaki to Dunedin would be much too far.

Silvern, though, had the glint of mischief in her eyes. ‘Can’t you just see old Marba hopping around? He’ll be out of his skull with excitement.’

Yes, he would be. Marba could do excitement, and recognise it in others. But sadness he had no idea of. ‘D’you reckon he’s missing us yet?’ I asked.

And right then his icon popped up. ‘I guess we’re about to find out,’ said Silvern, clicking on it.

I couldn’t speak. The mind call had worked? I shook my head and tuned in to Marba. He was excited all right.

‘Juno! It works, even at that distance! How brilliant is that!’

Paz cut through his bubbling words. ‘Marba, listen! This is an emergency.’

It wasn’t really, not yet, but that was enough to shut Marba up so that I could tell him about Hera. ‘And we want to have a stratum meeting every night at nine,’ I finished.

‘Excellent idea,’ he said. ‘We might be able to help. Search the net, for example. Come up with ideas.’

Silvern asked, ‘Are you missing us yet, Marba?’

He frowned, his mind diverted to the new topic, and as always he gave it his full attention. ‘You know, I think I am. It feels quite lonely here with none of you to talk to.’

‘To order around, you mean,’ Silvern said.

The three of us laughed at him, but I wondered too if understanding loneliness would wake up his other emotions. I tried to imagine him being in love, but I couldn’t. He was too analytical and any girl he might fancy would go screaming mad with his logical approach when all she wanted was a hug.

We talked for ages, and I felt much less alone when I went to bed that night. My stratum were still my friends, still around to help if I called. I refused to think about the fact that, in reality, the fourteen of us were spread between Invercargill and Whangarei.

In the morning, Dad, Leebar and Bazin came with us to the station. ‘We’ll be with you soon. Stay safe,’ they said as they hugged us close.

Mother, Hera, Danyat and I boarded the train, and waved till we could see them no longer. I wanted to get off and run back, go to my school, laugh with those who were becoming my friends. All I could do was lift my hand in farewell.

It seemed to me that Outside was the Land of Goodbyes.