Earth Star

Playdon seemed amused but changed to Gamma Sector News. After a sports report, it started showing massive queues of people.

‘Serious congestion continues at all Off-worlds and Sector Interchanges. Portal Network Administration apologizes for portal delays due to limitations on traffic flow during an upgrade of the major portal relay hubs. They request people to postpone non-essential journeys where possible.’

Coverage swapped to a series of people complaining bitterly about how long they’d been waiting. Lecturer Playdon turned off the sound just as a bunch of eleven students from Asgard in Gamma sector entered the hall, followed by a whole fleet of their hover luggage. Our class was being run by University Asgard, so there were a lot of students from that planet.

Krath was at the front of the group, and he immediately burst into an outraged tirade. ‘You wouldn’t believe how long we were waiting at Asgard Off-world. Four hours! Our block portal got rescheduled twice because of congestion in Gamma Sector Interchange 6, and when we finally got there the cross-sector portal to Alpha was …’ He finally noticed the images on the wall vid and trailed off with a disappointed air. ‘Oh, you know.’

Playdon nodded. ‘I suggest you go and unpack. I won’t be starting classes until everyone’s back, so you’ve plenty of time.’

The new arrivals went off to unpack and Fian took out his lookup. ‘I’ll call my parents and check they got back to Hercules safely.’

‘You do that,’ I said. ‘I’ll go and finish my unpacking.’

I hurried off. I’d done all my unpacking, but I’d just suffered four solid days of Fian’s parents and didn’t want to smile dutifully while he called them. Once I was in the corridor, I nearly bumped into one of the arrivals from Asgard. She gave me a look of pure disgust.

‘I see the ape girl is back. That explains the bad smell around here.’

I bit my lip. I’d barely noticed Petra’s existence at the start of this course, but I’d certainly noticed her since my classmates found out I was Handicapped. Once they got over the initial shock, most of them treated me just the same as when they thought I was a norm. Not Petra though. She’d gradually persuaded several of her friends from Asgard to join her in a campaign of furtive insults. Her plan was to make the throwback girl leave the class, but I wasn’t going to be driven out by a few nasty words. I kept the problems to a minimum by avoiding the ape-hating clique, so I tried stepping sideways to walk past Petra.

She promptly dodged sideways herself to block my way. ‘You shouldn’t be here. You should be on a Foundation course run by University Earth like the rest of your kind!’

I tried moving to the other side, but Petra blocked me again. If I turned around and went back to the hall, she’d jeer at me for running away. I gave up the nardle dodging from side to side and faced her.

‘I’ve as much right to be on this course as you. The only difference between us is my immune system can’t cope with other worlds. That isn’t a problem because this course spends the whole year here on Earth.’

‘Yes, the nuking rules for studying history say I have to waste a year on Earth before they’ll let me learn the modern history that really matters. That’s bad enough without being forced to share a dig site dome with one of you subhumans as well!’

I’d tried to stay calm, but now I was losing my temper. ‘Odd that you never noticed my subhuman looks and intelligence when we started this course. You believed I was a norm until you were told I was Handicapped. This course is governed by the Gamma sector moral code, which says you have to treat your fellow students with respect, so why don’t you be a good little Gamman and leave me alone. If Playdon spots the way you’re behaving, he’ll hand you a bunch of formal conduct warnings.’

‘He should be giving you the conduct warnings,’ said Petra. ‘You lied to us when you joined this class. Pretended you’d been to a Military school and were human like the rest of us. You didn’t even have the courage to tell us the truth yourself. You had to get Fian to do it for you.’

‘That wasn’t my idea!’

Petra had hit a sore spot. While I was in a hospital regrowth tank, getting my leg fixed after the rescue of Solar 5, Fian decided to tell the class I was Handicapped. He refused to say exactly what happened then, but people would obviously have been shocked and angry about the lies I’d told. Playdon would have kept things under control, but still …

Well, Fian faced the class for me back then, which was truly zan of him, but I’m the sort of person who prefers to fight their own battles rather than cower behind someone else. That was why I was hiding the Petra situation from him now. If he knew what was going on, he’d want to get involved and we’d start arguing. I wasn’t in a regrowth tank now, Petra was my problem, not Fian’s, and I’d deal with her.

‘I’m surprised you haven’t gone crying to Playdon yet,’ said Petra. ‘He’s made it clear he’s an ape lover. Of course, if you do go whining to him, it’s just your word against several of us and …’

She broke off and turned to look down the corridor. I saw Joth was walking towards us and relaxed. Petra was far too cunning to say anything nasty in front of anyone except her fellow ape haters, so she’d have to shut up now.

Joth reached us and Petra turned to smile at him. ‘Smelly around here, isn’t it? Why don’t you tell the throwback to get out of our way?’

I stared at her in disbelief, and saw her smile widen. What was going on here? I turned to Joth and his eyes evaded mine.

‘Get lost, ape,’ he said. ‘You should be kept outside in a cage so real people aren’t bothered by the stink.’

He brushed past me and hurried off down the corridor. I turned to gaze after him in shock. Back at the start of the course, Joth had done something incredibly stupid during an excavation and nearly injured me. Once I realized he was simply clueless at practical things, rather than a homicidal maniac out to deliberately kill me, we’d become friends, though I still felt he couldn’t be trusted to pick up a knife and fork by the handles instead of the sharp ends. Joth had remained my friend even after he found out I was Handicapped, but now he’d …

My face must have given away my hurt feelings, because Petra gave a triumphant laugh. ‘Joth’s asked me to Two with him.’

She chased after Joth and he put his arm around her. The situation was brutally clear now. Joth and Petra were the heavy lift operators for team 4. They spent a lot of time together, and Joth had got involved with her. Either he was fool enough not to realize how nasty Petra was, or he knew what she was like and didn’t care as long as he got to tumble her. It didn’t matter which. Petra wanted Joth to insult me, so he’d done it. A friend had just become an enemy.

I retreated to the nearest bathroom, stripped off my clothes, and stepped into the shower. Comforting warm water poured over me while I thought things through. If Petra and Joth were Twoing, there was no hope of regaining Joth as a friend. I just had to accept the situation. The usual insults would have an extra painful sting when they came from Joth, but I’d cope with it. I was used to insults. I’d spent all my life watching the vids made on the sector worlds, never knowing when one of the characters would suddenly make a joke about dumb apes like me.

I had to forget Joth now. He was just another of the pathetic people calling me names. I should focus on the good things, on the friends who’d stuck by me when they found out I was Handicapped. Dig sites were dangerous places and I was tag leader for dig team 1, so I was the one standing in the middle of the excavation work and taking most of the risks. It was vital to be able to trust the other members of my team, and I’d been very lucky with all four of them.

I turned the shower to dry mode, and jets of air blasted at me while I fixed my thoughts on the people who’d forgiven my lies and accepted me as if I was another norm. Dalmora, our sensor sled operator, was the only Alphan in the class. When we first met, I’d expected her to be a spoilt brat, because she was the daughter of Ventrak Rostha, the famous maker of history vids. Instead, she was one of the kindest, most thoughtful people I’d ever known.

Amalie and Krath were our two heavy lift operators. Amalie was a quiet, solid, and totally dependable girl from a frontier world in Epsilon sector, and Krath … well, he could be a bit of a nardle socially, but he was good at practical things and an amaz heavy lift operator.

I’d been confident both Dalmora and Amalie would give me a chance when they knew I was Handicapped, but I’d expected the worst from Krath. His father helped run an amateur vid channel, Truth Against Oppression, and Krath had kept quoting his stupid conspiracy theories and nasty comments about apes. Once the class knew I was Handicapped, I’d been braced for insults from him, but he’d startled me by grinning and announcing that if Jarra was an ape, then apes were pretty good after all. When Krath bothered to think for himself, instead of repeating his father’s ideas, there were definite signs of hope for him.

And then, most importantly of all, there was Fian. We weren’t just Twoing; he was also my tag support, constantly watching for danger, ready to use his lifeline beam to snatch me to safety. Fian hadn’t just accepted me; he’d even said we could both transfer to a University Earth course if there was too much prejudice from the rest of the class. I was determined not to do that, because it would mess up our studies, but it proved Fian was truly zan.

I was dry now, so I stepped out of the shower. Yes, it would be nice if everyone accepted me as a real human being, and I wasn’t the target of insults whenever I walked down a corridor alone, but that was never going to happen. I’d deliberately chosen to gatecrash a class of norms, I’d had the worst possible motives for doing it, and the current situation was far better than I deserved.

I got dressed again, headed back to the hall, and opened the door to find Krath standing in front of the big wall vid. He’d set it back to Earth Rolling News, and the picture showed dazzling white sparks streaking across an area of rubble. A lifeline beam yanked an impact suit clad figure out of their path, just as the sound of screaming sensor sled alarms was drowned by a loud explosion. There were people shouting and a female voice yelling in pain. That voice was mine.

For a second I was back in time, reliving the accident during the Solar 5 rescue that had earned me the Artemis medal. There was even a shooting pain in my leg. I dragged myself out of that, back to reality, and yelled at Krath.

‘Turn that off!’

‘What?’ He gave me a wounded look. ‘I was just …’

‘Turn it off, Krath.’ Playdon’s voice interrupted him. ‘Jarra doesn’t want to keep watching an accident where she was seriously injured.’

‘Sorry,’ said Krath. ‘I should have thought.’

I shook my head. ‘No, I’m just being a nardle. I’ve seen that vid a dozen times already, so I shouldn’t react this way.’

The rest of the class gradually trickled into the dome during the afternoon, all making loud complaints about queues. Fian, Krath, and I spent a lot of time trying to talk sense into Dalmora, who was still worried about being late.

Krath shook his head. ‘It wasn’t your fault. Why are you so upset about it?’

‘On Danae, being late is considered a serious social failing,’ said Dalmora. ‘My family would be horrified to hear I’d been disrespectful to my lecturer and classmates by being late returning to my course.’

We explained to Dalmora about ten times that Playdon understood it wasn’t her fault and wouldn’t complain to her family. We finally managed to divert her with a discussion into differences between the various sectors and planets.

‘I’ve got a cousin on Jason in Gamma sector,’ said Krath. ‘I wore a green top when I went to visit him, and I wasn’t allowed out of Jason Off-world until I changed into something else. They think green is a terribly unlucky colour.’

‘You should always look up a world’s social conventions before you go there,’ said Dalmora. ‘It’s terribly easy to make a mistake and upset someone. My father was dreadfully embarrassed on Persephone when …’

She broke off, and started a new sentence. ‘Jarra, Fian, I need to ask you something. My father plans to make a vid about the solar super storm and the rescue of Solar 5. He’d like to use some of the vid sequences actually taken during the rescue, and of course those show you both. Are you comfortable with that? I could ask my father not to use the coverage of Jarra’s accident.’

‘You’re the one who got hurt, Jarra,’ said Fian. ‘Your decision.’

I was totally grazzed. I’d been a fan of Ventrak Rostha’s famous History of Humanity series for years. It was amaz to think I’d be included in one of his vids.

‘Your father can use any sequences he likes, Dalmora,’ I said. ‘Ventrak Rostha including the accident in one of his history info vids is very different to seeing it constantly replayed on the newzies. I’d be honoured to …’

Krath interrupted me, standing up and hastily running his fingers through his dark brown hair in an ineffective attempt to tidy it. ‘Amalie’s back!’

A hot and tired looking Amalie hurried into the hall, which meant the whole class had finally arrived. Playdon gave her a few minutes to have something to drink, before getting us to set up the chairs in orderly lines and going to stand at the front of the room.

‘Welcome to Eden Dig Site in Earth Africa,’ he said. ‘I want to at least give you a brief introductory talk today before we stop classes for the evening. I will begin by repeating what I said when we started this course at New York Dig Site. All of humanity’s worlds have been carefully selected and prepared to be safe for colonization by the Military Planet First teams. Every world except one. Earth wasn’t entirely safe even in the days before Exodus century, but now some of the abandoned areas are highly dangerous.’

He paused for a second for emphasis before continuing. ‘Construction methods and materials kept improving until the start of Exodus century, so the ruins of Eden are in a much better state than those of New York, but don’t make the mistake of thinking that means they’re safer. They aren’t. They’re also in a much more dangerous area because the rainforest edge reached Eden forty years ago. There’ll be a series of safety lectures before you can go outside the dome, but I’ll begin with a basic introduction to Eden.’

A holo image of a city appeared on the vid screen behind him, a glowing dream of a place with totally zan twisting skyscrapers linked with bridges across the sky. I’d seen vids of it before at school, but the beauty of it still stunned me. Playdon gave us a second to absorb the glorious sight before he continued speaking.

‘Eden was built five hundred years ago. It was the last city built on Earth, and the last to be abandoned in Exodus century when …’

Playdon was interrupted by the sound of two lookups chiming to warn of emergency incoming mail. He sighed and looked around for the guilty parties. I realized one of the chimes had been mine, and fumbled for my lookup. Fian was grabbing for his as well. Playdon pulled a long-suffering face and pointedly drummed his fingers on his leg as he waited.

I read my mail in disbelief. ‘Oh nuke that!’

Playdon folded his arms and glared at me. He usually approved of me and Fian, because we truly loved history, but any lecturer would object to a student screaming the ‘nuke’ word in the middle of a class. Despite Playdon’s threatening body language, I spared a second to glance at Fian. He looked like he’d been hit in the face by a transport sled, so he must have got the same mail message as me.

‘Jarra,’ said Playdon, ‘if you don’t have an extremely good reason for that outburst, I must give you an amber warning under the Gamma sector moral code for using unacceptable language.’

‘Sir,’ I said, ‘I apologize. I was very shocked to hear … I respectfully request you to let me and Fian explain this to you somewhere private.’

Playdon frowned and beckoned us to follow him out of the hall. Once outside in the corridor, he shut the door behind us. ‘Well?’

‘Sir,’ I said, ‘we need to be very private. I’m ordered to remind you that as part of your training in dealing with stasis boxes you took the Security Oath.’

Playdon looked grazzed by that. He opened his mouth, closed it again, and led us down the corridor and into his own room. He gestured to us to sit down. ‘Well?’ he repeated.

‘Sir,’ I said, ‘this information is classified security code black. Alien Contact programme has been activated. Fian and I …’

‘We’ve been drafted by the Military!’ said Fian.

2

Lecturer Playdon sat in silence for a moment before speaking. ‘I’m sure you believe what you’re saying, but you must have been sent a joke message by a friend.’

‘This mail carries Military authentication from Colonel Riak Torrek,’ I said. ‘You remember he was a friend of my grandmother and he piloted Solar 5.’

‘Colonel Riak Torrek,’ repeated Playdon. ‘It must be true then. The commanding officer of Earth’s solar arrays isn’t going to joke about the Alien Contact programme being activated. Humanity has finally met intelligent aliens with their own advanced civilization and technology.’

He shook his head. ‘I know the mathematicians claimed it would inevitably happen. So many worlds have evolved their own eco system with alien variations of plant and animal life, and Planet First exploration teams have already discovered two alien species in the first primitive stages of civilization, but I still never really …’

He suddenly broke off, and his expression changed from grazzed to anxious. ‘You’re Handicapped, Jarra. You can’t portal to join the Planet First teams in Kappa sector. Why are the Military calling you in for Alien Contact?’

‘Sir, it makes no sense to me either,’ I said. ‘I may have been born into a Military family, but I can’t have a Military career, I can’t be any use so …’

‘Disobeying Alien Contact is a crime against humanity,’ said Playdon, ‘so you have to go, but … Fian, it’s vital you stick close to Jarra. Make sure the Military understand she’s Handicapped and she’ll die if she goes off world.’

‘I intend to, sir,’ said Fian. ‘She’s not taking a step without me.’

When I joined the class, I’d started calling Playdon ‘sir’ as part of my pretence of being Military and now Fian had caught the habit from me. Playdon frequently suggested that Fian, at least, should stop it, since he didn’t even have any Military relatives. So far, Playdon was losing the battle.

‘I couldn’t portal off world anyway,’ I said. ‘If I stepped into an off-world portal, it would scan me, see my genetic code was flagged as Handicapped, and alarms would start shrieking.’

‘Don’t assume that,’ said Playdon. ‘Civilian portals have those safety checks, but the Military may have their own off-world portals.’

I frowned. Playdon was right. The Military used five second, drop portals to allow Planet First ships to reach new worlds, but they probably had standard off-world portals as well.

‘I’ll bear that in mind, sir,’ I said grimly.

At 14, the Handicapped have the option to make one attempt to portal off world to prove the doctors haven’t made a mistake. I was one of the very few foolish enough to take up that option. I portalled off world, dramatically collapsed into the arms of the waiting medical team, was hurled back through the portal, and spent a week in hospital recovering.

Everyone called me a nardle for trying it, but if I was going to be defeated by fate then I wanted to go down fighting. I’m proud I tried to portal off world, but I also remember very vividly how I nearly died and how very much it hurt. I’d be extremely cautious about walking into strange Military portals.

Fian was checking his lookup, reading the instructions in his mail message. ‘We’re supposed to go to an Earth America portal address. That must be safe for Jarra. When we get there, I’ll keep yelling she can’t go off world.’

I checked my own lookup. ‘We’d better start packing. The instructions say to get there as soon as possible.’

‘If you don’t want to take all your bags with you, leave the rest in your room,’ said Playdon. ‘If you aren’t back by the time we move dig site, I’ll make sure we take them with us.’ He paused, and added pointedly. ‘Don’t waste time on replacing the wall. I’ll put it back myself.’

Fian and I exchanged wary looks.

‘Yes, I know you took out the wall between your rooms,’ said Playdon. ‘I saw you smuggling the tools out of the store room last night. Normally, I’d insist you put it back properly yourselves, but Alien Contact takes priority so I’ll do it myself.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ I said, feeling horribly embarrassed.

Fian and I headed back to our room. We’d been careful until now to each use our own door into it, but since Playdon knew about the illegal missing wall there was no point in keeping up the act. We both went in through the same door and started some frantic packing.

‘We could just take it all with us,’ said Fian.

‘We could,’ I said, ‘but it’s going to look pretty silly if we arrive with all this. I’ve got a set of five hover bags and you …’

‘Nine,’ confessed Fian.

‘We probably won’t need many clothes anyway.’

‘Why not?’ he asked. ‘We’ve no idea how long we’ll be there.’

‘When they call in civilians as advisers, they give them uniforms. Special grey uniforms, with wide white bars on the left sleeve so everyone knows they aren’t genuine combat Military.’

‘We’ll be wearing uniforms? That’s … pretty amaz. What about underwear?’

‘No idea,’ I said. ‘I’ve studied lots of Military recruitment and public information vids, but none of them went into detail about Military underwear.’

‘I’d better take it then,’ said Fian. ‘Are you bringing that little black lacy thing with the …’

‘Yes.’

‘Bring the blue one too and the …’ He paused. ‘There can’t really be aliens. The Military can’t really want us. It’s got to be a mistake.’

My first panic had worn off, and I felt the same way as Fian. This situation was too nardle to be true. ‘Well, we’ve got to go, but I’m sure you’re right. We’ll be back in an hour or two, unpacking all our bags again.’

‘And I bet Playdon will have put the wall back by then.’ Fian sighed.

We finished packing, selected the bags to take with us, gave last guilty looks at where the wall wasn’t, and left the room. Yesterday we’d moved out all the furniture, unlocked the wall dividing our two rooms, shifted it flush against the other side wall of my room, and locked it into position there. After that, we’d brought the furniture back in. Playdon was going to have to do the same thing in reverse, but he’d probably get the class to help.

Playdon was waiting for us in the portal room. ‘What do I tell the class?’ he asked. ‘I popped back into the hall and told them to watch a vid. They seemed to think you were suffering some special punishment for swearing.’

He gave one of his evil smiles. The kind that usually meant the class was about to suffer a lecture on mathematical history analysis, or spend hours practising safety drills. ‘When the class find out you’ve packed your bags and gone, I’ll look like some extremist twentieth-century dictator unless I give an explanation.’

Fian and I looked blankly at each other.

‘Family crisis?’ suggested Playdon. ‘You’re Twoing, so the same family crisis would work for both of you.’

I nodded. ‘I’ve no idea exactly what, but …’

Playdon smiled again. ‘I won’t need to give details because it would be highly unprofessional of me to disclose confidential information about students. You know that, Jarra. You took full advantage of it when you started this course.’

I blushed. Playdon had known my application to University Asgard had come from an Earth school. He’d realized that meant I was Handicapped, but the rules about confidential information meant he had to keep quiet while I told the class a pack of lies. That hadn’t bothered me when I first arrived, bolstered up with my fury against all exos, but I felt bad about it now.