Earth Star

16

Joth died thirty-one hours after he reached Hospital Earth Africa Isolation and Disease Control. The cause of death was given as malaria variation 2789 Beta.

Lecturer Playdon came into the hall just after we’d finished eating dinner and told us what had happened. I sat there in stunned disbelief. I’d been so happy thinking I’d helped save Joth, when I hadn’t saved him at all. I’d thought he’d be back with the class in a few days time, but we’d never see him again. I felt physically sick.

‘University Asgard is sending us a grief counsellor,’ said Playdon. ‘He’ll be using my room as his office between nine in the morning and seven in the evening every day and you can talk to him whenever you wish. I am, of course, available as well.’

Given my history with psychologists, I certainly wasn’t going anywhere near a grief counsellor. There was no point anyway. Nothing was going to bring Joth back.

‘As with any sudden death,’ continued Playdon, ‘I’m afraid there has to be a formal investigation. Given our special circumstances here, a Dig Site Federation Accident Specialist is working with an Earth Investigating Officer. I’ve just been giving them details of what happened, Petra is with them now, and they may wish to talk to some of the rest of you over the next few days.’

I hadn’t noticed Petra was missing, hadn’t even thought about her until Playdon mentioned her name. Chaos, when I thought how she must be feeling …

Playdon’s voice had a tired, depressed edge to it now. ‘Work on the dig site is suspended until we receive clearance from the Dig Site Federation to continue. We’ll focus on lectures until then. I hope you’ll all do your best to support each other through this difficult time, and if I can help in any way then just let me know.’

He stood there waiting for a moment, but no one broke the shocked silence, so he went to sit on his usual chair in the corner of the hall. Only my friends from team 1 were sitting at the table with me, but I still instinctively stared down at my tray on the table, with its empty glass and plate of crumbs, trying to hide my face and emotions. Joth had only been 18. He should have married one day, had kids, lived to celebrate his hundredth, but he was dead.

‘Why did Joth do it?’ Dalmora’s voice softly mourned. ‘Why did he go out there? He surely didn’t want this to happen.’

‘He’d just had an argument with Petra,’ said Fian. ‘I’ve a bad feeling I was involved.’

I looked up at him, startled, and saw him tugging at his long hair with both hands. ‘You? Why?’

He pulled a face. ‘The argument included something about us two coming back to the class. At the start of the course, Petra tried being … friendly with me. She isn’t my type, so I said a polite no, but she didn’t want to accept it. I actually had to threaten to file an official complaint against her before she’d back off and leave me alone. Chaos embarrassing.’

I stared at him. ‘I didn’t know about this.’

He frowned. ‘You didn’t? I was chasing you at the time, but you kept pointedly ignoring me. It was only a day or two later that we got together. I assumed you’d spotted Petra kissing me, or heard Krath teasing me about it, and that was why you suddenly changed your mind about us. You’ve never mentioned it, but given the way you avoid discussing things that upset you …’

‘No.’ I waved both hands to gesture total ignorance. ‘I hadn’t seen anything.’

He pulled a face of self-mockery. ‘Now I stop to think about it, I realize you had far more important things to worry about back then. There was your grandmother’s Honour Ceremony and your parents dying. Silly of me to think you’d got jealous about Petra kissing me.’

‘I might have been jealous if I’d seen it, but …’ I shook my head and got back to the point of the conversation. ‘Joth and Petra’s argument wasn’t about you, Fian. It was about me. Petra doesn’t like the Handicapped, so she was trying to stop Joth being friends with me.’

‘I don’t want to sound as if I believe I’m the centre of the universe,’ said Fian, ‘but are you sure this was just because you’re Handicapped? Petra didn’t like being rejected, and given I paired off with you two days later then …’

‘I’m sure what happened to Joth wasn’t anything to do with either of you,’ said Dalmora. ‘He’s had several other fights with Petra in the last few weeks, and you two weren’t even here then. I was. I should have tried to …’

‘Not you,’ said Krath. ‘Me! He was my friend and …’

Amalie startled us by slapping the table with the palms of her hands. ‘Stop blaming yourselves for what happened! That sort of thing doesn’t do anyone any good. It isn’t anyone’s fault that Joth did something dangerous.’

‘But if he was so unhappy that …’ Dalmora let the words trail off.

‘He wasn’t,’ said Amalie. ‘This was just a stupid accident. If Joth had planned it deliberately, he’d have left a message with his lookup, and he didn’t.’

‘But why did he go out there then?’ asked Fian. ‘He’d seen the safety vids, so he knew how dangerous it was.’

‘You think a few safety warnings would stop him?’ Amalie shook her head. ‘We’re talking about Joth, remember! He’s the sort that you can tell a dozen times to be careful of a camp fire, and he still picks up a red hot branch and burns himself. Every batch of new colonists back home on Miranda included one like him. It was never a question of whether they’d have an accident, just when they’d have one, and exactly how bad it would be.’

She waved both hands in despair. ‘Joth could watch all the vids, hear Playdon saying over and over again that we mustn’t go outside the dome without a suit, and still think it wouldn’t matter for five minutes. He’d just had a fight with Petra. He probably only wanted to get out of the dome and away from things for a while, but once he was outside in the dark he was bound to get lost, and since he’d left his lookup in his room he couldn’t call for help.’

I stared down at my plate again while I pictured that; Joth fighting his way through the endless trees of the rainforest. Of course, being Joth, he was bound to keep heading in exactly the wrong direction and then …

There was the sound of a chair being shoved violently backwards, and I looked up in time to see Krath brush the back of one hand across his eyes and storm off through the hall door. I stood up to follow him, but Amalie shook her head at me.

‘It’s better if I talk to him. We’re … Well, if Krath ever develops some sense, then we might be something.’

I watched her go after Krath. He’d been one of Joth’s closest friends. This was going to be hard for him, for Petra, for the rest of team 4, for … for all of us.

Dalmora stood up as well. ‘I’m going to talk to Playdon. He’s looking very strained, and I’m sure he hasn’t had anything to eat.’

I glanced across at Playdon, and saw his expression and the way his shoulders sagged. This was hurting him as much, or more, than the rest of us. He felt responsible for his students and … I had two ways of dealing with emotional pain. One was to try to avoid thinking about the problem; the other was to turn the pain into anger, because anger was much easier to cope with. I couldn’t avoid thinking about this, and I couldn’t be angry with Joth, but I could be angry with …

‘And I’m going to call Issette. The real question isn’t why Joth went out there; it’s why the doctors let him die!’

I headed back to our room and called Issette, flagging the call as an emergency and routing it to the wall vid. It was a minute or two before the holo of her face appeared on the screen and gave a despairing groan.

‘It’s always you that sends me emergency calls, Jarra. Five minutes earlier and my lookup would have started chiming in Dr Garmin’s lecture and he’s horribly sarcastic. Someone better be dead!’

‘Someone is dead,’ I said.

‘Oh.’ Her expression instantly changed from reproachful to anxious. ‘Who? Not Fian!’

‘Joth.’

‘The one who went into the rainforest?’

‘Yes, I told you we’d found him and sent him to hospital. The nuking doctors have let him die. How the chaos did that happen? They can grow people new legs, new hearts, new lungs, a whole new body even! Everyone knows they can fix anything so long as there’s no brain damage. So what the hell went wrong?’

Issette didn’t complain at my swearing, just gave me a sorrowful look and spoke in a carefully patient voice. ‘I’m only a student, but … Growing new body parts doesn’t stop someone being sick. You have to cure the disease.’

‘So why didn’t they cure Joth?’ I blinked the betraying moisture out of my eyes. I didn’t really need to hide the fact I was crying from Issette, I’d known her all my life and she’d seen me in every sort of mess there was, but all the same …

‘We’re good at preventing diseases, Jarra, but not at treating them. People have their annual inoculations so they don’t get ill. When a serious new mutated disease shows up …’

‘Like malaria variation 2789 Beta.’ I shook my head. ‘How could Joth get malaria?’

‘From an insect bite. Malaria was supposed to be extinct for centuries, but it came back as the much deadlier …’ Issette shrugged. ‘That doesn’t matter now. Portals automatically route active disease carriers to Isolation and Disease Control for treatment so new diseases can’t spread before we have inoculations for them. The patients get the best treatment possible, but the first few cases …’

‘The first few cases may die.’ I let my head sag forward into my hands. ‘That stinks.’

‘It does,’ said Issette.

I ended the call and sat staring blankly at the wall for a few minutes until Fian came to join me. We silently changed into sleep suits, went to bed, and turned off the glows. I felt Fian’s arm go around me, shuffled closer to him, and turned to rest my head on his chest. I could hear the sound of his heart beating and feel the comforting warmth of him. Joth was dead, and that wasn’t just terrible, but terrifying. It was the first time a friend, someone my own age, had died. It gave me a whole new awareness of how fast a life could end.

I was fiercely, selfishly glad I wasn’t Petra. She’d lost Joth, but I still had Fian, for now at least. The next solar storm might arrive in as little as a few days time, and there was no way to know what the alien sphere would do when it arrived.

‘I love you,’ I said.

‘What?’ Fian’s voice sounded startled. ‘Are you powered, Jarra? You never say emotional things.’

‘I say them tonight.’ I lifted my head to kiss him.