Earth Star

33

I woke, was bewildered by my strange surroundings, then realized I was lying on a couch in a Field Command sled. My initial gasp attracted the attention of a Military Captain with long blond hair, who looked like a younger and more handsome Arrack San Domex. He came over, sat on the edge of the couch, and smiled down at me. I was lost for a moment, caught in the borderlands of the dream world and reality.

‘Did they really use a drop portal?’

‘Yes, they did,’ said Fian.

I sat up. ‘I dozed off for a few minutes and thought I’d dreamed it.’ I saw repressed laughter in his face. ‘What?’

‘You’ve been asleep for four hours.’

‘Four hours!’ I shrieked the words. ‘Why didn’t you wake me up?’

‘You needed the sleep and your deputy has been running things in a perfectly brilliant manner. I expect you to recommend me for promotion after this.’

I giggled. ‘I can’t. We’re Twoing so Military regulations forbid me being involved in your promotion or disciplinary procedures. What have I missed?’

‘Not much. Drago has been babbling endlessly on Earth Rolling News, with Marlise bringing the odd moment of sanity into things. Dalmora, Amalie and Krath have been roaming around with vid bees while the dig teams battle their way through the trees. Krath caught a parrot to entertain the viewers, and it bit him. He’s still complaining.’

‘Surely a parrot couldn’t bite through an impact suit.’

‘Of course it couldn’t. Krath was playing the wounded hero for Amalie’s benefit, but she just kept making withering remarks about killer parrots. We did have one exciting moment when a group of dire wolves strolled out of the trees, but they took one look at the dig teams and decided to run for it. Other than that, Pereth has asked three times if we agreed his idea for dealing with various problems was the best one. Each time I consulted Playdon, we decided Pereth knew far better than we did, and we told him to go ahead. There seemed no point in waking you up for that.’

‘No,’ I admitted. ‘Pereth and Playdon know far more than me.’

‘I’ve been giving hourly progress reports to Colonel Torrek. He hasn’t asked why he’s been hearing from me instead of you. I’m pretty sure he realized the strain you’ve been under, and wanted you to rest while things were quiet.’

Fian paused. ‘Now, you must eat something. After you finished giving the site tour, you staggered in here, took off your impact suit, sat down and went out like a light. You haven’t eaten properly in days, so I’m not accepting any arguments from you.’

‘You aren’t getting any. I’m starving.’ I stood up. ‘What food do we have?’

‘There’s a whole range of cartons in the cupboard, and a mysterious stasis box.’

I stared at him. ‘A what?’

‘A stasis box. There’s a note saying it’s for you from Marlise. For chaos sake open it, because I’ve been dying of curiosity for hours, wondering what was so important it’s stored in a stasis box.’

I was already opening the cupboard. Fian wasn’t making a nardle joke, there really was a cube in there with the distinctive black fuzziness of a stasis field. ‘I hope they sent a stasis key as well, or …’

‘It’s right next to it. Playdon’s over with Pereth, checking sensor readings, should I call him back to …?’

‘Don’t be silly. We don’t need a Stasis Q to open this. It won’t have a bomb in it.’

‘True. I wouldn’t trust Drago, but Marlise is sensible.’ Fian peered over my shoulder as I used the key, the black stasis field vanished, and I opened the box inside. ‘No!’ he yelled. ‘Not cheese fluffle!’

I stared in rapture at my treasure trove, grabbed the spoon inside, and started eating.

‘Why?’ asked Fian. ‘Why use a stasis box to send you cheese fluffle?’

I swallowed a glorious mouthful. ‘Perfectly logical. It keeps it hot and fresh. Congealed cheese fluffle wouldn’t be the same.’

‘And I just said that Marlise was sensible! Have some frujit as well.’ Fian opened a carton and handed it to me.

I shovelled more cheese fluffle into my mouth, gulped my way through two cartons of frujit, and gave a huge sigh of satisfaction. ‘I must shower. Please put the rest of the cheese fluffle back into stasis.’

I went into the minuscule bathroom cubicle, experimented with the controls for a while, and came out feeling a lot fresher. I gestured back at the door behind me.

‘There’s a control setting in there for radiation mop up. Hard to believe we’ve got a shower with a setting for dealing with radiation exposure.’

Fian laughed. ‘Not as hard to believe as the fact I’ve just put leftover cheese fluffle into stasis.’

I found my Military lookup still attached to my discarded impact suit, and set it to Earth Rolling News. I wrinkled my nose as I saw the vid sequence of my leg getting fried during the Solar 5 rescue, and hastily turned it off again.

‘Haven’t they got anything better to show people than old coverage of me screaming my head off?’

‘I think they’re getting a bit desperate,’ said Fian. ‘They keep showing vid clips about Tellon Blaze too. Watching people cutting a path through trees gets a bit monotonous after a while.’

I felt guilty. ‘I should be out there, shouldn’t I?’

I sighed and picked up my impact suit. Fian instantly went to the front window, and feigned a deep interest in what was happening outside. If I couldn’t force myself back into my suit, he’d pretend I hadn’t even tried to put it on, but I couldn’t hide indefinitely inside the Field Command sled. I’d have to call Colonel Torrek, and …

Oh this was ridiculous. I’d been wearing impact suits since I was eleven. My school history club had to make special arrangements to get one small enough to fit me. It had been a running joke that I didn’t need to set the identification on my suit because it was obvious who I was from my size.

Yes, I’d had a problem after the accident, but I’d put on this impact suit in my fit of fury after Gaius Devon called me an ape, I’d stayed in it for over twenty-four hours without it biting me, and I could get back into it now. I started grimly rolling the special fabric over my feet. It felt strangely like when I first put on my flowgold ring, my skin crawled nervously as it felt the touch of the fabric, but I kept going and suffered a dizzying sensation of relief as I pulled up my hood and sealed my suit.

Fian turned and caught my arm as I swayed. ‘Jarra? Are you all right?’

‘Yes,’ I said shakily. ‘I’m in.’ I shook my head to banish the odd feeling of wetness around my eyes, and spoke again in a more controlled voice. ‘I’m fine. We’d better give Earth Rolling News a thrill by showing ourselves.’

Fian changed into his own suit, which gave me a couple more minutes to calm down. I was still very aware of the impact suit fabric enclosing me, but hopefully that would gradually fade. I went to sit by the controls and peered out of the window. I couldn’t see the working teams, but they’d left a path lined with piled-up logs behind them.

‘We might as well drive the sled closer to the action,’ I said, and started it moving. ‘How near are they to the target area?’

Fian came and sat next to me. ‘Close, but they won’t make it tonight. Progress is slow dealing with trees this size, and they keep stopping to do sensor scans. Pereth knows we aren’t sure of the exact location of the artefact, and he doesn’t want to either break it, or trigger some alien technology that could injure people. Colonel Torrek made a statement a couple of hours ago, saying we have to take our time and do this right.’

‘The alien artefact probably doesn’t even exist,’ I muttered. ‘I’m feeling like the biggest fake ever.’ The path through the trees was as wide as a dig site clearway, but bumpy to drive along because of frequent tree stumps. ‘They’re cutting the trees down, rather than pulling them up?’

‘Yes,’ said Fian. ‘Pulling them up was hard with trees this size and left a huge mess of soil and rocks.’

We reached an area of frantic activity, I parked the sled at the side of the path, and we put on hover belts and went outside. I listened to the purposeful chatter on the dig site broadcast channel, and gradually made sense of what was happening.

One group of heavy lift sleds were towing huge fallen trees towards us, and abandoning them in the middle of the path. As each new tree arrived, people moved forward with lasers to cut it up. A second group of heavy lifts were following them down the path, clearing up the mass of logs they left behind by stacking them out of the way at the sides of the path. Two more heavy lifts brought up the rear, running drag nets to remove the remaining debris of branches and twigs and leave the path clear behind them.

Fian and I hovered our way past the path sweepers, the log stackers, and the people wielding lasers. Everyone saw our Military impact suits, and stopped work to watch us go by. I felt self-conscious, and horribly aware I was probably just wasting the time of all these people. I was grateful my face was safely hidden inside my impact suit.

Ahead of us, we could now see where the trees were being felled to extend the path towards our target area. The tree-towing group of heavy lift sleds drove past us, taking the latest batch of fallen trees to be cut up. Once they were out of the way, half a dozen tag leaders moved in to fire tags at the next batch of trees.

I watched the tag leaders enviously for a moment, wishing I could trade places with one of them, then forced myself to turn away. Pereth’s red Site Leader sled was close by, I’d left the poor man to cope alone for hour after hour, and it was time I went to talk to him. I had to try to sound knowledgeable and confident of success, though I felt neither.