‘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.
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