We walked towards the pool, and found the ten members of Cassandra 2 research team had taken over one end of it, while our class were milling round in the water at the other. I saw Krath go over to the diving area and start climbing the ladder to the highest diving board.
Fian frowned. ‘Do you think the idiot’s safe going up there?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Krath’s usually good at practical things, but …’
Krath reached the diving board, waved his arms, and yelled. ‘Look at me, Amalie!’
Our class all looked up, but Rono ignored him. I wished Playdon was here to make sure Krath didn’t break his stupid …
Krath did a perfect dive that included a forward somersault. I relaxed and laughed at Fian. ‘I’m sure Krath would teach you to swim if you ask him nicely.’
Fian made a disgusted noise, and we watched Krath climb the ladder to do an even fancier dive that started with a handstand. A dozen dives later, Playdon appeared next to me and frowned at the crowd in the pool.
‘Why aren’t my class working?’
Rono swam to the side of the pool, and heaved himself out in one swift movement. ‘They are working. They’re acclimatizing to the sunshine.’
Playdon shook his head and shouted. ‘Asgard 6, out of the pool now!’
Rono winked at me and whispered. ‘I knew this would get him back to normal. Playdon hates seeing his classes lazing around when they should be doing something educational.’
The mob in the pool groaned but obediently climbed out and gathered round us in a dripping group. I backed away nervously to stay clear of water droplets.
‘I want to complete the introductory lectures today, so we can start work on the dig site in the morning,’ said Playdon. ‘Jarra obviously won’t be able to wear an impact suit for a couple of days, so Amalie will substitute as tag leader for our dig team 1.’
Amalie looked worried. ‘I’m not sure …’
‘You’ll do brilliantly,’ I said.
‘It will be good experience for you, Amalie,’ said Playdon. ‘While we’re working on the dig site, Jarra can stay in the dome and do that remedial work I set her on the mathematical theorems of historical analysis. I won’t accept trivial excuses like alien spheres for her delaying it any longer.’
‘Nooo!’ I wailed, while the rest of the class laughed at me.
‘Everyone get dressed now and …’ Playdon broke off as his lookup chimed to signal emergency mail. He tapped it, read the message, and looked startled.
‘Colonel Leveque informs me Jarra and Fian’s bodyguard will be arriving within the next few minutes. Apparently, the bodyguard is …’ Playdon paused to double check the mail message as if he was still having trouble believing it. ‘His Excellency Captain Draven Fedorov Seti Raven, Knight of Adonis.’
There was a moment of stunned silence, before Krath spoke. ‘It must be a joke.’
I couldn’t believe it either. The Adonis Knights were descendants of the first colonists on Adonis. Humanity learned a lot from that first colony. Mostly about all the things that could go wrong when people tried to live on an alien world with its own abundant life and intricate ecology and the portal link failed. After that, the Military Charter was written to establish what later became the cross-sector Military. Their first job was to clean up Adonis and make it safe, then their fledgling Planet First teams moved on to open up other colony worlds.
Playdon shook his head. ‘I can’t imagine Colonel Leveque would …’
He broke off because a man in a Captain’s uniform had just come out of our dome. The new arrival couldn’t be much more than twenty years old. He was slim, with short, dark hair, and had what would have been a very ordinary face if it wasn’t for the thin, horizontal, black and white stripes on his right cheek.
I frantically counted the stripes and made it ten. Chaos take it, I wasn’t just looking at an Adonis Knight. This man had completed the legendary set of ordeals based on the first colonists’ struggle to survive, including a desert trek, fighting predatory animals, a week without food, and two days without water.
The title of an Adonis Knight only meant you were a rich aristocrat with heroic ancestors, but completing all ten trials of Adonis … Respect!
I had my eyes closed and my face lifted, glorying in the sensation of warm water cascading over my skin. I ran my fingers through strands of squeaky-clean hair and inhaled the faint fragrance of shower spray. This was blizz. Utter ecstatic blizz!
Someone hammered on the bathroom door, and I heard Amalie shouting. ‘Jarra, there’s a queue out here. For chaos sake, come out of there before you dissolve!’
I groaned and reluctantly switched the shower to dry mode. Amalie must have heard the shower change note, because the hammering stopped. A couple of minutes later, I stepped out of the shower and stood gloating at the sight of my wonderfully unblemished face in the mirror. The hammering on the door started again.
‘I’m coming!’ I tugged on my robe, picked up my gun and my lookup from the shelf, opened the door, and faced a queue of three impatient people.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I wanted to make sure I got rid of all the Osiris lily smell.’
Amalie groaned. ‘You had an hour-long shower yesterday afternoon. We all told you the smell was gone afterwards. You still insisted on having two more showers and a swim in the pool. The. Smell. Has. Gone.’
‘I could still smell it this morning.’ I sniffed. ‘I think it’s gone now. I’m not sure.’
Amalie sighed and went into the bathroom. His Excellency Captain Draven Fedorov Seti Raven had been leaning casually against the corridor wall waiting for me. Now he escorted me to my room, checking for threats with the tiny sensor in his left hand, while his right hand hovered close to his gun.
I went into the room, found Fian already dressed in his uniform, and got dressed myself. When we went back out into the corridor, we discovered our bodyguard was talking to himself.
‘… understand that but I’m not happy. She’s a potential threat!’
‘I’m afraid you’re stuck with it, Birdy,’ said a disembodied male voice.
I frowned. ‘Where’s that voice coming from, Raven? It’s not your lookup.’
‘It’s coming from the implant bonded to my skull,’ said Raven. ‘It’s SECOP talking.’
‘SECOP? Does that stand for Security Operations?’ I asked.
‘It does, Commander,’ said the voice of SECOP.
I was startled. ‘You can hear me?’
‘In emergency mode, they can see and hear everything I can,’ said Raven. ‘In normal mode, my implant selectively relays statements prefixed with SECOP. Everything else remains private, but my implant has rolling two-hour recordings of everything I see and hear. In the event of my death, or traumatic injury, that data is automatically dumped to SECOP.’
‘It is?’ Fian pulled a face. ‘Next time you stick your nose into something private, I’ll have to remember not to kill you for two hours.’
‘Sorry again,’ said Raven. ‘It sounded like an intruder was attacking you.’
I smothered a giggle. The previous