I’d thought I’d escaped discussing the real problem, but now Fian firmly interrupted with the two words that brought the chimera out of the shadows. I shut up and waited nervously.
‘As Drago helpfully pointed out, we’re not wearing Twoing rings. Chaos knows what he thought when you said we hadn’t got around to it yet. I’d just told him we started our first Twoing contract during the solar super storm, and he must know exactly how many weeks ago that was.’
Fian stood up and began moving restlessly around the room. ‘Like I said, I’m feeling insecure and want to know where I stand. You don’t want us to wear Twoing rings. In Delta sector that signals someone regrets registering the contract, and intends moving on as soon as it ends. It wouldn’t bother me if Twoing rings weren’t worn on Earth, but I’ve seen your own friends wearing them, so …’
‘I don’t regret anything, Fian. I just don’t like wearing rings.’
‘Jarra, I’m finding it hard watching heroes like Drago sniffing around you. I’m asking you to help me by wearing a Twoing ring while we’re on this base.’
That sounded dangerously close to an ultimatum. I made a last attempt to lighten the mood. ‘If I could, I’d wear my top that says “I TAGGED FIAN”. It’s not exactly Military uniform though.’
He just stood there in grim silence. I looked at the pain in his face, and gave in. I stood up and faced him.
‘All right. I surrender. I didn’t want to tell you, because it makes me look such a coward. Nobody knows this except Candace. I’ve even kept it hidden from Issette. It’s not just that I don’t like wearing rings. I’m terrified of them.’
Fian frowned. ‘What do you mean? What’s frightening about a ring?’
I groaned. ‘You know I had to have my left little finger regrown after a dig site accident when I was fifteen?’
He looked grazzed. ‘That was …?’
I nodded. ‘All the kids at my school were wearing stupid snake-shaped rings that year. I wore mine on my left little finger, and it didn’t fit properly. I knew I shouldn’t wear it under an impact suit, but one day I forgot to take it off. There was an accident, the suit material triggered to protect me, going rock hard, and the ring cut … Ever since then, just thinking about wearing a ring has given me a creepy feeling.’
Fian shook his head. ‘Jarra, why didn’t you tell me? I’d never laugh at you. What did your psychologist say?’
‘I never told him, only Candace. You know I hate psychologists.’
‘There must be rings that are safe to wear under impact suits.’
I shuddered. ‘I know there are special rings that are safe, I’ve seen Rono Kipkibor of Cassandra 2 wearing one, but my head still …’ I broke off. ‘Oh this is stupid. Tellon Blaze was the only human being who wasn’t afraid of the chimera. His descendant can’t be scared of a nardle ring. I can face this. I’ll find out about the special rings and …’
Fian grabbed me and gave me a fierce kiss. ‘You don’t have to do that, Jarra. You’re serious about your relationship with me. That’s all I needed to know. You should talk more.’
‘Issette always says I talk too much.’
He shook his head. ‘Not about important things.’
‘Blame my psychologist. He was always trying to force me into talking about things that upset me, like being Handicapped and my parents dumping me. Issette thought her psychologist was wonderful, but …’
I shrugged. ‘Maybe Issette had a better psychologist than me. Hospital Earth tries to give the Handicapped the sort of jobs they want, whether they’re any good at them or not.’
‘I’m not your psychologist. You have to talk to me, Jarra. I’ve been worrying about the rings for weeks. When I saw you hero-worshipping Drago, I was wondering if I should just give up, pack my bags, and head back to join the class. The Military don’t really want me here, and I can’t stay in a relationship, however good, if I know the other person is already planning to walk away at the contract end date. It would be pure emotional torture.’
I had a painfully sharp mental image of what might have happened. ‘I’m really sorry. I know I keep dodging discussions, and I’m not very good at saying sentimental things, but …’
He laughed. ‘Not very good? Jarra, it’s easier to dig up a stasis box than get you to say a word about how you feel. I have to look for other clues. That’s why the ring symbol was so important to me.’
I pulled a face. ‘It’s just that some things are hard for me because … well, growing up in residences run by Hospital Earth can be tough sometimes.’
‘You’ve never talked to me about your life in the residences.’
‘You’ve had such a different childhood that I didn’t know how to start explaining. All that really matters is that I’m not used to sharing emotional stuff. I didn’t want to talk to my nosy psychologist, Candace always had a lot of other kids to worry about as well as me, and Issette had too many of her own problems for me to bother her with mine. When something hurt, I tried to pretend to myself that it didn’t, tried to avoid thinking about it. I know that’s not …’
I broke off for a moment. ‘I can’t totally change the way I am overnight, Fian, but I’ll work on this. I mustn’t keep shutting you out, so I’ll try and talk more, and I’ll do something about the rings as well.’
He shook his head. ‘Now I know we’re both committed to our relationship, I can cope without rings. It’ll probably only be a few days before we’re back at the dig site and are civilians again.’
I automatically corrected him. ‘Well, we’ll never be civilians again, but yes.’
Fian stared at me. ‘What do you mean?’
I looked at his puzzled face. He really didn’t know. We’d bypassed all the background information and basic training for sector recruits, skipped intake testing and just taken the oath, but I’d still assumed he’d realize … I broke the news to him.
‘We’ll never be civilians again. We’ve taken the oath, and those promises are for life. The Military have accepted us into their family, and their obligations are for life too. Once you’re Military, you can’t just leave and be civilian again. They worked that out centuries ago. It’s not just that people who’ve been Military for decades would find the adjustment hard. Delayed traumatic stress after something like Thetis can hit many years later and when it does people need proper support.’
‘But! But!’ Fian literally stuttered in panic. ‘What can I do in the Military? They want people to explore new planets and run the solar arrays, not to be archaeologists, and you can’t even leave Earth, so …?’
‘Calm down, Fian. The Military aren’t unreasonable. When this is over, they won’t just thrust us into Military careers. I expect they’ll offer us a choice between a Military career, which I obviously couldn’t have, and a permanent civilian sabbatical.’
I grinned. ‘Sabbaticals are usually for medical or solar array specialists working in University research groups. We’ll probably be the first ever Military to be on sabbatical studying history.’
Fian shook his head. ‘My parents will get a huge shock when they find out the family failure is a Captain in the Military. It was bad enough when I told them I was going history instead of science, but this …’
I laughed. ‘I think they’ll be even more grazzed about the aliens.’
9
The Ark team leader sat down, and Colonel Torrek nodded at me. I stood up and gave my carefully prepared speech to a meeting room packed with Military officers and civilian experts.
‘The History team have found no indication that anything like the sphere has visited Earth in the last nine hundred years. Researching written records is complicated by translation problems, since Language was only formally ratified as a common tongue as late as 2280 in some areas of Earth. We’re now working well before that, when there were thousands of languages in use, each evolving over time. Not only does no one speak any but a handful of these any longer, but we don’t even have computer translation for the uncommon ones.’
I paused. ‘Since translations will take far too much time, we’ve opted to pay special attention to historical images, art in all forms, even cave paintings. We’re collecting as many potentially relevant images as possible, and the Threat team are helping us analyse the results looking for hot spots on locations and dates.’
