‘It’s a historic event.’ Dalmora’s eyes shone in the way they always did when she was getting romantic and emotional. ‘The population of Earth evacuating to the ancient caverns of Ark, and I have the chance to be there! Totally amaz! My father’s sent me a lot of vid equipment, I’ve got permission to take it to Ark, and Amalie and Krath are going to help me make some vid sequences.’
I spotted the smirk on Krath’s face. It all made sense now. Dalmora wanted to make a romantic vid of the Ark evacuation. Amalie admired Dalmora and wanted to help her. Krath wanted to be part of it because he was chasing Amalie.
I felt Krath was wasting his time there. Amalie was from a frontier world in Epsilon sector, which had a lot more male than female colonists, so girls there could take their pick of men. Amalie would surely be aiming higher than the nardle Krath, even if he’d improved enough to realize his father had less sense than a plate of cheese fluffle.
I frowned. ‘How does your father feel about this, Dalmora?’
‘He warned me there could be an element of risk, but I told him I knew that. He’s quite proud that I’m staying.’
Chaos take it, Ventrak Rostha, the famous vid maker, was just as romantic as his daughter. I should have guessed that. When people watched his history vids, they felt caught up in the past, really caring about it, and all that emotion had to come from somewhere.
I pulled a face at Fian. My return to being an ordinary pre-history student had lasted only minutes. I was Major Jarra Tell Morrath again now, thinking about aliens and feeling horribly guilty. The Threat team thought the next solar storm was the key moment. If the sphere was going to attack, it would do it then.
Lots of people I knew would be taking refuge in Ark. Fian would be there because he was too stubborn to leave me. Lecturer Playdon was making a fully informed decision to be there as well. My friends from Next Step were Handicapped and couldn’t leave Earth, so Ark was their safest option.
Lolia and Lolmack didn’t know what was really going on, but I was sure they’d choose to stay with their daughter anyway. They’d already been through a nightmare to keep their baby and aliens wouldn’t stop them. Krath, Amalie, and Dalmora were different. If they knew the truth, they’d probably go off world, but I couldn’t warn them.
I suddenly realized I’d been just as blindly romantic as Dalmora. I got emotional about all the Military traditions and medals, but I hadn’t realized the hardest thing about Military life until this moment. I couldn’t tell Krath, Amalie, and Dalmora classified information, but if my friends went to Ark and got hurt or worse as a result, then …
I sighed and said as much as I could. ‘It’s a historic occasion, but you’d be safer going off world. I keep trying to talk Fian into visiting Hercules for a few days.’
‘I’m staying with you.’ Fian waved his ring finger pointedly at me and there were several excited squeals from the class.
‘Rings!’
I was forced to display my own ring, and the conversation moved on to the subject of flowgold. Petra and Joth had signed up for their Twoing contract while Fian and I were away, and Petra insisted on showing off their rings as well. It wasn’t a good moment for someone who suffered from ring phobia. My poor, scared, left little finger wanted to run away and hide in a dark corner.
‘Of course,’ Fian said smugly, ‘we chose not to have end-date markings on ours.’
‘Zan!’ cried Dalmora. ‘You’re planning to wear the same rings when you get married. How totally romantic!’
‘We do that in Epsilon sector,’ said Amalie. ‘We get married very quickly on the frontier, so it’s hardly worth bothering with different rings.’
Krath grinned at her. ‘We could elope to Epsilon.’
She gave him a look of unenthusiastic assessment. ‘I’ve turned down twenty-three other offers, Krath, and all from men with better legs than you!’
Everyone laughed at Krath’s outraged face, even Playdon. Everyone except for one person. Petra was looking at me with an expression of pure loathing on her face, and I knew she was already planning the names she’d call me as soon as she caught me on my own.
I turned away from her, pretending to listen to Amalie explaining how the rest of team 1 had been helping Playdon train the other teams while Fian and I were away, but my mind was thinking about Petra and her ape haters. If they started their insult campaign again, I’d have to tell Fian about what was going on. I could explain to him that I wanted to fight my own battles, and he’d let me do it, but he’d also ask the obvious questions about why I hadn’t told him about this before and why I hadn’t reported Petra to Playdon.
I’d been avoiding thinking properly about that, but now I finally forced myself to do it. If I complained to Playdon, it needn’t just be my word against Petra’s, because it would be trivially easy to set my lookup to record one of our conversations. I hadn’t done that, not just because I always hated asking for help and wanted to fight my own battles, but because I hadn’t wanted Fian or Playdon to hear the things Petra and her friends were saying about me. I’d spent my life watching off-world vids where people said those things about the Handicapped, and I’d had an unconscious, nagging fear that …
Oh, this was ridiculous. Petra’s insults would have stopped on the first day if I’d complained to Playdon, or even if she’d believed I might. I’d had some teachers at school who’d taken the easy way out and ignored trouble, but Playdon wasn’t like that. He’d dealt with problems between class members several times already, always decisively and with perfect fairness to both sides. He took any conflict in the class extremely seriously because we weren’t just living together in one small dome, we also had to work together in dangerous places.
Petra had known she could do whatever she liked and get away with it, because she’d noticed my weak spot; the fact that I didn’t want Fian to hear her insults. She’d been happily taking advantage of that, and I’d been stupid enough to let her do it, but that stopped right now. Fian hadn’t changed his mind about me because of what Major Maven had said; he’d just been angry, and he’d react in exactly the same way to Petra.
I turned around and smiled at Petra. Her initial glare changed to a puzzled look and then to anxiety. This time she was the one who turned away.
15
That night I had dreams where images of the alien sphere mingled with ancient vid scenes of the glowing city of Eden, and woke feeling eagerly expectant. Today I’d finally see the ruins of Earth’s last city, built just before Exodus century when human technology and knowledge were at a peak that we were still struggling to regain. We’d overtaken its builders in portal and medical technology, but in everything else they were still beyond us, and we scavenged for scraps of their knowledge left behind in the ruins of their cities.
We all ate breakfast, changed into impact suits, and gathered at the dome exit. I was at fever pitch, impatiently waiting for my first view of Eden, greatest creation of the magicians of the past, while Playdon did his usual count of the class before we left the dome.
He frowned. ‘We’re missing someone.’ He tapped his lookup, and checked suited figures against his list. ‘Joth’s not here.’
Playdon vanished off down the corridor, while I groaned with frustration that Joth had to choose this morning to oversleep. Playdon was back inside a minute. ‘Joth’s lookup and his impact suit are in his room, but he isn’t. Everyone check your own room please and then gather in the hall.’
We all opened our impact suit hoods, tugged them down, and went to search for Joth. Other than our rooms and bathrooms, the dome only had a storage room, portal room, and the hall. It took less than two minutes to establish Joth wasn’t in any of them.
‘Joth was here late yesterday evening,’ said Playdon, ‘I saw him myself. If he portalled out after that, he didn’t check out.’ He turned to look at the remaining members of team 4. ‘Petra, you’re Twoing with him. What happened last night?’
Petra faced him defiantly. ‘That’s personal and not your business.’
‘I have a student missing on one of the highest hazard rated dig sites,’ said Playdon. ‘It’s my business.’
