I finished following the instructions, and tried engaging sensors, but a warning light flashed red at me. I was starting to panic when Fian reached across and changed one of the settings. The warning light went out and the sensors engaged.
‘You said you didn’t know about plane sensors.’
‘I don’t,’ he said. ‘I just know that when Dig Site Command told you to set something to 5, you set that one to 55.’
‘I did?’ I shook my head. ‘I’m not sure if I misheard, or the impact suit gloves made …’
‘This is Dig Site Command,’ said the broadcast channel. ‘Asgard 6 survey plane, your sensors are now green. Move to survey start point.’
Whatever I’d done wrong, the sensors were obviously working now. I sat back in relief to watch Fian flying his search pattern.
‘You see what a good idea it was to let me give you flying lessons.’
‘Yes, it’s useful that I can help at a time like this,’ said Fian, ‘but I still don’t have any ambitions to learn to take off, or land, or get my own pilot’s licence.’
‘I’m not pushing you into it. I just wanted to give you the chance.’
‘I know you worked hard to get your pilot’s licence. I can just imagine you on trips with your school history club, nagging the professional pilots into giving you trips in planes, and teaching you to fly. How did your history teacher feel about it?’
‘Well, when he found out he was a bit … startled.’
Fian made an odd choking noise. ‘When he found out? You mean, he didn’t know? You didn’t ask his permission first?’
‘He’d never said we had to ask permission before going up in a plane.’
‘Jarra! You’re impossible.’
I giggled. ‘I suppose I am. My teacher always said I’d give him a nervous breakdown one day. After we dug up Solar 5, he sent me a mail saying he’d seen the coverage on the newzies and asking me to give my current lecturer his deepest sympathies. Playdon seemed to find that really funny.’ I paused. ‘I hope Joth’s all right, but if he is then I’ll strangle him for scaring us like this.’
‘You’ll have to queue in line behind Playdon,’ said Fian. ‘He’s not only worried sick, but this is embarrassing him and every other dig team from University Asgard. When this is over, the Dig Site Federation is going to want to know how the chaos a Foundation course student walked out of an Eden dome without an impact suit. Accidents are one thing, but criminal stupidity is very different.’
‘It’s not Playdon’s fault if Joth deliberately turned off the safety monitors. We’re supposed to be responsible adults.’
I gazed out of my window at the ruins below. The neat, flat, glowing line of a clearway ran beneath us, a path of crushed rubble heading from our dome straight into the heart of Eden. There was no sign of any human being on it.
Fian was looking down too. ‘The main clearways are laid out very neatly here. One clearway running into the site from each dome, and them all meeting the central Eden Ring clearway. Nothing like the mess in New York.’
‘When they made the New York clearways, they had huge problems with all the high hazard areas and waterways. That’s why the New York Grand Circle clearway isn’t a proper circle, and the Loop is like a mad tangle of string. Eden is inland with no river, no flooding issues, and …’
A voice suddenly spoke on broadcast channel. ‘This is Dig Site Command. Asgard 6 survey plane, you’ve now covered all the dig site area that could possibly have been reached on foot in the time available. Please move to search rainforest.’
‘This is Asgard 6 survey plane,’ Fian responded on the broadcast channel. ‘Moving to rainforest.’
He put the plane into a sharp turn to take it back towards our dome and the nearest edge of the rainforest. Joth wasn’t anywhere else, so he must be somewhere among those trees, and that was bad, very bad.
We were flying over the forest now, and I looked down at the thick mist hovering above the tree canopy. ‘Even if Joth was powered, he should have known going into the rainforest was suicidal. Playdon sent us the same safety vids he showed to the class. Insects, snakes, poisonous plants, dangerous predators. Was Joth trying to kill himself?’
I’d said the last sentence casually, without thinking, but Fian answered in a harsh voice. ‘That’s the obvious answer.’
I felt sick. ‘Please no. It’s hard for us Earth kids when we hit the Year Day that makes us 18. Hospital Earth does their best to prepare us for it, but it’s still frightening leaving Next Step forever and knowing we’re totally on our own. Some go a bit wild. Some panic. There’s the occasional one who can’t cope and … But why would Joth do that? He’s got a real family. If he’s not happy here, he could go home, or portal to any one of hundreds of worlds.’
Fian didn’t reply, because a voice spoke on the broadcast channel, finally telling us the news we’d been waiting for. ‘This is Dig Site Command. We’ve pinpointed a definite human life sign in the rainforest. Asgard 6 survey plane, you can return to base.’
I took over control of the plane and flew back towards our dome. On the way, I spotted a transport sled driving along the edge of the rainforest, and made the instant decision to rapidly sideslip off some height and land by it. As soon as we were on the ground, I opened the cockpit and Fian and I jumped down and chased after the sled. It stopped for a second to let us climb aboard. I saw Krath was driving, while Playdon, Amalie and Dalmora were sitting on the bench behind him.
‘Joth’s somewhere southeast of our dome,’ said Playdon. ‘We’re driving east along the rainforest edge, and then we’ll have to leave the sled and go due south into the forest on foot with Dig Site Command guiding us.’
Fian and I swapped our hover tunics for hover belts, while Playdon turned to unlock a box that was sitting on the seat next to him.
‘There are original African animals in the rainforest, as well as some deadly genetically salvaged species,’ he said. ‘We’ve got impact suits to protect us, but Joth doesn’t. I’m carrying a gun, and Jarra and Fian can have guns as well. Amalie, Dalmora and Krath, you’ll bring the hover stretcher and a cover.’
‘Guns.’ Dalmora’s voice sounded grazzed.
I wasn’t surprised that Dalmora was shocked. As a tag leader, I routinely used tag guns to fire electronic tags at rubble that needed shifting, I’d even been trusted to use the dangerous laser guns to cut ancient girders into pieces, but those were just the standard tools used in archaeological excavations. Playdon had never given any of us actual weapons before.
I was Military now, and any fighting was my job, so I took the gun Playdon handed me and attached it to my impact suit. If Playdon thought Fian and I had been trained to use weapons, he was wrong, but I’d only fire the gun if I had to, and I’d make totally sure that no one was between me and my target. I knew Fian would be equally careful.
Krath stopped the transport sled, and Playdon did some checks with a small hand sensor before leading the way into the trees. We were all using hover belts set to maximum height, floating above the tangle of undergrowth and fallen branches. I gave one quick look upwards, at the dizzyingly tall trunks of forest giants and the canopy of leaves high overhead. Where the occasional patch of sunlight found its way through the foliage, it seemed startlingly bright in contrast to the dimmer light below, and I hastily dropped my eyes to concentrate on the obstacles ahead.
‘If an extinct species was dangerous, why was anyone idiot enough to genetically salvage it, let alone let it loose in Earth Africa?’ asked Fian.
‘They did it before Exodus, as part of the Primeval project,’ I said. ‘There were zoos you could visit and see extinct species. They didn’t have enough people to keep them running at the end of Exodus century, so the keepers released the animals. I understand they didn’t want to leave the poor things to starve, but it caused a few problems.’
‘I bet it did,’ said Fian.
Progress became easier as we went deeper into the rainforest. It was darker here and I realized the thick mass of leaves above was blocking the light and starving the new growth on the forest floor. The massive silvery trunks told me these trees were almost all Griffith hybrids, but occasionally we passed a spot where one of them
