deep sigh of relief. ‘Privacy at last! Dalmora, don’t you dare let a vid bee out here, or I promise I’ll kill it.’
Dalmora laughed. ‘I won’t. You’ve been doing an amaz job, Jarra. The way you’re organizing all this, and the things you talk about so casually …’
I pulled a face. ‘The organizing is being done by other people, and everyone keeps covering up my stupid mistakes.’
‘Now we’re away from the vid bees,’ said Fian, ‘you have to take your impact suit off, Jarra. You’ve been wearing it for over twenty-four hours.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Fian’s right,’ said Playdon. ‘Wearing an impact suit for long periods is a huge strain on the body. Breaks are recommended at least every six hours, and twelve hours is regarded as the absolute maximum limit for continuous wear.’
‘This is an emergency,’ I said. ‘I daren’t risk taking the suit off. If I try to put it on again, I might have another panic attack.’
Fian shook his head. ‘We understand that, Jarra, but you can’t keep this up.’
‘It’s not as if I’ve been sealed in the suit and working a dig site for twenty-four hours,’ I said. ‘I’ve had the hood down, the front open, and I’ve spent time lying down and resting.’
‘Now look me in the eyes and tell me you’ve been eating and sleeping.’
I hesitated. ‘I’ve had some soup.’
Fian sighed. ‘There’s no point in martyring yourself to inspire confidence in people if you’re going to mess it up by collapsing.’
I realized he had a point there. ‘I just need another hour or two. When we get to Zulu Dig Site, I’m supposed to lead a vid bee tour of the place. After that, Drago and Marlise will be taking over the public relations side of things, Pereth will be running the excavation itself, and I can hide away in the Field Command sled.’
‘Those are properly enclosed so you won’t need an impact suit?’ asked Playdon.
I nodded. ‘I looked up the technical specs on them. They’re similar to the mobile Dig Site Command sleds, but fancier.’
‘And once you’re in there, you promise you’ll take off the suit?’ asked Fian. ‘If you don’t, I’ll call Colonel Torrek and tell him exactly what’s going on.’
‘You wouldn’t!’
‘Watch me!’
The Cassandrian skunk meant it. I sighed. ‘I promise.’
Playdon frowned and ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Make sure you keep this vid bee tour as short as possible, Jarra.’
‘I certainly will. The sooner Drago takes over, the happier I’ll be. I’m terrified I’ll say or do something that embarrasses the whole Military.’
Fian made a choking noise. ‘And you think Drago won’t?’
‘Drago grew up in a Military family, went to Military school and the Academy. I bet he knew more when he was 2 years old than I do now.’
Fian laughed. ‘I was just remembering what he did in the dining hall.’
I giggled. ‘Colonel Torrek is sending Marlise along to make sure Drago behaves.’
The others changed into impact suits, and Fian and I carefully packed our uniforms. We could work inside the Field Command sled wearing just the skintights we normally wore under impact suits, but we couldn’t appear like that in a vid. Skintights covered the legally private areas, but, as their name implied, they were literally skin tight.
We were ready before the freight portals had completed their calibration and test sequences, so we went out of the dome and admired our svelte, black, Field Command sled.
‘Zan!’ said Krath, doing a quick lap of inspection. ‘Can I go inside, Jarra?’
‘You’re a security risk.’
‘Jarra!’
I couldn’t see his face through the fabric of his impact suit, but his wounded tone was obvious. I hastily reassured him. ‘Only teasing, Krath. Of course you can. We’ll all go inside and drive through the freight portal to Zulu Dig Site in style. The sled is designed as living accommodation for a team of four, so I’m sure we can fit in six of us for a short while.’
‘I hope this sled has sonic screens,’ said Playdon. ‘I’d hate us to let ants in there.’
I laughed. ‘It’s designed to be used on Planet First. I’m sure the screening can handle rainforest conditions.’
I went up to the door, and sonics instantly cut in, together with some strange coloured light effects. The others came to join me and we waited for the door to open.
‘What are the lights for?’ asked Fian.
‘Scans to check only human life forms are in the door area before it opens.’
‘We could be here for weeks,’ said Fian. ‘Krath won’t qualify.’
‘Shut up!’ said Krath. ‘I don’t mind being teased, but I’m not having …’
The door opened and he forgot about complaining as he bounced inside and looked around nosily. ‘Utterly zan!’ He gestured at the complex control bank at the front of the sled. ‘What does all this do?’
We followed him inside, tugged down our hoods, and piled the uniform and vid bee cases in a corner. ‘No idea,’ I said. ‘We certainly won’t need it all. There’s a chimera detector in there somewhere.’
Krath gave a dignified sniff of disbelief.
‘Truly. Thetis was over a quarter of a millennium ago, but the Military are still paranoid about it and following the standing orders set up by Tellon Blaze. Every sled, ship and dome has a sensor that gives an alarm if it detects the distinctive body chemistry of chimera. They’ve hit a couple of other species on Planet First which triggered those alarms and they rejected the planets for colonization because of it. They appeared harmless but …’
Krath started investigating the rest of the sled. ‘This is so amaz. You’ve got everything. Food, drinks, pull-out couches.’ He pulled out a couch, shut it away again, and opened a cubicle door. ‘Bathroom too. You could live in here for days.’
I nodded. ‘People often do.’
‘Krath,’ said Playdon, ‘don’t play with the shower.’
Krath reluctantly closed the door again. ‘I just wanted to see how …’
My lookup chimed, and I checked it. ‘Freight portals are operational. We can head to Zulu.’
Fian and I took our seats at the front of the sled, and examined the control panel. ‘Want to drive?’ I asked.
‘Me? Why me?’
‘I’m so tired, I’d probably drive straight into a tree. The central basic controls look the same as any hover sled, but I wouldn’t play with any of the others.’
‘I won’t.’ Fian took the sled up on its hovers and turned it smoothly to face the portal. ‘Does someone have to get out and …?’
‘There’s an autodial.’ Krath leaned over Fian’s shoulder to point at the control.
‘Thank you.’ Fian reached for the autodial and laughed. ‘Someone’s already entered the Zulu Dig Site code for us.’
I giggled. ‘The Military obviously don’t trust me to enter a portal code solo.’
Fian tapped the autodial, the freight portal ahead of us lit up, and we drove through to Zulu Dig Site and straight into a mass of broken branches.
‘It didn’t look as bad as this from the aerial view,’ said Amalie.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Oh well, Earth 2 will soon tidy up.’
Fian increased the height of the hovers, so we rose up above the worst of the litter. We could see the whole clearing now, and the four portals around the edge.
‘Where should we park?’ asked Fian.
‘Try the middle,’ I said. ‘The blast should have thrown the wreckage outwards.’
We drove across to the centre of the clearing, and found this had a thick carpet of wood chips. Two of the
