for traditional appearance: willow, spruce, birch, horse chestnut, larch. Each of them had had boughs that drooped, either naturally or by judicious shaping, forming massive verdant skirts that swept the grass. Fabulous adventure caves for small children. Lawrence had enjoyed a lot of summers playing in the gardens, as his siblings did now.
A stream ran through the dome, a rough horseshoe shape around the outside of the formal lawns, where the grass was permitted to grow shaggy and daisies and forget-me-nots flourished. He crossed over a narrow moss-cloaked humpback bridge and walked the flagstone path to the house, going up or down steps at the end of each square lawn. Ahead of him, the Newton residence was a stately home built from a yellow stone, with big bay windows protruding from walls swarmed by honeysuckle. Several peacocks strutted around on the gravel path surrounding the house, long folded tails swishing the pebbles about. Their mad penetrating cackle-cry was virtually the only sound in the dome. They scattered as Lawrence crossed the path and made his way up the steps to the front door.
The entrance hall inside was cool. Heavy polished oak doors opened into the formal ground-floor rooms. Their furnishings and decorations were all exquisite antique pieces. Lawrence hated them; he was frightened to go into any of the rooms for fear of breaking some priceless chunk of the family's precious heritage. What was the point of having a house like this? Nobody could use it properly, not like the real homes some of his schoolmates had. It cost a fortune to build. And it didn't belong on Amethi anyway. This was how people used to build. It was the past.
A wooden staircase curved up to the second-floor landing. He trotted up it, footfalls absorbed by the dark crimson carpet.
His mother was standing at the top, holding two-year-old Veronica on her hip. She gave him a worried look. But then that was Mother, always worried about something. His little sister smiled brightly and held out her hands to him. He grinned and kissed her.
'Oh, Lawrence,' his mother said. Her voice carried a unique tone of despair and disapproval that always made him lower his head. It was awful, not being able to look at his own mother. And now he'd upset her again, which was a terrible thing, because she was six months' pregnant. It wasn't that he didn't want another brother or sister, but pregnancy always tired her so much. Whenever he said anything she smiled bravely and said it was why she had married his father, to continue the family line.
Family. Everything was for the family.
'Is he really cross?' Lawrence asked.
'We're both disappointed with you. It was a dreadful thing to do. Imagine treating Barrel like that.'
Barrel was one of the family's dogs, a shaggy black Labrador. Lawrence's favorite out of the pack that roamed around the house. They'd grown up together. 'It's not the same,' he protested. 'They're just worms.'
'I'm not arguing with you. Go and see your father.' With that she turned her back on him and started down the stairs. Veronica gurgled happily, waving.
Lawrence waved back forlornly and walked slowly to the study. The door was open. He knocked on the wooden frame.
Kristina was just coming out. The new junior nanny for the Newton children. She gave Lawrence a sly wink, which lifted his spirits considerably. Kristina was twenty-one and utterly beautiful. He often wondered if he had a crush on her, but wasn't sure how you knew. He certainly thought about her a lot, if that's what qualified. Anyway, crushes were stupid. Beauty aside, it was great when she was on duty: she was fun, and she joined in the games his brothers and sisters played, and she didn't seem to mind what he got up to or how late to bed he was. All his siblings liked her as well, which was fortunate because she wasn't a whole load of use when it came to changing diapers and preparing food and things. Pity she wasn't on duty more often.
Like the rest of the house, the study wasn't for the use of children. There was a high marble fireplace that had never seen any flames other than the holographic variety. A couple of green leather reading chairs. You had to look hard to see any accommodation to modern technology: the two largest oil paintings were actually sheet screens, and the desk diary was a case for a pane. The walls were covered in bookcases holding leather-bound volumes. Lawrence would have loved to open up some of the classics (definitely not the poetry) and read what was inside. But they weren't books to be read, just to be looked at and assigned high dollar values.
'Shut the door,' his father ordered.
Sighing, Lawrence did as he was told.
His father was sitting behind the walnut veneer desk, throwing a silver Dansk paperweight from hand to hand. He was Doug, to his friends—and a lot of people in Templeton fought over gaining that classification. In his mid-forties, though his extensive germline v-writing made it difficult to tell. With a lean build and a face to which smiling came easy, he could have passed for twenty-five without too much problem. Rivals on McArthur's Board had mistaken that smile for an easygoing nature, an assumption they never repeated.
'All right,' he said. 'I'm not going to shout at you, Lawrence. At your age it's just a waste of time. You just curl up into a sulk and let it all wash over you. If I didn't know better I'd say you were hitting puberty.'
Lawrence blushed furiously. This wasn't what he was expecting, which was probably why his father was talking in such a fashion.
'Want to tell me what happened today?'
'I was just messing about,' Lawrence said, making sure there was plenty of regret in his voice. 'They were only worms. I didn't know getting them hot could kill them. I didn't mean to do it.'
'Only worms. Humm.' Doug Newton stopped throwing the paperweight and stared at the ceiling as if lost in deep thought. 'That would be the same fatworms that are vital for preparing our ecology, would it?'
'Yes, but they clone millions of them in there every day.'
The paperweight was tossed between his hands again. 'That's not the point, son. This is just the latest episode in a very long line. You're twelve. I can put up with you misbehaving and slacking off at school; it comes naturally at your age. That's why teachers send us reports; so we can make you do your homestudy and ground you when you pee on the security cameras at the museum. What I don't like is the pattern that's developing here. Lawrence, you show a disturbing lack of respect for everything we're doing on this world. It's as if resurrecting the ecology doesn't matter to you. Don't you want to be able to walk outside the domes in just a T-shirt and shorts? Don't you want to see grass bloom on the deserts and watch forests grow?'
'Course I do.' He was still smarting over the peeing remark. He hadn't known his father had heard about that.
'Then why don't you show that? Why don't your actions betray these thoughts? Why are you being such a total pain in the ass these days, and incidentally upsetting your mother who happens to be pregnant and is in no condition to be worried by your absurd antics?'
'I do think it. I saw a cloud today.'
'And pulled the emergency stop on the bus. Yes, most impressive.'
'It was fantastic. I really loved that part of the ecology.'
'Well, that's a start, I suppose.'
'It's just... I know how important HeatSmash is for Amethi, and I really admire everything McArthur is doing here. But it doesn't apply to me as much as it does you.'
Doug Newton caught the paperweight in his left hand and stared at Lawrence, quirking an eyebrow. 'As I recall, we had you v-written for an improved physique and intellect I don't recall specifying traits that allow you to live naked and alone on an unmodified isolocked planet. In fact, I'm pretty sure about that'
'But, Dad, I don't want to live on Amethi. At least not all the time,' he added hurriedly. 'I want to be a part of McArthur's starflight operations.'
