‘Lifeboats?’
Stone smiled. ‘After the Solar 5 incident, we modified some spaceships to be able to enter planetary atmospheres in an emergency and land safely rather than depending on portalling to their destination.’
I sat down. The next question was from a nervous, sandy-haired lad in Lieutenant’s uniform, who gazed frantically up at the ceiling when the computer announced his name and team assignment.
‘If this base is destroyed do we have an Echo base?’
Stone nodded. ‘We are being echoed by bases on Adonis in Alpha sector, and Zeus in Beta sector. They have continuous data feeds, and Echo base Adonis is standing by to take over command, cascading to Echo base Zeus if necessary.’
I’d thought losing Earth was bad enough for a worst-case scenario, but the Military had contingency plans if we lost Alpha sector as well. Where would that leave us tactically? I frantically pictured the three concentric spheres of humanity, all centred on Earth. The innermost sphere was Alpha sector. Beta, Gamma and Delta sectors clustered around it to make up the middle sphere. Of the many sectors in the outermost frontier sphere, we’d only begun to settle Epsilon and Kappa sectors.
I grimaced. If we lost Alpha sector, the heart of humanity’s space, all three of Beta, Gamma and Delta sectors would be exposed on a warfront. What chance would we stand after that? The Military would try, but …
It wouldn’t be my problem. I’d go down with Earth, like all the rest of the Handicapped. Fian might make it out alive, and the rest of our class back at Eden Dig Site, but …
Eden! I madly stuck my hand up again. I shouldn’t have asked about how they’d cope during a solar storm. The Military would obviously have thought of that, but they wouldn’t have thought of this. How could they? Sector and Military schools focused on modern history. I might not be given a chance to ask a second question, but chaos take Military protocol. If necessary, I’d stand up unasked and yell.
Nia Stone must have noticed the frantic urgency in my face, because she gave me a puzzled look and a nod. I shot to my feet and the computer announced me again.
‘In the event of an attack,’ I said, ‘the Handicapped can’t portal off world, but have you considered using Ark?’
She frowned. ‘Can you explain what Ark is for us, Captain?’
I gabbled a hasty explanation based on the official Ark tour information. ‘In the twenty-third century, they had portal technology, but didn’t believe it could ever reach across interstellar distances. They started three ambitious projects to build new habitats for humanity on Earth itself. Eden was a super-city built from scratch in Earth Africa. Atlantis was underwater off the coast of Earth America. Ark was underground in Earth Australia.’
‘Underground,’ Stone repeated. I could tell I had her full attention now. ‘Details, please.’
‘Both Atlantis and Ark were intended to be closed, self-sufficient habitats. Arcologies protected from pollution and climate issues. Ark would be underground, carved out of solid rock, accessible only by portal, with its own recycled air and water. It would grow its own food and manufacture everything it needed. They built Eden, they got as far as carving out the caverns for Ark and shipping the rock out by portal to form the Atlantis reef system, then we got interstellar portals so the whole thing was abandoned in 2310.’
‘That was over four and a half centuries ago,’ Stone said. ‘Ark still exists?’
I nodded. ‘I’ve been on an Ark tour myself. It’s just endless bare granitoid caverns. They built the air purification system as they went along digging the caverns because they needed to breathe, but nothing else was ever installed. Ark was intended to house over a billion people. If we were to use it as a refuge for the Handicapped, they’d have to take lights with them, but the rest … In the twentieth century, there was the Berlin airlift. For about a year, they used aircraft to fly in all the supplies for an entire city. Surely we could do something similar and portal everything in from Alpha sector worlds?’
‘Who has full information on Ark?’ asked Stone.
‘University Earth Australia maintains the air purifiers and takes people on tours.’
‘Right.’ Stone glanced around the hall. ‘If there are no other urgent suggestions, I have to get this moving.’
She was out of the door within seconds.
5
Fian and I headed back towards our quarters, getting what seemed to be more than our fair share of salutes on the way.
‘I’d never even heard of Ark,’ said Fian.
‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘Eden was completed, people actually lived there, and we excavate the ruins to find their stasis boxes. Atlantis is a forgotten artificial reef system. Ark is just empty caves. Why would off-world historians, even pre-history specialists, be interested in them?’
‘But you’ve actually been to Ark?’
I nodded. ‘My class went there on a school trip when I was 16. Lots of schools go to Ark. The caverns are all manmade and perfectly safe, so they just give you the introductory talk, hand out special helmets with lights, and let you go exploring in the dark. Our school was in Earth Europe, and Ark is in Earth Australia time zone, so we went there in the middle of the night.’
I grinned. ‘It was totally zan. We got to stay up all night, roaming around pitch-dark caverns. Our teacher kept yelling at us to stay together, but of course we didn’t. Issette thought it was spooky, and Cathan kept sneaking up on her and making ghostly noises to make her scream, so I stole his helmet and left him without a light. He had to sit on his own for an hour until someone came by and rescued him.’
Fian laughed. A few weeks earlier, I’d taken Fian to meet all my friends from Next Step, and Cathan kept talking about how he kissed me when we were boy and girling. I said that was a year ago, it was as pleasant as kissing a Cassandrian skunk, and Cathan should shut up about it or I’d throw him across the room. I’d actually done that to him once after I did some unarmed combat classes, but Cathan just smirked and said I couldn’t attack people in public or I’d get arrested. That was when Issette tipped a jug of frujit over his head, Fian called him a rude word that a nice Deltan boy shouldn’t even know, and we all got thrown out of Stigga’s MeetUp.
‘Maeth and Ross went off by themselves,’ I continued, ‘and made the most of being alone in the dark until the teacher caught them and sent them home early in disgrace. It was the best school trip ever.’
We went into our quarters, and I checked the time on the Military lookup attached to my forearm. ‘It’s 17:30 now. We’ll need to change into …’
I broke off as I heard a faint, sad, chiming noise. I’d abandoned my civilian lookup on the table when I changed into my Military uniform, and it was crying for attention. I went over to take a look. ‘Oh chaos!’
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Fian.
‘Mail from Candace. I forgot I was supposed to call her at 18:00 hours.’
‘Well, you’ve still got time to …’
‘18:00 hours Earth Africa time, Fian! I’m over six hours late!’
Candace is my ProMum. When I became a ward of Hospital Earth as a baby, they allocated me a ProMum and a ProDad, to be mine for two hours a week for life. Candace was still mine for two hours a week, but my ProDad gave up on me after the fights about the school history club trips to dig sites.
I was always interested in pre-history, so I signed up to spend four weeks on the New York Fringe Dig Site when I was only 11. I’d done my gold safety award, but the club were worried about my age and insisted on my ProParents giving their consent.
I talked Candace into agreeing, but my ProDad called up one image of the New York ruins on his lookup and absolutely refused. I explained all about New York Fringe being much safer than New York Main Dig Site, but he still said little kids couldn’t go somewhere so dangerous and maybe when I was 16 he’d consider it. I was spitting furious, so I forged his consent and went anyway. He ignored me for weeks after the argument, so he didn’t find out until the day before we came back.
After that, he tried to get me thrown out of the history club, but was outvoted because I’d got glowing
