Earth Girl

by Janet Edwards

  ‘Nice timing,’ I said.

  ‘They’re experienced enough to know when dinner is likely to be ready,’ said Playdon.

  Three hover sleds pulled up, and ten people in impact suits jumped off and lowered their suit hoods. There was a babble of names.

  ‘So, who is Jarra?’ asked the leader of the visiting team. ‘We were listening in during the rescue of Cassandra 2.’

  I stepped forward. Playdon introduced me, and the rest of team 1.

  ‘Nice work,’ the visitors chorused.

  ‘I’d had some experience on New York Fringe and other sites,’ I explained.

  ‘Well, it became clear that you weren’t exactly a novice when Asgard 6 launched a survey plane.’ The visiting team leader laughed. ‘The entire dig site was grazzed. That was you, wasn’t it? We thought it was the same voice.’

  ‘Yes, that was Jarra,’ said Playdon.

  ‘And we all knew you weren’t just going along for the ride with Playdon flying it since you’d never get him in a plane …’

  Playdon groaned. ‘Thank you, Graw. Go ahead and tell my whole class I’m afraid of heights.’

  ‘Well, most people are,’ said Graw. ‘I know I am. If the deity meant us to fly, we’d have been born with wings. No one is ever getting me in a plane. Dig Site Command can send as many mails as they like about the pilot shortages, and asking people to volunteer to learn, but they aren’t getting anywhere with me.’

  He grinned at me. ‘If you want a job, Jarra, then New York Dig Site’s professional pilot retired at Year End, and Dig Site Command are still looking for a new one. They’ll probably be sending you and Playdon mails about it.’

  I laughed. ‘Thanks, but I want to get my pre-history degree, and I can’t do that as a full time professional pilot. I’d be happy to fly a few more survey legs for them though. I’m hoping to teach Fian to fly, and that depends on us getting some more time in planes. We’ll be changing dig site a lot during the year, so we probably won’t get very far.’

  ‘Just talk to Dig Site Command when you arrive at any of the big sites,’ said Graw. ‘They’ll all be happy for you to have flying time to train a new pilot. Keeping up pilot numbers is a major concern for the entire Dig Site Federation. If your dome doesn’t have a plane, you can always fly one in from a dome that does.’

  ‘That would be zan!’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Fian in a dubious voice. ‘Totally zan …’

  I felt suddenly guilty. ‘Of course, you don’t have to, Fian.’

  ‘Oh yes I do,’ he said in his best fake martyr voice. ‘I’m not having anyone else go up in a plane with you.’

  Everyone laughed.

  We started eating after that, and then two of the visitors produced guitars and demanded to know who our guitar players were. We pointed at Dalmora, and the visitors started teaching her some new songs, and gave her a data chip with hundreds more.

  Playdon eventually brought the evening to a close by announcing that our visitors probably wanted to get back to their own dome.

  ‘What Playdon means,’ said Graw, ‘is that he’s a slave driver. He doesn’t want us keeping you up late when he’ll be working you to death tomorrow.’

  The visitors headed off on their sleds, and we threw rubble on the fire and went into our dome. I went across to my sleep sack in its place by the wall, began taking off my impact suit, and was disconcerted to find Krath next to me.

  ‘That’s my spot,’ complained Fian.

  ‘No it isn’t,’ said Krath. ‘My sleep sack and my spot.’

  ‘You swapped sleep sacks!’ Fian accused him, outraged.

  I noticed Playdon drifting in our direction, clearly ready for trouble.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Krath, happily. ‘What matters is my stuff is here now.’

  ‘Fian claimed that spot,’ I said. ‘I suggest you give it back.’

  ‘I want to be close at hand to defend you from the ghosts, Jarra’ said Krath.

  ‘I can defend myself,’ I said. ‘Now move!’

  ‘Oh come on …’ said Krath. ‘I could be much more fun than some prudish Deltan …’

  He stopped at this point. Possibly that was because my left hand had his arm twisted up behind his back, while my right arm was round his neck.

  ‘I asked nicely,’ I said. ‘Now, take a hint, and tell Fian he can have his spot back.’

  Fian wasn’t waiting to be told. He’d tracked down his belongings and brought them over, and now evicted Krath’s invading possessions, banishing them to the cold centre of the dome.

  I released Krath and waved him a gentle farewell, before changing into my fleecy sleep suit.

  ‘That’s not fair,’ grumbled Krath.

  ‘Yes it is,’ said Playdon, who appeared quite amused by the whole thing. ‘You were in breach of three rules there, Krath. First, dig site custom. Second, social etiquette. Third, plain common sense. You’re just lucky that Jarra didn’t throw you across the dome.’

  I looked at Fian’s face and laughed.

  We settled down for the night eventually. It was a disturbed night as usual in these conditions. There’s always someone restlessly moving about, and there’s always someone who snores.

  Sometime in the early hours of the morning, Fian whispered in my ear. ‘Our first night together. This is so romantic.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘just you, me, and twenty-seven other people. It reminds me of that joke about the Betans and the …’

  ‘If you start making Betan sex jokes,’ said Fian in a stern voice, ‘I’ll have to give you warnings under the Gamman moral code.’

  I had to pull my sleep sack over my head to muffle my giggles.

  24

  Next day, we realized that the visitor’s jokes about Playdon being a slave-driver weren’t jokes at all. The man was truly heartless. He woke us up when it was still dark outside, allowed us a brief breakfast of packaged food, and had us outside loading the sleds at the crack of dawn.

  ‘I didn’t know days could start this early,’ said Fian. ‘It’s practically still yesterday.’

  I laughed at the civilians’ agonized faces, but even I was feeling it was a bit excessive starting work at this hour. It wasn’t easy work either. I first discovered what was in store for us when we’d set up the sensor net and I went across to the sensor sled. Dalmora was staring at the screen with a panicky expression. ‘I don’t understand this …’

  Playdon was looking over Dalmora’s shoulder at the screen. ‘What do you make of it, Jarra?’

  I glanced at the screen, and was grazzed. Convinced I had to be wrong, I took a closer look. ‘Underground … Is that part of the underground transport system?’

  ‘Correct,’ said Playdon. ‘One of the subway lines runs under our dig area and we’re going to excavate it. You can consider yourselves flattered. Dig Site Command doesn’t usually let novices try that, but we did well in that rescue, and we have Earth 3 just down the clearway from us if we get in trouble, so they’re letting us have a go.’

  As we were the working team, we were talking on the team circuit, so the whole class could hear us. In a way, it was handy having Krath around, because people could always depend on him to ask the tactless questions for them. He did it now. ‘Earth 3 … Those were the people who visited us last night?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Playdon.

  ‘Then they were apes?’ Krath seemed grazzed. ‘But … my dad wouldn’t like me sharing food with people like that.’

  ‘I see,’ said Playdon. ‘If your dad would object to you having your life saved by people like that, then please tell me now. I’ll make a note that in case of accidents, I should ask Earth 3 to leave you buried in the rubble until your suit fails and you get slowly crushed to death. Anything to make your dad happy.’

  There was a gulping noise from Krath. ‘I didn’t mean …’

  ‘I have a strong personal dislike of hearing remarks like that about the Earth dig teams,’ said Playdon. ‘They’re pe
ople I respect, and they’ve saved my life several times. Now, I don’t hand out warnings just because a student offends me, but the Betans have a Handicapped child. I hope I’ve already made it clear that making comments like that in front of them will earn you warnings under the Gamman moral code.’

  He paused, and there was a nervous affirmative noise from Krath.

  ‘Good,’ said Playdon. ‘Let me make something else clear. I’m prepared to give warnings for comments made on a dig site, no matter who is present, because I don’t want all the Asgard teams to be embarrassed by one of our students saying something offensive about the Handicapped on the wrong comms channel.’

  He paused for a moment. ‘All of you should bear in mind a few facts. Earth teams opened this dig site a hundred and fifty years ago. Earth teams made the clearways. Earth teams taught the first teams from off world. They were the experts and we were clueless. We got into trouble and they dug us out. I know that was a hundred years ago, but teams from new universities still keep showing up and making all the novice mistakes, and the Earth teams patiently help them out.’

  ‘It’s still the old joke,’ Playdon continued. ‘Expert apes and clueless exos. That’s the only phrase I ever want to hear on a dig site that includes the word ape. The Earth teams are professionals, Krath. If you said something rude about them on the broadcast channel, they would still come and dig you out from under rubble at the risk of their own lives, but frankly the rest of us exo teams would then quietly take you back out and bury you again ourselves.’

  There wasn’t another squeak out of Krath, and the rest of us were very quiet as we continued our preparations.

  When I arrived at the tag support sled, Fian locked the beam on to the tag point on my suit. Then he very carefully checked he wasn’t transmitting on the team circuit or any other comms channels before daring to speak. ‘What’s an exo?’

  I carefully set my comms to listen only. ‘Rude term for people not from Earth,’ I explained. ‘It comes from people running off during Exodus.’

  ‘I see,’ said Fian. ‘I hate to admit this, but I think my mother would feel exactly the same as Krath’s dad. She wasn’t keen on me coming to Earth in case it means my kids are born Handicapped.’

  I giggled. ‘You can’t catch it. Your kids don’t get it because you visited Earth.’

  ‘I know,’ said Fian. ‘Whatever you do, it makes no difference. It’s triple ten. One in ten risk if both parents are Handicapped themselves. One in a hundred if one parent is Handicapped. One in a thousand if neither parent is. My mother still follows all the superstitions though.’

  ‘So, she didn’t eat Karanth jelly?’

  Fian laughed. ‘She wouldn’t even go in a shop that sold it. But don’t worry; you’ll like my mother when you meet her. She isn’t really silly. She admits herself that she got a bit paranoid when she was pregnant with my sister. Her one month scan showed my sister had a potential heart condition. They did preventative treatment immediately of course.’

  ‘Everyone ready?’ asked Playdon. ‘Jarra?’

  I hastily set my comms back to speak on team circuit. ‘Yes, sir.’

  I used my hover belt to skim forward over the first bit of rubble. The conversation I’d just had with Fian was bothering me a little. I suppose it was that comment about meeting his mother. Meeting parents was … well it was a bit serious.

  ‘Everyone, be aware that Jarra is working over a large underground void,’ said Playdon, ‘so we have to react fast if there’s a cave-in.’

  I dismissed worries about meeting parents and concentrated on what I was doing. The first thing needed, obviously, was to level out the site a bit. I started shifting some of the unstable heaps that had been left after we blew up the building yesterday. There were some large girders involved, one of which was so long that I decided I’d better chop it into three sections.

  The laser gun made short work of that. I’d just turned it off, and was tagging the pieces when two things happened simultaneously. One was that I felt myself being yanked upwards, and the other was something hitting me in the back. The impact suit triggered as I headed on upwards, and I dangled in midair, frozen like a statue for a moment before I could move again.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked, thoroughly confused. There hadn’t been anything behind me that could have hit me.

  ‘A rather young and clueless wolf decided to have you for lunch,’ said Playdon. ‘He knocked himself silly on your impact suit. The rest of the pack is skulking over behind that wall.’

  I looked down. A stunned wolf got uncertainly to his feet, whined, and then limped off rapidly to rejoin the pack.

  ‘There goes a sadder and wiser wolf,’ said Playdon. ‘He’ll know to leave dig teams alone in future.’

  ‘Poor thing,’ I said.

  ‘Serves him right,’ said Fian. ‘They’re still hanging round behind that wall. Should we shoot them?’

  ‘I think throwing a large rock in their direction might be enough,’ said Playdon. ‘Amalie, pick something big up and throw it their way.’

  Amalie locked her beam on to a large section of girder, and sent it flying forcefully towards the wolf pack. They instantly turned and fled.

  ‘That seems to have convinced them,’ said Playdon. ‘I think you can put Jarra down again now, Fian.’

  I was lowered back towards the ground and my hover belt engaged. I carried on shifting rocks and girders. There was an awful lot to move, but after a couple of hours the site was nice and stable and we were gradually working our way downwards. Playdon brought team 2 in to take over for a while, and sent team 1 back to the dome for a two hour break. I was reluctant to hand over my nice tidy dig site to someone else, in case they messed it up, but a break from being in my impact suit was very welcome.

  There were just the five of us back at the dome, so we could make the most of the limited facilities of the bathrooms, and pick out the best of the packaged food. Fian still seemed unnerved by the wolf.

  ‘I didn’t know they were there until that one suddenly ran out and leapt at you,’ he said. ‘Scared me to death.’

  ‘It wasn’t going to be able to bite through my impact suit,’ I reassured him.

  ‘If it had jumped at you when you were using the laser …’ Fian let the sentence trail off into grim silence.

  I hadn’t thought of that. A wolf knocking me over while I had the laser beam active could have been very nasty. I pictured it, and instantly wished that I hadn’t.

  We headed back to our work site after our break, and found team 2 had worked their way down through several more layers of rubble. We took over again, and team 2 went happily off on their break.

  Progress continued steadily. Just after team 2 rejoined us, we reached what appeared to be solid ground, and Playdon spent a while working on the sensors and deciding where we should place charges. We could place the charges manually this time, rather than using a charge gun, which kept things simple. Playdon called in for clearance, he fired the charges, and a huge circular crater appeared in the ground.

  ‘I think we’re through to the subway,’ said Playdon. ‘Tag support and heavy lift sleds will need to move closer and use the hoist extensions so we can have beams working vertically down the hole. Team 2, we need your tag support sled over here as well.’

  There was a delay while Playdon went round the lift and tag support sleds, checking the hoist extensions were set correctly. I took my chance to do a bit of watching and listening, since I’d never used a hoist extension.

  ‘Team 2 tag support, you’ll be lowering the sensor probe into the hole,’ said Playdon. ‘It has glows, vid, and sensors, so we get to see what’s down there. Sensor probes are expensive, and unfortunately are easily damaged, so treat it just as carefully as if it was your tag leader. Pull it out fast if anything nasty happens.’

  The sensor probe went down and Playdon projected the image from it above the crater, so we could all see. Even with the glows, it was still a bit gloomy down the h
ole. There was a heap of rubble at the bottom obviously, and a tunnel went off at either side into darkness. Playdon sent a beam of light first one way, and then the other.

  ‘One direction seems to be blocked by a cave-in,’ he said. ‘Possibly an old one, or possibly triggered by us blowing up that building. The other way seems clear but we aren’t playing around far from the hole. If someone got buried in another cave-in along that tunnel, then we’d never get them dug out in time. I’ll run some sensor scans now to see if there’s anything interesting.’

  I went over to the sensor sled to take a look. Images from the sensor probe were appearing on a secondary bank of displays. I couldn’t entirely figure them out.

  ‘These displays aren’t the same as the ones from the usual sensor net,’ said Dalmora. She was sounding a bit overwhelmed, and I could sympathize. Standard sensors are complicated enough, without having a whole new secondary bank added to them.

  ‘They’re similar,’ said Playdon, ‘but with several key differences. The sensor probes are Military issue, and designed for a rather different specialist job than the one we use them for. Hmmm, I wonder …’

  He was silent for a moment. ‘I can’t be sure, but there might be something interesting down there. There’s a lot of luck involved in subway excavations. It was a transport system, and whole stretches of it are empty tunnels, but it was abandoned just after halfway through Exodus century. The people of New York were rapidly leaving, they gave up using the subway, and the looters moved in. Gangs had their headquarters down here, and sometimes they left things behind when they left or got killed by police or rival gangs.’

  I peered at the displays from the probe. There might be something. ‘If that’s a stasis box, then it’s big, and a very strange shape.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Playdon. ‘If it’s a stasis box, it’s definitely not one of the standard home memorials. Well, only one way to find out. It’s under the edge of the heap of rubble, so we have some digging to do. Fian, you’ll have to lower Jarra down carefully, so she can take a look and tag things. We get her and the sensor probe out before anyone tries lifting any rubble. Then the sensor probe and Jarra go back down again, and we keep repeating that. Slow, but safe.’