Astra

by Naomi Foyle

  * * *

  Hokma hadn’t been at breakfast, but that was nothing unusual. Now she was looking after the Owleons on her own again, Hokma came down to Or just once or twice a week. Her eccentricities had multiplied over the last two years; she lived on a diet of raw fruit and vegetables now, drank only water, and kept her salt-and-pepper hair shaved to within an inch of her scalp. The Owleons still brought IMBOD funding into the coffers, and most Or-adults spoke of her as if she were a legend, but some people called her la hermitrice, not always respectfully – and something had soured between her and Nimma. Astra had noticed the rift two years ago on Is-Land Founding Day, when Hokma had refused Nimma’s gift of a new sateen housecoat, saying she preferred to mend the old one. In front of everyone at the celebration, she’d given the hand-embroidered emerald coat to Sorrel. After that, Nimma had begun grumbling about the state of Hokma’s boots and hipbelt, saying they were an embarrassment to Or. The alt-leather was scuffed and worn and their cuts were out of date, that was true, but when did Hokma ever go to meetings outside Or? Astra hadn’t paid much attention, but then one day she’d tried to invoke Hokma’s productive seclusion to justify taking some time for herself. Brandishing her fabric scissors, Nimma had launched into a stream of bitter complaint.

  ‘No you can’t eat breakfast in the Earthship on school days,’ she’d snapped. ‘I know Hokma doesn’t eat meals with us, but look what that’s led to. She’s stepped down from all her committees; she barely shows her face in Or any more – what kind of community member is she? You’d think she’d try a bit harder after the last inspection, but no, her attendance points are going to be even lower next year, and Gaia knows what she’ll look like if she does turn up to the banquet. She’s expecting my work and Ahn’s to make up for her negligence, that’s what she’s bargaining on. Her isolationism is setting a terrible example for you, Astra. What’s wrong with eating with all the other Sec Gens anyway? None of them ever want to squirrel themselves away.’

  Astra had remained clamp-lipped under this tirade, then mumbled something about having just wanted more quiet time to study, but she herself increasingly felt frustrated by Hokma. Her Shelter mother was useless to talk to about homework, she still wouldn’t reveal any of her Owleon Code breakthroughs, and when Astra tried to ask her about Is-Land history – even once broaching Lil’s balloon story – she’d assume a professorial tone, saying there were different points of view about certain events, but it was best to wait until college to explore them. Hokma was mainly wrapped up in the Owleons as usual, working with a composer in Atourne, trying to Code them to sing in harmony, which might have been interesting, but when Astra had asked if there would be a concert she’d snorted, ‘They’re not performing seals, Astra.’ The reason for the research was classified, as usual, and Astra resented being kept out of the loop. She’d kept the biggest secret of all tight shut, hadn’t she? So she cleaned the cages and flew Silver once a week and stopped asking questions.

  Otherwise, Hokma treated Astra like a little girl still: she sometimes sent Silver down to Or with cutesy messages – pictures of the new chicks or plants flowering in the garden. But when Astra looked for him that morning, he wasn’t on his Earthship perch. The sky was dark – the cyclone season was arriving, and probably Hokma hadn’t wanted to risk him getting whisked away by the wind.

  She devoured her bowl of muesli and dried fruit, her Tablette hidden on her lap so she could review the Code equations she’d fallen asleep memorising the night before. Beside her Yoki was doing the same. They took the bus into New Bangor together, sitting at the back, away from the noisy excitement of the younger children up near the driver. For some, it was the first time on the cyclone school bus, with its heavy reinforced frame, huge wheels and set of high steps at the door. Meem was tired too; she leaned her head against the window in the seat in front of Astra, catching a nap before another long day of lessons. Meem’s hair was freshly styled in a cornrow-and-flat-twist updo; Astra had refused Nimma’s offer to French-braid her own. French braid pigtails and a dread? Did Nimma think she was an Old World scarecrow?

  The cyclone started at noon. Whirling skirts of high wind tore over the steppes as a fringed hem of rain whipped the mountains. Astra spent Woodland Siesta in a rocking treehouse, water rushing from the banana-leaf roof. She had been Gaia-playing with a Year Eleven girl recently, but Cotton was sidling up to a boy pal today and Astra was drooping so she slept the full two hours nestled on a mat between Tedis and Leaf, who stayed awake reviewing their Law lessons. Being in Year Twelve put Gaia play in perspective. Soon you would be gone, and in the meantime you were preoccupied with tests and exams and thoughts of leaving home. Now it made sense, the way that in Year Nine and Ten your older play pals had ignored you in the hallways and returned your long romantic Tablette-talk messages with a bare minimum of greetings. She and Yoki walked back to the school building together in what had become a torrential downpour, dried off beneath the hot-air fans in the gym and took two more hours of classes before the bus came to take them back to Or.

  The rain had stopped by the time she arrived home. Pendulous drops of water glistened on the trees and the air was laden with the smell of warm, steaming earth. Strangely, the lawn and gardens were empty; perhaps the teams were all working to deadlines, or in a meeting. The clutch of Or-kids dispersed through the silence to their various destinations, Astra walking with her Shelter siblings along the Kinbat track towards the East Slope Earthships. She enjoyed it, in a strange way, the feeling of wandering through a deserted community. It reminded her of training for the dry forest marathon last year, when she and Yoki and a few others got up early to put in a few kilometres along the Kinbat track before anyone else was awake, caught up in a brief spell of solitude before the hectic day began.

  Though the track wasn’t completely empty – Vishnu was striding quickly ahead of them. That was also unusual. Normally he hared straight to the Core House crèche to pick up his two young daughters. He and Sorrel must have a different arrangement today for some reason – perhaps Florence, the girls’ other Shelter mother, was looking after them this afternoon.

  ‘Vishnu’s in a hurry,’ Meem remarked. ‘I hope the girls are okay.’

  ‘Yeah, weird,’ Yoki commented as the teacher began to jog.

  ‘If one of the kids were sick, he’d be going to his Earthship,’ Astra pointed out. ‘They’re probably with Florence and he’s just going to see Sorrel.’

  ‘But the urbaggers are really busy right now,’ Yoki said reasonably. ‘Why would they want Vishnu hanging around?’

  It was a favourite game, sitting on the Earthship living roof and guessing where everyone was going; sometimes they even bet on it – Meem had won big when she realised before anyone else that Florence had bonded with the new Craft worker Blossom. You could also score points for funny answers. As Astra was trying to think of one, someone came pounding up the track behind them. It was Congruence.

  Astra and her siblings moved aside. Congruence was a dedicated distance runner, doing twenty Kinbat laps a day while listening to music on her Tablette armband. Astra liked pacing herself against her, but the older girl didn’t mingle with the high school Or-kids. Congruence had finished her IMBOD Service last summer and returned to Or with the other twenty-year-olds. But instead of starting Biotecture College in Atourne in the autumn, she had stayed on, helping Luna and her Shelter father care for Gloria, her Shelter mother, who was dying. This summer she had begun working as Ahn’s apprentice. Now that the Steppes Arts and Craft Gallery had been received with such acclaim, he had started preparing a design submission for the new National History Museum in Atourne, and after some negotiations, the college had agreed that Congruence could get credit for the work she did to help him. Astra rarely saw either of them, but Nimma, who was advising on interiors, said the designs were coming along beautifully and Congruence had a real gift for siting and landscaping.

  Congruence backhanded a greeting and ran on, her long black plait sway
ing like a bell rope down her back.

  ‘Nimma said Gloria wants to go to a neurohospice soon,’ Meem reported when the girl was out of earshot.

  ‘Really?’ Yoki stared after Congruence. ‘That’s sad.’

  ‘Yes,’ Meem agreed. ‘But she’ll return to Gaia at peace then. And that will help Congruence be at peace too.’

  ‘We’ll all go to a neurohospice one day,’ Yoki agreed. ‘As long as we return to Gaia in Is-Land.’

  Astra couldn’t contribute to the Sec Gen platitude-fest. Gloria had cancer – not skin cancer, which did still occur sometimes, but a tumour in her stomach which had been treated but then returned, spreading to her lymph system. No one knew why, when everyone in Is-Land was Coded against cellular malignancies, but sometimes, Klor had said, like damp against damp-proofing, cancer found a way through. He had been troubled though, Astra could tell. It was wrong to have cancer in Is-Land; it might be a sign that one of the crop Codes was faulty – or that Gloria had a hidden genetic weakness, one Congruence might have inherited. The Sec Gens knew all this, but they blithely assumed the best: Gloria was an isolated case. Still, they loitered with Astra, watching Congruence, hands at her waist, slow to a walk. At the exit to Code House she showered quickly with a hose, stripped off her running bra, wrung it out and stuck it in a hydrobelt pocket. Then she trotted up the steps. Vishnu was ahead of her. As she passed, the teacher reached forward and touched her arm.

  Congruence wrested her elbow away. She took the next four steps two at a time, then she turned and tapped her Tablette – I’m late – and resumed normal-but-speedy step climbing. Vishnu stopped to observe her. Then he climbed on too, steadily, not attempting to catch up.

  ‘Whay hey. What’s Vishnu done to her?’ Yoki wondered.

  ‘Nothing. She’s just jumpy,’ Meem explained. ‘I said hi to her the other day and she nearly dropped her dinner tray. Nimma says it’s because she’s not Sec Gen and she’s finding saying goodbye to Gloria very difficult.’

  ‘Come on,’ Astra said. Talk of non-Sec Gens still made her nervous. It was nice to not have so many of them around in Or any more to confuse her. ‘We shouldn’t be wasting time like this. She’s just late for Ahn. You know what he’s like.’

  They headed up the path to the Earthship. Silver wasn’t there, but Astra didn’t register even mild disappointment at his empty perch. Sometimes filling his memory clip with bland news to send back to Hokma was just another chore. Right now, she was hungry. When they were small, Nimma used to take a break and meet them at home; she’d stopped doing that when Meem started high school, but she still left out a plate of fruit and biscuits every day. They had their snack, then Yoki and Astra turned on their Tablettes and Meem left to visit Honey, who had just started Sheltering Dew, her bond partner’s Code baby with a professional Birth mother from New Bangor. It was better without her: Year Elevens didn’t fully understand the pressure yet and Meem would often ask for help with her own homework, a distraction Yoki didn’t mind, but Astra resented. At last, after a set of mind-splitting equations, it was time to head down to Core House for dinner.

  Because of Ahn’s commitment to the gallery project, it had taken nine months to design and erect the new dining hall, but he had insisted on creating a memorial to Torrent and Stream and the new building had been amply worth the wait. Its skylights and white wood beams pressed a healing poultice of light and space to the wound of the fire. The official cause of the blaze was still Accidental; herbal cigarette suspected, but just in case, there were now metal slat blinds instead of curtains and the candles were all in glass jars. A wood sculpture of a young man and woman entwined stood in the corner, and at the request of the Parents’ Committee the seating was more varied: there was a row of banquette booths along one wall, to encourage adults to sit in small groups and play games or chat after dinner, reducing the noise levels in the Quiet Room and ensuring that children or young people would not play unattended here again.

  Today, though, the dining hall was empty, no clacking of serving spoon on pan or nostril-perking scent of garlic emanating from the kitchen, and there wasn’t a member of the kitchen team in sight.

  ‘We’re not early, are we?’ Astra asked, puzzled.

  Yoki checked the wall clock. ‘No—’

  Behind them the door opened and they turned to see Meem lunging into the room.

  ‘Astra. You’re here.’ Meem flung her arms around Astra, nearly knocking her backwards. This was peculiar too. She and Meem had hardly been parted an hour.

  Awkwardly she patted her Shelter sister on the back. ‘Yeah – but where’s everyone else?’

  Meem peeled away from the embrace but gripped Astra’s hand and Yoki’s and started tugging them towards the top end of the children’s table. ‘They’re in a meeting. Yoki, we have to sit with Astra tonight.’

  ‘Okay.’ Yoki, accommodating as always, fell in step with Meem. ‘Why?’

  ‘I can’t tell you. Honey made me promise.’

  Meem’s tone was playful, but Astra was confused and getting irritated. She resisted Meem’s insistent pull. ‘Meem. Tell us. What’s going on? Why are they all in a meeting?’

  She was pushing it, she knew. When they were younger, her Sec Gen friends and siblings had never questioned an adult’s authority, and as a group, her schoolmates were still slavishly obedient. But lately Astra had found that if she got a Sec Gen on their own, simple curiosity could sometimes get them to override a promise to a parent or teacher. She had to sound confident, that was the trick. It was almost as though the Sec Gens responded to a certain tone of voice. She didn’t push often, in case people noticed, and it was risky to try it in front of Yoki, who could corroborate any story of coercion, but a spiral of annoyance and anxiety was rising in her torso and she needed to know what was happening.

  ‘I can’t. And anyway, they’re going to tell us all together. After dinner.’

  The Sec Gens were all bigger and stronger than she was. Astra had little choice but to let herself be dragged across the floor.

  ‘So why do you know now, then?’

  ‘Honey and Storm were talking about it when I came in. They left the meeting early because Dew was crying. They think he’s sick.’

  ‘If you know now, why can’t we?’ Yoki asked, very reasonably, Astra thought.

  ‘Because …’ Meem hesitated. ‘Because if I tell you that, Astra might get upset.’

  The irritation was shrinking now and the anxiety was swelling, pressing against her ribs. Was the meeting about me? she wanted to ask, but she couldn’t. And anyway, Meem couldn’t know she wasn’t Sec Gen or she wouldn’t have hugged her. ‘Why would I get upset?’ she probed cautiously. ‘Were Honey and Storm talking about me?’

  ‘No.’ Meem sat down. But Sec Gens couldn’t lie. ‘Well, yes. A bit.’

  It was like ‘Animal, Vegetable, Mineral’. As she said the words she knew they were the answer. ‘They were talking about Hokma.’

  Meem pulled her hand, hard. ‘Sit down, Astra. They’re going to tell us soon. I just wanted to make sure you were here, that’s all.’

  Astra yanked her hand away. ‘Where’s Hokma?’

  Meem looked pleadingly at Yoki. ‘I didn’t mean to break my promise, did I?’

  ‘You didn’t break it.’

  ‘I’m going to Wise House,’ Astra announced, heading for the door.

  ‘No.’ Meem stood up, and snatched at her elbow. ‘She’s not there. IMBOD took her. Last night. They took her and Helium and all the Owleons away.’

  * * *

  She was running like a river, frothing over rocks and surging around bends, churning under bridges, charging against banks. Her right arm was pumping the air, grabbing at vines and branches, her left was clamping her breasts to her chest. Her throat was scorched, her lungs burning as the soles of her feet went blazing over roots and stones. Meem and Yoki were far away, tiny bewildered figures clinging to the door of Core House; the adults coming down en masse from Code House were a cl
ump of insentient beings, oblivious to her escape from the lies they were bringing for dinner. She was going to find Hokma: Hokma and Helium and Silver and the chicks.

  Up ahead was the crossroads, and someone was there. Not Hokma: someone tall and pale-skinned, who ducked back into the trees as Astra approached. She cut up through the stringybarks, flitting like a bat between the trees. Someone was guarding the path to Wise House. Her heart was a chiselled flint, scraping at her chest. There was a roaring in her ears, muffling the sound of the world. IMBOD had taken Hokma away. She crept forward at an angle, plotting her way up the slope, aiming to emerge at the gate. It was twilight now and she could slip among the shadows heading for the ghostly trunks of the lacebarks ahead.

  ‘Astraaa. Aaaastra.’ Below her on the path, adults were calling her name. She pressed on through grey veils of dimming light. She could hear people following her now, their heavy boots squelching and cracking through the mulch, swearing as they slipped on the steep muddy slope. They would catch her, but first she was going to see for herself what IMBOD had done to Wise House.

  But she couldn’t see Wise House. She was crouching behind a lacebark and she could only see the fence. It was wrapped in a long yellow and black ribbon and guarded by two IMBOD officers. One was talking into her armband Tablette, the other was standing in front of the gate, scanning the woods. They both had pistols strapped to their thighs. One was holding the lead of a straining Alsatian.

  ‘Understood,’ the dogless officer said, and clicked off her Tablette talk. ‘Astra,’ she called, ‘you can come out now. You’re not in any trouble.’