“This is a secondary blood screening,” the doctor informed him. “If there are any problems, I’ll inform you in a moment.”
John nodded impatiently as the doctor performed the blood check, then studied his terminal as the results started to blink up. “You had an ancestor a couple of generations back who was a convert, I’m guessing,” he said. “Does that sound right?”
“I don’t know,” John said. His father had never talked about his family. John’s grandparents had both been dead by the time he’d grown old enough to ask about them. “What makes you say that?”
“You have traces of more modern genetic hackwork in your DNA,” the doctor said. He paused. “No long-term genetic conditions, as far as I can tell, but I would advise you to marry someone outside your community. Too many of your people are too closely related.”
John blinked. “Is that a bad thing?”
“Yes,” the doctor said. There was a faintly amused tone to his voice. It took John a moment to realise that he’d probably not been the first person to ask that question. “How much do you know about DNA?”
He went on before John could answer. “Basically, DNA is your body’s building blocks,” he continued. “It’s a little more complex than that, but you get the idea. Your DNA determines everything from your gender to your skin colour, height and suchlike. Being siblings, you and your sister share the same DNA, but put together slightly differently. That’s why you’re different genders.
“When a man and a woman conceive a child, their DNA is mixed together. Again, it’s a little more complex, but that’s the basic idea. When those two sets of DNA are too similar - as they are, if you’re related - it causes problems for the child. If both parents have a tendency towards weak eyesight, for example, that will be doubled in their children.”
“I see, I think,” John said.
“Come back here before you get married and we’ll run a comparative analysis,” the doctor added, dryly. “You don’t want to marry someone too close to you if you’re unwilling to undergo gene therapy to avoid genetic problems,”
He took John’s ID card, ran it through his terminal and held it out to him. “You can pass through the police checkpoint,” he said. “I suggest you check with the staff outside before getting on the buses.”
John nodded, then followed Hannah through the doors and down towards the police checkpoint. The police eyed him carefully as they approached, but allowed them to pass through without comment. A couple of young women, their eyes concerned, were waiting beyond the checkpoint. One of them approached Hannah; the other watched John carefully, but said nothing.
“The cards will get us into town,” Hannah said, as she strode back to John. “But we have to be back at the spaceport before six.”
“I see,” John said. They made their way over to the bus stop, where a large vehicle was waiting. “Do you have a watch?”
Hannah said nothing as they climbed onto the bus. The driver didn't look happy to see them, but he showed them how to scan the cards through the reader a moment before the vehicle roared to life. John sat down, hastily, as the bus started to move, heading away from the spaceport. He wasn't sure what he’d expected, outside the giant complex, but he had to admit that Arthur’s Seat looked better than Tarsus. The handful of buildings by the side of the road looked friendlier.
Traffic grew heavier as the bus slowly made its way into the city. The street was suddenly lined with houses, each one small and neat rather than the giant apartment blocks he recalled from Tarsus. There were dozens of trees everywhere, some familiar and others oddly unpleasing to the eye. And the people ... he couldn't help staring at them as the bus drove past. There was an ... ease about them that he found himself envying, even though he didn't understand it. The women ...
Hannah elbowed him. “Stop staring.”
John flushed. “I wasn't staring,” he protested. “Really.”
“Yes, you were,” Hannah said. She sounded happier, now they were out of the spaceport and well away from anyone who might see them. “You were practically licking the windows.”
“I wasn't,” John said.
“Last stop,” the driver called. “Town Centre!”
They scrambled off the bus, looking around with interest. The air was fresh and clean, compared to the foul stench he remembered from Tarsus; the buildings looked special, rather than hastily put together to house an expanding population. There was a charm about them that made him wonder if they’d been specially designed ... perhaps they had. Lothian - or so they’d been told the city was called - was tiny, compared to Tarsus City.
And the people ...
They were different, very different. The men wore suits and ties; the women wore a dazzling variety of clothing, ranging from long dresses to short skirts and shorts that revealed the underside of their buttocks. John found himself blushing helplessly as he looked away, hoping that Hannah hadn't seen him staring. And the children ... they ran around gaily, as if they didn't have a care in the world.
They stopped in front of a map and studied it, thoughtfully. There was a library, a school, a set of government buildings ... and dozens of small shops. John glanced up and down the street, marvelling at just how many small shops there were. There were nothing, but big department stores on Tarsus, all owned by a small number of corporations. Here, they looked more like family businesses than anything else.
He saw a young man staring at him and frowned, worried. A chill ran down his spine, reminding him of the days on Tarsus when he’d known that attacks could come at any moment. He tensed, wishing for a weapon. The young man wasn't the only one looking at them, their expressions concerned or fearful. John wanted to run, but he knew he didn't dare show weakness.
We’re wearing Forsaker clothes, he thought. They can pick us out easily.
“This way,” Hannah said. “We need to go to the library.”
John was tempted to insist that they returned to the bus and head back to the spaceport, but he knew Hannah wouldn't listen. Instead, he followed her as she led the way towards the library, shaking his head at the collection of strange buildings. The library itself was inside a giant stone dome, dotted with windows. There were more books in view, as they walked into the antechamber, than he’d seen anywhere else, even at school. Printed books, not electronic volumes. And behind them, newspapers. He couldn't help wondering just what Konrad and the other Elders would have made of so many real books. They’d always forbidden the youngsters from using e-readers or data terminals.
He looked at his sister. “What are we doing here?”
“Learning about the planet,” Hannah said. She nodded towards a seating area, a rack of newspapers positioned neatly next to it. “Shall we begin?”
John nodded, opening a newspaper and recoiling in shock as he saw a photograph of a topless girl around the same age as Hannah. He hesitated, then hastily turned the page before Hannah saw what he was looking at, hastily reading a story about a debate in the local parliament. Apparently, a local MP - whatever an MP was - seemed to be at risk of losing his seat. John honestly had no idea what it all meant.
“This is a little more interesting,” Hannah mused. She passed him a thicker newspaper, printed on better paper. “What do you make of this?”
John scanned the story as quickly as he could, parsing out the words he couldn't identify. A young girl had been abducted at the spaceport, then rescued by police. He didn't need Hannah to tell him that it had been Joel and his friends who had kidnapped the girl, even though the article made no mention of Hannah. Apparently, the girl was telling her story on the datanet ...
“It's the girl you met,” he mused. “Isn't it?”
“There’s no photograph,” Hannah said. “But who else would it be?”
John shrugged and rose, leaving Hannah to read her way through the newspapers as he explored the library. It was vast, bigger than he’d realised; five large halls, each one crammed with shelf after shelf of books. He picked up a book wi
th a particularly gaudy cover and rolled his eyes when he realised it was a fictional novel. The Elders had always discouraged the youngsters from reading fiction, particularly Outsider fiction. They preferred moralistic stories that told children that they should listen to their elders and refrain from thinking for themselves.
Half of these books are nonsense, he thought, as he studied a book featuring supernatural creatures. He had no idea what sort of creature had bright red eyes and magic powers, but he didn't want to know. And the rest are utterly absurd.
The next set of shelves held history books, all focused on Arthur’s Seat. John picked a small volume - A Short History of Arthur’s Seat - and read through the first four chapters, carefully sounding out the words he didn't understand. The author was clearly an Outsider - the contempt he’d felt for the Forsaker settlers was striking - and yet, there was a hint of warm compassion in his words that John found perplexing. On one hand, he treated the settlers as idiots; on the other, he seemed to understand their plight. But the basic gist of the story was all too clear. The Forsakers who’d settled the planet first hadn't had the slightest idea what to expect.
And so they came very close to dying out, John mused, as he reread the second chapter. They would have died out, if help hadn’t arrived.
He returned the book to the shelf, then picked out another one. It told the same story, although in somewhat more compassionate terms. Indeed, there was a mournful tone to the writing that he found quite striking. He glanced at the back cover and realised, to his surprise, that the author was a Forsaker. He’d never even heard of a Forsaker writer.
And a woman, he thought. Seeing her picture was a real surprise. A woman who wrote a book.
A voice spoke from behind him. “Are you looking for anything in particular?”
John spun around. A young girl was standing there, wearing a bright pink tracksuit that matched her pink hair and revealed all of her curves. She was decently covered, yet he had no trouble making out the shape of her body. She wasn't even wearing a bra! Her face was stained, pockmarked with ... something. And she had a dozen pieces of metal implanted in her cheeks. She was so striking he found it hard to look at her.
His throat was suddenly very dry. “Nothing,” he said, somehow. “I'm just ... I’m just looking for books.”
The girl’s eyes flickered over him. “You’re a Forsaker?”
“Yes,” John said.
“Cool,” the girl said. She gave him a brilliant smile. John found himself suddenly torn between helpless lust and a striking revulsion. What had she done to her face? He’d seen girls with earrings before, but this girl had mutilated herself. “My father’s a Forsaker.”
John shook his head. It was impossible. He couldn't imagine any Forsaker father allowing his daughter - or his son - to wear such an outfit, let alone mutilate their face ... And she was alone, without a male protector. No, she was no Forsaker. And her father was no Forsaker either.
“He is,” the girl insisted. She sounded very sure of herself. “Come round for dinner if you wish.”
“No, thank you,” John managed. He’d never ever had a girl ask him for dinner. It was against every rule in the book. Courtship was done between two families, not between two lovers. “I ...”
The girl shrugged, expressively. John tried not to stare as it did interesting things to her breasts. “See you around, sometime,” she said. “My name’s Casey, by the way.”
She paused. “You do know you can take books out, right?”
John blinked. “I can ...?”
“They gave you a card, right?” Casey leaned forward, as if she were imparting a secret that no one else was allowed to hear. Her perfume made his head swim. “You can use it to take out books, twelve at a time. Just make sure you bring them back when you're done.”
She turned and walked away, swaying her hips in a seductive rhythm. John stared after Casey, only catching himself when she turned the corner. He’d never seen anything like it, not when every young woman in the commune wore shapeless dresses and stayed out of sight, when she wasn't escorted by her male relatives. And she claimed to have a Forsaker for a father ...?
He put the book back on the shelf, then turned to find Hannah. She was nowhere to be seen until he glanced into the computer section and saw her sitting in front of a computer. A young man was standing next to her, talking in a very low voice. John felt a hot flash of anger, which he rapidly suppressed. He couldn't start a fight, not now.
The young man nodded politely to John as he approached. “Do you want an email account too?”
John blinked. “An email account?”
“Yes,” Hannah said. “You do know what one is, don’t you?”
“Yes,” John said, crossly. He’d had a private email account at school, although he’d never used it. The Elders had flatly forbidden their use, without exception. He assumed Hannah had one too ... had she been using it, despite the ban? “But I don’t want one.”
“You should,” Hannah said. She was sending a message ... to who was she sending a message? “They’re quite useful.”
“I can show you how to set one up,” the young man offered. “It only takes a couple of minutes.”
“Thank you, but no,” John said, firmly. He made a show of glancing at the clock. “We really should be heading back now.”
Hannah looked annoyed, but nodded in agreement. She blanked the screen, thanked the library assistant for his help and then followed him towards the door. John caught sight of Casey, bent over a book trolley and forced himself to look away. It was achingly clear that Casey wasn't wearing any panties either. He could make out the shape of her buttocks, the curve of her thighs ...
“You’re still staring,” Hannah said.
John felt another surge of anger, mixed with embarrassment. “And you were talking to that man!”
“Yes,” Hannah agreed, dryly. Her tone dared him to jump to the wrong conclusion. “He was helping me to set up an email account.”
“Oh, really,” John said. He caught himself before he said something she’d make him pay for, later. “Hannah ... what do you want with an email account?”
“Oh, this and that,” Hannah said. She sighed. “It's a shame we can’t take books home with us.”
“Konrad would hit the roof,” John said. Their stepfather would rip the books to shreds, then ... he didn't know, but he doubted it would be pleasant. “We’ll just have to keep coming back here.”
Hannah favoured him with a brilliant smile. “You’ll come with me?”
“Of course,” John said. They’d be caught sooner or later, he was sure, but it was better than hanging around the hotel room. “What are brothers for?”
Chapter Twenty
The Empire rarely bothered to ask for permission from the locals. It simply didn't care. The locals, on the other hand, found themselves asked to help unwanted and largely useless immigrants - and being told that refusing would result in punishment. Unsurprisingly, ethnic hatred and tension rose sharply right across the settled regions of space.
- Professor Leo Caesius. Ethnic Streaming and the End of Empire.
The shower, all things considered, was pathetic.
Joel gritted his teeth as he scrubbed furiously at his body, cursing the low pressure under his breath. Water dribbled down so weakly that it would have been better, if he’d had the time, to heat up a bucket of water and splash it over his body. The soap was pathetic too, smelling faintly of flowers, but at least there was plenty of it. They’d been given enough for a small army.
He turned off the shower, still feeling dirty as he reached for his towel and dried himself thoroughly. Being clean, constantly clean, had been drummed into him from birth, yet there had been little water on Tarsus or the freighter that carried them to Arthur’s Seat. He couldn't help wondering if the Outsiders had deliberately rationed the water, just to annoy the Forsakers. There was certainly no excuse for doing it on a planetary surface. He donned his robe hastily, glanced at
himself in the mirror and then hurried out of the shower block. A long line of men were already waiting to take his place.
Not enough showers or toilets or anything, he thought, grimly. Twenty thousand people needed a lot of water, yet the spaceport didn't seem to have anything like enough. And we’re all grimy as hell.
He walked down to the hotel, nodding to the guards as he stepped through the doors and into the building. He’d doubled the guards over the last two days, making sure that no one could enter or leave the building without his permission. The beating he’d given the two idiots on duty when Hannah slipped out had concentrated a few minds, ensuring that no nook and cranny was left unguarded. He wished, grimly, for weapons - most of their supplies had yet to be unloaded - but what they had would have to suffice. Shaking his head, he passed through the secondary doors and into a large room.
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