Earth and Fire

by Janet Edwards

  “Did you know that Washington was a famous politician in the eighteenth century?” I asked.

  “No, I didn’t,” said Keon, “and I intend to forget it as soon as possible.”

  “He’s got gorgeous eyes too,” said Issette, presumably still referring to Ross Washington rather than George Washington.

  “If you keep drooling over Ross’s good looks, I’m going to vomit,” said Keon.

  “There’s no need to be rude,” said Issette. “You were the one who suggested Jarra should be interested in Ross.”

  “I was thinking of his character, not his appearance,” said Keon. “Ross is the type of reliable and sensible boy who could help her when she gets into trouble, which she does at least once a week. Cathan’s useless.”

  “I don’t get into trouble that often,” I said, “and Ross isn’t available.”

  “No, he isn’t.” Issette sighed. “Maeth staked her claim on him before we even got to Next Step.”

  “The two of you could try and steal him from her,” said Keon. “Ross might be tempted by an offer to Three with him, Beta sector style, but I suspect Maeth would fight to the death for her man. I’d be a much safer option, because I’m totally unattached and willing to consider any reasonable suggestions. In fact, we could find some nice quiet bushes right now.”

  I giggled. “But we’re not Betans, and it’s time to go into dinner.”

  We stood up and headed for the main entrance to Next Step.

  Chapter Eight

  For the next two weeks, I didn’t just spend every spare moment studying with my friends, but stayed up late into the night going over the things they’d taught me, trying to understand and memorize them. Keon was being surprisingly helpful, spending more than the scheduled two hours a day coaching me. He probably enjoyed laughing at the look of agony on my face as I tried to chart the course for a flight.

  The thing that really annoyed me was that learning navigation was totally pointless. What pilot would be nardle enough to spend ages working a course out manually, when they could get their lookup to do it in seconds using the Earth data net?

  Issette didn’t laugh at my ignorance, but her enthusiasm for medicine meant she had a tendency to drift away from the test syllabus to tell me exciting, and occasionally gruesome, details about regeneration treatments and regrowth tanks.

  Weirdly, Cathan was by far the best teacher of the three. I think it was because he wasn’t very good at the subject himself, so things weren’t any more understandable to him than to me. He didn’t just work hard to help me, we even had some perfectly sensible conversations about how Issette and I had got into Europe Off-world. If Cathan hadn’t made me promise to do that modelling session for him, I might even have considered boy and girling with him again.

  At the end of the two weeks, it was time to do my theory tests. Candace had arranged for me to have a day off school to do them. I got up early, portalled to the examination centre the moment it opened, handed in my lookup, got scanned for illegal materials, and spent the entire day locked in a white featureless cubicle doing one test after another with only a half hour break at lunch time.

  Finally, I collected my lookup and sat in the entrance hall with a dozen other nervous candidates, who’d been doing tests on everything from hydroponics to law. It only took a few minutes for our test results to be calculated, standardized, approved by the appropriate accreditation bodies, and published, but it seemed a lot longer.

  When my results flashed up on my lookup, I anxiously scanned through them. I’d scraped a pass in Flight Planning and Navigation, which was the one that had worried me most. I’d passed Human Factors. I’d passed …

  I’d passed everything except the General Aircraft test, which was the one I should have managed without any trouble at all. How the chaos could that have happened?

  But it was obvious how it had happened. It had happened because I was a nuking idiot. I’d focused totally on the things I’d never known, without taking even five minutes to remind myself of the things I’d been told a year or two ago.

  I could forget learning to fly now. If I told Gradin I’d failed and asked him to give me more time, he’d laugh at me and refuse. The fact I’d only failed one test by a miserable two per cent, just made it worse. Two per cent! I’d worked so hard, got so close, but a couple of wrong answers had killed my dream.

  No, I realized my dream wasn’t quite dead yet. There was still one last chance. I jumped to my feet, and sprinted to the reception desk. “I need to do a retake. Just one test.”

  The man behind the desk nodded. “Of course. Apply for a new test date exactly as before.”

  “No, I need to do the test right now.”

  “I’m sorry, but the centre is closing.” His cool, professional smile reminded me of the Principal of our Next Step. “You may be able to get a test slot tomorrow morning, but it’s usually best to allow at least a week or two for additional study before retaking a test.”

  “I can’t wait until the morning. That’ll be too late. I’ll have lost my chance forever, and this is incredibly important to me. Please!”

  His official mask slipped to show the human being behind it. “I’d like to help, but I can’t. When we request a test, the relevant accreditation body randomly generates a set of questions from their database and sends them directly to the individual cubicle. The links have already shut down for the night.”

  “Can’t you reopen the links?”

  He shook his head. “Examination centres are blocked from the system outside their official test hours. It’s part of the fraud prevention rules.” He gave me a sympathetic look. “I’m really, really sorry.”

  I tugged at my hair with both hands. “There’s got to be …” I broke off, released my hair, and yelled. “Opening hours! Time zones! We’re on Green Time here. America is on Green Time minus five hours. Can you get me a test slot with an American examination centre?”

  “There may not be one available so soon, and I’d have to transfer your …” He looked at my face and sighed. “I’ll do my best.”

  He tapped at his desk, waited a moment, frowned, and did some more tapping. I leaned across the desk, trying to read the upside-down display in front of him. It wasn’t hard to spot the red “slot unavailable” message. I clenched my fists, thinking my last hope was gone, but he did some more tapping and this time the message was green.

  “I’ve found a test centre with a free slot in two hours’ time,” he said. “I’m transferring your records to them, but you have to get there fast so they can complete the retake application and get it booked with the accreditation body. That has to be done at least an hour before the test. Fraud prevention rules again.”

  He gave me the portal code of the American examination centre, and I gabbled my thanks before running for the nearest portal and dialling. The second it activated, I ran through into Europe Transit 3, and headed for the inter-continental portals. I couldn’t waste time queuing, so I paid the extra credits to dial America myself. A few minutes later, I arrived in an examination centre that was the twin of the one in Europe, but had a woman at the desk.

  “Oh yes, the transfer candidate from Europe.” She gave a disapproving sniff. “I don’t see the need for such a hysterical panic.”

  She got me to put my hand on a screen, placed something to my arm to take a blood test, waved a scanner to check my retina prints, and grudgingly agreed I was the person I claimed to be. She added my genetic code to an armband, I put it on, and the red glow of the armband changed to green to show a genetic match. The woman held out a hand for my lookup.

  “There’s still over an hour before the test,” I said. “Can I keep my lookup until then to do some studying?”

  She frowned. “You should have done your studying before this, but yes. Make sure you hand it in before you try to go through screening or you’ll set off the alarms.”

  I found somewhere to sit and started madly scanning data on my lookup. There would be th
ousands of questions on the database, and the selection system would stop me getting repeat ones, but I knew which bits of the aircraft systems I’d been struggling to remember. The aircraft diagnostics had been an especially hazy blur.

  My hour seemed to rush by, and then it was time to hand in my lookup and head for my test cubicle. I tried to focus on the questions and forget the fact I’d already failed this test once today. Another hour and I was clutching my lookup with tense hands, waiting for the results. I’d done exactly this earlier. It hadn’t been good news then. Two per cent. Only two per cent.

  My results flashed up, and it was two per cent again, but this time I’d passed by two per cent instead of failing! I tapped my lookup, my fingers still shaking from tension, and sent my final set of theory test results to Gradin. A few minutes later, there was a call in response. Gradin must have just finished his afternoon flight, because the image showed he was still wearing his impact suit.

  “You were cutting it fine,” he said.

  “But I did it.”

  “Passing by two per cent on General Aircraft.” His eyes rolled upwards in graphic contempt. “And that took you two attempts.”

  “I should have done better than that, but I was concentrating on studying for the other tests.”

  He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Answering questions in a test cubicle doesn’t tell me a thing about your actual flying ability. I’ll get your training licence processed tomorrow, and you can do a test flight with me the following day. I want to know what horrors are in store for me this summer.”

  He ended the call before I could reply. I sagged backwards into my chair, suddenly exhausted and starving hungry. I’d hardly slept in weeks, I’d been too nervous to do more than nibble at breakfast or lunch, and I’d totally missed dinner. It had all been worth it though. I was going to be a pilot!

  Chapter Nine

  I slept the deep sleep of utter fatigue that night, not stirring until the alarm shrilled to call us for breakfast. I lay still for a moment, hands over my ears, before finally giving up and getting out of bed. My room sensor detected my movement and shut down the alarm.

  I felt like I’d been hit by a transport sled, but if I tried going back to bed on a school day my room sensor would start the alarm again. Beating it to death wasn’t an option, because I’d be fined the cost of replacing it. Anyway, I didn’t want to miss breakfast. I wasn’t just hungry, but eager to tell everyone I’d passed my pilot theory test.

  I showered, dressed, and headed to Commons. By the time I’d collected my breakfast, six of the other Seventeens were sitting at our table. I was wondering whether to wait for Maeth and Ross to arrive, or start telling everyone my news right away, when the background chatter of the room abruptly stopped.

  I looked across at the door, thinking the Principal must have walked in, and was startled to see a stranger brazenly marching through Commons. Well, no, this wasn’t actually a stranger, I recognized Ben from when he’d come to dinner with us, but he was still an outsider and visiting hours didn’t start until …

  “Stay away from me!” Ben was shouting the words even before he reached our table. “I never want to see you again, so stay away from me!”

  Vina stood up to face him. “If you never want to see me again, why come to my Next Step?”

  “You know perfectly well why I’m here. We split up eight days ago, but you still keep showing up at my home. I’ve sent you a dozen messages telling you to stay away. I’ve tried being polite, I’ve tried being rude, I’ve even tried threats, but nothing works. When I got back from school yesterday, there you were again, trying to talk my mother into going clothes shopping with you. I wish I’d never met you. Nuke off!”

  Vina was shouting too now. “You’ve no right to come here and swear at me, and you’ve no right to stop me being friends with your mother.”

  I stared down at my plate, eating my Karanth jelly on toasted wafers and trying to ignore their argument, but I couldn’t avoid hearing every single word.

  Ben groaned. “For chaos sake, what does it take to get through to you? My mother doesn’t want to slam the door in your face, Vina. She grew up in residences herself, and she feels sorry for you, but the way you’re behaving is chaos embarrassing for her. My father is even angrier about it than I am.”

  There was a squeak from Vina. I lifted my head and saw Ben was standing aggressively close to her now, stabbing his forefinger at her face.

  “This is your last warning. If you come to my home again, then you’ll regret it.”

  I dumped my last toasted wafer on my plate, and looked round the table at the others. Vina was wholly in the wrong here, we all knew it, but she was part of our family. It might not be a proper flesh and blood family, but it was all we had. We stood up in unison, moving to stand next to Vina.

  “We understand the situation,” I said. “We’ll deal with it. Now get out of our Next Step.”

  Ben hesitated for a moment. “If she turns up again, I’ll complain to your Principal.”

  I sighed. “I said that we’ll deal with the situation. Now get out of here before we throw you out!”

  He turned and stalked out of the door. The younger ones had been watching us in dead silence, but now there was a sudden babble of conversation. We all sat down again and Issette shook her head.

  “You have to stop bothering Ben’s mother, Vina. If Ben complains to the Principal, you’ll be in a lot of trouble.”

  “You don’t understand,” said Vina. “Ben’s mother wants me to keep visiting her. She really likes me.”

  “We do understand,” said Keon, “and the point is she’s Ben’s mother, not your mother. This has to stop right now, or I’ll go to the Principal myself. That would be less effort, and far less painful, than getting dragged into a physical fight with Ben.”

  Vina opened her mouth to speak, but everything went quiet again so she stopped and looked round with the rest of us. I’d thought the silence was because Ben had come back, and was bracing myself for another confrontation, but this time it was the Principal.

  “You will be happy to hear the identity of those tampering with the Commons wall vid and room sensors has now been established.”

  “It took long enough,” muttered Cathan.

  “Ross Washington and Maeth Ruggier are being dealt with appropriately,” continued the Principal. “This evening, they will make a formal apology to you for the disruption they …”

  The last words of her sentence were drowned out by gasps and excited comments coming from all round Commons. Issette pulled her most exaggerated, buggy-eyed, astonished face at me. “I never thought it would be Maeth and Ross!”

  Keon laughed. “Ross isn’t as reliable and sensible as I thought.”

  “Maeth and Ross,” repeated Cathan in grazzed tones. “Self-righteous Maeth Ruggier and smugly pompous Ross Washington were trying to watch Beta sector sex vid channels!”

  Keon laughed again. “I doubt it. I expect they just wanted to sabotage the Commons room sensors, but those feed information to the wall vid about the ages of people in the room. If they didn’t know enough about what they were doing, Maeth and Ross could easily send a power surge through the link and take out the wall vid as well.”

  “But why would they …” Cathan’s voice trailed off as he worked out exactly why Ross and Maeth might want to be alone in Commons with no functioning room sensors for a few hours at night. “Oh.”

  I exchanged glances with Issette, and we both started giggling helplessly.

  Cathan was frowning. “I thought they’d found somewhere outside Next Step to …”

  “Where though?” asked Vina. “Even if they could afford the credits to hire a room, Hospital Earth’s monitoring systems would spot the entry on their credit records and report it to the Principal.”

  “I meant outdoors,” said Cathan. “All the parks have patrolling vid bees, but you can go for a walk in the countryside.”

  “Maeth wouldn’t want to g
o for a walk in the countryside,” said Issette. “She’s been terrified of insects ever since those researchers used us as test subjects when we were 8. If Ross did manage to persuade her to try it, she’d be so worried about moths and spiders and ants that he’d be lucky to get a kiss, let alone …”

  She broke off and had another fit of giggles. By the time she’d calmed down again, the Commons room sensors were doing the short burst of bleeps that warned we should get ready for school, so I hastily made my important announcement.

  “Everyone, I’ve got some totally zan news. I’ve passed my pilot theory tests!”

  There weren’t any wild bursts of cheering, just a few mumbled congratulations as everyone stood up and headed out of the door. My test results were apparently a bit of an anti-climax after all the excitement with Ben and the revelations about Maeth and Ross. Only Cathan looked really pleased, and I knew he had an ulterior motive for that.

  I sighed and followed the others to the foyer. We could travel to school for free so long as we went through as one huge mob when the portal was locked open for our five minute block portal slot. If anyone missed the block portal, and had to dial for a separate journey, it cost them credits. That encouraged us to get to school on time, but it also meant the foyer was total chaos as all the kids in Next Step jostled for places in the queue.

  Once we stepped through the portal and arrived in the school grounds, there was the usual automated voice nagging at us to keep moving out of the arrival zone by the five portals. We dutifully headed on to the football pitch, where we could spread out and sort ourselves into year groups. Traditionally, the Seventeens all gathered down the far end, outside the standard football pitch in the expansion zone used for hoverball games. When we arrived there, we found the seven of us had become nine. Maeth and Ross had finally joined us.

  “Well!” Cathan grinned at them. “I hope you’re ashamed about your shocking behaviour!”

  Ross’s expression hovered between embarrassment and defiance, before settling on defiance. “We’ve absolutely nothing to be ashamed about. Maeth and I love each other. We’ve cared for each other for years, and we’re 17 now, but we still can’t even hug without our room sensors giving us sanctimonious lectures.”