by Alex Scarrow
Ellie sighed. Ted was proof that too much lazing around in front of the kids channel turned you into an idiot. ‘The Plasma Rangers is a cartoon my dear little brother. Therefore, it is not real life and they do not exist.’
Ted sat up, ‘I know, I’m not a baby.’
Ellie goosed his neck. ‘No, I guess you’re not anymore.’
He lay back down in the hammock, satisfied with getting that admission out of her. ‘So where would you go?’
‘Anywhere but here,’ she said a little too quickly. She hoped Ted had missed that. He said nothing. For a while they lay in silence, swinging gently and listening to the creak of the poles.
In the sky above, a distant transport ship entered the upper ionosphere with a flicker of blue light and slowly moved across the golden misty slash of the Seventh Veil towards the south.
From the smooth rustle of his breathing, she thought Ted had already fallen asleep. But he spoke quietly. ‘Are you going to leave home?’
Ellie lay in stunned silence. It seemed like the whole world was able to guess her business. ‘What?! Of course not. What gave…’
‘You’re not? Oh, well you should do. I am. As soon as I’m growed up, I’m going to be a pulse warrior. They live on the planet Pulsator.’
Ellie relaxed. ‘Ted, has anyone ever told you you’re a toon addict?’
‘Yup. Mum does every day.’
Ellie dug her thumbs into his ribs and Ted squirmed in the hammock like a fish in a net. Something else she realized she actually might end up missing; the rough and tumble fun with the little couch potato.
‘Come on monkey boy, time’s up. Let’s get you back to bed.’
*
The next day Sean arrived on time for Ellie’s weekly math session. He pulled up outside the Quin farm in his father’s dirt-cat amidst a cloud of red dust. Maria watched him from the entrance hatchway as he climbed out and hastily jogged towards her, not bothering with an O2 mask. She swung open the hatch as he arrived and quickly closed it once he was inside.
‘You really ought to have a mask with you all the time Sean, just to be safe. I might not have been at the door ready to open it.’
He smiled patiently at Mrs Quin. She was the over-cautious, wrap-’em-up-in-cotton-wool-until-they-suffocate type.
‘How are your folks?’ she asked.
‘Fine, Mrs Quin.’
‘Jeez, you can call me Maria if you want. You’ve been coming here for years…I would have thought we’d be past the ‘Mrs Quin’ stage by now.’
‘Sorry, it’s habit.’
‘Hmm, not long now is it, the marine ship? I bet you’re excited?’
‘Yes ma’am, two months. I can’t wait.’
Maria called out Ellie’s name. There was no answer. ‘I guess she’ll be outside up on her perch.’
‘I’ll drive up. See you later, Mrs Quin.’ He opened the hatch and ran across the open clay to the dirt-cat. Maria again hastily closed the hatch, begrudging the small volume of oxygen lost to the outside world. She watched him through the dome wall, fogged by years of scratches and scuffmarks, as he jumped in and started up the vehicle with a throaty roar. The cat’s tracks kicked up dirt and dust as it turned and began to roll up the slope of the rocky outcrop towards the distant silhouette of Ellie perched like a spike of wind-eroded rock.
Shona arrived at her mother’s elbow and watched the cat recede. ‘Mum, are they boyfriend and girlfriend?’
‘I hope not dear, otherwise I think Ellie’s in for a lot of heartache.’
*
The peace and quiet of the overlook was shattered by the noise of the cat as it laboured up towards the rocky peak. Ellie watched Sean steer it up towards her. Presently he brought the vehicle to a stop a few yards away, turned off the rotor engine and climbed out, this time wearing his mask.
‘Hiya Ellie…whaddya do out here? It seems like you spend most of your spare time up on this rock.’
‘I think. It’s my contemplation rock.’
He took in the view, slowly turning around a full three hundred and sixty degrees. ‘What a view. I didn’t realize how cool it was.’
‘Now you can see why I spend so much time up here.’
He focused on a shimmering form on the horizon. ‘What’s that?’
‘New Haven. It’s the very top of the enviro-dome.’
‘Wow, you can see it from here? That’s hundreds of miles away.’
‘Yup, a long, long way.’
He sat down beside her. The rock she was sat on was worn to a smooth shiny surface by the persistent sand erosion and, no doubt by Ellie, he guessed.
‘Further to our discussion last time. I was thinking we should maybe wait until after your birthday before leaving.’
‘You’re not getting cold feet?’
‘No, of course not. We’re still going but delaying until after your birthday makes sense.’
She looked at him suspiciously. ‘Why?’
‘It’s only delaying things by one more week, and being twenty means you won’t need an adult sponsor for a lot of things. You’ll be legally an adult yourself.’ He shrugged. ‘It’ll just make things a lot easier with city red tape if you’re no longer a minor.’
‘What’s red tape?’
Sean shook his head and smiled patronizingly at her. ‘You are so-o-o-o-o lucky to have me around to explain things. In New Haven you can’t even piss without having your ident card ready to show, swipe or have scanned. That’s ‘red tape’. I already have one since I’ve been there before. You’ll have to get one when you arrive, that means presenting your birth document, listing details of next of kin, which will lead to all sorts of awkward questions if you’re still only nineteen.’
‘I see.’
They sat in silence for a while listening to the subdued melancholic wailing of wind across the featureless rust landscape.
‘So, how are we getting there?’ asked Ellie.
‘Hmmm, it’s a bit of a haul I’m afraid. We’ll be taking a shuttle…’
‘I was assuming you’d drive us there in this,’ Ellie gestured towards the cat.
‘No. She’s only got a sixty-mile range between charges. We’ll need to head towards a shuttle stopover. The nearest one is actually fifty miles northwest…’
‘That’s taking us in the wrong direction!’
‘I know, I know, but that’s the way it is. There are none any closer to New Haven. So anyway, it’s a fifty mile drive and my Dad will be driving us.’
She looked alarmed. ‘He doesn’t know I’m going does he?’
‘Of course not. Which means I’m going to have to smuggle you into the luggage locker. A bit of an uncomfortable ride, I’m afraid, but it is sealed so you won’t have to wear a mask. The day we leave I’ll drive over here and pick you up; I’ll tell Dad I’ve come over to say ’bye to you guys. Then we head back to home, by the time we get back, you’ll be hidden in the locker and Dad should be ready to take us to the shuttle-stop.’
‘When exactly?’
‘We’ll go a week tomorrow.’
It was going to be the day after her birthday. All of a sudden, she now had a specific day she was leaving. Departure day. D-day. She leant forward on her elbows and puffed out some air. Her plastic O2 mask fogged.
‘You okay?’ asked Sean.
‘Just excited, a bit nervous maybe. I just can’t believe we’re going to do this.’
He placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. She shivered. Partly a small thrill from his touch, but mostly from the exhilaration she felt discussing the journey ahead of her.
‘We should arrange a time now, Ellie, since I probably won’t get a chance to see you again before then.’
‘Yay. No more math.’
‘Six o’clock okay? First light?’
‘I’ll be ready. Where?’
He looked around the almost featureless landscape.
‘Right up here looks the best bet, I reckon. It’s far enough away from your home that the
cat’s engine won’t wake everyone up.’
‘Six o’clock right here, a week tomorrow?’
He nodded.
‘And Ellie, make sure you bring your birth document and study certificates. You’ll especially need the certificates if you want to find yourself a job.’
‘Okay.’
Ellie hadn’t given a great deal of thought to the type of job she would like. She was not at all sure what sort of jobs existed in New Haven. ‘What do people do in the city?’
‘You mean what work is there?’
She nodded.
‘Well, it depends on which area you want to live in I guess. Central One area is mainly commerce, which is data work as far as you’re concerned. How’s your psyc-typing?’
Ellie wrinkled her nose. ‘Not too good, my mind wanders.’
‘Fair enough. Near the space port, which is the east side, you’ll find jobs are more manual, cargo handling. But then they have gene-imps doing a lot of that kind of work.’
‘Those little monkey-like things?’
‘Yeah. They’re very strong. They call them jimps. I guess that’s short for ‘gene-imp’. The west end of town is more your service sector…the rough side of the tracks.’
‘Tracks?’
‘Old Earth saying. Never mind,’ he said dismissing the antiquated turn of phrase. ‘You just probably want to steer clear of that.’
Ellie cocked an eyebrow. ‘Service sector?’
‘Bars, nightclubs, flesh markets. Trust me, not the sort of place you want to hang around. That’s where you’ll find the majority of off-worlders.’
‘And aliens?’
‘Yup, a few.’
‘I’ve never seen an alien. Well, sure I’ve seen them on the toob, but never in person, face to face. Have you?’
‘A couple of times when my Dad took me to the west end. Kinda freaky. I mean, I guess you must get used to them if you live around them all the time, but some of them are just too damn weird. There’s this one kind, they call them ‘boojams’. They’ve got these long trunk-like noses that sniff pheromones. Basically that’s how they communicate amongst their own, by sniffing each other’s sweat.’
Ellie chuckled. Getting to meet off-worlders was going to be a wonderful experience. Humans from other planets with vastly different cultures, accents and mannerisms would be fascinating, but then again, seeing aliens and maybe even talking with them was going to be something she would relish forever.
‘I can’t wait to meet some,’ she said.
‘Well, one step at a time, Ellie. You’re gonna find city folk strange enough let alone other species.’
She was looking at something on the horizon. Sean followed her gaze. To the west the normally sharply defined horizon seemed slightly softened, almost like a section of the horizon had gone subtly out of focus.
‘Dust storm,’ she said. ‘We better head inside.’
‘About time anyway. If we stayed up here much longer, tongues would have started wagging.’
Ellie looked at him. ‘I presume you mean Shona?’
He nodded. They got up off the rock and headed towards the buggy. The wind was beginning to pick up. Ellie glanced towards the approaching storm. The sky was darkening.
CHAPTER 9
The alarm clock chimed with a soft, persistent tone and Ellie was awake almost instantly. She raised an arm. The clock’s motion sensor detected the movement and the holographic time display appeared in the middle of her habi-cube.
Ten past five in the morning. Sean was due in fifty minutes.
She climbed out of bed and silently dressed by the faint orange glow of the clock’s display. She pulled a shoulder bag out from under her bed and double-checked the contents; birth document and educational certificates, her money, voice-diary and several changes of clothes. Anything else would be merely dead weight, emotional clutter. Sean had told her to pack very little and travel light. The ticket price for the shuttle to New Haven would be extremely expensive however the surcharge on baggage weight would be astronomical.
There was little that Ellie felt she would want to bring anyway.
She zipped up the bag and slung it over her shoulder and was almost out of her cabin before she remembered her promise to Sean. From her desk drawer she pulled a mem-card out of her writing tablet and left it on her pillow where it would not easily be missed. She had written a brief note to Mum and Dad letting them know where she was going, apologizing for leaving this way and promising to write or call as soon as she was settled.
She had surprised herself with a few guilty tears whilst writing her letter…guilt for running out on them like this, without a hug or a kiss or a goodbye. She assured them she was going to be in good hands, Sean was with her, and helping her settle into the city. She cast one final glance around her room.
Not much to show for the twenty years of her life. Jonny, her stuffed tartan sausage dog, sat morosely on the end of her bed, one large cloth ear drooped miserably over his sewn-on button eyes. She picked him up and pushed him carefully into her bag. Jonny, threadbare and faded, had dutifully provided her comfort through her childhood years, soaking up tears and snot, patiently tolerating her baby gums and playing the silent participant in many a game of tug of war. She decided after so many years of sterling service, it was only fair he got to come along for the ride too.
Ellie tiptoed across the courtyard towards her dome, Betsy. As she pushed through the curtain of dangling plastic flaps she felt the warm humidity wrap itself around her. She checked the time again; it was fifteen minutes past the hour. She headed towards the exit hatch where her mask and O2 cylinder hung. She had refilled the cylinder last night so that it would give her a full hour and a half of oxygen. As she walked alongside a row of tubweeds one of them casually lashed out with its pod, catching her.
‘Ow! You little-,’
She felt her cheek. A small bump was beginning to rise. She decided there was enough time to indulge in one final, long overdue bit of payback.
‘Okay you pathetic little weed, if that’s how you want to thank me for all the tender loving care I’ve given you and your brothers, fine. This is how I’m going to thank you,’ she hissed under her breath, reached down to the base of the plant and began pulling it up out of the soil.
‘This is for all the stings, the hassle and generally being a nasty, shitty little plant.’
The tubweed began to writhe and twist in her hands, the pod swinging furiously, searching for a target. She heard the roots begin to snap beneath the soil. With one final tug she wrenched the plant out of the soil bed and threw it down on to the rubber matt floor of the dome. It continued to writhe pathetically for a few moments. The plant’s central stalk began to bend and it slowly curled up into what appeared to be a disturbingly good imitation of a human fetal position.
She felt a twinge of guilt at that.
As she continued down the row of plants towards the hatch, the other tubweeds swayed backwards slightly, keeping a respectful distance from her. It dawned on her that maybe Ted and Shona had at some point made an early sacrificial example of one of their plants and that was why their crops always seemed to behave so well for them.
Typical. She sighed. So NOW they want to be good little plants.
Well it was too late; a week of Ted’s heavy-handed care and they would all be pining for the good old days of Ellie’s tender regime.
She reached the hatchway, lifted her mask and cylinder off the hook and put it on. She turned around to take one last look at her dome. She hoped that Dad’s resolve to change things over would persist. At a time when the population was increasing dramatically, this world’s ability to feed itself was met only through the costly importation of synthetic protein from other worlds. Now was the time to be a farmer growing a food crop, not oxygen-farming. Soon, maybe as little as twenty to thirty years from now, the air on Harpers Reach would be enough that the enviro-domes planet-wide would be thrown off or torn down.
She opened the
hatch and quickly slipped out, closing it promptly behind her. As the hatch clicked and sealed with a hiss Ellie felt an overpowering surge of excitement.
‘Despite a hesitant start, Ms Ellie Quin is off the starting block and under way,’ she muttered quietly with a smile, vaguely remembering a children’s story about a hare and a tortoise.
She started to make her way up the rocky slope to the overlook. The purple night sky was beginning to lighten and the horizon to the north glowed with the distinctive pink of dawn approaching. Daylight was still an hour and a half away. She checked the time again. There were still thirty minutes until Sean was due. She was glad. That would give her a quiet half-hour to say goodbye to her home and family and this all-too small world of hers…and time to look towards the south and contemplate the new, much larger world ahead.
*
‘Come on Sean, where the freg are you?!’
Ellie checked the time again. It was nearly seven. The horizon was growing brighter and the new day was fast approaching. She strained her eyes to look for the telltale dust trail of his dirt-cat. She could see none. The air in her cylinder was not going to last much longer. She would have to head back down to the farm and get another one pretty soon. Ellie bit her lip in frustration. It was typical of her luck. He had arrived promptly for every study lesson she had had with him over the last four years, today he should bloody well choose to be late.
No choice. She decided to head back for some more oxygen right now whilst her family were still asleep rather than delay any longer. She scanned the horizon one last time.
Nothing.
‘Dammit.’
She let herself into the domestic dome as quietly as she could. She couldn’t hear any noises coming from Ted’s cabin, and he was always the first one up. She crept stealthily across the courtyard towards Shona’s dome. Beside her exit hatch there would be another oxygen cylinder. It would undoubtedly be full of oxygen since Shona rarely bothered with going outside. But it would also be horribly stale since she probably hadn’t checked it in months.
Ellie passed by the kitchen habi-cube and heard the soft digital chime of the v-phone. Someone had left a message.