Earth and Air Page 2

  “Show me your right forearm,” she demanded.

  I gazed at her in bewilderment. “What do you mean?”

  “Show me your right forearm,” she repeated. “I need to see your birthmark.”

  Now I understood what was happening. The woman was a baby hunter. This type of thing had happened to me twice before, once with a woman and once with a man. The first time, I was a 4-year-old playing outside my Nursery, believed the woman really was my mother, and was broken-hearted when she decided my nose was the wrong shape and walked away. The second time, I was much older, so I’d not just had the standard warnings in school about baby hunters, but learned to use anger as a defence against emotional pain.

  I used that defence now. I wanted to tell the woman to nuke off, but I knew that I mustn’t. If an off-worlder reported me to Hospital Earth for swearing at her, I’d get sent back to my Next Step for the summer break, or even sent to Correctional. I kept my words grudgingly polite, and let my hostile tone of voice show my feelings.

  “I haven’t got a birthmark.”

  “Show me your right forearm,” she ordered for the third time.

  “No!” I glared at her.

  The woman grabbed my arm in a bruising grip, but I shook her hand off, and dodged backwards. “Leave me alone!”

  Totally undeterred, she stepped forward and tried to grab my arm again. I forgot all my good intentions about staying polite and started screaming at her. “Stop mauling me! You can nuke ...!”

  “Jarra!” Crozier’s voice interrupted me at the crucial moment, and he hurried up to stand between me and the woman. “What’s going on here?”

  “My daughter was born in January 2771.” The woman pointed at me. “This girl has to be her. She looks the right age, and her hair and face are the image of mine as a child.”

  Crozier’s voice had an icy edge. “I assume your daughter was born with a faulty immune system so she couldn’t survive on any world other than Earth. She was portalled here to save her life, and you chose to make her a ward of Hospital Earth rather than move here to raise her yourself.”

  “Yes, my daughter was born Handicapped,” said the woman. “I had no choice but to hand her over to Hospital Earth. The faulty genes obviously came from my partner rather than me, but it was still an embarrassing situation, and it would have been inconvenient for me to move to Earth back then.”

  She shrugged. “My circumstances have changed now though. My work is allowing me a six-month break to write a textbook, so I’ve decided to spend that time on Earth and have my daughter living with me. There’s no need for that to cause any awkwardness with my friends and work colleagues. If I’m careful about sending messages while I’m here, I can make them believe that I’m on Adonis or Danae.”

  I bit my lip. The woman had dumped her inconveniently faulty baby, exactly the same way that my unknown parents had dumped me. Now she’d decided to spend six months on Earth, and reclaim the girl as if she was an item of lost property. She planned to drag her daughter away from her Next Step, her school, and all her friends, and then dump the girl again when she went back to her work on another world. She didn’t care how her daughter would feel about that. Only her own feelings mattered.

  “Hospital Earth refused to tell me where my daughter was,” continued the woman. “They said she’d had the right to contact me since she was 14, but she’d chosen not to do that, and I had to accept her decision. I didn’t give up though. I knew I could find my daughter myself and I have.”

  “Humanity currently has over a thousand colony worlds,” said Crozier, in a voice of forced patience. “A billion babies are born each year on those worlds, and a million of them will have the immune system problem that means they can only survive on Earth. You can’t possibly find your daughter by stopping girls at random. You’ll just cause distress to yourself and others.”

  “I have found my daughter.” The woman stared at me with a hungry expression. “I just need to confirm it by checking the birthmark on her right forearm.”

  “I’ve already told you that I don’t have a birthmark on my right forearm,” I said.

  “Prove it then,” she ordered.

  I groaned, rolled up my sleeve, and waved my bare arm at her. “See. No birthmark. Now leave me alone!”

  The woman turned and hurried off without another word. I knew she’d keep searching the transits of Earth until she found another girl with rebellious black hair like mine, and then demand to see her forearm.

  “I hope that woman didn’t distress you too much, Jarra,” said Crozier.

  I tried to keep my voice calm. “I’m not distressed. I’m just furious that I had to be polite to her.”

  “I’m your acting guardian while you’re on this trip. If you wish, I can register an official harassment complaint against that woman with Hospital Earth.”

  “It’s no use registering a complaint against a norm off-worlder,” I said bitterly. “The main board of Hospital Earth are all norm off-worlders too, so they’ll let that woman carry on harassing all the Handicapped kids she wants.”

  I was relieved that Crozier’s lookup chose this moment to chime. He checked the screen and waved at everyone. “We’ve been cleared to portal into the New York Fringe reception area now. If you manage to get left behind, remember that you mustn’t try to dial the portal yourself, you have to call me at once.”

  We all picked up our bags and followed Crozier towards the nearest local portal. Wren had given up carrying her bag and was dragging it along the floor beside her. Most people took the sensible approach of going on their first trip with the history club during either the spring or autumn break, rather than leaping straight into joining the longer summer trip, so we only had three first-timers with us.

  The third of them, a 14-year-old boy called Landon, took a step closer to Wren, and opened his mouth to speak. They would obviously already know each other from their time in the junior history club, so I assumed Landon was going to offer to help Wren with her bag. I was startled when he laughed, pointed at her, and spoke in a jeering voice.

  “Amaz! Baby Wren can’t even carry her own bag. I don’t know why Crozier agreed to bring her on this trip. She doesn’t belong on a dig site, but in a Nursery unit!”

  I frowned my disapproval of Landon bullying someone two years younger than him. Crozier was frowning too, and opened his mouth to say something, but Wren was already shouting her retaliation.

  “Shut up, big mouth! You know that I got a commendation when I took my dig site gold safety award, while you barely scraped a pass. That means I’m more entitled to be on this trip than you are.”

  I revised my opinion of the situation. This didn’t seem to be as simple as Landon bullying someone two years younger than him, but more like an ongoing feud between two equally matched parties.

  Crozier gave one of his heavy, meaningful coughs, and tried speaking again. “I’ve already warned you two that I insist on you being civil to each other on this trip. I don’t want to hear you throwing insults at each other again. Understand?”

  There were grudging mutters from both Landon and Wren.

  Crozier faced Landon. “The usual age for a first trip with the history club is 14, Landon, but I allow younger pupils to come if they can convince me of their commitment and ability. Jarra was only 11 when she first came on a history club trip, and I admit I was concerned about taking someone so young with us, but she proved herself a valuable team member. I’m sure that Wren will do just as well.”

  Wren gave me an oddly eager look, and I turned my head to avoid her gaze. Now I knew why the girl made me feel so uncomfortable. It was because she reminded me of myself six years ago. The history club had gone to New York Fringe Dig Site that summer too. I’d been three years younger than everyone else, surrounded by strangers, terrified that I’d got myself into something I couldn’t handle, and broadcasting aggression to hide my fear.

  Crozier had just said I’d proved myself a valuable team member on tha
t trip, but I couldn’t forget the way I’d struggled back then, all the mistakes I’d made, and the events of one particularly devastating day.

  Crozier was dialling the portal now. As soon as it flared to life, he led the way through. One by one, the others followed him, until only Wren and I were left. She dragged her bag up to the portal, and hesitated for a moment before lifting her head defiantly and stepping through.

  I pulled a face. Wren wouldn’t have an easy time on this trip, and her feud with Landon was bound to cause extra problems, but it had been her decision to come along. Now she’d either muddle her way through the summer like I’d done, or run away crying. Either way, I couldn’t help her. I was good at practical things, but couldn’t deal with my own emotions let alone those of other people.

  I picked up my bag and walked through the portal myself.

  Chapter Two

  The reception area of New York Fringe Command Centre was so crowded with people that I couldn’t even see the reception desk. There were at least four other school parties here, as well as a small group of older men and women who must be hobby archaeologists.

  The statistics said that over half of us on this history club trip would end up as hobby archaeologists, making something else our main career, and relegating our love of history to second place in our lives, but I was determined that wouldn’t happen to me.

  I wouldn’t settle for second best, and become part of an amateur group that spent occasional holidays and weekends working on the fringe dig sites. I was going to be a professional archaeologist unearthing lost secrets of history. I was going to work on the main dig sites in the lethal hearts of ruined cities like New York, London, Shanghai, New Tokyo, and Paris Coeur. More than that, I was going to be among the select few archaeologists who were amateur pilots as well, flying aircraft over the dig sites to help survey the ruins and find clues to hidden dangers and lost treasures of the past.

  A dark-haired young man in an official Dig Site Federation uniform came up to us. “Which school?” he asked.

  “E249/1217,” said Crozier.

  The man peered at his lookup, nodded, and stabbed at the screen with his forefinger. “Please find yourselves a free corner and wait. This could take a while.”

  There weren’t any corners free. In fact, there weren’t really any corners at all since the reception area was just one big circular dome linked to the rest of New York Fringe Command Centre by a couple of corridors. Crozier led us over to a spot next to the wall, and we formed a tightly huddled group around him, either lounging on the floor or sitting on our bags.

  Crozier coughed to get our attention. “America runs on Green time minus five hours, so we’ve gone from early evening in Europe to early afternoon here. I’ll hand out your biorhythm adjustment meds now, and I want you all to take them rather than hiding them in your pocket and falling asleep on the dig site tomorrow.”

  He gave a pointed look at me, and everyone laughed. I sighed heavily. It was two years since I’d fallen asleep on a dig site, but it was still one of the history club running jokes. I felt it was especially unfair since I hadn’t been working myself that morning, just watching the others. I hadn’t actually fallen asleep either. I’d just closed my eyes for a moment or two.

  I consoled myself with the thought that my skin was darker than Radley’s, so my blushes weren’t nearly as obvious as his.

  Crozier handed out small blue tablets, pausing to watch me suspiciously while I swallowed mine. I noticed that Wren didn’t seem keen on taking tablets either.

  “As you can see, the New York Fringe Command Centre is overloaded with arriving parties,” continued Crozier. “Yesterday was the last day of the summer break for schools in America, so all the American school parties checked out of New York Fringe. Today is the first day of the summer break for schools in Europe, so all the European school parties are checking in.”

  He grimaced. “We may have a very long wait for our group to be processed. You will all be quiet and well behaved during that wait, smiling at the reception staff, and being polite even if they ask you the same question three times. Back in the summer of 2784, one of the history club members was rude to the reception staff here, and we were allocated a dome with only one functioning bathroom. If you want to know the full details about it, you can ask Jarra. She was on that trip, and I’m sure she remembers every hideous moment.”

  I shuddered. Four years later, the nightmare memories hadn’t dimmed. I’d probably still remember them when I reached my hundredth.

  “It was two weeks before the maintenance staff got the bathrooms working properly,” I said. “The biggest problem wasn’t the endless queues for the one functioning bathroom, but the smell from the other two. After the first night, we all took sleep sacks out to the sled storage dome and slept there.”

  For the next half an hour, we talked to each other in whispers, and put on angelic expressions whenever anyone in a Dig Site Federation uniform even glanced in our direction. Eventually, someone shouted the magic words. “School E249/1217.”

  We all raised our hands in unison.

  The young man we’d seen when we arrived came over, brandishing a lookup in one hand and a scanner in the other. He scowled at the lookup. “Sunesh Atwal.”

  Sunesh waved at him. “Here.”

  The man scanned him, and then touched the scanner and the lookup together. The lookup bleeped. “Sunesh Atwal, your genetic code is now authorized for New York Fringe access. Meiling Huang.”

  “Here.” Meiling was duly scanned and authorized.

  “Jarra Reeath,” said the man.

  I frowned. My genetic code was already authorized for access to New York Fringe, but I remembered the horrors of the non-functional bathrooms and decided it was safer not to argue. “Here.”

  I was scanned, the man tapped his scanner on his lookup, and there was an odd, squelching noise. He blinked, stared at the lookup, and shook his head. “This can’t be right. It says your genetic code was authorized for access in 2782.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “I was here with the school history club in 2782 and again in 2784.”

  The man looked at me as if he was suddenly seeing me as a person rather than an object to be scanned. He stuck his scanner in his pocket, and tapped at his lookup for a minute. “You’ve been to an amaz lot of dig sites, Jarra. I thought I was doing well going to my first dig site when I was only 13, but 11 is incredible.”

  He paused to give me an engaging grin. “I’m Felipe by the way. I finished my specialist degree course last Year End, and I’ve been helping out at some of the fringe dig sites while I’m waiting to join one of University Earth’s research teams.”

  My eyes widened. If Felipe had finished his degree course last Year End, then he must be five years older than me, and he was doing exactly what I hoped to do in five years’ time, becoming a research archaeologist.

  “You’ve got a spot on a research team? Totally zan! Which one?”

  “I’ll be joining Earth 28 next month,” he said. “I know that isn’t one of the legendarily famous research teams like Earth 1 or Earth 2, but it’s still a great opportunity.”

  I nodded eagerly. “You’ve done brilliantly. How did you manage to ...?”

  Felipe’s lookup bleeped, he glanced at its screen, and groaned. “Oh chaos, there’s yet another crisis. Sorry, Jarra, I have to get back to work.”

  There was a strange silence while Felipe bustled around scanning the rest of our group. When he’d finally finished and gone, everyone looked furtively after him before bursting out laughing.

  “What’s the joke?” I asked.

  Meiling pulled a face at me. “We were told to smile at the reception staff, Jarra, not throw ourselves at their feet and worship them in awe.”

  “We shouldn’t just get a dome that’s in good repair, but one that’s gold-plated after that,” said Owen.

  A magnified voice spoke from an overhead speaker. “School E249/1217, your dome is now availabl
e. The registered party leader should collect the key cards from the reception desk.”

  “I’ll be back in a minute.” Crozier hurried off through the crowd.

  “Amaz,” said Owen. “Our gold-plated dome is ready.”

  I glowered at him. “Shut up, Owen!”

  We all put away our lookups, stood up, and picked up our bags, except for Wren who was preparing to drag hers again. I hoped it wouldn’t fall apart under the strain.

  Crozier reappeared, beckoned to us, and led us across to a New York Fringe internal portal. “We’ve got dome 14. I’m sending you through the portal ahead of me. When you arrive, remember to immediately move out of the portal room into the corridor to clear the arrival zone for the rest of us. You can wait for me in the dome hall.”

  Crozier set the portal destination, and it flared to life. I was the fourth person to go through. The second I stepped through to our destination, I heard Owen repeating the same tedious joke.

  “It’s just an ordinary, boringly grey, flexiplas dome. They could have at least painted it gold and ... Ow!”

  “Sorry,” I said. “Did I accidentally drop my bag on your foot?”

  I headed out into the corridor, and Owen limped after me. Dezi and Meiling were already there. They looked at Owen’s exaggerated limp and then at me.

  “What did you do to him, Jarra?” asked Meiling.

  “Ignore Owen,” said Dezi. “He’s making a fuss over nothing.”

  “I’m not making a fuss over nothing,” said Owen. “I’m seriously injured. Jarra dropped her bag on my foot deliberately.”

  “You’re not just overacting, but limping on the wrong foot too,” I said.

  He glared at me but stopped faking the limp. The other Seventeens arrived to join us, and we wandered on towards the dome hall. The walls of Hospital Earth residences were all coloured a depressing, institutional, pale green. The walls of dig site domes were the even more depressing grey of uncoloured flexiplas.