Earth 2788 Read online

  The older girl was about my age. I pictured the life she had, and thought how it could have been mine too if the genetic dice had landed differently. I could have been growing up with a family on a distant world. I could have been portalling to Earth for a visit. I could have had everything, instead of …

  Issette gave me a painful jab with her elbow, and I turned to frown at her. “Ouch!”

  “Shhh,” she hissed. “Look over there!”

  She was pointing towards portal 7. Someone had obviously just arrived through it, because a set of hover bags were still appearing. I watched them chase after their owner and gather up in a group behind him, then looked at the owner himself and gasped. He was young, attractive, and dressed in clinging clothes that showed bare patches of skin in shocking places. I stared at him for a moment, totally grazzed, before turning my head away.

  “He must be from one of the planets in Beta sector,” said Issette, still happily studying him. “Nowhere else has clothes like that. He’s got to be filthy rich to dial interstellar instead of block portalling, so maybe he’s from their capital planet, Zeus. He’s got nice legs, hasn’t he?”

  She was using the polite word, “legs,” but I could tell from the way she said it that she really meant a far more private area. I frowned at her. “Issette, behave yourself!”

  She turned her head for a second to give me a wicked grin, before staring at the man again. “It’s not my fault he’s dressed like that, and everyone else is looking too.”

  I gave in to temptation and had another look myself. The man did have extremely nice legs, and you could see an awful lot of them! He was dark-haired, and I generally preferred men with the much rarer blond hair, but in this case I could definitely…

  At this point, a security guard hurried up, threw a blanket round the man’s shoulders, and had a whispered conversation with him. The man laughed, but nodded, and went off with the blanket wrapped firmly round him.

  Issette sighed. “Pity.”

  After that, we watched a group of young people come through portal 2, chattering to each other in the classic drawling voices of aristocratic Alphans. Judging from the snatches of conversation I could hear, they were pre-history students returning from a break on their home world. I was planning to study pre-history myself, so I listened avidly, trying to work out which of Earth’s ruined cities they’d be excavating. Since they’d portalled into Earth Europe Off-world, it was probably London, Paris Coeur or Berlin. Madrid Main Dig Site was still closed for clean up after an ancient storage facility had a major radioactive leak. Rome didn’t accept students. Budapest was …

  I heard the sound of someone shouting, and twisted round in my seat to look across at where people were entering Earth Europe Off-world the legal way through the security checks. A man clutching a plant was arguing with the guards. I shook my head in disbelief. Did he seriously expect to stroll through an interstellar portal carrying that? The dimmest of nardles should know that introducing random plants or animals to an alien world could cause havoc with the eco system. Even some of the most carefully planned introductions of Earth species to colony worlds had caused unexpected problems.

  Apparently this dim nardle truly didn’t know that, because he was shouting at the security guards so loudly now that everyone in the waiting area could hear him. “You’re a bunch of officious nuking idiots!”

  Issette turned to me and pulled a buggy-eyed, shocked face, which could either have been at the man’s stupidity or at him using the nuke word in public. I covered my mouth with both hands to stop myself laughing. If I was one of the security guards, I’d be strongly tempted to let the man try to take his precious plant through an interstellar portal. The bio-filters would instantly shut the portal down, and he’d be fined a fortune for attempting to breach interstellar quarantine.

  The security guards had a lot more patience than I did, because they just made soothing noises, took the offending plant into custody, and let the aggrieved traveller stalk off through portal 1 to Adonis.

  I was still exchanging grins with Issette when portal 7 came to life again. We both turned to see if this was another scantily-clad man from Beta sector, but this time it was a couple in the unremarkable clothes of Gamma sector. The woman was openly crying, uncaring of who might see her, and the man appeared to be torn between comforting her and keeping his distance. I’d worked out what was happening here even before an older woman in the formal grey and white uniform of a Hospital Earth Child Advocate hurried up to meet them.

  The man spoke before she could. “There’s no throwback genes in my family. This must be a ridiculous mistake, unless …”

  He turned to give a suspicious look at the crying woman, and she seemed to forget her tears as she glared at him in outrage. “There’s never been any apes in my family. It must be you!”

  The advocate hastily intervened. “Please remember that on Earth we prefer to use the official term, Handicapped, rather than derogatory slurs. I’m sorry, but there’s no mistake. Your son was born with a flawed immune system, so he can’t survive on any world other than Earth.”

  She paused for a moment. “There’s a random one in a thousand risk even with two normal parents, so this can happen to absolutely anyone, but you’ll be happy to hear your son was portalled here in time to save his life. He’s currently in a Hospital Earth Infant Crash Unit, but his condition should soon be stable enough for you to visit him. Before then, I’d like to give you information on all the options available to help parents move to Earth to be with their Handicapped babies.”

  The three of them headed off to the exit, with the advocate still talking in bracingly cheerful tones, but I could tell she was wasting her time. The man had a rigid, cold expression on his face, and the woman had the distant look of someone already rehearsing the speech she’d make to explain how she couldn’t possibly give up everything and move to Earth to take care of her son. She’d use the same excuses they all did, claiming it was nothing to do with the embarrassment or the damage to her lifestyle, but because she felt it was best to let the child grow up with his own kind.

  This couple were going to do what 92 per cent of the parents of Handicapped babies did. They were going to hand their son over to be raised as a ward of Hospital Earth, turn their backs on the reject, and walk away. That was what my parents had done when I was born. That was what Issette’s parents had done. That was what the parents of all my friends at Next Step had done.

  I turned to look at portals 9 and 10 for the first time. They were dark, but occasionally their lights would blink as they relayed a portal signal for an incoming medical emergency, sending a newborn Handicapped baby directly to a Hospital Earth Infant Crash Unit.

  I glanced at Issette’s face, saw she was on the verge of tears, and stood up. “We’d better go now.”

  We walked back to the door hidden behind the food dispensers. I’d just entered the code into the lock plate, and was opening the door, when I heard a sudden shout.

  “Hey! Where are you going?”

  I looked round, and saw a security guard heading towards us. I grabbed Issette’s hand, dragged her through the door with me, and kicked it closed behind us. Hopefully, the guard wouldn’t know the code to open the door and …

  There was a series of clicks from the lock plate, and I saw the door start opening again. I groaned, turned, and ran down the corridor, tugging Issette along with me. The ceiling glows overhead were automatically turning on for us, just as they’d done earlier, but now we were moving too fast for them. We were running on the edge of darkness, with the pool of light always a pace or two behind us. I could hear the sound of heavy footsteps chasing after us, and noisy, irregular gasps for breath from Issette. Was she breathing like that because of the physical effort of running, or because she was about to panic?

  There was a dark shadow on the wall to my left. A side corridor! I turned and skidded into it, towing Issette with me. I was hoping that we could hide while the guard ran past us, but
of course the glows overhead started turning on, signalling our location.

  “Nuke it!” I cursed my own stupidity and ran on, taking another couple of random turns. We’d been moving faster than the guard to start with, but now I was horribly aware the footsteps behind us were getting steadily closer. Our best chance would be to split up, because a single guard could only chase one of us, but I couldn’t leave Issette on her own in the darkness.

  I was expecting to be grabbed from behind at any moment, when the sound of footsteps suddenly stopped. I risked turning my head for a second, and saw the guard standing still, leaning against the wall and panting for breath.

  “He’s given up!” I said.

  We ran on down another couple of corridors, before stopping to rest and get our breath back. I was rejoicing in our escape, when Issette spoke in a shaky voice.

  “Is it far to the way out?”

  There was a sick feeling in my stomach as I tried to remember all the turnings we’d taken during the chase. We must be far away from the route we’d used to get to the Off-world. I tried to keep my voice calm and confident as I answered her.

  “There are several ways out. Let me check the plans on my lookup to work out which is closest.”

  I tapped my lookup, and stared at the maze of corridors. We’d taken a right turn, run past two more turnings, taken a left, and then … No, according to the plan, the left turn we’d taken didn’t exist. Either I’d forgotten something, or I’d missed seeing some side turnings in the darkness. I couldn’t work out where we were, or even which direction we should be going. There was a numbered door nearby, but that didn’t help because there were no numbers on my plan.

  I daren’t tell Issette that we were lost. If we kept going straight on, then we must get somewhere eventually. If we didn’t … Well, we could use our lookups to call for help, but we’d be in an awful lot of trouble.

  “We go this way,” I said.

  I led the way down the corridor to the next junction and went straight on. At the next two junctions, we went straight on again, but at the third we had to turn left or right. I’d just decided to go right, when there was a cry of delight from Issette. I turned to look at her, and saw she was pointing to a faded sign on the wall. A fire exit sign!

  We followed the sign down the corridor to the left, found another sign pointing to the right, and a corridor that ended in a red door. I waved my hand at the door release, the door opened, and a combination of heat and bright sunlight hit us as we went through it. We’d escaped!

  I stopped and shielded my eyes with one hand as I looked around. We were standing outside a massive building, its grey flexiplas wall dotted with small doorways and windows. At the far end of it, I could see some much larger doors, and a huge sign saying “Earth Europe Off-world”. If we wanted to, Issette and I could come back when we were 18, go in through those doors and see those ten chunky portals again. What we couldn’t do, what we could never do however old we were, was walk through one of the portals.

  I knew exactly what would happen if we did, because Hospital Earth allowed its wards one attempt at portalling off world when they were 14, to prove there hadn’t been a mistake in diagnosing them as Handicapped. I’d been one of the very few fool enough to try it. I’d portalled from a hospital rather than an Off-world, arrived on an Alpha sector world, collapsed into the arms of the waiting medical team, and been thrown back through the portal. Things were a bit hazy for a while after that, but I remembered enough pain to make me absolutely certain I never wanted to try it again.

  Interstellar portals were for the norms, not for me and my friends. Whether you called us the officially polite but sneering word, Handicapped, or the open insults like throwback and ape, didn’t change anything. Every other handicap could be screened out or fixed before birth, but the doctors couldn’t do anything about this one. There were over eleven hundred inhabited planets spread across six different sectors of space, but we were imprisoned on Earth. Any other world would kill us within minutes.

  Alpha Sector 2788 - Dalmora

  Danae, Alpha sector, June 2788.

  I’d had a new sari for every birthday, and they’d all been beautiful, but the one for my eighteenth birthday was truly breathtaking. It was floor length, in my favourite white and burgundy, and covered in intricate, shimmering, embroidered patterns. I twirled round, my waist-long black hair flying around me, admiring myself in the twin full-length mirrors in the corner of my bedroom, while my three younger sisters sat on my bed watching me with awe.

  “You look dazzling, Dalmora,” said Asha.

  “Absolutely lovely,” said Sitara.

  “Totally zan!” cried Diya, far too loudly.

  She instantly slapped her hand over her mouth, and we all turned to look at the door, holding our breath in case Mother had been close enough to hear that. After a couple of minutes, the bedroom door still hadn’t opened, so we all relaxed and collapsed on the bed in a fit of giggles.

  I finally calmed down, and guiltily remembered I was about to become an 18-year-old. Here on Danae, no one was considered fully adult until 25, but 18 was an important first step in growing up. The sari I was wearing, that of an adult woman rather than a girl, symbolized that. I’d be able to stand at my mother’s side at her formal parties, welcoming the guests. I’d be able to apply for courses at University Danae. I’d even be able to vote, though naturally my vote would only count for half as much as a full adult.

  It was totally wrong of me to encourage Diya by giggling with the others. I should be setting her a good example and helping my mother teach her the correct standards of behaviour. “You really must stop using slang, Diya,” I said. “You know how much Mother hates it.”

  She pulled a sulky face. “It’s not fair. The children in the vids I watch all use slang, and nobody nags at them.”

  I frowned, wondering if I should ask exactly what vids Diya had been watching, but decided it was better if I didn’t know. “I expect those children live on very different worlds to ours. You mustn’t get into the habit of using slang, Diya. It’s not just that Mother doesn’t like it; you know you’ll get into trouble at school as well. The Academy is very strict about not allowing its pupils to use slang.”

  Diya pulled a face. “The Academy rules don’t even make sense. The teachers scold us for saying amaz instead of amazing, but then they complain if we say something is interesting instead of saying interest. Why do they do that? If we’re supposed to speak formal Language at all times, then saying interest or fascinate should be as wrong as any other slang.”

  My youngest sister had a habit of asking awkward questions. Father said it was because Diya was highly intelligent, with an analytical, enquiring mind. Mother said it was because Diya liked being difficult. Right now, my sympathies were with Mother. I hesitated, trying to think of a good answer.

  “Saying fascinate is an accepted modification of formal Language used in the highest social circles in Alpha sector,” I said at last.

  “So Mother wants to stop us using slang that’s in common usage on all eleven or twelve hundred worlds of humanity, and encourage us to use slang that’s only used by aristocrats on the capital planet of Alpha sector.” Diya sighed. “What’s the point in that? Even if we visit Adonis, we’re hardly likely to meet any Adonis Knights.”

  “It’s not just used on Adonis,” said Asha. “It’s used in the first social circles here on Danae. That’s why the Academy insists on us using it.”

  “I hate going to the Academy,” said Diya.

  Nobody bothered to answer that. The Academy was the finest, most expensive, and most exclusive school for girls on Danae. Mother had attended the Academy. Both our grandmothers had attended the Academy. That meant we all had to attend the Academy as well.

  Diya wrinkled her nose. “You all hate going to the Academy too, don’t you?”

  “It has impressive gardens,” said Asha.

  “But you hate going there,” said Diya.

  “I
t has fine architecture,” said Sitara.

  “But you hate going there,” repeated Diya.

  Asha and Sitara both looked at me. What could I say? The Academy was famous for its glorious flowerbeds and genuine marble pillars, but it was a miserably strict place, with people constantly watching you and criticizing your behaviour, your stance, your accent, even how you were breathing.

  I did the cowardly thing, and evaded the question entirely. “I’ve taken my final examinations, so I’m not attending the Academy any longer.”

  Diya made an inelegant snorting noise that would have earned her a week’s detention if any of the Academy’s teachers had heard her. “But …”

  She was interrupted by the sound of the clock in the hall chiming half past one. It was a totally accurate reproduction of an ancient nineteenth century clock, apart from the adjustment to allow for the length of a day on Danae being slightly different to the length of a day on Earth.

  All four of us stood up, checked our appearance in the mirror, and filed out of the room. Mother was already waiting for us in the hall, so the four of us lined up facing the house portal. Mother adjusted the folds of our saris, and tidied Diya’s hair, before taking her place next to us. We all looked expectantly at the portal for the next thirty seconds, then there was a series of musical notes. It was a moment before we realized they weren’t actually coming from the portal, but the front door instead.

  We all hastily swung round to face the door, and Mother gave the faintest of groans before speaking. “Front door command open.”

  The door swung open, my grandmother entered, and Mother stepped forward to greet her. “Welcome, Mother Rostha.”

  She paused before continuing in a pointed voice. “There’s no need to arrive using the public portal outside, Mother Rostha. The house portal is set to accept your genetic code, so you can portal straight into the house.”

  Grandmother frowned at Mother’s sari, and adjusted its folds before answering. “I keep forgetting you have a private portal. So few people find it necessary to have such a luxury.”