Frontier Page 5

  The track divided into two now. I waved goodbye to Cella, and took the turning that led through my parents’ fields. A couple of minutes later, my lookup chimed. I reached for it, peered at the screen to check who was calling me, and felt an odd sensation in my stomach when I saw it was Rodrish Jain.

  I’d told the boy to call me again tomorrow if he was serious about his offer of marriage. If he was calling me now then it must mean he’d sobered up, was regretting what he’d done, and wanted to tell me it was all a mistake.

  Given I’d never considered marrying Rodrish Jain before today, it was ridiculous of me to find this so disappointing. I had to pull myself together, forget my hurt feelings, and concentrate on getting through the embarrassing call without making an idiot of myself.

  I took a deep breath and tapped my lookup.

  Chapter Five

  Rodrish’s face appeared on my lookup screen. I wasn’t sure if the lookup’s display was getting worse, or it was the effect of the moonlight, but he looked even greener than last time.

  “I know you told me to call you tomorrow,” he said, “but it’s nearly midnight. I’m perfectly sober now, and I was starting to get nervous again so ... Chaos, I’m messing this up for the third time.”

  Those words had to mean that he hadn’t changed his mind. I laughed in relief. “No, you aren’t. I’m happy with you calling me now as long as you’re sober.”

  “I’m definitely sober,” said Rodrish. “Military Major Mason Morston made many mauve Mirandan moon monkeys march magically. You can’t possibly say that if you’re drunk.”

  “So you’ve called because you still want to offer me marriage?” I asked.

  He nodded eagerly.

  “In that case, you can show me your farm tomorrow morning.” I gave the traditional response of a girl who was considering accepting an offer.

  Rodrish smiled in delight. My words hadn’t totally committed me to marrying him, but they were an assurance that I wouldn’t turn him down lightly.

  “What’s the nearest portal to your farm, Rodrish?” I asked.

  “River North 2.” He hesitated a second before rushing on. “It’s quite a long way from the portal to my farm, but please don’t let that worry you. If you like, I can bring horses and we can ride to the farm.”

  I’d never been confident on horseback, so I didn’t want to complicate the visit by having to ride a strange horse. “I’d prefer to walk,” I said hastily. “I’ll meet you by River North 2 portal at about nine o’clock tomorrow morning.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Rodrish’s face grinned at me for a few seconds longer, and then my lookup screen went blank as he ended the call.

  I looked up at the glorious sky of Miranda, with the familiar constellations of the whirlpool, the fisherman, and the glow. For months, I’d been trying to resign myself to marrying some respectable man who would always be second best. Now the seemingly impossible had happened. Rodrish Jain had offered me marriage, and I felt almost dizzy with happiness.

  I’d no regrets about giving up the idea of spending years studying on another world to become a history lecturer. It had been foolish of me to ask Guiren about his home world, because I couldn’t believe a word he said, but Cella had confirmed all the negative things I’d heard from other incoming colonists. Other worlds were harsh, unfriendly places, and the people there would look down on a frontier girl like me. If I tried studying at one of their universities, I’d be even more of a failure than Cella had been at her old school.

  There was no point in me becoming a history lecturer anyway. I enjoyed reading about history, but Miranda had no need for historians. It was only thirty-one years since Kellan and Inessa Jain had led the first colonists to this world, and twenty-one years since it opened for full colonization. We were building the future here. We were making history, not studying it.

  I would stay on Miranda, with the people and the frontier life that I loved. As a 7-year-old child, I’d been fiercely proud to help mix the fast setting concraz for the foundations of the first dome of Jain’s Ford School. A week later, I was sitting at a desk in that dome having my first school lesson. Every time I walked through Jain’s Ford Settlement, I could look at the buildings and feel a glow of satisfaction that I’d helped lay the foundations, assemble the walls, or fit the doors of so many of them.

  Let others go to the distant worlds of legend and struggle to adjust to the demands and pressures of their university classes. I’d stay with the wonderful night sky of Miranda, and share my life with Rodrish Jain.

  I walked on through my parents’ fields, thinking of how Rodrish and I would work together to make a farm that was just as good as this one. To one side of me was a flourishing field of medcorn, on the other were rows of Mirandan almond bushes interplanted with rows of Mirandan cabbage. The occasional trees along the track side were Earth species, with spreading branches rather than fronds, and there was the peaceful sound of water splashing in the nearby stream.

  I paused to look anxiously at the field of almond bushes. The year on Miranda was twenty-two Earth months long. Since the winters were very mild, most crops gave two harvests a year. The smaller harvest was in spring, and now we were only two months away from the larger harvest of autumn.

  For spring harvest, I’d persuaded my father to experiment with growing a small area of almond bushes. The false fruits had done well, but only half the bushes had continued on to bear almonds. Even that patchy result had been very profitable though. The luxury food markets in Alpha and Beta sectors paid high prices for Mirandan almonds.

  My father had been so impressed by that first experiment that he’d decided to expand to having a whole field of Mirandan almonds for the autumn harvest. In late spring, my whole family right down to the 6-year-old twins had put in weeks of work taking cuttings from our existing bushes, planting them in rows, and lovingly watering them.

  Those new bushes had grown to full size with the usual startling speed of Mirandan plants, and now they were smothered with the orange false fruits. Everything depended on the moon monkeys now. If they came to eat the ripening false fruits, their eagerly nibbling teeth would break open the pollen pods hidden under each fruit. Those would explode, covering the moon monkey’s glowing faces and long red tongues with sticky yellow almond pollen, to be carried on with them from bush to bush.

  What troubled me was that I couldn’t see a single moon monkey in this field. Moon monkeys weren’t totally nocturnal – a troop could come bouncing across the fields at any hour of day or night, calling out to each other in high-pitched piping noises as they nosily investigated any unusual sight or sound – but the first few hours after sunset was when they were at their most active. There should be at least a few of them here now.

  The explanation could just be that most of the false fruits weren’t properly ripe yet. It was hard not to worry though. Pollination time for the almond bushes only lasted two or three weeks. If the moon monkeys came and ate the false fruits, the true almonds would grow and my family would make a small fortune from the autumn harvest. If the moon monkeys didn’t come, there’d be no almonds, and we’d have given up the reliable income of a whole field of medcorn for nothing.

  Losing that income wouldn’t mean disaster for my family, but we’d have to economize in lots of small ways for the next year. There’d be no new clothes, no oddments from the store, no recharging of the home power unit that gave us electricity. Water would have to be carried to the house instead of pumped from the stream, cooking would be done on the old log burning stove, clothes would have to be washed by hand, and there’d be no hiring of machines to help with the farm work.

  If that happened, if my family had a year of hardship ahead of them, then it would be my fault. I’d been the one who’d encouraged my father to try growing Mirandan almonds. I’d been the one who studied every scrap of information about them. I’d been the one who’d told my father to plant rows of Mirandan cabbage between the bushes, and regularly dig over
a patch of clay soil to make sure it was easy for the moon monkeys to eat. If any crucial detail was wrong in this field, it was my mistake.

  The fact I’d probably be married by autumn harvest and living on Rodrish Jain’s farm made me feel even worse. I’d be walking off and leaving my family to struggle with the financial consequences of my failure.

  I was still standing there, lost in my guilty thoughts, when I caught a faint scent on the wind. Smoke!

  I looked round in alarm. In theory, there shouldn’t be any risk of fire at the moment. There’d been plenty of rain lately – we’d had one of the typical Mirandan summer downpours only two days ago – but I could definitely smell smoke. It took me a moment to see the fire, because there were no proper flames, just a few embers glowing in the darkness close to the stream.

  I hurried to investigate, coming to an abrupt halt as I saw the fire that had been carefully built on the stones by the water’s edge. There was a man sleeping next to it. He had his back to me, so I couldn’t see his face, just a tangle of black hair, but his jacket was lying on the ground and the gleam of the firelight reflecting on metal told me who this must be.

  I backed slowly away from the man, moving as silently as possible to avoid waking him, then turned and walked back to the track. It was much too late to do anything tonight. I’d have to wait until the morning to tell my parents that Captain Koulsy Mobele was camping on our land.

  Chapter Six

  I woke at half past six the next morning. I usually shared a bedroom with my three oldest sisters, but after a late night working at Mojay’s Bar I slept on a mattress in the cupboard-sized room where my mother stored the linen. In theory, that meant I wouldn’t be disturbed when the rest of my family got up at six o’clock, and could slumber on until my lookup alarm went off at eight. In reality, something always woke me up before then.

  On this particular morning, what woke me up was a small foot treading painfully hard on my stomach. I shot upwards into a sitting position, grabbed the offending foot, and shoved it aside.

  “What the chaos are you doing in my cupboard?”

  “We can’t find Tellon Blaze,” said one twin.

  “We’ve looked everywhere else,” said the other.

  I yawned and rubbed my eyes. The only Tellon Blaze I knew was the legendary hero who fought the chimera back in the twenty-sixth century. I was sure I’d have noticed if he was sharing my cupboard. “Who is Tellon Blaze?”

  The twins gave me matching snub-nosed, reproachful looks. One of them was a boy and the other was a girl, but at 6 years old it was still hard to tell them apart.

  “Tellon Blaze is our panda mouse,” they chorused. “Someone left the cage open.”

  “Oh.” Panda mice were popular pets. As well as being impossibly cute, they only needed water, a few fresh leaves, and an old shoe to keep them happy.

  I’d known the twins had a panda mouse, but last week they’d been calling it Fru Fru. I didn’t bother asking why Fru Fru had suddenly had a name change to Tellon Blaze, just crawled to the end of the mattress where I’d left my shoes and tipped them upside down.

  There was the distinctive mooping sound of a displeased panda mouse, and Tellon Blaze tumbled out onto my mattress. The twins screeched their delight, scooped up the legendary hero of humanity, and carried him off to his cage.

  I yawned. There didn’t seem much point in trying to get back to sleep now. I was working out what day it was, and which chores I’d be doing, when I remembered the events of yesterday. I’d agreed to meet Rodrish Jain and see his farm this morning!

  A weird, fluttering feeling hit my stomach. I’d plenty of experience of turning down marriage proposals, but accepting one was entirely new territory. I knew the standard routine, every girl did, but the fact Rodrish Jain was the son of one of the Founding Families of Miranda complicated things.

  I tried to thrust that thought aside while I got washed and dressed, only to have it bounce back and hit me in the face when I looked in the mirror. I wanted to make myself especially attractive for Rodrish Jain today, wear something flattering instead of my everyday plain navy or brown clothes, but everyone would start asking questions if I wore my best clothes on a school day.

  I pulled a face at my reflection, battled to imprison my unruly hair in its plait, and headed downstairs to the kitchen. All the rest of my family were sitting at the table, finishing eating their breakfasts. I helped myself to eggs and a piece of bread. There were several conversations going on at once, the baby was trying to join in by repeating the word “mush” over and over again, and the twins were furtively kicking each other under the table. There was no point in waiting for a quiet moment, so I made my announcement in my loudest barmaid’s voice.

  “When I was coming home last night, I saw Captain Koulsy Mobele camping by the stream in our almond field.”

  There was instant silence from everyone except the baby. “Mush,” he shouted, obviously enjoying the sound of the word. “Mush, mush, mush!”

  Father stood up. “You’re sure it was Captain Mobele? Falling Rock Settlement sent out a message saying he’d left their area, but they thought he’d gone up river.”

  “I’m sure,” I said. “I saw the medals on his jacket.”

  “It’s best if the Mayor contacts the Military about this. I’ll give her a call.” Father took his lookup from his pocket, and tapped at it as he walked out of the room.

  Mother stood up as well. “It’s a pity we’ve only got yesterday’s bread.”

  “Can we go and see Captain Mobele?” asked one of the twins.

  “Certainly not!” said Mother. “None of you younger ones are to go anywhere near the almond field while he’s camping there.”

  “Why?” asked the other twin.

  “Because Captain Mobele doesn’t want to talk to you.”

  “Why?” chorused both the twins.

  My eldest brother stood up. “Because he doesn’t want irritating brats constantly asking him ‘why, why, why.’ Quiet now, twins. You’ve got chickens to feed before you go to early shift school. Chore time, everyone.”

  There was a clatter of chairs as my other brothers and sisters got to their feet and followed my eldest brother out of the kitchen door. Only the baby, the toddler, and the 4-year-old were left at the table now. Mother would be expecting me to care for them all morning.

  I moistened my lips before speaking. “Mother, can Odette take care of the babies this morning? There’s something I need to do.”

  Mother put a small loaf of bread and a bottle of milk into a lunch pail. “I’m sure whatever you want to do can wait until another day. I need Odette to help me catch up with the laundry this morning.”

  “This can’t wait until another day.” I could feel myself blush hot with embarrassment. “I’ve promised to go and look at a farm.”

  Mother had just picked up one of our small, round, homemade cheeses. She stood perfectly still for a moment, holding the cheese poised over the lunch pail. “Well, that’s different.”

  She added the cheese to the contents of the lunch pail, and turned to smile at me. “You’ve made up your mind at last then. Is it the Sozanski boys?”

  I was startled. The Sozanski boys had been at the top of my list of potential husbands for months, but I’d never said a word to Mother about them. “I can’t tell anyone who it is until I’ve seen the farm and made my decision.”

  Mother laughed. “Amalie, we both know you’ve already made your decision. Lisbet or Odette might rush into going to look at a man’s farm on impulse and then turn the man down, but you wouldn’t. You’re my cautious, responsible daughter, who thinks things through before you do them. You wouldn’t have agreed to look at a farm unless you were very sure you were going to accept the offer.”

  She paused. “You won’t get any unpleasant surprises today. The Sozanski boys came to Miranda as small children and have been friends of Henri for years, so you don’t have to worry about them having dark secret pasts on other worlds
. You know exactly what their farms will be like too. The community service rules insist all the new farms have an identical amount of land, a reliable water supply, a wooden cabin, and the first field ready ploughed. The Sozanski boys have only had their farms for a year, so they won’t have been able to do more than get a few extra fields into cultivation.”

  I frowned. “I don’t know why you’re so sure I’ve chosen the Sozanski boys.”

  “I just said you’re my cautious daughter, so you’ll want to make a safe choice when it comes to marriage, and there isn’t a safer choice than those two brothers. Your only possible worry is the issue of marrying both of them. It’s true that some boys rush into being team husbands without thinking through the complications, so the marriage doesn’t last, but you know the Sozanski boys have been planning to be team husbands for years. They arranged with community service to get neighbouring farms, and had their cabins built right next to each other on the boundary line so they could easily connect them together.”

  She shrugged. “You’ve always been a sensible, practical girl. The Sozanski brothers are a sensible, practical choice. Am I right or wrong?”

  If I told Mother she was wrong about the Sozanski brothers, she’d keep guessing. “I want to follow the custom, and not say who it is until I’ve accepted the offer.”

  Mother sighed, and put two boiled eggs in the lunch pail, along with a few of the sweet-flavoured flat cakes she’d made yesterday. “Can you take the food to Captain Mobele on your way to the portal, Amalie?”

  “Of course.” I stood up and took the lunch pail from her.

  “Perhaps you could put some ripe fruit in the pail for him as well. Just tell me one thing before you go. Do you think your father and I will be happy with your choice of husbands?”