Astra (19 page)

‘Not even me?’ Astra pouted.

‘Not even you.’ As Hokma spoke, Helium swivelled his head round so it was facing behind him. ‘Hey, Hely, don’t be rude,’ she chided.

‘But how can I train them if I don’t know what they’re supposed to do?’

Hokma reached into her hipbelt for a piece of alt-meat. ‘To tell the truth, Astra,
I
don’t even know everything the Owleons can do.’ She held the morsel of pink flesh up in front of Helium’s beak. ‘My job is to Code and breed the birds, and to establish their basic bond with human beings. IMBOD handlers take over after that.’

‘But you Code the birds – you must know the special stuff they can do.’

‘Good boy,’ Hokma praised as Helium followed her fingers back to his chest and took the food with a delicate bob of his head. ‘I have instructions and target behaviours, but I don’t know how those behaviours are going to be applied in the field.’

She should be excited about meeting Helium, she knew, but Hokma was spoiling it. ‘It’s not fair. I’m keeping a big secret but I don’t get to understand everything about the Owleons.’

Hokma considered her. ‘Astra, not everything in life is fair. Now, do you want to hold Helium? He’s lighter than he looks.’

She did want to put out her wrist and hold this mighty creature, but she wanted to argue as well. As she hesitated, a twig cracked and she looked in the direction of the noise.

Beyond Hokma’s elbow, just metres away, an unmistakable slim figure was tearing between the trees.

* * *

Astra launched into a run. Ahead of her, the girl’s lithe brown body twisted through the woods. She was clearly visible, all of her: thick hair flowing, elbows pumping, heels flashing. Astra tore off her glove and fumbled at her hydropac for Tabby. At last the pocket was open; gripping Tabby she activated his camera and, aiming as she ran, clicked again and again. She had got her this time. The girl was heading straight towards the fence where she would be trapped and Astra could wrestle her to the ground.

But no – amazingly, the girl ran up a leaning tree trunk and flung herself over the fence and down to the rocky earth below.

She’d need both hands to follow. Astra tried to stuff Tabby back into his pocket, but he slipped from her hand and she had to fumble to catch him before he hit the ground. She fell to her knees, clutching him safe, as Hokma crashed through the trees behind her shouting, ‘
Astra! Stop this minute!
’ She could only watch as the Non-Lander scrambled over a small rise in the land and disappeared into the woods.

But she had still got her. She
had
. Her heart racing, Astra checked Tabby’s screen. Yes, yes,
yes
: there were six, seven, eight photos of the girl. She sprang to her feet. Her knees were stinging and her blood was coursing like boiling water through her veins but she had crossed the finish line at last. Her face was glowing like the summer sun, crowds were cheering in her ears and green and red and yellow ribbons were streaming in the air.

‘What in Gaia’s Name are you doing?’ Hokma was behind her, hoarse and panting, grabbing her wrist, wresting Tabby out of her hand.

‘It was the girl! The Non-Lander! I took pictures of her – look!’

But Hokma didn’t smile as she scanned the photos. A thundercloud bloomed in her face, threatening to break over Astra, swamping her triumph. Holding Tabby high above Astra’s head, she deleted the photographs one by one.

‘Are you sure—? Are you sh—? Ar—? Ar—? Ar—?’ Tabby bleated.

‘
No
– don’t. Hokma,
don’t
,’ Astra shouted, leaping for Tabby, but not even grasping Hokma’s arm.

‘Stop screaming.
Now
, or you don’t get Tabby back and you don’t get to feed Silver ever again.’

She’d won – running and Tabby-snapping like a constable and top scientist cross-Coded together, she’d done it: she’d
proved
the girl existed. And the very next moment, Hokma had snatched the trophy away. Astra’s ribs hurt. She sat down and punched her fist into the ground. ‘Why did you do it, Hokma?’ she wept. ‘
Why
?’

Hokma put Tabby in the back pocket of her hydrobelt and knelt down beside her. ‘Astra, listen to me. There is no girl living in the woods.’

‘But there
is
…
YOU JUST SAW HER
,’ Astra screamed, and kept screaming, as loud as her burning throat and lungs would let her, until the high, searing scream ripped through the woods, and Wise House, and the whole world—

Until, with a lightning-crack smack, her cheek flamed into fire and her breath was snatched out of her body.

Hokma had slapped her. Hokma had
slapped
her. And now she was grabbing Astra’s shoulders and shaking her, trying to make her look her in the eye.

‘
No
. There
isn’t
. There’s an Is-Land girl who lives nearby and plays in the woods. If you tell anyone she’s a Non-Lander living in the wild, IMBOD will come and ask me lots of questions about her – and about
you
. We don’t want IMBOD to notice you now. You have to promise me you’ll never mention her to anyone again. Do you
understand
?’

Astra was sobbing and hiccoughing. Her face was wet and hot, but inside she felt as black and empty as a rain barrel in high summer. Hokma tried to hug her, but Astra pushed her away.

‘I
hate
you. I don’t want to keep everything a secret! I don’t want to do everything you say!’

She struggled to her feet to get away, but Hokma was everywhere. She lunged forward, hitting out at Hokma’s chest and face, scratching at her
breasts, pulling at fistfuls of her hair. For a minute they wrestled and her nose was full of the fug of Hokma’s sweat, her teeth were burrowing into Hokma’s shoulder and her ears were buzzing with her own blood. Then Hokma was bending over her, her strong arm pinning Astra’s right elbow to her waist. Her left shoulder socket hurt. Her arm was crushed against Hokma’s neck and there was something soft in her hand. Somehow, Hokma was grabbing her wrist again.

‘Let go, Astra. You’ve got my eyepatch.
Let go
.’

She did. She was squeezing Hokma’s green and silver patch in the palm of her hand and the elastic strap was around Hokma’s neck, forcing her head down. Astra let go and Hokma released her. Astra looked up into her face.

The skin around Hokma’s right eye socket was pink and shiny and ridged. It had also shrunk somehow, so that it tugged down her lower eyelid and the upper lid drooped over a white glistening recess where her eyeball had once been. Astra gasped and stepped back.

Hokma straightened up. ‘Does it look scary?’ she asked. Her voice was high and tight and breathless and struck an unfamiliar note at the end. She was trying to sound calm, but she didn’t. She sounded as if she was trying not to cry.

‘A bit,’ Astra mumbled. The distorted socket just looked strange and unexpected, but the whiteness inside
had
been frightening. Something that you should be looking into and should be looking back at you was blank and moist and hidden instead, so you couldn’t tell what Hokma was feeling or thinking. That was the most frightening bit. The socket didn’t seem like part of Hokma at all.

‘You were very close up, weren’t you? Why don’t you look again now you can see my whole face.’

Hokma’s voice was steadier now. Astra lifted her head.

Hokma pushed her hair behind her ears, and smiled. ‘It’s not so bad really, is it? I was going to show you sometime anyway.’

From this distance, the empty socket didn’t look so much like a deep-sea monster squatting on Hokma’s face. She could see how the lids and lashes, though distorted, resembled the ones she knew so well. It looked more now like a bit of Hokma’s face was melting in the sun. Astra flushed. She’d been a coward, shrinking away and acting like Hokma was ugly. A constable wouldn’t ever do that if her buddy got injured, not even if her buddy’s whole face was blistered and charred with
third-degree burns. She had to say something nice to make Hokma feel better.

‘I think it looks like an ice cream,’ she declared. ‘Strawberry and vanilla.’

Hokma laughed, a big belly laugh. ‘Well, I’ve never thought of it like that before! I suppose we’d better not tell Peat, had we?’ And then Astra was laughing too and Hokma was hugging her again and she was hugging Hokma too.

They separated and Hokma tried to put the eyepatch back on, but the elastic had stretched too much. ‘I’ll have to sew it up in the house,’ she said, leaving it dangling round her neck. Astra brushed the grass and needles off her legs. Then she rubbed her wrist, which still hurt. Her cheek stung too. Hokma gently stroked her face and picked a leaf out of her hair.

‘I’m sorry I slapped you, Astra,’ she said, ‘but you were out of control. When you do your IMBOD Service you’ll learn that when someone gets into a state like that, you have to slap them to snap them out of it. It’s called hysteria.’

‘Really?’

‘Really. On Boundary patrol you might save someone’s life with a slap one day.’

‘Oh.’ Astra wondered if in the meantime she might be able to slap Meem when she had one of her tantrums. No, probably Nimma wouldn’t understand.

‘I know it’s hard right now,’ Hokma went on. ‘Everything’s changing, but we’ll work it out together, okay?’

Astra was silent. A minute ago she’d been hitting Hokma and before that she’d been screaming until her lungs were about to burst. She couldn’t tell anyone what had happened and she didn’t know what was going to happen next. It didn’t feel like everything was going to be okay at all.

‘But what if we can’t?’ She rubbed her elbow and stared down at her sneakers. ‘What if I say something wrong and IMBOD comes to get you?’

‘Astra.’ Hokma’s crisp tone cut through the peaty forest air. ‘I have the Security shot in the fridge. If you want to take it, any time, I’ll give it to you. I just ask that you think about it first. For a week. You need to consider everything you will be giving up. Okay?’

Astra stared up at Hokma. ‘If you give me my shot, can I still train Silver?’

‘I told you before,’ Hokma said quietly, ‘you need to be very empathic to work with Owleons. I’ll still let you feed him, but you might not be
able to create a bond with him. You might be too rough with him, or not reward him enough. Then even if he flies for you, he’ll give you bites and scratches.’

Astra’s shoulders drooped. ‘But I want Silver to love me,’ she said. ‘Like Helium loves you.’

‘I know you do.’ Hokma put her arm around her. ‘It won’t be easy keeping our secret, but if you trust me, I can teach you to be the best scientist and Owleon trainer in all of Is-Land.’

Her mouth was trembling and she couldn’t reply.

‘Astra, do you trust me?’

She looked deep into Hokma’s warm hazel-gold eye with its lattice-work of creases, and her wild, strange eye socket that gleamed like an ice-cream moon. She nodded, once, like Hokma always did.

‘I love you, Astra. I never want anything bad to happen to you.’ Hokma pulled Astra close and Astra leaned against her, feeling the grit from the forest and the warmth of Hokma’s skin.

‘I love you too, Hokma. I’m sorry I said I hated you.’

‘That’s okay. I’m sure you did at that moment.’

Astra’s arms were around Hokma’s bum. She could feel Tabby sticking out of Hokma’s belt.

‘Can I have Tabby back now?’ she asked.

But Hokma reached behind her back and gently removed Astra’s hand from her belt. ‘No. Silver needs all your attention at Wise House. And we have to be very careful about Tabby. He’s only to help you with school-work, and he mustn’t see or overhear anything I teach you. That’s why I didn’t want you taking photos of the bomb crater, or Dr Blesserson’s garden. From now on I’ll keep Tabby safe while you’re here. Okay?’

Astra didn’t want to say okay. Her hand felt empty without Tabby in it. As if Hokma guessed, she looked around in the grass and picked up the falconer’s glove Astra had hurled aside as she ran. She held it out to Astra.

‘Do you want to hold Helium before we go back in and feed the chicks?’

Astra looked at the glove, then up at Hokma: at Hokma’s real face that she didn’t show anyone else. She nodded, took the glove and put it on. Then Hokma held out her ungloved hand and Astra let herself be walked back through the woods to the aviary.

She didn’t glance back once over her shoulder, not even once.

‘So.’ Klor waggled his famous eyebrows. Their grey tufts were singed turquoise and gold from the light of the Fountain and his face, like everyone’s, was gleaming with mist and sweat. ‘Who’s ready for a story?’

A faint wind was hushing through the clearing’s curve of pine trees, and over Klor’s bony shoulders long shadows danced up the windowless mud walls of Birth House. Astra ought, she knew, to be gazing with rapt attention at her Shelter father, but from her place in the circle she stole a glance at the turf-roofed cave. It was hard to believe that just two months ago, Birth House had welcomed Elpis back to Gaia. Then the Fountain lights had been crimson and scarlet, flickering flame-tongues licking the tears from people’s faces. Now the water sprays were as bright as tropical feathers and everyone was smiling, but the entrance to the dark womb-chamber was as black as before, and the round cedar door was gaping open so Elpis could hear the story too. An invisible path ran from the doorway down to a gap in the Fountain circle: this was the Ancestors’ Place, gate-posted by Klor on one side and on the other, her bottom firmly planted on the Teller’s Trunk, Nimma.

Long ago, when Astra was very little, Elpis herself had sat on the Teller’s Trunk, and in her wavery voice had told Kali’s famous story, which was her story too. Astra had listened to all of it, even though it was the longest story she’d ever heard. But she’d been so young then, she could hardly remember it; possibly she had fallen asleep towards the end. Last year at the spring story night, when Modem had told the story of the founding of Or, Elpis had sat beside Nimma. Elpis had listened to everything: you could tell by the way she tilted her head during the exciting, scary parts
and opened her eyes wide for the happy parts. Nimma had dabbed the drool from her mouth with hankies and Meem had fed her apple juice through a straw. But now Elpis was buried in the deepest chamber of Birth House and Kali’s story had become homeless. It didn’t belong to anyone’s voice any more but floated around in Or memory like a distant murmuration of starlings, its shifting contours fading and dispersing into a bruise-blue sky. Sometimes that happened to stories, Klor said, and only stray feathers of them remained to stick into a new Teller’s cap.