Astra (53 page)

Essentially, the counsellor explained in calm, professional tones, Astra needed to come to a personal understanding of her rightful place in family and national life. That was the first step. Then she needed to make a public statement renouncing Hokma and her malign influence; this statement would be read at Hokma’s trial. A date for the trial had not yet been set, but certainly Astra would want to make her statement in time to start her IMBOD Service. That gave her a maximum of six months to work with Dr Greenleafdott – although breakthroughs could often occur early in the process, and perhaps Astra could even make her statement this week.

‘I see. I see.’ Klor was straight-backed on his chair, his hands on his knees. ‘And the trial? Will Astra have to appear?’

‘No, the statement will be sufficient. Though if Astra does choose to testify in person, that of course would be looked upon very favourably by IMBOD. As would her willingness to be interviewed for the media.’

‘Of course. We understand, don’t we, Astra?’

Anger: where was it when she needed it? She was drained of all force, an empty kinbattery. ‘But …’ She turned to Klor. ‘Hokma could go to jail forever.’

‘Astra.’ Dr Greenleafdott regarded her firmly. ‘Hokma’s sentence is not your responsibility, and it will not rest on your statement. The charges against her extend far beyond her manipulation of you.’

‘What did she do?’

‘I don’t know the evidence against her but we all have to trust that IMBOD would not happily charge one of their star researchers with treason. There is a solid case against her and sadly, you and everyone at Or must now come to terms with her betrayal.’

She was talking as if Hokma had already been convicted – but no one had heard Hokma’s side of the story. Perhaps she had a defence; perhaps
there had been a mistake – perhaps someone had planted a memory clip on Helium’s corpse, or perhaps Hokma had just thought another IMBOD ruling was ill-conceived and was trying to help Dr Pollen with alternative research. Surely her lawyers might argue that Hokma was well intentioned but misguided? If Astra testified against her, Hokma’s defence would be weakened. She couldn’t do it, no matter how many greasy pots she had to wash or brambles she had to pull up with her bare hands.

She scrutinised Dr Greenleafdott. ‘What happens if I don’t feel like answering your questions?’

‘You’re not on trial, Astra. These sessions are to help you. If you don’t want to co-operate, that is up to you. But I do suggest that you think about your options very carefully, and discuss them with your Shelter father if you don’t yet feel ready to talk with me.’

Klor put his arm around the back of her chair. ‘We’ll do that, won’t we, Astra?’

‘I think that’s probably enough for today, isn’t it?’ Dr Greenleafdott tapped her Tablette screen. ‘I’ll email you both the sessions plan and see Astra back here tomorrow.’

* * *

She needed time: time to think, time for things to change, for the decision she was being forced to make to alter its shape, become possible. But the problem with time was that it wasn’t making her decisions easier; it was making all her problems grow. Every day, the pain of being separated from everyone else intensified, like a spike twisting slowly in her chest. Every day she had to watch Meem and Yoki and the other children pour in and out of Core House without her; every day she had to sit for hours with Dr Greenleafdott, giving monosyllabic answers to her repetitive questions. But worst of all were the moments, and then, gradually, the hours, when she felt that perhaps it was true: perhaps she did hate Hokma for what she’d done.

Until now she had thought she couldn’t hate anyone more than she hated Ahn and Dr Blesserson. They were lizards who soaked up the heat of other people’s passions to warm their own blood, maggots who fed off the rotting flesh of other people’s dreams, and in the end they had betrayed Hokma – and worse, Ahn had done so gratuitously. There had been no need for him to help IMBOD investigate her shot; Hokma was in enough trouble already and no one except Astra and Lil knew that he knew the truth. Her first week in the yurt, Astra spent hours every night dwelling
on his motives. She ached to know how the topic of her shot had come up in Ahn’s interview. Part of her was convinced that Ahn had instigated the whole line of the enquiry, right from the beginning, warning Samrod to prepare a case against her – but why? He must have been afraid that if IMBOD did decide to test her, she would have exposed him – which was, after all, exactly what she had done. So perhaps, she concluded dully, she was just as vindictive as he was; he was just smarter than her: he’d thought ahead and she hadn’t. By confessing first, he’d become the witness, not the suspect. And she’d been stupid. She could have stuck to her story, pretended that she didn’t know she’d never had the shot. She could have let them test her and then feigned surprise at the results – she could have claimed she’d always believed Dr Blesserson had given her the Serum in his office. They would still have assumed Hokma had given her the antidote, but at least she would have kept Nimma on her side.

She realised how quickly she’d fallen into IMBOD’s trap, how her panic and quick temper had damaged and undermined her, blunted and baffled what had always been her keen, searing hatred of Ahn and Samrod Blesserson. Maybe they hadn’t conspired against her. Maybe Dr Blesserson had long ago prepared a story to protect himself – and Ahn was just frightened, he had panicked too, thinking somehow IMBOD knew he knew, and had grassed her up in return for legal protection.

Whatever had happened behind IMBOD’s closed doors, neither of the men cared a pomegranate seed about her or Hokma. She detested them, but she could live with that; in a strange way, her contempt for the two men had started to sustain her. It set her pulse throbbing in a steady rhythm that would one day, she swore, propel her towards her revenge. What she couldn’t live with were her feelings about Hokma. Hokma was her Shelter mother.
Hokma
, Dr Greenleafdott repeated in every session,
should have looked after her. Hokma should have always acted in her best interests
. As the weeks wore on and the loneliness accumulated beneath her ribs, Astra could feel the counsellor wearing her down.

She could be happy right now
. She could be Gaia-playing in Woodland Siesta, her legs wrapped around Tedis’ smooth flanks, her mouth buried in Sultana’s sweet garden, tracing her Shield brand with her tongue; she could be running in berserker Murmurations, practising patrol moves, preparing for IMBOD Service with everyone else. Instead, she was alone, rejected, facing a future of isolation and menial work: all because Hokma had forced her to make a decision she was too young to understand. She
had bribed her with the Owleons and the promise of being a genius one day. But she wasn’t a genius, and even if she was, IMBOD would never let her run a lab now. Hokma hadn’t even prepared her for the possibility of her arrest. She hadn’t told Astra what to say; she’d just left her to flail, helpless, on her own, against IMBOD and the world.
Why did you do it?
she would cry to herself when Klor was out of the yurt, the javelin spike of Hokma’s betrayal piercing her chest.
Why did you experiment on me?

She would awaken feeling heavy and foggy and ashamed – ashamed of her own betrayal of Hokma. Hokma hadn’t experimented on her; the opposite was true. Hokma had wanted to
preserve
her from alteration, to allow her to reach her Birth-Code potential. Then, if Astra let it, a squirming would begin in her stomach: a sly worm emerging from the past to whisper,
It’s all your fault. If you had told Hokma when Lil threatened you, Ahn would never have found out about the shot …

She’d have to get up then and scrub her face and do kick-boxing warm-ups or double-time sun salutations. She was being weak, failing the test. Hokma wasn’t in prison because of her or Lil; she was there because of Helium. Hokma, she knew, wouldn’t be crying in prison. She would be strong and patient, she would do yoga during the day, and at night she would lie in bed thinking about the Owleons, or solving Code problems. There was no way she was going to tell Dr Greenleafdott she hated Hokma.

Except that the only way she had any chance to rejoin her siblings and school friends and go to college and have a job she enjoyed would be to do just that. She was paralysed by the choice. Perhaps if she held out, something else would happen to change the game again.

She doubled her resolve to clam up again, to never respond to Dr Greenleafdott’s questions with more than a grunt or a denial. Every day when she got back to the yurt after a session Klor would ask her how it went and she’d shrug and mutter, ‘Okay.’

‘Hokma would understand, darling,’ he said finally, one evening when the rain was drizzling down the yurt flaps and the mouldy smell of wet canvas was starting to make her feel ill.

She didn’t reply.

‘She wants you to have a future – any loving parent would happily give their own future for their child’s.’

She knew what he was saying:
Just lie. You’re good at lying. Lie a little more. Tell Dr Greenleafdott you wish you were Sec Gen; that you feel abused,
exploited, betrayed. Tell her you’ll testify against Hokma, you’ll tell a story the journalists can embellish with lurid headlines:
‘Ex-Gaia Girl Secret Victim of Is-Land Traitor’, ‘Stranded: Sec Gen Castaway Reveals Lonely Struggle to Fit In’.
In return, you’ll get back your family and your celebrity and with them hook a cushy, non-frontline IMBOD Service position and later, a place at Code College and a job somewhere with older Is-Landers – and there, at last, you might find a way of belonging. Hokma’s future is over. Your future is right there in front of you. Reach out and take it
.

But
he
was a loving parent. Why couldn’t
he
help her?

She rolled round on her bedmat and whispered across the yurt, ‘Will you test me for the teaby shot? Please? We could go now, to Code House.’

Klor was silent for a very long time. She flopped over on her back again and shut her eyes.

‘I would give my other leg for you, my darling.’ His voice pushed through the rain, then faltered. ‘But I can’t destroy Nimma.’

No. She had known that battle was lost before it began. But Klor had
wanted
to help her fight Dr Blesserson. She clung to that thought like a walking staff. ‘He’s lying though,’ she insisted. ‘You know he’s lying, don’t you?’

Klor sat up, reached over and turned on his solar lamp. ‘Astra, I believe that you believe in your story.’

What?
She raised herself too, but he stopped her with a palm. ‘But even if Dr Blesserson did know what he was doing,’ he continued, ‘Hokma was his
sister
. And she saved his bond partner’s life. I can’t blame the man for trying to help her, or for protecting himself now. We just have to co-operate, darling. They do want what’s best for you in the end.’

It was hopeless. She was just running Kinbat laps with an empty hydropac. She sank back on the bed. Klor lay back down but kept the light on. He was looking at her, she could tell.

‘You’ve been so brave, Astra. Just be brave a little longer.’

She stared up at the circle of light dancing on the yurt canopy above their heads. How long would she and Klor be here? Everything could all change again tomorrow. And there was something she hadn’t told anyone yet – would never tell IMBOD, or Nimma – but she had to tell someone.

‘Klor?’

‘Yes, darling.’

‘I had a Gaia vision. That’s why I did it.’

‘Did you now? What kind of a vision?’

So she told him about the living roof, and Hokma’s poppies, and the orchids. Klor listened, and thought, and then he said, ‘Maybe the vision was right, maybe Gaia does want you to stand apart.’

Stand apart. Behind his bed, the aluminium joints and segments of his intelligent leg were quietly reflecting the lamplight. The mechatronic limb could have been made of knotted gold.

‘Gaia told you to stand up,’ she said. ‘That’s what you told all the visitors.’

‘She did, many times, until I finally listened. But standing apart, even on your own two feet, is much harder.’

‘Why did She choose me?’ Her voice broke, and she gulped back the salty self-pity.

‘Because She admires you, Astra, just like I do. But I know She doesn’t want you to sacrifice yourself on Hokma’s pyre. Listen to the rain. Isn’t it saying be gentle with yourself?’

She didn’t know what the rain was saying. There were thousands of drops falling on the tent, each one cancelling the next one out.
Stop stop stop
, they were saying.
Stop thinking, stop talking
. She’d thought she understood Gaia visions, but maybe Nimma was right: maybe they were just a way of telling yourself what you wanted to hear.

‘All they want you to do is express loyalty to Or, darling,’ Klor urged, ‘so as not to confuse the Sec Gens. You can still feel loyal to Hokma in your heart. Then you can come back and visit here after college, even live nearby, if you like. And maybe Hokma will serve her time and come out. There are sure to be appeals.’

The wind rose outside, and a branch crashed to the ground. Traitors were never let out.

* * *

She was going to do it: she would save herself and help destroy Hokma. Then she wasn’t going to do it. Then she was. And though in the end she didn’t have to, in her heart – in the wet, raw wound gouged out by the whittled tip of the pain Hokma had persuaded her to risk – she understood that if the game hadn’t changed the way it had, she would eventually have said the words IMBOD wanted to hear.

And so the fact she hadn’t was no comfort at all.

It was their fifteenth session. That morning the counsellor had Tablette-texted Nimma and Klor, asking them to join the meeting. Klor came in
with Astra to find Nimma already there, sitting next to Dr Greenleafdott in one of four chairs arranged in a circle. Astra sat beside Nimma just so that she didn’t have to look at her. Nimma would expect to see progress, and even though she did often wish she was Sec Gen now, she didn’t want to say that in front of Nimma yet.
Probably
, she thought,
the counsellor has some trick in mind, to use my Shelter mother’s presence to get me to say how much I miss the Earthship, how much I want to come home
.