Astra (8 page)

She and Hokma crossed the Kinbat track, avoiding a few sprinting Or-kids and jogging or wheeling Or-adults who were making their daily contribution to Or’s electricity supply. Back in Core House she moved as if in slow motion as she jostled for a seat at the Or-kids’ dining table, protected from pointy elbows and hard chair corners by an invisible aura of power and knowledge, as if she were suddenly a whole epoch older and wiser than all her Or-siblings. She might later tell Torrent and Peat about the worms – Hokma had said she could – but for now she just smiled as the older boys play-punched each other and squabbled over the bread-basket. Then Yoki peeled back his plaster and showed her the cut on his thumb from kitchen duty – a raw flap of skin exposing scarlet flesh – and of course she had to show him her bruised hand.

‘How did you get that?’ he asked, his eyes brimming with imagined pain.

‘I was chasing the Non-Lander girl,’ she boasted.

‘Oh, so she’s a
Non-Lander
now, is she?’ Torrent scoffed from across the trestle table. His nose, shoulders and chest were peeling because he always neglected to reapply his sun lotion like the lighter-skinned kids were supposed to. Before Astra could call him ‘Lizardman’, Meem whipped out Blotto, her Tablette.

‘I arrested eight infiltrators today!’ she crowed, shaking her big honey-coloured Afro. ‘A whole family and three loners.’

‘Hope you remembered to build a prison,’ Torrent teased.

Astra narrowed her eyes. Torrent had better not try to make Meem cry. Astra had already played Operation Is-Land straight through to Level Five, twice, but Meem was still a baby and you had to encourage her. She’d spent the last week helping Meem complete Foundation Level. Together they’d marshalled Meem’s starting forces of CONC officers and brave Gaian Pioneers into squadrons and put them to work establishing the Boundary, detoxifying the soil and rebuilding the infrastructure. Throughout the country, Meem’s squadrons had repaired roads, reintroduced rodents, reptiles and other small fauna, torn down unsafe buildings and retrofitted others with PV panels and rain vats. On the steppes she’d established solar panel fields, sited wind farms in locations free of bats
and birdlife and sowed the first crops of nitrogen-fixer grains. In the ash fields Meem had built Is-Land’s first and largest geothermal plant, and the continental server it would heat and power. In the White Desert, she had established salt and crystals mines; in Bracelet Valley she had planted fruit and nut orchards; in the dry forest she had begun the extensive work of regreening the mountains; and in Atourne she had founded Code and Craft College. All the while, Meem had also – of course – erected lookout posts along the Boundary, digging ditches and unrolling barbed wire between them, all the while forcing back or containing the first thin waves of Non-Landers. It was inevitable, in this vulnerable stage of Is-Land’s development, that some infiltrators would manage to get a toe-hold in caves and rough camps, but Meem’s squadrons had rounded all of them up and she was holding them in prison outside Atourne. Yesterday her Foundation Level had ended and her Level One had begun.

‘
Doh
.’ Meem stuck up for herself for a change, showing Torrent her map with the prison in Atourne already at near-capacity. Level One policing was difficult. Half of your CONC forces had left, and though more Gaians were arriving every week in cavalcades of buses trundling overland from Neuropa, Himalaya and Nuafrica, now that the country was habitable again determined Non-Landers were launching fresh assaults, surging through unguarded gaps in the Boundary and through tunnels in the soft earth of the steppes. It took a lot of time to round up infiltrators because they just kept coming: no matter how big you made your first prison, it was always soon bulging.

‘Might be time to build another one,’ Torrent laughed. ‘Did you budget for that?’

Next to him, Peat put down his own Tablette and sternly assessed his Birth-Code sister. ‘What length sentence are you giving them?’ he asked.

‘A year,’ Meem replied, a note of doubt in her voice.

‘That’s not a big enough deterrent,’ Peat told her. ‘You’ll get floods more.’

‘They’ll hunt your rabbits and birds,’ Yoki piped up. ‘Your biodiversity score will go down.’

Astra peered over Meem’s shoulder at Blotto. ‘Peat’s right, Meem. If too many more infiltrate, you won’t be able to arrest them all. They could squat in old villages and then you’ll never get to Level Two.’

‘So what do I do now?’ Meem fretted.

‘You can put them back on trial for killing Gaia’s creatures,’ Yoki offered. ‘I gave maximum sentences for that.’

‘But I don’t have any evidence.’

‘So?’ Yoki’s eyes flashed. ‘
Obviously
they ate rabbits and birds. They’re alive, aren’t they? And check their clothes: I bet they’re wearing leather.’

Torrent had been joking with the twins, but he turned away from Brook and Drake and barged back into the conversation. ‘If she charges them all with new offences she’ll overload her court system,’ he announced. ‘This is Level One: you can’t get bogged down in bureaucracy.’

Yoki shrank back into his seat but Astra faced the older boy. ‘She can do what she likes, Torrent,’ she retorted.

‘Can’t I just increase the sentences I already gave them?’ Meem asked Peat.

Astra had sentenced infiltrators to ten years right from the start, so she didn’t know if that was possible. But Peat, as always, had an answer. He replied briskly, ‘Technically, no. But you can create a new law, saying that infiltrators will only be released if they sign a contract acknowledging they have no rights to live in Is-Land, and vowing never to come within fifty miles of the Boundary again. If they don’t sign, they stay locked up. Bingo.’

Peat thought he was such a legal hotshot, but sometimes he was just plain dumb. ‘But they’d just sign the contract and then break it,’ Astra objected.

Peat tapped his temple. ‘It’s psychological, Astra. They’re in the spotlight. The embedded press are there and the whole world is watching them. They want it to look like
we’re
being unreasonable. So they refuse to sign. For sure.’

‘Then you’ll have to police those fifty miles,’ Torrent warned. ‘Don’t do it, Meem.’

Brook and Drake laughed, but Peat was stung. ‘It makes sense to plan for a buffer zone,’ he said hotly. ‘Whatever happens, you know Non-Landers are going to mass along the Boundary. Might as well establish a police presence early.’

Meem’s lower lip was trembling. Not a good sign.

‘Peat’s right, Meem,’ Astra told her, casting a haughty glance at Torrent. ‘You’ll need to patrol the Boundary, whatever happens. Do it.’

Torrent made an
Ooh ooh, look at you
face, but Meem straightened up and wiggled in her seat. ‘Okay. Here goes.’ She tapped on her Justice icon,
lifted Blotto to her lips and voice-introduced the new law. Immediately, there was a small international outcry. Even Brook and Drake looked impressed.

‘Now what do I do?’ Meem pleaded.

‘It’s nothing,’ Peat reassured her. ‘Just Asfar and a few NGOs. CONC hasn’t reacted, has it?’

She checked her CONC icon.

‘Asfar has issued a formal objection, but no other member state has signed it.’

‘Good. Now you should respond with a strongly worded statement to the effect that Gaians donated our nitrogen-fixer grain Codes in good faith and we have every right to protect Is-Land from those who have abused our gift to the world.’

‘C’mon, Peat,’ Torrent objected. ‘You can’t play the game for her. She’s got to make her own decisions.’

‘I’m her legal consultant,’ Peat claimed as Meem pressed her Tablette to her lips again.

‘Shhh,’ Astra hissed.

‘Yeah, shhhh everyone,’ Yoki echoed.

The table fell quiet, even Brook and Drake.

‘Dear Council of the New Continents,’ Meem started. ‘Because of Gaians, the whole world can grow wheat and rice and all other crops without poisonous fertiliser. You promised that in return we could have our own country and live the way we wanted to. We live in Is-Land now, and we are making it habitable again and reintroducing lots of animals. People who kill Gaia’s creatures and wear their skins and think that humans are better than everything else can’t live here. That’s what you promised. The Non-Landers have to promise to leave us alone, or else they have to stay in jail.’

Meem held Blotto up so they could all hear the result of her diplomacy. In a matter of moments the outcry subsided into murmurs of dissent, which then faded into just a lone objection barely audible against the hubbub of the dining room.

‘See,’ Peat crowed. ‘You can’t be too nice, Meem. CONC respects the Boundary, and they’ll keep Asfar in check.’

BRRRZZZZ. BRRRZZZZ. BRRRZZZZ. TING. TING. TING
. Blotto nearly jumped out of Meem’s hand, he was vibrating so hard.

‘
Level Two
,’ Meem gasped.

‘Excellent,’ Peat chuckled.

‘But … that means I have an
armed
infiltrator!’ Meem sounded panicked. ‘He might kill a pioneer.’

‘C’mon, let’s all have a proper look.’ Torrent reached over, grabbed Blotto and rudely wrenched him open, enlarging him from handheld to tablet, then to notebook. He flattened Blotto out on the table.

‘
Hey
,’ Meem bleated as Blotto’s plasma creases smoothed out and the game image spread into the enlarged screen.

‘Torrent, the grown-ups will see!’ Astra hissed.

But Torrent, Brook and Drake were all poring over the game. ‘It’s a she – wow, an old gal. She’s hiding in Code College,’ Torrent announced.

‘
Fold him back up
.’ Meem was starting to get agitated.

‘C’mon, Torrent.’ Peat made a try for Blotto, but the older boy slapped his hand away.

Then he laughed, folded Blotto back into handheld mode and tossed him over to Meem, crying, ‘Catch!’

‘
No
—’

But it was an easy throw and now Blotto was back in Meem’s possession. As Meem studied the screen, Astra laid an arm on the table to protect her Shelter sibling from another attack. Beside her Yoki stood up and leaned over her shoulder, his belly warm against her arm. Sure enough, a shadowy robed figure was crouching in a college classroom, clutching a sub-machine gun to her chest. According to the game clock it was 8 a.m., so students and teachers would start arriving in an hour.

‘What do I do now?’ Meem squeaked.

‘You’re lucky: she’s triggered an alarm. You have to alert Security and surround the college,’ Astra ordered. ‘
Quick
.’

Everyone leaned in to see as Meem hurriedly tapped the Security icon – then a familiar pale brown wrinkled hand, its forefinger adorned with a large bevelled emerald ring, swooped down over the table and plucked Blotto from Meem’s grasp.

‘What did I say yesterday?’ Nimma loomed above them, her silver pendant glinting between her long breasts, her grey-gold braids encircling her head like a crown. ‘
No Tablettes at mealtimes
.’

‘But dinner’s not here yet,’ Peat pointed out.

‘And no talking back, either, or everyone’s Tablette will be confiscated. Meem, come to me afterwards and get Blotto back.’ With that Nimma tucked Blotto in her hipbelt pocket and swept on to her own table, the
pink and jade faux-grass fronds stitched to her belt framing her majestic bottom.

‘It’s not fair,’ Meem pouted. ‘Now I’ll get a massacre scored against me.’

‘Maybe she’ll turn Blotto off,’ Peat said hopefully, looking at Nimma’s retreating back. But as the Or-kids grumbled about Nimma’s draconian punishments and general obliviousness to their need for education, Moon arrived from the kitchen, bearing dishes heaped with crispy alt-fishcakes and fries and Arjun followed carrying a platter full of steaming spring greens chopped up with garlic and leeks.

Soon they were all tucking in, and then Torrent was sticking two fries up his nostrils like a walrus and Astra was convulsing with laughter, thoughts of Non-Landers and worms, Owleons and secrets, all swept to the far shores of her mind.

* * *

After dinner she did her kitchen duty, helping with washing and drying and putting away. When she’d finished, she wandered back into the dining room. Peat was still there, playing Tablette games with the older boys, but she didn’t try to join them as usual; instead she padded over to the Quiet Room to ask Klor to fix Tabby. But he wasn’t there. Nimma, who was sitting on a comfy sofa knitting, said he’d taken Meem and Yoki back to the Earthship and then gone up to Code House.

‘He won’t be back until after your bedtime, darling.’

‘I’m not tired,’ Astra said, yawning.

‘Aren’t you now?’ Nimma opened her arms. ‘Come on, have a cuddle, then it’s off to the Earthship with you.’

Nimma’s lap was soft and plump and cushiony, the best lap in the whole world. Hokma’s lap was like a sturdy alt-leather armchair, and Klor’s was like a creaky wooden fence, but Nimma’s lap was a feather duvet with a crêpey sateen coverlet. Tonight, however, even though Astra’s eyes were heavy and sleepy and her body was sinking into Nimma’s pillowy breasts, the lump in her tummy was back, feeling awkward and uncomfortable. If she went to bed she would fall asleep and then when she woke up it would be tomorrow, and she had promised to do something tomorrow she could never tell Nimma, never tell Klor.

Nimma was patting her hydropac pocket. ‘Goodness. What have you got in here? No wonder you’re worn out.’

‘Hokma gave me some green almonds,’ she muttered.

‘Oh, won’t they be delicious,’ Nimma exclaimed, patting her shoulder. ‘Take them back home, darling, and put them in a bowl in the kitchen.’

Astra felt like a green almond right now: all fuzzy on the outside, but hard on the inside.
Was that another Gaia sign?
she wondered. She needed to talk to Hokma again.

‘Okay,’ she said, slipping out of Nimma’s lap. ‘I’ll just say goodnight to Hokma.’

Hokma was reading in an armchair beneath the bioluminescence lamp. ‘How’s your hand, Astra?’ she asked as Astra leaned close.

‘Okay,’ she said in a little voice.

‘You know you can change your mind,’ Hokma whispered in her ear.