Earth Star (11 page)

‘I realize that,’ said Drago, giving him a bewildered look. ‘The whole base knows about the Artemis, and her Handicap, and I’d never suggest …’

‘You wouldn’t have to suggest anything,’ cut in Fian grimly, ‘I’ve seen it all before, and I know exactly what Jarra’s planning. The pre-checks one day, a ride as passenger the next, then she gets her hands on the controls and …’

‘Fian! I’m not completely stupid,’ I said, indignantly. ‘I know I can’t mess about near the alien sphere, so …’

‘So …’ he repeated. ‘Admit it. You wouldn’t go near the alien sphere, but you aren’t ruling out flying a fighter into orbit despite your Handicap.’

‘I know I can’t go to other worlds, but this would only be Earth orbit, and that’s really just like being on Earth.’

Fian shook his head. ‘Have any of the Handicapped ever tried it?’

‘For all we know, one of the men who went to the moon back in the twentieth century could have been Handicapped,’ I said. ‘Nobody knew this Handicap existed until the invention of the first interstellar portals, and after that only the Military went anywhere in Sol system other than Earth itself, because they do the things like running the solar arrays. I must be the first Handicapped in the Military, so …’

‘You mustn’t try it, Jarra,’ said Fian. ‘It would be utterly stupid to have your immune system fail when you’re in a fighter. You only have two minutes to get back to Earth before you die. I’ve scanned everything I could about it. Newborns have longer, because of the effect of their mother’s immune system, but you’d get a maximum of two minutes.’

I sighed. ‘I suppose you’re right.’

Fian turned to a grazzed Drago. ‘You see what I have to cope with?’

Drago nodded. ‘Well, rides in my fighter are totally out of the question. If I can help with anything else, Jarra, then just ask. You’re not just one of my clan, but Jaxon’s baby sister as well.’ He paused. ‘Time for me to go.’

He stood up and shouted loudly. ‘Attack shift 2, pre-flight is in fifteen. Time to suit up.’

A lot of figures stood up and followed Drago out of the room. I didn’t bother counting them. There were sixteen fighters guarding the alien sphere at any one time, so there would be sixteen men and women on Attack shift 2. In half an hour, they would launch their ships through portals into Earth orbit. In an hour’s time, they would be in position, facing an alien craft of unknown abilities and intentions. Me, I was stuck here on Earth.

‘What did he mean, Jarra?’ asked Fian.

I was still wistfully staring at the door. ‘What about?’

‘Drago Tell Dramis said you were one of his clan. Did he mean clan as in Betan clan?’

My head snapped around to look at Fian so quickly that I felt giddy for a second. ‘He can’t have meant …’

I broke off, as my mind finally caught up with something. Drago’s name was Drago Tell Dramis. My name was Jarra Tell Morrath. The members of Betan clans always had the clan prefix somewhere in their name. I madly tapped at my forearm lookup, requesting information on the Tell clan, and stared numbly at the result.

‘Nuke that,’ I breathed.

‘You really belong to a Betan clan?’ asked Fian.

I looked up at him. ‘I was born into the Tell clan. It’s a Betan Military clan, and the rectangular thing Drago was wearing above his medals was a miniature of the clan banner. I thought it looked a bit like the Thetis. Well, of course it did. The Tell clan have it for their banner, because we’re all descendants of the clan founder, Tellon Blaze, first holder of the Thetis medal.’

My voice shook as I said the unbelievable words. ‘I’m a descendant of Tellon Blaze!’

‘Jarra,’ said Fian. ‘We really have to talk.’

I groaned and buried my face in my hands for a long moment before looking up at him again. ‘I know you want to discuss the rings and the Betan clan thing, but I can’t do this right now, Fian, I really can’t. The Betan clan, and Tellon Blaze, that’s a huge shock, and talking about my parents was …’

‘I appreciate how difficult that was for you,’ said Fian, ‘and we obviously can’t talk right now because you’ve got to meet the History team. I meant later.’

‘History team! Nuke it!’ I checked the time on my lookup. ‘We’d better go.’

We hurried out of the dining hall, and through the maze of the Military base. I was calling myself an idiot all the way. I’d been so wound up in my private concerns that I’d forgotten about the History team.

‘I’m a dumb ape,’ I muttered. ‘I’m not fit to go out alone.’

Fian laughed. ‘You’re always incredibly focused on whatever you’re currently doing. That makes you brilliant in some ways, but …’

‘But a complete nardle in others.’ We reached the door of the History team office, and I checked my lookup again. ‘A whole ten seconds to spare.’

I counted to ten while I got my breath back, opened the door at exactly 09:00 hours, and went inside with Fian a step behind me. Eight leading pre-history experts were standing watching a wall vid, but they turned to look at me as I came in, and one of them froze the vid sequence. Their massed frowns showed their annoyance at a couple of 18-year-olds strolling into the room and interrupting their important work.

No, I mustn’t think of myself as an 18-year-old kid who had no right to be here. I was a Major in the Military and a descendant of the incredible Tellon Blaze. He’d been a cadet on a field trip from the Military Academy, when he got caught on Thetis at the start of the chaos year. He hadn’t wailed he was only an 18-year-old kid, he hadn’t screamed and run from the chimera like everyone else, he stepped forward to do the job no one else could handle. At the end of it, he issued the order that destroyed Thetis and gave humanity a new swear word. ‘Nuke it to cinders!’

By that time, Tellon Blaze had been given field promotions all the way up to Colonel; he was a living legend, and humanity worshipped the ground he walked on. I was no Tellon Blaze, but if my ancestor could defeat the chimera then I sure as chaos could cope with a bunch of history professors. I spoke in my best formal Military manner.

‘I’m your new team leader, Major Jarra Tell Morrath. This is my deputy, Captain Fian Eklund. I’ll begin by establishing your specialist areas of pre-history, so I can create a work plan to systematically cover Earth’s historical records looking for evidence of prior contact with aliens.’

‘Work plan?’ said an elderly man. ‘We’ve already been working for a day and a half.’

‘Covering which areas?’ I asked.

‘The obvious place was the flying saucer scares of the twentieth century. Of course, you won’t know about those.’

I’d worked out who I was talking to now. Professor Lee from University Osiris. He’d picked up a History Nobel thirty years ago, but done little since.

‘You mean around 1950, some years before the launch of the first satellite, Sputnik,’ I said. ‘UFOs and the Roswell incident. Extensively debunked, though there were claims of a cover-up. Did you find anything relevant?’

He seemed disconcerted, but rallied bravely. ‘We passed some interesting things on to Colonel Torrek.’

‘He didn’t find them helpful. That’s all you’ve achieved so far?’

The others were still staying quiet and leaving their self-appointed representative to do the talking. ‘Yes,’ he said.

‘We need to progress much faster and more methodically. I’ve just had breakfast with people who are up in space right now, and will be the first to die if that sphere is hostile. Anything we can find out to indicate whether it’s likely to be friendly, or suddenly open fire, is vitally important, and we may have very limited time before something drastic happens. Now I need to know not just your specialist periods of history, but other areas you can cover as well.’

There was dead silence. Giving me the information would be an admission that I was in charge, so they weren’t going to do it. I realized I’d failed. If they didn’t care about Drago and his team up in orbit, then nothing else I could say would get through to these people. I might as well walk out of the door right now because …

One of the watchers took a step forward and spoke. ‘Of course we have to do everything possible to help. I’m Professor Chan, University Earth. Specializing in 800 to 1000 AD, but I can cover about five hundred years either side of that. I’m afraid that may be too early to be useful to you.’

I held back a gasp of relief, and tried to keep my voice calm as I answered him. ‘Not at all. My personal theory is we’re more likely to find evidence of the aliens well back into pre-history. There’s nothing to stop anyone with a telescope seeing that sphere in orbit. Nowadays, people will just assume it belongs to the Earth Africa solar array, but centuries ago …’

I made a couple of notes about Chan on my lookup, and turned to look at another random team member. There was a second of suspense before she shot a guilty look at Professor Lee and admitted to general knowledge of 1600 to 1950 with a specialization in pre-history of Earth Europe.

That decided things. One after another, the others all answered me apart from the grimly disapproving Nobel winner. When I finally looked at him, he folded his arms in a graphic bit of body language.

‘We’re leading experts in our fields,’ he said. ‘We don’t need an unqualified team leader who’s still wearing nappies.’

Nappies! I was strongly tempted to grab him, throw him across the room to take the superior smirk off his face, and tell him where he could stick his Nobel, but I went for a more dignified approach.

‘You’re leading experts in pre-history, but you don’t share my knowledge of the Military tactical situation. I don’t need to be highly qualified in pre-history myself. I just need enough knowledge to be able to understand the real experts. Do you accept that or not?’

Professor Lee wasn’t backing down. ‘No. We should have someone properly qualified organizing this team. Myself for example.’

That made his position totally clear. Mine was clear too. Colonel Torrek had told me to get rid of anyone who wouldn’t co-operate.

I gestured towards the door. ‘Please go and pack. Military Security will inform you whether you can return to Osiris, or have to wait on another base until this situation is public knowledge.’

He looked grazzed. ‘I’m the number one in my field!’

I ignored him and turned to the others. ‘I’ll need a replacement for Professor Lee, and I want to recruit a palaeontologist as well. Fossil evidence is unlikely to help, but we can’t ignore any chance of finding something. Anyone know a suitable palaeontologist?’

Chan suggested a name and I checked it on my lookup.

‘She’s from University Earth,’ objected a voice. ‘Do we need another ape?’

I restrained my urge to strangle the speaker, merely turning to look him straight in the eyes. He obviously didn’t know what I was, and this wasn’t the best time to tell him.

‘You’re a guest of the Handicapped while you’re on this planet. They’re the true experts in Earth’s history, and you’ll treat them with appropriate respect.’

The short, bearded man saw my expression, and took a nervous step backwards. ‘I didn’t mean it as an insult, everyone says ape, and Professor Chan doesn’t mind.’

‘Actually, Professor Bergen, I do mind,’ said Professor Chan with quiet dignity. ‘It’s bad enough that all the awards go to off-worlders, even when everyone knows their work is inferior to ours, without you actually calling me an animal to my face.’

Bergen flushed red. ‘I really do apologize. I hadn’t thought how it must be for … for the Handicapped.’

Chan gave a nod in response. ‘I accept your apology. Life is extremely frustrating for Earth academics. The anonymous submission process means we can get some of our papers published, but every award committee excludes us by using the excuse we can’t travel to the award ceremony. We’re not living in Exodus century, they could easily set up a live vid link for us, but …’ He gave a graphic shrug of despair.

‘I take your point,’ said Bergen. ‘I’m on a couple of award committees myself, and you have my word I’ll suggest a live link. I’m only one person, but I can try.’

‘If you’d speak on our behalf, it would be greatly appreciated,’ said Professor Chan. ‘We never get the chance to be heard ourselves.’

I was grazzed at Bergen’s reaction. When I remembered my own conversations with Petra …

‘We’ll give that palaeontologist a try,’ I said. The Nobel winner was still loitering, so I turned back to him. ‘Did you wish to recommend your own substitute, Professor Lee?’

He didn’t say anything. I guessed he was torn between his pride and his desire to remain part of one of the most dramatic events in the history of humanity, so I decided to offer a peace treaty.

‘You could make valuable contributions to this team if you chose to assist. Do you wish to reconsider your position on accepting my authority as team leader?’

He managed an ungracious nod.

‘Good. What historical periods could you cover for us?’

He muttered dates, I added them to the data in my lookup, and slung everything into a planning algorithm we’d used at school to make work plans for the history club excavations. The lookup spat results back at me, and I scanned rapidly through them.

‘We’re looking very thinly spread at the early end of pre-history, but there won’t be much data from that far back. I’ll mail a work plan to each of you, so you can make a start. If you find anything interesting, tell myself or Captain Eklund, because the Colonel says he’ll portal you all to Kappa sector if you bother him again.’

I marched into the small side room that was my office, and Fian followed me. He carefully closed the door, while I flopped down at the larger of the two desks and let out my breath in a heavy sigh.

‘You were amaz,’ said Fian. ‘I’d never even heard of Sputnik.’

I giggled. ‘Neither had I until Major Tar Cameron sent me copies of all the History team messages. The only bit of the ancient space programmes that interested me were the Apollo moon flights.’

Fian laughed. ‘You mean you’d read about Sputnik and Roswell in the team’s own messages?’

I nodded and used my lookup to send a copy of the work plan to each team member. ‘I was lucky Professor Lee didn’t realize that. I was lucky with Professor Chan too. The fact he’s from Earth made all the difference out there.’