Earth Star (36 page)

I glanced doubtfully at the pathetically shaken face of Issette.

‘I’ll take care of her, Jarra,’ said Keon. ‘You go and save the world.’

There was an odd emphasis to his last sentence. I gave him a startled look, saw past his relaxed act to the strain in his eyes, and realized he’d worked out exactly what was going on here. Not just the obvious thing that aliens were a scary unknown, but that any attack on the sphere might endanger Earth, and possibly even that the Military were bluffing to buy time. I knew I could trust him to keep his mouth shut, if only because it was far less effort than talking, so I just gave him a nod and turned to look at Issette.

She forced a smile, and made a brave attempt at her usual bubbly style of speech. ‘Jarra, Jarra, Jarra, good luck!’

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Say hello to everyone for me.’

I headed towards the portal. Dig Site Command had just gone through and the rest of Asgard 6 were waiting for me.

‘What about all that?’ Krath jerked his head at the command desk and equipment.

‘Someone will pick it up later. We won’t need it because the Military are portalling a Field Command sled to our Eden dome. We’ll take that through a freight portal to Zulu Dig Site.’

‘Amaz,’ said Krath. ‘All these freight portals must be costing a fortune.’

Playdon entered the portal code for our home dome at Eden Dig Site. ‘Alien Contact programme has an unlimited budget.’

‘I was hoping to get drafted,’ said Krath wistfully. ‘I want to be a Military Captain like Fian.’

‘No chance of that, Krath,’ I said. ‘I’ve been warned you’re a potential security risk.’

‘What?’ He looked outraged. ‘Who said that?’

‘Military Security said that. It’s not surprising. Your father helps run a vid channel that’s continually making wild accusations against the Military. Since Gaius Devon caused so much trouble, Military Security are a bit edgy.’

‘It’s my nuking dad again! If he keeps me out of this, I’ll …’

‘Don’t worry about it, Krath. I’ve personally assured Military Security that you’re trustworthy.’

I missed his reply, because I stepped through the portal. The others followed me through, and I gave a deep sigh of relief. ‘Privacy at last! Dalmora, don’t you dare let a vid bee out here, or I promise I’ll kill it.’

Dalmora laughed. ‘I won’t. You’ve been doing an amaz job, Jarra. The way you’re organizing all this, and the things you talk about so casually …’

I pulled a face. ‘The organizing is being done by other people, and everyone keeps covering up my stupid mistakes.’

‘Now we’re away from the vid bees,’ said Fian, ‘you have to take your impact suit off, Jarra. You’ve been wearing it for over twenty-four hours.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Fian’s right,’ said Playdon. ‘Wearing an impact suit for long periods is a huge strain on the body. Breaks are recommended at least every six hours, and twelve hours is regarded as the absolute maximum limit for continuous wear.’

‘This is an emergency,’ I said. ‘I daren’t risk taking the suit off. If I try to put it on again, I might have another panic attack.’

Fian shook his head. ‘We understand that, Jarra, but you can’t keep this up.’

‘It’s not as if I’ve been sealed in the suit and working a dig site for twenty-four hours,’ I said. ‘I’ve had the hood down, the front open, and I’ve spent time lying down and resting.’

‘Now look me in the eyes and tell me you’ve been eating and sleeping.’

I hesitated. ‘I’ve had some soup.’

Fian sighed. ‘There’s no point in martyring yourself to inspire confidence in people if you’re going to mess it up by collapsing.’

I realized he had a point there. ‘I just need another hour or two. When we get to Zulu Dig Site, I’m supposed to lead a vid bee tour of the place. After that, Drago and Marlise will be taking over the public relations side of things, Pereth will be running the excavation itself, and I can hide away in the Field Command sled.’

‘Those are properly enclosed so you won’t need an impact suit?’ asked Playdon.

I nodded. ‘I looked up the technical specs on them. They’re similar to the mobile Dig Site Command sleds, but fancier.’

‘And once you’re in there, you promise you’ll take off the suit?’ asked Fian. ‘If you don’t, I’ll call Colonel Torrek and tell him exactly what’s going on.’

‘You wouldn’t!’

‘Watch me!’

The Cassandrian skunk meant it. I sighed. ‘I promise.’

Playdon frowned and ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Make sure you keep this vid bee tour as short as possible, Jarra.’

‘I certainly will. The sooner Drago takes over, the happier I’ll be. I’m terrified I’ll say or do something that embarrasses the whole Military.’

Fian made a choking noise. ‘And you think Drago won’t?’

‘Drago grew up in a Military family, went to Military school and the Academy. I bet he knew more when he was 2 years old than I do now.’

Fian laughed. ‘I was just remembering what he did in the dining hall.’

I giggled. ‘Colonel Torrek is sending Marlise along to make sure Drago behaves.’

The others changed into impact suits, and Fian and I carefully packed our uniforms. We could work inside the Field Command sled wearing just the skintights we normally wore under impact suits, but we couldn’t appear like that in a vid. Skintights covered the legally private areas, but, as their name implied, they were literally skin tight.

We were ready before the freight portals had completed their calibration and test sequences, so we went out of the dome and admired our svelte, black, Field Command sled.

‘Zan!’ said Krath, doing a quick lap of inspection. ‘Can I go inside, Jarra?’

‘You’re a security risk.’

‘Jarra!’

I couldn’t see his face through the fabric of his impact suit, but his wounded tone was obvious. I hastily reassured him. ‘Only teasing, Krath. Of course you can. We’ll all go inside and drive through the freight portal to Zulu Dig Site in style. The sled is designed as living accommodation for a team of four, so I’m sure we can fit in six of us for a short while.’

‘I hope this sled has sonic screens,’ said Playdon. ‘I’d hate us to let ants in there.’

I laughed. ‘It’s designed to be used on Planet First. I’m sure the screening can handle rainforest conditions.’

I went up to the door, and sonics instantly cut in, together with some strange coloured light effects. The others came to join me and we waited for the door to open.

‘What are the lights for?’ asked Fian.

‘Scans to check only human life forms are in the door area before it opens.’

‘We could be here for weeks,’ said Fian. ‘Krath won’t qualify.’

‘Shut up!’ said Krath. ‘I don’t mind being teased, but I’m not having …’

The door opened and he forgot about complaining as he bounced inside and looked around nosily. ‘Utterly zan!’ He gestured at the complex control bank at the front of the sled. ‘What does all this do?’

We followed him inside, tugged down our hoods, and piled the uniform and vid bee cases in a corner. ‘No idea,’ I said. ‘We certainly won’t need it all. There’s a chimera detector in there somewhere.’

Krath gave a dignified sniff of disbelief.

‘Truly. Thetis was over a quarter of a millennium ago, but the Military are still paranoid about it and following the standing orders set up by Tellon Blaze. Every sled, ship and dome has a sensor that gives an alarm if it detects the distinctive body chemistry of chimera. They’ve hit a couple of other species on Planet First which triggered those alarms and they rejected the planets for colonization because of it. They appeared harmless but …’

Krath started investigating the rest of the sled. ‘This is so amaz. You’ve got everything. Food, drinks, pull-out couches.’ He pulled out a couch, shut it away again, and opened a cubicle door. ‘Bathroom too. You could live in here for days.’

I nodded. ‘People often do.’

‘Krath,’ said Playdon, ‘don’t play with the shower.’

Krath reluctantly closed the door again. ‘I just wanted to see how …’

My lookup chimed, and I checked it. ‘Freight portals are operational. We can head to Zulu.’

Fian and I took our seats at the front of the sled, and examined the control panel. ‘Want to drive?’ I asked.

‘Me? Why me?’

‘I’m so tired, I’d probably drive straight into a tree. The central basic controls look the same as any hover sled, but I wouldn’t play with any of the others.’

‘I won’t.’ Fian took the sled up on its hovers and turned it smoothly to face the portal. ‘Does someone have to get out and …?’

‘There’s an autodial.’ Krath leaned over Fian’s shoulder to point at the control.

‘Thank you.’ Fian reached for the autodial and laughed. ‘Someone’s already entered the Zulu Dig Site code for us.’

I giggled. ‘The Military obviously don’t trust me to enter a portal code solo.’

Fian tapped the autodial, the freight portal ahead of us lit up, and we drove through to Zulu Dig Site and straight into a mass of broken branches.

‘It didn’t look as bad as this from the aerial view,’ said Amalie.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Oh well, Earth 2 will soon tidy up.’

Fian increased the height of the hovers, so we rose up above the worst of the litter. We could see the whole clearing now, and the four portals around the edge.

‘Where should we park?’ asked Fian.

‘Try the middle,’ I said. ‘The blast should have thrown the wreckage outwards.’

We drove across to the centre of the clearing, and found this had a thick carpet of wood chips. Two of the other freight portals were glowing now. A mobile Dig Site Command sled came through one of them and drove over to park near us. A whole procession of sleds of assorted types and sizes came through the other portal and figures in impact suits jumped off them and started work. The Earth 2 team had obviously done some planning in advance, because they instantly divided into two groups. The first used heavy lift sleds to drag branches into a pile, while the second unloaded pieces of mobile dome from a transport.

‘We should start Jarra’s site tour now,’ said Dalmora. ‘There’s a lot of action out there for viewers to watch.’

I groaned. ‘I’m bound to say something stupid.’

She collected a vid bee case. ‘Don’t worry, Jarra. The Military will edit out any mistakes before they give it to the newzies. Just imagine you’re talking to a friend who doesn’t know anything about dig sites. The way you were relaxed enough to make casual jokes to Commander Tell Dramis earlier, gave a very reassuring impression to people. You should try for the same effect again this time.’

It did? I should? That had just been a mistake, but …

Dalmora looked around. ‘We’d better start in here so people can see your face, then go outside. Is there anything secret we shouldn’t show in the vid?’

‘I doubt it. The Military would have warned us, and anyway they can edit it out.’

‘Dalmora, Krath and Amalie will be making vids, but what do you want me to do while we’re here, Jarra?’ asked Playdon.

‘You’ll be my liaison with Pereth, and stop me saying anything embarrassingly stupid to him,’ I said.

The vid team set up, and crowded with Playdon into the far end of the sled behind the vid bee view. I ached all over, I wanted to lie down and whimper, but I had to do this first. I remembered Dalmora’s words and pictured Issette. She was back in Ark, with Keon. She’d be watching this soon, so I could talk to her.

Vid bees glowed and Dalmora made technical-looking hand gestures at me. She was probably ready for me to start.

‘Welcome to … No, hold on a second.’ I turned to Fian and adjusted the controls on his Military blue impact suit.

‘What?’ He looked down suspiciously at what I was doing. ‘Why am I getting silver bars on the arms of my impact suit?’

‘My suit has command gold bars. You get silver for being deputy.’ I nodded to Dalmora. ‘Ready.’

‘That makes me feel a bit silly,’ said Fian.

‘How do you think I feel?’

Dalmora made hand signals again and I smiled at the vid bee. ‘Welcome to Zulu Dig Site. I’m Major Jarra Tell Morrath, Field Commander for this operation. This is my deputy, Captain Fian Eklund. As you can see, we’re currently inside our Field Command sled. Zulu Dig Site is located in the African rainforest, so we have to take precautions against predatory animals, insects and other hazards. We’ve not only got the normal species of Africa here, but mutated forms of those originally native to South America, and some that were genetically salvaged after becoming extinct in the past.’

Was I sounding as exhausted as I felt? I hoped not. ‘Creatures like scimitar cats and dire wolves are obviously dangerous, but the insects are an even bigger problem. Fire ants and bullet ants have extremely nasty stings, so we need to put up our hoods and seal our suits before we go outside.’

Fian and I did just that, and then I started talking again. ‘As we leave the sled, you’ll notice some sonic blurring and coloured lights which make sure insects don’t get inside.’

We headed out of the sled, with the vid bees and their controllers trailing behind us. One of the Earth 2 heavy lift sleds towed a huge tree across in front of me, and I paused to let them go by. A vid bee danced around to get both me and the tree in image. No, it wasn’t a vid bee, it was frizzy haired Issette, and I was explaining things to her.

‘You’ve probably already seen an aerial view of the trees covering this area,’ I said, ‘but now you can see the sheer size of them and begin to understand the conditions we’ll be struggling with. We don’t dare to use sonic missiles near the possible location of the alien device, so we have to cut a path through the trees the hard way.’

I gave Issette another moment to take in the size of the fallen giant being towed away, and then walked closer to the forest edge. ‘We’re looking for an alien device buried here over a thousand years ago. You may wonder why aliens chose to leave it in the middle of the rainforest, and the answer is they didn’t. There was plenty of rainforest in Africa back then, but not right here. A lot has happened since then; climate changed, humans devastated the rainforest and then decided to restore it. The forest now covers a much wider area than before, and is very different from the way it used to be.’