Earth and Air

by Janet Edwards

  “Professor Orlova!” Felipe made an odd gulping sound.

  “Teaching future generations, whether in school or university, is the first career choice rather than the second for many gifted people,” said Valeska. “Amateur archaeologists also do very valuable work.”

  She paused to give Felipe a withering look. “I reluctantly admit that the Dig Site Federation can’t officially discipline you for actions outside a dig site, but there’s no reason why I shouldn’t mention what happened here to my friends. I know the team leaders of most of the University Earth research teams, including Earth 28.”

  “No.” Felipe shook his head urgently. “You mustn’t tell the leader of Earth 28 about this. You can’t destroy my career over one trivial mistake.”

  Valeska gave Felipe a look of contempt mixed with pity. “Stealing a child’s meds can’t be dismissed as a trivial mistake. If I don’t tell the leader of Earth 28 about it, then someone else will. Every teacher in this hall will have noticed a 17-year-old girl in charge of three much younger boys and girls. They’ll all have been busy with their own parties, so they wouldn’t interfere if Jarra appeared to be coping. They’ll have been keeping a discreet eye on the situation though, so I’m sure that more than a dozen teachers will have seen you steal Wren’s meds.”

  “Teachers don’t matter,” said Felipe.

  “You may think teachers don’t matter, but they’ll all have friends and old pupils working on research teams. This story will spread like wildfire around the dig sites.”

  “I didn’t know what I was doing,” said Felipe. “I was scared.”

  Valeska shrugged. “I can sympathize with someone panicking and being no help to others, but actively harming them is another matter. I’m not letting you join a research team. Nowhere on Earth is completely safe, but archaeological research teams regularly work in lethal conditions. If there was an accident, you could get your whole team killed in your blind rush to save your own life.”

  “But what will I do if I can’t do excavation work?” Felipe waved his hands in a helpless gesture.

  “That’s something you’ll have to work out for yourself, but I will give you one essential piece of advice. Once everyone else has had their meds, you need to go and talk to one of the doctors and explain exactly what you did.”

  “What?” Felipe blinked. “Why do I need to talk to a doctor?”

  “Because some radiation meds have to be adjusted for the patient’s age, body weight, and exposure levels. That’s why the doctors are carefully scanning everyone rather than just handing out tablets.”

  “You mean I may have taken the wrong meds?” Felipe leaned back against the wall and pressed his hands over his eyes.

  “I’m absolutely certain you’ve taken the wrong meds,” said Valeska. “You took the tablets prescribed for a girl half your age and weight, so you’ve probably had the full dose of some meds while being dangerously undertreated with others.”

  She pointed a finger at Felipe. “Don’t try stealing the meds from one of the Fifteens or Sixteens and taking those though, because you could end up with a fatal overdose. You need expert help, and you have to wait until everyone else has been treated before asking for it. The doctors won’t be very sympathetic about your situation.”

  Felipe sagged downwards until he was sitting on the floor. Valeska frowned at him for a moment, before turning to me.

  “If your teacher isn’t here, Jarra, we’d better check on your trainees now.”

  “Yes, I shouldn’t have rushed off and left them, but I was furious with Felipe.”

  “Perfectly understandable,” said Valeska.

  We got halfway across the hall before the announcer called the Sixteens to get their meds. Valeska and I stopped to let the rush go by, and I looked around to check that no one was close enough to hear us.

  “Valeska, the information about the radiation came from Gradin’s survey plane, didn’t it?”

  She nodded. “At the moment, the wind is still blowing the radiation cloud away from New York Main. They’ve evacuated all their dig teams as a safety precaution in case the wind direction changes, but New York Main Dig Site Command is still operational. They were standing by to assist the Military, when they got a lot of detailed radiation data from Gradin’s survey plane.”

  “Is Gradin ...?” I let the sentence trail off rather than put my fear into words.

  “I don’t know what’s happened to Gradin,” said Valeska. “New York Main got several minutes of sensor data transmission from his aircraft, and then both the link and his aircraft location signal went dead. There’s been no news of him since then, but Gradin’s survived a lot of dangerous situations. He’ll make it through this one too.”

  Valeska was doing her best to sound calm and confident, trying to protect me exactly as I’d been trying to protect my trainees, but her expression gave away her true feelings. She was used to having her face safely hidden inside an impact suit hood when working on a dig site, and I could see the despair in her eyes.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  I didn’t trust myself to say anything, so we walked on in silence to where my trainees were huddled against a wall. Their eyes widened as they saw Valeska.

  “We heard your voice making the announcements, Professor Orlova,” said Wren. “I didn’t understand why you were the one doing that when you don’t work here.”

  Valeska smiled at her. “Please call me Valeska. I was standing outside an accommodation dome, giving a talk to a school party, when the radiation alarm sounded. We just needed to go inside the dome and use its portal to evacuate, so we were one of the first groups to arrive here. The people in triage were struggling to cope, and I’ve had some medical training over the years, so I volunteered to help them. Once things calmed down in triage, I was asked to make a few announcements, but now I’ve come to get my second stage medical treatment with the rest of you.”

  Valeska and I sat down. Landon had been slouched against the wall, but now he leaned forward towards us and spoke in an urgent low voice.

  “If you’ve been helping the medical staff, Valeska, you must know what’s happening. What sort of radiation was it?”

  Alund joined in the questioning. “Will we need more treatment? Will we be all right?”

  Valeska dropped her voice to a whisper. “The medical staff can’t make an announcement until they’ve got official confirmation from the Military, but the unofficial information they got earlier was from a perfectly reliable source and is good news. The radiation is one of the old types from the twenty-first century, and the treatment for that is simple and fully effective. Everyone is going to be fine.”

  We all sighed in relief.

  “If the Military probe finds any secondary hot spots, then a few people may need top up medication,” continued Valeska. “I think the second stage treatment will be all any of you need though. The radiation source was well to the west of your dome, and possibly even outside the boundary of New York Fringe Dig Site. My guess is that some old nuclear waste was buried there and the containment field failed. That failure could be linked to water levels falling after drainage work on New York Main, but it may just be that the power unit was exhausted after so many centuries.”

  There was a moment of silence while we all absorbed the fact we weren’t going to die a horrible death. Landon’s expression changed from fear to relief, and then on to irritation.

  “Why has everything been so disorganized? There should have been someone making announcements from the start. Whoever is in charge of this place must be really incompetent.”

  “You don’t realize the scale of what happened,” said Valeska. “The radiation spike didn’t just cause the emergency evacuation of New York Fringe, but two nearby settlements as well.”

  I frowned. “The radiation must be affecting a huge area then.”

  “Yes. Everyone from the radiation zone potentially needed rapid specialized medical treatment, so their portal signals had to be relayed t
o Hospital Earth Major Incident Centres. Unfortunately, most of the global Major Incident Centres were already fully committed to dealing with other critical evacuations.”

  Valeska shrugged. “Planetary Incident Control had no choice but to exceed the standard limits on the number of radiation cases being relayed to each of the few available Major Incident Centres. If things seemed a bit disorganized to you earlier, it was because the staff were having problems dealing with such a massive number of radiation exposure cases.”

  “There obviously aren’t enough Major Incident Centres,” said Landon.

  “On a normal day, over half the centres are empty,” said Valeska, “and Planetary Incident Control uses intercontinental relays to ease the pressure on the centres on any one continent, but occasionally you get a day like this one. Planetary Incident Control isn’t just dealing with our radiation leak, but two major forest fires, severe flooding, a moderate earthquake, and a hurricane.”

  “Planetary Incident Control uses intercontinental relays?” I repeated anxiously. “Does that mean we aren’t in America any longer?”

  Valeska looked amused. “Half of the people evacuated from New York Fringe were sent to Australia Major Incident Centre 2, but we’re in America Major Incident Centre 3. Didn’t you know that, Jarra?”

  I shook my head. “No. How could I know where we are? I haven’t got my lookup, and there aren’t any windows in this hall, so we could be anywhere.”

  Valeska pointed to the nearest pillar. “You see that someone has helpfully painted ‘AMERICA 3’ at the top of each pillar? That means we’re in America Major Incident Centre 3.”

  I stared at the sign. “I never noticed that. I’m a nardle brain.”

  Wren giggled. “None of the rest of us noticed it either. We’re all nardle brains.”

  “You were understandably distracted,” said Valeska.

  The announcer’s voice spoke from overhead. “Anyone aged 17 should join the queues at the treatment points.”

  I turned to Valeska. “Can you stay here until I get back?”

  She smiled at me. “I’ve no need to go anywhere until it’s time to get my own meds, and I’ll come straight back afterwards.”

  “Jarra, get your meds at once!” ordered Wren sternly.

  I laughed and went off to join the nearest queue. I had a long wait while the line of people ahead of me gradually shuffled forward, then I had my arm checked, a scanner waved at me, and was handed one of the blue cups of meds.

  I moved away from the queue and took my tablets. Valeska was here to help with my trainees, and the radiation hadn’t been one of the really dangerous types. My only remaining worry was what had happened to Gradin. I wanted to talk to Valeska about that, but I mustn’t frighten my trainees when they’d only just calmed down.

  As I went back to sit with the others, the announcer spoke again. “Those aged 18 or over should join the queues at any of treatment points one through four. Treatment points five and six will be closing shortly. Their doctors will then tour the hall giving meds to any teachers who feel it unwise to leave their school parties.”

  Valeska stood up and headed to stand in line at treatment point two. With so few adults in the hall, it wasn’t long before she came back to rejoin us. As she sat down, a new overhead voice spoke.

  “We now have the data from the Military probe, with full information on the radiation across New York Fringe Dig Site and neighbouring settlements. We are pleased to confirm that this second stage medication will complete your treatment.”

  “Hoo eee!” I yelled my relief.

  Landon, Alund, and Wren burst out laughing. A few people around the hall started clapping, and the rest of us joined in enthusiastically. The overhead voice waited for the applause to stop before continuing.

  “We’ll need to keep you here for another couple of hours to make sure no one has any adverse reactions to the medication. Food will be available shortly. Your personal possessions, such as lookups, are now in decontamination and will be with you in about twenty minutes. Your impact suits will be sent for specialist decontamination, and then returned to their registered owners.”

  “What will we do when they let us out of here?” asked Landon. “Go back to our dome at New York Fringe?”

  “Chaos no,” I said. “New York Fringe will have to stay closed while they do a full radiation clean up. Crozier is bound to send us instructions about where to meet him and the rest of the history club, and then we’ll all go back to our Next Steps.”

  Landon groaned. “After all I’ve been through to try to avoid Hugo, I’ll have to go back to face him. Oh well, compared to radiation, Hugo doesn’t seem that scary any longer.”

  Alund was frowning. “How will we get our belongings back from our dome?”

  I shrugged. “We’ll have to manage without them until New York Fringe reopens again. I don’t know how long that will take.”

  “The radiation source was one of the older types so it shouldn’t take more than two weeks at most to finish the clean up,” said Valeska.

  Wren turned to look at me. “Will this prevent you getting your pilot’s licence, Jarra?”

  “I’m very close to finishing all the required elements now, so it’s not a problem if I miss a week or two at New York Fringe.” I chose my words carefully and avoided looking at Valeska. I wasn’t worried about getting my pilot’s licence any longer. I was only concerned about whether my instructor was still alive.

  “You’re planning to go back to New York Fringe after this, Jarra?” asked Alund. “You aren’t thinking of giving up archaeology?”

  I realized that all through the panic of the evacuation, I’d never considered giving up archaeology. That was probably because I’d been too terrified to stop and think at all.

  “History and excavation work are part of who I am,” I said. “Anyway, it sounds like the radiation may have been caused by a random event rather than anything to do with the dig site. All the people in the two nearest settlements had to be evacuated as well, and it would have been even more frightening for them than for us.”

  “That’s very true,” said Alund thoughtfully. “We were prepared for there to be dangers on a dig site, but the people in the settlements would have expected to be safe in their own homes.”

  “Nowhere on Earth is totally safe,” said Valeska, “but I wouldn’t trade its glorious heritage for any of the pristine colony worlds of the norms.”

  I kept quiet. I wasn’t going to let myself think about the colony worlds that orbited distant stars, and the norms who casually portalled between them. What world I would have chosen for myself didn’t matter. Fate had decided that Earth was all I’d ever have.

  There was a murmur of excitement around the hall. I saw the entrance door had opened again, and people were coming in. They had heavily laden trolleys of food cartons chasing after them, but far more importantly they were wearing standard medical uniforms rather than white protective suits. We weren’t radioactive hazards any longer.

  “I was too scared to be hungry before, but now I’m starving.” Alund stood up. “I’ll go and get some food for us.”

  “I’ll come and help,” said Landon.

  The pair of them hurried off to intercept one of the food trolleys. I thought of the way we’d been clinging together in terror only minutes ago. Now all that fear was fading away like morning mist over a dig site. Like Alund, I was suddenly hungry.

  Landon and Alund were back a few minutes later, carrying cartons and sachets. They piled their treasure in the centre of our group, and sat down on the floor with us.

  “There wasn’t much choice,” said Landon.

  Wren shook her head. “It doesn’t matter what the food is. I’m so hungry I could eat the packets.”

  Everyone else seemed to feel the same way, because hands grabbed eagerly for cartons. I picked up a random yellow one, and then realized the rest of us had crowded out Valeska in our haste.

  I gave her an apologetic look. “
Sorry. We should have let you choose first.”

  She laughed. “I don’t need to choose. I’m very fond of tomato soup.”

  I looked anxiously at the remaining heap. “Do we have any tomato soup?”

  “In situations like this, there’s always enough tomato soup for everyone to go swimming in it. You can get huge crates of the stuff really cheaply, and it stays edible for decades, probably because there aren’t any real tomatoes in it.” Valeska picked up a red squeezy bag, snapped open the tube at the top, and started sipping the contents.

  I pulled the lid off my carton, and felt it grow hot. The contents were a flexiplas spoon and some unfamiliar, yellowish, mushy stuff. I shrugged, grabbed the spoon, started eating, and gasped.

  “Does it taste awful?” asked Wren. “Would you like something else?”

  “No, this is totally amaz!” I shovelled more mush into my mouth, and then peered at the side of the carton to see what I was eating. The label said it was called cheese fluffle. I’d thought there was the flavour of cheese in there. I loved most foods that involved cheese, but I’d never tasted anything as wonderful as this before.

  I ate my way on down to the bottom of the carton, with every mouthful tasting better than the last, and then put down the carton with an ecstatic sigh. “Blizz, pure blizz!”

  “What’s Felipe doing over there?” asked Landon.

  I turned to look where he was pointing. The doctors at the treatment points had pulled down the hoods of their white suits now, and were tidying away their medications. Felipe was talking urgently to one of them.

  “Wren told us about Felipe stealing her meds,” continued Landon. “I thought you’d gone to find him and get him arrested, Jarra.”

  “Felipe hasn’t been arrested,” I said, “but I don’t think he’ll ever work on a dig site again.”

  “Isn’t that a little harsh as a punishment?” asked Alund. “I was terrified earlier on, and Felipe was probably just as scared. He could have grabbed Wren’s meds in a moment of blind panic.”