Alien Rain

by Ruth Morgan

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  Postscript

  About the Author

  Copyright

  ALIEN RAIN

  Ruth Morgan

  ‘To Gwen and Evie’

  Silence. An awkward, embarrassing silence. My ears felt hot. I imagined them pulsing like warning lights, even if the rest of my face was under control. Deputy Vilia smiled in my direction.

  Had she really said what I thought she’d said?

  ‘Bree Aurora, you are the fourth member of the mission, so very well done,’ Deputy Vilia repeated. ‘Congratulations to all four students. Your parents have been messaged with the news this afternoon and I am sure they are all delighted. Remember, although you have been chosen because you have impressed Core Panel, this is where the hard work begins. The February (B) launch is a mere six months away. As for the rest of you, there will be other chances to join an Earth mission and just because you haven’t been chosen this time, you must not give up hope. Our Great Quest and Purpose is common to all…’ She laid one hand on her opposite shoulder in salute.

  ‘…and all act as one.’ We saluted back.

  Deputy Vilia re-rolled the luminous blue ceremonial holoscroll and with a snap of her fingers it shrank to a pinprick of light and disappeared into the pocket of her tunic. She swept from the room.

  ‘Congratulations. Very impressive. Now back to work.’ Professor Coro seldom displayed emotion, but his normally half-closed eyes bulged a little. Was he finding it as hard as I was to digest the final name upon the list? Or was that just my paranoia? I didn’t want to see anyone else’s reaction, but I felt a soft bump from Catti’s elbow and looked up. She was staring at me, open mouthed. I shook my head, ever so slightly.

  I must be dreaming. I returned to the virtual frog I’d been in the middle of dissecting. A neat, labelled row of intestines, liver and pancreas sat to one side of the poor beast and with its webbed feet outstretched and its mouth open wide, it looked as though it couldn’t take in the news either. Would a frog express surprise or shock? I guessed not. I knew that a frog was an amphibian and unable to process complex thought, but I had never seen a real frog. There were no frogs on Mars.

  Once school was over, I rode Skyrail home with Catti and we got our first chance to discuss the big news. Our class had done very well to supply all the students for this mission. The other chosen classmates, Robeen, Nisien and Halley, unlike me, really were exceptional students.

  ‘You’ve done brilliantly.’ Catti still looked staggered. I swear she hadn’t closed her gaping great hole of a mouth once since the announcement.

  ‘I guess … so.’

  The train was packed, hot and noisy but we’d managed to grab a seat next to the window.

  ‘Guess nothing. You should have seen Teyra’s face, she would literally kill to be going with you. And the fact that Robeen’s got on and she hasn’t, well, that must hurt. Ha!’

  I winced. Robeen and Teyra always competed to be top of the class and it was always one or the other who got the best overall average at the end of each week. Always.

  ‘Catti.’ I dropped my voice, afraid someone might overhear. ‘Why me? Why do you think I’m on the list? I mean, my marks are nowhere near theirs.’

  This was an understatement. In the two years since gaining my scholarship to Pioneer School, my average grades had been falling steadily, but this term they’d taken a dramatic nosedive. The likes of Teyra and Robeen achieved 95 percent plus. My overall average was floundering around the 59 mark. Anyone who finished the year below 50 was automatically asked to leave the school. No second chances.

  The truth was I found the work hard and with each passing week, I seemed to be struggling more. Long days of gruelling lessons, piles of homework and worst of all, continual tests – I felt ground down by the weight of it all. How would my parents feel if I was asked to leave Pioneer School? The idea upset me so much, I’d shut the thought away in the little box in my daydreamy head marked ‘Do Not Disturb’.

  ‘It must be a mistake.’

  Catti gave my arm a little squeeze. ‘Come on, Bree. Core Panel have chosen you and they don’t make mistakes. Don’t worry about Teyra, she won’t say anything. It was just funny to see the look on her face. When Robeen’s name was read out, she must have felt certain hers would be too.’

  Of course Teyra wouldn’t say anything mean. Pioneer School students were honour-bound to support the lucky few who made it on to real missions.

  ‘You can’t blame her, can you? I would have expected to be chosen if I were her. I would have expected one of Coro’s frogs to be chosen before me.’

  ‘You’re funny!’ Catti laughed.

  ‘Right. When did “funny” earn you a place on an Earth mission?’

  She struggled to answer. ‘You’re very good at Empathy.’

  True, Empathy was the lesson I always felt most confident in, but even there, I never got top marks.

  ‘Teyra’s last poem was plastered all over the walls of the school.’

  ‘So what? Stop looking so worried, Bree. Can you believe it? In six months time you’ll be heading for Earth! I would give anything to be going where you’re going, it’s what we all dream of. I’m so pleased for you, you know I am. I’m only sad I won’t be seeing so much of you for the next six months, with all this special training you’ll be getting. It’s so exciting! This is the biggest chance for you.’

  The train was nearing Canton Station, Catti’s home stop. When the bing-bong announcement struck up, she got to her feet.

  ‘Don’t worry. And forget Teyra, she’ll get her chance some day. See you tomorrow.’ With a wave, Catti was swallowed up in the exiting crowd.

  The doors closed, sounding like they were shushing the noisy commuters as they left, and the train pulled off again. I live in Roath on the other side of the city and I always find this last leg of the trip home most exciting, when Skytrain climbs to its highest level, only a few metres short of the rim of the upperDome, before its two-mile-long top-speed flight from west to east.

  One of my earliest memories is being two or three years old and lying with my head in my mother’s lap, looking up through the glass roof of the train and the glass roof of the upperDome at the bright pink sky, while she stroked my forehead with her finger and sung the familiar nursery rhyme:

  There was a man called Mister Drome

  And Mister Drome he built a home

  Drome’s home was a very fine Dome

  A very fine Dome indeed

  And the red wind blew and the red wind blew

  But it couldn’t blow Drome’s Dome down.

  For years, I imagined that Mr Drome must have been among the early pioneers who first terraformed Mars. Later of course, I learnt that there never had been a Mr Drome. The government made up these nursery rhymes, making up a history so we felt more like we belonged here. My parents had been sung the same songs as children, and their parents before them.

  A storm was raging out there, a swirling confusion of orange grit and dust. There are often violent storms on Mars. Aboard the train, of course I couldn’t hear it, but I had once heard a recording of a Mars storm and found the deep bass howling and high-pitched squealing unnatural and scary. That afternoon, face to face with that wild swirling, I was very relieved that six metres of re-inforc
ed, radiation-resistant glass separated our transparent bullet train from the uncontrollable outside world. I also gave thanks for the brave teams of technicians like my dad who made daily safety surveys.

  The view of our city, nestling mainly below ground level, is spectacular from up here, but best of all, I love picking out the historical buildings which nestle like small, rich jewels amongst the high-rise office and apartment blocks. Cardiff was once called ‘New Cardiff’ but the ‘New’ has long since been dropped. Old Cardiff is back on Earth. When the first pioneers built these Domes – because of course Cardiff is only one of many hundreds on Mars – it was decided that for the psychological well-being of the first settlers, replicas of buildings they had known well on Earth should be built there too.

  First, the crouching spider of the Sports Stadium comes into view and nearby stands one of my favourites, Cardiff Castle, from the days of Kings and Queens. Best of all is the pale slab of the Museum, standing alone on its small green island of parkland and trees. It’s always been a special place for me, where I’ve learnt more about our distant Earth than from any classes at school. And dreamt more too.

  I always gather my belongings together when I see Roath Park Lake, with its tiny white model lighthouse commemorating a pioneer called Scott who travelled to one frozen end of the Earth and died there, once upon a time. Swans swim on the illuminated water. Swans and chickens are the only birds in Cardiff and although I’m not sure about the chickens, which are kept in cages, I know the swans have been specially bred not to do what they do upon Earth – take to the air and fly like a train.

  Skytrain began its descent to Roath Station. The Dome was replaced by grey buildings closing in on either side.

  I exited with the crowd as usual at level six, where the walkway transported me beneath three shiny white arches into the sixth stratum of Albany Towers. I felt distant and dazed. Where the corridors divided, I took the left, heading past Mackintosh Avenue and into Keppoch Court. The wall display changed from savannah to rainforest and the air filled with the soft sound of rain: the walls sensed that rainforest was the most pleasing scene to me. If anyone else had been present, they would have had to make a democratic choice about which scene to display. Normally I marvelled at the water droplets bouncing off the multi-shaped leaves and took in deep breaths of the smell of the Earth rain. Someone’s approximate idea of the rain smell, at least.

  But that afternoon I just wanted to get home quickly and face my mother. I had an ever-tightening knot in my stomach. It made me think of knotted frog intestines before they’ve been unravelled and labelled. It wasn’t how someone should feel returning home with good news, surely?

  A left turn, then a right and I was home, number 6.21, a low blank white frontage like all the others. That afternoon, the mood tiles around the doorway glowed turquoise, a sign that all was happiness and harmony within. When the door melted open, Mum stood in the middle of the hallway as though she had been standing there for hours, a huge smile plastered across her face, but tears in her eyes too.

  ‘Bree!’ She rushed at me, clasped my face in her hands and kissed me over and over. ‘We’re so, so proud of you, my darling. So, so proud. I knew you could do it and you have!’ She wrapped her arms around me.

  ‘Oh.’ I couldn’t think what to say. And she was squeezing the breath out of me.

  ‘Now, you mustn’t worry about us,’ Mum said, holding me at arm’s length again. ‘You’ll obviously be gone for quite a while…’

  ‘Twelve months,’ I said.

  ‘I know.’ Setting her chin at a familiar, determined angle, she stared at me with misty-eyed pride. ‘We must just be strong about that. This is the biggest opportunity for you, Bree, the biggest anyone can image. This is everything we’ve ever dreamed of, ever since you won your scholarship. Nothing must spoil this chance for you.’

  I opened my mouth, then closed it again, frog-like. Even though the school sent them a report on my performance every day, I knew my parents didn’t really appreciate how badly I’d been doing and I hadn’t spelt it out to them. As the first of my family to get into one of the upper academies, and an only child, I was the entire focus of my parents’ ambitions. Everything that happened to our family, even Dad’s promotion to Chief of his team of safety technicians, seemed to stem from my passing the exams for Pioneer School. His promotion meant we could move to our enviable new address, and so on… If the Aurora family were on the up and up, that seemed largely down to me.

  How could I question Core Panel’s decision in front of Mum? She wouldn’t have understood.

  ‘Who else is going? Any of your friends?’

  ‘Not friends exactly, but the three others are from my class.’

  Mum stayed silent, expecting further details.

  ‘There’s Robeen who’s, well, she’s very clever. And two boys called Halley and Nisien.’

  ‘Oh? And what are they like?’

  ‘Well, they’re very … intelligent too. Halley’s good at sports.’

  She nodded her head slowly, as though satisfied I was in the right sort of company for this trip, with classmates comfortably in my league. I swallowed, but I couldn’t get rid of the lump in my throat, the one bunging up what I really wanted to say.

  This isn’t right! Don’t you understand, Mum, there must be some mistake? I’m not as smart as the other three and never will be, not if I live to be two hundred, so why, why, why has Core Panel picked me?

  Instead, doing my best to look happy, I headed for my room.

  ‘Your father will be back in an hour,’ she called after me. ‘Then we’ll eat?’

  ‘Fine,’ I called back. ‘I’ve got homework anyway.’

  I did have homework, but there was no way I was going to be able to settle to it. None of it was in by the next day. I lay on my bed. The small light hovering above my desk made my old toy dragon look as though he was in the spotlight on a stage. Perhaps he was about to deliver a speech, yet another speech about how well I’d done and maybe round it off with a celebratory dance.

  So what could I do? Would I really be happy if I kicked up a fuss, demanded to know the reason I’d been selected, and then got dropped from the mission? Of course not.

  But on the other hand, what if someone – one of the Professors – actually did believe in me, enough to give me this chance in good faith? What if someone had seen through the bad marks to the real Bree underneath, the Bree who knew that she didn’t understand everything, but often secretly felt she understood more of what was really going on than all the Robeens and Teyras of this world. Like in Empathy lessons – that poem of Teyra’s, which they’d all gone wild about at school, I hadn’t rated at all, although naturally I’d kept my opinion to myself.

  At Pioneer School, Empathy is taught through poetry writing. We sit in a circle and a virtual image is projected into the middle as a stimulus. Sometimes these images are of human faces and situations, and these are easier, but sometimes we’re shown a natural force or object from Earth, something we’d never encounter in real life. Sometimes we find out what the force or object would feel like. Sometimes we smell it or even taste it. We’d been shown clouds, volcanoes, a rhinoceros, a stained-glass window and something called a tea ceremony.

  During one lesson we’d been shown a wave breaking on a shore somewhere on Earth. Teyra’s poem began like this:

  Wave

  The wave is a domestic cat

  Pouncing playfully on the shore

  Springing on its liquid paws

  Biting the sand with its foamy jaws…

  Why, I wondered privately, was the wave a cat and why was the cat a wave? What was the point? The image of ‘springing on liquid paws’ fell down completely as far as I was concerned and why ‘foamy jaws’? Was the cat suffering from that nasty-sounding Earth disease, rabies? The cat metaphor was dragged out like slow torture over seven more verses and for no real reason.

  But oh no, it turned out Teyra had done something incredibly clever a
nd complex by comparing one unfamiliar earth object (a wave) with another (a cat), which gained her a lot of extra marks. The poem ticked loads of other boxes as well: there was alliteration (Pouncing playfully…) and a strict rhythm. It ticked so many empathetic poetry boxes that soon the whole school was raving about it. Teyra’s cat-wave poem illustrated the Pioneer School walls for weeks.

  By contrast, my poem was simple. It’s not a great poem but I don’t mind showing it to you.

  Waves

  My thoughts are like waves

  Bobbing happily at sea

  Till one spies some distant shore

  Where smiling knowledge suns itself

  It breaks away, begins to roll

  Inward

  Building in expectancy, building in delight.

  Arriving at last, rearing up and crashing down

  It smashes up and fizzles out,

  Wishing it could fight the long, slow, backward drag.

  Like I say, it’s not perfect, but it says something I felt at the time and I was satisfied with it. At the end of the lesson, Prof Eisenhaur read it through several times with a puckered expression.

  ‘I like it,’ he said, in a way that suggested he didn’t really know why. ‘Though compared to the others it’s a little on the short side.’

  My heart sank. Still, at least he awarded me a respectable 75 percent which bulked up my overall average for that day. I’d done a bit of alliterating and had included some internal rhymes, after all.

  Prof Eisenhaur had seen something in my poem, I was sure. Perhaps he had read it again later and maybe he’d reconsidered my real potential as a student. Did Prof Eisenhaur sit on the Core Panel? If so, could he have been the one who’d suggested me for the expedition?

  Hmmmm.

  I started feeling a bit better.

  Next morning, I felt a lot better. I started to give in to excitement. I’d been chosen – did it really matter why? I had to take it as a massive compliment, there was no other way to take it. And best of all, most unbelievably best of all, I was actually going to Earth.