by Naomi Foyle
After the picnic, the van picked up speed and Astra and Yoki stretched out on their seats, head to toe. Her brand was burning, but only slightly now, a constant reminder of the enormous change she had undergone tonight. Yoki fell asleep, but Astra lay happily imagining telling Lil everything that had happened. Tonight, she would send Silver with the news. Back at the Earthship, she would unclasp Silver’s memory clip from his leg, plug it into Klor’s Tablette and download a photo of her between the two officers, one of her on Tedis’ shoulders, and another of the whole school getting their medals. Then she’d send Silver ahead of Hokma, back to Wise House, so if Lil was up she could see the photos right away.
‘Hokma,’ she whispered.
‘Yes, Gaia Girl?’
‘I want to send Silver to Lil. Promise you won’t tell her anything first?’
‘I promise.’
* * *
But when she woke up, she wasn’t being gently shaken by the shoulder and told to get up for the walk to the Earthship. The van was squealing up the road and adults were exclaiming, ‘What in Gaia’s name?’ and, ‘Careful, Pan, there are children in here.’ She raised her head groggily as the van screeched to a halt.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘It’s okay, Astra,’ Freyja said. ‘We don’t know yet.’
‘Astra,’ Nimma ordered, opening her hydropac, ‘lie still.’ She opened her legs to let Nimma spray her, craning her neck to see what was happening. Klor was wrenching the door open and he and Ahn and Hokma and Mr Ripenson were pouring out and up the path through East Gate. Pan was slamming his door shut and following them. Freyja was looking anxiously at Yoki.
‘Are we home now?’ Yoki asked, rubbing his eyes.
‘Yes, but we have to wait here for a minute,’ Nimma said. ‘Here, let me spray you again.’
‘Why do we have to wait?’ Astra demanded. She stuck her head out of the van. The air was filled with a commotion of calls and cries, and another burning smell met her nostrils – not nauseating, like the laser gun on her genitals, or cosy, like the kitchen stove when you opened the door to add a log. She peered up through East Gate. At the top of the lawn, blooms of smoke were billowing into the night. Beneath the huge ash-grey blossom, flames were leaping like tigers from a black, broken cage. Against their violent orange glow she could see the silhouettes of people, a chain of bodies, as though the Or-adults were all holding hands and dancing round the blaze.
Core House was on fire.
Nimma reached for her and started, ‘Astra, stay here—’ but she was already off, sprinting up the path after Hokma. Everyone in Or was out on the lawn, she could see them now, dark shapes dashing back and forth, shouting instructions, wailing. Shelter parents were holding crying children, and now she could see the chain of people weren’t dancing: they were lifting the hose from the swimming-pool pump and spraying it over the flames. But it was too late: the cedar roof and walls of the dining-hall extension had been incinerated, leaving only the stone wall of the original building and the timber frame of the hall still standing. As she surged up the path, a great roof beam crashed down into the fire.
Astra caught up to Hokma and skirted around her, running as close as she could to the blaze. The heat on her face was unbearable: a furnace, worse than the hottest day of summer. It stung her eyes, and the smoke made her want to cough. Around her, people in heavy boots were stamping on the lawn, extinguishing sparks that were spitting and shooting out from the fire, tracing golden arcs through the air as they descended to the dry grass.
‘Astra.’ Hokma grabbed her from behind. ‘Step back. Let the fire team do their work.’
Hokma pulled her back onto the lawn, and then Yoki and Nimma were there too, Yoki crying and Nimma squawking, ‘Hokma, where’s Klor? Where’s Klor?’
‘He’s there.’ Astra pointed. ‘Look!’ Klor was near the front, shouldering the hosepipe, giving it some of his height. ‘He shouldn’t be doing that. Let the younger men play the daredevil. Oh Klor, what are you doing?’
‘Everything’s under control, Nimma,’ Hokma assured her. ‘It won’t spread. There’s no wind tonight.’
But Nimma wasn’t listening; she was repeating herself, her head swivelling about like a weathervane in a gale. ‘Where’s Meem? Where’s Peat?’ she demanded, as if Hokma could possibly know. ‘Have they taken a headcount? Why aren’t people at the fire point?’
There was a fire plan, Astra remembered; they were supposed to meet at the swimming pool. But it looked to her as if anyone not in the hosepipe chain was milling around, watching the inferno. For it was a mesmerising sight: a raging cavern of timber and flames with a white-hot sanctum of ashes swirling at its heart. Most marvellously, the heat almost generated space: what had once been a reasonably large hall was now monumental, a roaring galaxy, a new dimension of the universe being born and dying in one eternal, expansive, suffering explosion. Astra could have watched it all night.
‘Is everyone okay?’ Yoki’s lower lip was trembling.
‘Let’s go and find out,’ Hokma said firmly. With Yoki trotting behind, she and Nimma dragged Astra away from the thunderous sight of the dining hall collapsing, one beam at a time. They hurried across the lawn to the swimming pool, stepping around the black scorch marks in the grass. There were Meem and Peat, standing in a huddle with their Birth-Code mother Honey, Moon and Aesop, Tulsi and Flint, one of her Shelter fathers, and a slew of other children and parents. Congruence was between Gloria and Luna, and on the edge of the circle Mr Ripenson was hugging Sorrel. A few feet away, Ahn was filming, sending the Kezcams careering around the lawn. ‘Meem, Peat,’ Nimma cried, and Astra’s Shelter siblings ran from their Code mother’s arms to be hugged. Everyone reached out to embrace Astra and Yoki too. Astra wanted the adults to notice her blood panties, but they were too busy talking about the fire.
‘Moon!’ Nimma pulled the younger woman to her, embracing Aesop too, snuggled in his wrap between their breasts. ‘Is everyone safe? Is everyone accounted for?’
‘Arjun’s doing the headcount now,’ Moon told them. ‘Russett’s looking for people too.’
‘Oh, please Gaia, everyone be safe,’ Nimma cried, placing her palms together, her fingertips at her lips.
‘How did it start?’ Hokma asked brusquely.
‘No one knows.’ Moon turned and gazed at the fire as if she still couldn’t believe it was there. ‘It started about an hour ago. Most people had gone to bed. Arjun and Russett were playing chess in the Quiet Room when they smelled smoke. They thought it must be coming from the stove, but the kitchen was fine, so they looked in the dining hall. Arjun said it had already caught hold by then: the curtains had burned all the way up to the roof and the tables and chairs were ablaze. It was too late for the fire extinguishers so they raised the alarm and got the pump team going. We called the fire station too, but the roads in and out of New Bangor are so busy they haven’t got here yet.’
‘But how could—?’ Nimma flashed with anger. ‘Did someone leave a candle burning?’
‘No,’ declared Flint, who was a full-time member of the kitchen team, ‘they were all blown out after dinner and taken back to the kitchen, like always.’
‘I said we should build the dining hall in stone,’ Nimma said crossly. ‘But people didn’t listen. They just wanted to get it up quickly and cheaply.’
Astra tugged at Moon’s arm. ‘Did you count Lil?’
Moon looked anxiously at Hokma. ‘Lil’s at Wise House, isn’t she? We didn’t go up there, no. We needed everyone here. Maybe we should have.’ Her face crumpled. ‘I’m sorry, Hokma. I just wasn’t thinking straight.’
‘We have to count Lil,’ Astra insisted.
‘I’ll go now,’ Hokma said.
‘I’m coming too!’
Hokma and Nimma exchanged glances. ‘No, darling,’ Nimma said. ‘I want you here with me tonight.’
‘Why can’t I come? Lil’s my friend.’
‘Lil will be fine, Astra,’ Hokma said. ‘She�
��ll be in bed sleeping. I don’t want you to wake her up and spend all night talking.’
‘You have to get up early, remember.’ Nimma seamlessly took the baton. ‘The journalists are coming to see the Gaia Girl.’
‘The Gaia Girl?’ For the first time Moon and the other Shelter parents looked properly down at her. ‘Oh, Astra!’ Moon exclaimed. ‘You’re wearing blood pants! I can’t believe I didn’t notice – what a night! Congratulations, sweetheart. Nimma, Hokma, how exciting!’
Then it was like the Congregation Site all over again, with the Or parents hugging her and ruffling her hair, and Yoki standing proudly at her side, telling Peat and Meem how all the other schools had clapped and taken photos. Astra looked around for Ahn. Shouldn’t he be filming this? But he had wandered back near the blaze, the Kezcams invisible above him.
‘Shh now, Yoki,’ Nimma said. ‘You can’t say anything about the ceremony, remember.’
‘I wasn’t! Just the parade.’
‘Okay, Astra.’ Hokma rubbed her back. ‘I’m off now.’
It wasn’t fair, but there was nothing she could do about it. ‘Will you take Silver and send him back to say Lil’s okay?’
‘Astra, Lil is fine – and if she’s not, then I’ll come back and tell you, okay?’
She was going to keep arguing, but Hokma had already stood up and Russett was pounding over the lawn towards the pool.
‘Is Torrent here?’ he panted, his face red with exertion. ‘Or Stream?’
‘Torrent?’ Moon looked around. ‘No. Isn’t he in the pump team?’
Tulsi pulled at Flint’s hand. ‘Daddy?’ she pleaded. ‘Where’s Stream?’
Russett shook his head, impatiently, as if he was wasting his time with them all. He made as if to go, but Nimma took his arm. ‘Russett, slow down. Where did you last see him?’
‘I last saw him in the Earthship, refusing to study. Arjun last saw him in the dining hall,’ Russett said shortly, shaking off her hand. ‘After dinner. With Stream.’
Nimma gasped.
Hokma stayed put. Astra took her hand.
‘But the hall was empty when you and Arjun—’ Moon started.
‘I don’t know!’ Russett exploded. ‘It looked empty! We didn’t look under the frigging tables, did we? I’ve looked every-frigging-where else, and so has her Shelter father. We can’t find them. They’re not in their Earthships, and they’re not on the grounds.’
‘Maybe they’re in the woods,’ Hokma suggested, ‘Gaia-playing?’
‘Gaia-playing?’ Russett turned on her. ‘While Or is on fire?’
Flint stepped forward. He swallowed before he spoke. ‘Russett,’ he said quietly, ‘I caught them Gaia-playing in the dining hall last month – behind the curtains. I said if they did it again I’d tell you. I’m sorry, I should have—’
‘You said what?’ Russett raised his fist. ‘You let him get away with that? You idiot, you—’
‘Russett!’ Hokma dropped Astra’s hand and stepped between the two men. ‘Calm down.’
Nimma pulled Astra and Yoki against her, but Astra reached up and tugged at Nimma’s arm. ‘We have to find Lil,’ she insisted.
‘Shh,’ Nimma ordered. Around them Tulsi was shrieking, begging to be picked up, and the younger children were crying, ‘Mama, where’s Torrent? Where’s Stream?’ Flint bent and gathered Tulsi in his arms.
Russett was shaking. ‘If they were in that hall, Flint,’ he said in a low voice, ‘I’ll kill you. I’ll frigging kill you.’ Then he turned and stalked off towards the Kinbat track, bellowing, ‘Torrent. Stream.’
‘Oh dear.’ Nimma stared after him. ‘And in front of Tulsi!’
‘He’s worried to death,’ Hokma said flatly.
‘I should have told him.’ Flint looked sick. His arms were wrapped tightly around Tulsi, who was crying into his shoulder. Congruence was sobbing too, and Gloria and Luna were holding her tightly now.
‘No, Flint,’ Moon reassured him, ‘Torrent’s seventeen. Russett can’t control everything he does.’
‘I want to see Lil!’ Astra shouted.
‘Astra, be quiet,’ Hokma commanded. ‘I’m going to find her now. You do what Nimma tells you. Luna,’ she said more softly, her hand on the Shelter mother’s shoulder, ‘why don’t you take Congruence home? Gloria should be resting too.’
Hokma strode off to East Gate and Gloria and Luna took the still-weeping Congruence back to their Earthship. Nimma and Moon wouldn’t let Astra leave the swimming pool so she stood watching the fine, ineffectual stream of water fall over the flames until there was no more water left in the tanks. Just as the flames had subsided into small flickering fingers and the dining hall had disintegrated into a black mess of charred wet wood, the New Bangor fire truck arrived, its sirens screaming up the hill and through East Gate. Most of the younger children had fallen asleep, curled up on the ground or in their parents’ arms; the noise woke some of them, but no one took them back to their Earthships. Klor was striding over to the pool, his face, arms and chest smudged with soot. He hugged everybody, getting them all sooty too, and when Astra asked if they could go down and see the truck now it was safe, he said no, the larger beams were still smouldering and the fire team didn’t need an audience of over-excited children. When Nimma and Flint asked, he said no, Torrent and Stream hadn’t been found. ‘They’ll be in the woods,’ he said. ‘They’ll stroll up for breakfast and get the shock of their lives.’
It was agonising, not knowing where Torrent and Stream were, but they couldn’t stand around on the lawn all night. Flint’s Gaia partner Thor arrived and the fathers took Tulsi back to bed. Meem and Peat went back to Honey’s Earthship, Yoki went to stay with Pan and Freyja and Astra walked back home with Nimma and Klor. She wanted to wait up for Helium, but he hadn’t come by the time she’d finished her shower. Then she was yawning and Nimma said Hokma would probably send him in the morning, so after she had learned how to change the pad in her blood pants and had sprayed her brand with more anaesthetic, she had at last to go to bed.
Without her Shelter siblings there, Nimma hovered over her the whole time. She even insisted on brushing her hair. Astra thought she would take the braid beads back, but Nimma said, no, the Gaia Girl could keep wearing them for the journalists tomorrow. The big hard beads were uncomfortable against her head, but Astra flipped the braid up over the pillow and before she knew it, she was fast asleep.
* * *
But Helium didn’t come in the morning. He wasn’t waiting for her on his Earthship perch beside Silver with a memory clip full of congratulations tied to his leg. Instead, Hokma – who never came down to Or before noon any more – was sitting in the guest’s chair in the living room. Klor was standing by the mantelpiece and Nimma was perched on the sofa. Hokma’s face was drawn and rumpled, and there were shiny red pouches under her eye and her patch. Nimma’s eyes were bright pink and her face was puffy. Klor looked grey, as though he hadn’t had a shower last night but had rubbed the soot into his skin.
‘Astra,’ he said, ‘come and sit down. We have some very sad news.’
Astra sat down on the sofa, an arm’s length from Nimma. This wasn’t about Lil. Nimma wouldn’t cry over Lil.
‘What happened to Torrent and Stream?’ she asked.
It was the worst thing she’d ever heard – even worse than hearing about Sheba. The fire team had found Torrent and Stream. They had been under one of the tables. It looked like they’d fallen asleep after Gaia-playing and had breathed in the smoke. They had been poisoned by the carbon monoxide and had died in each other’s arms.
She looked from one adult to another. ‘Did they wake up?’ she demanded. ‘Did they try to escape?’
‘No, they didn’t wake up,’ Klor said. ‘They died in their sleep.’
He was lying, she knew from the way Nimma was sitting stock-still, not meeting her eyes but staring at the photo of Sheba on the mantelpiece. Torrent and Stream had been burned alive. While she was being branded, they were roa
sting, their flesh spitting and blistering off their bones as they tried to fight their way through the flames to the door. Stream’s hair had been on fire and Torrent had taken her hand, tried to pull her through the chairs, but it was too late. The flames were too high and they couldn’t get out. They had screamed and screamed, but the beams were crashing down around them and no one could hear them. Astra, though, had watched: she’d gazed into the heart of the furnace, watching Torrent and Stream burn to death, wishing the fire could go on forever. She’d thought their blazing tomb was beautiful. The memory rose inside her like boiling water, scalding her face.
‘What’s left?’ she whispered. ‘What’s left of them?’
Nimma edged close and put her arm around her. ‘The fire team found some bones, darling. And Stream’s jewellery.’
‘They didn’t know what was happening, Astra,’ Hokma said. Her voice was hoarse. ‘They were together. Gaia took them back together.’
‘The fire team said they died peacefully, Astra,’ Klor repeated.
It was lies: all lies. The stench was in her nose; the galaxy of fire was consuming her head. She rose in her seat. ‘What about Lil? Where’s Lil?’
Hokma cleared her throat. ‘Astra,’ she said, then stopped and covered her face with her hand.
Astra stood. ‘Where’s Lil?’ she screamed.
‘You must stay calm, Astra,’ Klor said, ‘or we can’t tell you anything.’
‘Drink some water, darling.’ Nimma pushed a glass towards her.
They weren’t going to tell her anything unless she drank it, so she did. Breathing heavily, she put the glass back on the table and waited for Hokma to speak.
