Earth and Fire

by Janet Edwards

Keon seemed to genuinely mean what he was saying. He didn’t care about his birth family. I didn’t understand how he managed that when everything I was, all my pride and anger, came from my unknown parents rejecting me.

  Issette wrinkled her nose. “The only one of us with a halfway decent parent is Ross. At least his father sends him the occasional message. Can we please talk about something else now? You were babbling about some important news, Jarra. What is it?”

  Keon groaned. “Please don’t tell me Jarra’s got another of her wild ideas already. I thought sneaking into Europe Off-world would make her happy for a few weeks at least.”

  I frowned at him. “This isn’t a wild idea.”

  “You always say that,” said Issette.

  “Well, this one really isn’t. I’m going to learn to fly!”

  Keon tapped at his lookup for a moment, the glowing blue feathers vanished, and a white seagull started flapping its way round the room. When it flew past me, I saw it had my face.

  I giggled. “Not like that, you nardle. I mean flying in an aircraft. I’m going to get a private pilot’s licence.”

  There was a short silence before Issette spoke. “You’re serious? I know you’ve begged some rides in dig site survey planes, and even talked the pilots into letting you handle the controls, but you must have to do a lot more than that to get your pilot’s licence.”

  “I’m totally serious,” I said. “I’ve dreamed of being a pilot ever since I was 11 years old. When I went on my first trip to a dig site with the school history club, I saw an aircraft flying overhead. I instantly knew I had to get up there too, escape the ground and …”

  I broke off. Flying was about far more than escaping the ground. It was somehow about escaping everything that burdened me, chained me down and limited my life. The strictly controlled regime of life in Next Step, the total authority of Hospital Earth, the fact I’d been born Handicapped. None of those things mattered when I was soaring in the air like a bird.

  I was always chaos bad at explaining my emotions, so I swapped to talking about factual things instead. “It’s been hard for me to get many flying lessons, because I’m not often in the same place as a pilot. The school history club is only allowed to go to the Fringe dig sites, the safer areas on the edges of the old ruined cities, while the survey pilots spend most of their time on the main dig sites where the professionals work. This summer will be different though.”

  I paused for a moment before making the dramatic announcement. “I’ve had a message from my history teacher about an amaz opportunity. The school history club will be at New York Fringe Dig Site this summer, and a pilot is going to be based there all summer too!”

  Issette and Keon didn’t seem impressed by this. “I’m never sure whether your history teacher is a fool encouraging you the way he does,” said Keon, “or if he’s deliberately trying to get you killed so he finally has some peace.”

  I ignored that. “The pilot will be flying a full aerial survey of New York Fringe, so this is my big chance to get enough flying lessons to complete the official pilot’s training. There’s just one problem.”

  “If I say I don’t want to know the problem, will it stop you telling me?” asked Keon.

  I shook my head. “The problem is I’m not legally adult. I’ll need my parents or guardians to give their consent before I can register for a training licence, and my ProParents don’t even know I’ve had a ride in a plane.”

  “I’m sure you’ll nag your poor ProMum into agreeing,” said Keon.

  I was indignant. “I don’t nag Candace! We discuss things. Anyway, even if Candace consents, my ProDad won’t. You know what the situation is like between him and me. If my ProParents disagree, it will be exactly like when my ProDad tried to stop me going to dig sites with the school history club. The Principal will get the deciding vote, and I can’t count on her taking my side.”

  “I think you can count on her throwing a fit,” said Keon. “She agreed to you going to dig sites because it’s the standard way to prepare for a history degree course, but flying in an aircraft is far too dangerous.”

  “Flying isn’t dangerous,” I said. “It may be incredibly rare for people to fly now, but they used to do it all the time back in pre-history. We portal to other continents, but they flew there in planes.”

  Issette gave me a look of pure disbelief. “You’re making that up.”

  “No, I’m not!” I frowned at her. “I’d never make up a historical fact.”

  “Even if that’s true,” said Keon, “you’ll never convince the Principal it’s safe to fly around way up in the air by telling her what people did hundreds of years ago. You’ll have to keep her out of it by getting both your ProParents to consent.”

  “Jarra just told you her ProDad will never agree,” said Issette. “Pay attention!”

  “I am paying attention,” said Keon. “It’s perfectly easy for Jarra to make her ProDad agree.”

  “It is?” I asked. “How?”

  He sighed at my stupidity. “Your ProDad has been abusing his position for years, by taking Hospital Earth’s money but not fulfilling his contract to see you for two hours every week. The Principal is really annoyed about it, but she can’t do anything because you keep covering up for him. Send an emergency flagged message to your ProDad, telling him that either he consents to you learning to fly, or you’ll ask the Principal to report him for neglect. It’ll take him about five minutes to register his consent.”

  Chapter Five

  It actually took my ProDad four minutes and thirty-five seconds to send me the confirmation that he’d registered his consent. I gazed open-mouthed at Keon, completely grazzed.

  “Keon, you’re amaz!” I said.

  “He’s totally zan!” said Issette.

  Keon gave a smug smile, reached out, grabbed a hand from each of me and Issette, and kissed them in turn. “It’s a pleasure to help two such elegant Alphan vid stars.”

  He laughed at our startled faces, while the reproving automated voice of the room sensor spoke from the ceiling overhead. “Your current inter-person intimacy is exceeding that acceptable for your age group.”

  Keon pulled a face at the ceiling and released our hands. “Whoever sets the rules for those room sensors must be incredibly prudish if they think kissing hands is unacceptable intimacy. Now will you both please go away and leave me in peace? Jarra needs to transform back into her normal self before dinner, or Cathan will spend the whole time trying to talk her into boy and girling again.”

  Issette and I retreated in confusion, closing the door behind us. “That was very odd behaviour from Keon,” said Issette. “Why would he kiss our hands like that? Do you think he was testing the room sensors’ rules?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe. I gave up trying to understand Keon when we were 9 years old. Remember that time he sneaked out of school during the lunch break and fell asleep in the park? For someone who likes an easy life, it was a chaos stupid thing to do. He should have known he’d end up having a Hospital Earth Truant Officer monitoring his every move for … Why are you laughing?”

  Issette grinned at me. “Because Keon wanted a Hospital Earth Truant Officer monitoring him. Nial, the big kid in our class from Home E161/8824, was bullying Keon for being so smart and …”

  “What?” I interrupted her. “I knew Nial was a bully, but I didn’t know he was picking on Keon. Why didn’t anyone tell me? I’d have sorted Nial out!”

  “That’s exactly why nobody told you,” said Issette. “Keon said you’d cause just as much trouble as you did in Nursery over the evil Nurse Cass business, and it was simpler to deal with the situation himself. Which he did. Keon set things up so his Truant Officer witnessed Nial being especially vicious, then told the Truant Officer that he’d only run away from school that lunch time because Nial had forced him to do it. Keon got his truancy record cleared as he’d been an innocent victim. Nial got three months in a Correctional Home and never dared to bully anyone ever again.” />
  “Oh.” That did explain a few things that had confused me back then. Why Nial had suddenly vanished from our class, and why Keon had only had to wear a tracking bracelet for two days instead of the month that I’d expected. “Wasn’t it a bit drastic to get Nial sent to Correctional?”

  “No it wasn’t.” Issette’s face took on an expression of implacable hatred. “I haven’t forgotten the time Nial stole Whoopiz the Zen from me. He said he was going to cut Whoopiz in half, but you and Ross thumped Nial and saved Whoopiz.”

  Issette clearly felt that three months in a Correctional Home was lenient treatment for a boy who’d committed crimes against Whoopiz the Zen. Now I stopped to think about a few of the other things Nial had done back then, and the way he’d terrorized the other unfortunate kids in Home E161/8824, I didn’t have much sympathy with him either.

  “Keon’s right about you needing to get back to normal before dinner,” Issette added.

  “Yes, I’ll go and change my clothes now.”

  I went back to my room and removed all my fake elegance. Once I was my usual, slightly scruffy self again, I did some thinking. My ProDad had registered his consent to me learning to fly, so now I had to get my ProMum to do the same thing, and I’d have to use persuasion this time. Even if there was a way to blackmail Candace, which there wasn’t because she was utterly flawless, I’d never do it.

  A host of adults had drifted in and out of my life over the years. Staff at Nursery, Home and Next Step, teachers at school, about twelve psychologists, and assorted minor officials of Hospital Earth. All of them had been Handicapped like me. Some liked me, some hated me, but for most of them I was just another name on a list.

  Our ProParents were supposed to provide the stable adult influence in our lives. That hadn’t worked out too well with my ProDad, but Candace was totally zan. She hadn’t just been there to help me through a hundred minor and major disasters, she truly cared about me and I cared about her too.

  My regular weekly meeting with Candace was three days away, so I mailed her saying something urgent had turned up and asking if I could see her earlier. Her reply came a few minutes later, saying she could manage to see me for half an hour after dinner. We usually met at the tropical bird dome of Zoo Europe, but Candace’s message gave a Europe portal code that I didn’t recognize.

  I headed down to Commons for dinner, and found Cathan already there. He looked disappointed to see the usual unimpressive Jarra again, and sat at the table in silent gloom, but it still turned out to be a horribly embarrassing meal. The nine of us Seventeens always sat together for meals, but today there were ten of us because Vina had brought her boyfriend.

  Ayden and Selia were both in relationships with outsiders, and often brought their girlfriends to dinner. We had no problem with those guests because they were one in a thousand and exactly like us, going to the same school but living in another Next Step. Vina’s boyfriend was different, because Ben wasn’t one in a thousand but one in ten, the Handicapped child of Handicapped parents.

  Education Earth has three separate schooling systems. Nine out of ten kids of Handicapped parents are born norms, so they go to off-world schools to help them rejoin “real society.” Handicapped kids living with their parents have their own schools as well. Education Earth segregates them from those of us living in a Next Step to avoid the inevitable jealousy, and to try and discourage what Vina was doing. The official term is inappropriate family bonding, but most people call it family crashing.

  “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you all.” Ben gave us a rather anxious smile. “Vina kept postponing inviting me. She thought I’d feel uncomfortable visiting a Next Step, but of course I want to meet her friends so I insisted.”

  There was an awkward silence. We all knew Vina would have made every possible excuse to avoid bringing Ben here. She’d spent months arranging a series of accidental meetings with him and coaxing him into a relationship. Her efforts were supposed to be rewarded with precious time spent at Ben’s home getting to know his parents. The last thing she wanted was for Ben to get involved in her own life here at Next Step.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Ben,” said Ross. “Vina has told us so much about you.”

  That was a polite lie. Vina had hardly ever mentioned Ben to us, though she often talked about his parents. We all understood why she was acting this way. The vid channels were full of programmes showing kids with real families, so we were constantly aware we had a gap in our lives. Hospital Earth kept groups of us together all through Nursery, Home and Next Step, so we could form a substitute family, but it wasn’t the same as the real thing.

  Vina was trying to fill the gap in her life by crashing Ben’s family. She’d carefully chosen them as her target, because Ben’s older sister had been born a norm, and had left home last Year Day to attend a university on one of the Alpha sector worlds. Vina’s plan was that she’d gradually replace the absent sister in the parents’ affections, and be accepted as their substitute daughter.

  The rest of us sympathized with Vina’s feelings, but knew what she was doing was a chaos bad idea. Ben and his family weren’t actors who’d obediently follow her fantasy script. This was going to end up in disaster, with Vina upsetting Ben’s family and getting badly hurt herself.

  “What are you planning to do after Year Day, Ben?” asked Maeth in an artificially cheerful tone.

  “I’m going to go medical,” said Ben.

  Maeth gave a pointed look at Issette.

  “I’m planning to go medical too,” said Issette.

  The conversation was less painfully awkward after that. Issette talked to Ben about Medical Foundation courses, and then we all chatted in turn about future plans. Well, not quite all of us. When Vina and Ben had gone to get desserts, Maeth glared at Keon.

  “Why didn’t you say something to Ben instead of just grunting at him?”

  Keon shrugged. “I may not bother studying anything next year. Since I’m one of the unfortunate, helpless Handicapped, I can get a basic subsistence allowance from Hospital Earth even if I do nothing at all, and doing nothing is ideal for me. Anyway, there’s no point in talking to Ben.”

  “Of course there is,” said Maeth. “Vina isn’t saying a word to make him feel welcome here, and it would be terribly rude if we ignored him too. The poor boy looks so worried.”

  “He’s looking worried because he’s starting to realize Vina wants a relationship with his parents, not him,” said Keon. “I doubt we’ll ever see him again.”

  “Shhh,” said Ross. “They’re coming back.”

  I left the others to work at keeping the conversation going, rapidly ate my dessert, then stood up. “I have to go because I’ve got an appointment with my ProMum. It was nice to meet you, Ben.”

  “It was nice to meet you too, Issette.”

  I didn’t correct Ben’s mistake about my name. Keon was probably right that we’d never see the boy again. I just nodded at him and hurried off to the portal in the foyer. I entered the portal code Candace had sent me, and was startled when the portal started talking to me.

  “Warning, you have entered an adult restricted portal code,” it told me. “If your portal request is not confirmed by an appropriate adult, then your portal will not establish but your personal account will still be charged for this journey.”

  There was a brief pause before it spoke again. “Portal request confirmation received.”

  The portal finally established, I stepped through it, and was suddenly, shockingly cold. I gasped.

  Candace’s soft laugh came from beside me and she thrust something into my hands. I glanced down at a thick robe, hastily shrugged it on over my clothes, and looked around at a bleak white landscape. I hadn’t been via a Transit to portal inter-continent, so I must still be in Europe, but this place was obviously either high in the mountains or somewhere in the far north. No, I could see mountains in the distance, but there was a vast, flat plain around us. We must be in the north then.

/>   “I wanted a break from the hot weather,” said Candace.

  There was nothing here except for the two portals standing in the middle of the ice and snow. Isolated, hazardous places always had them in pairs in case of some freak breakdown. I wondered why Portal Network Administration had chosen to put portals in a place like this. Possibly school geography field trips came here.

  “What’s the disaster this time, Jarra?” asked Candace.

  I turned towards her. She was huddled in the depths of a burgundy red robe, with the hood over her head, but I could see her face and its anxious expression.

  “There isn’t a disaster.” I pulled a face of self-mockery. “I know an urgent message from me usually means I’m in trouble, but not this time. I’ve got the chance to do something special, but I need your consent.”

  “Ah.” She seemed to relax. “What is it, Jarra? Have you managed to talk someone into letting you visit one of the main dig sites?”

  I shook my head. “It’s a strict rule that you have to be 18 for that. This is about …”

  I broke off for a moment, trying to work out the best way of saying this. I’d never mentioned the flying to Candace. She’d been worried enough about me going with the school history club to work on Fringe dig sites. Those were carefully selected areas, with no major hazards like the teetering skeletal remains of skyscrapers, but there were still a lot of dangers. I hadn’t wanted to add to her fears by telling her I was begging rides in planes.

  “The Dig Site Federation employs professional pilots to do survey flights over the ruined cities,” I said. “One of them will be doing a full survey of New York Fringe while the history club is there for the summer break. I’ve had several rides in survey planes and …”

  “You have?” Candace interrupted me, a startled note in her normally calm voice. “You must mean you were sitting in one on the ground, not actually going up in the sky.”

  “No, I was going up in the sky, but flying in a plane is perfectly safe. Now we have portals, aircraft are only used for a few special jobs, but they were as common as transport sleds in the days of pre-history.”