Frontier

  I’d pretended to my friends, and to myself, that my reluctance to marry was simply because I wanted to steal a bit more time as a single girl before becoming a wife and mother. Now I could admit the real truth. There’d been a major problem with the Sozanski boys and every other potential husband on my list. None of them were Rodrish Jain.

  I’d been attracted to Rodrish ever since he transferred from Memorial School to study at Jain’s Ford School two years ago. When viewed in person rather than through the unflattering green filter of my lookup image, Rodrish was a handsome boy. He had wavy brown hair, skin a shade or two lighter than my own, and faintly arched eyebrows that gave him a slightly surprised expression.

  During his first month at our school, I’d barely spoken to Rodrish, because he was in the year above mine. I’d been startled when he started attending a few of my classes as well as his own. I discovered that was because he’d failed a Farming Studies Certificate module at his old school, and wanted to do extra studying before retaking it.

  I didn’t see why he was so concerned about failing a module, since most of the boys took a couple of attempts to pass the harder ones, but I’d ended up helping Rodrish with some revision. I found his shyness endearing, and I thought he liked the fact I was quieter than most of the other girls.

  That was the point where I realized my initial attraction to the boy was in danger of turning into something much deeper. I’d known it would be foolish for me to start dreaming of marriage to Rodrish Jain, because he was different from all the other boys in the school. Rodrish’s parents had led the first colonists to this world. He wouldn’t marry an ordinary girl like me, but a daughter of one of the Founding Families of Miranda.

  I’d done my best to block my feelings after that. Rodrish passed his Farming Studies Certificate module on the second attempt, and stopped joining my classes. We still chatted sometimes, but I told myself that what I felt for him was nothing more than friendship.

  Since Rodrish left school, I’d only seen him occasionally in Jain’s Ford Settlement or on Community Days. Every time we’d met, he’d talked enthusiastically about his farm, and the progress of the house he was building. I hadn’t seen anything significant in that, because every new farmer talked about his farm in exactly the same way.

  Now Rodrish had offered me marriage, those conversations took on a whole new meaning. My feelings for him hadn’t been so foolish after all, because he had feelings for me too. He hadn’t shown them in the way that the other boys in the school did, by pestering the girl of his choice with constant offers of marriage, but that was natural. It wasn’t just that Rodrish was shy. Boys from Founding Families wouldn’t behave that way.

  Now Rodrish had offered me marriage, I could finally admit how I felt about him. I would have grinned with delight, but there was an unwelcome fact nagging at the back of my mind. Rodrish had called me to make his offer of marriage when he was drunk. I was certain he was serious about it though. Almost certain.

  Single girls on Miranda wore their hair in a plait that was tied with a ribbon. Whenever anything worried me as a child, I’d drag my plait forward over my shoulder, and keep nervously untying and retying the ribbon. I caught myself indulging in that ridiculous old habit now.

  Everyone said I was a sensible girl, and I should be sensible about this. It was pointless worrying over a decision until I was sure of my facts. It was positively silly to let myself get swept away by the idea of marrying Rodrish before I was sure he meant his offer. I should forget about both the idea of studying history and Rodrish’s proposal until tomorrow.

  I stood up and went back into the classroom.

  Chapter Three

  Everyone said I was a sensible girl, but they were obviously wrong. For the next couple of hours, I tried to concentrate on the lesson Lomas was giving, but my mind kept alternating between replaying Rodrish Jain’s stumbling, shy offer of marriage, and dreaming of distant worlds.

  It was a relief when afternoon shift school ended, and the boys coming to evening classes began flooding into the room. They weren’t due to start their lessons for another fifteen minutes, but they were always eager to stake their claims on desks. There were over sixty boys in the evening class, as well as a scattering of adult male colonists, so a lot would have to sit on the floor.

  Technically the adult male colonists shouldn’t be in the class at all. They were given both practical training and teaching for the vital Farming Studies Certificate from their supervisors while they did their community service. If they hadn’t passed all the modules by the time they’d earned their farm, they were supposed to sign up for an extra year of community service to finish them, but they usually talked Teacher Lomas into letting them sneak into his evening class instead.

  There was the usual fight between the boys trying to get into the room and the boys trying to get out. I waited at my desk while Lomas broke up the fight by tipping a fire bucket of water over the combatants, and then headed towards the door myself. I only managed three steps before one of the evening class boys deliberately blocked my way.

  “Amalie,” he said. “I was wondering ...”

  “No!” I lifted a hand to stop him. “I’m working this evening, so I haven’t got time for random marriage proposals.”

  “But I’m the eldest son in my family. I’m already doing a lot of the running of our farm.”

  “I said no, Piers.”

  “When I pass my Farming Studies Certificate, my father plans to ...”

  My head was busy with thoughts of Rodrish Jain, so my patience was wearing thin. “For the third time, my answer is no. Please get out of my way.”

  “Shall we beat him up for you, Amalie?” asked Torrin Summerhaze.

  “You’re not to beat anyone up in my classroom,” shouted Lomas. “I don’t want you damaging the desks.”

  “We could drag him outside and beat him up there,” said Torrin.

  “I’d rather he stepped aside and let me leave,” I said.

  Piers grudgingly moved out of my way. Lomas called him over, handed him the fire bucket, and sent him off to refill it.

  I made it outside on the second attempt. Most of the kids had left their classrooms by now, and were forming up into groups near the portal. We always portalled out in large groups at the end of the school day. The arrangement benefited everyone, avoiding massive queues to dial the portal, as well as reducing the cost per group member in precious credits.

  I joined the crowd gathering to portal to Mojay’s General Store. The mob travelling to Jain’s Ford Settlement Central outnumbered us, so they portalled out first. Once they’d all gone, our group dialled the portal and streamed through it in a long line, arriving in front of the store with the huge glowing sign that simply said “MOJAY”.

  Mojay’s General Store was on the outskirts of Jain’s Ford Settlement. There were several large fields opposite it, where Mojay’s customers could leave their horses to graze on the reddish, wiry Mirandan grass. Tracks led off in several directions, heading to groups of nearby farms, the dormitories where the incoming male colonists lived while they did their community service, and the centre of Jain’s Ford Settlement.

  Most of the school swarm joined up with brothers, sisters, or friends, and set off in chattering groups along one of the tracks, but a handful of us went into the sprawling, single storey general store.

  Everyone else went to the counter to do shopping for their families, but I walked on through the door at the back of the shop. This led into the vast, barn-like, adjoining structure that was Mojay’s Bar. I was confused to find it empty apart from Rina, the two bar runners, Delun and Jonas, and the short, rotund figure of Mojay himself.

  “There you are at last.” Mojay bustled up to me, thrusting my elaborate, long-sleeved, barmaid’s apron into my hands.

  I tugged off my jacket, hung it on one of the row of pegs on the wall, then thrust my arms into the long-sleeved apron and tied it round my waist. Viewed from the front, the blue fabric co
vered my workaday brown clothes, making it look as if I was wearing an impracticably long and ornate dress.

  “You know I’m on afternoon school shift, and that means I can’t get here until at least ten past six.” I turned to look at the big double doors that led outside. A heavy length of wood was across them, keeping them closed, but they were shaking slightly as if someone was methodically kicking them from the other side. “Why aren’t we open?”

  Mojay gave a despairing wave of his hands. “Cella hasn’t showed up yet, and I didn’t want to open the bar with Rina as the only barmaid when she’s so unpopular with the customers.”

  I frowned. General opinion in Jain’s Ford Settlement had been divided over the scandal of Rina’s marriage, but the single men who frequented Mojay’s Bar had been totally united in thinking Rina had behaved badly to Norris. Every one of them could imagine themselves in his place; feel his delight at Rina agreeing to marry him, his elation as she arrived on the wedding day, and his pain and disbelief when she announced she was going to marry his brother instead.

  The first time Rina appeared in the bar after the wedding, she’d been greeted with such hostile jeers that Mojay had instantly fired her. It was over three months before Mojay was desperately short of a barmaid and risked giving Rina a trial again. The first day or two had been a bit awkward, but there were no problems after that.

  “I thought everyone had calmed down about the wedding scandal,” I said. “Well, everyone except Norris.”

  Mojay pulled a face. “They had calmed down, but Shelby Summerhaze has been spreading rumours about Rina furtively meeting Norris.”

  I groaned at the mention of Jain’s Ford Settlement’s leading gossip. “I’m sure that isn’t true. You know what Shelby Summerhaze is like. When she runs out of true tales to tell, she starts making them up.”

  “I know I’m not employing barmaids who’re unpopular with my customers,” said Mojay grimly. “The men felt Rina treated Norris unfairly, but now they’ll be sympathising with her husband as well.”

  I hastily changed the subject. “Have you tried calling Cella?”

  “Of course I’ve tried calling her! I’ve been calling her every thirty seconds for the last ten minutes, but she isn’t answering my calls.” Mojay waved at Delun. “Let the mob in before the door gives way.”

  I went to join Rina behind the bar, and Mojay hurried after me. “Do either of you know if Cella is quitting her job now she’s married? If she is, then she might have warned me.”

  I exchanged glances with Rina. “Cella hasn’t said anything to us about stopping work,” I said.

  “I hope her new husbands haven’t talked her into quitting,” said Mojay. “It’s a constant worry finding suitable girls to be barmaids. It’s all the Mayor’s fault for enforcing that ridiculous law about me not having under sixteens in my bar.”

  I didn’t want to get involved in Mojay’s long running war with the Mayor, so I kept very quiet. The problem wasn’t really the issue of age limits in the bar – Mojay’s own rules on what and how much his customers got to drink were much stricter than the ones laid down by frontier laws – but a clash of personalities. The Mayor was an outspoken, blunt woman. On her first visit to the general store, she’d said the goods could be a lot better organized and the whole place needed a good clean. Mojay was over sensitive, holding onto grudges as tightly as a baby moon monkey clung to its mother’s back, so he’d never forgiven her for the criticism.

  “I’ve barely time to get a new girl properly trained before she gets married,” said Mojay, “and then it’s less than a year before she leaves to take care of her first baby. I was counting on keeping Cella for at least a few more months.”

  “Lisbet is 16 now,” I said hopefully. I’d been trying to get my eldest sister a job at Mojay’s Bar for months. She was currently doing some cleaning and cooking for the owner of a neighbouring farm, but a job at Mojay’s Bar would be far better because he paid his barmaids in genuine credits rather than farm produce or bartered goods.

  My earnings from here had already paid for the precious imported lookups needed for both the twins when they started school at the beginning of this year. Now I was saving every credit I could, hoping to buy a new lookup for myself before my existing one broke down completely. I’d been proud of buying the twins their lookups, thrilled to be contributing to the family finances, and I didn’t want to spoil that by having to ask my parents for a loan.

  “Lisbet’s a very capable girl who’d be good at remembering the customers’ names and faces,” I added. “I could call her and get her to come over right now.”

  Mojay shuddered. “I’m sure Lisbet has a good memory for names. Given the size of your family, she has to be good at names to remember all her brothers and sisters, but I’ve told you before that Lisbet is never setting foot in my bar. I haven’t forgotten the way she used to stand outside my store, yelling rude comments about my waistline and sticking her tongue out at me.”

  “I agree that was shockingly bad behaviour,” I said, “but Lisbet was only 7 years old back then, and she got in a lot of trouble with our parents over it. You remember how they made her apologize to you.”

  “Yes, I remember that,” said Mojay. “I also remember telling Lisbet she was banned from my property for life, and I meant it.”

  I sighed. Mojay hadn’t just banned my sister from the general store nine years ago, but the whole of the rest of our family as well. My mother had had to get the neighbours to do all our shopping for us for the next month, until the combination of her desperate apologies, and the fact my father was a highly respected member of Jain’s Ford Settlement Council, finally made Mojay relent and agree to limit his ban to my offending sister.

  I couldn’t argue Lisbet’s cause with Mojay any longer, because a rush of men had arrived. Worryingly, only a handful seemed willing to be served by Rina, so most of them were jostling for positions at my end of the bar.

  I turned to face my customers, and gave a sorrowful shake of my head. “You know I won’t serve anyone who doesn’t quietly wait their turn.”

  To underline my point, I ignored the front row entirely, and pointed a finger at a lanky figure further back. “Fabian first.”

  The crowd shifted aside to let Fabian through, and I smiled at him. Like most of the men at the bar, Fabian had come to Miranda as a single adult male colonist. Since then, he’d been living in one of the dormitories in Jain’s Ford Settlement, and doing his community service to earn his farm.

  “I heard that you’re next in line to get your farm, Fabian,” I said.

  “That’s right,” he said eagerly. “The whole community service team has been working out there today, building the cabin and ploughing the first field. You should come and see ...”

  The rest of his sentence was drowned out, as the mob pointed at the notice hanging on the wall behind the bar and bellowed its words in chorus. “Rule one: don’t hassle Mojay’s barmaids with marriage proposals.”

  “I’m sorry, Amalie,” said Fabian hastily. “I didn’t mean that as a marriage offer, just that I’d like you to see what good land it is.”

  The new farms were all virtually identical, but their owners had worked for years to get them and were always convinced theirs was better than any other. “I’m sure it’s totally zan,” I said.

  Fabian nodded proudly. “It is.”

  He’d had the congratulations he was due for getting his farm, so it was time to take his order. “Your usual beer, and ...” I glanced across at the board on the wall listing today’s menu. “Pie, Mirandan ostrich eggs, or fish?”

  “Fish, please,” said Fabian.

  I handed Fabian his beer, and saw Delun shoot off towards the kitchen to fetch a plate of fish. Judging from the frustrated look on Jonas’s face, the two bar runners were having one of their regular competitions to see who could serve the most meals.

  I dealt with my next three customers rapidly, but my fifth customer, Hammer, gave me a look of deep d
epression that meant he had a problem. Hammer wasn’t the man’s real name, but a nickname he’d picked up during his brief career as a blacksmith’s apprentice. He’d earned it by somehow managing to hit his own foot with a hammer on his first day and breaking his big toe. After which, he got fired for his own safety, and signed up to do community service and become a farmer instead.

  “I got the results of my last two Farming Studies Certificate modules today,” he said.

  The results clearly hadn’t been good news. “I’m sorry. You’re retaking them?”

  “I’ll have to.” He groaned. “It’s so frustrating. Actually having my farm at last, but not being able to do anything with it.”

  “You’re allowed to have Mirandan animals and crops,” I said.

  “Mirandan cabbage may be wonderful for replenishing the soil, but you don’t earn any credits from it, and Mirandan ostriches keep making that ghastly screaming noise all night.”

  “You can get a high price for Mirandan almonds,” I said.

  He shook his head. “Nobody grows Mirandan almonds, because they’re impossibly difficult.”

  “The key thing is allowing for the acid balance of the moon monkey digestive system,” I said. “You have to get moon monkeys to eat the acidic, first stage false fruits to fertilize the bushes before the second stage almonds will develop. The moon monkeys need to eat both clay and Mirandan cabbage to stop them getting indigestion, so ...”

  I let my words trail off, because Hammer was staring at me in blank incomprehension. In fact, everyone in the bar, including Mojay, had matching expressions on their faces.