Earth Star

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good.’ He juggled his sleep sack from his right hand to under his left arm, and used his right hand to grab my arm like a jailer. I was forcibly escorted to the hall.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘Making sure you don’t try anything nardle, like trying to portal to Alpha sector.’

  ‘I’m not totally stupid,’ I said.

  ‘Really? Bitter experience tells me not to count on it.’

  Fian shut up at this point, because more of the class were arriving and staring at us. Ark evacuation luggage restrictions meant most people just had one bag, but the seven of us heading for Ark were clutching sleep sacks, Krath and Amalie had the extra burden of vid equipment cases, while Dalmora carried her guitar. We gathered together in a group, and Krath frowned at Fian.

  ‘Why have you got Jarra in an arm lock?’

  ‘Don’t ask,’ said Playdon, reappearing with two last stray Gamman sheep. ‘When an irresistible force collides with an immovable object, it’s safest to stay out of the way.’

  He produced his lookup, and checked off names against a list. ‘Lolia, Lolmack, Dalmora, Krath, Amalie, Fian, and especially Jarra will stay here. Everyone else follows me to the portal room, goes through as a group to Africa Off-world, and heads straight to the off-world portals. They’ll be locked open to Alpha sector planets, so go through the first one you reach. You then each send me an immediate mail to confirm you’re safely in Alpha sector. Everyone understand?’

  They all nodded. Playdon led them off and returned to the hall a couple of minutes later. He stood waiting, tapping a foot impatiently, until his lookup started chiming away. He checked off names and gave a heavy sigh. ‘What’s Kai playing at? Surely … Ah.’

  The last chime must have been a mail from Kai, because Playdon made a call and started talking into his lookup. ‘This is Playdon, Asgard 6. I have twenty-two students confirmed in Alpha sector. Portalling to Africa Transit now with remaining seven students.’

  We headed to the portal room, Playdon entered the portal code and sent us through ahead of him. We arrived in what the signs told me was Africa Transit 6. The place was crowded, but not unusually so. Thanks to Playdon’s insistence on us having our emergency bags packed in advance, we were well ahead of the main rush towards Ark.

  Playdon appeared through the portal, counted rapidly to seven, and led us towards an inter-continental portal with a flashing sign saying, naturally, ‘Australia’. We stepped through to one of the temporary Australia Transits that I’d seen on Earth Rolling News. The place was deserted, but a sign told us we were in Australia Transit 91. I was grazzed. They had at least 91 functioning Australia Transits to handle the evacuation. Amaz!

  Playdon wasn’t wasting time sightseeing, he’d come through last again but dashed ahead to the nearest local portal. ‘Lolia and Lolmack, you go through to your daughter’s nursery evacuation point first.’

  Lolia fumbled with her lookup to check the code, then she and Lolmack vanished through the portal. Playdon instantly entered another code, and nodded at the rest of us.

  ‘Through you go.’

  I stepped forward and found myself inside a vast granite cavern lit by overhead floodlights. Straight ahead of me, two people were sitting at a grey flexiplas table. The sign in front of them said ‘Dig Site Command’.

  I blinked. Dig Site Command were disembodied, professional voices, not a man with crinkly grey hair and an infectious smile, and a red-headed woman who was obviously pregnant. Someone grabbed my arm, and I glanced sideways to find Fian urging me forward. Krath, Amalie, and Dalmora appeared from the portal, followed by Playdon, who dodged around us to get to the table.

  ‘Dome 21, Ellen,’ he said.

  The woman checked her lookup. ‘You should still have seven students, Playdon.’

  ‘Two are at their daughter’s nursery evacuation point in Ark.’

  ‘And five here.’ Ellen nodded. ‘Dome 21 confirmed vacant.’

  She gestured at the man next to her, who smiled at Playdon.

  ‘There are four corridors which lead up to a series of large rooms on the next level.’ The man pointed vaguely upwards. ‘Each large room has a set of twenty smaller rooms leading off them. You don’t need twenty rooms for six of you, so who would you like to share with?’

  Playdon gave him one of his evil smiles. ‘I believe Rono Kipkibor and Cassandra 2 are coming.’

  The man groaned. ‘Please, Playdon, don’t tell me you brought the drum kit.’

  Fian and I exchanged glances. Drum kit?

  ‘You did, didn’t you?’ said the man. ‘I’ll put you in with Rono Kipkibor’s team then. Follow Alpha corridor over to your left, go all the way to the end and you’re in Area 6. You’ll need this.’

  He handed Playdon a black tube, before giving the rest of us a pitying look. ‘My sincere sympathy.’

  We were Foundation course students, too much in awe of Dig Site Command to ask what the man meant, so we meekly followed Playdon to a corridor that sloped upwards. The lights were dimmer in here, but it was still easy to find our way.

  ‘Drum kit?’ asked Fian, finally. ‘You play drums, sir?’

  ‘Rono and I were students together,’ said Playdon. ‘Four of us formed our own historical music group.’

  We passed an opening in the wall. The number one was painted on the rock by the side of it.

  ‘What sort of music group?’ asked Krath.

  ‘Rono plays lead guitar, and I’m on drums,’ said Playdon. ‘Have you ever heard of rock and roll bands?’

  I shook my head, but Dalmora gave a strange, choking giggle of a noise.

  Playdon led us through the opening marked as number 6, and into a chamber that was bigger than our dome hall. There were doorways, covered with makeshift curtains, at regular intervals in its walls.

  ‘Pick some rooms,’ said Playdon. ‘I’m afraid Jarra and Fian won’t be able to move granite walls.’

  The other three laughed at us, while Fian pulled aside a random curtain and stuck his head inside. ‘These are quite big caves anyway. How do we show who …?’

  Playdon handed him the black tube. ‘Write on the curtain.’

  Fian peered at the tube, and used it to write in large black letters. ‘FIAN AND JARRA.’ Underneath, in smaller letters, he added another line. ‘Krath keep out.’

  Krath made a noise of disgust, grabbed the tube, and went to claim a room of his own. ‘Amalie, I don’t suppose you’d like to …?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t,’ she said.

  Fian and I carried our belongings into our room and unrolled our sleep sacks. There was plenty of space, but the air had a faint musty smell, and the dark grey stone walls were forbidding under the harsh light of the single glow above the doorway. I tried adjusting its brightness a little, but that just filled the room with ominous dark shadows. I frowned and opened my bag to take out the small cube of a light sculpture. Keon’s agent had been busy. A light art company were making licensed copies of Keon’s sculpture ‘Phoenix Rising’, and when he and Issette visited me in hospital, they’d brought me one of the first manufacturing run as a present.

  I put the cube in the corner of the room and turned it on. Coloured lights weaved and shimmered above it, then suddenly fused together for a moment to form a bird with outstretched wings. The grim room was transformed into a place of warmth and colour.

  Fian pulled the curtain back into place behind us. ‘I wonder how the designers intended to use this area. It certainly doesn’t look like it could be anyone’s home.’

  I sat on my sleep sack and watched the light sculpture. ‘This was supposed to be a self-contained arcology. As well as housing for a billion people, there would be offices, schools, hospitals, hundreds of different things.’

  ‘If the Eden Dig Site teams get this much space, the size of Ark must be incredible. How in chaos did they manage to carve out all these caverns?’

  ‘University Earth Australia thinks the
y used two portals, linked in tandem. The first one never established properly, just pulsed to cut the rock into sections. The second one followed behind, portalling the chunks of rock through a relay system to form the Atlantis reef. They’d literally drive these things through solid granite to make the caverns, and follow behind doing a little tidying up with lasers.’

  ‘Amaz,’ said Fian. ‘I suppose that’s why the doorways are so large.’

  Playdon’s voice called from outside. ‘Jarra! Fian! Dig Site Command called to say Cassandra 2 are on their way up.’

  We headed out to join the others, and after a couple of minutes a group of ten people entered the room. I saw Rono Kipkibor still had that instantly noticeable scar on his dark forehead, and wondered why he kept it. Every time he had a medical check, he must have to fight to stop doctors treating it.

  Rono stopped abruptly as he saw Playdon grinning at him. ‘Playdon! Ellen didn’t tell me …’ Rono broke off as he saw me. ‘Oh no, it’s Jarra Tell Morrath! Are we deep enough underground to be safe from crashing spacecraft?’

  I giggled. ‘It wasn’t my fault that Solar 5 crashed, Rono.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault it crashed, Jarra, but it was your fault it chose to crash on New York Dig Site.’ He paused. ‘Why are you calling me Rono this time, instead of sir?’

  ‘During the solar super storm, Lecturer Playdon was away on Asgard. This time, he isn’t.’

  ‘Very true.’ Rono patted Playdon on the back. ‘Congratulations, Playdon, you’re in charge of Jarra. Any crashing spaceships are your problem, not mine. Now, I’d better make some introductions. Playdon knows everyone already. Jarra and Fian met everyone during the super storm, except for Stephan and Katt who were still in hospital.’

  There was a flurry of name listing on both sides, and Stephan stepped forward. ‘This is my first chance to thank you all for rescuing us at the beginning of the year. That was impressive work.’

  He solemnly shook hands with everyone on our team, before fading into the background and rejoining his wife. I looked after him in bewilderment. This quiet, retiring man was a tag leader? It seemed out of character.

  ‘Now, the big question …’ Rono looked at Playdon. ‘I’ve got the guitars. Stephan has his keyboard. Did you bring the drums?’

  There was a loud groan from Keren, the other tag leader for Cassandra 2. ‘Please, Playdon, say you didn’t.’

  ‘I did,’ Playdon said, ‘but we’ve plenty of time for that later. I’d like to check what’s happening back in the hall.’

  The Cassandra 2 team picked rooms, and Dalmora unpacked and activated some vid bees, then we all headed back to the huge cavern below. Things were getting busy there now, with a stream of teams arriving through the portal and queuing at the Dig Site Command desk. A crowd had gathered at the opposite end of the hall from the portal, where a large section of wall had been painted white and was being used to display the Earth Rolling News channel. We went to join them.

  ‘… broadcasting to you from our evacuation centre in Ark,’ said the hugely magnified presenter. ‘Traffic volumes are approaching maximum. Earth America North is experiencing minor portal delays of about three minutes. The congestion in Earth Asia Off-world has now cleared. Stay with Earth Rolling News for regular portal traffic reports.’

  The display suddenly changed to split screen. The left half of the screen still showed the man’s face, while the right half was black except for two glowing numbers in different colours. I was trying to work out what they were when the presenter saved me the trouble.

  ‘There is an estimated seven hours and fifty-three minutes before the portal network goes into lockdown. The Military request everyone enters Ark as soon as possible, and well before the final hour. Ark evacuation status is now 5 per cent complete. You are reminded that Ark is in Earth Australia time zone, but lighting in main areas will remain at daytime levels throughout the storm.’

  The time to portal lockdown was glowing red and steadily ticking down, second by second. Ark evacuation status was in green, and suddenly moved from 5 to 6 per cent.

  Rono turned and shouted across the room. ‘Dig Site Command, are we staying on Earth Africa time?’

  There was a short conference at the Dig Site Command desk, after which Ellen spoke into a microphone and her voice echoed around the hall.

  ‘There doesn’t seem any point in worrying about time zones. We expect most people will stay awake until the storm hits anyway.’ She paused. ‘Food and drinks are now available in the side hall through the large archway in what we think is the west wall. The archway in the east wall leads to a giant tunnel that is northern linkway 7155. Our nearest medical post is ten minutes walk along there to the north. Basic bathroom facilities are available at each end of the corridors. Please try to conserve water.’

  We watched Earth Rolling News for another few minutes, after which the entertainment value of watching the numbers began to wear thin. Fian tugged at my arm.

  ‘Let’s go up to our room,’ he whispered.

  Dalmora, Amalie and Krath were busy controlling their vid bees, which swooped around the hall recording images of the crowd watching Earth Rolling News, and of the new arrivals appearing from the portal. Playdon was chatting to Rono. No one noticed us leave.

  25

  ‘Jarra! Wake up!’

  I made a noise of protest and snuggled further down into the warm cocoon of my sleep sack, but Fian was implacable.

  ‘Jarra!’

  I reluctantly opened my eyes, and blinked at the strange granite walls around me. Oh yes, we were in Ark.

  Fian was smiling down at me. ‘What went wrong there? I intended us to talk but somehow …’

  ‘Mmmm.’ I made a noise of pure, smug contentment. I hadn’t wanted to talk about the last few miserable days, so I’d shamelessly distracted Fian.

  He laughed. ‘I’m afraid you really have to wake up now, Jarra. It’s less than two hours to portal lockdown, and we should check what the Military are doing.’

  ‘What?’ I sat up, totally grazzed. I’d forgotten about the alien sphere, and the Military, and … How could I have done that? Yes, I’d been completely occupied with my own problems for days, but we’d just evacuated to Ark. If I wasn’t completely nardle, I’d have spared a moment to remember exactly why we were going there.

  I slid out of the sleep sack, rapidly dressed, checked no one was in the main room, and then took my Military lookup from my bag and started reading the command event summary. ‘Everything seems to be going according to plan. The civilian experts portalled to the Echo base on Adonis, Alpha sector, four hours ago. Command moved to Ark operations centre two hours ago.’

  ‘And the fighters?’ asked Fian.

  ‘The current shift has just begun pulling back towards the portals. They’ll wait there until they get the five minute warning and then portal out to join the rest of the Attack team who are already at Echo base. We’re now at alert level 4, and will move to level 3 an hour before lockdown. Threat team seem pretty confident the sphere won’t do anything drastic until the fighters have gone and the solar storm takes out the portals and leaves us vulnerable.’

  I checked the latest figures from the Threat team. ‘Ugh.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s a 21 per cent chance of the sphere opening fire when the portal network goes into lockdown. I didn’t think it would be that high.’

  Fian frowned. ‘You believe that number?’

  ‘Yes. The Military have used Threat team evaluations for centuries. There are a lot of unknowns when it comes to aliens, but the same is true of Planet First assessments and …’ The reality of the situation was hitting me now. ‘Fian, there’s a one in five chance that sphere is going to start shooting at us. We still have 97 minutes to lockdown. You should portal to Echo base, Adonis, and watch events from there.’

  ‘No.’

  The sphere had casually used a beam with a tenth of the power of a planetary power supply beam just to take ou
t a bit of passing space debris. I’d seen Ventrak Rostha’s vid of the events on Artemis when a power beam attacked the planet, and the sphere might be able to do the same or even worse.

  As a team leader, I’d sat through enough tactical meetings to know exactly what would happen if the sphere attacked Earth. The Military would be forced to portal in to defend us, and in the middle of a solar storm they wouldn’t have time to mess about. They’d use everything they had. Ark was deep underground, but with both alien and Military weapons letting loose it might not be deep enough. The worst-case scenarios had seemed comfortingly remote theoretical possibilities back in those meetings, but now they were terrifyingly real.

  This was Fian’s last chance to get to safety. I lost control and yelled at him. ‘Fian, get off this nuking planet and go visit your family on Hercules!’

  ‘Still no.’

  The idiot Deltan just grinned at me. I’d have more luck arguing with the granite wall. I considered knocking him out, dragging his unconscious body down to the portal and … No, I’d never get away with it. Some officious person would arrest me long before I made it to Australia Off-world.

  I sighed and gave in. ‘Let’s check what’s going on down in the main hall.’

  I daren’t take my Military lookup out in public, so I set it to forward everything to my civilian one, and headed out of the room with Fian following me. Playdon ambushed us the second we entered the main hall.

  ‘How is everything?’

  ‘Going according to plan.’ I looked around. ‘Where are the rest of team 1?’

  ‘They took their vid bees off to explore northern linkway 7155. I asked them to be back before portal lockdown. They probably think I’m paranoid.’

  Some flexiplas chairs and a lot of cushions had appeared in the main hall. It was full of people lounging around and talking. Earth Rolling News was still chattering away on the far wall. I went over to take a look.

  ‘… ninety minutes to lockdown. Evacuation status is at 98 per cent. The Military request that everyone not in Ark should head there immediately. Time to lockdown is only an estimate, and you may be in danger if you don’t reach Ark. If you require assistance, call community services at once, as they will evacuate to Ark within the next twenty minutes. Hospital Earth evacuation is already complete.’