I paused and sighed. “Maybe it’s a good thing my girlfriend dumped me. Being involved with a girl would make things even more difficult. I couldn’t leave Hercules if I was in a relationship, not unless she’d leave with me, and …”
“Forget the girlfriend!” said Macall. “We have work to do. We’re supposed to be reading up on the expansionists winning the key vote in 2370.”
We all turned on our secret lookups, and there was total silence while we read the recommended history text on how the expansionist victory meant the Military could continue opening up the Beta sector planets for colonization. Personally, I felt the historian who’d written it was far too positive about the expansionist victory being a good thing. The greedy colonization of more and more worlds had led to the near total collapse of civilization and the loss of huge amounts of human knowledge. Vast swathes of historical knowledge, culture and …
A bell rang loudly overhead, telling us the first school class of the day was starting. The three of us shut down our lookups, waited exactly five minutes, then cautiously peered out of the door. There was no one in sight, so we sprinted for the dome next door, skidding in through the open doorway, and pausing to close the door behind us.
“Welcome,” said the history teacher, Larsson. “As I was saying, I’ve now got your first round of examination results.”
The four legal members of the history class were sitting at the front desks. They were all boys, of course. Schools on Hercules all accepted both boys and girls, but even the tiniest classes were strictly segregated.
Macall, Valin, and I sat down. We had the three desks closest to the big display board, so if any outsiders walked into the class, we could hide behind it. That had only happened three times in the last four years. History, literature, and art classes were always timetabled on science rest days, when there were just a handful of teachers and students at the school.
Once we’d sat down, Larsson continued. “You’ll be glad to hear that you’ve all got the top grade. It’s a shame I can only put four of you on the official school results list. If I put all seven of you down, then that would put this school at the top of the Hercules history results table for this year.”
He paused. “Now, although I deeply admire the determined way our three gatecrashers have given up their free time to stick with their history studies over the last four years, we’re reaching the real crisis point. The Cross-sector University Application Process opened today for all courses starting immediately after Year Day 2789. I could quietly add names to a history examination entry list without anyone noticing, but university applications are a very different matter.”
He pulled a face. “I’ll happily assist any of you wishing to apply to do a Pre-history Foundation course but, given the way your parents blocked you moving from the school science stream to the school history stream, I assume you’ll meet strong opposition at home.”
Macall nodded. “We’ve got a plan to deal with that. We’ll start by doing what our parents expect, putting in applications to University Hercules to study physics. We can change those applications at any time until the application process closes. We wait until the last day, and then change them to …”
All three of us chorused it in unison. “Pre-history Foundation course at University Asgard in Gamma sector!”
“I hope you realize that you won’t actually do the course on Asgard,” said the teacher. “All Pre-history Foundation courses are held on Earth. You’ll be learning about the days when humanity only lived on Earth, and studying the ruins of the ancient cities.”
“We understand that,” I said. The course would be run by University Asgard under Gamma sector rules, but the classes would take place on Earth, the home world of humanity. I’d be seeing the places where the ancient civilizations had flourished, walking in the steps of the famous people of pre-history. It was going to be utterly perfect, totally zan, all my dreams coming true at once!
Larsson shook his head. “All right, we’ll have everything ready so you can make your changes quickly, and swap your physics teacher’s supporting statements for mine, but you’d better think through exactly how your parents will react when they find out what you’ve done.”
“Maybe they won’t be that annoyed,” said Valin.
“They won’t be annoyed,” said Macall. “They’ll be incandescent with rage, but what can they do to stop us? By the time they find out, the Cross-sector University Application Process will have closed, so they won’t be able to change anything.”
“That’s true for you, Macall,” said Larsson, “and for Valin too, because your parents are ordinary school teachers. Fian’s in a very different situation though. His father doesn’t just work in the Physics Department of University Hercules, he runs it, and may be able to persuade his colleagues to accept a late application.”
“My father could definitely persuade them,” I said. “Everyone in the Physics Department is terrified of him, but he can’t change my course application without my agreement. I just have to stay firm for two weeks until the course places are allocated.”
“I wish you the best of luck with that, because it won’t be easy,” said Larsson. “After the incident when you took a history module, I had the dubious pleasure of meeting your father, so I know exactly what you’re up against.”
I knew it would be far from easy, but I was counting on one thing to help me. The Cross-sector Nobel Committee formally announced its decision in October, and the awards ceremony was at the start of December. My father would find out about my university application in the ecstatic period between being officially announced as the Nobel Prize winner and actually holding the award. It was over optimistic to think that he wouldn’t care what I was doing, but he should be too occupied with accepting the congratulations of all his colleagues, and gloating over fulfilling his lifelong ambition, to spend much time shouting at me.
Larsson dropped the subject of university applications after that, and started us debating the set text we’d been reading. I argued the case that the expansionist victory was a disaster, while Macall claimed it was a good thing. Earth had already been strained too much by founding all the colony worlds of Alpha sector, and would have collapsed anyway.
“Yes, but …” I broke off my sentence because my lookup was chiming for an emergency call. I grabbed it, checked the caller, and saw it was my mother. She wouldn’t call me on my secret lookup unless something was desperately wrong.
“Sorry,” I said, “I really must answer this.”
I hurried outside, sprinted back to the safety of the sports dome, and answered the call.
My mother looked apologetically at me. “I’m sorry to call you like this, but I had to warn you …” She seemed to be looking past me, checking what she could see of my surroundings. “Nobody can hear us, can they?”
“No,” I said. “I’m totally alone.”
Despite my words, she lowered her voice to a barely audible whisper. “It’s your father. A friend on the Cross-sector Nobel Committee has called him with some unfortunate news.”
I stared at her. “You don’t mean …?”
She nodded. “Two researchers at University Mextli have announced an incredible breakthrough.”
“But … It’s surely too late for their research to be considered for this year’s Nobel. Nothing is eligible unless it’s independently verified and replicated by other researchers before the deadline, and that’s only days away.”
“Apparently it’s already been verified,” my mother interrupted me.
“What? But if that’s true, why didn’t Father know about it?”
“This was a joint civilian and Military research project, so the results were classified. The findings were given to two other University research groups to verify, but they had to keep them secret as well. Nobody else knew anything about it until yesterday, when the Military cleared everything for publication.”
“Oh.” I was silent as I thought this through. “Is there any ch
ance at all of the Nobel?”
Mother shook her head. “Viewed dispassionately, your father’s work is solid, thorough, but not exactly innovative.”
My mother wasn’t just my father’s wife, but one of his research assistants, and his staunchest supporter. If she admitted that my father’s work was solid, but the rival research was an incredible breakthrough, then all hope of a Nobel had gone up in smoke. My father and I did nothing but argue, but I still had to feel sorry for him.
“This is obviously going to be a huge disappointment for Father,” I said.
“And a major embarrassment too,” said Mother. “Everyone was assuming he’d get the Nobel. All the staff at University Hercules were counting on it boosting the prestige of not just the Physics Department but the whole university, and your father …”
She hesitated for a moment. “Your father’s made a few premature remarks about getting the Nobel this year. There are one or two people with reason to dislike him, and they may take the opportunity to make his life difficult.”
I groaned. I knew Mother was politely understating the situation. The truth was that my father had been making cutting remarks about other people’s research for years. By now, there weren’t just one or two people who disliked him, but a whole host of people who really hated him.
“You mean that Father’s been going round boasting about how he’ll get the Astrophysics Nobel this year, so his enemies are going to make the most of his disappointment?”
She nodded. “The next six months are going to be a very difficult time for him. We’ll have to be prepared for him to be … a little impatient sometimes. I realize that’s likely to complicate your plans.”
I groaned again. I’d thought it was good that my father would find out about my university application in the period between the announcement of the Nobel winners and the awards ceremony, but if his coveted Astrophysics Nobel was going to other researchers, particularly ones involved with the Military, then …
“Are you sure you still want to apply to do history at University Asgard?” asked my mother.
“Not history, Mother, pre-history,” I automatically corrected her. “The Foundation course focuses on the period of history before interstellar portal travel, which is called pre-history.”
She waved a hand, indicating that she didn’t think there was much difference. “Pre-history then. I thought your girlfriend was planning to study physics here at University Hercules. Surely that changes things?”
I shook my head. “Not really. My girlfriend dumped me last night.”
“Ah.” My mother sighed. “So you’re positive this is what you want to do?”
I couldn’t bear to go and study physics at University Hercules, with the shadow of the brilliant Jorgen Eklund looming over me, and my father constantly watching me and calling me a failure. I was going to study the pre-history I loved on the world where those events had actually happened. I was going to be in a class where no one knew or cared about my brilliant family, and people wouldn’t judge me against impossible standards. Maybe I’d even meet a Gamman girl who wouldn’t dump me for trying to hold her hand.
“I’m positive.”
“At first I thought your interest in history wouldn’t last, but given you’ve put in so much work over the last four years …” Mother paused. “I accept you’re old enough to make your own decisions, and you’ve a perfect right to live the life you want. I’ll support you in this, but your father …”
I nodded. “I know. When Father finds out about this, he’s going to be furious. Things were bad four years ago, but this time will be far, far worse. I’m not going to give in though. Four years ago, Father could force his decision on me, but this time he can’t. This time I’m going to win!”
Epsilon Sector 2788 - Amalie
Miranda, Epsilon Sector, June 2788.
I was going to the afternoon school shift, so I didn’t need to get there until one o’clock, but I was still going to be late. Partly because I’d been babysitting my three youngest brothers and sisters all morning, partly because the water pipe from the spring needed unblocking for the third time this week, and partly because I’d heard the chickens squawking for help and had to go and rescue them from a moon monkey that was peering nosily into the chicken run. Moon monkeys were one of the original native species of Miranda, perfectly harmless herbivores, but our chickens were terrified of their round, glowing faces.
These things were all just excuses, of course. The real reason I was going to be late for school was because I knew exactly what would happen when I got there. In fact, it started before I was anywhere near the school, because Torrin Summerhaze was lying in wait for me at the portal that was shared between the dozen nearest farms.
It would take me an hour to walk to the next nearest portal, so I gritted my teeth and marched up to this one, pointedly avoiding eye contact with Torrin. That didn’t stop him happily jeering at me.
“Old maid! Old maid! Amalie is the old maid!”
I didn’t turn to look at him, just reached out with my right hand to slap him on the back of the head.
“Ow!” he complained. “That hurt.”
“It was meant to hurt.”
I reached out to set the destination for the portal, but hesitated at the last moment. It was one of the economy models, just offering the six most important local destinations: Jain’s Ford Settlement Central, Jain’s Ford School, Mojay’s General Store, the livestock market, the vet, and the medical centre over at Falling Rock settlement.
If you wanted to go anywhere else, you had to portal to Settlement Central first. That had a proper portal you could use to travel anywhere on the inhabited continent of Miranda, though naturally the portalling charges were a lot higher. The only time I’d been through it was last year, when my parents took all eleven of us to visit Memorial. We’d seen the sea, and the hilltop monument marking where the Military handed Miranda over to the first colonists thirty-one years ago. It was a totally zan day, apart from the twins falling in a rock pool so they stank of seaweed all day.
Right now, I felt like going to Settlement Central and portalling to Memorial again, or even all the way to Northern Reach. I’d seen images of the great cliffs there on the Miranda Rolling News channel. I could see those cliffs for myself, and have a glorious day of freedom, far away from Jain’s Ford Settlement, Jain’s Ford School, and people like Torrin Summerhaze. The snag was that I’d have to come back and face them all at the end of it. I’d have spent credits I couldn’t afford, and it would change nothing.
I set the portal destination to the school, and walked through the second the portal established. I arrived in the school field, and headed for the nearest of the six grey flexiplas domes, the one that was labelled with a large white number 6 and a lopsided pink hummingbird.
The number 6 was the official school dome label. The pink hummingbird was a legacy of when the boys in the year above us got drunk on their last day at school and found a stray can of paint. Rodrish Jain had climbed onto the dome roof to finish painting the hummingbird’s wings, stopped in the middle to shout and wave at the rest of us, fell off, and was portalled to the medical centre at Falling Rock with a broken arm. There was a rumour that Doc Jumi had fixed Rodrish’s arm, and then locked him in quarantine for twenty-four hours in case his pink spots were a sign of a previously undiscovered Mirandan disease. It was probably true. Doc Jumi had an evil sense of humour.
Torrin came through the portal and chased after me. “Amalie, I could help you solve your problem. Marry me!”
I stopped walking, looked him up and down, shook my head sadly, and gave him the standard frontier planet rejection line. “Come back when you’ve got a farm!”
He sighed, and trailed along after me to dome 6. As we went inside, twenty boys looked at me, stood up, and yelled it in unison. “Old maid! Old maid! Amalie is the old maid!”
Last year, there’d been twenty-one boys and eighteen girls in our class. Here on Miranda, as on most
of the planets in Epsilon sector, you could have Twoing contracts at 16 and marry at 17. On Year Day 2788, we’d all turned 17, and seven of the girls instantly proved themselves perfect frontier world women by having Year Day weddings. Admittedly, in Rina’s case, there was a bit of a scandal over her last minute change of husband.
Norris was still fuming about that, and you could hardly blame him. He’d been Twoing with Rina for ten months, so when she dumped him in the middle of their wedding and married another man it was a shock for everyone. The fact the other man was Norris’s older brother, made things even worse. Jain’s Ford Settlement was pretty equally divided between those who thought Rina had done the right thing, those who thought she should have stuck with Norris, and those who thought she should have married both of them. I was the exception. I thought it would have been much more sensible for Rina to cancel the wedding, and think things over for a few weeks before she married anyone, but it was her life, not mine.
Over the next three months, nine of the other girls had got married as well, though without any more scandals. My friend, Cella, had held out for a further two more months before caving into social pressure and marrying yesterday. Now there were twenty-one boys, seventeen empty desks, and me. I was the class old maid. Worse than that, I was the settlement old maid, because all the girls my age who’d left school at 15 were married as well.
Teacher Lomas let the boys enjoy their fun for a minute, before yelling at them. “Quiet!”
They reluctantly calmed down, and Lomas turned to Torrin. “Why are you late? No, don’t bother answering that. We can all guess the reason. We can all guess Amalie’s answer too.”
“Come back when you’ve got a farm,” yelled the mob.
Torrin blushed.
“Time for work now,” said Lomas.
I sat down at my desk, took out my lookup, turned it on, and frowned as I saw the display flicker wildly for a moment or two before focusing properly. My lookup had started doing this a couple of months ago, and it seemed to be getting worse. I hoped like chaos that it wasn’t going to break down entirely. I was the third eldest of eleven children. Schooling on Miranda was free, and my parents believed in education, but it was a struggle for them to afford the vital lookups we all needed to scan the school texts and send and receive work assignments. A 17-year-old girl had no real need to be in school, so if my lookup broke down …