The contents of the carton were very basic, but I told myself that I had to adapt to a less luxurious life now, and ate everything except an especially soggy toasted wafer. After that, I set my lookup to mirror mode, checked my appearance, and shuddered.
As a member of a clan that made vids, I’d been raised to be constantly aware of my appearance. I’d been born with a fairly average face, except for high cheek bones and an overlarge nose. My clan had had my nose corrected when I was 15, altered my hair colour from a nondescript brown to dramatic blonde, and given me training in how to use makeup to make the best of my features. Since then, people had generally thought me very attractive, but right now I resembled an Artemis ferret!
If I’d looked anywhere near this bad in my calls to Lolmack, then it was amazing he hadn’t screamed and told me to stay on Artemis. I hunted through my hover bags to find my makeup case, and spent over an hour in a shower room, trying to make myself look as beautiful as possible despite the dreadfully minimal facilities available.
After that, I went back to the endless rows of chairs, and sat tensely listening to a series of announcements coming through the overhead speakers. Gate 4 must have a block portal window open to Gamma sector at the moment, because all the announcements were about Gamma sector worlds.
Finally, I heard the words I was waiting for. “Cross-sector Gate 4 is now dialling Alpha Sector Interchange 6.”
I stood up.
“Travellers for Adonis should move to the departure zone now,” said the announcer. “Adonis only please. Other travellers should remain in the waiting area until called.”
I dutifully sat down again. The waiting area had been crowded with people, but about a third of them were heading off down the corridor labelled “Cross-sector Gate 4 Departure Zone.”
After a couple of minutes, the announcer spoke again. “Travellers for destinations other than Adonis please return to the waiting area immediately or you will incur a penalty charge. Travellers to Adonis have priority because they need to reach Alpha Sector Interchange 6 within the next fifteen minutes to join their ongoing block portal to Adonis.”
A trickle of people returned to the waiting area. I smothered a laugh at their embarrassed faces. It was another ten minutes before I heard the announcer’s voice again. “Travellers for Earth Europe and Earth America should move to the departure zone now.”
I clicked my key fob, and headed down the corridor to the departure zone. The corridor widened out and I joined a slow moving queue of people. A uniformed security guard stepped forward to speak to me.
“Have you portalled cross-sector before?”
I shook my head. “Only interstellar from Artemis to Romulus.”
“Cross-sector portalling is a little different,” she said, “because we have to keep the time taken per traveller to a minimum. When you’re told to go through the gate, you must move immediately or you’ll incur a penalty charge. Due to the sheer distance of the portal jump, you may arrive feeling dizzy, but try to keep moving clear of the portal arrival zone. If necessary, a security guard will assist you.”
She glanced at my trail of hover luggage. “You’ve got a lot of bags there. Keep clicking your key fob to keep them grouped close to you, or some of them could be left behind. If there’s free time at the end of the block portal window, we may be able to send through any lost luggage, but we can’t guarantee it.”
The security guard moved on to talk to another traveller. I counted my luggage, seven bags, and thought rapidly. I had plenty of dresses, so I could cope with losing a few. The vital thing was …
I opened one of the hover bags, and took out my precious makeup case. If I carried it myself, then it couldn’t be left behind. The woman ahead of me in the queue was opening a hover bag as well, and taking out a fluffy toy. She smiled at me, and pointed at the little girl at her side. “It would break her heart if she lost this.”
I nodded, and we all shuffled forward as the queue moved. There was a man ahead of the woman, and he turned and picked up the little girl, so I guessed they were a family.
A couple of minutes later, the three of them headed through the cross-sector gate. That was a truly strange looking portal, with peculiar extra attachments and lights, but I daren’t spend time studying it. I had to keep my eyes on the security guard standing next to it, keep clicking my key fob, and be ready to …
“Now!” The security guard waved his arm.
I gave my key fob a last click as I stepped through the portal. I instantly felt sickeningly dizzy, and dropped the key fob, but someone grabbed it, took my arm, and towed me forward.
“All right?” asked a male voice with the distinctive drawling accent of Alpha sector.
The world stopped spinning. I blinked and focused on the face of a male security guard. “I think so.”
“Welcome to Alpha sector.” He let go of my arm, and clicked my key fob before returning it to me. “You’ve got seven hover bags here. Is that everything you had with you?”
I looked for my makeup bag, discovered I was still holding it in my left hand, and nodded.
“Where are you going?” asked the man.
“Earth Europe.”
“You want Interstellar Portal 8 then,” he said. “The next block portal to Earth Europe opens there in twenty minutes.”
“Thank you.”
The guard hurried off to help another arrival. I saw everyone else was moving off down a corridor, and was following them when my lookup chimed. I expected it to be a call from Lolmack, so I moved to stand by the corridor wall and answered it, but it was Lolek!
“Lolia!” He seemed startled that I was answering my lookup myself. “Why did the doctor …? Never mind, that doesn’t matter any longer.”
He obviously thought I was still in the hotel with the doctor. Either she was still asleep, or she’d been too scared to contact him and tell him I’d escaped. I told myself I had no need to be afraid of Lolek now I was in Alpha sector, but I still nervously checked there was only an anonymous wall behind me so Lolek couldn’t tell where I really was.
“I was just summoned to hear alliance council’s decision,” he continued in rapid, eager tones. “My impression is that opinion was evenly divided during the debate, so the closing speech by Marissa Breck Thane decided everything. The alliance have deep respect for her opinion.”
He paused with the air of someone about to give momentous news. “You read her, Lolia. I freely admit I thought you were being stupid last night, but you’d read Marissa better than I had. When she spoke this morning, giving alliance council’s verdict, she said she was struck by the way you hadn’t just told the truth, you’d even given details that could count in clan Eastreth’s favour. She said that gave the alliance the best possible chance of finding an amicable solution, demonstrating our clan was willing to put the long-term interests of the alliance ahead of our own immediate benefit.”
He gave me a smile of pure jubilation. “Our clan is to stay in the alliance, Lolia! Even better, alliance council ruled that the Eastreth clan could only remain in the alliance if Arden publicly apologized to both of us for his insulting behaviour.”
He laughed. “Well, Arden couldn’t stomach doing that, so he decided to withdraw the Eastreth clan from the alliance.”
I blinked. How would the Eastreth clan council react to that? If Arden lost his position as clan leader, Ardreath might be made clanless. For a second, I pictured a clanless Ardreath wanting to rejoin me and Lolmack. The three of us could be together, just like before.
But no. Things could never be like that again. I’d seen the true, coldly self-centred Ardreath hidden under his charming, handsome exterior, and I didn’t want him back.
Lolek laughed again. “Arden seems to have convinced his clan that Marissa and the alliance council ruled against them because they disliked their reactionary leanings. The Eastreth clan have announced they’re going to join one of the reactionary faction political alliances.”
I was hu
gely relieved that Ardreath and his father had survived the crisis. I didn’t want Ardreath being made clanless and coming to ask me for help. I wanted him to remain happily with his clan, stay out of my life, and never bother me ever again.
“That means a complete victory for us, Lolia!” said Lolek. “No one will hold the Eastreth clan leaving the alliance against us, because they’ve done it in a way that has offended everyone. We aren’t in the alliance through the charity of another clan any longer, but in our own right. That’s all because of you. I’m impressed. I’m really impressed. I’d no idea you had such political acumen. You can’t be a clan council member until you’re 30, but I want you to attend future meetings as an observer.”
I stared at him in disbelief. I wasn’t going to be made clanless any longer. I could turn around, join the next cross-sector block portal back to Beta sector, and have my old, secure life back.
No, I corrected myself, it wouldn’t be my old life, it would be better. I would be one of Lolek’s favourites, destined to be a member of clan council one day.
I pictured that and shuddered. I’d finally escaped from Lolek, and I wasn’t going back to live under his rule again.
“You are to return to the clan hall at once,” said Lolek. “Marissa Breck Thane wants us to visit her tomorrow. Since Arden refused to apologize to us, she …”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” I interrupted.
Comms portal relay lag meant that Lolek kept talking for a couple more seconds before he reacted to my words. He stared at me. “What?”
“Please give my regrets to Marissa Breck Thane. Tell her that I deeply appreciate her invitation, but I can’t visit her because I’m on my way to Earth.”
“You’re on your way to … You can’t do that!”
Lolek looked as if he was about to explode. I had a very disrespectful thought about how messy it would be if he did.
“With all due respect,” I said, “you forfeited your right to give me orders when you told me you would discard me from the clan. I now feel entitled to make my own decisions, and I’ve decided to go to Earth.”
I’d never seen Lolek totally speechless before. I smiled at him. “Tell Marissa Breck Thane that I’m going to Earth because I have family there, and an honourable Betan is loyal to family above all else.” I paused. “I think you’ll find she understands and possibly even approves.”
I ended the call, hurried on down the corridor to a huge open area, and saw a sign for Interstellar Portal 8. I followed that and joined a queue by a flashing sign that said “Earth Europe block portal opening in 9 minutes.”
I reached for my lookup and called Lolmack. “I’m in Alpha Sector Interchange 6, and my block portal to Earth Europe opens in …” The time on the sign changed. “In 8 minutes.”
“What are you wearing?” asked Lolmack.
“What am I wearing?” I repeated, bewildered. “The same clothes I was wearing to appear before alliance council.” I held my lookup at arm’s length so that Lolmack could see them.
“I warned you Earth was dreadfully prudish,” he said. “They have laws about covering legally private body areas. Fortunately your toga does that, but try to remember you aren’t allowed to talk about those body areas either. That means you can’t say words like breast or butt in public. You can’t say hell or nuke either. You have to sedately say chaos instead.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
He shrugged. “I know, but just about everywhere outside Beta sector has the same silly rules.”
“If they’re so stuffy, why do they keep buying our vids?”
Lolmack grinned. “Because they’re horribly hypocritical. They publicly disapprove of Beta sector because of our triad marriages and revealing clothing, but they furtively watch Betan vids in private. Are you sure you don’t want to change your mind about coming to Earth?”
“I’m not changing my mind. Will you come and meet me at Earth Europe Off-world?”
He smiled. “I’m already there waiting for you.”
I ended the call, looked up, and saw the person ahead of me in the queue, a boy of about 18, had turned round and was staring at me. Before I could decide how to react, the older woman with him tugged at his arm and gave him a fierce frown. The first few words she said didn’t make any sense at all to me, and nor did the boy’s reply, so they must have been speaking the dialect of some other sector, but then the woman swapped to Language.
“You mustn’t look at that girl,” she said. “She’s wearing a toga, which means she’s Betan!”
“I know,” said the boy. “I was only …”
“Keep your eyes away from her!” said the woman. “You know what Betans are like, always trying to seduce people.”
I blinked. The woman was presumably the boy’s mother. Did she think I was deaf, did she think that Betans didn’t understand the official common tongue of humanity, or did her home sector not believe in basic courtesy?
I opened my mouth to politely point out that the style of toga I wore was that of a married woman, which meant I had no desire to seduce anyone outside my marriage, but the woman gave a sniff of disgust that was pointedly aimed in my direction.
Now I finally realized that the woman had deliberately swapped from her home sector dialect to speaking Language because she wanted me to understand what she was saying. She wanted me to feel ashamed of being Betan. Well, I wasn’t ashamed. I might have issues with Lolek’s bullying rule over our clan, I might have chosen to leave Beta sector, but I was still proud of its culture and history.
The woman hadn’t made me feel ashamed, but she had made me feel angry! Since this rude, narrow-minded and stupid outlander insisted on treating me like a sex-mad predator pursuing her son, I’d do exactly what she deserved and act like one!
I gave the boy a deeply suggestive smile. “Hello, gorgeous boy.”
He responded with a look of temptation mixed with terror. “Hello.”
His mother gave us a single horrified glance, grabbed the boy’s arm again, and physically dragged him off to the back of the queue.
I laughed and faced forward again. The flashing sign changed to say the block portal to Earth Europe was now open, and the queue started moving. I saw the travellers immediately ahead of me now were a couple with a little girl, and recognized them as the same family I’d met in the queue for Cross-sector Gate 4. They all looked very happy, and I felt it was the best possible omen for the future.
I followed them through the portal to start my new life on Earth.
Gamma Sector 2788 - Krath
Asgard, Gamma Sector, June 2788.
I was humming to myself as I drove my heavy lift sled across the scrap yard, manoeuvred it into position, locked the glowing beam on to the twisted wreckage of an old digging machine, and lifted it upwards to reveal my precious hoard of …
My hum abruptly stopped. “What the chaos?”
I stared in outrage at the blank area of ground. There should have been seventy-nine crushed cubes of metal there. I’d spent over two weeks collecting them, ready to execute my grand plan this afternoon while my dad was visiting friends. The idea was to carefully position the cubes in front of our house, so when he came home he’d find them spelling out the words “Nuke off!”, but the whole lot had gone.
I slapped the control to cut the lift beam. The digging machine dropped back to the ground, and I waited a moment or two for it to stop rocking from side to side, then jumped down from my sled and started roaming round the scrap yard. Perhaps my stash of cubes had been moved behind the heap of old transport sleds in the corner, or …
But no. My metal cubes weren’t anywhere to be seen. I gave up, tapped at my lookup to access the yard sales system, and saw the hideous truth. My dad had sold every single one of my metal cubes this morning!
I sat down on the carcass of a dead food dispenser and sighed. This was just typical of my life. I never had any fun at all. Other 17-year-old boys went to school, made friends, met girls, while I w
as stuck working on my dad’s scrap yard all day.
Fifteen months ago, leaving school had seemed a great idea. I’d lived on nine different planets before my dad and I moved to Asgard when I was 14. When Dad decided to settle down and start a refuse collection and recycling business, I’d thought I’d finally be at a school long enough to make proper friends, but all the other kids had known each other for years and I didn’t fit in. When they found out my dad collected all the school rubbish, things got really bad. Everyone kept making fun of me, calling me scrap boy and telling me to empty the rubbish bins. I complained to a teacher about it, but the other kids all ganged up on me, denying saying anything at all, so …
Well, when Dad said that I could legally leave school at 16 to start an apprenticeship with his business, I’d grabbed at the chance. Now I was starting to think I’d made a big mistake. Nobody called me names any more, but that was because I never saw anyone. Dad had made the apprenticeship sound really exciting. I’d expected to be making deals, buying and selling stuff, but he did all that himself. I just used heavy lift and transport sleds to shift junk round the scrap yard, or to dump rubbish through the recycling machines. If Dad would …
My lookup played a couple of warning notes, and I braced myself for the sickening sound of the male singer that would come next. I’d found this lookup in a rubbish delivery a few days ago, one of the latest models in apparently perfect condition. I’d happily transferred all my personal stuff to it yesterday, before discovering exactly why its previous owner had thrown it away. It was suffering some sort of data corruption, so once any options were set you could never change them. That meant I couldn’t change the call alert from Zen Arrath singing about his eternal devotion to a girl called Diamond. I couldn’t change the default screen display from a barely legal image of a semi-clad Zen Arrath. I couldn’t even stop getting alerts from the Zen Arrath fan club every time the man sneezed.