Deborah Hockney (11 page)

‘It’s a shame we can’t stay here a bit longer to enjoy all the activities,’ Nikki said to Jocasta as they parted at the door to her room.

‘Too right,’ replied Jocasta. ‘And if that waiter’s right, we’re going to be too busy to enjoy ourselves at all.’

‘Oh, there’ll always be time to enjoy ourselves,’ replied Nikki, ‘we’ll just have to be inventive.’ She winked at Jocasta with a sly expression on her face and Jocasta wasn’t sure, but she thought that for just a moment Nikki’s eyes had the look of a fox about them.

Things were certainly going to be interesting, she thought to herself as she snuggled down into her bed. Having new friends with special talents might take some getting used to…

Chapter Ten

After manoeuvring away from the orbiting hotel it took just a few hours to travel to the space station, where they would make the final launch to Mars. A huge imposing bulk of grey
metal, over 30 kilometres long and intersected by dozens of loading bays, it made the numerous spaceships waiting to dock seem like small insects in comparison.

This time though they wouldn’t have any time to explore as they were due to take off again within the hour. As soon as they had they been scrutinised by the in-house robots they were accompanied by the space station security staff to the highly guarded launching pad. The security robots stood, sentry like, immobile. Only their eyes moved slowly backwards and forwards, scanning the cadets as they filed past, noting and monitoring every twitch and scratch as they passed along the line.

Jocasta felt uncomfortable under their scrutiny and was relieved that their few training days had taken place on the space hotel rather than here on the space station. She imagined that their comparatively easy going existence there would have been in sharp contrast to the discipline that would have been expected of them on a military controlled establishment.

Their space ship was ready to allow them on board. From the information they had received Jocasta knew that it would look and feel very different from the other spacecraft they had travelled on. It would by all accounts resemble an old fashioned sailing boat that used to travel the oceans and seas back on Earth. She recalled the gentle bobbing of the yachts in the bay at Woodbridge and wondered what her family and friends were doing at that moment in time. She found she couldn’t calculate the differing time systems in her head, so she had no idea whether it was day or night back in the UK. She was brought back to the reality and excitement of space travel when pictures of their space ship appeared on the inner panels of the ship’s thick walls. The sails on their craft, of course, would be beyond the wildest imagination of the seafarers who had risked their lives centuries ago, on journeys perhaps just as dangerous, but infinitely less distant then they were going to travel over the next few days.

Each student was given a numbered seat and instructed on how to use the emergency air supply, should the need arise. They were still all kitted out in their Elite spacesuits and instructed to place their inner helmets over their heads as a precautionary measure. The hard outer helmets were to be placed under their seats, easily accessible if they needed them.

‘Hopefully not,’ Jocasta’s companion, to her right, spoke in a nervous high pitched voice.

‘We’ll be fine,’ she replied, sounding much more confident than she felt.

She could see the back of Ed’s head a couple of rows ahead and Nikki was seated at the end of her row and gave a small smile as their eyes met. For one disturbing moment Jocasta wondered what would happen if Nikki turned into an animal on their journey. Would she still be protected in her spacesuit- would it still fit? She quickly banished the thought from her mind and scanned the seats for David or Felipe; but she couldn’t locate them in her immediate vicinity. Rather disappointed at this, she hoped they were both coping with the stresses and strains of the spaceflight.

The spaceship was widely arced, and if she arched her head back far enough, Jocasta could glimpse, through a tiny slither of window, the folded sails that would soon unfurl to gather the sun’s rays and give them the vital energy to sail through space at the speed needed to reach Mars in their allocated time span.

The great expanse of aluminized material slowly unfolded and stretched out to its furthest limit. Supported by inflated tubes, the huge mass of billowing sail finally took on the shape of an octagon. Miles and miles of it stretched out and away from their protected spaceship or ‘banana boat’, as the cadets named it. There were three ships leaving at carefully co-ordinated times, all destined for Mars and all taking advantage of the limited period when Mars orbit was closest to the Earth so that their journeys would be as short as possible. The Elite Spaceship was the first to be given clearance, followed by a large supply vessel and then a security spaceship, which nobody seemed to know very much about.

It was going to be a long journey, even with the advantage of solar sails, and Jocasta began to wonder if it was all going to be worth it. All this travelling is becoming rather tedious, she thought, as she tried to find the most comfortable position in the slightly reclined, yet rigid seat.

She tried to rekindle her initial excitement and picture herself enjoying her new life as an Elite cadet, in what she presumed would be in the high tech surroundings of one of the Mars cities. She reminded herself that Imogen would be itching with excitement to hear all the latest news and she didn’t want to disappoint her younger sister by telling her it was all a bit boring. She could just picture the look of disgust on Imogen’s face, if she let on that was how she felt. And so it was, with a benevolent smile on her face, thinking of her younger sister that Jocasta found herself struggling, impossibly, to keep her eyes open as she relaxed into the stasis mode.

The journey through space proved uneventful. They had to take it in turns to be woken every few days to exercise and eat. On previous trips space crews had discovered that the best way to keep reasonable muscle tone and maintain mental agility was to allow the body to be in torpor for no longer than ten days. Jocasta discovered that she was one of the luckier ones, who didn’t seem to suffer from the cramps nearly as much as everyone else, and the feeling of light-headedness that accompanied each waking passed in a matter of minutes. The vigorous exercise routine however, was decidedly hellish and although their group protested on more than one occasion, their instructor told them it was for their own good and that they would thank him for it when they arrived on Mars with bodies still capable of walking to the cities and ‘not crawling along on your stomachs like the vermin you are clearly trying to emulate!’

‘Hope he isn’t one of our Elite instructors,’ Nikki hissed under her breath, during one particularly brutal session. ‘The man’s a miscreant and should be sacked.’

Unluckily for Nikki, her remarks didn’t go unnoticed and she was given an extra five circuits to complete at the end of that particular period, which left her red in the face with exertion as well as anger. After that she kept her thoughts to herself, but everyone agreed with her sentiments.

The only real excitement happened during their fourth waking when a solar flare set off a radiation scare. Everyone had to be woken and samgees awkwardly inflated in the confined area, so that every individual could surround themselves in their protection suits. It was a curious sight as different coloured balloon type samgees grew to the size of the owner and then closed around them with a whoosh of air being expelled to fit each person like a second skin. It was just as well that they had practised this manoeuvre several times at the Space Hotel, as to be encased from top to toe in a hybrid of radiation expelling, elasticised synthetic resin and feel its clammy substance blocking every pore was one of the most unpleasant feelings Jocasta had ever encountered. Even with the masks that covered their eyes, noses and mouth it wasn’t an experience she wanted to repeat, ever.

The descent to Mars took longer than expected as there was a problem with the backlog of spaceships waiting to lock into the new docking system. Tempers were beginning to grow jagged as the eager anticipation turned to frustration amongst the cadets. It seemed they had waited so long for this final part of the journey that any delay was magnified in their minds and seen as a deliberate ploy to test their nerve.

Their spacecraft orbited the red planet for several more hours, with each rotation taking it ever lower. This gave a few lucky ones with seats next to a window a spectacular view of Earth’s neighbouring planet. A vast orange desert, stark against the oppressive black of cold space, pock-marked and pitted from asteroids; huge craggy mountains that looked not much more than small pleats in a frozen landscape of rock and dust.

Jocasta’s neighbour, despite becoming increasingly irritable with what he termed ‘a laughable lack of efficiency’, could not help but marvel at the vista that was on show below them. He pointed out one of the four cities that, to Jocasta, looked nothing like the sprawling affairs that covered Earth; teeming with people and harbouring imperfections at every corner. No, this city was the height of efficiency; compact, sleek metal lines and –was that glass? A strange angular shaped building, with smaller dwellings nestled safely under the huge, widely domed cover. Two watchtowers, standing on each side of the city, outside the dome, sported satellites which were lazily following the slow rotation of some unseen object.

Once the backlog of ships had dispersed, the cadets’ spaceship finally came to rest on the surface of Mars. At last they were through the security checks and being packed into their separate coaches to be transferred to the first city on Mars: Mackenzie City.

‘Do not attempt to loosen your suits,’ a com gen voice echoed in their individual ear pieces. ‘These must be kept in place until you are all safely deposited in the domed cover of the city of Mackenzie.’

Deposited, Jocasta thought, wriggling uncomfortably in the overused suit. Makes us sound like a load of unwanted luggage.

‘Exactly my thoughts too
,’ came the reply. Jocasta paused, wondering if she’d actually heard that or if it had been in her mind.

But the eerie voice had seemed to echo back to her; yet she couldn’t make out where the sound was coming from; nobody, it seemed was looking in her direction. She felt a shiver of nervousness tingle up her spine, but told herself it must be the result of too much travel and disorientation.

*

It was dark by the time the cadets were allowed to leave the debriefing room. Their heads were throbbing with security codes, rules, regulations, restrictions and warnings that if they did not tow the line their scant privileges would be rescinded. Timetables were allocated to each cadet, different depending on which Corps they were assigned to. They were a weary bunch of adolescents whose heads were drooping and whose eyes were bloodshot with tiredness. The pressure of the air compressed capsules which had transported them to the first city did nothing to help their feelings of lethargy.

Not many of them noticed the small disc descending quickly on the horizon as the sun dipped its last edge into the butterscotch coloured sky; but Jocasta did. She watched in fascination, twisting against the straps of her backpack to get a better view of the Martian sunset, knowing it was something she would never, ever get used to.

They were supposed to be marching in line but the senior ranks of the Corps seemed to be making allowances for their shoddy footwork. Just an occasional ‘Keep up,’ and ‘Into line!’ and ‘Do you call that a march, Hensen?’

Thankfully, their baggage had been delivered while they had been ensconced in the debriefing and beds already allocated. Jocasta looked at hers, longing to lie down for a few minutes but they’d been instructed to unpack and shower before they would be allowed to eat or sleep. Each accommodation room had been divided into six sections, providing every girl with their own tiny ‘room’. But considering the lack of personal areas that they’d been subject to on the spaceship, each girl was quite pleased with her own individual space. There were dividing sections between the beds, giving them privacy and storage areas. Jocasta carefully unpacked her belongings, making sure her precious stones were placed in the centre of the middle shelf along with the data images of her family. She kept the strange object from Will hidden safely in the back of a drawer.

A momentary wave of homesickness washed over her as she gazed at the familiar faces and wondered what they were doing at that particular moment. Then, remembering each cadet had been promised a two-minute link up with his or her family within the next forty-eight hours she regained her composure and continued unpacking.

The girls chatted amicably to each other as they unpacked. Marcella was a French student who very nearly didn’t accept the Elite invitation to come to Mars because it had usurped her plans to become a jazz singer.

‘Ooh, what do you sing?’ asked Cally eagerly, picking out her data stick from her stuffed bag. Of all of them, she seemed to be the most enthusiastic about her future in the Elite; which wasn’t to say that the other girls weren’t thrilled to be there, but rather that the Elite had clearing been Cally’s
calling
.
‘
I’m sure I’ve got some Various Artists on here,’ she continued, ‘d’you want a sing-a-long?’

‘Uh, not right now,’ Marcella had graciously declined, much to the other girls’ relief. Krysta, who had shared their compartment on the train, had, much to Jocasta’s disgruntlement, known about her talent from as far back as she could remember, though she was disinclined to talk about it.