Earth and Fire (7 page)

Keon was
frowning. “Issette’s right. Cathan would just have to threaten to send the vid
to the Principal, and you’d have to do anything he wanted.”

“I don’t believe
Cathan would deliberately blackmail me,” I said, “but he’s certainly stupid
enough to share a vid with the other boys at school.”

“But that’s even
worse,” said Issette. “Once the vid was being shared around on the Earth data
net, the automated systems would report it to the police for showing unsuitable
images of an underage ward of Hospital Earth. You could state the images were
taken without your consent, but you’d have to admit to voluntarily posing
naked. You’d end up spending months in Correctional for immoral behaviour.”

“There would be
a good side to that,” said Keon.

Issette stared
at him. “What good side?”

“Cathan would go
to prison as a repeat offender,” said Keon cheerfully. “A first offence of taking
unsuitable images of an underage girl without her consent would just get Cathan
sent to Correctional, but circulating the vid amongst underage boys would count
as a separate second offence and get him prison time.”

“I’m not going
to Correctional, and Cathan’s not going to prison,” I said. “I have a plan!”

Issette still
looked anxious, but Keon laughed. “Why were you nardle enough to get involved
with Cathan, Jarra?” he asked. “I could have understood you being interested in
Ross, but not that whiny infant.”

I wasn’t going to
discuss Cathan’s legs with Keon, and have him tease me by asking which part of
Cathan’s anatomy I really meant. “I’m not interested in Cathan
or
Ross.”

“Anyone would be
interested in Ross Washington,” said Issette, in a wistful voice. “He’s handsome
enough to be a vid star. Tall, broad shouldered, with that rugged, masculine,
dark face.”

“Did you know
that Washington was a famous politician in the eighteenth century?” I asked.

“No, I didn’t,”
said Keon, “and I intend to forget it as soon as possible.”

“He’s got gorgeous
eyes too,” said Issette, presumably still referring to Ross Washington rather
than George Washington.

“If you keep
drooling over Ross’s good looks, I’m going to vomit,” said Keon.

“There’s no need
to be rude,” said Issette. “You were the one who suggested Jarra should be
interested in Ross.”

“I was thinking
of his character, not his appearance,” said Keon. “Ross is the type of reliable
and sensible boy who could help her when she gets into trouble, which she does
at least once a week. Cathan’s useless.”

“I don’t get
into trouble that often,” I said, “and Ross isn’t available.”

“No, he isn’t.” Issette
sighed. “Maeth staked her claim on him before we even got to Next Step.”

“The two of you
could try and steal him from her,” said Keon. “Ross might be tempted by an
offer to Three with him, Beta sector style, but I suspect Maeth would fight to
the death for her man. I’d be a much safer option, because I’m totally unattached
and willing to consider any reasonable suggestions. In fact, we could find some
nice quiet bushes right now.”

I giggled. “But
we’re not Betans, and it’s time to go into dinner.”

We stood up and
headed for the main entrance to Next Step.

For the next two weeks, I didn’t
just spend every spare moment studying with my friends, but stayed up late into
the night going over the things they’d taught me, trying to understand and
memorize them. Keon was being surprisingly helpful, spending more than the
scheduled two hours a day coaching me. He probably enjoyed laughing at the look
of agony on my face as I tried to chart the course for a flight.

The thing that
really annoyed me was that learning navigation was totally pointless. What
pilot would be nardle enough to spend ages working a course out manually, when they
could get their lookup to do it in seconds using the Earth data net?

Issette didn’t
laugh at my ignorance, but her enthusiasm for medicine meant she had a tendency
to drift away from the test syllabus to tell me exciting, and occasionally
gruesome, details about regeneration treatments and regrowth tanks.

Weirdly, Cathan
was by far the best teacher of the three. I think it was because he wasn’t very
good at the subject himself, so things weren’t any more understandable to him
than to me. He didn’t just work hard to help me, we even had some perfectly
sensible conversations about how Issette and I had got into Europe Off-world. If
Cathan hadn’t made me promise to do that modelling session for him, I might
even have considered boy and girling with him again.

At the end of
the two weeks, it was time to do my theory tests. Candace had arranged for me
to have a day off school to do them. I got up early, portalled to the examination
centre the moment it opened, handed in my lookup, got scanned for illegal
materials, and spent the entire day locked in a white featureless cubicle doing
one test after another with only a half hour break at lunch time.

Finally, I
collected my lookup and sat in the entrance hall with a dozen other nervous candidates,
who’d been doing tests on everything from hydroponics to law. It only took a few
minutes for our test results to be calculated, standardized, approved by the
appropriate accreditation bodies, and published, but it seemed a lot longer.

When my results
flashed up on my lookup, I anxiously scanned through them. I’d scraped a pass
in Flight Planning and Navigation, which was the one that had worried me most.
I’d passed Human Factors. I’d passed …

I’d passed
everything except the General Aircraft test, which was the one I should have
managed without any trouble at all. How the chaos could that have happened?

But it was
obvious how it had happened. It had happened because I was a nuking idiot. I’d
focused totally on the things I’d never known, without taking even five minutes
to remind myself of the things I’d been told a year or two ago.

I could forget
learning to fly now. If I told Gradin I’d failed and asked him to give me more
time, he’d laugh at me and refuse. The fact I’d only failed one test by a
miserable two per cent, just made it worse. Two per cent! I’d worked so hard,
got so close, but a couple of wrong answers had killed my dream.

No, I realized my
dream wasn’t quite dead yet. There was still one last chance. I jumped to my
feet, and sprinted to the reception desk. “I need to do a retake. Just one test.”

The man behind
the desk nodded. “Of course. Apply for a new test date exactly as before.”

“No, I need to
do the test right now.”

“I’m sorry, but the
centre is closing.” His cool, professional smile reminded me of the Principal
of our Next Step. “You may be able to get a test slot tomorrow morning, but
it’s usually best to allow at least a week or two for additional study before retaking
a test.”

“I can’t wait
until the morning. That’ll be too late. I’ll have lost my chance forever, and this
is incredibly important to me. Please!”

His official
mask slipped to show the human being behind it. “I’d like to help, but I can’t.
When we request a test, the relevant accreditation body randomly generates a
set of questions from their database and sends them directly to the individual
cubicle. The links have already shut down for the night.”

“Can’t you
reopen the links?”

He shook his
head. “Examination centres are blocked from the system outside their official
test hours. It’s part of the fraud prevention rules.” He gave me a sympathetic
look. “I’m really, really sorry.”

I tugged at my
hair with both hands. “There’s got to be …” I broke off, released my hair, and
yelled. “Opening hours! Time zones! We’re on Green Time here. America is on
Green Time minus five hours. Can you get me a test slot with an American
examination centre?”

“There may not
be one available so soon, and I’d have to transfer your …” He looked at my face
and sighed. “I’ll do my best.”

He tapped at his
desk, waited a moment, frowned, and did some more tapping. I leaned across the
desk, trying to read the upside-down display in front of him. It wasn’t hard to
spot the red “slot unavailable” message. I clenched my fists, thinking my last
hope was gone, but he did some more tapping and this time the message was
green.

“I’ve found a
test centre with a free slot in two hours’ time,” he said. “I’m transferring
your records to them, but you have to get there fast so they can complete the
retake application and get it booked with the accreditation body. That has to
be done at least an hour before the test. Fraud prevention rules again.”

He gave me the
portal code of the American examination centre, and I gabbled my thanks before
running for the nearest portal and dialling. The second it activated, I ran
through into Europe Transit 3, and headed for the inter-continental portals. I
couldn’t waste time queuing, so I paid the extra credits to dial America
myself. A few minutes later, I arrived in an examination centre that was the
twin of the one in Europe, but had a woman at the desk.

“Oh yes, the
transfer candidate from Europe.” She gave a disapproving sniff. “I don’t see
the need for such a hysterical panic.”

She got me to put
my hand on a screen, placed something to my arm to take a blood test, waved a
scanner to check my retina prints, and grudgingly agreed I was the person I
claimed to be. She added my genetic code to an armband, I put it on, and the red
glow of the armband changed to green to show a genetic match. The woman held
out a hand for my lookup.

“There’s still over
an hour before the test,” I said. “Can I keep my lookup until then to do some
studying?”

She frowned. “You
should have done your studying before this, but yes. Make sure you hand it in
before you try to go through screening or you’ll set off the alarms.”

I found somewhere
to sit and started madly scanning data on my lookup. There would be thousands
of questions on the database, and the selection system would stop me getting
repeat ones, but I knew which bits of the aircraft systems I’d been struggling
to remember. The aircraft diagnostics had been an especially hazy blur.

My hour seemed
to rush by, and then it was time to hand in my lookup and head for my test
cubicle. I tried to focus on the questions and forget the fact I’d already
failed this test once today. Another hour and I was clutching my lookup with
tense hands, waiting for the results. I’d done exactly this earlier. It hadn’t
been good news then. Two per cent. Only two per cent.

My results
flashed up, and it was two per cent again, but this time I’d passed by two per
cent instead of failing! I tapped my lookup, my fingers still shaking from
tension, and sent my final set of theory test results to Gradin. A few minutes
later, there was a call in response. Gradin must have just finished his
afternoon flight, because the image showed he was still wearing his impact
suit.

“You were
cutting it fine,” he said.

“But I did it.”

“Passing by two
per cent on General Aircraft.” His eyes rolled upwards in graphic contempt. “And
that took you two attempts.”

“I should have
done better than that, but I was concentrating on studying for the other tests.”

He shook his
head. “It doesn’t matter. Answering questions in a test cubicle doesn’t tell me
a thing about your actual flying ability. I’ll get your training licence
processed tomorrow, and you can do a test flight with me the following day. I want
to know what horrors are in store for me this summer.”

He ended the
call before I could reply. I sagged backwards into my chair, suddenly exhausted
and starving hungry. I’d hardly slept in weeks, I’d been too nervous to do more
than nibble at breakfast or lunch, and I’d totally missed dinner. It had all
been worth it though. I was going to be a pilot!

I slept the deep sleep of utter
fatigue that night, not stirring until the alarm shrilled to call us for
breakfast. I lay still for a moment, hands over my ears, before finally giving
up and getting out of bed. My room sensor detected my movement and shut down
the alarm.

I felt like I’d
been hit by a transport sled, but if I tried going back to bed on a school day my
room sensor would start the alarm again. Beating it to death wasn’t an option,
because I’d be fined the cost of replacing it. Anyway, I didn’t want to miss
breakfast. I wasn’t just hungry, but eager to tell everyone I’d passed my pilot
theory test.

I showered,
dressed, and headed to Commons. By the time I’d collected my breakfast, six of
the other Seventeens were sitting at our table. I was wondering whether to wait
for Maeth and Ross to arrive, or start telling everyone my news right away,
when the background chatter of the room abruptly stopped.

I looked across
at the door, thinking the Principal must have walked in, and was startled to
see a stranger brazenly marching through Commons. Well, no, this wasn’t actually
a stranger, I recognized Ben from when he’d come to dinner with us, but he was
still an outsider and visiting hours didn’t start until …

“Stay away from
me!” Ben was shouting the words even before he reached our table. “I never want
to see you again, so stay away from me!”

Vina stood up to
face him. “If you never want to see me again, why come to my Next Step?”

“You know
perfectly well why I’m here. We split up eight days ago, but you still keep
showing up at my home. I’ve sent you a dozen messages telling you to stay away.
I’ve tried being polite, I’ve tried being rude, I’ve even tried threats, but
nothing works. When I got back from school yesterday, there you were again,
trying to talk my mother into going clothes shopping with you. I wish I’d never
met you. Nuke off!”

Vina was shouting
too now. “You’ve no right to come here and swear at me, and you’ve no right to
stop me being friends with your mother.”

I stared down at
my plate, eating my Karanth jelly on toasted wafers and trying to ignore their
argument, but I couldn’t avoid hearing every single word.

Ben groaned. “For
chaos sake, what does it take to get through to you? My mother doesn’t want to slam
the door in your face, Vina. She grew up in residences herself, and she feels
sorry for you, but the way you’re behaving is chaos embarrassing for her. My
father is even angrier about it than I am.”

There was a
squeak from Vina. I lifted my head and saw Ben was standing aggressively close
to her now, stabbing his forefinger at her face.

“This is your
last warning. If you come to my home again, then you’ll regret it.”

I dumped my last
toasted wafer on my plate, and looked round the table at the others. Vina was
wholly in the wrong here, we all knew it, but she was part of our family. It
might not be a proper flesh and blood family, but it was all we had. We stood
up in unison, moving to stand next to Vina.

“We understand
the situation,” I said. “We’ll deal with it. Now get out of our Next Step.”

Ben hesitated
for a moment. “If she turns up again, I’ll complain to your Principal.”

I sighed. “I
said that we’ll deal with the situation. Now get out of here before we throw
you out!”

He turned and
stalked out of the door. The younger ones had been watching us in dead silence,
but now there was a sudden babble of conversation. We all sat down again and
Issette shook her head.

“You have to
stop bothering Ben’s mother, Vina. If Ben complains to the Principal, you’ll be
in a lot of trouble.”

“You don’t
understand,” said Vina. “Ben’s mother wants me to keep visiting her. She really
likes me.”

“We do understand,”
said Keon, “and the point is she’s
Ben’s
mother, not
your
mother.
This has to stop right now, or I’ll go to the Principal myself. That would be
less effort, and far less painful, than getting dragged into a physical fight
with Ben.”

Vina opened her
mouth to speak, but everything went quiet again so she stopped and looked round
with the rest of us. I’d thought the silence was because Ben had come back, and
was bracing myself for another confrontation, but this time it was the
Principal.

“You will be
happy to hear the identity of those tampering with the Commons wall vid and room
sensors has now been established.”

“It took long
enough,” muttered Cathan.

“Ross Washington
and Maeth Ruggier are being dealt with appropriately,” continued the Principal.
“This evening, they will make a formal apology to you for the disruption they …”

The last words
of her sentence were drowned out by gasps and excited comments coming from all
round Commons. Issette pulled her most exaggerated, buggy-eyed, astonished face
at me. “I never thought it would be Maeth and Ross!”

Keon laughed. “Ross
isn’t as reliable and sensible as I thought.”

“Maeth and Ross,”
repeated Cathan in grazzed tones. “Self-righteous Maeth Ruggier and smugly
pompous Ross Washington were trying to watch Beta sector sex vid channels!”

Keon laughed
again. “I doubt it. I expect they just wanted to sabotage the Commons room
sensors, but those feed information to the wall vid about the ages of people in
the room. If they didn’t know enough about what they were doing, Maeth and Ross
could easily send a power surge through the link and take out the wall vid as
well.”

“But why would they
…” Cathan’s voice trailed off as he worked out exactly why Ross and Maeth might
want to be alone in Commons with no functioning room sensors for a few hours at
night. “Oh.”

I exchanged
glances with Issette, and we both started giggling helplessly.

Cathan was
frowning. “I thought they’d found somewhere outside Next Step to …”

“Where though?”
asked Vina. “Even if they could afford the credits to hire a room, Hospital
Earth’s monitoring systems would spot the entry on their credit records and
report it to the Principal.”

“I meant
outdoors,” said Cathan. “All the parks have patrolling vid bees, but you can go
for a walk in the countryside.”

“Maeth wouldn’t
want to go for a walk in the countryside,” said Issette. “She’s been terrified
of insects ever since those researchers used us as test subjects when we were 8.
If Ross did manage to persuade her to try it, she’d be so worried about moths
and spiders and ants that he’d be lucky to get a kiss, let alone …”

She broke off
and had another fit of giggles. By the time she’d calmed down again, the
Commons room sensors were doing the short burst of bleeps that warned we should
get ready for school, so I hastily made my important announcement.

“Everyone, I’ve
got some totally zan news. I’ve passed my pilot theory tests!”

There weren’t
any wild bursts of cheering, just a few mumbled congratulations as everyone
stood up and headed out of the door. My test results were apparently a bit of
an anti-climax after all the excitement with Ben and the revelations about
Maeth and Ross. Only Cathan looked really pleased, and I knew he had an ulterior
motive for that.

I sighed and followed
the others to the foyer. We could travel to school for free so long as we went
through as one huge mob when the portal was locked open for our five minute
block portal slot. If anyone missed the block portal, and had to dial for a
separate journey, it cost them credits. That encouraged us to get to school on
time, but it also meant the foyer was total chaos as all the kids in Next Step jostled
for places in the queue.

Once we stepped
through the portal and arrived in the school grounds, there was the usual
automated voice nagging at us to keep moving out of the arrival zone by the five
portals. We dutifully headed on to the football pitch, where we could spread
out and sort ourselves into year groups. Traditionally, the Seventeens all
gathered down the far end, outside the standard football pitch in the expansion
zone used for hoverball games. When we arrived there, we found the seven of us
had become nine. Maeth and Ross had finally joined us.

“Well!” Cathan grinned
at them. “I hope you’re ashamed about your shocking behaviour!”

Ross’s
expression hovered between embarrassment and defiance, before settling on
defiance. “We’ve absolutely nothing to be ashamed about. Maeth and I love each
other. We’ve cared for each other for years, and we’re 17 now, but we still can’t
even hug without our room sensors giving us sanctimonious lectures.”

He shook his
head. “I can just about accept us not being allowed to have a Twoing contract
until we’re 18 and adult, but we shouldn’t still be treated like little kids. Yes,
we got tired of waiting until Year End to get some privacy and broke a few
rules, but admit it, all the rest of you are getting impatient too.”

“I certainly am,”
said Issette. “I’m sick of the Principal snooping round my room.”

“Yes, everyone’s
been getting impatient for freedom and doing ridiculous things,” said Keon. “Even
I’ve been acting like a fool out of frustration.”

Issette frowned
at him. “I hadn’t noticed you doing anything other than being as lazy as ever.”

“I know,” said
Keon. “You haven’t noticed. Jarra hasn’t noticed. It’s really depressing me. I
may have to do something drastic to get your attention. That would be a lot of
effort, but the rewards could be worth it.”

I was about to
ask him what he meant, when the first block portals completed, a set of new
ones opened, and another wave of kids started coming through. We had to move
further into the hoverball zone to avoid the indignity of mingling with the lowly
Sixteens. Selia’s girlfriend came over to talk to her, and then Ayden’s latest love
interest appeared at his side, shrieking her delight at seeing him until she
was interrupted by the piercing sound of the school bell.

As we all started
moving towards the huge green and silver domes, there was a tap on my arm from
Cathan. He leaned to whisper in my ear. “Jarra, you passed the tests, so when …?”

“After school,”
I said. “Portal home to Next Step with the others, wait an hour, and then come
back and meet me outside the history club store room.”

He frowned. “That’s
no good. Every room in the school has sensors monitoring our behaviour, even
the store rooms.”

“Yes, but I’m a
senior member of the history club, so I know the code for the store room door
lock. I found out the same code works on the room sensor in there, so I can
turn it off.”

“Amaz!” Cathan’s
frown changed to a thoroughly unpleasant leer. “I’ll see you later.”

He hurried off
after that, and we were in different classes all morning, but I had to suffer
him leering at me again all through lunch. It was embarrassing to think I’d actually
been boy and girling with this loathsome object for two months before I had
enough sense to tell him to nuke off. Issette was right. Next time I was
attracted to nice legs, I should make sure they were attached to a human being,
not a …

I thought
through every animal I’d heard of, trying to think of one as repellent as
Cathan. I failed. The boy was even worse than a Cassandrian skunk!

After school, I headed to the
history club store room to get ready for my modelling session with Cathan. I’d
told him to wait for an hour before coming, but I wasn’t surprised when the
knock on the door came ten minutes before that. I hid behind a stack of crates
and called out.

“It’s unlocked!”

I heard the door
open and shut, then Cathan spoke in a thick, eager voice. “Jarra, where are you?”

“I’ll come out
when you’re ready to start painting,” I said.

There was a
short pause before he spoke again. “I’m ready now.”

I stepped out
from behind the crates, and saw Cathan standing there. He hadn’t even bothered
to unpack his painting things, and had an obnoxious, flushed look on his face.
That changed to outrage as he looked at me. “You promised not to wear any clothes.”

I laughed at him.
“And I kept my promise, Cathan. I’m not wearing clothes, only one of the impact
suits we use on the dig sites to protect us from falling rocks and jagged glass.”

“But it covers
everything. That’s cheating!”

I went over to
where Cathan’s lookup was wedged on the edge of a shelf, picked it up, tapped
it, and two holo figures appeared. The holo Cathan looked at the holo me and
spoke. “You promised not to wear any clothes.”

I tapped the
lookup again to stop the vid playing, and the holo figures vanished. I tossed
the lookup to Cathan, and shook my head at him. “You cheated far more than I
did, Cathan. You were going to make a vid of me that you could gloat over and
show your friends.”

“I … Yes, I was
making a vid, but that was just for …”

“Artistic
purposes?” I asked.

Cathan blushed.
“Anyway, you cheated first. You were already wearing that impact suit before I
came in here.” He paused. “I spent weeks helping you pass that test, so you owe
me a favour.”

“Forget it,
Cathan. I’d be happy to do you any ordinary favour, but I’m not taking my
clothes off.”

“This
is
an
ordinary favour. You said you got Keon to find out the door access code so you
could sneak into Europe Off-world. I need a door access code too. Keon will
never help me, but if you ask him …”

That did seem a
reasonable request. “All right. Send me the door location and I’ll do my best.”

Cathan grinned.
“Totally zan!”

He tapped at his
lookup to send me the door details, then grabbed his painting bag and hurried
off. I looked after him, puzzled that Cathan hadn’t whined more about his
disappointment. Perhaps the door access code he wanted was for somewhere that
showed Betan sex vids.