Ellie Quin Book 01: The Legend of Ellie Quin (6 page)

Ted had had an android pet, a puppy dog. For most kids needing an android pet was usually a short-lived phase experienced between the ages of three and six. It was little more than a fad that most kids grew out of in the space of a year. Ted had grown unhealthily close to his and Mum and Dad had taken it away from him not many months after his sixth birthday; they had begun to worry about his excessive attachment to what was really nothing more than a simple circuit board covered in fur. For Ted the whole incident had proved to be quite traumatic and even now, just over a year later, he still occasionally awoke in the middle of the night and reached out for his beloved dog for a reassuring cuddle. On those occasions he usually ended up tearfully and sleepily walking across the courtyard to Ellie’s cabin.

Her irritation evaporated when she realized that this would probably be the last time she would be carrying her little brother back to bed. He wasn’t so bad, as far as little dwarf boy brothers went.

She got up from her desk, walked over to the doorway and knelt down beside him.

‘He’s gone Ted, gone away to doggy heaven. Come on little guy, let’s get you back to bed.’

She turned her back towards him and he automatically hung his arms around her neck and climbed aboard, still more asleep than awake. Ellie stood up carrying him piggy-back and stepped out of her habi-cube. Ted stirred as she walked lightly across the ‘grass’, the plastic fibres rustling noisily against her bare feet.

‘Don’t put me back in bed…please?’

She had things to do.

‘You’re not a dogface. In fact, you’re prettier than Shona,’ he said.

The little rascal
, she thought. He could charm the birds from the trees, if there’d been birds or trees. She clucked and hummed, feigning indecision.

‘Ple-e-ea-se, Ellie?’

‘Okay, but just five minutes, then I’m putting you back in your bed. You want to sit out here for a while?’

Ted nodded. Ellie walked over to the hammock, tipped him gently in and clambered on beside him. The hammock swung slowly causing the support poles to creak rhythmically. Ellie stared up at the rich purple night sky through the clear plastic of the dome. Ted followed her gaze.

‘I like stars…I wish we had a spaceship,’ he said, more thinking aloud than talking to Ellie.

‘So do I,’ she agreed.

‘If you had a spaceship, where would you go?’

Ellie looked at Ted. That seemed to be a curious question for him to be posing. ‘Why are you asking me that?’

‘I dunno…just asking. Me, I’d go to Danger Nebula 5.’

‘Ted, that’s just a pretend place.’

‘It’s where the Plasma Rangers base is,’ he replied indignantly.

Ellie sighed. Ted was proof that too much lazing around in front of the kids channel turned you into an idiot. ‘The Plasma Rangers is a cartoon my dear little brother. Therefore, it is not real life and they do not exist.’

Ted sat up, ‘I know, I’m not a baby.’

Ellie goosed his neck. ‘No, I guess you’re not anymore.’

He lay back down in the hammock, satisfied with getting that admission out of her. ‘So where would
you
go?’

‘Anywhere but here,’ she said a little too quickly. She hoped Ted had missed that. He said nothing. For a while they lay in silence, swinging gently and listening to the creak of the poles.

In the sky above, a distant transport ship entered the upper ionosphere with a flicker of blue light and slowly moved across the golden misty slash of the Seventh Veil towards the south.

From the smooth rustle of his breathing, she thought Ted had already fallen asleep. But he spoke quietly. ‘Are you going to leave home?’

Ellie lay in stunned silence. It seemed like the whole world was able to guess her business. ‘What?! Of course not. What gave…’

‘You’re not? Oh, well you should do. I am. As soon as I’m growed up, I’m going to be a pulse warrior. They live on the planet Pulsator.’

Ellie relaxed. ‘Ted, has anyone ever told you you’re a toon addict?’

‘Yup. Mum does every day.’

Ellie dug her thumbs into his ribs and Ted squirmed in the hammock like a fish in a net. Something else she realized she actually might end up missing; the rough and tumble fun with the little couch potato.

‘Come on monkey boy, time’s up. Let’s get you back to bed.’

*

The next day Sean arrived on time for Ellie’s weekly math session. He pulled up outside the Quin farm in his father’s dirt-cat amidst a cloud of red dust. Maria watched him from the entrance hatchway as he climbed out and hastily jogged towards her, not bothering with an O2 mask. She swung open the hatch as he arrived and quickly closed it once he was inside.

‘You really ought to have a mask with you all the time Sean, just to be safe. I might not have been at the door ready to open it.’

He smiled patiently at Mrs Quin. She was the over-cautious, wrap-’em-up-in-cotton-wool-until-they-suffocate type.

‘How are your folks?’ she asked.

‘Fine, Mrs Quin.’

‘Jeez, you can call me Maria if you want. You’ve been coming here for years…I would have thought we’d be past the ‘Mrs Quin’ stage by now.’

‘Sorry, it’s habit.’

‘Hmm, not long now is it, the marine ship? I bet you’re excited?’

‘Yes ma’am, two months. I can’t wait.’

Maria called out Ellie’s name. There was no answer. ‘I guess she’ll be outside up on her perch.’

‘I’ll drive up. See you later, Mrs Quin.’ He opened the hatch and ran across the open clay to the dirt-cat. Maria again hastily closed the hatch, begrudging the small volume of oxygen lost to the outside world. She watched him through the dome wall, fogged by years of scratches and scuffmarks, as he jumped in and started up the vehicle with a throaty roar. The cat’s tracks kicked up dirt and dust as it turned and began to roll up the slope of the rocky outcrop towards the distant silhouette of Ellie perched like a spike of wind-eroded rock.

Shona arrived at her mother’s elbow and watched the cat recede. ‘Mum, are they boyfriend and girlfriend?’

‘I hope not dear, otherwise I think Ellie’s in for a lot of heartache.’

*

The peace and quiet of the overlook was shattered by the noise of the cat as it laboured up towards the rocky peak. Ellie watched Sean steer it up towards her. Presently he brought the vehicle to a stop a few yards away, turned off the rotor engine and climbed out, this time wearing his mask.

‘Hiya Ellie…whaddya do out here? It seems like you spend most of your spare time up on this rock.’

‘I think. It’s my contemplation rock.’

He took in the view, slowly turning around a full three hundred and sixty degrees. ‘What a view. I didn’t realize how cool it was.’

‘Now you can see why I spend so much time up here.’

He focused on a shimmering form on the horizon. ‘What’s that?’

‘New Haven. It’s the very top of the enviro-dome.’

‘Wow, you can see it from here? That’s hundreds of miles away.’

‘Yup, a long, long way.’

He sat down beside her. The rock she was sat on was worn to a smooth shiny surface by the persistent sand erosion and, no doubt by Ellie, he guessed.

‘Further to our discussion last time. I was thinking we should maybe wait until
after
your birthday before leaving.’

‘You’re not getting cold feet?’

‘No, of course not. We’re still going but delaying until after your birthday makes sense.’

She looked at him suspiciously. ‘Why?’

‘It’s only delaying things by one more week, and being twenty means you won’t need an adult sponsor for a lot of things. You’ll be legally an adult yourself.’ He shrugged. ‘It’ll just make things a lot easier with city red tape if you’re no longer a minor.’

‘What’s red tape?’

Sean shook his head and smiled patronizingly at her. ‘You are so-o-o-o-o lucky to have me around to explain things. In New Haven you can’t even piss without having your ident card ready to show, swipe or have scanned. That’s ‘red tape’. I already have one since I’ve been there before. You’ll have to get one when you arrive, that means presenting your birth document, listing details of next of kin, which will lead to all sorts of awkward questions if you’re still only nineteen.’

‘I see.’

They sat in silence for a while listening to the subdued melancholic wailing of wind across the featureless rust landscape.

‘So, how are we getting there?’ asked Ellie.

‘Hmmm, it’s a bit of a haul I’m afraid. We’ll be taking a shuttle…’

‘I was assuming you’d drive us there in this,’ Ellie gestured towards the cat.

‘No. She’s only got a sixty-mile range between charges. We’ll need to head towards a shuttle stopover. The nearest one is actually fifty miles northwest…’

‘That’s taking us in the wrong direction!’

‘I know, I know, but that’s the way it is. There are none any closer to New Haven. So anyway, it’s a fifty mile drive and my Dad will be driving us.’

She looked alarmed. ‘He doesn’t know I’m going does he?’

‘Of course not. Which means I’m going to have to smuggle you into the luggage locker. A bit of an uncomfortable ride, I’m afraid, but it is sealed so you won’t have to wear a mask. The day we leave I’ll drive over here and pick you up; I’ll tell Dad I’ve come over to say ’bye to you guys. Then we head back to home, by the time we get back, you’ll be hidden in the locker and Dad should be ready to take us to the shuttle-stop.’

‘When exactly?’

‘We’ll go a week tomorrow.’

It was going to be the day after her birthday. All of a sudden, she now had a specific day she was leaving. Departure day. D-day. She leant forward on her elbows and puffed out some air. Her plastic O2 mask fogged.

‘You okay?’ asked Sean.

‘Just excited, a bit nervous maybe. I just can’t believe we’re going to do this.’

He placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. She shivered. Partly a small thrill from his touch, but mostly from the exhilaration she felt discussing the journey ahead of her.

‘We should arrange a time now, Ellie, since I probably won’t get a chance to see you again before then.’

‘Yay. No more math.’

‘Six o’clock okay? First light?’

‘I’ll be ready. Where?’

He looked around the almost featureless landscape.

‘Right up here looks the best bet, I reckon. It’s far enough away from your home that the cat’s engine won’t wake everyone up.’

‘Six o’clock right here, a week tomorrow?’

He nodded.

‘And Ellie, make sure you bring your birth document and study certificates. You’ll especially need the certificates if you want to find yourself a job.’

‘Okay.’

Ellie hadn’t given a great deal of thought to the type of job she would like. She was not at all sure what sort of jobs existed in New Haven. ‘What do people do in the city?’

‘You mean what work is there?’

She nodded.

‘Well, it depends on which area you want to live in I guess. Central One area is mainly commerce, which is data work as far as you’re concerned. How’s your psyc-typing?’

Ellie wrinkled her nose. ‘Not too good, my mind wanders.’

‘Fair enough. Near the space port, which is the east side, you’ll find jobs are more manual, cargo handling. But then they have gene-imps doing a lot of that kind of work.’

‘Those little monkey-like things?’

‘Yeah. They’re very strong. They call them
jimps
. I guess that’s short for ‘gene-imp’. The west end of town is more your service sector…the rough side of the tracks.’

‘Tracks?’

‘Old Earth saying. Never mind,’ he said dismissing the antiquated turn of phrase. ‘You just probably want to steer clear of that.’

Ellie cocked an eyebrow. ‘Service sector?’

‘Bars, nightclubs, flesh markets. Trust me, not the sort of place you want to hang around. That’s where you’ll find the majority of off-worlders.’

‘And aliens?’

‘Yup, a few.’

‘I’ve never seen an alien. Well, sure I’ve seen them on the toob, but never in person, face to face. Have you?’

‘A couple of times when my Dad took me to the west end. Kinda freaky. I mean, I guess you must get used to them if you live around them all the time, but some of them are just too damn weird. There’s this one kind, they call them ‘boojams’. They’ve got these long trunk-like noses that sniff pheromones. Basically that’s how they communicate amongst their own, by sniffing each other’s sweat.’

Ellie chuckled. Getting to meet off-worlders was going to be a wonderful experience. Humans from other planets with vastly different cultures, accents and mannerisms would be fascinating, but then again, seeing
aliens
and maybe even talking with them was going to be something she would relish forever.

‘I can’t wait to meet some,’ she said.

‘Well, one step at a time, Ellie. You’re gonna find city folk strange enough let alone other species.’

She was looking at something on the horizon. Sean followed her gaze. To the west the normally sharply defined horizon seemed slightly softened, almost like a section of the horizon had gone subtly out of focus.

‘Dust storm,’ she said. ‘We better head inside.’

‘About time anyway. If we stayed up here much longer, tongues would have started wagging.’

Ellie looked at him. ‘I presume you mean Shona?’

He nodded. They got up off the rock and headed towards the buggy. The wind was beginning to pick up. Ellie glanced towards the approaching storm. The sky was darkening.

CHAPTER 9

The alarm clock chimed with a soft, persistent tone and Ellie was awake almost instantly. She raised an arm. The clock’s motion sensor detected the movement and the holographic time display appeared in the middle of her habi-cube.

Ten past five in the morning. Sean was due in fifty minutes.

She climbed out of bed and silently dressed by the faint orange glow of the clock’s display. She pulled a shoulder bag out from under her bed and double-checked the contents; birth document and educational certificates, her money, voice-diary and several changes of clothes. Anything else would be merely dead weight, emotional clutter. Sean had told her to pack very little and travel light. The ticket price for the shuttle to New Haven would be extremely expensive however the surcharge on baggage weight would be astronomical.