Juno of Taris (23 page)

I sent her texts:
u ok?

peachy

Dad asked for volunteers to water the gardens. On the fourth day the newly planted lettuces, peppers and beets lay down and died.

Nobody spoke aloud the question that filled all our minds, but on the eighth day, I couldn’t stand it any longer. ‘Is it the end?’ I asked my grandparents. ‘Are we all going to die?’

Grif shook her head. ‘No. I’m quite sure it’s not the end. I’m sure that in a few days, the Governance Companions will come up with a miraculous way to fix things.’

Dad stared at her. ‘What are you saying?’

She sent me a smile. ‘Ask your daughter.’

They wouldn’t! Mess up the atmosphere on purpose? I shook my head to clear it. ‘To stop us thinking. To stop us asking questions.’

Mother’s face was horrified. ‘They wouldn’t do that! They wouldn’t.’ She clutched Dad’s arm, willing him to agree with her.

But all he said was, ‘Of course. I should have realised.’

‘They’re dangerous,’ Bazin said. ‘Dangerous and ruthless. Remember it well.’

Grif was right. On the tenth day the news sped around the island.

‘Told you,’ said Grif.

I sent Vima a text telling her to come to the bay when she’d caught up on sleep.

She came the next day. ‘You look awful,’ I told her. Her hair was now a dark fuzz on her scalp, but the darkness in her eyes had nothing to do with lack of sleep.

‘Let’s go.’ She swung Hera up onto her back. I tied the straps and we set off.

‘Do you know what the problem was with the sensors?’ I asked once we’d arrived at our sanctuary.

She tipped Hera out onto the sand and we watched her scuttle into the sea. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Governance Companions, but which ones is anybody’s guess.’

I ran after Hera and patted her back to stop her splutters. ‘One day you’ll work out not to go in over your head.’ She chortled and whacked her hands hard on the water. ‘Did Aspa and Jov and the others work out it was them?’

She shook her head. ‘Think about it, Juno. The island is about to collapse – nobody’s got time for conspiracy theories.’

‘Except you and me. And my grandparents. And who else?’

She shrugged. End of conversation.

I played with Hera. Vima slept. I didn’t want to wake her, but it was time to go. She sat up, rubbing her eyes. ‘Oh, don’t look at me like that, Juno! I don’t know any more than you do!’

‘It’s not that!’ I grabbed Hera and plonked her in the backpack. ‘It’s that nobody is asking questions any more. We’ve all shut up and gone back to happy-happy land.’

‘We’ve gone around for days expecting to die. You can’t blame people for being grateful and shutting up. And don’t forget that it was the Governance Companions who fixed the problem.’ She didn’t look at me, just concentrated on the ties of the backpack.

‘Oh yes, of course. They’re so clever. Aren’t we lucky?’ I said, wanting to shake her.

‘You
were
lucky. You didn’t have to waste ten whole days on something you knew couldn’t be fixed until they decided to suddenly work out how to do it.’ She stood up, and gave me one of her razor-sharp looks. ‘You still want to know, don’t you?’

I sighed. ‘Yes. I do. I’m just not sure how badly – if the truth is worth it.’

Time passed. Our hair grew but the questions had been forgotten. Hera didn’t shriek as much now that she could get where she wanted to go by herself. We didn’t go to the bay so often as she grew heavier. She learned to climb and we had to watch her constantly. She began walking at ten months, but she wasn’t like Merith, who worked out whether she could manage a distance without falling. Hera launched herself into open spaces; she fell, she bellowed, she laughed and giggled. She’d started saying single words and was mightily pleased when we understood her.

Every so often, when we sat under the tamarind trees at break, Silvern would ask what other things I knew. ‘You promised you’d tell when you could,’ she said.

I always made some reply along the lines of I didn’t know any more and I promised to tell them when I did. It wasn’t time yet to tell them that I could read, that I’d taught Vima, or of the things we’d read in the encyclopedia. But I didn’t know when it would be time, or what would happen to make it the right time. It frightened me to think of it.

Two by two, Vima’s stratum had promising ceremonies, followed by weddings. I danced at the weddings. Mother had handed her role on to me. People congratulated me, told me how beautifully I danced and they were happy I would take on the dance apprenticeship. I kept my own dances in my head as I smiled and thanked them. I would not become Mother’s apprentice, and it would break her heart.

I didn’t ask Vima about her and Jov – the pain in her eyes told its own story. But apart from her, and maybe Jov and Oban, the entire population oozed peace, joy and contentment.

We had a party for Hera’s first birthday, instead of the shaving ceremony. I wove a ribbon for her hair. She pulled it out and sucked on it.

Irian’s brother died of a heart attack a month after Hera’s birthday. As Fisa had promised, Jov and Sina were given permission to have the replacement baby. They were allowed to have their own genetic child.

‘Pretty much proves our theory about who can be biological parents,’ Marba said when we discussed it under the tamarind trees.

I didn’t discuss it with Vima – she was tense and snappy and whenever we went to the bay, she would swim out to the walls of our world. Her temper was especially volatile the day Jov and Sina had the pregnancy procedures done at the Medical Centre. She wouldn’t talk to me about anything.

Sina went about looking radiant. Jov, to my eyes, found smiling more difficult. Sina was six weeks pregnant when my fourteenth birthday rolled around, four months after Hera’s first. I had a dance in my mind, and music to perform it to. I wanted to dance on the stage and I wanted the people to cheer and applaud me. But when Mother asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday I shrugged and said, ‘Have dinner with the grandparents. And Vima. And Silvern.’

‘And Paz?’ Mother asked, her face dreamy.

‘I don’t think so!’ I snapped. She was marrying me off – and to Paz. Couldn’t she see that Paz and Silvern would marry?

I stomped out of the house and ran to Silvern’s to invite her. Her eyes sparkled, ‘Fantastic! An excuse to do a proper, fancy hairdo.’

Her mother groaned. ‘Must you, Silvern? Your hair is so pretty when you leave it alone.’

She laughed and grabbed my arm. ‘Come into my room and I’ll tell you what I’m going to do and then Mother won’t have to listen.’ I let her drag me into her bedroom. She shut the door behind us. ‘What? You look fit to burst. Is it a secret?’

I shook my head. ‘I wish! No, it’s my mother – she’s matchmaking! Can you believe it! And I’m not even fourteen yet.’

Silvern shrugged away her disappointment. ‘You will be tomorrow, and she’s right – you should be thinking about it or you’ll be left with Biddo.’

I scowled and kicked at the floor. ‘Then I won’t marry anybody. And I don’t get why everybody who gets married is so dead set on breeding, either.’

She patted my head and clucked at me in a fair imitation of her mother’s voice, ‘Tut tut, dear child. You’ll see, it’ll happen quite suddenly and you’ll want those things.’

I laughed and the anger inside me faded. ‘Well, what about you? You’re nearly sixteen. Definitely time you were thinking about it.’

The smug look zinged back to her face. ‘Oh, we’ve decided to marry on my eighteenth birthday, but we’re not going to have kids. Ever.’

That made me sit up. ‘You and Paz?’

She said nothing, just grinned at me – smugly.

I ran the seven boys in our stratum through my mind. I leaned over and prodded her arm. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’ She laughed and nodded but didn’t look one scrap less smug. ‘It’s not fair,’ I grumbled. ‘You’ve snaffled the best one.’ Then another thought stuck me. ‘You’ve already talked about all this stuff? Getting married? Having kids?’

‘About
not
having kids,’ she corrected me.

I brushed it away. ‘When do you talk? And where?’ The entire island would have heard about it if they met secretly. ‘You never talk at school. Like that, I mean.’

She put a hand to her ear and rubbed it. ‘We have our ways.’ She grinned at me.

I stared at her, saying nothing while I ran possibilities through my head. I gasped and whispered, ‘You meet him at night, don’t you?’ I glanced at the window. ‘You climb out, don’t you? You climb out and meet him!’

She laughed but said, ‘Keep your voice down, for the love of Taris.’

I couldn’t believe it. ‘Where? And how do you work out when? You never even whisper to him at school.’ The fuss there’d be if they got caught didn’t bear thinking about.

She tossed her head. ‘We’re much too smart for that. Avoid the gossip is the name of this particular game.’

I looked at her, not saying anything.

‘What?’ She hunched her shoulders. ‘You’re shocked, aren’t you?’ She sounded disappointed.

I started to laugh. ‘No – not shocked. Amazed, but not shocked. And I admire you. Both of you. It’s so hard to keep secrets.’

She narrowed her eyes. ‘I’ve told you mine. You tell me yours.’

I could trust her. I knew that just as solidly as I knew I could trust Vima. All the same, it was hard. I took a deep breath, got up and sat beside her on the bed. ‘Watch.’ I took the phone from my pocket and keyed in a message to Vima:
come 2 bay today.

I put the phone away and waited for the questions. But she just snapped out, ‘Tell me everything.’

So I did. I told her about Grif teaching me to read, about Vima and the phone, about the encylopedia on it and that we’d found knowledge there that frightened us.

Her mother called to say that lunch was ready. ‘Okay, Mother. Coming.’ She stood up. ‘We’ll talk again. But watch this –’ then she grinned and rubbed her ear. ‘That’s our signal at school. It means
meet at 10.30.
’

‘Where?’ I whispered, putting my hand over hers on the doorknob.

She gave the most innocent smile in the world. ‘Exactly halfway between his house and mine.’ She removed my hand, opened the door and laughed at me. ‘I’m longing to see your hair tomorrow. It sounds great.’

I sent her an
I’ll work out where
sort of look and then laughed back. Who would have thought it? Silvern and Paz, meeting in the dead of night. She came with me to the front door. ‘Can I tell him?’ she whispered.

I thought about bargaining with her – making her tell me the meeting place, but why spoil the fun? Anyway, she’d probably tell him even if I didn’t agree. ‘Okay,’ I said.

‘You know, I wouldn’t have said anything if you’d said no. You can trust me.’

‘Careful,’ I muttered, ‘you’ll have Marba after you if you start on the mind-reading.’ I ran home, leaving her chuckling.

I spent the meal puzzling over where they met. How could she know where was exactly halfway? There were nine houses between her place and Paz’s, but the fifth one belonged to Fisa – somehow I just couldn’t see Fisa opening her door to them in the dark and the rain and welcoming them inside for a private chat. Or whatever. My mind skittered away from what the
whatever
might be.

Mother smiled at me, ‘You’re very quiet, my daughter. What’s on your mind?’

That, I would not tell her.

I smiled back. ‘I’m dreaming up how to do my hair. Silvern’s is going to be spectacular – I don’t want her to outshine me. It’s my birthday after all!’

She laughed and rolled her eyes.

When Vima arrived, I was shocked. ‘You okay? You look ghastly.’ Her skin had a grey tinge and her eyes … I couldn’t look at her eyes.

‘Fine. Let’s go. Come on, little miss.’ We hoisted Hera into the backpack and set off.

‘She’s too heavy,’ I fussed. ‘Let me take a turn.’

She ignored me and trudged all the way to the bay without speaking.

I undid the straps, lifted Hera out and set her down in the stream where the water was shallow. Instead of heading for the sea, she sloshed her way upstream. She wouldn’t come to much harm in the shallows. We paddled after her, the water cool on our feet and ankles.

‘So what’s up?’ Vima asked.

‘Nothing much – just that Mother is trying to marry me off already.’

She gave a bark of laughter. ‘Well, it’s your birthday tomorrow. Didn’t you know? Parents always start to speculate when their kids turn fourteen.’

I scurried round a bend to keep Hera in sight. She’d stranded herself on a rock. I rescued her and she took off again, giggling. ‘There should be a rule against it. I don’t want to marry any of them.’

‘I know the feeling,’ she said wryly.

‘Oh, Vima! I’m so sorry. And everyone’s talking. What are you going to do?’

She watched Hera. ‘Let them talk.’

‘But Oban … he wants to marry you. Doesn’t he?’

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘And he says if he can’t have me, he won’t have anybody.’

‘And if you can’t have Jov … What a mess.’

Hera tumbled onto her bottom, got up, chortled and fell again. I grabbed her and carried her to the edge of the stream where it was shallower.

‘Oban’s nice,’ I said, as I set Hera down.

‘So you marry him.’

I laughed. ‘I couldn’t. He’s not from my stratum.’

‘True. And you weren’t allowed to grow you hair either.’

‘Oh!’ I rubbed my fingers through it. It was about ten centimetres long now and as fair as Hera’s was dark. My mind skittered back to the idea Vima had planted. ‘But Vima – even if we wanted to, we couldn’t. It would upset the balance.’

She tossed a stone into a pool and the drips splashed over me. ‘The older you get, the dumber you get. You had one go at making a difference, then gave up. Sit back and grow your hair, why don’t you!’

I turned around to glare at her. ‘Fight your own battles. I’m not going to help you break up Jov and Sina, so don’t even think about it.’