The Citadel and the Wolves (3 page)

“International Space Platform,” I announced.

“Yes,” muttered Wendy indifferently.

All of this marvellous technology of the 21
^st
century was lost on Wendy. She was too busy kissing Super cool in her dreams.

I reached up into outer space and touched the International Space Platform with my mind. I imagined myself standing on the observation deck looking down on the blue and green planet that was my home as it drifted by quite slowly beneath my feet. Yes, I, Jade Robinson stood on top of the world. What an exciting moment that would be. I sat up with a start when I remembered. It was something that Mr Whitehouse, our science teacher, had told us awhile ago. I searched my bag for my vid phone excitedly. I found it, flipping it open. I had kept the number in my vid phone book. As I checked it, I prayed that I’d not deleted it accidentally.

No, there it was:

International Space Platform

08000 5150 9000 212 000

I smiled.

I dialled the long number filling the screen.

“Who are you ringing, Jade?” wondered Wendy curiously when she had stopped kissing Super cool for a minute.

“The International Space Platform,” I replied quite calmly, though I wasn’t inside.

“Ask a silly…”

“When the International Space Platform is passing directly overhead, you can ring them,” I added authoritatively.

She murmured.

I waited, but my screen remained blank, disappointing me. A thought occurred to me; perhaps it was another one of Mr Whitehouse’s practical jokes. Surely you couldn’t just ring up the International Space Platform, like ordering up a pizza or something from your local pizza place. I began to let the doubts creep into my mind. The screen remained blank. I was about to give up.

Connecting you…please wait…

I stared at the words on my mobile screen, and I dared to believe. But who was I being connected to? I sighed to let some of the tensions drain from my body. I continued to wait patiently.

“It’s time we made a move, Jade,” said Wendy who sat up. “We don’t want to be back late.” She picked up her school blazer, brushing off the grass before she put it on. “Jade?”

I ignored my sister.

I started when the other appeared suddenly on my vid screen smiling. The picture was crystal clear, even though it was from outer space. It was from outer space! She was attractive with short, dark hair and a fringe, and she was probably in her mid-twenties in a smart suit. I noticed that she was wearing cherry-red lipstick. She was probably sitting behind a desk, I reasoned. The International Space Platform logo of hands reaching out to the stars appeared in the bottom, left hand corner of my vid screen. Was I really through to the International Space Platform?

“My name is Karen. You’ve got through to the International Space Platform,” announced Karen in a kind, courteous, assured voice.

Oh my god! I thought. I’d got through to the International Space Platform. I suppressed the desire to laugh out loud. I had simply dialled the number that Mr Whitehouse had given us, and now someone from the International Space Platform was speaking to me. She was speaking to me here on earth.

“How may we help you?” asked Karen.

My throat felt constricted, and my mouth was dry. I could hardly speak. Who was I? I was confused. The other waited patiently, for she recognised my youth. I was a young girl, who was full of curiosity and wonder, and she understood this. Then I was suddenly calm again.

I finally spoke, “My name is Jade Robinson.”

Karen smiled disarmingly. “Hello, Jade, how may the International Space Platform help you?”

I was speaking to someone hundreds of kilometres in the sky. I tried not to think about it, which was difficult.

“I’d-I’d like to talk with one of the scientists…if-if they’re not all too busy,” I answered with a slight tremble in my voice this time.

“I’ll put you through to one, Jade,” said Karen with a kind smile.

Oh my, I thought.

When my screen went blank again, I feared I’d lost the connection, but I noticed that the International Space Platform logo remained on my mobile screen. I smiled. I was still connected. I waited again confident that they would return very shortly. I was suddenly nervous again. Did they think that I was a precocious, little kid? I hoped not. I resisted chewing my nails because that is Wendy’s way whenever she is nervous about something.

I became aware of Wendy on my shoulder. Her eyes were filled with astonishment.

“Jade,” uttered Wendy breathlessly as she stared at the vid screen, “you’re speaking to the International Space Platform.”

It appeared on my screen again:

Connecting you…please wait…

I started. Doctor David Newton suddenly appeared on my vid phone screen smoking a pipe. He was young, late twenty something with a dark complexion and lantern jawed in a white, open-neck, short-sleeved shirt. I noticed oddly that he had hairy, tanned arms. How do you get a suntan in space? Wendy wore a surprised look on her face, for she hadn’t expected him. She smiled nervously, hoping she was in the picture, too. When he smiled suddenly, Wendy caught her breath, but I’d found him first, not that I’m interested in boys yet. He wasn’t a boy. Oh no, he wasn’t a boy.

He spoke in a soft, American accent: “My name is Doctor David Newton. What do you want to ask me, Jade?”

Wendy groaned behind me.

“Will you marry me and have my babies?” whispered Wendy, being frivolous as usual.

Unlike Wendy, I decided that I was going to be grown up and mature, asking the doctor all sorts of intelligent questions about his work and life on board the International Space Platform. I took a deep breath, and I asked him my first question. He looked at me puzzled for a moment before he suddenly chuckled. What had I done? My cheeks burned. I quickly muttered something about zero gravity. I just wanted the ground to swallow me up at that moment. If only it had.

I sat on the window sill in the school cloakroom with my arms folded sternly. Wendy was watching me with an amused look on her face standing nearby.

I sighed, “What?”

“Doctor Newton, will you marry me and have my babies?” Wendy suddenly giggled.

I glared at her.

To add to my total humiliation if that were at all possible and it was, I discovered later that my call to the International Space Platform was being beamed live to millions of other callers who were watching it on their vid phones. I just hoped daddy hadn’t seen it, too. He hadn’t. I quickly realised that I’d been used, I thought. It was a show, and I was the leading actor on a world stage. I was the only actor in the play, but no one had asked me if I had wanted to be in the play. My total humiliation soon turned to anger. I was a silly, little girl who shouldn’t have called up the International Space Platform, and they had laughed at me. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Doctor David Newton wasn’t a scientist at all but an actor. No, he was a scientist. After my first embarrassing slip, I’d asked him lots of questions about his life and work on board the International Space Platform. I’d learnt many interesting things about the Space Platform, and the doctor was kind. He was understanding. He knew I was nervous. He had helped me a lot on some of my questions. But would many people remember them? Would they only remember my first little slip? I blamed Wendy instead. I didn’t forgive her for the rest of the day. Kevin Willis who just happened to be one of the millions watching my call to the International Space Platform thought I was brilliant. He would. Then daddy got the phone bill on the doormat about a month later. My call to the International Space Platform had cost 852 euros. Daddy wasn’t pleased. I realised then that the millions of callers worldwide to the International Space Platform every day helped to pay for its enormous running costs of one billion euros annually. It was a kind of entertainment, though it wasn’t cheap entertainment. I’d been naïve.

Doctor Newton smiled reassuringly, “We call it space time up here in orbit, Jade. What does that mean to the average school pupil on the ground? (average??) Time travels much more slowly in space.”

As I turned up the main school staircase alone with my schoolbooks, one or two coming down smirked knowingly when they saw me. Although I tried to ignore them, it was difficult. I heard someone coming up behind me in a hurry, breathing heavily. I wasn’t in the mood for this. As I turned to tell Kevin Willis to go away, Mr Whitehouse caught up with me clutching an old, battered briefcase.

Mr Whitehouse, whom I’d mentioned earlier, was about daddy’s age. In many ways, he reminded me of daddy. He was bearded, a professor type. He wore an old jumper under a tweed jacket, baggy, brown trousers and brown suede shoes. Unlike the other teachers at school, he made you feel relaxed in his company. Although the relationship, pupil and teacher, remained the same, he made you feel important. You were a human being and not just another brick in the wall. He had a kind smile too, just like daddy.

“Jade,” said Mr Whitehouse breathlessly.

“Sir?”

He revealed, “I saw your call to the International Space Platform earlier.”

Oh? My cheeks burned.

“Good show,” congratulated Mr Whitehouse.

I smiled as he hurried by me. I was suddenly walking on air. Yes, it was a good show.

After school, I changed. I wore a pair of old shorts and a faded,
Girls Kick Ass,
rock print top. I could relax in my old clothes.

Doctor David Newton smiled. “Zero gravity?”

“How do you cope with zero gravity up there in outer space?” I asked.

I started daydreaming again. Although I’m only thirteen and three quarters at the moment (have I mentioned this before?), I should send in my application now because there’s a long waiting list to join the space scientists on the International Space Platform. But I need to do well in my forthcoming exams at the academy first. I will. Perhaps I’ll become the junior member of a medical research team on the ISP and discover a new wonder drug in space. Naturally, I’ll get all the credit for this amazing new discovery, and it will be named after me. I’ll be famous worldwide, give TV interviews etc. etc. I may even write a book about my work with the medical research team on the International Space Platform. I’ll print off an application form on my computer before school tomorrow morning. Yes, that’s what I’ll do first thing.

When I’d finished tea, ignoring the foolish grin frozen on Wendy’s face, I sat in my room alone with my vid phone switched off because I didn’t want any interruptions as I caught up with some homework. I hadn’t lied to Kevin Willis this morning, though it’d always be an excuse that I’d make to avoid going out with him. Dismissing the others quickly from my mind, I got down to some serious maths homework.

And I was stuck. How do you find the area of a triangle? Dad, the scientist, would know the answer to that one. (Although I really know the answer, I needed an excuse.) I laid down my pen, rubbing the bridge of my nose. I stretched and yawned. Maths homework makes me tired. I went downstairs.

“Fluids,” revealed Doctor Newton.

“Fluids?”

“Yes, we want to see how fluids react in zero gravity. It may help us to make better medicines in the future.”

After looking in daddy’s downstairs study, I put my head around the sitting room door. Sis was watching a horror film on DVD. She’s a big fan of horror movies. She likes blood and gore. I sometimes think that my older sister is a little strange. I prefer romantic films to horror. Tommy, who should have been in bed because it was late for him, was annoying my sister, hitting her over the head with his plastic toy hammer. She threatened to brain him once or twice. Mum was in the kitchen, but I didn’t see dad.

“Wendy, where’s dad?” I enquired.

“Where do you think he is this time of the evening, Jade?”

“Attic?”

She murmured.

As I vanished upstairs, I heard Tommy yell.

I found daddy in the attic. A single bulb provided red light. I allowed my eyes to adjust to the low light. The aroma of his pipe tobacco filled the room. I grinned. He escaped from the rest of the world up here. In fact, this is my father’s world. Daddy, who was by the open skylight, didn’t notice me there, for he was peering through his telescope, which is quite powerful. He didn’t pick it up second-hand at the local flea market. He bought it new from a specialist shop. It had set him back almost 4000 euros. (Mummy thought daddy could’ve spent the money on better things, like a designer gown) I looked around curiously. I rarely ventured up here. There were charts, drawings and diagrams scattered about in a disorderly fashion on the desk by his computer that was switched on. The numbers on the screen reminded me of my maths homework; however, it was much more complicated than that. I suspected that he was working on something very important. But what did I come up here for now? Oh, yeah, the area of a triangle. I cleared my throat.

He looked over his broad shoulder and smiled, noticing me for the first time. I was tempted to say: ‘I do love you, Daddy.’ I didn’t.

“Daddy, I-”

“Jade, I want you to take a look at something for me and tell me what you see,” said daddy.

“Oh?”

He put his large arm around me as I looked through his telescope, which was a new experience for me. It was like looking through a pair of very powerful binoculars, but it wasn’t. It was more than that. Although astronomy isn’t my strong point at school, I almost immediately recognised the planet that he had the telescope trained on. It was Jupiter. I was unsurprised.

I turned to him. “Jupiter?”

He chuckled, lighting his pipe, which had gone out again.

“Yes, it’s Jupiter,” confirmed daddy, “the largest planet in our solar system, and at the moment, it’s being bombarded by fragments of the Icarus 9 Comet. This is probably the first time in history that man has witnessed such an event. This spectacular, celestial collision is being watched by millions around the globe.”

And Doctor David Newton and his team on the International Space Platform, I thought.

“The world has a ringside seat to the event of the new millennium. Although man has studied Jupiter for centuries, it remains a mystery, an enigma. It still refuses to give up all of its secrets. Perhaps it never will, yet the comet offers us a rare chance to learn more about one of our giant neighbours.”