Earth 2788 (4 page)

I could tell by
his expression that Lecturer Playdon had been ordered to say that. His
superiors at University Asgard were prepared to make concessions to get the
daughter of Ventrak Rostha to join one of their courses. Lecturer Playdon hated
offering those concessions, and my father …

I glanced at my
father and saw he was hesitating. I knew he’d have strong moral objections to
such an offer. He’d certainly never accept anything like it for himself, but
for one of his daughters …

He started
speaking. “I admit that would ease the …”

Interrupting my
father in mid-sentence was shockingly bad behaviour. I did it anyway, because I
mustn’t let him compromise decades of perfect integrity to save me a little
discomfort.

“Lecturer
Playdon, if I join a course it has to be on exactly the same terms as everyone
else. Living with students from other sectors would be a great opportunity for
me to learn more about their cultures, and the excavation work is surely an
integral part of the course. One day, I hope to help my father make a new vid
series, covering events from back in the days of pre-history, so it’s essential
I learn as much as possible about Earth and its ancient cities.”

Lecturer Playdon
stared at me for a moment, then something almost imperceptible about his body
language changed. I felt as if I’d passed a test and been approved.

“That’s an
admirable ambition, Dalmora,” he said. “I’d very much like to see a
Pre-history
of Humanity
vid series.”

He paused. “You’ve
probably been wondering why I asked you both to meet me here. My class is
currently working on London Main Dig Site, but you can’t go near the ruins
without special protective clothing. Please follow me.”

He turned and
led the way up a rise in the ground. We followed him and I found myself on a
hilltop looking out across …

“All those ruins
are London?” I asked in awe. “Stretching as far as I can see?”

He nodded. “We’re
on top of Parliament Hill, the highest point in London. They deliberately left
this area free from buildings, and there’s no especially hazardous wildlife
round here, so we’re safe enough in ordinary clothes.”

I was still
staring into the distance, totally amazed. “So big. So impossibly big.”

“Humanity may
never build such cities again,” said Lecturer Playdon. “Once you have portal
technology, and can travel instantaneously around a planet, you don’t need
cities any longer, but London dates from thousands of years before the
invention of portals.”

“Thousands of
years.” I repeated the words. “The first settlement on Danae was built four
hundred and fifty years ago in 2338.”

Lecturer Playdon
laughed. “We think there were scattered settlements in this area even before
the days of written records. The city itself was founded 2,800 years ago by the
Romans. I’m sure they came to stand on this hill and look at the view, just the
way we’re doing now.”

I looked down at
the ground in wonderment. “This was part of the original Roman Empire? Interest!”

“Yes,” said
Lecturer Playdon. “During the second century, 60,000 people lived in this city.”

I shook my head.
“So London was a bigger city then, than any settlement we have on Danae today!”

“Yes, but then
the Roman Empire declined, and the city was almost abandoned at the end of the
fifth century. By the sixteenth century, it had grown again to about 50,000
people, and then …” Lecturer Playdon shrugged. “The cities everywhere grew
bigger and bigger after that. We think London housed about ten million people
at its peak. The invention of portals halved the population of all the cities,
and then came interstellar portals and people headed for the stars.”

He pointed. “You
see that huge, ruined, dome-shaped building?”

I nodded.

“This morning,
my class were excavating near there,” he said. “We found several items. I’d
been told your family had an heirloom necklace, and I see you’re wearing it now.”

“Yes,” I smiled.
“It was made over five centuries ago in Jaipur.”

“This is several
centuries older than that.” He handed a gold ring to me. “A wedding ring. The
engravings show it was made in London in 1941.”

I studied the
circle of gold, and wondered about the human story behind it. How many people
had worn this ring, and why was it left behind when London was abandoned?
Surely someone leaving Earth could have taken something so small with them.
Perhaps it had belonged to a dead relative, and they felt it was more
appropriate for it to stay on this world.

“Your students
found this ring?” I asked. “Could I help find something like this myself one
day?”

Lecturer Playdon
nodded. “You could.”

I handed the
ring back to him. “That would be an amazing experience. I realize we’re
interrupting your work, and we shouldn’t keep you from your class any longer,
but I’m very grateful to you for meeting us. It’s been truly fascinate!”

“I’m always
happy to assist a student with a genuine interest in history.” Lecturer Playdon
gestured back towards the portal. “I’m afraid I can’t leave visitors here
alone. This spot is safe enough, but it’s still technically part of London Main
Dig Site, so …”

I took one last
look out across London, wondering if Jaipur was anything like this, and then Father
and I turned to walk back to the portal. When we reached it, Father thanked
Lecturer Playdon again, and then we portalled back to Earth Europe Off-world.
We started walking back towards the interstellar portals.

“I can’t believe
I’ve never spared a few hours to visit Earth before,” said Father. “I wish we
could stay for a day or two, but I have a series of meetings arranged in Beta
sector. Fortunately, I have the impression you’ve already seen enough to make
your decision, Dalmora.”

“Yes, Father,” I
said. “I wish to apply to University Asgard and study pre-history here on Earth.”

“What you said
about University Asgard’s offer … I’m proud of you, Dalmora. You showed true
integrity.”

I felt myself
blush. “Thank you, Father, but I would like you to make one special request to
University Asgard on my behalf.”

“Yes?”

“University
Asgard runs several Pre-history Foundation course classes,” I said. “If
possible, I would like to join one run by Lecturer Playdon.”

Artemis, Beta sector, October 2788.
Since I’m trying to avoid any spoilers for Earth
Girl, there are only vague hints about one important detail in this story.
People who’ve already read Earth Girl should know exactly what that detail is.
 

Part
I

Last month, I’d celebrated my
twenty-fourth birthday surrounded by smiling family and friends. Last week, I’d
been happily dreaming of the future. Yesterday, I’d been part of a loving triad
marriage.

Today, my dreams
and my marriage had been shattered, and I was sitting alone in a room. Ten
minutes ago, the older of my two husbands, Ardreath, had left, slamming the
door behind him. My mind was still reeling, not so much from the way he’d
slapped my face, but from his final, brutal words.

My great-uncle,
Lolek, had often told me I was too emotional, and maybe he was right. My pain
was as bad as if Ardreath had carved those words into my skin with a knife.

I couldn’t
believe this was really happening. Ardreath couldn’t have said those things.
Ardreath couldn’t have hit me. The only possible explanation was that I was
having a horrible nightmare.

So I sat there,
numbly staring at the closed door, willing my nightmare to end. When it did,
when I woke up, I’d tell Ardreath and Lolmack about the ghastly dream I’d had.
They’d hug me, and laugh at me for being so silly, and life would go back to
normal.

A chiming sound
made me jump. I turned to frown at the lookup I’d left lying on the table. It
chimed again, and then a third time. I stood up, went over to pick it up, and
saw Ardreath’s image flashing on the screen.

I had a sinking feeling
in my stomach even before I answered the call. Getting a call on my lookup was
entirely too realistic for a dream.

Ardreath’s face
appeared on the lookup screen, and he started talking in an icy voice. “Lolia,
I’ve formally registered my divorce from our triad marriage. You should receive
the official confirmation notice within the next day.”

“What?” I
urgently shook my head. “You can’t do that, Ardreath. You can’t!”

His eyes weren’t
looking at me, and he kept talking as if I hadn’t said a word. “I’ve withdrawn
exactly one third of the funds from our joint credit account, and removed my
name from the apartment tenancy agreement. Any future communications to me should
be sent via my clan’s legal representatives.”

The call
abruptly ended. I finally understood that it hadn’t been a proper call at all, but
a recorded message. Ardreath hadn’t had the guts to look me in the eyes and say
he’d divorced me.

“Nuke you!” I
screamed at the blank screen of my lookup. “Nuke you!”

I stood there,
shaking with anger for a moment, and then slumped back down in my chair. I
couldn’t pretend this was just a bad dream any longer. Ardreath had divorced
me, and Lolmack … Where the chaos was my other husband, Lolmack? He seemed to
have vanished.

I tapped at my
lookup to call Lolmack, then hesitated at the last moment. Our triad marriage
was broken, so Lolmack would have to choose between me and Ardreath. If Lolmack
blamed me for what had happened, took Ardreath’s side over this and divorced me
too …

I was in no
state to cope with yet another devastating blow, but I couldn’t bear sitting
and waiting in uncertainty either. I gnawed my lower lip in indecision for a
moment, before grimly going ahead and making the call. If Lolmack was dumping
me too, then it was better to know it right away. Clinging to false hope would
only make things harder in the end.

But Lolmack
didn’t answer my call. I waited a minute, two minutes, then stabbed my lookup
with my forefinger to cancel the call. There was no point in trying to force
Lolmack to talk to me. The fact he wouldn’t even answer my call told me
everything I needed to know.

I stared down at
my clenched fists. I had to face up to what was happening. Ardreath had
divorced me. Lolmack had disappeared and wouldn’t answer my calls, which meant
he’d chosen Ardreath rather than me. I should have known he would. Ardreath and
Lolmack had been lovers before I even met them. They were going to stay
together now. They were going to blame everything on me, blank me out of their
lives, and carry on together as if I’d never existed.

Painful memories
of our wedding day came into my mind. The sound of our voices exchanging our
vows. I’d been so quiet that I’d had to repeat some of the words because people
couldn’t hear me the first time, and Ardreath had seemed surprisingly nervous
too, while Lolmack was totally calm. Anyone would have thought that Lolmack was
the one who was three years older than the other two of us, not Ardreath.

When Ardreath
and Lolmack’s divorces were finalized, and both of them were legally free of
me, there’d be another wedding, but this time it would be a duo marriage not a
triad. I pictured them with their arms round each other, laughing happily,
while I stood watching them, alone and bereft.

I winced at that
image, and then a host of trivial secondary worries came flooding in. What
about our furniture? What about the vid script Lolmack and I were in the middle
of writing? What about …?

I felt sick
thinking of the dozens of mundane things that would have to be done to
disentangle my life from the lives of Ardreath and Lolmack, but at least I
didn’t have to cope with them alone. There would be plenty of people to help
me, because I was part of the sprawling extended family of a Betan clan.

It was true that
my clan wasn’t important or historic. We were just a small clan cluster of the
lowest social rank, which had been formed less than forty years ago by a group
of clanless families. We didn’t live on one of the powerful Betan worlds like
Zeus or Romulus either. Artemis had been great once, but had been hit by
disaster over a century ago.

None of those
things mattered. The key benefit of the clan culture of Betan worlds was that
your clan would always be there to support you through any crisis. I only
needed to call for help, and my clan would come to care for me.

I reached for my
lookup. It was patterned with images of flowers, an incongruously frivolous
thing to use to tell people dreadful news. I frowned at it, wondering who to
call first, then realized the stupidity of making individual calls. Saying this
once was going to be painful enough. I couldn’t force myself to repeat it over
and over again.

I set my lookup
to record a message. “Hello, everyone. I’m afraid I have b-b-b-bad news to …”

I broke off and
bit my lip. I thought I’d broken myself of my stammer when I was a teenager,
but it was back. I couldn’t deal with that on top of everything else, so I took
the easy way out, summed up the nightmare of the last twenty-four hours in a
text-only message of three brief sentences, and sent it to my whole clan.

An incoming call
came barely three minutes later. I didn’t even look to see who was calling,
just answered it, and was startled to see the rigidly autocratic face on my
lookup. My great-uncle, Lolek, our head of clan!

“Great-uncle!” I
said. “It’s very kind of you to call me yourself, but it really wasn’t
necessary. I …”

He ignored that.
“You have blood on your face, Lolia. What happened?”

I’d known my
cheeks felt wet, but I’d assumed that was from my tears. I instinctively
touched my left cheek with my hand, and then studied my fingers. Yes, there was
some blood among the tears.

“Ardreath
slapped me,” I said. “He wears the latest fashion in chunky jewelled rings, and
one of them must have scratched me. I didn’t notice or I’d have washed it off
and …”

“No!” Lolek
interrupted me. “Don’t touch your face. Don’t move. Don’t talk to anyone. We’ll
be with you in a few minutes.”

He abruptly
ended the call. I stared at my lookup in bewilderment. I hadn’t expected my
great-uncle to call me himself, or to care about a simple scratch on my cheek.
He’d said the words “we’ll be with you,” so he must mean he was coming to visit
me himself. I hoped he’d only stay for a moment, and then leave my parents and
friends to help me.

It shouldn’t
take Lolek more than five minutes to go to our clan hall portal, dial the right
code, step through, and walk the remaining short distance to my door. I tensely
watched the time on my lookup, aware that I must look an awful mess after the
way I’d been crying. I desperately wanted to wash my face, redo my makeup, and
brush my hair, but Lolek had told me not to touch my face. Lolek could get very
angry if his orders weren’t strictly obeyed.

It was much
longer than I’d expected, nearly twenty minutes, before there was a soft chiming
sound from the door. I stood up, and took a deep breath to try and calm my
nerves. “Door command open.”

The door opened
and I stared in confusion as people flooded into the room. Lolek was in the
lead, but behind him weren’t my parents or the friends I’d expected. Instead,
there were a couple of my older cousins carrying cases of vid equipment, and
several strangers.

No, at second
glance I saw these weren’t actual strangers. The two men and one woman might
not be clan members, but I had seen them before. The woman was our clan doctor,
one of the men belonged to the law firm we used, and the other was our clan
image consultant.

The doctor
hurried up to me. “Please sit down, Lolia,” she said.

I sat back down
in my chair. The doctor waved a scanner at me, concentrating on my face, before
turning to Lolek.

“Only very minor
bruising and a superficial scratch.”

“But it’s still
legally second level assault,” said the lawyer. “Under Betan law, any drawing
of blood automatically escalates an assault from first to second level. Use of
a weapon would escalate it even further to third level, but it would be
extremely hard to argue a fashionable ring counted as a weapon.”

The image
consultant was studying my face now. “We could use more blood for the vid.”

My two cousins
had finished unpacking vid bees from their carrying cases. Lolena picked up a
makeup bag, and came over to me. I felt her dabbing some liquid on my face,
while my other cousin watched critically.

“I wouldn’t
overdo it,” he said. “I know face wounds bleed a lot but …”

“I’m not
overdoing it,” said Lolena. She stepped back and studied me for a second. “Perfect.”

“We’ll need
Lolia crying in the vid,” said the image consultant.

Three small,
spherical vid bees floated up into the air, and hovered across to me. I saw
their lights flash as they focused on me and started recording. What the chaos
was going on here? Our clan business was making vids, but why were they making
a vid of me?

I finally got
over my shock enough to speak. “What’s happening?”

Lolek turned to
glare at me. “What’s happening?” He repeated my words in a mocking voice. “What’s
happening is we’re trying to limit the damage you’ve done to the clan, Lolia.”

I shrank back
into my chair. “Damage? Me?”

“Are you
completely brainless or merely totally self-centred?” Lolek gave an impatient
sigh. “Ever since I formed this clan, I’ve been working towards getting us
official recognition and a true clan name. Surely even you must understand that
an important step on that path is to be in an alliance with clans who already
have official status.”

He didn’t wait
for me to reply, just swept on. “I spent years trying to negotiate our way into
an alliance without success. We’re wealthy, so an alliance might have accepted
us despite the fact we’re a mere clan cluster, but given our wealth comes from
making what most of Beta sector regard as vulgar vids for export to other
sectors …”

He shrugged. “When
you got involved with Ardreath and Lolmack two years ago, I knew we had a
golden opportunity. Ardreath belonged to the Eastreth clan, which was in an
alliance of nearly thirty respectable clans, headed by the Breck clan of the
middle rank. More than that, Ardreath was the adored son of the Eastreth clan
leader, who indulged the boy’s every whim.”

Yes, Ardreath
had always been handed everything he wanted. Lolmack and I had often joked
about it, but the jokes didn’t seem funny any longer. If Ardreath hadn’t had
such an easy life, he might have reacted differently to the current crisis.

“The Eastreth
clan leader wanted to indulge his son this time too,” said Lolek, “but he was
faced with a big problem when Ardreath started talking about marriage to you
and Lolmack. You belonged to a disreputable clan cluster. Lolmack, Mack as he
was called back then, was even worse. A totally clanless nobody with a criminal
record. The Eastreth clan council were prepared to consider solving the problem
by adopting you, but they turned up their noses at the thought of adopting Mack
as well.”

I remembered the
arguments between Ardreath and his father back then. His father had suggested
Ardreath should just marry me and forget Mack entirely. Ardreath had snapped
back that Mack was the centre of our triad relationship. I’d been hurt by
Ardreath’s words at the time. Something about the way he said them sounded as
if he only wanted Mack, and I’d been forced on him as an unwelcome third.

Ardreath had
laughed when I said that, told me I was being silly and of course he loved me
as much as Mack. I’d believed him then, but now I wondered if he’d been lying.
Perhaps our triad marriage had been flawed right from the start, doomed to
break apart as soon as we hit a problem.

Lolek was still
talking, indulging himself with a smug smile of reminiscence. “So I negotiated
a solution. The Eastreth clan would get us into the Breck alliance, increasing
our clan’s status. We’d adopt Mack into our clan as Lolmack during the marriage
ceremony. It was perfect for all of us.”